I Have Lived a Thousand Years (10 page)

The silhouette of a body sitting upright is outlined in the middle of the room. Someone places an arm around her shoulders, trying to soothe her: “Shush. Quiet. You had a nightmare. Lie down here, next to me. Lie down. Here.” The hand gently draws her down on the blanket, but the body jerks away, springs up, and begins to scream again, a bloodcurdling scream: “Let me go! Let me go to my mother!”

The door opens, and two German guards enter, their guns drawn. “Who is shouting?”

Flashlights train on the lone standing figure.

“Komm mit”
Come along.
“Los!”
Each guard holds on to an arm, and the young girl, still screaming, is led out of the barrack. Seconds later, a shot rings out.

I sit up with alarm. “They shot her?”

“Shush, please. For God’s sake, quiet, everybody. We don’t want another riot. It’s dangerous.” It is the voice of the gentle woman who had tried to quiet the hapless young girl.

At dawn we’re aroused for
Z
ä
hlappell.
It is still totally dark when we line up. The sky is studded with stars. It is cold. Some girls bring their blankets along and the whole row of five stands wrapped in one blanket. Why didn’t we think of that? But soon a gruff girl appears and orders them to return the blankets. As the girls obey and run toward the barrack, the young woman in charge lands a heavy blow on the head of each with her enormous stick. She is our
Block
ä
lteste,
the head of our barrack.

She had been brought to Auschwitz with a transport of sixteen-year-old girls from Slovakia in 1942. Two years in Auschwitz! Survival at incredible cost. She is eighteen now, thin but strong, her face set in a countenance of grim determination. Or defiance. And anger. It is a face of unap-proachability.
Block
ä
ltestes
are the absolute commanders of the
Block,
the barrack. They have private rooms in the barrack and supervise their charges at all times. But in our barrack there is no extra room, or any facilities, so our
Block
ä
lteste
sleeps in another barrack. But she knows of the riot.

“You are lucky you were not all shot for what happened in your
Block
last night.” Her tone is as cold and hard as ice. “Sabotage! Do you know the meaning of sabotage? If it happens again, you will be sent to the gas. The entire
Block.
I am responsible for your conduct. If any of you makes sabotage anytime, I shall report you immediately. This is your warning.”

Gas? What gas? What did she mean, You’ll be sent to the gas? Could any of those horrible rumors actually be true? What was sabotage? She did not explain, and no one asked questions. And no one asked who the young girl was whose broken heart had set off the riot. No one mentioned her name. Where was she from? She was a dark, nameless silhouette in the night, and like a shadow she disappeared in the night. Only her shriek remained. We all carried her shriek in our souls.

T
EEN
V
ANITY

AUSCHWITZ, JUNE 3, 1944

Today, the fourth day in Auschwitz, I saw myself for the first time. As we were approaching the last barrack on our way to the latrine, our guard stopped to chat with another guard. While we stood patiently waiting, I glanced at the window nearby and saw my reflection in the glass pane. I did not recognize myself. I was a shocking sight.

The latrine is a long, wide ditch where we are taken under guard in groups of fifty. Luckily, the German guards cannot bear the stench and stand at a distance while we use the ditch. This makes the latrine an ideal place for meeting friends and relatives. Here we resolved to meet Suri, Hindi, and Aunt Celia at noon. We have no watches and cannot tell time. Noon we can tell by the sun.

At first I panicked at the latrine. The ditch is very wide and very deep, and I had nightmares of falling into it. Mommy was holding me by the hands while I crouched above the smelly abyss, and I held her while she did. But after the first few times I learned to balance at the precarious edge, and now the fear is gone. Amazing how fast one learns. Everything. Even swallowing the dark, daily mush became easy. Lying on the hard floor is also easier now. And the
Zählappell
is quite bearable.

We are aroused at dawn, and it is totally dark when we
line up for
Zählappell.
Gradually it grows lighter. The stars fade and a cold gust buffets my bare body under the thin dress. I crouch, hugging my knees in order to keep warmer and control my fierce trembling. Mommy promises to poke me when someone approaches so that I can quickly stand upright.

All at once I notice that blood is flowing on the legs of the girl before me. A thick red stream of blood on the inner side of each leg. Oh, my God, she must’ve been shot! I panic: What should I do? Then in a flash I realize: She is menstruating. We have no underwear, no sanitary napkins . . . the blood simply flows down her legs. Poor girl. My God, this is horrible. Why doesn’t she say something? Ask for a rag, or something? Whom can she say anything to? From whom can she ask for anything? She might even get shot for bleeding. Does menstruation constitute sabotage?

How lucky for me that my last menstruation was just over when we arrived. I’d rather die than have blood flow down my legs! In full view. Oh, my God! I could not bear it. But . . . what about next time, in less than three weeks?! There’ll not be a next time. By then the war will be over, and we’ll be free. This cannot last much longer. It’s impossible to survive this much longer.

Getting used to thirst is the hardest. I’m always thirsty. For Mommy hunger is hardest. She complains of being hungry all the time. But for me, thirst is much worse. The only fluid we get is four gulps of a black liquid called coffee at the morning
Zählappell.
I think I’m going mad with craving for water all day long. We are forbidden to leave the area of our barrack, and so the “lake” is out of bounds. No drinking all day, and all night. The sun is scorching, and we loiter
aimlessly about the barrack all day. We are forbidden to enter the barrack during the day, or sit in its shade. But sometimes we take a chance and sit, even lie, on the ground behind the barrack. When a German approaches we give a slight kick to girls who have fallen asleep, and in a flash they are on their feet. Mommy keeps falling asleep, and I keep guard. When it’s her turn to keep guard, she also falls asleep. It is better that I lean against the wall of the barrack and sleep that way. I can keep alert when I sleep standing up.

From the scorching sun our faces blister and crack. Brownish discharge oozes from the cracks and forms large crusts around the edges. Our faces look ridiculous and repulsive.

I definitely look more ridiculous than most girls. My extremely fair complexion responded to the fierce sun by sprouting large blisters ringed with red on my nose, my cheekbones, and the back of my neck. My ears look enormous because of towering blisters on my earlobes. I look like a clown. A mass of pus sores around my cracked lips make, me look as if I’m wearing a perpetual grin stretching to my ears.

My hair has started to grow on a scalp flaming red from the onslaught of the sun. The sharp, yellow bristles against a scarlet backdrop make my head look like a blushing porcupine.

During the night of the riot someone had torn my left sleeve at the shoulder. Now the sleeve hangs folded to my elbow. On the exposed shoulder another blister has popped up.

I walk barefoot since I cannot wear the shoes I received in the showers. They are too small. Huge, silly blisters also cover my feet. A large blister blew up on the side of my right
leg. Someone had kicked me in the cattle car and the bruise, after festering for a while, also turned into a huge, domelike blister. So, my ludicrous looks are compounded by a strange limp. With blisters also on my soles, I have not managed to devise a graceful manner to navigate. How can Mommy and my cousins claim that I look like my brother Bubi? He is handsome with perfect features. And I? My God! I am a disfigured scarecrow.

How is Bubi now? Is my handsome brother also disfigured by sun and thirst?

T
HE
D
AWN OF
N
EW
H
OPE

AUSCHWITZ, JUNE 9-10, 1944

It’s our tenth day in Auschwitz. Today Aunt Celia is going to join us, right after
Zählappell.
Last night she sneaked into our barrack with the happy news that a woman in our barrack was willing to change places with her. From now on we will stand
Zählappell
together. Suri and Hindi are also looking for girls willing to change places with them. Then we will be a row of five together. There is a much better chance to make it when you are five, together. You share the soup equally. You warn each other. You help prop each other up during the long stand. I can’t wait for this
Zählappell
to be over.

Here they come, marching smartly, a delegation of five SS officers. Rapidly they count the heads of the first row. All’s in order. Then they bark an order. What was it? March?

March! The first rows begin to move, and we follow. We are marching past the row of barracks toward the gate of the camp. The gate opens and we march through. We are marching on the gravel road between two rows of barbed-wire fence, past rows and rows of barracks. “Look, Mommy. We are leaving the camp. We are leaving Auschwitz!” But Mommy does not relax. She is worried about leaving her sister behind.

“We had no chance to let Celia know. Or Suri and Hindi,”
Mommy whispers. “What will happen to her, my poor little sister? She has had diarrhea for three days now....”

We were told that diarrhea was very dangerous in Auschwitz.

Our march leads to the showers. With practiced speed we undress. The stares of the SS guards no longer matter. We feel no nakedness without our prison uniforms as we felt no clothedness in them. Our bodies have lost dimension. It is our souls that are naked, exposed, violated.

The shower and shaving are by now familiar experiences. And so is the wet, shivery wait on the outside—the
Zählappell.

We are ordered to march. Again we pass many camps beyond barbed-wire fences lined with gawking inmates, tall watchtowers, and finally, the high, forbidding iron gate crowned by the huge, black, spidery letters—ARBEIT MACHT FREI!

We are leaving Auschwitz!

The train station comes into view. A long row of cattle cars. Barking dogs. Barking SS guards. Familiarity breeds less fear.

I have a pair of shoes now. They fit, and give me a new outlook on life. As the train begins to move out of Auschwitz’s morning fog, I feel curiously elated.

“Mommy, you’ll see. We’re going to a better place. You’ll see. Let’s thank God that we’ve left Auschwitz behind.”

Mommy is silent. The ordeal of separation from her sister is a heavy burden. The train rolls amid stark hills, forlorn farms. The cracks of the wagon afford a view. At times we stand still for hours. At dusk we roll into a dense forest, and the train comes to a halt. We spend the night standing still
in the depth of the forest. When light begins to sift through the cracks of the wagon, the train begins to move again.

The wagon is not jam-packed this time: We even have room to lie down. Five sisters with lovely voices lead us in singing familiar tunes, and soon the memory of Auschwitz dissipates in the dawn of new hope. I join in by reciting poetry, and many of the girls respond in a chorus to the refrain of my most popular poem, “God, Help Our Beloved Nation ...”

The train slows to a halt at a station. The sign reads KRAKOW. I remember learning about Krakow in school. It’s the capital of a province of Poland called Galicia. My father’s family originated from Galicia. In Krakow there is a large and prominent Jewish community. Or, rather, was. All the Jews must have been deported from here long ago.

“ ’
Raus! Alles ’raus. Aussteigen!”
Out! Everybody out! Off the train! We are driven in open army trucks through a cold, dismal, rainy morning, across winding, hilly roads. The sky is heavily overcast. Large drops of rain hang on a huge sign in German and Polish above a wide metal gate: CAMP PLASZOW.

The gates open, and we roll into a circular clearing surrounded by high hills. Rows of barracks are neatly set about a central square with a high flagpole flying the SS flag. Here the trucks discharge their cargo of one thousand women with their freshly shaven heads glistening against the darkened sky.

We have arrived in Plaszow, the most notorious forced-labor camp in Poland.

“M
OMMY, THERE?S A WORM IN YOUR SOUP!“

PLASZOW, JUNE 1944

The brief morning
Zählappell
is followed by a work lineup of thousands of inmates. The dreaded
Kapos
arrive, and each
Kapo
selects several hundred workers for his commando from among us.

The word
Kapo
means supreme authority over life and death. Delegated absolute power by the SS, the
Kapos
of Plaszow, as if they had made a pact with the devil, exercise all methods of control—brutal beatings and torture to death—with relish. They seem to rise above the need for human response, or contact, even among each other.

I observe with dread the awesome figure of our
Kapo
standing high on a rock or boulder, whip in hand. Several younger assistants snap to his command. If you stop to rest for a moment, the
Kapo
instantly dispatches one of his boys and the lash whips you back to your routine. Were the lads strikes tempered with a touch of compassion, the
Kapo
would admonish from his high perch:

“At her head,
Liebling!
Are you losing touch? Let her have it in the head!”