noon. I receive another note:
Watch for the tea tomorrow. Don't forgetAmerica
. I walk to the toilet casualty and flush. We fold the underwear that has dried into our baskets and leave what has not dried hanging for the next dayif there is a next day.
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Morning comes. There is no work today. I get my tea and my instructions:
There is a kettle in the basement. Get everything out of it and leave
. I nod to Mania, who is the biggest and strongest of us. Danka knows to follow in a few minutes with Dina; then Janka and Lentzi will sneak downstairs. We must hide the food and clothes quickly, without anyone noticing. There is a loaf of bread for each of us, four bags of sugar, six pairs of pants, shoes, socks, and sweaters. I divide them up. Mania helps me. We conceal the clothes under our mattresses, hiding them for later.
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"You're more robustbeing a secretary and working insidecan you carry two bags of sugar?" I ask Mania.
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"Sure." She takes the bags under her arms. There is one little package wrapped in a rag that says
Rena
on it. I open it excitedly and find a chrome watch. Marek knows how particular I am. I smile to myself, fastening the band onto my wrist, remembering the last watch I wore. Pulling the sleeve down over my wrist, I return upstairs.
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The SS have a lot on their minds, trying to destroy records, gathering things around camp. There are bonfires of paper that remind me of that dreaded night six years ago when the Nazis ignited our holy books outside the temple and shaved Papa's beard and earlocks. The flames are no longer newborn, they are aged and smile wickedly at those of us who have seen evil mature, unhindered. Like Mengele's mask of beauty, no one will believe what this evil has cultivated behind its walls. They destroy the evidence so that there will be no proof, no records, nothing but our memories, if we survive, and they will try to obliterate those, too. I look
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, thank you for my tea." I say to him in Polish.