Boy with an empty cup – Treblinka, 1943
In old photographs that survived the war, we often see people standing still, their faces frozen in the shadow of history. But there’s one photo that haunts me. A little boy, in the shadow of a line of soldiers, reaches for a cup. The cup is empty, like the entire future that has been taken from him.
Treblinka, 1943. A camp where silence was more terrifying than screams. A place where children grew older in a single day, and mothers had to choose between comfort and silence. In this world devoid of hope, a soldier mocked the child. He handed him an empty cup—a gesture so simple, yet so cruel.
The boy didn’t cry. He didn’t beg. He took the cup in both hands, as if it were the most precious treasure. He looked at the guard and whispered words that were later repeated with trepidation:
“I’ll keep it… for my mother when she gets back.”
How great must his hunger be for even emptiness to become something salvageable? How immense must his longing be to believe his mother would return to fill that cup?
Years later, when Treblinka was nothing but a field of silence and ashes, archaeologists found the cup. Bent, scratched, but still there. On its surface was the imprint of a hand—perhaps a guard’s, perhaps a boy’s. No one knows. But its very presence was a testament. Not to a scream, not to a number, but to a single story that should never be lost.
This child’s story has no ending, because no one saw him afterward. We don’t know his name. We don’t know if he was still alive a day, an hour, or a minute after this scene. But we do know that for a split second, he had something that belonged only to him—an empty cup and the memory of his mother.
Some 900,000 people died in Treblinka. Each of them had a name, a face, a story. But in the shadow of this vast number, it’s easy to forget that there were also small, everyday heroes—children who were able to find a modicum of meaning even in emptiness.
The empty cup became a symbol. A symbol of a longing that nothing could quench. A symbol of hope that existed despite logic. A symbol of a world brutally interrupted.
When I look at this photo, I feel not only sadness but also a gaping hole. Because the next part is missing. I want to know what happened to the boy. Did he have the chance to look up at the sky again? Did he have the strength to sing himself a lullaby before silence fell?
But perhaps it is precisely in this emptiness that truth lies. For the history of the Holocaust is a history of interrupted sentences, unfinished endings, and broken memories. The boy with the cup thus becomes the voice of all the children who were never able to finish their story.
When archaeologists held this cup in their hands, they held more than just a piece of metal. They held proof that even the smallest gesture can endure for centuries. That amidst the ruins and ashes, the echo of a child’s voice can be found: “I’ll save it for my mother…”
And we, today, are the ones who must listen to this voice. We cannot silence it. We cannot allow it to become just a footnote in a book. This boy is not an anonymous shadow. He is a witness. He is a remorse. He is an empty cup still waiting to be filled—not with water, but with memory.
Treblinka today is a place of remembrance. The grass obscures the ash, and the stones stand like silent witnesses. But if you come closer, if you listen to the silence, you will hear something more than just the wind. You will hear the echo of footsteps, the whisper of a child, the clatter of an empty cup on the ground.
We don’t know what the boy’s eyes looked like. We don’t know what his voice sounded like. But we do know that he held something within him that no cruelty could destroy—a hope for his mother’s return. A hope so strong that the empty cup became its vessel.
I look at this cup and see not just a child, but an entire nation waiting for someone to return, for someone to listen. Emptiness doesn’t always mean absence. Sometimes it means a promise we haven’t had time to fulfill.
So perhaps our task is precisely this: to fill that cup with memory, compassion, and care. With every word we speak today, every moment we pause in silence, we fill it anew.
The story of the boy from Treblinka does not end in 1943. It lives on in each of us who remember it. It lives on in museums, in books, in the silence of cemeteries, but above all in the hearts of those who do not allow it to disappear.
We don’t know if the boy’s mother ever truly returned. But we do know that his words—spoken in whispers, with childlike faith—have returned to us like an echo. And we are now his answer.
The empty cup is full. Full of our memories.
