Ewa stared at her not knowing what to say.
“I came to find you quickly because the guards have given the girls permission to eat the rabbits. They’ve been told they can kill them all and make a stew.”
Ewa looked over at Gunther the Second and then at Dyta. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m positive. The Nazis don’t want the Allies to get their hands on these rabbits. As you know their fur is valuable.”
“Yes, I know.” Ewa had sunk down onto her haunches. She loved these creatures. She was hungry too, but she wasn’t starving. None of them were starving. She could not let them kill Gunther the Second.
“I came to tell you all of this before the others came to get your rabbits. I know how fond you are of them.”
“Thank you,” Ewa said.
“Is that all you have to say?” Dyta asked. “Come on, let’s hurry up and open the pens, so we can set these animals free. I can’t promise they will survive, but at least they’ll have a chance if we let them out before the others come and cook them.”
“You’re right. Let’s hurry up and get them out of here,” Ewa said. She took Gunther the Second into her arms and held him close, then she whispered softly into his ear, “You’ve been my salvation while I was here at this prison. I can’t do much more for you, my sweet friend. I am no longer able to protect you. So run away, run as fast as you can and don’t look back. Don’t ever look back,” she said. Then she took the large white rabbit out into the yard. He nuzzled her neck, and for a moment she held him close to her. Then she gently pushed him through the fence and out of the camp.
He stood very still at first and looked at her for one long moment. She smiled and nodded, but tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “Go, little one. Go . . .” she said. Then Gunther the white rabbit looked directly into her eyes. Suddenly he seemed to understand. Ewa could have sworn she saw him nod before he whirled around and hopped away quickly. Ewa watched him until he disappeared into the trees. She sighed and thought of Solomon and Sarah. Those poor dear children. Have they survived, or have they, God forbid, perished? Solomon, he was such a special boy, always trying to be so strong, so capable. And little tender Sarah, so frightened, so needy. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with guilt for leaving them. They needed me. And my Gunther, my love, he is gone forever. Dear God, please . . . if you must take me, then take me, but let the children survive. I know this sounds silly, but I loved this poor little rabbit, and I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you could, please let him survive too.
“There’s no time to stand around. Wake up. You seem to be asleep standing there. If you want to free the rabbits, there is not much time left,” Dyta said.
Ewa nodded at Dyta, and then they began to repeat the steps she’d taken to free Gunther Two with the remaining rabbits. She moved as quickly as she could, and by the time the Nazi guards and the other prisoners came to the rabbit area, they found only empty cages.
Had this happened even six months earlier, Ewa would have been severely punished for releasing the rabbits. But right now, the guards were desperately worried about their own fate. The Allies were at their heels. If they were caught, they knew things would not go well for them. So there was no time for punishing a sentimental girl who loved rabbits. They had to get the prisoners out of the camp and move toward Germany as quickly as possible. So, within hours, the entire group, prisoners and guards, were on their way to Wodzislaw Slaski in the dead of winter. They would make the trip on foot. The snow-and-ice-covered ground made the long walk perilous, but the guards were determined, and because they were so fearful they were even crueler than usual.
Chapter 57
January 1945
The women prisoners marched through the snow-covered landscape at gunpoint. They marched without coats, without hats, and many without shoes. The guards complained to each other about the frigid weather, but at least they had heavy coats and boots.
At first the other women were angry with Ewa and Dyta for releasing the rabbits.
“We could have had a warm, substantial meal,” a young Polish prisoner said. “It might have given some of us the strength to survive this miserable walk.”
Ewa felt bad for the other women. They had a point. After all, they were hungry, and because of her they’d lost the opportunity to eat a good meal. But although she understood intellectually, Ewa just could never have allowed the rabbits to be killed and eaten. Since she’d been at the camp, she’d spent every day caring for those animals, and in so many ways they had begun to represent more to her than just pens of rabbits. Perhaps I am going mad, she thought. Perhaps all of this has driven me over the edge, and I have lost my mind. I ate plenty of rabbit when I was in the forest, and it never seemed to bother me. But now I can’t bear to think of their pure white coats stained red with blood.
She knew the others thought of the rabbits as food, but she couldn’t help herself. After she’d rescued Gunther the Second from certain death, she found that she was haunted by parallels that the others clearly could not see. Sometimes she thought about her life before the war and how these sweet animals were at the mercy of the Germans just like the Jewish families in the old neighborhood where she’d grown up. But then she reminded herself that the other prisoners at Harmense were not Jewish. It was easier for them to ignore the Jews as they went like lambs to the slaughter. Or maybe not like lambs, maybe like helpless, white angora rabbits. And so when the opportunity came to set the rabbits free, she felt in a strange way that God had chosen her to deliver them. She didn’t care that the others resented her, she had to let them go free. Their freedom felt like a thick umbilical cord that was somehow connected to her own freedom.
After a while the women were too exhausted from the cold and walking to fight. Ewa was fortunate to have wooden clogs, but the blood of the barefoot women stained the snow. Before nightfall, one of the women fell. The guard hollered at her, but she lay shivering, unable to rise. A young handsome guard in his heavy wool coat walked over to her. He wore an expression of annoyance. “Get up. You’re holding everyone up.”
The woman tried to pull herself up with her arms, but she was too weak. She fell back into the snow. For one brief second Ewa saw a look of sympathy pass over the young Nazi's face. But then one of the other guards, an older more seasoned man, walked over to see what the holdup was.
“Get up!” he yelled at the woman.
But try as she might, she could not move.
“Kill her,” he said to the young guard who looked at him frightened. “What’s the matter with you? I said kill her so we can go on.”
“Why don’t we just leave her here. Why waste the bullet? We might need it. She will die anyway,” the young one said.
“You coward. Kill her. Kill her,” he yelled.
The young guard pulled out his gun. From where Ewa stood she could see that his hand was trembling. Then again the older man hollered, “I said kill her. Do it now. Get on with it, you coward.”
The younger Nazi squeezed the trigger. Ewa gasped at the sound of the gunshot. The body of the woman on the ground jumped when the bullet entered her heart. Then she lay completely still. Rich red blood poured like a river staining the white snow.
“Walk!” the older Nazi yelled at the women, and they did as he commanded.
Ewa felt her heart pounding. How could such a young handsome man have done this? He should not be here murdering women. He should be at home somewhere courting a girl then getting married and having children. But instead, he like so many others, followed Adolf Hitler down the road to hell, and now he is in charge of marching a group of sick and starving women, who must adhere to his commands, or he is forced to leave their dead bodies in the snow to be ravaged by feral animals. What kind of man would he have been? What would fate have had in store for him had Hitler never come to power?
That night, the women prisoners slept huddled together shivering, coughing, sneezing, and trying to keep warm. Ewa was so tired that every muscle
in her body ached. So in spite of the bitter cold that bit at her toes and stung her face, she slept.
At the first light of morning the guards called out, “Get up, you swine. It’s time to get moving.”
Ewa shook herself awake and stood up. Her head ached. Her eyes burned, and she could no longer feel her little toes, but she was alive. Several of the women lay still that morning. The guards yelled out angry commands. “Get up. Get moving. Are you deaf, you lazy pigs.”
The old Nazi guard kicked one of the women who lay on her side in the snow. Except for her deep-blue lips and pale skin, she looked like she was asleep. So peaceful, Ewa thought. She is at peace. And I can hear her laughter in my mind. She is free. She is no longer a prisoner. This Nazi has no control over her because she has no fear. Sleep, sweet soul. They can’t hurt you anymore. They can’t take anything else away from you. Nothing on this earth will ever hurt you again because you have taken your last breath during the night.
Ewa tried not to think about anything except putting her foot forward and making the next step. Thinking always seemed to bring on memories. And memories caused sadness. But as time passed and the endless walk caused her entire body to throb with pain, her mind drifted to Gunther. They had only made love once. She wished now that she’d held him longer, that they had made love more often. It was difficult when they were in the forest with all the others to find a time and place to be alone. But she knew, if she’d been willing, he would have found a way. However, at that time she’d been so concerned with her reputation. What would the others in the camp think of her? An unmarried woman sharing her bed with a single man? A German, no less. And . . . she’d allowed that stigma to come between them. But now that he was gone forever, she wished she could bring back those few hours that she had spent wrapped in his arms.
To hell with what people thought. I knew his heart. I knew he was no Nazi. No one decides where they will be born or what nationality they will be. But it was clear to me that Gunther had turned his back on Germany because of Hitler. I was such a fool. I should have realized that I had nothing to prove to the others. I don’t know why I cared so much what they thought. He was her first man. She’d never made love before. How stupid I am. With a world as uncertain as this one is, how could I have denied Gunther and myself those few precious moments? If he could have, he would have married me. I know that. He loved me with all his heart. If I could only go back in time . . .
Halfway into the fifth day of the march, the group of women from Harmense was joined by a larger group. These women wore the gold Star of David on their sleeves, letting Ewa know they were Jewish. The girls from Harmense were thin and hungry; they were cold and miserable and were barely able to go on. But the Jewish women looked far worse. They were little more than walking corpses. Not one of them had shoes; their feet were all bloody, and their toes had turned black. They were so skinny that their gray-striped uniforms were falling off their bony frames.
Everyone was hungry.
There was no food. None at all. Once the group stopped for the night, Ewa and Dyta sucked on the dirty snow to fill their empty bellies. The snow melted in their mouths, becoming frigid water, which slid down their throats, chilling their bodies from the inside out and making them even colder.
“I’m starting to regret freeing those rabbits,” Dyta said, smiling wryly.
“Do you really?”
“Only when I’m hungry.” Dyta laughed a little.
“And when is that?” Ewa asked with a little sarcasm in her voice.
“All the time.”
Ewa nodded. “Me too,” she said. But she was still glad she hadn’t eaten the rabbits. However, the ache in her belly from hunger was unbearable.
Dyta and Ewa huddled together through the night shivering in the darkness. In the morning when the guard fired his gun into the air to awaken the prisoners, nearly half the Jewish women did not rise.
“They are dead; let’s go,” Ewa overheard one of the guards say to another.
“Not until we are sure they aren’t faking and just playing dead,” the old Nazi said.
“What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see.” So instead of leaving the broken women behind, the guards walked among them and shot every woman who lay in the snow.
“That was a lot of wasted ammunition,” one of the young guards said to the older man.
“Shut up. Don’t you dare question me. Remember your rank.”
Ewa and Dyta exchanged glances. They were so tired they could hardly lift their feet, but they knew that they must keep on going forward, or their fates would be the same as the poor women who had been left behind to bleed out into the snow.
All the Jewish women were very ill. Their faces and bodies were covered in rashes. Many of them suffered from diarrhea from lack of food or from eating bad food. They were dirty, and they scratched their shaved heads from the lice that had attached to the small regrowth of hair. And even though the women were walking outside, the smell of sickness and filth was still strong enough to make Ewa gag.
The following day, the Nazis led their prisoners through a town. At first people stood staring at the group, their eyes wide and frightened. From the looks of shock on their faces Ewa realized just how terrible the prisoners appeared to outsiders. Some of the children laughed and were cruel, making a motion with their finger across their throat, which was meant to remind the prisoners that they were doomed to die.
However, most of the adults were petrified of the Nazis and to them, this group of half-naked, starving prisoners was horrifying. They tried not to look. They tried to rush away to the safety of their homes, keeping their heads down. No one dared to say a word. The presence of the armed Nazi guards kept them quiet. But then a little girl, perhaps eight years old, with two blonde braids on either side of her head, took a bunch of potatoes out of her skirt pocket and began to throw them to the prisoners. Ewa caught one. It was small and soft, but it was food, and her gratitude toward the child filled her heart. It would take an innocent child to be so unafraid, she thought as she took a bite. It hurt her teeth, but it was sweet and starchy, and it had been so long since she’d had any food that she had to force herself not to gobble it down. Ewa took another bite and noticed that Dyta was watching her. Her stomach ached with hunger, but she handed the potato to Dyta.
“Have a bite,” she said.
Dyta took a bite of the potato. “My teeth are loose,” she said. “It’s hard to chew.”
“Yes, mine are too. Have another bite though.”
Dyta closed her eyes and took another bite. Then she handed the potato back to Ewa. They continued to share until the small potato was gone.
Ewa was so tired that she couldn’t speak. Not even to Dyta. All she could feel was pain, and even that was beginning to disappear. Her body seemed to be going numb. Twice she almost fell and would have given up if Dyta hadn’t grabbed her arm and held her until she was steady on her feet enough to begin to walk again. Her lungs burned from the cold, and a trail of vapor followed her shallow breath.
The longer they continued to walk, the more women fell. When they did, the guards shot them point-blank without even demanding that they try to get up. The Jewish women who had come from Auschwitz were the weakest. Many of them died without even a sigh of pain. They just fell to the ground in a macabre dance of death. Ewa was certain they were dead even before the guards shot them. Sometimes one of the guards would kick the bodies of the women out of the way so the prisoners could pass; other times the prisoners were forced to walk around the dead.
Ewa tried to avoid looking at their dark, cavernous eyes, which filled her with painful questions. Every one of these women who are now lying dead in the snow once had a family; they had mothers and fathers. They might have been mothers, wives, sisters. And now their bodies lie lifeless in an open field. She shivered. I can’t bear to acknowledge what the Nazis have done to them, to all of us. The old woman back there who died with her hands reaching for the
heavens, and her eyes asking why could have been my own mother. Dear God, I must wipe these horrific images out of my mind or I will collapse and give up. If I am ever to find my way back to Sarah and Solomon, I must concentrate every ounce of strength on putting one foot in front of the other. And this would be the wrong time to give up. After all, I think it's obvious by how quickly they moved us that the Nazis are scared. The Allies must be close. If only the Allies can get to us before the Nazis kill us all.
At one point the women reached a clearing located only a few hundred feet from a forest. Ewa’s heart leapt as she saw a group of five women run toward the trees. She longed to follow them. Even though every nerve in her feet was on fire with pain, she wished she had the courage to run free. Her body tingled with fear and desire at the same time, but she felt paralyzed. Run, she thought. Just run. Then shots rang out, and as each of the five women fell to the ground, Ewa felt her courage begin to leave her.
“Should we run?” Dyta said, tugging on Ewa’s sleeve.
Ewa thought for a moment. She shivered with fear and anticipation. The truth was she wasn’t sure how fast she would be able to run. I don’t want to die in the snow. But this could be our only chance to escape. Is it better to die here in the snow than to die in another camp? Dear God, give me the courage. Please give me the courage. Her body was shaking so hard that she felt like she might collapse.
At that moment one of the dogs who belonged to a Nazi guard broke away and began to chase a squirrel. Several of the other guard dogs began to run after him. They were all on leashes but they pulled their masters so hard that the Nazi guards were running and falling behind them. Finally, several of the guards released the leashes, and the dogs rushed toward the woods. Chaos ensued.
Ewa took this as a sign from God. This was their opportunity to run. Sucking in a deep breath, she said, “Let’s go.”
Dyta nodded.
Hand in hand the women ran across the snow-covered landscape followed by a rain of bullets from the guards who were shooting at them. Between the sound of gun shots were the terrifying voices of the guards as they called after their dogs. A bullet lodged in the tree right next to them. Dyta saw it and turned her head for a second. .
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