Jona Laks could smell the burning flesh as she walked towards death at the Ausch...
OSWIECIM, Poland - Jona Laks could smell the burning flesh as she walked towards death at the Auschwitz crematorium. More than 75 years later, aged 90, she has returned to what was the most notorious Nazi death camp of World War Two’s Jewish Holocaust.
“I saw sparks from the chimney and I could feel the burning flesh. As we got closer I could feel something was going to happen. I started crying. I didn’t want my sisters to see me cry,” Laks said softly. She was to be saved moments later. She returned this week as a guest of honor at the international ceremony on Jan. 27 commemorating the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, hosted at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial.
“I’m nervous. I’m trying to adjust myself,” she told her granddaughter. “There are those who do not want to talk about it. They want to leave the past behind, it’s difficult to relive.” Under Auschwitz’s metal gate with its “Arbeit macht frei” slogan, Laks stopped before she entered, marking the moment as she spoke, arm-in-arm with her granddaughter:
With her sisters and thousands of other Jews from the Lodz ghetto, she was transported by train. They were forced into cattle carts, no windows and scarcely any room to move. She thinks the journey lasted about three days.
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