They Came At Dawn

They came at dawn. At least, that's how I imagine it. The truth is, I don't know when the actual knock at the door happened. But sometime, they were woken up, or were already awake, bags packed, waiting. Weeks ago, when the latest race laws came into being, their windows had been broken by students from the local schools, graffitti sprayed on the outer walls, chants of 'Go to Palestine' shouted in the street. Since then, they were living on borrowed time. They must have known it.

What were their thoughts as the uniformed men led them from their comfortable home, where they had lived as valued members of their Jewish community? Grateful that their two boys, Kurt and Hans had escaped: one to Israel, one to Britain? Did Alma cry as she realised she would no longer be able to send food parcels to her youngest son, interned somewhere in England? Did Raphael, a devout orthodox Jew who prayed every morning and celebrated every Shabbat, thank G*d that Kurt would never again be taken down to the local police station and beaten up by the police, now that he and his new wife were safe in Israel ~ the country Alma and Raphael had tried to enter, but had been sent back to Nazi Germany by the British authorities as their 'paperwork' wasn't correct.

At the station, did they meet others, known faces? Did Raphael help his wife to clamber aboard the cattle truck, find a place to sit as it filled up with terrified families, all of whom would have been known to them? I try not to imagine that journey, days with little food, no water, perhaps a latrine bucket that would have slopped over onto the filthy straw. Human beings treated worse than cattle, robbed of their possessions and their dignity as the train bore them onwards out of their town, out of their country, toward the Polish concentration camp.

And then finally, the train arrived at its destination. The doors were slid back. I imagine men in uniforms shouting at them to get out quickly, snarling dogs straining on leashes, the elderly forced to jump down from the train, breaking their limbs as they fell. Sticks and batons raining down on terrified, exhausted, bewildered people as the cattle trucks disgorged their human cargo. Did they manage to stay together for those last few minutes? Look into each other's faces, touch each other before they were parted for ever, Alma led away to 'the showers', Raphael to whatever was to be his fate.

There is a Jewish tradition that every person dies three times: once when the body dies, once when the soul leaves the body, and a third time after the very last time that anyone still living says their names out loud. This is why every year, on the anniversary of their deaths, the names of family members are said aloud. It is called the yahrzeit. 

I do not know when Alma and Raphael died. I know where they died, and how they died. So on this 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, on this Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025, I will remember them, my lost grandparents, and I will say their names out loud.

Alma Flatauer:

Raphael Flatauer:

The house still stands, still empty. The family who took it over, have  always refused to return it to us. But in front of the house, in full view of every passer-by, and in a perpetual memorial, are the two stolpersteine, marking the fact that a Jewish family, my family, once lived here.

© Carol Hedges 2025. No part of this blog, or family photos may be reproduced in any format without permission of the author.