Rachel had always preferred the uppermost bunk, so she climbed up there, and stretched out on the bare wood, pressing Paula against her face. Tears fell into the doll’s dirty dress and she barely noticed when two other people climbed into her bunk and shoved her into a corner, grumbling. Exhaustion took over and she fell into a deep sleep, murmuring, “Rachel, where are you? Please, come find me.”
2
Rachel came awake at the shrill sound of a siren. Out of habit she fumbled about the bunk, searching for her little sister, when the events of the day before rushed to her mind. The image of Mindel’s panicked face, when the guard separated them and dragged Rachel into another fenced-off compound of this damned camp, was vividly imprinted in her memory.
By now she’d learned that they had arrived at the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen and that the entire camp was divided into several compounds separated from each other by barbed wire fences. She had ended up in the biggest part, the Women’s camp, and could only guess where Mindel was. Maybe in the Star camp, which was close to the main entrance and had gotten its name because inmates wore civilian clothes with a Yellow Star sewn onto them. In any case, it would be difficult to get there, because traffic and communication between the compounds was strictly verboten.
Guilt crept up her spine. She should have fought harder to stay together with Mindel when the SS guard had torn them apart and shoved her in the opposite direction away from her sister. At four years of age, Mindel was nothing more than a baby, and without Rachel to look after her the way she’d done since their parents had been deported, how could she survive?
Rachel could only hope that a kind woman would take little Mindel under her wing and ensure her survival. Desperate, she rubbed a hand over her head, cringing at the feel of the stubble there instead of the long dark hair she’d once loved to brush and braid.
They’d shorn her hair in the camp before this one, and while she still reeled from the humiliation, she acknowledged that with the disgusting living conditions it might well be a good thing. At least the omnipresent lice couldn’t hide in her hair. Not that it helped much – she was infested with these little buggers from head to toe, and the constant itching and biting was one more nuisance to bear. Mindel, though, had not been shorn, and Rachel had spent time each night picking lice and other critters from her head.
She rubbed her arms, hoping the motion would force some warmth back into her skin. April was still chilly at night and she’d not been able to scrounge a blanket the night before. Every time they were moved from one camp to the next, they’d had to start from scratch, fighting for a bunk, a blanket, and apparently now for the privilege of staying together.
Her hand touched her most precious possession: her soup bowl that she always carried tied to her waist. No bowl – no soup. With a shock she registered the second bowl. Good heavens, I hope someone gave Mindel a cup to eat from.
“Hurry up or do you want us all to be punished for your dawdling?” someone yelled and Rachel quickly climbed down from the bunk. She followed the rest of the women outside to stand in line for the godawful roll call.
According to the other women it could take hours until the SS had counted all the inmates, making sure the numbers of living and dead prisoners matched up.
Her eyes glued to the ground, she whispered to the woman on her left. “Have you been here for long?”
“Too long.”
“I’m looking for my baby sister. She’s in one of the other compounds.”
“You’ll never find her, there’s no way across.”
Rachel felt as if she was shrinking in size with the utter forlornness of her quest. “There must be some way.”
“The infirmary is the only possible way to get to the other side, but you must have a verifiable emergency to be allowed in there,” another woman whispered.
“Like a severed arm,” the first one said.
“Shush,” someone behind them hissed and moments later the guards came up to their row, inspecting each of the women closely.
Desperate to find her sister, Rachel formed a plan. If the infirmary was the one place where people from different sub-camps could meet, she had to go there and ask questions about Mindel. It was a long shot, but someone might have seen her.
With this plan conceived her most important move was to stay in the camp and appear sick enough to be taken to the infirmary. When roll call was finally over and the women were allowed to receive their morning soup, Rachel pondered how to get into the hospital located in the Star camp.
“You’re wasting your energy looking for her,” the woman to her left warned. “A small child like that won’t last long in this place.”
Hatred for the woman rose like bile in her throat and she felt the urge to punch this cold-hearted bitch in her face, but that would only get them both into hot water. In any case, the Nazis were the bad guys here and lashing out at fellow prisoners would only make the situation worse.
3
The horrible sound of a horn woke Mindel from her sleep and she rolled over to snuggle against Rachel’s warm body.
“Hey, get off me, brat!” the person lying next to her yelled.
Mindel swallowed down her fear and opened her eyes. Then she remembered. Rachel was gone. Tears fell down her cheeks as she wallowed in misery. It’s so unjust! Why did they take Rachel away? What have I done to deserve this?
She clutched her doll to her chest as she blindly climbed down from her bunk. She urgently had to pee, but didn’t want to be late for roll call, since she’d been beaten several times before for not arriving on time. Torn between going to the latrines and being late, she finally opted to scramble for the stinking buckets next to her bunk. Holding her nose tight with one hand, she scrambled to push her underwear down with the other hand.
In her hurry she missed the bucket and urinated on her leg, but there was no time – or water – to clean herself. She ran after the others and reached the door just as the last person walked through. Unsure what to do next, she followed a girl who looked slightly younger than Rachel and didn’t leave her side as everyone lined up for roll call.
While walking past rows and rows of inmates, she glanced into each and every face, hoping to find Rachel somewhere.
“You new here?” the older girl asked.
“Yes. I lost my sister when we arrived.”
“I’m Hanneli, what’s your name?”
Finally, a friendly soul who didn’t scold her or send her away. Mindel gave her a grateful smile. “I’m Mindel.”
“I saw you last night at the food line and then in our barracks, but you were asleep already. Take this.” Hanneli held out a tin cup for her. “I stole it from a stiff last night.”
Mindel nodded and reached out to take the cup, weak from hunger. “What’s a stiff?”
“A dead person.” Hanneli looked straight ahead and told Mindel to do the same, before she added, “Guard the cup with your life. Tie it to your body. Put it beneath your blouse at night. Don’t ever leave it unattended. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Mindel understood well enough. “No cup, no food.”
While standing more or less motionless for the eternity of the roll call, she clandestinely removed Paula’s hair ribbon, slung it through the cup’s handle and tried at least a dozen times to make a bow. With every failed attempt, her desperation grew.
When the guards had passed their row, Hanneli turned around and said, “Let me.” Then she made a sling with a knot and pushed it over Mindel’s wrist. “There you are. Don’t lose the mug.”
“Thank you.”
Mindel hated the roll call with a passion; it was the most awful thing she’d ever experienced, even more than the constant hunger and abuse. In the beginning of her captivity, she’d wanted to jump, run and play, but Rachel had forced her to stand still.
Then, as time passed, she’d become hungrier and weaker and all she wanted was to sit down, but again Rachel had forced her to stand up. Didn’t those SS m
en have anything better to do than to keep everyone out in the cold, rain or sunshine? Didn’t they see how exhausting it was having to stand still for all that time? Mindel didn’t understand why they had to keep counting everyone; it wasn’t as if there was a way out of this horrid place.
When the roll call finally ended, she trotted off to take her place in the queue, waiting for soup. She carefully removed the sling from her wrist and grabbed the cup with both hands and for good measure gave a fierce grimace so nobody would dare to steal it from her, because she was really, really hungry. When it was her turn, the food bearer filled the mug up to the brim and gave her a small piece of bread.
Mindel bit on her lip, trying to balance the mug with one hand and the bread with the other one. When the soup spilled, she almost started to cry.
“Take it into both hands,” Hanneli, who’d come up behind her, said. “Like this.” She showed Mindel how to put the bread between her teeth to have both hands free for the mug. Mindel nodded, focusing on stepping lightly as she looked for a place to sit down and eat. Even with both hands it wasn’t easy to keep the liquid from spilling over, and she stopped several times to take a sip from the cup and steady the wild movement of the precious soup.
It tasted atrocious and even a month ago she would not have eaten this horrible gruel, but with her aching tummy she’d eat just about anything. Even the dirt on the ground. She had learned never to ask for more, even though she didn’t understand why. The SS people were eating all the time, so why didn’t they give her something when her tummy hurt?
The mug was empty all too soon and she scraped out every last drop with her fingers, licking them clean. If her mother could see her now, she’d be struck with an open hand. Back home the rule was no fingers in food. Mindel had hated that stupid rule, because eating with fork and knife was so hard, but she didn’t like having to lick the rest of this disgusting gruel, either.
Thoughts of her mother filled her with sadness. Rachel had told her their parents had been sent away to work for the government and would soon return.
“But why can’t they work on our farm? Mother always says there’s more than enough work to do,” she had asked and Rachel had answered with a typical adult turn of phrase. “You’re too young to understand.”
As if! Mindel understood quite well that adults had some very strange opinions and didn’t seem to know how things really worked. Or why would they stay in this awful place? Why didn’t they tell the SS to let them go?
Since Hanneli had been so nice, Mindel gathered all her courage and asked, “I lost my sister. Can you help me find her?”
Hanneli’s eyes took on a sad expression. “What’s her name?”
“Rachel.”
“And her last name?”
Mindel furrowed her brow, thinking hard. She knew that the adults sometimes had called her mother Frau …something. She just couldn’t remember it. As hard as she tried, nothing came to her mind. “I don’t know.”
“Well, that makes is difficult. There must be hundreds of girls with the name Rachel in the camp. Do you know how old she is?”
Again, Mindel was at wits’ end. She put up four fingers. “I’m four. Aron is seven.” Then she put up all ten fingers. “This is how old Israel is. And Rachel, she’s much older.”
Hanneli gave a deep sigh. “Aron and Israel are your brothers?”
“Yes.”
“Are they here, too?”
“No. When the SS came after us, they ran so fast, the men couldn’t catch them!” Mindel was immensely proud of her brothers. They were true heroes. If her own legs weren’t so short, she would have run with them, and then …she began to sob. “It’s all my fault that we’re here!”
“How can you say this? It’s the Nazis’ fault.”
Mindel trembled with guilt and rage. “I stumbled when we were running. Rachel picked me up and carried me, but then she was so much slower than my brothers. That’s why the men caught her. It’s all my fault!”
Hanneli wrapped her arm around Mindel’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault. You’re still so little.”
“I don’t want to be little!” Mindel burst out. “I want to be grown-up and strong and then I will punch all the SS men in the face and tell them to let us go.”
This time Hanneli smiled before she said, “Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. We can search for your sister in the evening if you want.”
Another horn sounded and Hanneli stood up, pulling Mindel with her. “The adults have to go on their work details. You’d better return to your bunk and stay out of the way.”
“Work?” Mindel asked, perplexed, but nodded and walked back to her barracks, proud that she’d memorized which one it was. Once she arrived in the mostly empty barracks, save for a few sick people groaning, she climbed into her bunk. The stench was repellant, but she held her nose and pulled out Paula from under her blouse. The poor mite hadn’t had anything to eat yet.
Lying on her bed, talking to Paula, her belly was aching and growling again. She tried to ignore it, but being all alone was awful and boring. If at least there were other children to play with… Sitting here with nothing to do only made the hunger worse. She started to get off the bunk a few times, but then she realized she didn’t know where to go.
Rachel had always impressed on her the need to stay out of the way of the guards. Now that she was on her own, she didn’t want to come across one of them, because they could be so mean. She dreamt of her life on the farm back home, and how she had played with her brothers, but it was getting harder and harder to remember those days. She barely remembered the face of her mother, let alone her father.
Loneliness sucked her into a deep hole and she barely noticed when the back door of the barracks opened and three children rushed in. They stopped dead in their tracks, glaring at her, whispering to one another, before they turned around and rushed back out the way they had come.
Fear fought with curiosity and in the end Mindel climbed down from her bunk, cautiously leaving the barracks. She spotted the children between two outbuildings and walked toward them.
A tall and incredibly thin boy with a shock of pitch-black hair noticed her and hurriedly waved her over. Mindel looked around and when she saw two guards coming down the path, she took off running for the shelter of the outbuilding.
Completely out of breath she crashed to her knees and skidded toward the thin boy. She wanted to scream with pain, but remembering the scathing remarks of her brothers for behaving like a baby, she didn’t want to show any weakness to this boy and gritted her teeth. If he was anything like them, he didn’t want to hang out with a crybaby.
“Well done,” he said. “Never let them spot you. I’m Laszlo, and you?”
“Mindel.”
“I haven’t seen you before, are you new?” he asked, flashing a double-toothed gap. Just like her brother Aron, who’d been so proud of his first missing tooth. Mindel wished she had a wobbly tooth, too, because that would make her a big girl.
She nodded and when she noticed Laszlo looking at her doll, she tucked Paula behind her back. He didn’t have to know that she still played with dolls.
Laszlo pretended not to notice and asked, “How old are you?”
“Four. And you?”
“I’m already seven. You can play with us if you want.”
Suddenly she didn’t feel quite as lonely as she had just a little while ago.
4
After eating her meager breakfast, Rachel found herself following the others as they lined up, shoulder to shoulder in long rows. All around her were exhausted-looking women, and it was easy to pick out the ones who had been there for a while. They were emaciated, their hair – if they still had any – tangled and falling out, their clothing just barely hanging on their bodies.
“What are we doing?” she whispered to an old woman standing next to her.
“Work details,” the woman said in an expressionless voice.
“They make us work?” S
o far, Rachel had been to several transit camps and detention centers, but nowhere had she been forced to work.
The other woman gave a dry cough. “Bergen-Belsen is for the sick and dying. Everyone else gets sent somewhere else.”
Rachel watched as the guards walked up and down the lines of women, choosing the healthier ones and ordering them off to one side. A sense of panic began to well up inside her. She couldn’t be sent off to someplace else. She had to stay here and find Mindel.
As the guards drew closer to her place in line, Rachel desperately thought about how she could evade being sent elsewhere. Compared to the other women she definitely looked healthy and able-bodied. Just as the guards reached the row before her, she broke out into a fit of coughs, bent over, clutching her stomach with one hand while she forced her fingers down her throat with the other.
All of the ugly gruel she’d had for soup rose in her throat and she spewed it onto the ground. It wasn’t difficult to look faint and aggravated, because if the soup had tasted horrid on its way down, it certainly hadn’t improved coming back up.
“Disgusting filthy whore,” a female guard with the most scathing, vile, blue eyes yelled. “You clean that up!”
Rachel bent down, swiping at the ground with the hem of her skirt and keeping her eyes down until the shiny black boots in front of her moved on. When she was sure the vile guard had moved on to the next row, she slowly got up.
“Whatever did you do this for?” her neighbor whispered.
“I need to find my sister.”
“Stupid bitch! In here, you have to take care of yourself first. The women who work have a chance to live. In the sub-camps everything’s better – less crowded, more food, and a shower once in a while.”
The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII Page 2
