As in every transport before, the Nazis hadn’t given a single word of explanation. Not where they were headed or why, certainly not how long it would take or whether they’d be returned one day. One woman lamented that she’d left a slice of bread hidden under her bunk and another one said, “I’m sure your bunk neighbor will find it and feast on it.” The heartless comment caused the first woman to spring at her, attempting to scratch out her eyes.
A ruckus ensued and Rachel was shoved, pushed and knocked against the railing, until everyone’s energy was exhausted and the agitation petered out like the ripples from a stone cast into a puddle.
As always, rumors and speculation about their destiny abounded, and the women who prided themselves on being in the know tossed names of sub-camps and work details around the truck, arguing about which one was preferable.
Rachel didn’t care either way. All she wanted was to go back and find her sister. She knocked her head against the canvas of the truck in desperation, but there was nothing she could do.
Almost an hour later, the vehicle stopped and the SS screamed, “Los! Raus! Schneller!”
She had no idea why they were always urging them to move fast, when on the other hand they dawdled hour upon hour during roll call. But since the SS had the whips, she quickly jumped off the platform and lined up behind the other women. The wrought-iron gate was similar to the one in Bergen and read, “Arbeit macht frei.” Work brings freedom.
She sneered at the words. Did working hard on the farm all her life count? Maybe she should ask those bigoted Nazis to let her go.
“Prisoner number?”
Rachel rattled off her number. In the transit camps where she’d been before, the Nazis had at least appeared to consider the inmates human, but in Bergen-Belsen everyone had been given a number and they’d been told it was verboten to use their names.
“Nationality?”
“German.”
The guard spit at her. “You’re not German, you’re a filthy Jew. Do you hear me? Next time someone asks for your nationality you say ‘filthy Jew’. Do you understand?”
Rachel nodded.
The guard gave a vile grin. “Nationality?”
“Filthy Jew,” she answered without flinching. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. For a moment she considered attacking him in the hopes he’d shoot her dead, but of course she couldn’t. She had a baby sister to find.
“You’re a quick study,” the guard said with a satisfied grin. “I’ll reward you with a nice job. Get over there.”
She hurried to follow his commands and walked in the direction of his pointed finger to a small group of women forming another line. The line turned out to be for fitting them out and each woman received a prisoner dress, a plate and a spoon, and was assigned a bunk. Within less than a minute Rachel had multiplied the possessions she owned.
After being processed they were ordered to line up in front of the kitchen where each woman was given two ladles of broth and a dry piece of bread. Rachel wasn’t even sure the bread was made with actual flour and the stinking liquid smelled and tasted the same as in Bergen-Belsen, but at least it was twice as much and Rachel found a few potato peels, a one-inch-piece of carrot and some indefinable rubber-like chunk in her bowl.
Information as always was hard to come by, but when the resident inmates returned from their work details in the evening Rachel found out that she was now in the village of Tannenberg, about twenty-five miles east of Bergen-Belsen, and her group was designated to work in the Rheinmetall ammunition factory, located half an hour’s walk from the camp.
As it turned out, the guard had indeed rewarded her for her obedience, because the residents all agreed that the Rheinmetall work detail was preferable over the alternatives of lumberjack work or road construction.
Rachel involuntarily shuddered at the thought of wielding a heavy axe to cut a tree in her weakened and emaciated condition. She pushed the thoughts away and – alone – climbed into her bunk, which was fitted with a scratchy straw mattress and a blanket, a huge improvement over her sleeping arrangements at the main camp.
She sent a prayer to heaven for her three younger siblings, hoping against hope her brothers had made it to safety and that Mindel had found a kind soul to take care of her. Her belief in God had all but vanished during these past months, experiencing atrocities she never could have imagined, but even if a prayer didn’t help, it wouldn’t hurt either.
Rachel sighed and closed her eyes. She dreamed of happier times with plenty of food, sunshine to enjoy, and the smell of flowers and grass. She saw her mother smiling as she watched her children play and slowly drifted off to sleep, hoping that one day those happier times would return.
7
Summer 1944
Spring had come and gone, and the sun scorched the dry ground in the camp, making it dusty and difficult to breathe.
Mindel still thought of Rachel once in a while, but had accepted the truth that her sister wasn’t going to come back. She was gone, probably dead. Mindel shrugged. These things happened. Here at the camp they happened with surprising frequency. One day a person was there, the next day she was gone.
Struggling from day to day, she hung out with the gang, not answering to anyone except to Laszlo and the SS. Naturally the gang members steered clear of them as much as they could and avoided confrontation at all cost.
But the other adults? They were weak and couldn’t make the kids do anything. In a way it was better than at home, where her mother had always bossed her around and forbidden everything that was fun. Here she could do what she wanted, as long as the SS didn’t catch them.
Her only gripes were the roll calls and the lack of food. But even that could be helped up to a certain point, since Mindel and Laszlo made such a great team organizing food from the kitchen. He would stand guard while she squeezed through the tiniest holes and grabbed whatever was available.
One morning during roll call she made an astounding discovery. One of the kitchen workers stood kitty-corner from her. Mindel opened her eyes wide, not believing what she saw, but there was no doubt. The woman standing there was the same one who peeled the potatoes day after day.
“Did you know that the kitchen workers are prisoners like us?” she asked Clara at the next opportunity.
The slightly older girl laughed. “Of course, they are, or did you expect the SS to do the work themselves?”
Mindel furrowed her brow in concentration. This idea had never occurred to her. “But if the kitchen workers are only prisoners, they can’t punish us. So why are we afraid of them?”
“Because they will report us to the SS.”
Mindel wasn’t convinced. By the time that woman told the SS, she would long have run away. From that day onward, Mindel became bolder in her stealing.
One afternoon, she was waiting outside the kitchen building, biding her time until the worker inside turned her back and Mindel could sneak inside. She’d seen that particular woman before. The woman was old, at least thirty, and had dark hair, a pale skin and high cheekbones. Sometimes she talked to herself in a language Mindel couldn’t understand. It sounded funny, like gibberish, but Ruth had told the other children it was Russian.
Nobody had been able to explain what Russian was and why these people talked so differently, but it didn’t really matter, since Mindel had no intention of ever speaking with that woman.
It was hot outside and the stabbing pain in her stomach made her impatient to go for the peels. Usually Mindel waited until the kitchen worker finished the bag of potatoes and carried them over to the stove. But when the Russian woman turned for a moment to massage her back, Mindel seized the opportunity. On her hands and knees, she crept inside, hiding behind a shelf.
That stupid woman, though, made no attempt to walk over to the other side of the kitchen. When she finally did, Mindel was so desperate to sweep down on the waste basket that she didn’t even wait until the woman had disappeared around the counter.
&
nbsp; She reached into the bin with the potato peels, and stuffed a handful into her mouth, before she grabbed more, stuffing them into the pockets of her dress.
“Ty chevo tvorish?” came a harsh voice behind her and Mindel felt her stomach drop.
She spun around to find the Russian woman standing between her and the doorway. Mindel swallowed the peels in her mouth and edged her way to the left. The woman moved with her, looking her over from head to toe. This time she spoke in heavily accented German: “Hey, what are you doing?”
“I…I’m hungry.”
“We all are. That’s no reason to steal.”
Mindel felt the shame burning her ears and nodded. She’d been so proud of her thieving activities, and now this woman was calling her out on it. Defiantly pressing her lips together, she edged backward, trying to reach the door and run, but the woman anticipated her movement and cut her off.
“You’ll get into real trouble when the wrong person catches you,” she said and looked around to make sure no one was watching. “Here.” She reached to a high shelf and pulled down a handful of breadcrumbs. “Take this and go. Don’t ever come back stealing here again.”
Mindel looked at the bread offered, not sure if she was being tricked. In the gang it was the common belief that adults couldn’t be trusted. Not the SS, and not the prisoners. Everyone who wasn’t your mother or father was more than willing to exploit the children and take their possessions for their own benefit.
But hunger won over caution and she reached out to grab the treat. The woman stepped aside and Mindel dashed for the back door. She darted out of the kitchen, running full tilt until she reached the place where Laszlo waited for her.
“Whoa! What happened?” he asked when she reached him, out of breath and shaking like a leaf.
“I got caught.”
“Holy shit! How did you get out?” Laszlo’s eyes darted around, waiting for the guards to appear.
Mindel pulled on his arm. “She didn’t tell anyone. She even gave me breadcrumbs.” Mindel opened her hand to show him the bounty.
“Let’s go and tell the others.”
Behind the row of barracks was an empty space that at one time might have been a meadow, but now consisted merely of dirt. For Mindel and her gang it was heaven on earth, because it was a place mostly away from the prying eyes of the SS guards and other adults. Only the posts in the tall watchtowers could see them, and they were too far away to eavesdrop.
When they arrived at the dirt spot they’d made their headquarters, the other children were already waiting for them.
“What took you so long?” Ruth asked.
“I…” Mindel started to say, but Laszlo elbowed her side and said, “The woman wasn’t peeling potatoes, so we couldn’t get peels, but Mindel managed to scrounge breadcrumbs.”
The children eagerly formed a circle and each of them put what little things they’d been able to scrounge into the middle. Laszlo then divided it into five equal parts and they ate together. It was almost like back home, sitting at the dinner table with her family – just now these four children had become Mindel’s family.
Except for Laszlo and herself, the others still had a parent or older sibling in the camp, but since the adults had to work during day, they were on their own most of the time.
When they’d eaten Fabian suggested, “Let’s play something.”
“Jew and SS,” came the immediate reply. It was the children’s favorite game.
“I’m SS,” Laszlo, Fabian and Ruth said with one voice, leaving Clara and Mindel to be the Jews.
“I hate being the Jew,” Mindel complained.
“Just to start with,” Laszlo said. “Later, we’ll switch roles. Everyone gets to be SS.”
Clara and Mindel were given a head start, while the others turned their backs and counted to ten. Mindel ran off right away, looking for a place to hide. There really weren’t many, apart from the huts. She pressed herself against the wall, hoping the others wouldn’t notice her.
She heard Laszlo call out “Coming”, and soon after the footsteps of one of the children approaching her hiding place. She waited until the last moment before she darted away, hoping to have the element of surprise on her side, but Fabian was too quick for her. He grabbed her arm and dragged her behind him to the punishment place. Clara was caught soon thereafter and the two of them stood in the middle of the circle, while the others pretended to tie them to a stake, singing, “The Jews will burn! The Jews will burn!”
Mindel and Clara had to pretend to beg for their lives and offered the “SS” food, clothing, money and whatever else they could think of. Once they were officially “burnt alive”, the game ended and they started again with roles reversed.
That part Mindel liked a lot better, because the SS always won and the Jews never had a chance. They played several more rounds of the game, until none of them could anymore and they all collapsed to the ground.
It was strange to feel so tired, because her brothers had always told her she’d become faster and stronger when she grew older, but in reality, the opposite seemed to be true. Every day she could run less and had to sit down to catch her breath more often.
But sitting around doing nothing soon became boring and Ruth, who was thinner than a stick, said, “Let’s see who’s thinnest.” She straightened her dress and pushed her fingers up beneath her lower ribs. Her hand disappeared up to her knuckles.
“Ha, that’s nothing, I can beat that,” Fabian boasted and pushed up his shirt to show how he could make his entire hand disappear beneath his ribs. “What do you say now?”
The other children murmured with admiration and Mindel nodded very seriously as she said, “You are really thin.”
“What about you, Mindel? Show us how thin you are!” Fabian urged her, but she answered, “I don’t like this game.” Herself, she could only squeeze the first two digits of her fingers behind her ribs, another disadvantage of being the youngest and smallest in the group. She always lost at these games.
Much too soon dinner time came around and, despite being so hungry, she loathed the moment when she had to put the disgusting gruel into her mouth. Why couldn’t the SS feed them something nice?
8
Rachel was torn from her slumber by loud yelling and it took her a moment to remember where she was. She jumped out of her bunk, put on her shoes and ran outside for the inevitable roll call. But much to her surprise, there was no roll call, only a queue in front of the field kitchen.
She’d gotten so used to the awful gruel, she didn’t even smell the stale and musty odor anymore and hastily spooned every last drop into her mouth – just in time to line up with hundreds of other women. Even before the line had fully formed, they were marched from the camp in rows of four.
It was already light outside, and the entire population of the rather rural town seemed to be on their feet already, heading out to work. As soon as the group of prisoners came nearer, though, the townsfolk diverted their steps into side alleys, or looked away—apart from some intrepid ones who hurled terms of abuse at the prisoners.
Rachel walked on the outside of her row of four and faltered in her step, as a glob of spit landed on her arm. But even as she wiped it away, the guard behind her lashed out with her truncheon, shouting, “Keep walking, filthy Jew!”
She stumbled onward, furtively glancing around. Never had she felt more humiliated in her life; she didn’t understand why these people hated them so much. She was a German just like the townsfolk, the only difference between her and them being that her ancestors practiced Judaism.
In the distance, she could see a large building, presumably the factory they were assigned to. Despite the early morning, the air was warm and she feared the walk back in the evening, when the asphalted street would be scorching hot. Grateful for her dilapidated shoes, she glanced around and noticed some other women had nothing but rags wrapped around their feet.
After a tiresome march they finally arrived at the Rheinmetall-
Borsig ammunition factory that stood like a sentry at the far side of the town. The resident inmates hurried to their workstations, but Rachel had to line up alongside the other newcomers to be assigned their line of work.
She just hoped it would be something where she could sit down, because in her weakened condition she was completely exhausted from the half-hour walk that back on the farm she’d done several times a day without a single complaint.
“You, come with me!” a male factory worker said, pointing at Rachel and five other women. He led them to a workstation, where, with a jubilant heart, Rachel noticed several high stools. The foreman showed them how to fill bullet shells with explosives and then left them alone, assembling the next work group.
She didn’t dare to talk or even look around, but focused exclusively on the task at hand. It was not physically challenging like street construction work would be, but she had to concentrate hard not to spill the explosives when stuffing them by hand into the shells.
As the morning passed, the air inside the factory grew unbearably hot and stifling. In addition, the smell of the various chemicals stung her nose and eyes, and after a while she could barely see through the veil of tears, running more freely than when cutting a dozen onions. Once, she used her fingers to swipe at her eyes, only to yelp with excruciating pain as she smeared the chemical residues on her fingertips into her eyes. It was certainly preferable to have the tears dilute her vision than to endure this unbearable pain.
But the acid stench did not stop at irritating her eyes. After hours of inhaling it, her lungs burned and she started coughing continually.
“It will get better,” the woman working next to her offered.
“How do you know?” Rachel asked before another violent coughing spell shook her body.
“Because I’ve been here for a long time.”
As much as Rachel had been positively surprised last night about the sleeping conditions, just as much she hated the work. And it wasn’t because she was a spoiled city brat either, since she’d worked hard all her life on the farm. Despite the slightly better food here, she wished herself back in Bergen-Belsen, where she hadn’t had to work twelve hours a day in addition to another hour walking to her workplace and back.
The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII Page 4
