The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister (4 page)

“MANY . . . WERE THEREAFTER” •
In some places it is difficult to distinguish what Nonna might have written during or just after the war from what she added later to her transcript. In this chapter, Nonna directly translates her diaries almost exclusively, though this comment reflects her backward look at this story from a late-twentieth-century point of view.

Now I know that we are heading into Poland, and Mama is beginning to make plans for us to escape when we make the first stop in Poland. The next stop is for a meal. We will crawl under the car and wait for everyone to get loaded, and we will get out quickly and run toward the wooded area. Mama is planning.

2: Baby Sarah

This horrible story, which I blocked out of my mind for so many years, suddenly comes back to me along with other memories that now surface one by one.

On August 11, 1942, we were in Poland, and our train made a stop for us to use the woods nearby. There was another train, which was heading in the opposite direction, stopped on the adjacent tracks. The train was loaded with Jews heading for one of the extermination camps. The people were so pitiful; they were dressed in rags and looked as if they had not seen food for such a long time. Some of them looked like human skeletons—they were so thin that they looked like death! The SS men and the German soldiers had unloaded all the people from our train to go into the bushes to use the bathroom. The German soldiers were standing guard with many dogs with them, which they would use to chase down anyone who tried to escape. These dogs had been trained to attack and kill upon the command of the soldiers.

After the Germans had reloaded the people onto our train, everyone was looking at the train loaded with the Jewish prisoners. It was so sad to see the condition of these people. Our train started to move very slowly. I was glad to be moving, because what I had just seen made me feel very sick to my stomach. The Jews did not look like humans but, rather, like skeletons covered with a greenish-gray-colored skin; their eyes seemed to be very big, and they were staring at us. Thin—very thin—hands were stretched out toward our car, begging for food, and the people were making sounds barely above a whisper. There were little hands of small children, and old hands of old men and women, begging for bread or anything to eat. On the side of the cars, which were packed like sardines with these Jewish people, there were yellow Jewish stars painted very sloppily—you could sense that these stars had been painted with much hate and disgust.

“TO USE THE BATHROOM” •
This American euphemism is another example of Nonna’s occasional anachronistic comments throughout her diary transcripts—as is her “packed like sardines,” and her use of the post-war term
extermination camp.
Her diaries were written as the events took place, but by the time she translated and expanded them, she had been a citizen of the United States for many years.

Mama and I had placed ourselves closer to the open door of our train car, hoping to get some fresh air. Suddenly there was a young girl running alongside our car—no one knew where she had come from. She had a look of terror in her eyes, and she had her arms around a small bundle. Her black hair was blowing in the wind, and she was so thin that you could see her bones protruding from her neck and her shoulders. She hurled her bundle at Mama, and before any of us realized what happened, Mama stood there holding the bundle in her hands—and we heard a baby cry! The young woman was still running alongside our train car. She yelled out, “Please, oh please, save my baby—please give her a Russian name!”

By then, the train had begun to move faster, but we could see the girl still standing by the tracks with her hands covering her face, and she was weeping. The rest of the women in our rail car surrounded Mama and me as we stood there in disbelief and shock, watching the baby. It all happened so fast that it took a little while to realize what had just happened.

For hours, there were all kinds of insults exchanged among the women. Some of the women were on Mama’s side and decided to come up with some story to tell the Germans as to how the baby got there—“We can tell the Germans that when we returned to our car, the baby was already here”—and hide the true story that the baby was thrown to us by a Jewish girl. There were some who suggested that we tell the Germans that a Polish woman had left the baby with us and asked us to take the baby to Germany. It was obvious to all of us that we had to hide the fact that the baby was Jewish. It was the only way to save the baby. It went on for hours as our train kept moving on, and we knew that we would soon be approaching the German border.

Some of the women were emotionally moved by having a part in saving the baby’s life. But there were some of the women that did not want to take part because it might jeopardize them. We could all be punished for what we were trying to do and even be transferred to the Jewish trains, which were headed for the concentration camps. There would not be any escape if that happened, and no one really knew what would happen as soon as the Germans found the baby. There was no possible way that someone on our train could have had this baby, since we were extensively screened prior to being loaded on the trains. We had all gone through these medical screenings.

The women began to take turns holding the baby, and we began to call her Sarah. But Mama still insisted that we call her Taissia, which was my baby sister’s name. She had died when she was only three days old.
Taissia
was a Russian name, and the baby would have a better chance to survive if she had a Russian name rather than being called Sarah.

The baby was crying, and we knew that we had to find some way to feed her, but there was absolutely no way. We had no milk or anything to put liquids of any kind into. Some of the women tried to nurse the baby, but it was impossible. We thought that if we could keep the baby quiet until the next train stop, one of us could take her to the wooded area close to a road, and leave her there with a note written in Polish, making it look like some Polish woman had abandoned her. Then perhaps some Polish people would find the baby and adopt her, or at least take care of her. Everyone was trying to think of some idea to handle this situation.

“WE HAD NO MILK” •
The Germans required qualified women workers to be between ages 16 and 35, and though infants were not allowed, it was certainly possible that some women had recently given birth and might still be able to nurse.

However, there was a young woman in our car who absolutely refused to go along with any of it. Her name was Dunja—she was from the same town that Mama and I were from. She kept saying that she would tell the Germans about the whole thing and that no way would she take part in protecting or saving a
zydowka
(a Jew girl), even if she was just a baby. She would not agree to our ideas—the only one she wanted to save was herself. Of course, everyone was worried about her—especially Mama, since Dunja had directed all her threats toward Mama.

Suddenly, when we did not expect it, our train began to slow down in the middle of the fields, and the train was coming to a stop. The baby was crying, and we were all absolutely terrified. The German soldiers jumped out of the cars ahead and rushed to all the cars yelling, “
Raus! Raus!
” There was a truckload of German soldiers near the track ahead, and we knew immediately that these were SS men. I tried to listen to the Germans and figure out what they were saying so I could know what was going on.

It seemed that we were coming closer to German land, and this was an inspection of all the train cars and occupants. The Germans wanted to make sure that there were no Jews smuggled out of Poland. I looked back and saw Mama holding baby “Sarah” in her arms, and terror struck me all over again.
What happens now?
But we didn’t have to wait long to find out, as the baby let out a cry, and the German soldier that had ordered us out of the rail car looked at us with disbelief.

Before anyone could say anything, Dunja yelled, “It’s a baby Jew—the Jewish woman threw it into our car at the last stop!” She could not say it in German very well, but it was good enough for the German soldier to understand. He motioned for other soldiers, and they rushed toward us. Mama held onto the baby very tightly and would not let go as the German soldier tried to take her. I started to beg Mama to give the baby to him before he used force. Finally another soldier grabbed Mama by her shoulders, and the German soldier took the baby.

The soldier handed the baby to an SS man who carried the baby away—holding her body in his one hand, and letting it hang down by his side. Mama broke into tears, and with terror in my heart, I watched the SS man carry the infant to the truck. He raised up one of his knees and with a swift motion brought the baby’s body down against his knee.

I no longer heard the baby cry, and when I tried to move, I could not. I felt the blood leaving my head, and I was feeling sick and dizzy. When I came to, I was standing by the door of the rail car, throwing up violently. Mama was kneeling beside me, and she was saying over and over again, “They killed my Taissia, my sweet baby!” I realized that she was still in shock, and I put my arms around her and held her very tightly.

Life Before the War

3: Family Background

GRANDMOTHER’S FAMILY •
Nonna’s mother’s family, the only extended family Nonna knew, was very important to her; she cherished their memories until her death. At the end of her diary transcription, she included more background information on Yakov and Feodosija’s life and family.

Nonna’s maternal great-grandfather, of whom she and her family were very proud, was a Russian count and a Cossack—a member of an autonomous people group in Asian Russia or Eastern Europe whose name means, roughly, “free person.” Nonna’s maternal grandfather followed in his father’s Cossack tradition.

Nonna never met this charismatic grandfather, but as a child she looked at his portrait above the fireplace mantel at Grandmother’s house with great love and admiration and loved to hear her grandmother’s many stories about his good looks and courage. Nonna wrote, “My Grandmother, Feodosija Nikolayevna Ljaschova (born the daughter of Count Nikolai Andrevejevich Kozlova and Countess Maria Fedorovna Kozlova). Beyond this point, the true names escape my memory, if I was ever told. There are no written documents about them in my possession.” It is likely that the
Andreyevich
spelling was intended instead.

Nonna also mentioned her grandmother’s grandmother, who lived to the age of 114 years, and who, according to Nonna’s grandmother’s stories, climbed up on a roof at age 114, fell off, broke her hip in two places, and died from infection and gangrene.