The Girl Who Survived: Based on a true story, an utterly unputdownable and heart-wrenching World War 2 page-turner

by Ellie Midwood

  I watched Liza lead an almost Doctor Maria Baumann away. I was suddenly overcome with a strange sense of melancholy. I almost envied them for their loss. They were a few years older and therefore had someone to remember; they had fragments of real, civilian life to which they could still cling. I had been born a bit too late and mine was cut short before it even had a chance to begin – no university, no dances, no stolen kisses in the dark, summer alleys. Maria Baumann lived in Vienna and Berlin; I only saw Frankfurt and Minsk. With strange clarity, I realized that this was where I was most likely to die.

  No. No thinking this way. I won’t let them break me before my time. I’m strong. I’m brave. I’ll live. Somehow, I’ll live.

  I stood without motion much too long. The cold began seeping through my clothes. After prying the scarf off of my frozen face, I pulled the gloves off with my teeth to ensure that my fingers were still intact. I couldn’t feel them any longer and one had to be diligent about the first signs of frostbite. The SS had their opinion on the useless eaters; the ones, who couldn’t work any longer, invariably fell into this category. My hands were white as snow, with blueish veins and even bluer nails but still intact and working. I blew on them before working my way back into the gloves. They were still warm inside.

  “Fine gloves. Are they keeping you warm?”

  I turned on my heel swiftly, ready to burst into a torrent of apologies, ready to scramble back to my working place after being caught at procrastinating in such a shameless manner. Leutnant Schultz hesitated between an amused grin and a scowl after my startled reaction. I realized that my hand was still pressed to my chest and forced myself to lower it.

  “You look as though you’d just seen the great sea serpent.” He finally decided to turn it into a joke. “Am I really that terrifying?”

  “No. No, you’re not.” I grinned in spite of myself. “I thought you were one of the SS men or the Black Police.” I removed the glove once again and passed my hand over my forehead, collecting the beads of sweat that broke out on it. Quite the reaction we’ve developed to the Germans’ voices startling us in such a manner. “Is everything all right with the heating? I know that the last few days have been quite cold and we’re doing everything that we can to keep the entire complex thoroughly heated but if something is not—”

  “Everything is fine with the heating; don’t worry about that,” he assured me at once. “I just had a few free moments and wanted to see how the work is going.”

  “The work is fine. I was just going back to it. I only wanted to see if—” If I froze any of my fingers off. But I can’t quite tell you that, can I? “I thought I had a splinter.”

  Not a much better version but it would just have to do.

  “Allow me?”

  I hesitated before removing my gloves once again and offering him my numb hands for inspection. I almost wished I had at least one scratch on me. He’ll slap me silly after he doesn’t find anything and that’ll be the end of the fish soup for you, Ilse.

  Schultz pulled his gloves off and took my hands in his. “They seem fine to me. Just very cold.” He cupped his hands around mine and pressed them together. “The gloves aren’t helping you,” he proclaimed with a shade of disappointment in his voice.

  “They are. It’s just today and yesterday. This winter is nothing like I’ve ever seen and it doesn’t want to go away.” I finally sensed some warmth in the ends of my fingertips, the faintest echo of a sensation.

  “No, it doesn’t.” He lowered his head and blew on our hands, started rubbing mine in his.

  I held my breath for some time then finally found the courage to pull them carefully away.

  “It’s hurting my bones,” I explained with a smile, not wishing to offend him. “The warmth.”

  “Ach, yes. I should have thought of that. I’m sorry.”

  In silence, we both pulled our gloves back on. I threw a longing glance at the train car, on top of which women were regarding us with interest, lumber forgotten in their hands.

  “If you don’t have any complaints, Herr Leutnant, I won’t hold you any longer. Most certainly you have more important things to do than watch a brigade unload a wagon with firewood.”

  I made a tentative step towards the train. He followed me, in the same hesitant manner.

  “Is it all right for you? The work, I mean. They look heavy.” He motioned his head at the wood planks.

  Why did you request an all-women brigade then? To be surrounded by skirts, whatever it is that those skirts do? Are you all really so lonely here, on the Eastern Front, that now even Jewesses will do? I almost asked. Then, didn’t.

  “They are heavy,” I replied instead, in a very even tone.

  Schultz lowered his eyes, nodded a few times silently. Then, almost apologetically, he said, “I know they are. I’m sorry for making you hurl all these tree trunks. But it’s the women who they shoot at the first chance, you see; not the men. And now, you’re all ‘skilled workers,’ with a good ration and an exemption from execution.”

  All two hundred of us. I was suddenly mute. Mute and thoroughly ashamed of everything I said about him to Liza, to Boris, to Rivka. He waved at the women from my brigade amicably and they waved back at him, reluctantly and unsure but they did.

  “Well, I won’t bother you any longer.” He bowed at me slightly, looked at my hand but decided against offering his to me for a parting shake this time. Probably sensed the hostility I tried so thoroughly to keep away from my voice, from the manner in which I had worked my way out of his warm palms. “Report to me please once you’re finished with your shift, will you?”

  “Of course, Herr Leutnant. Thank you.”

  “For what?” He smiled at me one last time.

  I shrugged awkwardly and said nothing, just smiled back. For keeping us alive.

  Inside the Government Building, it was not just warm; it was hot. The heat rose in waves from the radiators, causing the windows to quiver against the glowing sunset. Amber light soaked the corridors. Amber light gleamed on Leutnant Schultz’s NSDAP pin, right in the middle of his right breast pocket. I somehow failed to notice it before and now I suddenly couldn’t look away from it.

  So, you are one of them, after all.

  “Can I help you with something, Ilse?”

  I looked up at him sharply, cringing inwardly at the familiarity.

  “You told me to report to you after the shift was over, Herr Leutnant.”

  “Yes, I know. I meant to say, is there anything I can do for you? You know what I mean.”

  His voice was soft, much like his whole demeanor. He sat at his desk, littered with papers, almost without moving, as though not wishing to frighten the wild, skittish animal in front of him. Near his hand, with a pencil in it, a can of sardines stood, along with a loaf of bread – the good bread, the ones that the locals baked for the Germans. He saw me staring at it and slowly pushed both items in my direction.

  “For you and your sisters.”

  “Thank you, Herr Leutnant.” I took the can but only brushed the top of the loaf before hiding my hand in my pocket. Away from temptation. “I can’t take the bread.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “They search us at the gates. I can hide the can well enough but there’s not a chance in the world I’ll be able to conceal an entire loaf of bread. As soon as they find it, it’s a beating or perhaps a bullet for me, depending on who’s on sentry duty. Not worth the risk. But thank you all the same.”

  He pondered something for a few moments. “What if we cut it into pieces? You can risk hiding a few pieces, can’t you?”

  “I suppose, Herr Leutnant.”

  “You can call me Willy when it’s just the two of us.”

  My smile dropped of its own volition, a guarded expression replacing it once again. He sighed, annoyed – with himself – and rubbed his forehead in a defeated manner. “You must forgive me. The blasted war has been dragging on for a few years and I’m a bit out of practice with c
ivilian talk and particularly around ladies. Though, it should be noted that I’ve never had a reputation as a ladies’ man, so that explains me acting like a complete and utter muttonhead. I hope you will excuse me and my lack of manners. It is unintentional, I promise.”

  I thoroughly tried to keep a straight face but then felt a smile faltering on the corners of my lips. Schultz was beaming too, half-embarrassed and half-delighted at finally making me drop my guard.

  “Apparently, you had at least some success with the ladies; one of them married you after all.” I nodded at his wedding ring.

  He looked at the golden band as though he’d seen it for the first time, suddenly confused.

  “Ach… yes. That. She took pity on me.”

  I didn’t ask the name of the woman who stood next to him in the picture that he kept on his table. He chose to leave her nameless also. From where I stood, I saw that she had dark wavy hair and a coy smile. He was wearing a civilian suit. It must have been taken before the war.

  He produced the knife from the cardboard that stood near the wall, helped me cut the bread, then gathered the crumbs into his palm and was about to drop them into the wastebasket when I grabbed his wrist, emptied his palm into mine and quickly devoured whatever was in it. He stared at me like I was the great sea serpent this time. I immediately apologized. Instinct, Herr Leutnant. We had indeed been reduced to a miserable, animalistic lot and no one can help us any longer, not you, not God himself.

  He hunted for something in his pockets with sudden urgency, produced a stack of bills – he didn’t know I was so hungry; could I perhaps buy something on the black market? I shook my head at once, vehemently. Money was worse than bread. For bread, I’d only get beaten; for money – occupation money available only to the troops and civilians – I’d be making an acquaintance with the Gestapo and that option did not sit well with me. It’s really all right and Herr Leutnant shouldn’t worry himself over it. The bread will do just fine. Could he perhaps turn away just for a few moments to allow me some privacy? I need to stuff the slices where the cursory search wouldn’t reveal them, that is the stockings and the bra.

  “You can use my bedroom.” He pointed at the door at the end of the room. I, for some reason, thought it was only a closet. “And take all the time you need.”

  He helped me open the door. With my hands full of bread, I stepped inside and stood in astonishment for a while, the reminder of a half-forgotten, past life hitting me like a steamroller with the sheer force of the normality of it. It was a former adjoining office, no doubt, but so very cozy and pleasant now, after it had been remodeled into a bedroom, with a narrow brass bed by the wall, neatly made; a round table in the middle, framed by two chairs, a desk facing the other wall, with a lamp and a typewriter on it, and flowers everywhere. They were artificial, the Soviet type, waxy and somewhat discolored by the sun yet at that moment I thought I’d never seen anything quite so beautiful. Flowers… I thought I’d forgotten what they looked like. Of all the places, to find them here, to be reminded that even out of the blood-soaked ground the multicolored cloud of flowers will blossom once the spring comes again, for it was the way of nature, to conceive life out of death itself.

  The room swam before my eyes. I wiped the tears but they kept flowing, round, like pearls from a torn necklace. I ripped both sweaters off and two undershirts under them, just to occupy my trembling hands with something. The bread was breaking in my hands, it was so fresh. I began sobbing. I suddenly felt infinitely close to Maria Baumann, an almost doctor, in our common grief. I didn’t belong here either. None of us did. It was all one big mistake, a miscarriage of humanity – that much she was right about.

  “Ilse?” A tentative knock on the door. “Are you all right there?”

  I took a deep breath, but it was all too much for me. I wept harder. I have bread in my bra, and I’ll get beaten or shot if they find it. And you have flowers in your room. How is it fair?

  “I’m fine,” I finally gathered myself into a semblance of a human being who could at least talk. “It was a difficult day. A few days.”

  “A few months?” He supplied from the other side of the door.

  “Yes. A few months. They killed my mother in a gas van. I didn’t know what those vans were when they just herded them there… The Ostjuden told me later. I wished they hadn’t. At least I had hope.” The words poured out of me in a ceaseless torrent, a savaged artery spurting blood right out of the bleeding heart. “My father died on the train. I traveled with his dead body for several hours. His head was still warm when they threw him out in the snow, along with the others. Not even a coffin. Not even a grave for us to visit. What am I saying though? Who’s going to visit him? They’ll off us all during the next pogrom and throw us into something they’ll name Pit Number Two on their official papers. All of us will perish. You’ll see how fast they see to it.”

  From the other side, silence. I wondered if he was there at all or had gone to fetch a Gestapo agent to arrest me. I felt better now, empty. Didn’t Mutti always say that a good cry heals all? My head felt lighter, that’s for sure but perhaps that was due to the hunger. I didn’t touch any bread apart from the crumbs I stole from Schultz’s hand.

  I began putting my clothes back in order.

  “You don’t have to go back to the ghetto tonight.”

  So, he was still there after all, also sitting on the floor, separated from me by a thin lacquered door. I pressed my head against it.

  “You can stay here; I’ll write a paper for you tomorrow. I’ll make something up for them. Too much paperwork, needed a typist – that sort of stuff. They’ll eat it up, as long as it has an official stamp.”

  I rose to my feet and pulled the door open. He stood up swiftly as well, adjusting his uniform. “Don’t look at me like that. I only think of your well-being. I want you to have a proper night’s rest, not among twenty other people but… You’ll sleep in my bed, and I’ll sleep in my office, on the sofa. You can even lock the door if you like; I’ll give you the key.”

  I looked at him for a very long time, then smiled and gently shook my head. “It’s very kind of you but I can’t. I have to feed my sisters.”

  “Of course.” He looked down.

  I suddenly wished to reach out and press his hand but took the coward’s way out and settled on brushing his sleeve with my fingers in a gesture of gratitude before quickly pulling away. I wasn’t afraid of him any longer and neither did I resent him solely for wearing that hateful uniform. For the first time, I saw a man behind it; a man, who was genuinely trying to help and had not the faintest idea how. That tiny sliver of humanity, the madly exhilarating feeling of being treated like a person and not something worthless and temporary that would soon be disposed of, filled my soul better than any bread would fill my stomach. “I’m really grateful for the bread and sardines and your generous offer. I just—”

  “It’s all right; I really do understand. I have three sisters too. I would do anything for them.”

  This time, it was him who picked my hand and brought it to his lips to plant a gentle kiss on my knuckles. This time, I didn’t pull it away as I did in front of the brigade. He still released it almost at once and stepped away to keep a respectful distance as I passed him on my way out.

  “My offer will always stand,” he said by means of goodbye.

  I thanked him quietly and slipped out of the room. In the hallway, I slowly brought my fingers to my mouth, where he kissed them. My face was burning as though lit from the inside by some savage, invisible fire.

  Liza looked me over with suspicion as we lined up to be marched back to the ghetto. “What is it with you? You’re practically glowing.”

  “It’s the frost,” I mumbled in self-defense.

  As the SS were busy counting us, I suddenly felt a mad longing to turn around and look at the window from which I could see the entire square not five minutes ago. I started, when I caught sight of Schultz standing at the window. I couldn’t make o
ut his face but I did see his hand clear enough when he lifted it in a friendly salute and waved at me. Quickly ensuring that the SS escort was looking the other way, I waved him back.

  Liza was smiles all over her wry face when I turned back.

  “What?” I grumbled.

  “Nothing. The frost.”

  I gave her a dig in the ribs. She was laughing soundlessly.

  Chapter Ten

  “Happy Birthday, Lore.”

  I kissed both of my little sister’s cheeks – not so little anymore, a whole thirteen-years-of-age – and presented her with a package, wrapped in a local newspaper. She tore into the paper, gasped in excitement but then paled at once, looking at me sternly, almost with reproach.

  “A dress! And a fancy one on top of it! Where did you get that, Ilse?”

  “I didn’t steal it if that’s what you mean.” I evaded a direct answer, with a hint of a grin.

  “I wouldn’t think you did. I mean, how much did you pay for it?” She smoothed the woolen, plaited skirt of it over her knees; brushed the embroidered collar and cuffs with her thin, delicate fingers, her expression almost painful. “How many days did you not eat to save up enough ration coupons for it?”

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” I passed my hand over her blonde braids, crowning her head. “I ate, I promise.”

  She only sighed, as Mutti used to when she’d catch me at some mischief, with loving resignation. How much she resembled her, my little Lore. And how savvy she’d become for her age! Not every girl of twelve would think to supply a confident “Fifteen” in response to an SS man’s, “How old?”

  She knew better to work in a sewing workshop inside the ghetto rather than loiter in the streets together with the rest of the children; it saved her life, too, during the massacre of March 2nd. A savvy girl, indeed.

  “Lore,” I began in a soft voice. We were alone in our corner, sitting on the narrow bed on which we slept all together, all feet and arms in each other’s faces – still, a better alternative to the floor. Lily was busy preparing something special for the birthday girl in the small communal kitchen along with the other women. Good; no need for her to hear this conversation. She’d just start panicking again and ruin it all. “I got this dress with a purpose. Rivka said she can get you out of the ghetto. They do it and with young girls in particular, when there’s little chance to send them to partisans, so they came up with this brilliant idea. With your looks, you’ll easily pass for a Gentile—”