Debbie Fisher (DF) and Terrence Hicks (TH)

DF: My father was a Holocaust survivor. He had survived the same camp as Elie Wiesel. They were both the same age. And when my father was alive, through school, I was reading Night. I was 14 years old when I was reading it. But I had no idea that the Auschwitz that Wiesel was writing about, where he lived for a year, was the same one that my father lived in. Because my father’s Auschwitz was a kinder, gentler Auschwitz. It was sort of like Robin Hood and his merry men meet the Nazis in my father’s Auschwitz. There was never a moment where people were dying in front of him. The worst happened the first night. They killed his siblings and they killed his parents and from that moment on the boys took over and that was the story that we were given.

But when he was very, very sick in the hospital and I knew that I was losing him, I realized that there was no going back and that if I didn’t make my move I could not return to the moment of having access to his memories. And this time he was really tired and he wasn’t feeling well. And I said, I need to ask you about your time there, in Auschwitz. I need to ask you some things, Dad. It’s important. And I remember he looked at me, and he had real anger in his face and in his eyes. And he said, You know, Debbie, from the time that you were a young girl, you always asked your questions. And I always told you: We got food, we got bread, we divided it up, we didn’t suffer. It was fine. And you keep bothering me and asking me the question. And I keep telling you, as if I’m in a room, go away, stop knocking on the door, I do not want to let you in this room. And yet you keep coming back saying let me in. And he said, So I’ll ask you one more time to go away, and if you knock again, I’ll let you in. But if I let you in this room, you will never, ever get out. So, do you want to knock again and come in? And I said, Yes, I do, Dad. And he was crying, and I remember he had covers on his body because he was really skinny and very, very weak. And he kicked all the covers off, as if he was kicking down a door. And he said, Fine. Come in then. Come in to a room that you can never leave. Come in. And I said can I ask you my questions? and he said, You’re in the room. You can ask anything. And I asked him everything that I ever wanted to ask. I asked him to tell me the real story. And he did.

It was painful, and scary, and sickening. I felt a part of me had died. And he’s right. Once you’re in that room you can’t get out. It’s always with you.