Well, that was a problem Mindel hadn’t considered.
“We’ll help you,” said Tina, who’d caught up with them. Both of them were much smaller than he was, but somehow they managed to drag him up and with his arms slung over their shoulders he hobbled back. Despite their best efforts, holding Laszlo up became harder with every step and Mindel had to bite on her lips in order not to cry out from the pain. She almost collapsed in relief when two of the older boys saw them and took over.
Mother Brinkmann came out of the barracks and assessed the situation with a single glance, ordering, “Karl and Thaddeus, you get him inside on my bunk. Sandy, you bring me the first aid box, and with you, Tina and Mindel, I’ll have a word later.”
Mindel knew she was in for a serious scolding, but for the time being she didn’t worry about her punishment, and quietly observed how the bigger boys settled Laszlo on the bunk.
Sandy came running with a cardboard box used as the first aid kit. It contained a few strips of cloth, ointment and small white pills that were cut into quarters and given to seriously ill children. Sometimes they helped and the child got better.
Mother Brinkmann returned with a small bowl of clean water from a secret stash the children weren’t allowed to ever touch and began to clean Laszlo’s wounds.
Mindel wrung her hands as she watched her friend wince and cry out, but was too fascinated by the efficiency of Mother Brinkmann’s actions to look away. When Mother Brinkmann finished cleaning the wounds, she gave Laszlo a quarter of the white pill, and then turned around to glare at Mindel and Tina.
“Now, care to tell me what happened?”
“The SS…” Tina whispered.
“Yes? And why did they beat him?”
Tina stuttered and Mindel felt her ears burn under the scrutinizing gaze. “He was in the kitchen…”
“What on earth was he doing there?” Mother Brinkmann’s voice raised.
“Organizing food.”
“He got caught stealing?” Mother Brinkmann looked so positively angry that Mindel almost wished to face an SS guard instead of her. Lost for words she merely nodded.
What followed was a long sermon about proper behavior that ended with, “There will be no more stealing while you live in my barracks. Let Laszlo’s injuries be a lesson to you all. Anyone caught stealing from here on out will have to find another place to live.”
All the children looked shamefaced, except for Laszlo, who’d dozed off, groaning. Mindel had no idea how he could sleep in such a grave situation. Now Mother Brinkmann would get even angrier at him.
Surprisingly, she didn’t. Instead she covered him with a blanket, shooed the other children out of the barracks and said, “He needs rest. You go and play outside.”
Three days later Laszlo was able to get up from the bunk and came limping toward Mindel, with a victorious look on his face. But before he reached her, Mother Brinkmann said with a voice cold as steel, “Laszlo, I have to talk to you.”
Mindel was pondering whether she should stay or not, but in the end, curiosity won out.
“You endangered every one of us with your behavior,” Mother Brinkmann scolded Laszlo. “We live in slightly better conditions than in the other barracks, because the SS mostly ignores us. But when they find out that my children are stealing food from the kitchen, they might as well close these barracks. Do you really want to return to having roll calls, and fending for yourself?” Her piercing stare made Mindel shiver. “What you did, Laszlo, was stupid and dangerous.”
“No, what these monsters are doing is stupid. They have no right to starve us to death and I won’t let that happen to me!”
“Laszlo!”
“No!” he was shouting angrily. “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re just another helpless Jew. The only ones who can make me do anything are the bloody SS and even them I defy! Because I’m no coward like the rest of you.”
“I understand you’re upset but you need to listen to my words. No more stealing.” Mother Brinkmann was keeping surprisingly calm in the face of Laszlo’s anger.
“I’m good at it.”
“And it’s going to get you killed,” Mother Brinkmann warned him.
Laszlo defiantly stared at her. “That’s going to happen anyway. What do I care if I die today or a month from now? Nobody will shed a tear for me and the other children can eat my share of the food.”
Mindel’s ears were ringing with shock. He couldn’t be serious about not caring to die. Secretly wiping the tears from her eyes, she snuck out of the barracks, kicking a few pebbles around.
“What are we going to do without Laszlo?” she asked her doll, but not even Paula had words of solace for her.
At night, when she crawled into the bunk beside Laszlo, she plucked up the courage to ask him, “Do you really want to die?”
“Why not? Let’s face it, none of us will survive this camp.”
“I don’t want you to die. I love you and I would shed many tears when you’re gone.”
He rolled around with a pained groan and hugged her with one arm. “I’m going to find a way for the two of us to get out of here. Promise.”
“I don’t want to leave the orphans’ barracks. No one tries to steal my food or our blankets, and it smells a lot better.”
“When we’re in Switzerland we’ll have more food than we can eat and fluffy eiderdowns.”
She sighed. So, he’d not given up on his plan to go to Switzerland. To her it seemed daunting – too daunting. It certainly was better to stay here than to escape to someplace neither of them even knew where it was. She liked Mother Brinkmann and being around the other children. Most of all, she liked the nighttime stories about Fluff.
Fluff had become a dear friend like Paula and every day she looked forward to another of his daring adventures. This night’s story had been about him going swimming with a duck. She still smiled at how he’d been afraid of the water at first but with the duck’s encouragement frolicked in the lake for hours. Something she wished she could do as well…
18
“Anne? Rachel, where are you?” Margot called out as she entered the barracks.
The two girls were sitting on the bunk, the threadbare blanket slung around their shoulders, knitting gloves with threads taken from said blanket.
“What’s up?” Rachel asked.
Margot handed her a dirty slip of paper. “Look!”
Rachel Epstein. Your sister Mindel is at the orphans’ barracks. Hanneli Goslar.
Rachel read the curly handwriting and gasped, “Oh my God! Mindel is alive!” She handed the paper to Anne, to read the good news for herself.
“This…is this true?” Anne’s hand trembled and she’d become even paler than usual.
“What’s wrong?” Margot asked. “Isn’t that good news?”
Anne shook her head. “It’s signed Hanneli Goslar. Hanneli! Don’t you remember my classmate Hanneli?”
Margot reached for the note in her sister’s hands. “I’m sure there are a thousand girls with that same name.”
Rachel looked from one girl to the other, not knowing how to feel. Joy over the possible reunion with their long-lost friend, or sadness that their friend was in this hellish place, too.
“Look at the handwriting. I’m sure it’s her,” Anne insisted. “Where is this orphans’ barracks?”
“In the Star Camp, on the other side of the fence,” Rachel explained.
“I must go and see her.”
“There’s no way to cross over. It’s on the other side of the barbed wire fence in the south corner of our compound.”
Anne shook her head. “The note got here, so we can get a note back. How do we do it?”
“There’s a nurse working in the infirmary over there, but living here. She might be able to help. Although…” Rachel shrugged.
“What?” Margot and Anne said in unison.
“She requires payment.”
Anne frowned, but then held up the glove she was knitting
. “A half-finished glove maybe?”
Rachel laughed. “That’s too much, but we could bribe her with a bunch of threads.”
Anne immediately made to unravel threads from the blanket until she held about a dozen in her hand. “Let’s go!”
“No, we have to wait until after dinner. She’ll be working right now,” Rachel said.
Anne pouted, before she agreed. “You’re probably right. And we need a plan.”
For the next hours they tossed ideas at each other on how to best contact Hanneli. They finally settled for a note indicating they’d wait for her each night from after dinner until curfew at the far end of the fence separating the two compounds. There was exactly one spot where waiting people could linger without being seen from the watchtowers.
“I’ll stay here and cover for you, if you ask this Hanneli about Mindel,” Rachel said as the time came for them to leave.
“Thank you, and we will certainly ask about your sister,” Anne said.
The following days passed excruciatingly slowly. Rachel didn’t even mind standing for hours during roll call, as long as the seconds ticked by, bringing her closer to finding her little sister. She already imagined seeing her sweet little face, and kissing her soft cheek.
Every evening Margot and Anne left for the agreed-upon place, walking purposefully in the shadows until they reached the fence, where they lurked waiting for Hanneli to show up. On the third night, Anne returned beaming with joy. “It was my Hanneli! Can you imagine that? I’m so happy she’s alive.”
Rachel bit on her lip, anxious to hear more.
“She promised to return tomorrow night with…your sister,” Margot said.
“Do you think it’s really her?” Rachel asked.
“Probably yes. She doesn’t know her last name, but the only Mindel she knows is four years old and used to live on a farm.”
“That does sound like it could be my sister.” Rachel didn’t want to get her hopes up, but couldn’t help but pray it really was her Mindel.
“I’m sure it’s her. It has to be her,” Anne said.
Moved to tears, Rachel couldn’t utter a word. Both of the Frank girls hugged her and Margot said, “Tomorrow I’ll cover and you go with Anne. I hope you can talk to your sister.”
“Talk?” Rachel perked up her ears. “Why not see her?”
“They put straw inside the barbed wire just a day ago, because there were too many people standing by the fence hoping to catch a glimpse of relatives in the other compound.”
“Damn!” Rachel felt cheated, but quickly consoled herself with the fact that talking to her sister was better than nothing. At least Mindel is alive, she thought, a fresh surge of hope blossoming in her chest.
19
Winter had come with snow and bitter cold. Mindel had always loved the snow. Back home, she and her brothers had used to play outside for hours, building snowmen and igloos, take the sled for a ride, wrapped in warm clothes from head to toe. When they had returned inside after hours, exhausted and cold, her mother would make them hot milk with honey and settle them in front of the oven, in their terrycloth pajamas. How she missed that time.
Here, she was always cold. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt warm, not even at night wrapped in the thin blanket and cuddled up against Laszlo and Tina. Since more and more children arrived, Mother Brinkmann had assigned three or four of them to each bunk, which was actually good, because the other bodies gave off heat, but it also meant she had to sleep pressed together without moving.
Mindel was waiting her turn in the food line, blowing on her hands to get some warmth into her fingertips, which had lost most of their feeling.
She remembered her first winter away from home in another camp with Rachel by her side. In her memory it had been much warmer and she couldn’t remember her hands being that cold. She tried to push the sleeves of her dress over her hands to keep them warm, but found out it wasn’t possible.
Without her noticing it, the sleeves were suddenly ending mid-forearm, just like the rest of her dress seemed to have shrunken, barely covering her knees, and she was having a hard time getting the blouse portion buttoned up.
Since the incident with the SS beating up Laszlo, she’d been scared of the kitchen hut and had refused to set a foot anywhere near it; however, that day Mother Brinkmann sent her to fetch their ration of bread for the day from the kitchen, a chore that normally was Mia’s. Since the older girl had died the day before and most of the older children were too sick to go outside, Mindel had reluctantly obeyed.
As she now stood waiting for her turn, the horrible images came rushing back and she fidgeted her feet, wanting to run away. But then they’d have no bread. And Mother Brinkmann would be angry with her.
The line moved slowly and with each step, her scrunched-up toes painfully bumped against the confinement of her shoes. She curled her toes as much as she could, but that didn’t make it any more comfortable either. Walking in these shoes had become excruciatingly painful over the last weeks, but it was still better than going barefoot.
When it was her turn, she reached out her hand to receive the two loaves of bread, recognizing the Russian woman who’d been so kind when she’d caught her stealing potato peels a long time ago.
“Poor mite,” the woman said with a twinkle in her eye. “Wait over there until I’m finished, will you?”
Mindel was scared out of her wits, but didn’t dare to run away, in case the woman would call the SS on her. Once the bread was distributed and everyone gone, the kitchen worker approached her with some ugly gray things in her hand and said, “Here. Take these.”
Mindel looked at the woman and back to the things she offered. When recognition hit her and she identified the ugly things as knitted gloves, she almost screamed out with joy. “Thank you so much!”
“You are welcome. Now your fingers will not be so blue,” the woman replied in broken German.
Mindel pulled the gloves on, feeling as if she’d been given the most beautiful present in history. She thanked the woman again and walked out with her new gloves and two loaves of bread. The bread always tasted like a brick, but she was still tempted to eat just a tiny bit on her way back. The only thing keeping her from doing so was the fear of punishment by Mother Brinkmann.
“Hey, Mindel.” Hanneli stepped into her path.
“Oh, Hanneli, how nice.” They hadn’t seen each other in a while, but Mindel hadn’t forgotten the kindness of the older girl.
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Of course, I can.” Mindel stood as tall as possible, trying to show the other girl just how big she was.
“You can’t tell anyone and you can’t scream.”
“I won’t.” This was getting strange.
“I believe I found your sister.”
Mindel’s heart stopped for a moment, while tears filled her eyes and her lower lip began to tremble. Suddenly her voice was gone and all she could do was nod.
“We can talk to her tonight. But since any conversation with people from the other compounds is strictly forbidden, we have to be careful. Nobody must see us. Can you meet me at the fence to the Women’s camp after dinner?”
Mindel nodded, overwhelmed by the emotions storming in on her. She would be there, come hell or high water. She wouldn’t tell anyone, except for Laszlo of course. Someone had to explain her absence in case Mother Brinkmann found out.
With this great news she returned to the orphans’ barracks, so elated she barely noticed the pain in her toes.
“Look what I got!” she yelled as soon as she entered the hut.
“Where did you get them?” Mother Brinkmann cast her a suspicious glance.
“I didn’t steal them. Honest! The Russian woman gave them to me. Isn’t she nice?”
Mother Brinkmann smiled and took the bread from her hands, cutting it up into small slices and giving Mindel half of a slice. Mother Brinkmann never distributed everything, but kept the rest for dinner, claim
ing it was best not to eat all at once, which the children naturally bemoaned. With Mindel’s tummy hurting so much, why wouldn’t Mother Brinkmann allow them to eat their entire ration at once? But Mindel had learned not to argue and walked away.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” Herr Brinkmann asked as she limped past him. As always, he was rolling cigarettes from the butts the children picked up from the ground.
Since she’d never seen him smoke, she’d once asked Laszlo what Herr Brinkmann needed the butts for and he’d told her that cigarettes in the camp were as good as gold and could buy a lot of things.
Mindel thought that was very strange, but adults did all kinds of peculiar things, so why not using cigarettes for gold?
“Nothing. It’s my shoes that are hurting my feet.”
“Let me have a look,” he said and she slipped out of her shoe. When he put her bare foot beside the shoe, her toes surpassed the tip by almost an inch.
“Aw, well, you children grow too fast. Let me see what I can do.”
Mindel nodded and climbed her bunk to eat her breakfast – soup and the half slice of bread – and to get some warmth under the thin blanket. Now she just had to wait until evening to go and finally see her sister again.
20
When the horn sounded for roll call, it felt as if Rachel had only fallen asleep minutes earlier. But despite her tiredness, she jumped off her bunk like the healthy, energetic girl she’d been a year ago.
Anne gave her an encouraging smile. “You look so happy today.”
“I am. I can’t wait to talk to my sister again. Maybe there’s a way to see her. Maybe if I talk to the camp commandant, he’ll reunite us?”
Margot shook her head, but Anne touched Rachel’s arm and said, “I’m sure something can be done.”
Rachel was grateful for the kind words. Anne wasn’t like most of the other girls or even women who came here. She was determined and ever mindful of the feelings and needs of others, even though she was only fifteen. For her age, Anne Frank was very mature, but then again, who hadn’t grown up way too fast in the midst of this war?
The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII Page 9
