The Scent of Death Hung in the Air
I left my family singing and telling ghost stories and I walked into the village to buy bread. My little sister danced happily around the fire as my mother prepared the meal.
I heard a slow rumble of thunder and looked to the sky as the military trucks passed by.
I could not understand, the scent of death that hung in the air.
I was given bread and told not to move from the table. I must have dozed off! When I woke I crept back through the Forrest, those who saw me begged me not to return to the camp, to see, to witness
For a yet unknown reason, the scent of death hung in the air
The faint sound of dirt shifting with shovels, was pierced by an unholy scream, it raised from my lips as my knees fell. It came as I laid my eyes on my bullet strewn family. The embers from the fire still danced in my little sisters lifeless eyes.
An open space, yet the scent of death hung in the air.
I left that place, never to return. I tried many times. I moved in the shadows heading to my uncle, as I wandered through places I knew, I saw bullets.
Every step I took, the scent of death hung in the air.
Reaching safety! just in time to be captured! We were put into train carriages. No food, no air, no light but the scent of death hung in the air.
During the next days, hours, months or years, I don’t know which! We learned to get by without, we learned to get used to everything! except that scent of death which hung in the air.
I heard mothers sobbing as they suffocated their own children, to spare them anymore pain and suffering. I sometimes wish my mother was there to grant me that mercy, because the scent of death will always hang in the air.
Written by Violet Cannon with Inspiration from the recollections of Roma Survivors of the Holocaust.
No Roma person gave evidence in Nuremberg. The Roma Holocaust was only recognised in 1979.