This Polish woman of Belarusian origin came to testify on February 1 at the Shoah Memorial in Paris, at the age of 82, on the occasion of the release in January of this book translated into French, in front of a mostly young audience, who often do not has not even or barely known the 20th century.

She arrived at the age of three at the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, in the arms of her mother, a political prisoner, in December 1943.

At that age, "we were unable to work, but we could carry out pseudo-scientific experiments on us," she told the audience in an auditorium, translated by an interpreter.

Josef Mengele, then 32, a genetics researcher, had been assigned to this camp that year.

He had seen a chance to obtain human guinea pigs, who under his supervision underwent atrocious treatments, without any ethical concern.

"Forgive" ?

The testimonial book, "The little girl who did not know how to hate" (Michel Lafon editions), was written with an Italian journalist, Paolo Rodari.

In May 2021, seeing Pope Francis kiss the tattoo of this Auschwitz survivor, this Vaticanist got it into his head to have him tell his story, again via an interpreter.

In Italian, the story comes out in January 2022, then it was translated into Polish, Spanish, English and Portuguese.

In French, by chance, at the same time as that of Lidia Maksymowicz is republished the story of another survivor, "Les jumelles de Mengele" by Eva Mozes Kor (Armand Colin editions).

This Romanian Jewess died in 2019.

Josef Mengele died on the run in Brazil in 1979, without ever being held accountable for his crimes.

The two authors have in common to insist on their lack of hatred against Dr. Mengele.

Eva Mozes Kor's words have even caused debate, where she writes that a woman asked her if she was considering "forgiveness".

"The question took me aback at first, but then I promised him that I would do it: indeed, I also had the power to forgive the Angel of Death", she explains in her book. .

"I chose not to cultivate hatred and revenge," writes Lidia Maksymowicz.

"Chilling Gaze"

When asked how she can retain memories from being so young in Auschwitz-Birkenau, she speaks of "flashes", such as the times when "childhood instinct told us to hide under the bunks , so as not to be seen by Dr Mengele".

To find out what exactly she experienced, she consulted the works of historians.

"Blood was taken from us. (...) We were also tested for vaccines (...) We instilled in our eyes a solution supposed to change the color of our eyes to blue", she lists at the Memorial of The Shoah.

In the book, she explains that she has no memory of the features of the famous Nazi, but of his "well polished boots" and "his chilling gaze".

The day is approaching when no one will be able to claim to have seen him at work in Auschwitz.

“Right now it feels like people are pretty indifferent to what happened. So as long as I have the health, as long as I have the strength, I want to testify so that there is no no indifference”, she underlines, questioned by AFP before giving her conference.

The old lady showed up with a Mickey plush in her arms.

She explained that she brought it back from Disneyland, where she had gone to please the child in her.

© 2023 AFP