Ladder of My Life

“Step, Step, Step”

By Kristin Orloff

May 23, 2018

Like so many today, I exist in a cloud of uncertainty which--depending on the news cycle--morphs into total despair. I question the very existence of integrity, courage and, of dignity. Have we become so tribal as to value one another not as a person, but solely in terms of “us” and “them?” It’s a slippery slope to lose faith in my fellow ‘man,’ and it triggers images of one of the darkest moments in human history. Could we really be headed there again?

When I taught 8th grade English, we read the Diary of Anne Frank. Fearing my students struggled to grasp the totality of her experience, I sought out survivors. And I met Rose.

In the midst of World War II, as young Jewish newly-weds, Rose and her husband Sal were arrested, taken to Auschwitz and soon separated. Sent to a woman’s camp in a Polish town called Liebau, Nazis forced Rose and other women prisoners to carry large, heavy rocks to the top of a steep hill.

When she carried those heavy rocks, Rose never looked up. She never looked to the top of the mountain. Instead, she looked down at her feet and whispered “step, step, step,” knowing each movement of each foot meant life. She literally lived one step at a time, but her greatest lesson is in what she didn’t do.

On the morning of May 5th, 1945 the Concentration Camp filled with an unusual quiet, and the Nazis seemed on edge. Russian tanks rolled in, guards fled and the woman rushed to greet the liberating soldiers. By that time, Rose at 5’3” weighed less than 90 pounds. One of the Russian soldiers captured a fleeing Nazi guard, a particularly horrible and wicked man, pointed a gun to his head and made him kneel.

The Russian soldier said to the women, “You may do whatever you want to this man. Beat him! Gouge his eyes out! Tear his flesh! Make him pay for all the suffering and humiliation he has done to you!”

“This was the proudest day of my life,” my 87 year old friend would say, “Not one of us touched that, that, Nazi. Instead, each of us in turn, sung our national anthem, turned our backs, and…walked away. They treated us worse than animals, and we walked away with our integrity intact.”

Desperate to be reunited with her husband, she persevered on her quest home with a grueling walk from Poland to Holland. Through a friend, she heard Sal was alive and with her in-laws. Soon, she stood across the street of his parent’s home.

“I remember so clearly seeing Sal’s face in the upstairs window. I jumped off the curb and nearly got hit by a bus! Can you imagine?” She chuckled. “I ran to the front door, and my father-in-law, always a gentleman, asked ‘can I take your things?’ and I said pointing to myself, ‘Well, this is it’. Then I looked up and saw Sal running down the stairs to me, and I knew I had everything in the world.”

She and Sal reunited on June 30th, 1945 and together they raised two sons in America. Sal passed away in 2004 and Rose joined him in 2014. They left a legacy of the love of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

I never forget her words, her lessons, her strength. I still close my eyes and see Rose sharing her experiences, and I imagine her on the snow-covered mountainside--thin, in rags and whispering at her feet, “Step, Step, Step.” I can hear her sing with pride, at the top of her lungs, with her tears streaming and I watch her walk away from those who did her evil. I envision the embrace of two people who have only each other, and in that everything they could possibly ever need.

Photo of Rose and I in 2011

Passing Rose in a grocery store, one might notice the faded number tattoo under the delicate wrinkles on her arm and give her a sympathetic smile. But, can one feel the strength that radiates from the of soul of such a person? This ordinary woman who embodies the very essence of dignity, even in the darkest pit of the human experience.

I turn off the news and darken the screen of my Twitter Feed. We are all just humans after all.