The train jerked into motion and chugged slowly down the tracks. The young man stared at me. I felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny. He spoke to me in Polish, and not knowing much of the language, I answered in German that I didn’t speak Polish. He immediately switched to German. The woman, whose feet rested on two brown leather suitcases, peered at me. She wore a plain gray dress. Despite her drab clothing, she was handsome, with dark hair and eyes.
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
I still held the paper the security man had given me. I opened it and peered at the official document emblazoned with the Nazi insignia and signed by the Colonel. “It says, ‘Bromberg-Ost.’” The name meant nothing to me.
“My wife is headed there as well.” He loosened his tie, unbuttoned his jacket and sat on the floor in front of us. His body swayed with the erratic movements of the train. “Perhaps you can be friends.”
The woman spoke up with sudden intensity. “I want to be with you,” she said in broken German.
The man sighed. “I’m afraid we have no choice, my dear.” He pointed to the nearest guard, who stood at the end of the compartment casually stroking his rifle and smoking a cigarette as he looked out upon the countryside. Turning to me, the Polish man said, “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Erik and this is my wife, Katrina. We are teachers.”
“Teachers?” I asked, incredulous at their occupation. I knew what I was suspected of, but I would never have guessed that I would be seated next to teachers. What were their crimes?
“We are political subversives,” Erik said as if it was a common title. “That’s what the Nazis tell me. We’ve been accused of communist leanings and teaching students about radical governments apart from National Socialism. So, I am being sent to Stutthof and my wife to Bromberg-Ost. That’s why we find ourselves on this train. For telling the truth.” He looked at me intently, studying me from head to toe. “Why are you here?”
Of course I couldn’t tell them the truth. I didn’t want them to know that I had come from the Wolf’s Lair or that I had been in service to Hitler. So much of my life was built around lies. I hated lying, but I had no choice. “I’m not certain. There are no charges against me. An SS Colonel came this morning and told me I had to leave in an hour.”
“Are you Jewish?” Erik asked.
“No.”
“Then you are a traitor,” Katrina said.
Erik shook his head and scolded her. “Hush. We don’t need to start rumors. Who knows what the Nazis are up to?” He took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. “At least we are blessed to be on a decent train.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We can at least breathe and sit. We’ve heard about the other trains: people crammed into cars like animals, so tight they can’t move. They defecate upon one another, suffocate or die standing up. They travel for days with no food or water.” He added with pride in his voice, as if honored by his captors, “This train has been reserved for intellectuals and powerful businessmen. Some are Jewish, some not. If the Nazis don’t like you, it doesn’t matter. I hear Stutthof is no playground.”
The photographs Karl showed me flashed into my mind. The mounds of bodies, luggage, books, glasses, shoes, all discarded, thrown upon the ground as so much human waste. A wave of nausea washed across my stomach.
Katrina burst into sobs. Several men in the car looked at her and then turned away, unmoved by her tears, stoically resigned to their condition. I stretched my arm across Katrina’s shoulders and held her.
“How could this happen?” she asked. “Why? Because we told the truth, we are under arrest?”
She spoke loudly enough that the guard heard her. He stepped into the car. “Shut your dirty communist mouth.”
Erik attempted to soothe her, entwining his fingers with hers. After a time, Katrina regained her composure. I was shocked at how much the world had changed, how naïve I had become since my service to Hitler began. I seemed on the verge of experiencing the horrible reality I had first witnessed in Karl’s photos. For the first time, I truly understood why many Germans defended Hitler. All the Nazis’ tricks—the political fervor, the propaganda, the myth of superiority—played to the common man. Few knew such atrocities as these existed.
The train bounced along, and we said nothing for a long time. My stomach growled and I remembered I hadn’t eaten since dinner. Soon the rocking and the heat lulled me to sleep. Erik dozed with his head against his wife’s legs.
We were jolted awake when the train came to a halt about three in the afternoon at the station called Stutthof. Two armed guards came through the car and looked at everyone’s papers. Those who were destined for this stop were told to get off. I looked out the window. I saw little except woods spreading across a plain, which reminded me of the countryside around Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair. In the distance, I could barely make out a formidable two-story brick building with many windows and a sloping roof that reminded me of a French château. There appeared to be a clearing beyond it. A row of armed SS guards stood outside the train herding people down a pebbled pathway.
When it came Erik’s turn to leave, Katrina clung to his arms, sobbing and swearing in Polish. One of the guards stepped up beside them and threatened to ram his rifle butt into her stomach. Erik ordered his wife to let go. She released his arms, letting her fingers drift down, her body shaking with sobs.
“Be good, my dear one,” he said. He kissed her on the forehead and said, “We will meet again soon.” He looked at me. “Good-bye . . .”
I had forgotten to tell them my name. “Magda.”
“Good-bye, Magda. May God keep you in His graces.”
The guard grabbed Erik by the shoulder and shoved him down the car. Katrina collapsed on the bench and buried her face in her hands. I sat beside her, shaking with my own fear, feeling inadequate and scared.
I looked around the car and saw that only ten women were aboard. We were all bound for Bromberg-Ost. No one spoke as the train pulled away. We all stared at one another blankly as if our lives were over.
* * *
About three hours later, we arrived at Bromberg-Ost. We gathered our luggage and filed out of the train. A few male guards stood near the platform, but I was struck by the presence of a number of SS women. One of them, a strong blonde with muscular arms, “welcomed” us to Bromberg-Ost. She explained that we would be treated well during our stay. Most of the SS women reminded me of Dora at the Wolf’s Lair. They had a creased, hardened look, displaying a typical Nazi resolve that showed in their condescending attitude and strident gait. They were so rigid it appeared they might break if they had to bend. One was prettier and younger than the others. She was more fashionable, too, wearing a tight skirt and smart leather shoes.
We stood in line to be processed. Katrina quivered behind me. The middle-aged woman in front of me whispered that this was a concentration camp for women, under the jurisdiction of Stutthof. Most of the prisoners sent to Bromberg-Ost were there for political reasons. “We have a better chance of survival here,” she said. Her words did not comfort me.
When it came my turn, my luggage and my silver wedding ring were taken away. “You will not need it,” the sturdy blonde said. I was taken to a room, bare except for a wooden bench, and ordered to take off my clothes. The pretty SS officer whom I’d seen near the platform gazed at my body as I stripped. “You are strong and well fed,” she said. “You will be a good worker.” She handed me a striped uniform jacket and a coarse skirt. “You will get more clothes when we find out what job is best for you,” she said.
The female guards then showed us to the dormitory where we would be staying—about thirty of us to the room. My bed was near the door on a two-tiered platform, a rough wooden board that stretched out from the wall about five feet. We would be sleeping together, side by side. My “pillow” was a filthy piece of flattened fabric with a little cotton stuffed inside it. An old woolen blanket was pushed back toward the wall. I probably wouldn’t need
it much during the summer, but I also didn’t know how long I would be held prisoner here.
One of the guards explained the rules and regulations: We were to be in bed at nine and up at five. We would have breakfast and dinner in the mess hall. Lunch, she said, might be taken on the job or not at all depending on how well we completed our assigned tasks. She told us where the latrines were located, but encouraged us not to use them at night. The few male guards at the camp would be on watch then. There was to be no smoking, drinking or sexual activity. All work was to be completed in the name of the Reich, for “Work makes you free.”
“When I blow the whistle or knock on the door, you should fall into line and be ready to do whatever I ask,” the guard added with a flourish before she walked out the door. We newcomers were left alone with twenty others who were camp veterans. I leaned against the railing of my bed and tried to understand what had happened to me. Katrina, her head hung low over her chest, sat on the bench in the center of the room.
The room was bare except for the tiered beds and the bench. The four windows, two on each side of the cabin, were flung open so a bit of breeze filtered inside. The air was stuffy and smelled of decaying wood and unwashed flesh. The women who shared the room had little to say; there was no welcome or greeting. Exhausted by their day’s labor, they sat on the bench or crawled into their sleeping area for a nap. This hour must have been one of the few during the day they were left alone. I could easily see how they would welcome a moment’s peace. Their faces were haggard and worn by their daily trials, their hair tangled and unkempt.
The cabin sat in gloom, despite the summer’s long hours of sunlight, for it was sheltered in the deep shadows of the trees. I tried to talk to one of the other women, but she was too tired and waved me away. When she rolled over on her bed, I noticed an insignia on her jacket, a yellow triangle with the tip pointing up under a red triangle with the tip down. In effect, it formed a two-color Star of David. The badge meant nothing to me.
I sat on the bench in the middle of the room and stared at the walls. My body felt numb with shock as I tried to digest the horrible conditions I’d been thrust into. I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to flee. Suffocating feelings of loss and hopelessness filled me.
About thirty minutes later, the same guard came back and gathered us for dinner. The mess hall was not much better than our cabin, although the space was larger. Rows of crude wooden tables and benches filled the room. We entered through the front door and stood in a serving line. Our evening supper consisted of a thin soup with few vegetables and no meat served in a battered tin cup. We had one crust of bread each as well. I sat at the table with Katrina and marveled how fast and how far I had fallen—from the freshest produce and chef’s dishes created in Hitler’s kitchens to the watery dregs of camp. Even though I was hungry, I had no appetite for the soup.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Katrina.
She stirred her beat-up spoon in the broth and said, “If I don’t get out of here, I will not live through the winter.” She turned to me and her dark eyes showed the hollow look of life draining from her body. “Most of us will be dead after winter.”
I spoke sharply to her, but in a subdued voice because I did not want others to hear. “If you feel you have nothing to live for, you will die. You must be stronger than they are.”
She looked at me piteously, as if she were a cowering dog about to be struck. “How do I do that?” She looked across the room at the other sad women and then lowered her head. “How can I possibly win a battle against the SS?”
“Think of Erik. Think of him every waking hour and in your dreams. Live for him, if for no one else.” I thought of Karl and tears gathered behind my eyes, but I was determined not to cry in front of Katrina. She needed my strength. We all needed one another’s strength, but as I studied the other women in the hall I knew that finding courage would be difficult. The Nazis had created efficient ways to break our spirits.
We had not been at the table long when a guard told us to finish eating or “return to your room.”
My stomach was unsatisfied, but I took my soup to the prisoner who collected the dishes. She looked into my cup and said, “You will not last long if you waste food. Three days from now you will drink every drop.”
I suspected she was right. “Not tonight,” I said, and handed her my cup and spoon.
Katrina and I returned to the room. No guards accompanied us, but I could see it was useless to consider an escape. The camp was surrounded by a tall electrified fence. One touch and I would be dead.
My arms and legs had grown numb with fatigue. I crawled on top of the hard board that served as my bed. I fell into a dreamless pit of sleep until the morning whistle awakened me. It was time for work.
Breakfast, more like slops of gruel, had the same watery consistency as the soup from the night before. The muscular woman who had greeted us then assigned the newcomers to their jobs. Her name was Gerda and I learned she had been at Bromberg-Ost since its inception. I was assigned to tend the camp garden through the fall. Katrina was to be shipped off during the day to a nearby munitions plant. There was no time to shower, Gerda told me. I would be lucky to get one a week at the communal stall, maybe more, “if you are a good girl.”
I had a few minutes to visit the latrine before I was expected in the garden, a fairly large plot of land on the north side of the camp. I furtively said good-bye to Katrina, wished her good luck and walked to the patch of tilled soil. Roll call was taken. Three-quarters of the land was in direct sunlight, the other quarter was in shade, so various kinds of vegetables could be grown. Tomatoes and asparagus were coming to their peak. I was instructed by a guard to pick the tomatoes and clip the asparagus plants that were ripe. When I was done with that, the guard told me to hoe the ground for fall plantings.
The day was hot and humid. Mosquitoes and biting flies buzzed around my head. The guard became angry and waved her pistol at me as I swatted at the insects. “Do your work,” she screamed. “No bug would find you worthy of a bite.” My exposed neck, arms and legs were covered with red welts by the time we were allowed to stop for lunch. Again, the fare was soup, probably the same we had been served the evening before, with a tiny piece of bread. The tomatoes and asparagus were not going into our stomachs, but into the mouths of our captors. This time I finished my meal.
For four hours in the afternoon, I broke the ground with the hoe. The land was dense, with small rocks. I could dig down no more than three inches before the hole filled in with stones. I told the guard this, but she scoffed and said I was not doing my job. Others before me had completed this work without complaining, she said. She shoved me aside, warning me to get back to digging the furrows.
By five in the afternoon, my back was aching and my arms were like limp strands of noodles. I could barely hold up the hoe. My jacket and skirt were stained with sweat. The bugs continued to flit about my face and neck, biting me into a red pain of aggravation. Finally, those of us who worked the garden were allowed to return to the cabin for a few minutes’ rest before dinner. I collapsed on my bed. Katrina was not in the room.
I’d drifted into an achy sleep when a tap on my shoulder awakened me. The woman I’d attempted to start a conversation with the night before leaned over me. She put a finger to her lips and then whispered in my ear, “You must keep this to yourself, but I have a potion that will stop the bugs from biting. It has camphor in it. It doesn’t smell good, but a few drops spread on your exposed skin will keep them away. You must be itching to death.”
I lifted myself on my elbows and looked at her. “Thank you. It’s been a hard day. A potion is just what I need.”
“Wait a minute.” She trundled off from my bed near the door and went to hers, which was halfway down the room. She reached under her grimy blanket and pulled out a small brown bottle. She returned, took off the cap and placed her fingertip over the opening. She shook it and then spread a few drops from her finger on my neck and arms. Th
e camphor burned into my stung flesh, but after a few minutes the itching subsided under its cooling balm.
“You’re very kind,” I said. “I’m Magda.” I stuck out my hand and she meekly took it in hers.
She smiled. The middle tooth was missing from her lower jaw. “I’m Helen.”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I could ask the same of you,” she said.
My eyes focused on her red and yellow badge. “I believe I am a political prisoner, although no one has charged me with such crimes.”
Helen patted her badge as if she was proud of her insignia. “I am a political prisoner as well—and a Jew. That’s why I have two stars. The yellow is for ‘Jew’; the red is for my politics. The Nazis accused me of being a communist.” She laughed. “And they were right.” Her eyes lit up. “I suppose I shouldn’t have told you that. You could use it against me.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Your secret is safe with me.” I was about to ask about her interment at the camp when the guard blew the dinner whistle. We lined up and filed out the door. Tonight, I would be sure to eat. Katrina had arrived back at the camp during my brief nap. Together, with the older woman, we trudged to the mess hall for more soup and bread. This time, the broth had a slice of carrot in it, but the bread was moldy.
When we finished, Katrina and I walked back to the camp with the older woman. I asked Katrina about her day.
“It was hard work,” she said, holding her hands gingerly at her sides. “I smoothed ball bearings all day. You have a quota to meet. If you don’t, you get taken off the line and disciplined.”
The Taster Page 20
