Rena's Promise (35 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 downpour changes to drizzle. The noonday meal passes without any soupthere's no sense in feeding people who are about to die. In their shiny boots and pressed gray jodhpurs, standing there like gods of the universe, their thumbs jerking this way to death and that way to life, the SS officers stand before their peers judging our inferiorities.
Taube and Stibitz walk down the rows.
"Miserable
mist bienes
," Stibitz yells. "You
scheiss-Judes
get down on your knees!"
My skin bristles. Catching Danka's eye, I warn her in advance.
Taube turns to our row. "Kneel down!" I pull her into the mud. His club swings into the knees of a girl who does not know she's supposed to kneel before him. Her scream pierces the air. He and his cohort walk away smugly. Our knees ache. We do not shift or sway. We kneel without faltering.
Taube's face glowers. He relishes his power. "Lie face down. All the way. Heads down!"
We fall on our stomachs into the mud. Danka needs no warnings for this portion of the exercise; we have seen the results of Taube's version of push-ups many times before.
"Up! Down!" Faces in the mud, we push our frail bodies into the air and drop back to earth for as long as he orders.
"Up! Down!" I have no idea how many push-ups we do; my mind stops as long as my body is in motion.
"Halt!" Taube yells. We collapse in the mud. "Don't move!"
Please don't let the girl next to me raise her head, I pray. Taube moves away from us, heading further down our row. I avoid listening for the sounds I know will follow. They no longer wait for someone to raise her head as an excuse to demolish someone's brains. They simply choose the skull they fancy and crush it before moving on to their next victim.
The waiting is impossible, the terror indescribable.
My eyes stare into the ground, boring holes into mud and muck, locking my gaze into the earth. We barely breathe. It is for-

 

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ever. Finally they release us from our "exercises." Helping each other up from the ground, we avoid looking at the bodies that will not rise again.
We move up, edging away from those who didn't know about Taube's exercises, those who've been selected by a foot rather than a thumb. We get closer and closer to the SS gods, trying not to think about what each step meansthat someone else has been chosen to live or die.
I look into Danka's face. The mud on it inspires me. First, though, I spit on my sleeve and wipe the dirt and grime off her skin.
"My turn." She washes my face, taking care to wipe away all smudges from the Taube episode. Our faces clean, I stoop to the ground and take a fingerful of mud.
"What are you doing?" she asks, alarmed.
"Covering up your scar." I smudge it across her forehead. "That works, Danka. I can't even see it, and I know it's there." We edge closer and closer.
"Do you want to go first?" It's time to decide in what order we should go before our judges.
"I don't know." Her voice trembles.
"If you go first and they select you, then I can join you more easily."
"How?" We can now see that there is a ditch that we must jump across.
"I can fail the test or look miserable."
"What if you go first and they pass you and then select me? What will you do?"
"I'll run after you pleading with them to let me die with my sister."
"But that doesn't work all the time anymore."
"Then I'll attack a guard and be shot, then at least you'll know I died too."
"You can't do that, that won't work at all. I can't bear the

 

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thought of seeing you shot. I want us to be together or not at all.''
"Then you go first." I put her in front of me.
She looks at the ground, ashamed. "I'm afraid to, I don't look so good as you do."
"I'll go first, then, Danka. I'll go with my head straight up and you go very close behind me. That way they'll be blinded by me and think you don't look so bad at all." She doesn't look bad, she has lost flesh but her face is prettier than mine; still, she does not have that sparkle in her eyes which says, I'm going to live.
"Okay, you go first. I'll be braver if I can keep my eyes on you."
I open my hem, pulling out the treasure I found last night and have been protecting from the elements for over ten hours. "Give me your face." Opening the chickory wrapper up, I lightly paint her cheeks. The dye from the paper adds a blush to her pallor. Spitting on my fingers, I blend it in so it looks natural and step back amazed at the instant transformation. "Beautiful. You look a picture of health now, Danka."
"My scar."
I take a little more mud and trace my finger along the cut. "It's healing very well," I assure her.
"It is?"
"Yes. You look very good indeed." We edge closer. "Don't watch the others, just tell yourself that you will fly over that ditch into my arms. That's all you need to think." I turn my back to her, leaving my hand behind me to hold hers until the last possible moment.
We don't have far to go; twenty, maybe thirty girls stand in front of us. The girl in front of me turns around. "You're going to make it," she says in Slovakian.
I stumble for words of encouragement but am at a loss. "You will too."
"Please take this." She takes my hand, passing something cold

 

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and round into my palm. "It was my mother's wedding band. I don't want them to have it," she whispers.
"I can't take this."
"You have to. Don't let them have it. Promise!" Her eyes are like steel beams, forcing me to swear I will protect her past.
"I promise." I cannot believe I have said the words. She steps towards the guards. I do not know what to do with this gold in my hand. I can be killed for having it. I wipe my mouth, slipping the ring under my tongue, next to the elephant.
The thumb turns away. The girl whose family heirloom is hiding in my mouth moves toward the side of the condemned. She looks back wistfully. Our eyes seal our fates across the compound. I will never know her name.
I step up to the tables.
"Halt!" My heart is pounding in my ears.
Their eyes are on my forearmnumber 1716, from the first transport. They cannot believe I'm still here. Will this work toward my advantage? Or will it be my downfall?
The thumb jerks for me to jump the ditch.
I walk past them, my chin out, my shoulders straight, toward the ditch. There's no running start, there are only a few feet on either side for our take-off and landing. The ditch is a few feet wide and a few feet deep. Whoever falls in is covered by mud from the rain and has lost the last chance for life.
I fly over it with inches to spare, hugging the wall at the other side to give my sister plenty of room for her landing, but I cannot bear to look back and watch. Seconds stretch into the abyss of not knowing.
I wait, holding my breath, my eyes shut tight, listening, with my entire being hugging the wall, wishing it were my sister. I imagine that there is a thread between us that pulls her toward me. I do not think of her falling in the ditch. I think only of her being beside me.

 

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There is silence . . .
Two hands slip around my waist, sending a little squeeze. I breathe again. Holding her hands to my belly, I pray I will never have to let go of them again. We do not speak, we do not rejoice; our victory is small in the face of so many failures. The sun is finally breaking through the clouds. It is pale and slight, but Danka and I lie in the damp grass letting it warm us, worn out from the hours of tortuous waiting. Our hands lightly touch, just enough to remind ourselves that we are still together. I take the ring and the elephant out of my mouthtwo gravestones hidden under my tongue.
This is all that is left of her family. This ring is her immortality wrapped in gold and memory. Silently I vow to keep it safe from the Germans as long as I am alive. We stand up as the sun begins its descent toward the horizon. Shadows lengthen across field. There are still hundreds, maybe thousands, waiting in line to be selected.
We move away, unable to watch or think about what has happened today, wandering through the empty camp in a daze. No one dares to speak to anyone. A teenage girl eats a lemon while her mother begs for a bite. Her eyes glare at her mother angrily as she devours the already squeezed pulp like a wild animal. Her teeth sink into the pale rind, ripping it apart. I turn away, dismayed. She eats the whole thing without sharing it with her mama.
What have they done to us? The piece of potato I find I eagerly share with my sisterhow else can we survive if we do not care for one another? I do not understand the selfishness before me, but then it does not matter what I understand.
It is late at night. We stand on the other side until the last woman falls in the ditch to her ultimate demise. We are not excused. The last truck heads for the gas chamber. The death squad departs from camp, ignoring us. We stand waiting for a command,

 

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but for the first time in a year and a half we're not ordered to do anything. We go to our empty blocks. The block elder's not here; we can only assume she was among the thousands who were selected.
Bread is doled out. Our stomachs are grateful for the food but our hearts are not.
Should I pray? Should I thank God for saving our lives again? How can I thank or praise a Creator who allows this to happen? There are five hundred of us, maybe a thousand, left in camp. This is not a miracle, to be aliveit is a tragedy. How can I praise the miracle that Danka and I live while thousands of our fellow girl-women prisoners are gassed and cremated just a few hundred meters from where we have life?
Four
A.M
.
''
Raus! Raus!
"
We take our tea and stand at attention for roll call. It will not even take an hour this morning. The smoke from the chimneys never ceases. A dull haze encompasses Birkenau. Ash fills the air, covering the roofs of the blocks and the ground we stand on. We march out with Emma, work all day, and return. Evening roll call takes a little bit longer; there are new shocked faces to be beaten into submission. A new flock of Jewish girl-women who do not know about straight lines, silent attention, and gas chambers. The transports are coming . . . The Germans have been very busy.
Four
A. M
.
"
Raus! Raus!
"
Camp is full.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Winter is closing in on us and as fall slips away from our grasp so does our hope for survival. Yom Kippur has passed us by without notice. A few of the new ones fasted; we know better. We

 

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