Rena's Promise (27 page)

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Authors: Rena Kornreich Gelissen,Heather Dune Macadam

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

BOOK: Rena's Promise
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more than the spirit. There are days when the spirit has been sucked out and only time will tell if it will come back to feel again, come back to life.
No, shaving isn't the worst thing. It isn't life-threatening. But it is bad.
It is Sunday. I walk around camp looking for any tidbits or anything that might be useful lying in the mud.
"Rena!" Someone calls my name. Looking around, I see no one and start to move away, thinking perhaps the wind is playing tricks on me.
"Rena." This time it is a hoarse whisper. I stare and stare at a skeleton leaning out of the iron bars. Barely recognizing the face, I search through my memory for the name which fits the chiseled features before me. It is Erna and Fela's older sister.
"Pepka? Is that you?" I try not to look as dismayed as I feel. "What are you doing in Block Twenty-Five?" I shudder. Block Twenty-Five is the place we avoid no matter what the cost. No one who goes inside those doors comes out alive. The people inside this block are starved to death or carted to the gas and then the crematorium.
She cannot speak easily but manages to whisper, "Water." I run to get her something to drink, trying to shake her image away from my eyes. Her face has fallen inward, collapsing into her soul. She is a shade, no longer human, no longer the Pepka I once knew. I wish Erna were still in camp, she should know about her sister, but there is nothing anyone can do.
I place my bowl, brimming full of water, into her skeletal hands. She drinks greedily, barely able to contain her gulp at life, before handing it back to me. Her hands tremble. Retreating into the darkness, her eyes plead for me to save her; her voice is silent.
I am helpless against the walls, the bars. I have no food to share with her, no medicine to heal her ills, no way to get enough water that she will never thirst again, no way to get her out of the Block

 

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of Death. She is doomed and I am helpless. Pepka's eyes become those of my own sister, Zosia. What if Zosia were in Block Twenty-Five, would someone take her water for me? Would someone tell me she were there? What about the children? If Zosia was in this hell would they already be dead? I wish for someone to share this burden with but must blot these thoughts out quickly before they find a home in my mind and drive me mad. Maybe the children are in an orphanage. Maybe Zosia sent us the packages from Switzerland and she is safe. Zosia and Mama and Papa will be in Tylicz, and when it's all over we'll be reunited again. My mind slows its whirling descent into despair. Fragile hope replaces the doom around me, this is all that matters.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Selections are sporadic. There is no telling how often they occur or when we are going to march out to roll call and instead of working stand all day, in neat lines and rows of five, and wait to be selected. There is usually one SS man who stands in judgment while the rest of them watch, but sometimes there are two making the decisions. When there are two, they both must give you the thumb toward life, otherwise you go to your death. No questions are asked; there is no appeal process, just a thumb. Usually there's a physical test, so that if you do get the thumb toward life you must then jump across a ditch to prove you are worthy of their decision. With shaking knees and no room for the take-off, we try to vault across this last obstacle between us and supper tonight. Sometimes I think the only thing that saves me is the fact that I don't want to get dirty before I die and somehow that resolve levitates me beyond the filth and mud in the ditch. Very few do not make the jump.
Depending on the number of girl-women in camp, selections take anywhere from ten to fifteen hours. We stand without food or drink all day and sometimes into the night, waiting to discover if we will wake up tomorrow, if we will ever eat again. There are

 

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no last meals, like criminals get before they are executed; we are not as good as criminals. We are nothing in their eyeswe are merely pests to be exterminated.
When we first came to Birkenau there were six women per shelf; now, except after a selection, we sleep twelve or more to a tier. If we want to turn over in the middle of the night we have to pull ourselves up with our hands and twist our bodies around like a screw. Danka and I always wake each other when we want to turn; it's easier if we both change positions.
There's no way not to touch the girl next to you. My prayer has become that no one dies next to methis is a selfish prayer based on a desire to stay warm. I don't want to be frozen by a cold body in the middle of the night, but it happens, over and over again.
When a selection is over there is plenty of room on the tiers to sleep, but the barrenness of the blocks is haunting and rest is kept away by sleep demons and the souls dying in the gas chambers. In the morning we wake exhausted, watching the new arrivals come in from the transports. We see their faces, stricken and in denial, their uncertain fates written across their brows. They're lost and scared. Uncertain about this hell they've come to, they still wish they had hair, they wonder where their loved ones have disappeared to. They think we look insane.
There is nothing we can do to prepare themno orientation, no list of things to be wary of, no rules for survival. There is only tea, soup, breadthey have no bowls yet. The first night they can't find blankets and search for a place to sleep not realizing that they must cram themselves in among the bodies already sleeping on the tiers. Once again we're wedged in tighter than herrings, twelve to a tier.
Four
A. M
.
''
Raus! Raus!
"
We maneuver our bodies out of the group sleeping on our shelf. Slip outside with our tea and get into line for roll call. Last night there was no moon, and on nights when the sky is dark, those with

 

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suicide wishes use the blanket of blackness to dodge the searchlights and run for the fence. This is freedom.
Their figures look like dancers frozen against the shadows of abruptly awakened ghosts. Mouths gape open like question marks, as if committing us to bear witness that we heard their screams in the night. They hang, charred, on the electric wires of humanity.
Spellbound, I cannot tear my eyes from their grotesque forms. How I envy them. What is it that has driven them to grab the wire? What is it that drives me to stay among the ranks of the semi-living?
Taube marches along our rows, but he is not counting us today. He seems excited, as if he has something else on his mind. "What we need are calisthenics! Yah, exercise is the key. Healthy body, healthy mind." He turns to our row. "Do knee bends!" He orders. "Down! Up! Down! Up!'' We bend our creaking joints and stand upright, again and again, exactly as he demands. "Ten, and down! Eleven, and down!" We count in our heads, trying to focus on something besides our weakening legs and trembling thigh muscles, twenty, twenty-one . . . ''Twenty-nine, and down! Thirty, and down! Knees to the ground." We falter, not understanding his request. "Kneel!" He cracks his whip across a girl's shoulder blade. She sinks into the mud. "Lie down! Heads down!"
I grab Danka's hand, pulling her with me. "Put your face in it, Danka. Don't move. Don't look up," I manage to whisper before my mouth is in the mud.
Taube stomps towards our row. Noses touching dirt, eyes staring into the ground. His black boots pass us. His boots stop. Trying not to breathe. A girl nearby raises her head. I can see from the corner of my eye her upturned face gasping for breath. The boot falling onto her face, pushing it deep into the earth. The crunching of skull bones sickens the air. I want to vomit. He moves on. I cannot help but listen for the sound. A few rows away it rises from

 

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our ranksthe crunch, the silence. I blink. I am leaving my body, fleeing the horror around us. But I cannot get far enough away. I cannot allow myself to leave Danka behind.
Finally the word "Dismissed!" releases us from our hold to the ground. Roll call is over. Timidly, those of us doing Taube's version of calisthenics get on our hands and knees, turning our faces in horror at the smashed skulls of the girls who will never rise again.
"Don't look, Danka." I move my sister away from the girl next to me. Hand in hand, we find Emma, line up behind her, and march to work.
Weeks just . . . are years here.
If the war is going well for the Germans, once in a while we get a slice of meat in the soup or with our bread. And sometimes the very Orthodox girls will trade their meat for bread because they won't touch unkosher meat. I don't know how they can survive without meat for long. They have something that I don't, though; they have their faith. I do not know where my God is.
They slap the portions on our hands. We lick our open palms slowly, savoring the smear of margarine or mustard; occasionally there is a bit of smelly Limburger cheese. I despise the taste of mustard after the first few months; still, I lick it up as the precious morsel it is. When there is margarine we rub the residue into our hands for moisturizer. The skin on our hands and faces cracks in the cold.
Sausage is no more than bite-size, but we eat hungrily, unable to pause or slow down. Danka never wants to eat it. "We have to," I tell her. "Food is food and this is all we have to depend on." And there is never enough of it. Our stomachs ache constantly. Every moment of every day, awake or asleep, we are hungry. The constant gnawing caused by this starvation is exhausting. Between working ten and twelve hours a day and avoiding the SS, there

 

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is little energy for any other activity. Thinking is becoming impossible.
When the war is going badly for the Germans, it is worse for us. The bread is little more than water and flour and the portions are rarely larger than our hand. But lately it looks as if the Germans are going to be occupying the whole world, and, like giving a dog a bone, they toss us slightly larger portions. We take the food eagerly but receive it with the knowledge that this piece of cheese means the Nazis are in Holland, this piece of meat means they're in France. I don't know which to long for morefood or freedom.
It's Sunday. We lie on our shelves delousing ourselves or trying to rest, squeezing in a few extra hours of sleep. I clean my nails deftly, hiding the nail file in my hand while staring into space.
"Attention!" our block elder shouts. "
Raus! Raus!
Get out. Now!
We can hear Hasse's voice outside shouting, "Get out here, you lazy imbeciles! I have work for you to do!" Confused, we jump to the ground, running for the door. Some girls scramble for their shoes, others grab their bowls; Danka and I forget everything, thinking only of avoiding Hasse's whip. Our minds are buzzing. We arrive outside first, standing at attention as the rest of the block rushes into line.
"Rena, I left my bowl." Danka tugs on my arm. I look quickly around us. Hasse is not there.
"I'll get it." I dash back into the block. My heart racing, I grab Danka's bowl off our sleeping area and run out the back door directly into Hasse's path.
Her eyes glare at me. I freeze. She raises her gun. My heart stops.
A gunshot rips through the air.
I collapse to the ground. Mud splashes onto my clothes and up my nose. I feel no pain. I wish I could see my sister one more time

 

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