Set in Poland during the second world-war, this story by Ida_Fink contrasts the freshness of a peaceful spring morning with the brutality of the holocaust. Knowing what is coming but unable to prevent it, a Jewish couple review their life choices after waking to the sound of trucks. As they and their five-year-old daughter are marched through the streets towards the execution field, the father tells his daughter to flee into a crowd. She is shot, and he must carry her dead, blood-soaked body the rest of the way. Themes include despair, acceptance. choices and consequences, guilt, atrocity, insensitivity.
One thing that stands out in the story is the way non-Jewish villagers appear to go about their lives as usual after witnessing the family being led to their death and their five-year-old daughter shot in front of them. It is tempting to suggest, as I have seen on several websites, that they are apathetic to the fate of their neighbors. I prefer to put it down to a survival mechanism. First, Poland is under occupation. To show sympathy or protest could mean death. More importantly, perhaps the only way to retain one’s sanity when exposed to the horrors of war is to become desensitized to them.