"Amon"

(English Version)

“I forgive you”…Yes, there was a moment when this phrase entertained him because he held the lives of people in his hands, and that made him to feel close to God’s power. Sadly, that amusement was just for a while, maybe a couple of days. The malice that he cherished was not satisfied with just that, he needed to give free rein to his sadism, feed the ravenous cruelty that dominated him.
To see him appeared from the field visits caused anguish, unease, fear. An indescribable terror captured us when the coldness of his eyes reached us, the mute intentions hidden behind his cynical smile, the slight that distilled his look when observed us, or the despotism shown when he talked to us. His parabellum executed without rhyme or reason. It was not a possible pattern to follow to escape from his cannon. It wasn’t either a behaviour which distanced you from his miserable actions. Everything was a matter of luck, of not being in the right place at the wrong time. If his pupil took notice of you, the die was cast.

But from all those horrors lived during that mutilated of innocent childhood, the one he visualised with more clarity was the balcony one. Every morning, terrified, we looked out of the corner of our eyes the instant he appeared on that flat roof, thinking about who would be the next in receiving a shot on the head coming from his riffle. When he leant out only half-dressed, his favourite activity was improving the aim,

shooting at us. To some, for taking a weary rhyme due to the inanition, to others, if they had the bad luck of being having a break from any hard work in that moment. And to the majority, randomly, as a habit, just for fun. Terror made the Plaszow prisoner’s nape hair stand on end with just seeing him appear.

A gallows executed him seconds later his throat uttered a succinct and defiant “Heil Hitler”. A rope that arrived too late for thousands of hearts he blew out. Amon, is the nightmare that has persecuted me throughout my life. A bitter nightmare that unfortunately was real, too real.

Pepe Gallego

(Translated by Ariadna B. Alonso)


<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Licencia Creative Commons" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/88x31.png" /></a><br /><span xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dct:title" rel="dct:type">"Amon" (English Versión)</span> por <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="http://pedrofernandezworks.blogspot.com.es/2016/09/amon_14.html" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Pepe Gallego</a> se distribuye bajo una <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional</a>.