From Death to Life
In May 1944 21 year old Rachel Berneman was on a death march of prisoners leaving Auschwitz ahead of advancing Russians. Rachel was sleeping the same bunk with Hanna , who she believed was her last living relative. Hanna was emaciated and sick with diarrhoea. Forced to join the march, Rachel wrapped an old "blanket" under Hanna's armpits and carried her, lest she be shot as a "straggler". Day after day she carried her, without food or water, struggling to keep up and avoid being shot. When she couldn't continue, instead of dropping Hanna, she slipped into the ditch with her. The guard came over and raised his rifle to shoot them both. Rachel remembers pleading "please, the war is over, we survived this long...you must have a daughter..we too are someone's daughters..." Despite having shot hundreds of others, he lowered his rifle and walked on. On May 7, 1944 Rachel and Hanna were liberated by the Russians.
Over the following months, Hanna recovered, met another survivor and became engaged. Other survivors too tried to piece some sort of life together. One day a woman showed up with a 5 year old nephew who survived in a convent. Other than this aunt, the only survivor in the child's family was a older brother. The aunt asked Hanna if she can take the child with her and bring him to his brother in a nearby village where the couple was going for a wedding. On rout Hanna, her fiance, and the child stopped in an inn. The next morning all 3 were found dead by the cleaning staff. The pilot light on the water heater, fuelled by coal gas, had gone out. Coal gas is about 30% CO (compared to the tailpipe of your car where it is about 2-3%).
Despite the horrors that Rachel had seen and experienced, for the rest of her life she was unable to come to terms with this death. Whenever anything reminded her of Hanna, or 'gas', she would hang her head and weep.
On the 4th anniversary of her Liberation, Rachel had a son. This son became a physician. He also had a small informal laboratory with undergraduate and summer students. Around 1996, they began experiments looking at CO elimination through the lungs that led to a simple device that could treat CO poisoning at the first point of contact. Eventually this proved as effective as the hyperbaric chamber, which is the current gold standard, but too cumbersome and expensive to be practical. This device this group developed is the first advance in the treatment of CO poisoning in a century. Yesterday, Thursday March 15, 2019, it received FDA approval as safe and effective and given permission for sale and use.
I am that son. Rachel passed away 2 years ago. The potential for saving the lives of other people with CO poisoning gives me great comfort in the recollections I have of my mother's heart aches. I hope it will also give her and Hanna some comfort in heaven.
