The Horse Adjutant
slave prisoner, and finally a survivor, all before I turned eighteen. During most of my depravity, the one thing that kept me alive was to care for a horse. And with this horse, I met some of the most notorious characters of the war. I became the buggy driver of the top Nazi official in the ghetto Tarnow, Hauptsturm- fuhrer Hermann Blache. I also used my carriage to collect bodies that were once my entire world and on more than one occasion was forced to step on the blood of my relatives as it spilled in a senseless river of horror that went on for years. It seemed that it would never end. Yet, throughout it all, I tried to remember that I had a normal childhood and I lived in a culturally rich and enlightened time of history going to school with children of many ethnicities and cultures without incident. When I was lost in the political maelstrom of the German occupation, it was these guideposts that kept my world in focus - that reminded me of a better future. Because of a good upbringing, I knew somehow that goodness and peace were possible and must still exist in the world. My story is full of pain. Many times I was a breath away from my last, but somehow I survived. Please remember what I am telling you with a sense of urgency. We must keep such horrors from happening ever again. To those who helped me tell my story, I have the deepest gratitude.
Leon Schagrin 2011
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