Rena's Promise (31 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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ing over us. That means at that moment I knew they had to be gone, but I rarely allow myself to think that far ahead. These two minds have a symbiotic relationship, and as long as no one challenges the logic, each realm can exist.
I shut the door on Manka's account of their deaths. Mama and Papa are alive waiting for us in Tylicz, and Mama is the warm invisible presence guarding and guiding us. This is how it is. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but me.
We arrive at Emma's kommando in the morning to find fifty middle-aged women going with us to work. We gape at them as if they are aliens from another world. It is strange to see women in their fifties; they usually select any women in their forties or older for the gas. But here they are, these fifty women staring at us, looking like our mothers.
13
Their sweet, wrinkling faces reveal the fear and trepidation this place forces on us all. They are probably thinking about their own daughters and sons and grandchildren. I cannot turn away from their faces. It is terrible to see elder women without kerchiefs on their heads and as bald as we are. For a moment I think how Mama would have felt if she'd been forced out in public without her wig or a babushka.
''Danka, look!" I point to a woman standing in line.
Danka gasps. "She looks like Mama." We squeeze each other's hands, smiling at the stranger. She smiles back at us.
Taking the kerchief from my head, I approach the woman who looks so much like Mama. "You will need this to protect your head from the sun today." I hand it to her.
"I can't take this from you," she stammers.
"You must. I won't wear it." I walk away, blinking hard.
13. "The flow of convoys abruptly ceased at the end of July 1943 and there was a breathing space. The crematoria were thoroughly cleaned, the installations repaired and prepared for further use. On August 3 the killing machine again went into operation" (Wyman, 18). It seems likely that the older women were brought to Birkenau during this time.

 

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''March out!" We step forward, heading out of the gates. The band plays an out-of-tune polka. There are girls staring at our kommando. Mouths fall open as the mothers pass, marching out to work. The silent wake which follows us is the invisible weeping of each girl remembering and praying that her own mother has escaped this end.
This is the second year, so there are so many of us that one SS watches one kommando. The kommandos are divided into separate work details, each with a kapo to oversee it. Still, we don't always have an SS standing right over us because they're busy inspecting other work teams.
"1716!" Emma says. I lift my head without stopping shoveling to see why Emma has chosen my number out of the ranks. "Come up here." I put down my shovel, moving warily toward the edge of the postenkette.
"Stand right here, by the edge of the ditch and keep watch." She looks directly into my eyes. "I'm going to the latrine and I'm going to be longer than usual." I nod, knowing that she's going to meet a man there. "You stand here looking left and right all the time and if somebody is coming, jump in and start to work. If they ask where I am tell them I went to the latrine." I nod.
I stand above my sister and the rest of the kommando looking left and right. My eyes fall on the elder women, and again I look left and again I look right. The sun is hot on our heads. I wipe the sweat from my eyes. The woman wearing my kerchief blinks into the harsh sun as she gazes up at me. I cannot bear to have them working so hard, for hours without a respite. These women are so much like our parents and they have not had a moment to stop and breathe since lunch.
"Why don't you all sit down," I suggest. "Put your shovels down and rest while I keep watch." They all look up at me. "Go on, I can see if anyone is coming from up here." One by one they sit down, crouching or kneeling in the dirt. The woman who looks particularly like our mother smiles. I look left. The stillness of the

 

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girls and women below me allows me a moment of comfort. I look right. The dust settles around their feet and hands. Their heads glisten with beads of sweat and I can see where sunburn is turning their delicate skin red. I look left. I look right. But I do not look behind me.
"What is going on here?!" The horse gallops up from nowhere. Before I know what is happening, an SS jumps from his steed and throws me to the ground. He kicks me viciously in the back. I cover my face.
"Where's the kapo?" he yells, swinging his steel-tipped boot into my ribs.
"Ahhh!" My hands fly to my stomach. "She's in the latrine!" He kicks my face. Blood gushes out of my mouth.
"And you let them rest?" And again in the stomach and again in the ribs. "You who were suppose to watch? Liar!" And again in the back and again in my face. "Filthy
scheiss-Jude! Mist biene!
You should all be killed!"
I cannot see through the blood in my eyes. He pummels me as if I were a rotten vegetable for compost, but I refuse to cry or beg for mercy.
The girl-women and the elder women busily work, sifting sand, shoveling dirt, trying to ignore my grunts and groans.
"What's happening?!" Emma comes running.
"Where were you?" he yells.
"The latrine, sir!"
"And you let a Jew watch other Jews? You whore! Stupid bitch! I want this prisoner reported for letting your detail rest!"
"
Jawohl
, sir."
"Report her to Commandant Drexler!"
"
Jawohl!
"
"Perhaps next time you will think twice before you go whoring."
Emma takes over whipping me. "You dog! Get back to work!"

 

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Her strikes are not as damaging as the vicious kicks of the SS, but that she would beat me injures what feelings I have left for her.
I scuffle away trying to be invisible, hoping he won't start beating me again, hoping he's grown weary of so much physical exertion in this heat. The hooves of his horse pound against the ground as he gallops away. Danka puts a shovel in my hand. Her hand is like ice. I dig blindly at the soil, unable to distinguish earth from sky through the blood and tears.
We work silently, quickly. Everyone is shaking with fear. We do not cease our work; there is not even a pause in the rhythm of our digging.
"1716." I turn toward Emma's voice, unable to see her face. "Take this." I duck the blow, but instead a rag falls in my hands. "Clean yourself up." Without another word Emma returns to her post.
I lean for a second on my shovel, wiping the dirt and blood from my eyes and face. The sobs inside my chest rack against my bruised ribs. I am so confused, a miserable "mist biene," just as they call me. I struggle for control of the turbulent emotions welling up inside me. My temples throb, my mouth aches. I cannot cry, not only because of work but because of the pain. It will hurt too much to let one sob out. I chose instead to think of Emma. Despite the fact she beat me, it was to save her own skin; the rag says more than any words she will ever speak to me. I focus on digging again, concentrating against the summer sun, trying to think the pain away.
We work. The woman who looks so much like Mama watches me the whole afternoon. Emma ignores the fact that I cannot work as hard as I usually do. She cracks the whip above our heads and acts tough, but the detail works slowly in the heat and the elder women are not capable of this hard labor. I bear the pain as well as I can, but it hurts to breathe and stand upright. Finally it is time to march back to camp. The two-kilometer march is agony in itself. I

 

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concentrate on making the pain dissipate, but inhaling still catches my ribs like a knife in my lungs.
The marching band is playing, but inside I am dying a hundred deaths, hearing only a dirge; for me it is over. Emma stands to one side of the band as her kommando marches through the gate.
"Wait here." She pulls me out. My eyes catch Danka's; it is a silent good-bye. The band plays horror to my ears. I am screaming with pain and still I must stand, knowing in a few hours I will be dead, knowing I have seen my sister for the last time marching through the gates of hellknowing I have not kept my oath, knowing I have failed her. I dare not shift my tired feet. I dare not turn my head. Staring straight ahead as kommando after kommando marches in, my eyes do not register the faces of any individuals. Some who still have the energy to notice see me there; none has the energy to care. I am doomed in their eyes, another prisoner awaiting her death sentence. They do not need to be reminded about the tenuousness of all our lives.
For the first time in sixteen months of imprisonment I wish I were inside the gates of Birkenau, standing next to my sister waiting to be counted; at least that means I'm alive. I watch roll call begin from outside the gates, removed from all that is real. Floating away from my body, I gaze down at the sea of humanity doomed to servitude and wish I were among them.
The sky is dark. I am alone. Even the band has left me behind.
The door to the office opens and Emma steps out. The light from inside illuminates her head. Her hair is turning gray.
"Get into camp," she says matter-of-factly. I move away from her uncertainly, afraid she is joking. "
Hau ab!
" she orders, adding under her breath, "And make sure you're at roll call tomorrow."
"Yes, Emma. I will, Emma." I move through the gates, disappearing into camp to join the ranks of downtrodden girl-womanhood. I am counted that roll call. I am alive.

 

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