From the writings of Kitia Altman,  one of our past class members

"Memories of Ordinary People"

I do not feel well today. Nothing special, just a bit off-colour. My eyes are smarting, my nose running and I have a dull throbbing in my head. I wish I could stay in bed, pull a blanket over my head and sleep, sleep, sleep. I suppose I could, if I really wanted to, but whenever the feeling 'I can do what I like' comes over me, it is immediately followed by a much stronger emotion. Panic.

What if I am really sick? Who is going to call a friend to help me, a doctor, an ambulance? I'll die and no-one will know! Oh God! I don't feel well at all! Should I take a tranquilliser or wait? Maybe this cramp in the pit of my stomach will pass. These thoughts are tormenting me. I know it will pass, but I can't endure waiting. I just want to sleep, stop thinking, stop feeling. There is a deep hole inside me and I am falling into it. I am beyond rescue, in another time capsule over half a century ago. Help, help!

An invisible pull creates an emotional avalanche in my mind. Thoughts and reflections are all over the place. Chaos and panic push rationality away. I try to mobilise the loose shreds of my sanity, put myself outside this mental turmoil. I close my eyes and try to regain control, screaming a voiceless command: Stop it! Everything back into place! No need to panic, I am here!

Gradually I regain my balance and sense of reality. I am here, it is me. An old, old woman and I am safe.

The memory emerges slowly and painfully.

Yes, I remember now, I want to sleep, to find in sleep an escape. I want to feel safe, protected. But the more I want to escape from reality, the faster I become bound to it.

t is Auschwitz. An autumn drizzle falls mercilessly on rows of shivering shapes. It is still dark and I do want so much to keep my eyes closed a little while longer, to delay facing this reality. There is no tomorrow. We are lucky to have a today. And this is only the beginning of another long uncertain day of wet, cold, mud and hunger.

"Open your eyes!" My friend Cesia prods me, nearly unbalancing me as we stand at roll-call, waiting to be counted like precious loot. Why is it so important to count us, the living and the night's dead?

Ordnung must sein! 'Order is Supreme. Order is Divine. The Supreme is Divine.

I sway on my bare legs and grab my friend's arm. I don't feel well and I know that nothing will ever make me feel better. I make a promise: if I survive I'll sleep as long as I want. And another promise: if I survive I'll eat as much as I want. Is there anything else in life that matters? Anything, beside sleep and food?

Oh yes, there is! There is love and joy and warm sunshine and family and friendship - but I don't remember any more how it feels to love and to smell the green grass of the country's summer. Ces and I are friends, but more than that, we are bound together by a nightmare. What will happen if only one of us is selected for gas? Will the other follow? If I become the 'other', will I be able to exist here without her; the only person who cares protects and nurtures me?

It is no good to have thoughts, any thoughts. Thinking slows down the process of humiliation, of accepting our sub-human existence. If you think you suffer more. But we do think and we feel, too. Ces thinks more than I do. She said: "I must find a way out of here."

She heard that one can register one's tattoo number for work in a munitions plant. "How do you know the transport will leave Auschwitz?" I ask her. "Maybe it is yet another trick to get us direct to the gas"

"I have seen a group of girls waiting for the wagons and each got a whole loaf of bread and jam."

"Maybe you are right," I said. "They'll not waste a whole bread on someone who is going to the gas. Or organise a cattle train to take us there," I added hopefully. And so Ces found there is a way out of Auschwitz after all, other than through the chimney. She registered our tattoo numbers - first hers, A-25440, then mine, A-25441. Where? To whom did she go? I never asked her. Now we waited to be called.

A day passed and another day. No-one called our numbers. "Ces, we are going to perish here!" I said.

I got an infection under my fingernail. The pain drove me crazy. I didn't moan. How could you complain about a normal human pain in here? Healthier people were selected for death every day, they would willingly change places with me.

I remember my mother had a new manicurist who inadvertently caused her to get a nail infection. She was holding her hand up almost all day because to put it down was so painful. The maid brought in a small dish with very hot water. She poured some disinfectant into it and the water turned milky. Mother put her sore finger in it and uttered a shriek, her face distorted with a grimace of pain. Father left the room, he couldn't bear to watch. The maid was full of concern: "Does it hurt much, prosze pani?" she asked solicitously. "Maybe just a drop of cold water." My mother held the swollen, painful finger in the hot water a while longer and asked the maid to prepare her a cup of tea. Every few hours the finger bathing was repeated, followed by a cup of tea and a lie down, to rest. After a day or two the swelling softened and burst. The pus came out in a greenish thick blob and we were all happy again. My mother recounted this incident with all the details for a long time after, referring to it as "when I had my finger."

And now my finger was hurting, throbbing, swollen. If I could only hold my hand up for a while maybe the pressure would ease and the throbbing stop. Ces said: "When we get coffee, maybe it will be hot. Then you put your finger in the mug and we'll share mine." It was my only chance, but how could I even endure the waiting? My finger was still hard and red, not ready to burst.

Then they called our numbers. The transport was getting ready to leave but I didn't care any more about anything. I said to my friend: "I cannot go, you have to go by yourself." "Run!" said Ces. "Run to the Revier, the first aid station. Maybe they will help you!"

I didn't even know where the first aid station was, which block. Another girl said: "Ask for Lesia, she will help you." I ran, I asked for Lesia. I found her. "My transport is leaving, but look at my finger - the pain drives me crazy! " She looked at me with sad, compassionate eyes. "There is nothing I can do, your finger cannot be lanced open yet. Go! Go with the transport." And I went with that transport which took me out of Auschwitz. I don't remember for how much longer I suffered the pain of the infected finger. I don't remember the relief from pain. I left and I have survived. Of the girl whose advice I followed I knew nothing. Half a century later I met a woman whose name was Lesia. It was a strange meeting. It was as if we knew each other. But we didn't explore that possibility and I couldn't connect this vague feeling with any place or incident. We didn't live in the same city and our meetings were infrequent, short and friendly in a rather remote way. Once I asked a mutual friend: "Was she in Auschwitz?"

"I don't really know", said the friend."She does not like to talk about her war experiences. She doesn't have a tattoo."

It started to bother me. Lesia is not a common Polish name, probably an endearing shortened version of some other name. I decided on a direct approach. Next time we met was in a restaurant with some of my school friends. One of those reunions where you reminisce about the distant past because you don't share the immediate present. I sat next to Lesia.

"I have an unfinished memory", I started. "I met a girl in Auschwitz who gave me the advice which saved my life. Her name was the same as yours. It was October 1944 and I had to go with a transport to work in a munition plant. I had an infection under my fingernail."

"What did the girl tell you to do?" she asked softly.

"She told me to go, in spite of my pain. Was it you?"

"Yes", she said.

Lesia remembered the incident. She had decided never to talk or even think about her experiences and had removed the only visible trace of the Holocaust from her left arm. But she could never erase the memories from her mind.