"There was an SS man who, for his horrible crimes, one day, at dawn, was taken to the gallows. He still had about fifty steps left to the point of execution, which took place in the same courtyard as the prison. During this crossing his eye, by chance, landed on the crumbling wall of the courtyard, where one of those wind-sown flowers had blossomed, which grow where it happens and - it would seem - with air and rubble. It was a miserable little flower, made up of four purple petals and a pair of pale leaves, but in that first rising light the SS saw it, with its splendor, all the beauty and happiness of the universe and thought [...] "If I could go back and stop the time, I would be ready to spend my whole life in adoration of that little flower" [ that little flower proposed to the man who built and saw Auschwitz, as if he were opening his eyes in that instant, all the drama of the existence of things; and he cannot avoid seeing and perceiving in himself that the most convenient thing would be to spend his entire life in the adoration of that little flower]. Then, as if doubling, he heard his own voice within himself, [...] crying out to him: "In truth I tell you: for this last thought you had on the verge of death, you will be saved from hell" [except for this, not because he will not be condemned; but because he recovers all the real. In fact, hell is this detachment from reality, so you remain isolated from everything and everyone. The guard felt how again, for the first time, this bond, the connection with reality was recomposed, and for this reason his life can be saved].