They Went Left

“Then dream-Abek’s face twists, and his words come out pained: ‘Something happened,’ this Abek says. ‘But we don’t have to talk about it yet.’”

The theme of Memory and Trauma is alluded to in Zofia’s dream. Her dream foreshadows that, on some level, she remembers that Abek is already dead but that she has suppressed this from her conscious awareness. In her dream, Abek acknowledges that Zofia isn’t ready to talk about what happened to him.

“That’s the biggest reason we are still in hospital. Our minds are soft. Confused.”

Memory and Trauma are referred to; the women are traumatized, hurt, and exhausted, and this has affected their grasp on reality. They remain in hospital months after the liberation, still recovering their minds from the onslaught of horrific images and memories they witnessed and experienced in the concentration camps.

“Because everyone else: Papa, Mama, Baba Rose, beautiful Aunt Maja—all of them, all of them, as the population of Sosnowiec was devastated—they went left.”

Zofia remembers the death of almost her entire family in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau; going left meant going to the gas chambers, whereas going in the line to the right meant being chosen for factory work or hard labor. Antisemitic genocide, part of the broader theme, Antisemitic Violence, Genocide, and Displacement During and After World War II, is referred to in these tragic deaths.