My name doesn’t matter.

I forfeited it when I first ran those blasted trains for the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

I pretended I did not see it happening. Perhaps I could have stepped up, said or done something. Maybe even die for another man’s freedom. But I lacked the courage for that.

So I did what I was ordered to do.

I foresaw it all. The belittling of those beloved people who had such a heart for their God. I knew things would get much worse.

They made it rougher and rougher for the people, even to the point of forbidding them to bake bread, then forcing them to pay for their harassers’ bread.

Many Jews were lacking any funds to pay for the most necessary items.

In 1942, The Final Solution was set into motion.

The solution would be their extermination from this planet.

I drove those trains. Cargoes shipped to Auschwitz, charged to the S.S.D. like sacks of potatoes, so many pfennigs per mile.

But the children, ah! The little ones, they got to ride for free.

Please! I can’t get those faces out of my mind! So happy to be boarding a train, for the experience of their lives.

Yes, it was for their lives.

Some of those little ones were without folks or were timid and scared. Those, I allowed into my cabin, gave them lollipops and hard candies. At times, I allowed them to blow the horn.

Oh, we had a thriving business. We charged them for four hundred. At times we were many over.

How many trips did I make? I dare not contemplate it.

All I remember are the first, when I steeled myself for the task, and the last, when my haunted mind could take it no longer.

The small child was beaming with love as I held her high for a full view of the countryside. I placed her down, and she retreated to the back of the train, sliding in between the sweaty bodies of the overloaded travelers.

Knowing what would become of that smile, and all the others….I knew I could do this no more.

My mind quickly went through all those half-planned plans of mine I held and then discarded in the past.

The only thing that made sense would mean my doom. But I deserved it. I had brought so many to their doom and got well paid for it.

Katowice is less than 40 km from Auschwitz. There is a side-rail, never completed, that juts off into nowhere.

If I could divert the train at that point, well…I wouldn’t survive. Many might perish, but the important thing is some might live. That’s a better chance than they would have at line’s end.

I felt as if each foot of track was combining to squeeze the life out of me. I knew what was coming. The others were pleasantly unaware.

Finally, I neared that side-rail.

I tried, oh how I tried! But I couldn’t make myself do it.

The train pulled by the extermination chambers. All were hurried out, the children collected into a separate group.

On my way back, I did not know it then, but in a separate portion of the land, an American soldier had captured some of my countrymen. He herded them into a cave, his weapon trained on them.

Their fate was in his hands.

He didn’t know what to do.