The story of Mala and Edek is a love story that was born, raised and endured in hell: the concentration camp of Auschwitz. Their lives were practically forgotten, until journalist Francesca Paci decided to save them. This is how the book A Love at Auschwitz was born.
Mala and Edek were just beginning to live when they fell into the concentration camp, they must have grown up alone and by force.
- They did not age together as they dreamed.
- But they have become an example that love is stronger than any atrocity and that this feeling values everything.
The story of Mala and Edek was found thanks to all the people who knew them in the concentration camp, men and women who were also inspired by this love, despite the deplorable circumstances in which they found themselves, this story also shows that great loves are able to change the lives of the people around them.
“When my voice stops with death, my heart will continue to speak to you” – Rabindranath Tagore-
The protagonists of this story are Mala Zimetbaum and Edward Gali “Ski”, known as “Edek”. Edek was the first person to arrive at the Auschwitz concentration camp at the age of 16. He was a young man of Polish descent, and he was in high school. During an invasion of the Nazis, he was arrested and sent to Tarnaw Prison.
A few months later, in June 1940, he was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Edek arrived at Auschwitz with the first group of prisoners and quickly learned to adapt: “Who and what to avoid and what to hold on to to survive?”, he said.
After two years in the concentration camp, he managed to convince officers of the need to open a locksmith.
His initiative and dynamism in this project earned him some sympathy for the Nazis. With this, he ended up getting a position of privilege. He took the opportunity to bring to the workshop the weakest prisoners, who could not bear to make great physical efforts.
Mala Zimetbaum was born in Poland, but lived in Belgium from an early age, was an excellent student, excelling mainly in mathematics and languages.
In 1942, she was arrested in Antwerp and sent to the concentration camp. As she knew five languages, from the beginning the Nazis made her work as a translator and a messager.
Mala also had a privileged position and, like Edek, took the opportunity to help those in need. Mala and Edek met when he was assigned to a team of installers in the Birkenau field.
It was one of those loves that came right away, they started to meet in secret whenever they could. Everyone in the country called them Romeo and Juliet.
This love has also aroused a deep desire for freedom, they knew that the world did not know what was going on in the concentration camps, so they both began to incubate the idea of fleeing to denounce the situation, they also wanted to be together forever. So a plan was born that seemed crazy and, perhaps that’s why it worked.
The evacuation plan was for Edek to wear an SS officer’s uniform. Disguised, I’d take Mala to the edge of the field.
She, in turn, dressed as a man and used a cloth on her head to hide her hair, with the aim of denouncing that she was an officer accompanying an intern.
Once at the front door, the two showed some exit passes that they had made, however difficult, they managed to complete the plan and, on 24 June 1944, obtained freedom and almost reached the Polish border. to a store and tried to trade a ring for something to eat, which aroused suspicion among employees and alerted the Gestapo.
Mala was arrested while Edek looked at her from afar. The two had promised to be together forever, so he voluntarily surrendered to the Nazis.
Both were taken to a criminal area in Auschwitz, separated and locked, but managed to send messages on pieces of paper. From his cell phone, Edek sang him Italian songs.
Before being executed on the gallows, Edek tried unsuccessfully to hang himself with a rope. Before he died, he shouted “Long live Poland!”
Mala, in turn, cut her wrists before her execution, which would also be done on the gallows; by this act, she was condemned to be burned alive; however, the guards pityed each other and let him bleed before arriving at the crematorium. Mala and Edek died the same day, less than an hour apart.