Outcasts (20 page)

"Let's play a silent game," Suti said to his sister. "When you see something and you want me to find out what it is, squeeze my hand and I will try to guess what you are thinking of."

Icuka smiled, pleased that, finally, someone had agreed to play with her. Within a minute she squeezed Suti's hand. He guessed a bluebird on a tree. Icuka was amazed at his quick guess. He had secretly been admiring it, wishing he could be that bird and just fly away. The game continued. Suti was soon tired of the game. He told Icuka to count a hundred cobblestones in between guesses. The cobblestones were close to one another, in an arched, half-circle repeating pattern. It would take her time to count them. She looked at him sadly but reluctantly obeyed and began counting in groups of tens.

As the long row of people slowly made its way down Vasut utca (Railroad Street), Suti noticed that nearly every one of the houses they passed had their shutters pulled completely down. The street was devoid of people. No cars or horse-drawn carts were moving. The sun's rays beat down on the row of neat, whitewashed houses and the sun-bleached cobblestones of the old street and seemed to melt both together, transforming everything into a scene of translucent white.

The family seemed to be just around the corner from the train station when the long line came to a halt, inching forward only every once in a while. They were in front of the Liga, an old medieval-looking school structure that had been an orphanage for as long as anyone could remember. Suti could see that a table had been set up in the street.

Behind it were three chairs where two men and one woman were busy writing. As they inched closer, Suti could see his teacher, Ortutay bacsi, sitting at one of the chairs. As the line snaked over to the table, each family was assigned one of the three stenographers. Suti was pleased when they were assigned to Ortutay bacsi. He really liked his teacher.

His father, Vilmos, gave him the information: the family's last name, their address, the names of the members of the family in line and dates of their births. Suti stood next to his father as his name and date of birth were being given. He looked for some sign of recognition from this teacher he loved, but Ortutay bacsi kept his head down as he wrote and seemed to be totally concentrated on what he was writing.

After he wrote Suti's name and address down, Ortutay stopped, put down his pen, then, methodically, took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes with his hands, and wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. He did not greet Suti or look at him. Suti tried to imagine how hot it must be just sitting there at the table writing all day. He felt sympathy for Ortutay bacsi.

The line continued to crawl at a snail's pace. Icuka was quiet now, trying to catch the eye of a child near them. Suddenly, there was a bit of commotion behind them and a small group of people, some of whom Suti recognized from the ghetto, walked by. Icuka recognized Hedy in the group and ran to her.

"Hedy, Hedy, thank God you're here!" cried Icuka, grabbing her sister by the waist and hugging her. Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed her older sister's hand. "Where were you? I missed you!"

No one else asked Hedy anything.

Aliz glanced at her with a worried expression. Hedy looked relieved, but her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. Suti was so happy his sister was back with them. He saw Tibor, dressed in uniform, following right behind Hedy. Tibor greeted everyone and smiled.

He was pushing a bicycle and there was a very official-looking black leather bag in it that looked like the kind of bag a doctor carried. Suti noticed it had "T.S." engraved in fancy lettering on the top, next to the lock.

The line was moving a bit better now and they were heading toward the only train standing at the station. The long line of open cattle cars standing on the railway tracks couldn't be waiting for them, Suti thought - they were for transporting animals. But he could see that those people in the front of the line were already being herded into the cars.

Tibor stayed with them as they were loaded onto one of the cars. "Sixty. Seventy. Eighty." Suti heard the guard counting every tenth person as he ordered them into one of the boxcars.

Inside, it felt very cramped. The air was still and there was hardly any room to stand, let alone sit or lie down. Suti was incredibly thirsty. When their car was full, the guard began rolling the heavy, steel, windowless door down in order to slam it shut. But before he could, Tibor spoke to him quietly, discretely, pulling a bottle of vodka out of his briefcase and handed it to him. The guard looked at the bottle then, without glancing at Tibor or saying a single word, he put the vodka into his pants pocket and moved on. Their door stayed open. Another set of guards came by and handed them two buckets: one was empty and the other was full of water. When they saw Tibor standing at the door, they didn't question why the door was still open. They just handed in the buckets and walked on.

Tibor pulled more surprises and treats out of the leather-bound case: a bottle of wine, glasses for Hedy, father, Aliz, and himself, bread and cheese, candy and apples for Icuka and himself. Where could he have stored all these goodies? Hedy sat with her legs dangling over the edge of the doorway and Tibor stood by her side. They leaned in close together and talked and talked. Suti could hardly hear a word - no one could, they were talking in such low tones. What could they be talking about for so long? he wondered.

For the next six hours, the train just stood and waited in the blazing, late-May sunshine. As the hot afternoon wore on, Suti heard cries from the other boxcars.

"Water, water. Please, we're dying of thirst." The guards watched, unmoved.

"We can't breathe. Please, open the boxcar. My wife is suffocating." But all the other cattle cars remained closed.

The tar on the train tracks seemed to melt from the heat. No other trains came and went. Late in the afternoon, the train whistle blew. Tibor leaned in close to Hedy. He seemed to be saying something very serious to her now. Finally, he took a small white book out of his briefcase and handed it to her. She took the book in one hand, put her other arm around his neck, and hugged him. Suti saw tears rolling down her face. The guard came over and motioned for Tibor to step away. The door had to be closed. Tibor took Hedy's hand in his and gently kissed it, then, reluctantly, he stepped away from the train. There were tears in his eyes.

Hedy stood up and the door rolled shut and was sealed from the outside. Slowly, it rumbled out of the train station.

Tibor stood and watched as the billows of white smoke from the steam engine became smaller and smaller. Even long after the train disappeared, he remained there, staring into the distance, as tears of disbelief and grief rolled down his cheeks.

T
HE TRAIN OF CATTLE
cars pulled into its final destination of Auschwitz-Birkenau. From the moment it came to a final stop, Suti was in shock, stunned by the series of unbelievable events taking place around him.

For almost three days, Suti, his sisters, and his father, along with some seventy others, had sat scrunched back to back, side to side in the dark cattle car. As the train had pulled out of Nagyszollos, tears were rolling down Hedy's face but, once she stopped crying, she showed Suti the little, white, leather-bound book Tibor had given her. Through the thin stream of light coming in the opening at the top of the boxcar, he could see the book was full of beautiful pictures. Hedy explained to him that this was Tibor's prayer book. As she tenderly stroked the soft leather cover, she told Suti that she and Tibor were in love. They were secretly engaged. Once the war was over, she confided, they would be married. It took Suti a while to absorb everything she told him, but he was happy for his sister.

T
HE NEXT THREE DAYS
were like a nightmare. The cattle car had a small opening at the top (ten to twelve inches maximum) that ran along the uppermost sides of the car; it was the only place light and fresh air could come in. No one was tall enough to see out of the opening so, each time the cattle car slowed down for a station, some of the men lifted Suti up on their shoulders so he could read the station sign and tell them what he saw. People were anxious to find out where they were and what direction they were going. At one point Suti realized that the language on the signposts had changed. The place names were now written in what was Slovak or Polish - Suti wasn't sure which. But he read the names out dutifully, hoping that one of their fellow passengers would recognize where they were.

Suti and Hedy tried to keep up appearances for the sake of twelve-year-old Icuka. They told her stories during the dark and terrifying journey, reassured her that they were going to a place called Waldsee and that there would be a playground there and a beautiful lake where they would go swimming. In the dark, Hedy and Suti took turns comforting her, quietly talking and singing songs.

It smelled dreadful inside the cattle car. The bucket that was provided for waste had filled up by the second day and people started relieving themselves wherever they could. As the train slowed down and lurched forward on the journey, the contents of the bucket splattered and spilled out. Their fresh water was gone and so was the little food they had packed. There were whispers that an elderly man had died on the second day but they couldn't see because it was too crowded to stand and walk around. Suti lost track of time. As the train pulled into a station on the third day, he hoped this would be their final stop on what seemed like a never-ending journey.

The cattle cars were sealed from the outside with heavy iron latches. Everyone inside sat in silence, listening to the terrifying sounds coming closer to them. It sounded like a series of shotguns going off right outside their door. Suti soon realized the noise was the smashing of a sledgehammer against the latches, unsealing the doors from the outside. When their door rolled back, the sudden burst of sunlight was blinding and felt like a lid being lifted from a coffin. Suti had to cover his eyes. Almost immediately, uniformed SS guards began barking at them, shouting in a language Suti couldn't understand. "
Raus! Raus! Schnell! Schnell! Raus, schnell!
" ("Get Out! Get Out! Fast! Fast! Out fast!") Many of the adults in the cattle car could hardly move, their legs and backs stiff from days of sitting in the same cramped position. Suti saw many of them struggling to stand up, trying to collect themselves and their belongings. Everyone seemed to be shouting at them.

Suti looked at his sister, Hedy, who had become the most important woman in his life since their mother died. He watched her stand up, run her hands over her wrinkled blouse, and straighten out her pretty pleated skirt. She looked beautiful, even after the long, harrowing journey. The lack of sleep and stress of the frightening journey hardly showed on her face.

But Suti didn't want to look at his little sister Icuka's face - not now, with dogs barking and uniformed SS officers shouting. He didn't want to see the betrayed look in her eyes as she realized everything they had told her about the beautiful lake was untrue. He was glad when Hedy grabbed her hand. Stunned by the sudden blast of air and sunlight that burned into his brain, Suti felt his senses were in shock, allowing him to move only in slow motion.

More yelling. Men with shaved heads in striped pyjama-like clothing jumping onto the cattle cars as the new arrivals tried to get off. To Suti they looked like convicts or escapees from an insane asylum. He didn't know what they wanted but they seemed to be devilishly determined in their task. They started grabbing bags, searching, looking for something, picking up bags, emptying them of their contents. As they worked, some of them spoke to the new arrivals, giving advice under their breath. They were speaking Yiddish, a language Suti didn't understand, but a neighbour who stood close by translated. "Give us any jewellery you have. They'll take any and all valuables away from you anyway."

One of them stared at Suti and said something directly to him. "Say you are seventeen and able to work," the neighbour translated. "Say you are a skilled worker." A frightening-looking man pointed to a building where flames were shooting out and said something. The translator turned white and became silent. Suti tugged at his sleeve for the translation. "See those chimneys over there?" he said. "That's where they gas and burn people to death." Suti was shocked by their rudeness. How can they tell such monstrous, unbelievable lies? he thought. Why, they were nothing more than a gang of thieves. One of the prisoners grabbed a baby from the arms of its screaming mother and handed the newborn to an elderly woman next to her. He pointed to the old woman and yelled at the young mother, "She takes the baby. Now go!"

A one-metre jump separated them from the ground. His sisters and father were being helped down by others and, when Suti jumped, he felt relieved to be on solid ground again. There was dry dust everywhere. Then Suti noticed another kind of putrid smell. It seemed to permeate this place. There must be a slaughterhouse nearby, he thought.

By the time they emptied the cattle cars, Suti, his family, and the other Hungarian Jews from Karpatalja were already being herded into a long lineup that seemed endless. Everyone was trying to see what was happening in front of them but there were too many people for Suti to see anything, even though the line was moving quickly.

As they neared the front of the line, Suti saw that they were being sorted into three separate groups: women and teenage girls were being ushered to the left, men and older boys to the right, and there was a third line for just older women and men and very young children.

Two uniformed officers stood behind a table examining long lists; a third stood in front of the table. They looked very stern. The one in front, a senior officer who wore wire-rimmed glasses, seemed to be directing the operation. When the family got to the front of the line, the senior officer didn't ask them anything or address them in any way. He barely glanced at them, simply pointing in the direction they were to go. A flick of a finger, like a conductor, Suti thought. Deciding their direction in a split second. Suti and his father were sent to the right. Hedy and Aliz were sent with the women's group. He was relieved to stay with his father, relieved that his sisters were also together. But, while all this was going on, Suti looked back to see Icuka being sent to the third line made up of children and older men and women. As he helplessly watched her being herded away, he saw an elderly neighbour from back home, Mrs. Rosenberg, take Icuka's hand. "Come with me, Icuka," he heard her say. "We'll stay together." Suti was relieved that Icuka would not be alone, that someone they knew was with her. The image of shoulder-length braids and the back of her favourite light blue sweater was the last glimpse he, or any of them, ever had of her.