Accident of Birth

 

 

The hospital at Auschwitz. 

Published in Medical Review Auschwitz.

I'm reading Gisela Perl's I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz. It is not yet seven in the morning, and I've my laptop in my comfortable bed. My husband has already brought me Earl Grey tea and a biscuit.

Outside, I can see the wet patio and the plum tree in the garden.

The contrast to the horror of what I'm reading about the four-hour long roll calls, the lice, the hunger, the filth, the smell of the crematorium's fire is beyond striking.

I learned about Perl in my research for my book 300 Unsung Women, which is in its final editing before being sent to a publisher. The book has short bios of women who did remarkable things by breaking the barriers of their gender.

My husband and dog are still asleep. Today, we will go to the village marché for fresh veggies. 

The contrast of my life washes over me in comparison to the suffering of the people not just in Auschwitz, but also in Gaza. They have have lost everything without the basics of living. 

Things I take for granted like a warm bed, food eaten for pleasure not just survival, a shower, a toilet are denied others. Unbelievable cruelty and violence of some people rained onto others makes no sense.

My good luck is an accident of birth denied to people who lived or didn't through the concentration camps in WWII, but is ongoing today in other forms in Gaza, Ukraine and too many places in Africa.

I don't feel smug, just an overwhelming sadness that throughout my life the inhumanity of some to others has never stopped.

Note: Visit D-L's website www.dlnelsonwriter.com to check out her 17 other fiction and non fiction books.