They were beautiful. They were gorgeous. They were the youngest of four sisters, identical twins, darlings of their family and their quaint Romanian village. They looked like two precious porcelain dolls in their matching burgundy dresses adorned with cute curly bows accentuating their long, lovely locks. And at the age of ten, they were thrown into an unimaginable nightmare with their arrival at the concentration camp known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. Holding hands, refusing to let go, they clung to each other as they entered the closest imitation of hell, a man-made world of torture, agony and anguish. They entered alone. Moments earlier, their dad, mom, and two older sisters were torn away, torn from their lives forever.
They arrived on a train. For four days they were packed together like caged animals without food and water. The car was filled with sounds of despair; broken mumbled prayers of desperation, dispirited words of assurance to horrified children, weeping cries of fear and worry. The doors of the cattle car were thrown open and for the first time in days they saw light. They felt air. They were touched by wind. Standing next to their parents and older sisters, Eva Mozes held tightly to her twin sister Miriam's hand as desperate men and women climbed, trampled, and pushed each other out of the car in which they were entombed. Shoved onto the platform, they were frightened and confused. They stood there in utter terror, two little ten-year-old girls in matching burgundy dresses.
They sensed something awful was about to happen. Sounds around them escalated. Everything started moving faster and faster. Nazi guards started grabbing people--pushing, pulling, shoving, kicking. Family members were torn from one another. Husbands from wives. Children from parents. Brothers from sisters. Within seconds a guard noticed their matching dresses and shouted "Zwillinge! Zwillinge!" Twins! Twins! SS guards rushed over and grabbed Eva and Miriam. As they were pulled from their mother's grasp, they reached back screaming and crying "Mommy, Mommy, Don't let us go! No Mommy! Don't let us go!" It did not matter how much they cried and how loud they screamed. With each step the SS guards took, their mother's flailing arms, wailing cries, and anguished tears faded as they were dragged away. They would never see her again.
Hours later they were herded into the care of one of history’s most iniquitous men, a man known as the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele. After losing their entire family, they were to experience evil beyond imagination. They were thrown into a melee of daily sadistic medical experiments created specifically for twins-- group nakedness, castrations, unneeded blood transfusions, probing of their body cavities. Weekly, the sisters received countless shots, some to extract, most to inject. Syringes were filled with diseases, solutions, and unknown liquids. In an atmosphere of children sobbing, their cries resonating the most unimaginable pain of human suffering, Eva and Miriam would not let go. They would not give up. Over and over, they told themselves: just one more day, just one more experiment, just one more shot. These were not grown adults who already learned the ways of life by being exposed to the dark side of human behavior. No, these were little girls who knew only of innocent life, innocent love, innocent days, innocent times. Until the Angel of Death. Until Auschwitz.
Inside the camp they lay in a wooden bunk on a straw mattress still clothed in their matching dresses. Grieving for their lost family, cradling each other, they cried and cried. The pain of separation crushed their already shattered hearts. In the middle of the night they had to use the latrine. Amidst the darkness they hurried to the back of the barracks. The latrine had no toilets. Only holes in the floor. Vomit and human feces were everywhere. Stepping inside, they froze. On the floor were the dead bodies of three naked children. Miriam trembled and wept. Eva stood in horror. In that moment, Eva vowed to do everything in her power to make sure they survived. She grabbed Miriam's hand and held it in a death grip as they returned to their bunk. Crawling in, holding each other tightly, Eva spoke softly in Miriam's ear, "One day we will walk out of this place alive." Love would not let go. They would give their blood, their bodies, their pride, their dignity. They would not give their lives.
The commitment, determination, and fierce resolve of love was seen the first time Eva and Miriam were separated at Auschwitz. Eva was sick from an injection believed to be scarlet fever. During the night she ran a high temperature. Her head pounded. Her skin burned. Her body shook violently. Writhing in pain, shivering with chills, standing in the lab, she tried not to tremble. If seen in this condition she would be taken to the infirmary, the barracks of the dead and dying. No one ever returned.
After some time, Eva was noticed. Immediately she was thrown in a jeep and hauled to death's door next to the gas chambers and flaming chimneys. Bunks were filled with people who were half dead. No one was fed. Food was not wasted on the dying. Lying in her bunk, surrounded by death, Eva could not sleep without her sister by her side. Her little fragile heart ached for her other half, the only person she had left in the world. In the dark she heard nothing but moans and screams. The screams of the dying cut into her. When she closed her eyes, she saw Miriam's face. She could not leave her alone in this world. Through the tears, through the pain, through her broken spirit, she told herself repeatedly "I must survive. I cannot die. For Miriam."
The next morning a truck came to pick up the sickest and took them to the gas chamber. Eva was passed over. She pressed on without food and water and medicine. Resilient love. "I must survive. I cannot die. For Miriam." On the third day she saw a faucet on the back wall of the infirmary. She needed water for any chance of survival. On sheer determination alone, she slid from her death bed and crawled on the rough cement, scraping and cutting her skin. One at a time, she stretched her hands forward, dragging her lifeless limbs along the floor covered in human excrement. At times she passed out. When she awoke, she inched onward. "I must survive. I cannot die. For Miriam." The love for her sister overpowered the pain. Every night, for two weeks, she made the nightly trek for water. Fourteen days later, her fever broke. A death camp could not extinguish the love of a ten-year-old girl. Love crawls, it holds on, it finds a way to survive in pain, pushing through hate and evil, never letting go.
Toward the end, days from liberation, Allied armies attacked the area around Auschwitz. Bombs lit up the sky. Heavy artillery shook the ground. The whole world seemed on fire. Bedlam and pandemonium broke out inside the camp. Everywhere people were running for their lives. Nazi occupiers disappeared. SS guards were no longer found. Prisoners ran for cover, clinging to their last thread of hope. In the confusion, the sisters were separated. Eva frantically searched for her twin among the huddled masses of emaciated individuals who were indistinguishable. She scanned identical faces of grief and pain, staring into sunken hollow eyes encased in dark circles. Every thirty seconds she screamed "Miriam! Miriam!" among the thousands ensnared in mortal fear. Terrified tears streamed down her face as the hours passed. Day turned to night. Night turned to day. She would not give up. Her love would not let go. In a near-stupor of desperation and exhaustion, she stumbled through a doorway, bumping into someone her height. As she turned to look, Miriam collapsed in her arms. Gripping one another, squeezing as tight as they could, they fell to the ground kissing and hugging. Tears poured from their eyes. Pulling away slightly, Eva caressed her sister's face and fiercely whispered again and again "Always hold my hand Miriam, always hold my hand. Never let go, promise me you will never let go."
On their last day in the world's worst death camp, as they walked away from evil and suffering that few, if any, could truly comprehend, there were no matching dresses and curly bows. There were no long locks and beautiful hair. There were no older sisters, no mommy, no daddy. There were matching lice infested striped uniforms. There were shaved heads and deep scars. There were gaunt faces and skeletal figures. But for all that they lost--their family, their innocence, their homeland--they gained something that was powerful and astonishing. They discovered the true essence of love. They grasped its depths. Somehow, somewhere, in the darkest darkness they understood love does not abandon. It continually hopes. It never gives up. And it always believes. Walking one last time through hell's gates under the infamous sign Arbeit Macht Frei, they left the same way they entered, holding hands. Love never lets go.
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