Read Rena's Promise Online

Authors: Rena Kornreich Gelissen,Heather Dune Macadam

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical, #test

Rena's Promise (26 page)

BOOK: Rena's Promise
6.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
page_135<br/>
Page 135
little faces are buried in their toys, choking the stuffing out of these inanimate objects of comfort. The younger ones hold the older children's hands. Their eyes stare at us big as saucers, lost as lambs. There is a tearful gasp somewhere deep inside our row. Is it a mother reminded of her own dear baby?
Their innocent faces look around in wonderment at the fences, the buildings, the grownups. Do they think we are insane, as I did when I first arrived? Are they wondering why so many grownups looking like their mamas and papas do nothing to protect them? Are they afraid?
My mouth drops open. I cannot bear to look at this. I cannot turn away. They can't be serious. Why would anyone want to kill babies? How long will it take them to suffocate? Will they cry out in fear with no one to comfort them?
The SS march them toward the gas chamber. Clutching dolls and stuffed animals close to their hearts, they shuffle past in rows of five guarded by SS men with their dogs and rifles. What do they think these children are going to doescape? Revolt? But it is a rule, always to the gas chamber the SS are posted every fifth row on each side of the column, and they always follow rules. They don't want anyone around; they don't want the truth getting out. We know the truth. It has taken a long time for it to sink in, but there is no mistaking it anymorethe evidence is in the smoke-filled air and the empty compound after a selection. Still, they want no one disturbing their plans. The Germans have a saying, "Order is order." They stick to their rules like glue.
I am standing there just like a ghost. Their little angelic faces, the white knuckles of their tiny hands haunt me. I fight back my tears, my rage. My heart screams, Stop! Stop this madness! They are babies! Clenching my jaw, I shut my eyes.
God? I rarely say
God
anymore, but seeing their faces reflected in my heart I must try to pray one last time: God, you are my God and I believe in you. Won't you strike just one of these monsters down? Smite just one SS for these children, your children. You,

 

page_136<br/>
Page 136
whom I obey and believe in so much with all my heart? I have never held so much as a penny in my hand on the Sabbath and since I was old enough to fast I have always fasted on Yom Kippur. Don't allow this to happen. Give us a sign that you have not forsaken these children, the children of Israel. Never mind my suffering. It does not matter the time I have been in this place. Never mind all the things I've heard about people being burned and gassed, all the things I've seen for myself, not wanting to believe any of it is true. Never mind about me. What about these sweet children? For them, show them you are our God and kill just one of these Nazis.
My hands are fists of fury tight against my thighs. My eyes squeeze shut, holding a vision of lightning striking the guards in their neat and orderly tracks. Not one adult can move to save these toddlers, only divine intervention can supersede now: Please, God . . .
They fade in the distance, nearing the gas chambers. My heart screams for them to stop. Someone passes by me, then halts. Her feet crunch against the gravel road as she steps back to look at our stricken faces. Her hot breath hits my cheek. I open my eyes warily into the cool cruelty of Hasse's stare. Her clean boots, her polished and shiny skin, stand before us in full Aryan superiority. She has seen our agony; she has read my mind.
I know from the moment I hear her voice that religion will never be the same. I will still pray, I will try to believe and have faith, but it will never be as pure and sincere as it once was. Her lips pull back into a grimace which I am sure is meant to be a smile. Her words are harsh and staccato, like machine-gun fire; they shoot us down.
''Where is your God now?" The life drains out of me.
There is no answer.
We are miserable. Roll call is endless. To work would be a relief, anything to take our minds off of the children, but there is no re-

 

page_137<br/>
Page 137
spite in this place. Smoke comes out of the chimneys. My nose quivers at the reek of burning flesh, the smell of little children being incinerated. The sun disappears behind a cloud of gray.
If children cannot be saved, what is the use of praying for anything anymore? Hasse's voice plagues my wavering faith, dogging every breath I take.
"Where is your God now?"
My spirit withers . . . I do not know.
"What's wrong, Rena?" I have been staring at nothing for days, going through the motions of survival, unable to shake the cherubic faces haunting me.
"Did you see them?" I ask Erna.
"Who?"
"The children"my voice cracks"hundreds of them." I cannot let myself feel this much pain and still survive, but it is a fresh wound, not yet disguised by the callouses I have learned to develop.
"I heard about it." She places her hand on my shoulder. "Fela and I will be moving to a different section soon. We won't be able to talk anymore."
I nod. I will miss my friend but I do not want a job in her new work detail. She does not talk about it and I do not ask, but I know it is not a job that I could do.
"We'll miss you."
"You must get out of Birkenau, or get in a kommando that is inside at least."
"We will."
She moves away. "I'll see you before we go." I try to manage to smile. Be braveanother rule of survival.
A few days later, Erna signals me to meet her in the latrine. "I have something for you." She reaches into her hem.
"Erna, you have to stop risking your life bringing me things."

 

page_138<br/>
Page 138
"Yah, but we are moving tomorrow, so these will be the last gifts I can bring you." She takes my hand, slipping something long and smooth, and something else very small into my palm. "I know how clean and neat you are."
I glance quickly into my hand. There is a nail file and a small silver elephant. "They're beautiful." I am overwhelmed by her generosity.
"The charm looked as if it belonged to a child and I thought of you," she whispers. "Elephants are supposed to be good luck. I don't want it to go to the Germans."
"Thank you, Erna. I will treasure them always." Tears spring to my eyes before I can quench them. We embrace quickly, but we do not say good-bye, that is not something one says in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
I slip the trinkets into the hem of my skirt before departing from the latrine. The silver elephant is a reminder of the children I watched walk to their deaths. It is the only mark of their passinga tiny gravestone in my hand. I place it under my tongue during selections so it can be spit into the dirt if I go to the gas or if I'm beaten to death. My commitment to this small child's charm is that it should never get into Nazi hands, that even if I do not survive, it shall.
On Sunday, sitting on our bunk, I take out the nail file. It is mother-of-pearl, and under an etching of a cathedral it says
Budapest
. Hiding it in my palm, keeping the file covered so that it looks as if I am wringing my hands, I begin to clean my nails. It is an elevated feeling, to have one's nails clean after being dirty for so long. This simple manicure becomes a part of my weekly ritual. My thin thread to sanity grows longer: be with Danka, be invisible, be alert, be numb, be clean.
I crawl off the bunk leaving a still-sleeping Danka behind and head for the latrine. My period does not last as long as it used to,

 

page_139<br/>
Page 139
and the flow is not nearly as heavy as it was in Auschwitz, or even a few months ago; for this I am grateful. Danka hasn't had her period since the beginning. She, as well as most of the girls and women in camp, lost hers almost immediately. Breasts and the cycle disappear as quickly as our fellow prisoners. It is something in the tea; I think they call it bromide. I don't know why the bromide doesn't work on me, but the starvation does. My period is slowly slacking off as the weight drops from my body.
Taking a cloth that Erna also organized for me out of my sleeve, I thank her in my heart again as I leave the latrine with a semi-clean kerchief securely in place.
Every three weeks, on Sunday, the only day we have even a moment's rest, we are lined up and marched outside to another part of Birkenau to be shaved.
"Strip!
Schnell! Schnell!
" The SS shout at us as if we were deaf. Undressing, we place our clothes in a pile. Sometimes we stand for hours without a stitch on, outside in the elements or inside in the drafts. Our own Jewish men, prisoners obeying orders, wait for us, clippers in hand. The line to the shaving is long, but I think compared to all the other horrors this is not so horrible.
This is not the worst thing that happens to us in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is not nightmare-making, but it is consistent, like everything the Germans do. Every three weeks like clockwork.
Our own boys, our own men are forced to see our nakedness, forced to shave our heads, our arms, our legs, our pubis. Sometimes they are friends, sometimes they are relatives; mothers get shaved by their own sons, sisters and brothers suffer this embarrassment. Danka and I are lucky. We meet no one we know.
Why can't they let us shave each other? We are young women, virgins; it is not in our religion to bare ourselves even in front of our husbands. This is not life-threatening, but it is degrading. One more degrading thing they make us do.

 

page_140<br/>
Page 140
The German officers parade back and forth looking at us as if we are interesting specimens in their insect collection. There is one beautiful girl whom they stare at unrelentingly. She keeps her chin up, her eyes down. She is gorgeous despite her baldness. How anger-defying it is to stand and be visually defiled by these murderers. What I wouldn't do for a tap with hot water and a scrub brush, to wash the Nazis' eyes from my flesh.
We are silent in our shame . . .
There is no discussion and little whispering. The clippers are heavy, like shears for sheep, and they nick our flesh easily. Our boys, our men try not to hurt us, try to be careful, but they must cut quickly so they don't see our eyes, see our bodies, get beaten for being too slow, too prudent, too kind.
"
Schnell! Schnell!
" Little streams of blood trickle down our legs and necks as the SS men hurry them on. We hurt on both sides.
It is so demeaning. I can't bear it. I become a piece of flesh staring through the body of the man shaving me, staring at the other side of the room. I turn off the emotions inside of me until I see nothing and feel nothing. It is quite conscious. I hear only the command to move when it is over and then it is only the flesh moving. I am gone.
It is the body that finds its clothes, shivering uncontrollably from cold and fear and anger, quaking from unshed tears of shame. It is the body that waits for its sister. The feet stand in line until they are told to march. The hand takes her hand and together they return to the women's camp. The body enters the block. The arm takes the bread from the room elder. The mouth opens and closes, chewing breador is it sawdust? Everything tastes the same. Everything feels the same. I know at some point I will return to the body, but it takes time, and time is measured by tea, soup, bread, tea, soup, bread. Whenever it gets too much for me and I am about to burst, I turn my emotions off like a faucet and let the body take over. Sometimes it is the body that wants to survive,

 

BOOK: Rena's Promise
6.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Jingo Django by Sid Fleischman
Beautiful Intelligence by Stephen Palmer
Half Lies by Sally Green
Spin the Sky by Katy Stauber
Arielle Immortal Passion by Lilian Roberts
Changing Fate [Fate series] by Elisabeth Waters
Blush by Jameson, Lauren