Auschwitz survivors recall the horror 60 years on
Jerzy Afanasjew's body tenses and his eyes close when he recalls the day he crawled out from the overcrowded cattle train as a 14-year-old boy to begin a six-month nightmare.
"What was Auschwitz? It was hell. Hell. A death factory," he says in a measured pace. "If you weren't gassed, you were exhausted to death, if you weren't exhausted to death, you starved, if you didn't starve, you died of disease."
Afanasjew is one of a dwindling group of people who, by chance or cunning, cheated death at Auschwitz, the biggest Nazi extermination camp during World War II that has become the symbol of the Holocaust.
On Jan. 27, hundreds of survivors and dozens of world leaders will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation by the Soviet army and pay homage to the estimated 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, murdered there by the Nazis.
"Auschwitz is a place where we share the responsibility to remember the past with the goal of building a better society," said Abver Shalev, chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance institute, who will attend the commemorations.
Set up in 1940 by occupying Nazi forces near the town of Oswiecim in southern Poland as a labor camp for Poles, Auschwitz gradually became the centerpiece in Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's "final solution" plan to exterminate Jews.
The scale of the industrialized killing at the camp, the cruelty of the guards and the pseudo-medical experiments conducted on prisoners by Nazi doctors have made Auschwitz synonymous with a coldly efficient genocide and total degradation of humanity.
Men, women and children -- mostly Jewish, but Gypsies, Russians and Poles too -- from Nazi-occupied Europe were taken to Auschwitz in overcrowded cattle trains. Many died of hunger and suffocation during the journey which usually lasted days.
Terrified, foul-smelling and starving, those who made the trip were often relieved at the prospect of fresh air and food. They did not know that the smoke from nearby chimneys was coming from crematoria burning the bodies of earlier arrivals.
Illusions were quickly dispelled as the guards separated those capable of hard work from the elderly and children who were sent straight to the gas chambers -- the process known in the camp as "selection."
Those who survived the "selection," not knowing what happened to family and friends, were stripped of their clothes, belongings and identity. A number was tatted on their arm and they were given a soup bowl and spoon.
Dressed in characteristic striped uniforms, the prisoners were then marched toward the labor camp under the gate adorned with giant inscription "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work sets one free) that came to symbolize the depth of Nazi cynicism.
Crammed in bare wooden or brick barracks, prisoners worked 12-hour days in construction and factories. Better jobs were found in the kitchens or offices.
After sleepless nights and long hours of backbreaking work, the prisoners were forced outside to attend roll-calls which lasted for hours. Those who died were piled up next to the standing to be counted.
Compounded by epidemics, the death rate of prisoners was 19-25 percent a month in 1942-43.
(Agencies)
奧斯維辛集中營解放60周年 倖存者回顧血淚往事
當他回想起14歲那年的一天，自己從擁擠不堪的裝運牲口的火車中爬出來開始6個月噩夢（般的生活）時，傑爾茨·阿法納斯奇全身緊繃，雙眼緊閉。
「奧斯維辛是什麼？它是地獄。地獄。一個死亡工廠。」他有節奏地說道，「如果你沒有被毒氣毒死，你會累死，如果你沒有累死，你會餓死，如果你沒有餓死，那麼你會病死。」
阿法納斯奇是極少數靠運氣或機智從奧斯維辛活著出來的人之一，奧斯維辛是二戰中最大的納粹滅絕營，現在已成為大屠殺的象徵。
1月27日，幾百名倖存者和世界（各國）的許多元首們將共同紀念前蘇聯軍隊解放奧斯維辛集中營60周年，並向被納粹屠殺的約150萬人——其中多數為猶太人——致敬。
以色列Yad Vashem大屠殺紀念館館長阿布沃爾·沙利說："要建設一個更美好的社會，我們有責任牢記過去，牢記奧斯維辛。"他將出席這次的紀念活動。
1940年，佔領波蘭南部城鎮奧斯維辛附近的納粹軍隊建造了一座波蘭勞工營，後來奧斯維辛逐漸成為納粹獨裁者阿道夫·希特勒消滅猶太人的"最後解決"計劃的中心。
奧斯維辛集中營中工業化屠殺的規模，殘暴的警衛以及納粹醫生在囚犯身上進行的所謂「醫學實驗」都讓人們一提到奧斯維辛，就想到無情的大屠殺和人性的徹底泯滅。
納粹軍隊用牛車把男人、女人和兒童從佔領的歐洲地區押送到奧斯維辛，牛車上擁擠不堪，其中大部分是猶太人，但也有吉普賽人，俄國人和波蘭人。在長達幾天的旅途中，許多人因飢餓、窒息而死。
那些驚恐萬分，渾身散發著臭味而且極度飢餓的倖存者們常常被安慰說等待他們的是新鮮的空氣和食物。他們並不知道附近煙囪裡的滾滾濃煙卻是那些先來的人的屍體被火化時冒出的濃煙。
幻想很快就破滅了，警衛們挑選出能夠進行重體力勞動的人，而老人孩子們則被直接送進毒氣室。在集中營中這一過程裡被稱為「分選」。
「分選」出來的倖存者們一點都不知道他們的家人和朋友的遭遇。他們的衣服、財物和身份證明統統被沒收，納粹在他們的手臂上繫上號碼，並發給每人一個湯碗和一把湯勺。
囚犯們穿著特製的條紋獄服，列隊前往勞工營。勞工營的大門上醒目地寫著「勞動獲得自由」的巨大標語——納粹犬儒主義的集中體現。
木頭或磚瓦搭建的簡易房舍裡塞滿了囚犯，他們每天在建築（工地）或工廠工作12小時。好一些的在廚房或辦公室工作。
在無數不眠之夜和長時間高強度工作之後，囚犯們還被迫進行幾小時的露天點名。死囚的屍體就堆放在活人旁邊以待清點。
加上流行疫病，1942至1943年期間每月囚犯的死亡率達到19%至25%。
（中國日報網站譯）
Vocabulary:
dwindling : 逐漸減少的
holocaust: the genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II（大屠殺，浩劫，二戰中納粹對歐洲的猶太人和其他民族實行的種族滅絕）
pseudo : 假的, 偽的, 冒充的
suffocation: 窒息
crematoria: 火葬場的
gas chamber: 毒氣室
backbreaking: demanding great exertion, especially physical exertion; arduous and exhausting（艱苦的，非常辛勞的，使人筋疲力盡的）