In 1942 Zofia Posmysz was a nineteen year old when the Nazis arrested her for distributing anti fascist leaflet's. No trial. No sympathy. They pushed her straight into hell's machinery. Auschwitz initially. Then Ravensbrück. Political prisoner. State enemy. She worked like an animal in subzero filthy conditions. Any day could have been her last. Most never returned from those camp's. She did. Barely. Only because American soldiers arrived in May 1945.

She might have gone away after the war and said nothing. She didn't. She became a journalist. She wrote. Her most famous writing Passenger told the story of Auschwitz from the point of view of both guard and prisoner. Redemptive moment? No. Happy ending? No; Only memory, guilt and the fact that some wound's will not heal. It began as a radio play then a book then a film then an opera. All of them reminders. This happened. This can happen again.

Zofia lived nearly a hundred year's. She passed away in 2022 at ninety eight. Her existence was a warning. The past never remains buried. Ignore it and it return's famished.


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