It is now 1984, and I live in a quiet, residential area of Montreal. I enjoy my retirement. I visit the local library and peruse the newspapers and magazines. I meet friends and we discuss and debate the current political situation.My friends and family have noticed one odd element in my behavior. I take a roundabout route to the library and the park. I go several blocks out of my way to reach my destination. My friends and family have always wondered about this "eccentricity" in my otherwise very conventional behavior.What they don't realize, and what nobody can realize, is that there is a very simple reason for my "odd" behavior. I take the roundabout route because, on the direct route, there is a branch of a famous, cowboy-style chain steak and hamburger restaurant. There is always a certain smell around that restaurant--the smell of broiling meat and sputtering fat. The air around there is thick with what is, to others, a delectable smell. I can't take it. That smell is so similar to the all-pervasive stench of burning Jewish bodies in Sobibor that, when I smell it, I am instantly brought back to the hell I escaped from over 40 years ago. And I see the faces of the innocent, gentle children, all lined up for the slaughter, and I hear the cries of the women and men, whole communities of my people who are no more.So if you are ever in the CÙte des Neiges area of Montreal, and you see a short, elderly man walking his roundabout route to his friends, you need not wonder why. There's a reason. An enormous reason. A reason beyond human understanding.

Sobibor!

 

Kalmen Wewryk

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