I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree (12 page)

The moment he said that, I knew what this was all about. His voice rose to a new pitch: “Barrack six, on your knees. Put your heads down.”

The ground was soft from recent rain. My knees sank deeper and deeper into the mud; the blood drained to my head. Yet I dared not look up for fear of being punished by the guards.

Our release came many hours later, in the morning, when the whistle for roll call sounded. There was still no sign of Fella.

Weeks passed, and still we remained in Budzyn. No one knew for sure what had happened to Fella. But by putting the rumors together, a picture emerged. Evidently, her friendship with the German soldier had been discovered, and the two had been punished for it. The soldier had been sent back to the Russian front; Fella had been beaten to death. The thought of my friend's horrible end was heartbreaking for me. I missed her so much. Day after day I cried for her.

I saw Dick only occasionally. He still had not recovered from the beating, but the bruises on his face looked less fierce now.

One evening he arrived at our meeting place carrying something bulky under his coat. “A present for you,” he said. When he pulled out a pair of black boots and told me to put them on, I cried with joy at the prospect of having warm feet. The look on his face soon dampened my spirits.

“This might be the last thing I can do for you, little one,” he said. “I wish it didn't have to be. I have never met anyone like you. The little village we lived in didn't have very many girls but sometimes my older brother, Isio, took me along on his dates after we left the village to live in a big city. His friends were idealists, full of hope for a better tomorrow. Long after I was inducted into the army, they still sang their songs about freedom.”

I had not seen or heard him like this before, so sorrowful, so melancholic.

“I often think about Isio and his friends and wonder where they are,” he continued. “My mother, my sisters, God only knows what happened to them!”

“Is this . . . farewell?” I asked, fearful of his answer.

“For now it is. But I promise I will find you, wherever you are.”

•   •   •

When SS units surrounded the camp to seal it and we were ordered to the place of assembly, I knew we were leaving. My back stiffened and my legs cramped up. I wanted to remember where this terrible place was so I could come back one day to visit Selly's grave. The thought of my young brother in a mass grave started me sobbing. I struggled to control myself.

The loudspeaker blared out orders as the first column of prisoners marched out of the gate. I turned one more time to look for Dick, but he was nowhere in sight. Guards hurried me toward the station and the waiting cattle cars, a painful reminder of my trip from Weimar with Mama and my brothers.

The train moved through the night, its wheels clanking monotonously on the rails.
The crammed car offered no comforts. When morning came and the first rays of light entered through the cracks, the train stopped.

We had reached the next station along our journey through hell.

SS men unbolted the cattle cars, ordering us to jump out. One of them, a burly man, was about to strike me on the head for not obeying fast enough. I put my hands up to protect myself.

“Get your hands down, you pig!” he yelled, hitting me hard.

I held back the tears welling up. The pain was intense and so was the nagging hunger. There had been no food or water on the train. If Fella were here, she would have uttered a wisecrack to make light of this situation. How I missed her.

A sign at the station announced that this was Wieliczka, home of the Polish salt mines.
Terrified of what was in store for us next, I spotted Untersturmführer Liebholt. Arrogant as ever, he stood before us, legs spread apart.

“The easy days of Budzyn are over for you. Here you'll learn what the word
work
means. I will keep you working in the mines until you beg to come out. The sight of you offends me. You smell like swine!”

He went on with his ravings, but I stopped listening to him. He was trying to break our morale—or what was left of it.

I noticed that only five of the cars had been uncoupled. The rest of the train had not been touched. It soon left the station. And so it was that only a few hundred of us were marched up the mountains, where wildflowers bloomed. It was a pretty sight, especially after the drab Budzyn camp, and it felt good to breathe fresh air.

This camp was different. The absence of barbed-wire fences and watchtowers was a welcome change. The men's and women's barracks were adjacent to each other and
allowed for conversation and some kind of friendship, and there was more room on the bunks. I headed for the washroom and discovered there was water, plenty of it. I drank to my heart's content.

I walked around the camp looking for Dick. Before long I encountered one of the Polish prisoners of war. My hopes soared. If this man was here, so too might be all the rest of the POWs.

“Where can I find Hillman?” I asked him.

“I don't know,” he answered. “Only four hundred of us are needed here, and only for a few months. We will be replaced by Polish laborers when they return from working in Germany.”

“Surely Hillman is here. Are you trying to tease me?”

“Don't be absurd. Why would I tease you?”

The man proceeded to tell me that the rest of our transport had gone on to a camp called Plaszow. We would be going there too as soon
as our work here was finished. In the meantime I should be glad to be here. As bad as Liebholt was, the commandant in Plaszow was much worse, the soldier said. He went on to warn me to be careful when I went down in the mines. It was dark and easy to get lost there.

“Once, when I was a young boy, my father brought me here. He did business in this area. I was taken down into a mine. At the time it was an adventure. Now . . .”

Slowly, I walked back to the women's barrack. I felt alone and unprotected without Dick. An angry
Blockälteste
greeted me. “Where have you been?” she snapped.

“I was searching for a friend,” I answered.

“Liebholt was looking for you. He got mad at me when I couldn't find you.”

I felt the blood draining from my face. “Liebholt? Why was he looking for me?”

“You'll be working for him. His mistress wants a German-speaking maid. Report to his residence tomorrow morning.”

Having to come face-to-face with this evil man nearly made me reel. I begged the
Blockälteste
to pick someone else.

“Are you crazy? Going against Liebholt's orders is like signing your own death warrant.”

All night long the vision of Liebholt dogged me. Unable to sleep, I pretended that I was still home with Mama and Papa and that it was the month of May. The lilac tree in our yard was in bloom, its branches so full that they curved downward under their heavy burden. Mama had pruning shears in her hand, while I held a crystal vase to be filled with the heavily scented lilacs. Papa, Wolfgang, and Selly sat on a bench nearby, planning Mama's birthday party. I knew it was all a fantasy, but it helped me cope with my anxiety.

Early the next morning I went to the washroom. No one was there. It was such a relief to not have to push myself through hundreds of women to get near the basin before the water stopped coming. I washed myself at
leisure and felt cleaner than I had in a long time.

As I walked across the lawn to my new job I nervously adjusted and readjusted the faded print dress I had been given to wear.

Liebholt and his mistress lived in one of the villas across from the camp. I found it right away:
JOSEPH LIEBHOLT, THIRD FLOOR
. Upon entering the house, I noticed a faded mark on the doorpost. I knew what it meant. The mark showed the place where a mezuzah had once hung—a small box that contains scrolled verses from the Bible. Jews all over the world placed a mezuzah at the entrance to their houses. A shiver went through my body as I realized I was entering a Jewish house, now occupied by a Nazi.

How well I remembered the mezuzah that had hung on our doorpost. Before leaving Weimar, Mama had insisted we remove the box. “The Nazis will desecrate it,” she had said.

I had dug a hole in the ground, wrapped the
mezuzah in one of Papa's linen handkerchiefs, and buried it. I wondered if the people who had lived here had done the same.

The house was well cared for except for a wall in the stairwell where the wallpaper had been ripped off and empty bottles were embedded in hollowed-out holes in the wall. The former residents must have tried to hide their valuables in those bottles. However well hidden, the Nazis had obviously discovered them.

My hand was barely off the buzzer to the third-floor residence when Liebholt, dressed in a maroon gown, opened the door. Without his uniform he looked different but no less formidable.

“I am Hannelore Wolff,” I said, making my voice sound strong. “The
Blockälteste
sent me.”

Liebholt motioned me inside, where I was left standing for some time. Laughter came through the door, and I was sure it was about me. Liebholt reappeared in a few minutes in his Nazi uniform. “Your mistress is waiting for you,” he said.

Fräulein Liselotte did not bid me hello. Her first words were “There is no hot water on the third floor, so you'll have to fetch it from the cellar. You'll find two pails in the kitchen. And hurry, I'm late for the club.”

Pails in hand, I went down the three flights of stairs to the boiler room. I made many trips up and down until the tub was filled.

“Hold the towel for me,” my mistress ordered.

After bathing and perfuming herself, the fräulein demanded her breakfast. I had never made coffee in my life and didn't know much about preparing bacon and eggs. I had never even seen bacon before. The fräulein scolded me a few times, asking why it took so long.

Finally my mistress was off to the club, leaving me with instructions about cleaning the apartment and getting dinner ready. I worked hard that day, yet she was not pleased. Upon her return she found fault with almost everything. After a few days of similar
incidents she took her complaints to the
Untersturmführer
.

“The girl is insolent,” I heard her say. “By the time she brings the last of the bathwater, my bath is already cold.”

The next morning Liebholt ordered me to go down to the boiler room to bring the bathwater up. I walked as fast as I could with a pail in each hand. Up and down I went. On my third trip up he was waiting for me at the top of the stairs, placing himself in my way and deliberately tripping me. I stood in a puddle of water. My dress and shoes were soaked.

“You idiot, I told you to bring
hot
water. Look at you—you're not scalded as I expected you to be. You defied my orders.”

I was on the verge of crying but managed to say, “I can explain, Herr Untersturmführer—”

“I didn't ask for explanations! All I want from you is to obey orders. Do your work or I will throw you out this window.”

I worked throughout the day, my wet clothes
clinging to my body. I removed my shoes and walked in bare feet. When Fräulein Liselotte left for the club, I could have taken some of the leftover food to eat, but I was no longer hungry. At the end of the day I was dismissed.

•   •   •

The next day I started working in the mines. The crew I was assigned to went down the deep shaft in an elevator. Save for some flickering blue lights the mine was dark, and it took my eyes some time to get used to the darkness. I was cold and shivered in my thin dress.

I lingered behind the others, not knowing where to look first. The place was unreal. It was designed to look like an underground park, with lakes and walkways and carefully planted shrubbery. The huge walls—salt walls—looked as majestic as mountains. I was totally absorbed in my observations when I suddenly remembered what the Polish prisoner of war had told me: how easy it was to get lost in a mine. I hurried to join the rest of my group.

Just as I was about to pick up a shovel someone was handing me, I saw a spine-chilling creature dressed in black emerge from behind a trapdoor. My screams pierced the mine, echoing throughout. But I was the only one screaming; the others were used to the appearance of the foreman.

It was damp in the mine. Some of us worked, assembling parts for Germany's airplane industry. Others, like me, shoveled salt onto trucks. It took its toll. Adding to my fatigue was a constant pain under my rib cage. At first I attributed it to sore muscles, but when I was unable to eat, I knew it had to be something more serious.

One day the overseer saw me doubling over with pain. He wanted to know what was wrong. I hastened to say that it was nothing. But the truth was that the pain had been intensifying more and more each day. Afraid of going to the camp's infirmary, where I knew I wouldn't be safe, I decided to confide in a Jewish doctor
who worked in the mine giving first aid.

Dr. Weiss was a kind man. He listened to my complaint, examined my eyes, and noted the color of my skin.

“What you describe sounds like a gallbladder condition,” he said. “Under ordinary circumstances I would say you're too young for that, but living in camps as long as you have, anything is possible. A proper diet and not having to work underground in a salt mine would be my first recommendation. We both know that is not possible. Let me talk to the foreman. We understand each other. I'll ask him to let you work in the airplane factory down here. It will be easier than shoveling salt onto trucks.”

The work in the factory part of the mine was indeed easier but still a struggle. It took as much will-power as I could muster to make it through each day.

Our provisions came from Plaszow since Wieliczka was a subcamp of Plaszow. Occasionally, letters were smuggled in with
the provisions. One day I received a note from Dick telling me how lucky I was to be in Wieliczka and instructing me not to volunteer to come to Plaszow just because he was there.
If you thought Feix was bad
, he wrote,
wait till you meet Amon Goeth. He is a sadist of the worst kind
.