Lilac Girls (30 page)

How could Suhren be so naïve? There would be no
leniency.
If Germany lost the war, the victors would not exactly be lining up asking who had objected to what. Suhren would head straight for the gallows.

“Do you think the world will look kindly on that walking evidence of what went on here? Commandant, you will be held responsible no matter what you say. Me too.”

Suhren looked out his window over the camp below.

“How do we find them?
Häftlings
are not going by their real numbers anymore.” His eyes were bloodshot. Had he been drinking? “At
Appell,
they just slip away. They exchange numbers with the dead.”

I stepped closer to him. “Most should be in Block 31—or hiding underneath. With the new facility—”

“Please, Oberheuser…”

Suhren didn't like to talk about the new facility, and certainly no one spoke the word
gas.
His new staff members, just arrived from Auschwitz, had helped him cobble together a makeshift facility in an old painter's shed next to the
Krema.
Not fine workmanship but it would make the whole business of silencing the Rabbits much simpler.

“I will have Binz secure that block and then call
Appell,
” said Suhren. “You will personally see to it that each Rabbit is caught.”

It was about time.

“Are you giving me permission to—”

“Do what you need to, Doctor. Just make sure no trace of them is found.”

O
n August 25, Roger phoned me up at The Hay and said the Free French and American troops were at the outskirts of Paris.

We were back in business.

It was a Saturday, so traffic was light as I drove into the city with the gas pedal to the floor, screeching by cars on the Taconic Parkway, until I saw blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror. Once I told the baby-faced officer the circumstances, he turned on his flashing lights and escorted me to the consulate.

In Roger's office, we grabbed information from every source we could. We read telegrams and cables and listened to the radio all at once. When our troops made it to the Arc de Triomphe, we were overcome with joy and on the phone with Bordeaux and London. The U.S. troops, accompanied by General De Gaulle and the Free French army, marched into Paris from the south, along the Champs-Elysées in jeeps and on foot. Hordes of Parisians surged into the streets shouting,
“Vive la France!”
People streamed out of their homes, frantic with the joy of liberation, even while German snipers and tanks still fired here and there. Soon the Germans waved white flags of surrender from behind their bunkers, restaurateurs brought their last few bottles of champagne out of the cellars, and Paris went mad with happiness.

Later that day we watched from Roger's office as Lily Pons, the Metropolitan Opera star, sang “La Marseillaise” to thirty thousand people gathered below us on Rockefeller Plaza to celebrate the victory.

We all agreed it was just a matter of time before Hitler capitulated and Berlin fell. The Allies would liberate all of the concentration camps. I sent telegrams and letters to possible repatriation centers across France inquiring about Paul. How would he get back to Paris?

T
HOUGH
F
RANCE HAD BEEN LIBERATED,
the war dragged on. I sat at the dining room table up at The Hay the following April, still in my pajamas, writing a press release for orphans in freed France:
These common things are most urgently needed in France TODAY: Rice. Sweetened cocoa. Powdered whole milk. Dried fruits. Tea and coffee for older children are next in importance….

How long had it been since I'd had that first letter from Paul? None of my inquiries had borne fruit. One last snowstorm had hit Bethlehem, but even winter was tired of winter, and quiet flakes covered the crusty snow in the yard like white flannel. Terrible snowball snow, Father would have called it.

Serge threw the mail he'd picked up from the post office onto the half-moon table near the front door with a thump and went about shoveling the front walk.

I made tea in the kitchen as the afternoon grew dark. On my way back to the dining room, I flipped through the mail stack. I found the usual envelopes. A flyer for Mother's annual spring Bethlehem Horse Show, held on Ferriday Field behind our house to benefit the library. The monthly Elmwood Farm milk bill. An invitation to a handbell concert at the grange.

One envelope stopped me in my tracks. It was ecru just like the others he had sent, addressed in Paul's handwriting—somewhat less crisp and strong, but unmistakably his. The return address read,
Hôtel Lutetia, 45, boulevard Raspail.

My hands shook as I ripped the side of the envelope and read the letter's contents.

I grabbed my boots from the kitchen, threw Mother's coat on over my pajamas, and ran across the front yard to Merrill Brothers General Store, cracking through the top crusty layer of snow with each step. I bounded up the stairs and found Mother standing near a wall of shelves with Mr. Merrill, a clear bottle of witch hazel in her hand. They separated, startled.

Mr. Merrill smiled when I entered, a porcupine of keys at his waist.

“Caroline. How've you been—”

“Not now, Mr. Merrill,” I said, grabbing the doorjamb as I tried to catch my breath. Though generally a concise man, handsome Mr. Merrill would discuss the pros and cons of the paper grocery bag ad infinitum if even slightly encouraged.

Mother turned. “Good Lord, what is it, dear?”

Unable to catch my breath, I waved the envelope.

Mother stepped to the door. “Close this, Caroline. For goodness sakes, what is wrong with you?”

“It's from Paul. He's at…”

“At where, dear?”

“The Hôtel Lutetia.”

“Why didn't you say so, Caroline?” she said, handing the witch hazel back to Mr. Merrill. “We'll go tomorrow.”

After all, our bags had been packed for months.

B
eauty Road was no longer beautiful come February 1945. The Germans used the window boxes and many of the linden trees for firewood. The road's black slag was covered with frozen slush, and snow was still piled high about the camp, a layer of ash collected atop it—fallout from the furnaces. The cage of exotic animals was long gone.

I dodged groups of women out braving the cold, some in gangs, some wandering alone. On Sundays, Beauty Road teemed with a rowdy jumble of women of all nationalities, some carrying a rinsed pair of bloomers or a uniform shift between them, airing it out to dry. The camp had become impossibly crowded as the Red Army pushed west across Poland and transports of prisoners the Germans evacuated from concentration camps like Auschwitz and Majdanek arrived hourly. We soon had prisoners from twenty-two countries. Poles were still by far the largest group, but we now had among us British prisoners, Chinese, Americans. Everyone knew Himmler kept many of his
Prominente,
special prisoners, in the bunker, including an American pilot who'd been found near Ravensbrück, having parachuted from his failing plane.

Though most of us wore the same blue and gray striped uniforms, we could guess a prisoner's nationality by the way she wore hers. You could always tell a French girl. Each tied her kerchief in a unique, charming way, and they all sewed chic little bags called
bautli
from organized scraps to hold their mess kits. Some even stitched little white collars onto their uniform shifts and made lovely bows from rags. The Russian prisoners, many of them Red Army nurses and doctors captured on the battlefield, were unmistakable as well. They were a disciplined group and all wore their camp uniforms in exactly the same way. Each had kept her Russian-issued leather army boots and wore the camp head scarf tied in a perfect square knot at the nape of her neck.

It was easy to recognize newly arrived prisoners to the camp. Once camp authorities ran out of uniforms, new prisoners wore a crazy assortment of mismatched clothing taken from the booty piles. They looked like exotic birds in their parrot frocks, as we called them, a gaudy mix of ruffled skirts and bright blouses. Some were lucky enough to find warm men's jackets, all chalked by camp staff with a big white Saint Andrew's cross across the back in case the wearer escaped.

Two Russian girls stood at their makeshift store between Blocks 29 and 31, where one could buy a sweater or stockings or a comb, for the price of a bread ration. Their lookout stood close by, alert for signs of Binz.

Rumor was, Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of New York City's Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was our fellow prisoner. A group of female British paratroopers captured by the SS in France too. Charles de Gaulle's niece Geneviève. And everyone knew Himmler's own sister had been a Ravensbrück prisoner, arrested for race defilement—relations with a Polish man. The girls in the front office said even she was not spared the twenty-five lashes that came with her sentence.

Binz turned up the music that was playing throughout the camp even higher and pelted us with war songs and marches. I looked to the sky as three planes flew overhead—German. I could tell by the sound of the engines and the lack of an air-raid siren.

The previous summer we'd heard about the Normandy invasion thanks to Herr Fenstermacher, but no one needed to tell us Germany was rapidly losing the war. The signs were everywhere. Daily air raids. Shorter
Appells.
Fewer work details.

The Nazis were giving up.

They did not give up killing us, though. The windowless black transport buses came to the blocks with new urgency. Fat Dr. Winkelmann in his long leather coat and his partner old Nurse Marschall prowled the camp, looking for sick prisoners to mark down for the buses.

Sick women hid everywhere to escape: under the blocks, above the ceilings, behind the coal bins. Zuzanna invented a method of scraping the arms of women arriving from evacuated Auschwitz to cause their tattooed skin to appear infected to hide their blue numbers. Everyone in the camp continued to hide the Rabbits when roll call came. Some even traded numbers with us at great peril to themselves.

Rumors flew. A prisoner-nurse told Zuzanna that out at the former youth camp, the
Jugendlager,
not ten minutes away from camp by truck, they were sending in older women restricted from work. The food was more filling, and there was no roll call. Could it be true?

Early that evening I was given permission to go to the administration building and collect a package addressed to me. I left the block, happy I could finally walk without my crutch, but before long, Karol, a
Jules
from the Netherlands, caught me by the arm and pulled me into the shadows.

My heart contracted. I was wary of most every
Jules,
for this was a new sort of character that emerged in the last year of the camp. Usually a German prisoner with a green or black triangle, a
Jules
would gather a man's sport coat, trousers, and even men's underpants from the booty piles, cut her hair in a masculine way, and swagger about the camp with a cigarette and a nasty attitude. Some would use a blade to carve an
X,
called a “cow's cross,” into the forehead of a girl they liked, marking her as theirs. The
Jules
were not all bad. I knew several nice ones, and it was often an advantage for a girl to go steady with a
Jules,
for it meant protection and food, but the objects of their affections were powerless to refuse since a
Jules
always had connections in high places. They could starve a girl if she did not cooperate.

“They are doing another selection next door,” Karol said. “Let's take a walk.”

We walked away from the truck, taking the long way to the administration building, but I glanced back and saw Winkelmann and Nurse Marschall loading women onto one of the windowless black vans. A death transport. Neither of us had to say it: Anyone caught close to that hurricane could have been swept up for no good reason.

As terrifying as some
Jules
were, Karol may have saved my life that day. Once the danger was over, I thanked her and continued on my way.

I soon passed a long white canvas tent set up for a group of newly arrived prisoners in an open area just off Beauty Road. The camp had become so horribly crowded, and the transports kept coming from all countries. Suhren set up these tents right in the middle of camp. This one was so jam-packed with women and children that they were barely able to sit down under there. Many stood, trying to soothe their babies.

“Kasia,” someone called. I turned, surprised to hear my name.

I didn't recognize her at first in the shadows under the tent, for her face was drawn and gaunt and her short blond hair gray with dust.

Nadia.

She sat on an old suitcase, and a woman lay next to her with her head in Nadia's lap. Nadia stroked the woman's brow and murmured something to her. I watched for a second to make sure it was her and then walked closer to the tent, just out of sight of the
Aufseherin.

“Nadia?”
I said. Was this a hallucination?

She looked up as if her head was too heavy for her neck.

“Kasia,” she said, her breath a puff of white steam. How beautiful my name sounded when she said it. She put one hand out to stop me from coming closer.

“We just saw a girl dragged away for talking to us. Plus half of us have typhus. Be careful.”

I took a step toward her. What a happy day this was! How quickly could I get her to our block?

“How long have you been here?” I asked quietly, so the guards would not hear.

“We just arrived last night from Auschwitz. They said we are going to the youth camp. There is shelter there.”

“When?”

“I don't know,” she said, looking down at the woman in her lap. “We're all so thirsty, and she needs a place to die in peace.”

“Nadia, come quickly. I can hide you.”

“I can't leave her.”

“Someone else can tend to her.” I stepped closer.

“You don't recognize her, do you? It's my mother, Kasia. I would never leave her.”

Mrs. Watroba.
How had they been caught?

“Come,” I said. I knew I could hide them both.

“I know what you are thinking, my friend, but I am staying here with my Matka
.
”

“What can I get for you?”

Binz's guards began waving prisoners into the truck.

“Nothing. Don't worry. We'll all be back in Lublin before you know it. Back with Pietrik. He will be happy to see you.” She said this with a real smile. The old Nadia.

“It's you he loves,” I said.

“Do you know how many times he asked me if you liked him? Hey—I left the book for you before I went. In the spot. You'll love chapter five.”

“I think the spot may be long gone, but we'll both check it together when we get back.”

“Yes.”

Nadia gasped, one fist to her chest, her gaze fixed on my bad leg. One of the mismatched woolen men's socks I'd traded some of our toothpaste for had slid down to reveal it—by then healed, but withered and shrunken, missing whole tendons and bones, the skin shiny and taut. “My God, Kasia, what happened to your leg?” Water came to her eyes.

To be crying for me while in her situation? This was a good friend.

“I'll tell you later, but now I can get you a drink—I have a bit of rainwater saved.”

Nadia smiled again. “Always resourceful, Kasia. Matka would love that.”

“I'll be right back,” I said and set off back to my block.

My leg slowed my progress, and by the time I returned with the water, the guards were loading the last of the prisoners into the open truck. They closed the back gate and banged twice on it, and the truck started off down Beauty Road.

Nadia.
It had been like medicine to see her! Would she be safe at the youth camp? I'd never heard of anyone going there from Ravensbrück before. I said a prayer that what I'd heard about the new camp there was true. Was God even listening to prayers from us?

The truck continued down Beauty Road, and tears came to my eyes as I caught a glimpse of Nadia cradling her mother.

“I'll see you soon, Nadia,” I called, running as best I could after the truck.

She craned her neck above the crowd, smiled, and raised her hand.

I watched the truck rumble off, the red taillights a blur. I wiped the tears away. Were they really going to a safe place? It was hard to believe anything the Germans told us, but no matter what, the Danish girls in the front office said the Russians would be arriving soon to liberate the whole camp. At least Nadia and her mother would have shelter. Nadia was the strongest person I knew.

I hurried on to the administration building to pick up my package, darkness descending on the camp. A family of rats, big as cats, walked across the road ahead of me, no longer afraid of people. I claimed my bundle at the postal window and glanced at the return address:
Lublin Postal Center,
Lublin, Poland,
written in Papa's hand. I opened it as I walked back down the hallway, my wooden clogs echoing on the polished floor, and pulled out another spool of red thread.

I never tired of seeing that. He'd sent two more since the first. Had Papa gotten word out to the world? If we were to die before the camp was liberated, at least everyone would know what happened, and the Germans would be punished for what they'd done. His packages had helped Zuzanna with her dysentery, but she'd then caught something else going block to block to doctor other prisoners. Headache, chills, fever. From the rash on her arms alone, we both knew what it was: typhus. Nothing but liberation could help with that.

I passed the desk of Brit Christiansen, a Danish girl I knew, one of many Scandinavian prisoners who worked the front office. She was tall with a short blond bob and a pretty constellation of beige moles scattered down her cheek. I'd never even met a Danish person before the camp and now found they were among my favorite people. Gentle. Trustworthy. Kind.