Susan Pollack - the most humble, honest, eloquent & disarmingly kind person I have ever met

For all those who have scrolled past posts this week in the lead up to HMD, for all those who have thought to themselves, why do people care this much? Here's your answer.

These men and women, the survivors I have met and the families that were left behind, who didn't make it beyond the ghetto, beyond the fence of Auschwitz or the other side of the factory wall, who were left to battle the unthinkable temperatures in forests and on death marches. Men and women who could so very easily have been me or you, or more accurately your grandparents.

I have had the absolute privilege to hear from some truly amazing people. Ordinary people who survived unthinkable acts of inhumanity and unimaginable horror. Ordinary people who share their past, in the hope that we, may stand up for our future.

One of these amazing people, is Susan Pollack. I feel I have become friends with many holocaust survivors I have worked with but Susan is the one I picture when I share my experiences. When I sat across the room from these people, here in the UK, in Israel, in the US, knowing I had been to the places they speak of, I had seen it with my own eyes, their life stories became much more than stories, they became lessons to be learned. Susan Pollack is one of the most humble, honest, eloquent and disarmingly kind people I have ever met. To think that she has lived through such dark times, that she agreed to travel back there to tell me about such horror in the living room of her own home, and moments later is refusing to let me leave her house without a cup of tea or some cake… just says a little about the kind of lady she is. She is one of the only people I physically continue to write to and I cannot tell you how grateful I am that she entrusted her story to me, in such vivid detail and with such a vibrant belief that we much stand up against hatred and prejudice to create a just society for ourselves.

It did not end with the end of the holocaust. The lessons are still there to be learned...

In May 2013 I had the privilege of speaking with holocaust survivor Susan Pollack at her London home, where she shared with me her memories of life throughout the war. Her story is not only remarkable because she endured so much suffering, nor because she survived, but remarkable because Susan even after such an ordeal carries such spirit, such goodness. Susan believes that we must remember her story and the millions of others, to ensure genocide on the scale of the holocaust cannot happen again. We must learn from it to ensure a good and just society.

Below is the transcript of my few hours with Susan. The file names refer to video clips and is for my reference only.

Alternatively you can view parts of Susan’s story in ‘After Auschwitz’, a documentary made by myself, which also features survivor, Freddie Knoller. The film is available to view online for free here:

Full version (58mins) https://vimeo.com/94738448

Short version (27mins) https://vimeo.com/101650543

I will shortly be releasing the transcript for Freddie’s interview too. Until then, I leave you will Susan Pollack.

SUSAN POLLACK INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

MVI_2229

I’m Susan Pollack. I was born in Hungary, in a small little village not far from Budapest, about 20mins journey from Budapest by train. This Felsogod, the name of it is Felsogod, is on the Danube. I don’t exactly know the number of the population there but it’s relatively small. And we lived there.

Tell me a little about your childhood. So, what was life like before the war?

Yes I was born in Felsogod and I lived there. I had a happy childhood. It’s a village, a town in history where children have been brought up as being part of the economic necessities. Which means that I was expected to take the ducks out, I was expected to clean the stables. We had a business, most people were self-employed in those days, to serve the customers. We had a coal and wood business. And clean up, be helpful in the kitchen. It was a good life and I liked it. T was a good life.

I went to a local school, primary school there in Felsgogod and that was really my childhood. I had friends from the village where I lived and it was a happy, happy childhood. Yeh.

And when did you first start to notice any anti-Semitic feeling towards you? Did you ever feel targeted?

Well ant-Semitism, how did it manifest itself in Felsogod? There were only about, I would think about, 18 Jewish families living in that village. We had own little synagogue, just a very simple synagogue and that is where we went to pray, on Saturdays and sometimes Friday evenings. But in, I was born in 1930, September.

I don’t remember any anti-semitism in my very early childhood. That’s not to say it wasn’t there. But I myself hadn’t been affected by it. That feeling, that sort of behavior, anti-semitism GREW in time. But again, it did not effect our lives that much because, perhaps we deluded ourselves. We felt oh well, they are just ignorant, malicious people. And the graffiti on the wall, accusations about certain things, we didn’t take much notice of it.

But as the times went on, as the years grew closer to the 40s, e certainly have had a clear indication of  that there was a growing anti-Semitic and fascist parties emerging on the political scene. I have, at the time I wasn’t so aware of it, In 1922, just to take back, in 1922 before my birth, there was already a legislation against the Jews; that the Jewish people, the Jewish students could not enter further education. It was reduced to a certain number, comparable to the percentage [of] the Jews [that] lived in Hungary for instance.

And my brother, I had a brother, an older brother, he had enormous problems looking for a future profession or career. But we thought, ok, it will blow over, it’s just a temporary thing. And as the years went by, as I said coming closer to the 1940s we had many legislations against us yes. That deprived us of social activity. My father could not keep his little business open. In the late 1940s we had been excluded from many other activities. And that’s how my education in Hungary, was also curtailed by a great deal. So it kind of grew, grew with the years.

And of course in 1939, when the outbreak of the war occurred, Hungary became part of the ‘axis’ alliance and everything changed for us.

(The Axis Alliance was the alliance between Italy, Germany and Japan during WW2. They shared mutual aims in territorial expansion and the destruction or neutralization of Soviet communism. Hungary joined in Nov 20^th, 1940)

What’s the first thing you can remember affecting you directly? Was it not going to school? What made it hit home that YOU were being targeted. You were being singled out?

Well, I was singled out… the awareness of anti-Semitism, how did that affect my life?

I realized quite early on, in my early childhood that, ‘you Jews’ well it was graffiti on the wall, ‘you Jews go to Palestine’ ‘You Jews, we don’t want you here’. But I had a secure background, I had a secure home life and it wasn’t disturbing me to a great extent. And I went to a local primary school with all the other kids.

But when I was finished with the primary school, in the 40s, in the early 40s no school would accept me. So the only school that would, in a close-by town, it was a big market town called Vác had still a Jewish school open but that school could only take in – I think they had only a few Jewish teachers – they’d only take in, all the Jews, all the Jewish students so, we were crowded out, in that school. In the classroom there were about 80 students, 1 teacher, it was crowded out. I was at the back of the classroom and I heard nothing and I learned nothing.

And then eventually my father managed, somehow with great difficulty I would think, to find a school for me in Budapest, we were segregated, meaning few Jewish students in that state school had been, kept at the back of the class, with two empty rows between us and the rest of the class. The same thing happened outside in the playground, we could not play with the rest of the students. We were segregated.

So my education was perhaps zero you could say, I learned to yes, read and write, but little else.

So gradually, gradually I was were aware, and of course we wore the yellow stars outside, for Identification. And we heard, I heard incidents when young children, particularly at the railroad, had been arrested by the Hungarian Gen damme, just for being Jewish. And many of them have never been seen again. We shall never know where they were taken to. So arrests had been practiced already.

Now I’d like to let you tell us your story, going on from this, and if there’s anything I’d like to know more about, I’ll come back to it.

I just want to state, the difficulty of getting reliable information, trustworthy and reliable information. Trusting the government, trusting the local council, which we realized early on we could not do.  Because particularly after 1939, all news came from Nazi Germany and we were desperate to find out, ‘is anyone, is any country going to rescue us? What can we do, where can we go?’ And as there was no information available, we turned to setting up a séance table, calling spirits. And as I said, my brother, myself, my parents sat, with inverted glasses asking ‘are we going to survive, as a family’, because we felt the terror increasing. Not realizing what was already going on elsewhere. Because obviously everything was kept in secret. And as human beings, respond to hope, we felt it will come to an end, it must come to an end.

When the Russians entered the war, we had hoped that they’ll conquer soon but it wasn’t to happen.

(CAMERA CUTS OUT, SO WE ASK SUSAN TO BACKTRACK JUST A LITTLE)

So after the outbreak of the war in 1939, with all the great conquests that Germany had made right across Europe, we realised that perhaps our fate is doomed. So we turned to setting up a séance table. A séance table with spirits, asking what is going to happen to our family, are we going to survive as a family unit, will the children be alright and such questions. Our hope was responded ‘yes and the allied forces will be quick’.

And the Russians after 1941 they came, they will liberate us somehow, give us the freedom, that we did not have anymore. So that was the feeling, the feeling was a sense of abandonment, a sense of great fear of the unknown.  As I said my schooling was practically zero. We were asked to identify ourselves when outside, on everything I wore outside as a young child. I sewed on the yellow star on our clothing, And we waited. There was nothing we could do, we just waited which we hoped would be a short period of time, but it wasn’t to be.

Well, I learnt that we were the very last ones actually, in Hungary, the Hungarians were the very last community, Jewish community and the Romas included, who were transported. And how that happened was. There were some rumours, rumours emerging quite regularly without any reliable sources that we are going to be resettled somewhere in the East, but the council just shrugged their shoulders, ‘well we don’t know anymore than that’. So this was getting more and more regular and we had a life that wasn’t supported anymore because my father had stopped working and we had difficult economic situation at home.

One fateful day, actually it was in 1944, that we had a call up, a letter from the local council saying that that rumour now has been substantiated and come and we’ll discuss it. That resettlement programme. So by then they didn’t trust the Hungarian authorities but nevertheless they though, we’ll find out.

All the men had been called, 18 Jewish families who lived there. Then shortly after we had been called, the rest of the family, to say goodbye to my father. And I had seen him being brutally beaten up in front of my eyes and herded onto a lorry and I [haven’t] seen him since.

We weren’t allowed to use the public transport anymore, even with the yellow star (referring to trams for Jewish citizens only). We sent a Christian Hungarian lady from the village to take a basket of food to him and she came back with the information that, ‘just as well you didn’t see your father’ or your husband to my mum, ‘because he was almost unrecognizable’. They were so brutal to the men particularly. So whether it was the starvation that affected him, or physical torture, I don’t know. And so we realized then, that our fate is doomed.

Shortly after in 1944, one of the architects of the holocaust came and occupied with a relatively small army/troop. Within 6 weeks we were transported. We were transported, that was in 1944, May, at first to a ghetto in Vác where I went to that Jewish school and the Hungarian van damme said, just take the food that you can prepare. Came to us one evening ‘start baking the bread because in the morning we’ll call on you’. And that’s what happened. And we took just the bare essentials that we could carry. I was only a little girl and I so I carried, there was no luggage, we put everything into a sheet, and that’s how I carried my sewing machine. I was pretty good, I was 13, younger than that, on my back. Because I thought I would be able to support my family in a strange family, wherever that resettlement takes place. So I carried that, the bread, the food, bare essentials.

We were taken to Vác and stayed there for a few days. From there we were taken to an internment camp, a large disused mine. It was outside that we stayed, outside and I think it was raining at times and somehow we managed to erect a tent above our heads with one of the sheets we brought. And had the food that we brought. Occasionally we attached ourselves to various queues, some queues that would offer some bread which we never received. Other queues had supposedly given exemptions to those who had converted to Christianity but that didn’t affect us because we had no intention, nobody ever converted and nor would it actually stand up because of the Nuremburg laws that go back I don’t know how many generations. So, it was tough to put it mildly, very tough.

(Nuremberg Laws: At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws institutionalising many racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." These laws were both an attempt to return the Jews of 20th-century Germany to the position that Jews had held before their emancipation in the 19th century; although in the 19th century, Jews could have evaded restrictions by converting, this was no longer possible.)

And we slept on the ground, then we walked, we were marched to the trains, the cattle trains, the box cars. And we kind of breathed a sigh of relief having left this mine. It was a very hot day, I remember that quite clearly. It was a very long walk and we were pushed into the carriage. Jam-packed with about 80-100 people. All women, children, elderly. And close the door, and we were suffocating in there. It was very hot. We were suffocating but kind of felt hopeful that ‘thank goodness we left this place’. The train was going and going and many of us died of thirst, lack of water, lack of fresh air, especially the elderly, the babies. And when the doors opened, of it was fresh air hit our faces and suddenly we kind of  came alive….Not all of us. And we arrived in Auschwitz.

What was Auschwitz like?

What was it like in Auschwitz? A place of terror, indescribable terror where shouting and big dogs were watching your every move. We just stood and waited.

Instructions came. I learnt Dr, Mengele and his trenchmen, because some of the Hungarian prisoners were whispering to me, don’t say you’re younger than 15, because that meant straight to the gas chamber. I didn’t know it then of course. When a Nazi asked my age, I said 15, and he pushed me to one group. My mother went to the gas chamber. She was in her 40s, tired and worn, anguished and very despondent.

My brother went to 1 group, …. ??inaudible???

A German woman said, take off your clothes, [we were] stark naked and shaved our hair and threw some disinfectant on our bodies, after the trains. Marched us into a big barrack with all girls. About 1000, in that big wooden barrack.

We were on the top level, there were three levels, bunkbeds. About 8-10 girls were sleeping in there, with one blanket among us. We were shivering, although it was hot.

Hardly any food given and that was all. Starvation, not hunger, starvation, that was eating every cell of one’s body.

MVI_2231

Starvation there, no food given out. We may have had coffee with no sugar, a piece of bread, like sawdust that we had to save because in the evening we had dishwater, soup.

I started losing weight very rapidly. But at first, we could lose ourselves in a fantasy game. So from 1 girl to the next, we remembered our home life and what will you have for breakfast we asked. A piece of bread with jam, with butter and maybe an egg. And so, you could taste it and you remembered. It’s a sort of psychological device . But that requires energy and very soon we did not have that.

That’s all we could do. We were taken to be examined stark naked in front of Dr. Mengele. 4 doctorates, I learned later. He inspected our naked body and those who didn’t meet his standard, couldn’t do slave labour, were sent to the gas chamber. We knew that. Girls who’d been there knew. We could smell the burning flesh.

MVI_2233

Had you heard of Auschwitz?

I could have never imagined that babies, young children, elderly people would be led into gas chambers. Even if we had heard, would we have believed it?

We should have known and the news had come out from Auschwitz at that time. There were two escapees from Auschwitz specifically to inform and influence us Hungarians of what was coming, to allow to. However, difficult decisions might have been. I mean where could we go? Who would take us in?

1938, there was a conference where many states had been called by Roosevelt in, Évian-les-Bains

, France, to discuss that matter.

That’s history, we didn’t know about that. Which country is going to offer a place of rescue? Not many did.

MVI_2241

Just describe what you felt in Auschwitz for me. What did it feel like?

Auschwitz was a place of terror. Terror but total complete deprivation of any individual thinking, of any kind of self-expression. It was total dehumanization, which meant that there was no complaints that ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I won’t go there’ or ‘I’m hungry’. There was no expression. Losing your humanity completely, losing your needs, your desires, because the total complete overtaking of it by terror. Of being beaten up, of being tortured, of being disgraced maybe in front of the group before you’re shot, which we had seen. That was the life in Auschwitz.

It was overwhelming fearfulness, day and night. I can’t describe it in any other way, that was the feeling. The feeling that you want to reduce yourself in a little dot. Not to be seen, not to be heard. Practically not to exist. That’s what was Auschwitz, because nobody existed, there were only numbers, numbers on the arms which I don’t have, being a child, we were dispensable, from day to day.

Human beings didn’t count, didn’t count. We were just nothing, nothing, and so children, young people, we realized that very soon, almost immediately, almost immediately.

The terror has got a way of pervading, of entering the mind, it’s like when you hit a dog and it cowers in the corner. That’s how we were. I can’t analyze with anything else.

That’s it. When I was paraded in front of Mengele, stark naked, I didn’t want to be seen. But I knew, some instinctual idea came to mind to pinch my cheeks so they’re red, push out my chest although I was starving, so I looked big. So he could see and I disappear quickly from his eyes. And that was the act to being terrorized completely, because you knew the consequences. Yeh.

Terror was displayed in Auschwitz as a warning. Don’t try anything foolish, not that we could you know, we had no guns and we wouldn’t know how to operate that and where would go? Even today. There was no way to escape. 3 or four people have managed, by an amazing route but they were just the exceptionals.

We were guarded, electrified, the fences were all electrified and even if you could manage to put yourself outside, who’s going to support you? We can speak of a silent majority, ask questions, majority silent, whose side do they take? You never know. How can you be sure, if you walk in somewhere? Will they hand you over? Many did in the countries.

It’s a world that hasn’t been seen [since] and I hope it will never be experienced by anyone. Yeh.

MVI_2231

And so you did slave labour?

On one occasion, I was lucky. Selected for work and was sent to Guben, a German town where I did some simple electronic work testing equipment. If the light was green, ok, if it was red, it’s not. That sort of thing. We weren’t there long and quality and quantity of food improved.

Allied forces came closer, we had to evacuate and we were told to start marching. 1944, bitter winter, no clothes or shoes, we just marched. We’d scrape for food on country roads if we thought there could be a frozen turnip hidden there. Those who could not keep up, were shot along the way. That was the long weeks of March, into Belsen.

What was Bergen-Belsen like?

What was Belsen like? A place of death, a place of incredible suffering that we haven’t devised the language yet to express. The moaning, the giving up of life. All kinds of erm terrible, Typhus was raging and other infectous diseases [were] raging. There was no distribution of food. There was absolutely no hygiene, There was nothing. Nothing. Just suffering. Pure suffering.

So when the British liberated us on April 15^th, there was no juberated outcry, because it meant nothing. Very few had the energy even to talk. I myself, I was crawling out, outside because, apparently that was common. We didn’t want to die inside.

The British liberators were very good at organizing the rescue mission. Small ambulances criss-crossing, picking up bodies that showed signs of life. And that’s how they picked me up.

They called in local Germans to clean-up, to wash us. And they placed me on a clean sheet, in a bed.

Belsen is total devastation. Most people died. I had been told that place will be burned.

What happened to you after liberation, where did you go to recover?

I went to Sweden, being a neutral country, they allowed about 1000 sufferers to go there to recover there. So, that’s where I was sent and that is where I got on my feet, in Sweden, a very good country for us, very helpful. I have wonderful memories from there, wonderful people I’ve met there, later on. And a gradual, the slow gradual rehumanisation actually started to kind of emerge in me. I was there until 1947, in Sweden. So that was, particularly a family who was particularly kind. They used to take me home for their Christmas holidays and though I could not communicate so well, as I never learned to speak Swedish, their kindness has always remained in my heart.

Unfortunately I so much wanted to see them again, but when I was better I was sent to Canada. I wanted to go to Israel but I wasn’t well enough. So I was sent to Canada so I wasn’t able to go and see them, which is a great regret of mine. But those small goodnesses is really what helps people, not big things, small kindness, generosity and inclusiveness is really the spark of life.

Then I was sent to Canada. I didn’t do much after I’d recovered reasonably well. I mean I had tuberculosis but that was cured by good food and good fresh air and we were together with girls of a similar background so I didn’t have any specific psychotherapy or anything like that, but being together with these similar background girls was helpful. We didn’t need to express ourselves, because we knew what they were feeling. Losing an entire family.

And then I when I went to Canada, I met my husband there. He is also a survivor from Mauthausen, another notorious camp. And we got married. I wanted to have a family, reinstate my own family and I did. I worked and worked and worked and then years later we came to live here, in Britain in 1962 and I did many things since then. Yes.

MVI_2232

How do you think survived?

Initial feelings? Right through all of these camps was self-defence. Unconsciously I have kind of removed myself from it all. I have, in order to protect myself from all the terrors, all the unbelievable hard circumstances, I removed myself and it’s like watching a horror film that did not touch me too much.

In some ways I think it’s a way of survival. I mean, I was in pain, feeling the hunger, the starvation. At the same time, I never cried. I never cried because somehow, it was so unreal and it was so unreal I though, can it be true?

Also my faith has given me help. Help in the sense that I had an image and I’ve spoken to other survivors who had similar experiences. A vision appeared to me. It’s like the sky opened up and everything was rosy. It was a wonderful experience for me. A big hope, a hope that I was noticed. The only feeling that has given me some trust and that maybe there is going to be an end to all this.

I suppose being young, being that young, the elderly people found it harder as it was more real for them. I don’t know how they survived, the elderly, not many did. Knowing that their family was murdered. I never thought about that until after. And I still do to this day. Things were so abnormal that you just had to protect yourself, be good to yourself, because there was nobody there to be good to you.

Even friendship in my case did not exist, as we went from place to place and you never knew who would be gone [the] next minute. No-one could give anything, no-one knew anything. It was that kind of a unbelievable environment.

Friendship means giving, loving, being good. That place didn’t allow it. There were instances where they did but it didn’t happen to me.

Holocaust Educational Trust Ambassadors with whom Susan works

Completely understandable though…

I’m hoping I’ve made up for it, for the lack of it, in time. I became a Samaritan here for 7-8 years, that was my therapy. As well as giving, I gained a lot from it. Other voluntary work, in hospice, various others. Mainly the Samaritans have been very helpful.

Working, I became a vodka seller, an export agent. Here, I sold Sheffield steal products in America, where my 3 children grew up proudly. I went to the States, educated myself. Got a degree in History and Roman psychology. A busy life, but I do remember. I go to schools a lot, and other places to talk about it. They made a film of me, in Belsen, the BBC. So I did a lot in that sense but it doesn’t get easier… I can live with it, but it’s tough.

It’s tough and I’m not that trusting though I hope I’m a good, kind person but not that trusting. Always a bit of doubt in my mind. And with the rise of anti-Semitism here in Europe, especially in Hungary, one is beginning to ask questions. Why, why is it necessary to hate, why necessary, especially the Jews, right across History. Accused of nasty things. What is it about human beings, are we so wonderful? A French writer Roussou ‘we’re all wonderful’ we’re not under certain circumstances. People can turn to be violent. One has to be vigilant, careful, stand up, speak up because life is short, I’m beginning to realise that now. Life is short. And the only value to behold is the goodness for each other.

That’s all I can say.

MVI_2237

Why do you remember, why’s it important to you to tell your story?

Reflecting on those time are very important to me. First of all, I am lucky, I survived but most of my family did not. So I speak for them, as well. But in addition, it isn’t just a talk about what happened, we need to look ahead for the future.

I believe in order to create a better society we need to know what people can be capable of doing and how to prevent it. Alert them of the danger of any form of persecution, bullying, scapegoating, malicious gossip about defenceless communities, that affected my life and [that’s] important to know.

Also, to realise the holocaust didn’t just happen overnight, there were lead ups long before. It needs all of us, a personal responsibility to speak up and speak loud and create a just and good society for all of us. That’s the reason I speak.

MVI_2238

And education about the holocaust, how important is that to you?

The education about the holocaust is most important. Because a) it happened in Europe, where we live. Second thing, it happened to innocent people. It happened in a country which is a progressive, educated country; Germany. Mostly, the recognition that why wasn’t there more help available. Although there was help, 10,000 children were saved in this country in Britain, but why the rest of the world took no interest. I think it’s important to place themselves in that situation. ‘First they came for the Jews. I wasn’t one of them and so gradually when it came to me, who will be there?’ It asks a question of all of us, to take responsibility and I hope that happens.

(Reference is to following poem circulated in 1950s by Protestant pastor and public foe of Hitler, Martin Niemoller – 1892-1984)

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

MVI_2239

And of course, ant-Semitism still exists doesn’t it?The realization that anti-Semitism is not a belief of the past but it has this evil way of reoccurring over time, very important. I am absolutely convinced that every generation needs to be taught, every generation must be introduced, in a way to ask them, place yourself in that situation.We won’t be around, we’re elderly people now, survivors. So it is the future generation who will have to safeguard their own interest. And so it is very important to learn about, to remember, to visit, to see it in real and to say enough is enough, shame on you.Anyone who finds for some unbeknown reasons to join any party that suppresses another, has to be condemned. I think so.

MVI_2240

What would you to say to people who stand by and watch these things happen?

Bystanders won’t always be bystanders, eventually they’ll be involved. It’s not a game that we play. That period of life, is not a game, nothing to joke about. I don’t like it when people dress up (Reference to Prince Harry) and make a mockery of it or use suffering. It’s a sick joke. See for yourself. Eisenhow said ‘there’ll always be idiots’, who will deny it.

Take pictures, go out and see it, go to the Imperial War Museum, go to Belsen. Go to all these camps and learn, and see, before you say anything.

I am a great believer in these trips going out to the camps and see it in real, what took place. Don’t allow yourself to be deluded by friends, things that are damaging not just to you, but to people around you. Yeh.

My candle for Susan Pollack - #HMD2015

And so, I feel no better way of ending my week of social media efforts with SUSAN's words, not mine. I urge you to read on until the end. I feel humanity owes her that at least, as it took so much from so many.