Do You Know What This Is? This Is The Heart From Auschwitz.

Do you know what this is? This is The Heart from Auschwitz.

An act of defiance. A statement of hope. A crime punishable by death.

On December 12, 1944, locked inside Auschwitz, Polish teenager Fania turned twenty. After spending a year in a concentration camp, Fania didn’t expect her birthday to even be remembered - but her best friend, Zlatka, risked everything to make her a birthday present, a paper heart. 

Simply making the heart - or carrying it - could get either of them killed.

The heart was signed by many of their friends, bearing notes in Polish, German, French, and Hebrew that announced "When you get old, put your glasses on your nose, take this album in your hand and read my signature again,“ and “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” It was an act of great sacrifice and love for a friend.

Less than 40 days later, they began the Death March from Auschwitz to Ravensbruck, and from Ravensbruck to freedom. Fania carried the heart under her arm the whole time. And survived.

Fania donated the heart to the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Center in 1988, where it is a featured piece of their exhibit. You can read more about the story of Fania and Zlatka Meg Wiviott’s Paper Hearts, coming September 2015.

not to be fake deep but this is for the lions living in the wiry broke down frames of my friends’ bodies

Untitled by ezook

I am a simple soul. I see a babbling brook in the forest, and I am content to stare at it and listen to it for the rest of my life.

I want a home mostly just to welcome people into it. There will be bowls of candy for guests, and the cookie jar is full. I’ll always say “I was just about to make a coffee/tea/cocoa, would you like one?” when somebody walks in. There’s lemonade and iced tea made fresh on hot days. Once it hits That Hour and they start saying they really should be going, I’ll remind them that the futon is always open, and I’m making cinnamon rolls tomorrow. There’s champagne and sparkling juice hidden on a high shelf just in case somebody announces their engagement or their pregnancy or their new job while they’re here. There is an extra chair in the living room, at the table, and on the deck, and it’s for you. I want to be able to say “if you’re ever in trouble, come to me.”