Rena's Promise (42 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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thinking of me, though
. I throw the stone across the field when no one is looking and turn away to hang the mounds of SS underwear that it is my duty to watch and clean and fold neatly.
I do not see Marek as often, but occasionally he sends word through the kitchen workers who bring our morning tea. I miss our correspondence and his voice drifting on the wind among the clothes. I miss his kind face across the field and his concern for my welfare. The trains still pass in the distance, but I refuse to look at them.
Mala is the messenger girl for the Birkenau camp. We have seen her many times walking from one office to another, exiting from the gates to take a message to one of the other camps. We all admire her, not only because she is beautiful but because her position is extremely important. Despite the fact that she's a Jew, they have given her almost free rein of the complexes and allowed her to keep her hair. She speaks seven or eight languages and takes messages from Wardress Drexler to the hospital, the SS officeswherever they need her to go. We have always taken pride in her job; she is a symbol to us that we are of value, we are human. Still, even for her, with all her privileges, camp life was too much.
We hear about it from the men who bring us tea in the morning. In hushed whispers all day we gossip and fantasize about Mala, who has escaped from Auschwitz with her lover.
2
Speculating, we imagine how they did it. "She must have had contacts in the outside world."
"Yah, sure. How else could they get out?" Late into the night after we have eaten our portion of bread we discuss the fates of Mala and her lover.
2. "June 24 [1944] . . . Mala Zimetbaum (No. 19880) . . . escapes from Auschwitz II, together with Polish political prisoner Edward Galiniski

* (No. 531) . . . who was brought to the camp with the first transport of Polish prisoners . . . on June 14, 1940. [Also on this date] six prisoners (male) . . . receive Nos. 189229189234. [And] two female prisoners . . . receive Nos. 82064 and 82065" (Czech, 650).

 

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"He was Polish. He had the contacts."
"I heard his name is Edward."
"I heard they stole German uniforms from the laundry, and someone built a false floor under one of the trains shipping clothing out, for them to hide in." I remember Marek's plan.
"You know a lot." For weeks we whisper and pray that these two brave souls are never caught. In our hearts they live happily ever after, they escape from Nazi Germany and make it to England, or Switzerland, or America, anyplace in the free world where there is safety for a Jew and a Gentile. We stoke the flames of our own courage as Mala becomes our beacon of light. If she can reach freedom, someday maybe we can, too. If she is brave, we can be brave. Oh, to flee this place and be with one's love. We dream of it. We cling to it. It makes the free world seem real again. It makes us remember what freedom was like. And then it makes us sad.
"The SS punished the camps for Mala's escape," the men carrying the teakettle in the morning whisper. "The prisoners in Birkenau were forced to stand roll call for twenty-four hours. Many dropped from the fatigue of standing."
I thank God we are not in Birkenau anymore.
We are just finishing hanging the laundry when Irma Grese appears again. This time she is on foot and wearing a beach jacket. She waltzes past us without the faintest sign of recognition, throws a blanket on the ground, and proceeds to remove the cover over her bathing suit. Nervously I check the garments swaying in the breeze. She lies down and begins to rub cream over her legs and arms. Danka's eyes widen in alarm. Dina steps back. I move away cautiously.
"You there!" I freeze at the sound of her voice. "Would you put some lotion on my back?"
I am shocked. I have never been
asked
to do anything by an SS; they always order their slaves. Not only that, but she has asked me, a Jew, to touch her! I move toward her, afraid that I might do

 

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something wrong, afraid to touch her gorgeous skin. Trembling, trying hard to still my hands, I gingerly smooth the cream over her shoulders and down her spine. Then I stand up, moving back toward the clotheslines, the safety zone, the place I know I belong. Busily we check the fabric for dampness, keeping our hands busy and our minds silent, pretending this SS women's presence does not unnerve us.
I remember:
Danka and I wake up early on Sunday morning. Mama has cheese Danish for us in a little sack. We put on skirts to hide our shorts underneath, because Papa forbids us to wear shorts. She kisses us at the door, hands us our picnic, and tells us to have fun. We hike into the mountains until we reach the stream. Then we take off our skirts. Folding them neatly and putting them someplace to stay dry while we play in the water and sunbathe. Around noon we open Mama's Danishes, still warm from the oven, or maybe the sun kept them warm, and eat them while languishing in the sun
.
A wave of homesickness revolts in my stomach, making it flipflop. How I miss lying in our forbidden shorts eating Mama's homemade sweets.
Throughout the afternoon Wardress Grese suns, then abruptly she dresses, folds up her blanket, and disappears down the road. We watch her depart, folding laundry quietly into our baskets, each of us lost in her private thoughts.
The morning tea comes, and with it the news. "Mala and her lover have been captured." Rumors escalate through the day; everyone is whispering about what has happened. That night, after the lights are out, we discuss her fate in the dark.
"They were caught eating in a restaurant."
"They had changed into civilian clothes, but an SS was eating there and recognized Mala."
"She's too beautiful for someone not to recognize."
"They shouldn't have stayed in Poland."

 

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"They should have fled the country."
"And gone where?"
"She's going to be hanged."
"They will torture them first."
"Poor Mala." I shudder under my wool blanket. Our dreams are shattered.
3
Grese comes often to the trockenplatz and always asks me to put lotion on her back while ignoring Danka and Dina. Sometimes she speaks to me, telling me about the war and asking me about myself. She is so congenial to me. Pleasantry from the SS is so strange. It is not rareit's impossible. I do not know what to make of Grese's kindness, but I think perhaps she is lonely.
"How old are you?" she asks as I spread lotion across her shoulders slowly and carefully, making sure it is perfectly even.
"Twenty-three, Frau Wardress," I answer meekly.
"So am I." I do not miss a beat. I do not fumble, stunned as I am by her words. We come from such different worlds, we are in such different circumstancesbut we are the same age.
"Where are you from?"
"Tylicz."
"Never heard of it."
"It's very small . . . in the Carpathian Mountains." She is quiet. I do not instigate conversation. I know my place. I am still a slave, no matter how friendly she seems.
"You know what's going to happen when the war is over and we've conquered the world?"
"No, I don't." My skin grows cold despite the blazing sun.
"All of you Jews will be sent to Madagascar." She doesn't use a mean tone of voice, she just says it matter-of-factly, as if she knows that without a doubt this is the way it will be. "You'll be slaves for the rest of your life. You will work in factories all day long and be sterilized so you can never have children."
3. Mala and Edward were captured on July 6,1944. (Source: Czech, 710.)

 

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