photo #1501684

This breaks my heart because as a little girl we lived in Europe in a Volkswagen van from the United States and my parents and I tour here. Only later did I find out my birth mother, a PhD, was living in Europe although she was originally from the states as well. I have Eastern European relatives from Poland that were Catholic just like this little angel which makes it all the more heartbreaking. ❤️😭NEVER AGAINHer name was Czeslawa Kwoka, and her crime was being Polish, Catholic, and 14 years old. Her red triangle was for political prisoners, because of where she was born in Poland. After this photo was taken, she was killed in Auschwitz extermination camp on March 12, 1943 with a phenol injection in the heart. Just before the execution, she was photographed by prisoner Wilhelm Brasse, who would later testify against the executioner of Czeslawa, a woman. Just before the photo, the executioner punched Czeslawa in the face, as the hematoma on her lip shows. This is the face of a terrified little girl, who didn't even speak the language of her executioner. She had lost her mother a few days before. But she dried her tears to look presentable for the photo. They took her hair and her life, but they couldn’t take her dignity.She was only one of about 250,000 children and minors who were executed in Auschwitz-Birkenau. This is what happens when hatred is cultivated in a nation and thugs gain control. If you don’t think could happen here, you need to read Gulag Archipelago.