This was in 1939. And… this family, a Jewish family in Germany or Austria probably, was taken away. First they took away the parents, and they took away the children separately. And this girl, who is 13 years of age at that time, and her brother, who is 8 years of age, were brought to the railway station, along with a lots of other kids.
Parents were taken away somewhere, to some labour camp or something. These kids have been separated. And they are pulled out from a wealthy family, and now they are on the railway platform, on a winter day. Kids are kids. Once they are there, they’re playing and this boy is going out playing with people. They’re kicking around something, playing football, all this. Then the train came.
Once the train came, the soldiers came and pushed everybody into the trains, like cattle. They were all loaded up. And after they got into the train, and train started moving, the boy said he forgot his shoes in the platform. The girl got so mad. 13 year old girl, she’s just been separated, bewildered you know. Taken off from a wealthy family. And now they are on the street, they don’t know where they’re going, what’s next. They don’t know anything.
Now it’s history, we know all the things that happened. At that moment, these little children, they don’t know anything, what’s going to happen. And now this fellow leaves his shoes and comes, it’s a cold month. So she held him by the ear, and twisted it as much as she wanted, and she abused him. You idiot! I have enough trouble on my hands, and now you have to leave your shoes and come.
And when the next station came, they separated boys and girls. So he was taken away somewhere, she was taken away somewhere. Four years later, she came out of a concentration camp. The only survivor of the family. Seventeen members of the family just disappeared, including that boy. She never figured where he went. He just evaporated somewhere. And, all that she remembered was the last things that she said to that boy. She could’ve said something nice to him. All the horrible things she told him, because he lost his shoes.
And then when she came out of the concentration camp after four and a half years, she made up her mind – it doesn’t matter whom I speak to, when I speak to somebody, if that happens to be the last time I speak to them, I should not regret. If you just speak like this to people, you will definitely say something else. And, how do you know this will not be the last thing? Whoever is sitting next to you, how do you know that today is the last day you are meeting them? It could be possible, isn’t it? Yes?
And this one – this one vow that she took for herself, just transformed her whole life, and became such a beautiful human being. Because she decided, whoever she talked to, she will talk to them as if… in case this happens to be the last time, she will not regret it.
Even such a horrific thing happens to her, she makes a blessing out of it. If you have a working intelligence, whatever happens in your life, you can turn that into a great possibility for you. Or whatever happens, you can make misery out of it, isn’t it so? Whatever the situation, it doesn’t matter what’s the situation – whatever the situation, you can turn it into a great possibility, if only you are willing to look at it with openness. Everything can be turned…
