Rena's Promise (36 page)

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stand in the growing darkness for evening roll call. I am having trouble keeping alert to all the potential dangers; the hyper-awareness that has served me so well is starting to fade from fatigue. I fear that with the onslaught of winter Danka and I are going to be in for real trouble soon. How long can we keep on going like this? Someday we're going to drop from sheer exhaustion or worse illness. I am so helpless. Our fates lie in their whims.

Mengele is here again. He has made other appearances, but for some reason this night we notice it.

"Danka," I whisper, "the cold is coming and last winter so many got frostbite. We have the shoes and socks from Erna and Fela, but how long will they last in the mud and snow? How long will we last working so hard?"

Danka knows what I'm going to ask before I ask it. "Please, Rena. I can't take a special detail ever again."

"What can I do? I'm just hoping we get chosen. I'm not doing anything." I direct my eyes forward, but I cannot keep my tongue still. "Think about it," I whisper. "If we get chosen, and it's for inside work, we might make it. If we don't get inside we're going to die for sure this winter. No one can survive as long as we have here. We have got to get a good job, with a roof over our heads.'' I smooth my stubble of hair and straighten the stripes of my dress out so they fall in uninterrupted lines.

"Rena," Danka hisses at me. She knows what I'm doing. I check us both, nodding to myself. We are hardy. We still look pretty good. There is still some meat on our bodies, and for some reason I still have a bosom. I stand with my chin out, eyes forward. Danka, unwilling to be left alone a second time, copies me.

His alabaster skin and glistening black hair gleam with care. His gray uniform has been neatly pressed and the pleat falls straight down his leg. I notice things like this. He steps closer toward our row. He doesn't know who we are. We have that one advantage, we are anonymous faces in the throng. We have used our ano-

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nymity to be invisible and escape his clutches, now we must stick out. Somehow he must see that we are good girls, clean and orderly, organized, all qualities the Germans admire, even in Jews. He has chosen us for life many times during camp selections. Only once has he chosen us for death and experiments. What will it be this time?

Mengele points at me again. Chin up, eyes forward, chest out, I hold my breath, stepping forward hesitantly.

He points to Danka.

I exhale. We move in behind the other girls already chosen. Dina is in our ranks; I catch her eye. Is this for life or is it for death?

Mengele finishes his selection and orders an SS man to take us to quarantine. We march toward the isolation blockagain. A feeling of dread washes over me the moment we enter the block. Danka's face is white. We move to the beds we slept on the last time we were in this place. Is this for life or is it for death?

There is nothing I can do to save us. I sleep through the day, unable to bear the depression that seeps into my mind. Erika is not outside the door this time . . . what if this is for experiments, like the other one? Danka and I speak sparingly, quietly, unwilling to discuss what might be.

"Rena?" Dina wakes me up. "What do you think this will be for?"

"I don't know, Dina."

"We've made it this far. It must be good." She has a naive hope that warms my heart.

"I hope so, Dina. For all of our sakes."

"You've been here the longest. You really deserve a break."

"They don't give breaks, do they."

"No . . . maybe we'll just be lucky." She leaves my bunk to go talk to someone else.

On the third day we receive new clothes again. These clothes are

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not long dresses with aprons, like the ones the experiment victims wore, these are simply another version of the striped dresses we have been wearing. The only difference is that they're cleaner.

"Rip off your old numbers. You will sew them on your new uniforms later!" Hope trickles into my heart.

I slip the elephant and the wedding ring under my tongue; the nail file hides in my hand. Nobody knows where we're going, so I must take care that they won't be found. We dress as quickly as possible and line up. We march into the scribes' block to have our numbers written down. When we are let back outside it is under strict SS guard; there is no escaping like the first time. We march immediately outside the gates of Birkenau, down a road, past the train tracks.

We march for what seems foreverbut everything seems far away when you're weak. I do not know where in the complex of camps we are heading. I reach out for Danka's hand. We go into a building, marching down a wide stairway into a basement. The room is large and remarkably warm and there are windows that let the sun in. There are real bunk beds set up in neat rows with fairly clean straw mattresses like we had in Auschwitz I.

"This is the new laundry detail," the guards announce to the block elder. She looks us over, shaking her head. Despite our new uniforms we must look terrible.

"I'm Maria," she tells us. "These are your new living quarters. The laundry is across the hall. You will be assigned positions tomorrow." She leaves us alone, shutting the door to her room behind her.

Slowly we move toward the bunks to claim our new beds. Danka and I take the bottom so that we don't have to climb up anything in case we're tired at the end of the day. On the straw mattress, a sigh of relief escapes from my chest. There is a blanket for each of us; they're old but they're not rags. Dina takes the bunk next to ours. We hug our blankets solemnly, not sure what to make of these luxuries. The beds hold two people rather than three or

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twelve, like human beings instead of herrings. It is warm. There is central heat in this building and only a few drafts. I have forgotten what warmth felt like.

"There's a toilet!" a girl announces excitedly. "And a sink!" I squeeze Danka's hand with a little pulse of hope. We are no longer in stables for horses, we are in a building for people. "There's even a shower!" We are in heaven.
¹⁵

15. "December 16 [1943] . . . Men are given Nos. 168154169134 and the women Nos. 7051372019" (Czech, 548). "Of 28,000 prisoners brought to the camp in 1942, barely 5,400 remained alive at the end of the year. In 1943, some 28,000 women prisoners died in Birkenau; the highest monthly death rate was recorded in Decemberabout 9,000 women" (Strezelecka, 401). Rena was most likely moved in October 1943.