Anna At War

by Helen Peters

  Panic rose inside me. I closed the lid and set the basket on the floor.

  “I have to find an adult,” I said.

  I made my way along the empty corridor, peering through the glass panels in the compartment doors. Every compartment was crammed with children, but there wasn’t a single adult. I seemed to be the oldest person in the carriage.

  As I reached the final compartment, the lady with the clipboard came out of the door. Thank goodness!

  “Excuse me,” I said. “There’s a baby in our compartment. What should I do with him?”

  She looked stressed and flustered. “You’ll have to look after him, I’m afraid. Older children need to take care of the younger ones.”

  “But I don’t know how to look after a baby!”

  She looked at me a little more kindly. “Does he have any food with him?”

  “He has two bottles of milk.”

  “Excellent. And nappies?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you look like a sensible girl. I’m sure you’ll cope. Use handkerchiefs if there aren’t any clean nappies. Wash the soiled ones in the bathroom basin.”

  “But isn’t there anybody else?”

  “I’m sorry. There are only three adults on the train. We don’t have time to look after the babies. I’m sure the other children in your compartment will help.”

  The other children looked up expectantly as I came back into the compartment. I picked up the wicker basket and settled it on my lap.

  “We have to look after him ourselves,” I said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Best Thing

  To be honest, I’d never been very keen on babies. I couldn’t understand why adults made such a fuss over them. They were usually quite ugly, they often smelled bad, and all they ever seemed to do was cry or sleep or dirty their nappies. Looking back, though, Ezra was the best thing that could have happened on that journey. He really helped distract us from our sadness and fears. And he was a very sweet baby. Lovely soft skin and amazing long eyelashes, and the cutest little rosebud mouth. Part of me wanted him to wake up, so that I could see his eyes, but the other part of me hoped he would sleep for a nice long time, because I really didn’t have the faintest idea what to do once he was awake.

  One of the smallest girls – she only looked about three – turned to me and said shyly, “Excuse me. I need the toilet.”

  A couple of the other children looked at me expectantly. With a start, I realised that, to them, I was an adult. They wanted me to take them to the toilet.

  I stood up. “Does anybody else need the toilet?”

  Four small children followed me out of the compartment. One little boy with a runny nose slipped his hand into mine.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Anna,” I said. “What’s yours?”

  “Ernst,” he told me.

  By the time we got back to the compartment, I knew all their names, and I asked the other children theirs too. That really helped to break the ice. They started to talk to each other. One girl, Ilse, who must only have been about seven, got out a handkerchief and dried the tears of a crying toddler. When he carried on crying, she picked him up and sat him on her lap and started to sing to him. I smiled at her and she smiled back.

  One by one, the children fell asleep. Eventually, I felt myself falling asleep too, so I set the basket down on the floor at my feet.

  I woke with a start. Ezra was crying.

  I took one of the bottles out of the basket, picked him up and set him on my lap. I saw that underneath him, instead of a mattress, his mother had laid a pile of clean nappies. So I would be able to change him, as long as I could work out how to do it.

  The other children slept on. I had never fed a baby before, but Ezra opened his little mouth as soon as I put the rubber teat against his lips, and he sucked the milk with complete concentration. As he drank, he looked at me intently. He had lovely brown eyes.

  He drank almost half the bottle. I wondered how many more times he would need feeding.

  The boy opposite me, Otto, was awake and looking at me. Earlier, he had said he was ten, which made him the second-oldest person in the compartment.

  “Do you know how to change a nappy?” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “But he must be wearing one at the moment, so when you take it off, you can figure out how it should be put on.”

  Of course! What a relief that there was somebody who could help. Between us, we worked out how to change a nappy. It was a nice feeling when Ezra was clean and dry and fed. He went straight back to sleep again. How lucky that he was such a peaceful baby.

  I washed the nappy in the basin in the toilet, wrung it out and brought it back to the compartment to hang over the luggage rack to dry. By now, the sky was beginning to get light and some of the other children were starting to wake up and open their paper bags. As the food smells wafted around the compartment, I began to feel really hungry. I felt under my seat for my sandwiches. The sight of them, and the cake lovingly made by my mother, gave me a jolt of homesickness. I quickly pushed the feeling into the locked box in my head.

  The journey went on and on. Most of us had finished our food by now, and some of the children were complaining of hunger. Otto had the clever idea of mixing Ezra’s remaining milk with water, but even the watered-down milk wouldn’t last much longer. I watched Ezra guzzle it with an anxious knot in my stomach.

  “What will we do when it’s all gone?”

  “We’ll just have to give him water,” Otto said.

  The little girl next to me, whose name was Eva, nudged me. “Look!”

  She was pointing out of the window to a sign. “Three kilometres to the Dutch border.”

  Everybody looked tense and anxious.

  “The Nazis don’t let everybody across the border, you know,” said Kurt, who was nine and thought he knew everything. “On the last transport, two boys were sent back on the next train, because their papers weren’t in order.”

  Tears welled up in Ernst’s eyes. I gave Kurt a fierce look. Then a terrible thought gripped my stomach.

  What about Ezra? He had no papers.

  My arms tightened around the basket. Nobody was going to take Ezra away from me.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Open the Basket

  “Put the basket under your seat,” said Walter, as though he could read my mind. “They might not see it there.”

  “Don’t cry, Ezra,” I whispered.

  I closed the lid, pushed the basket under my seat and placed my feet in front of it.

  The train drew into a station. The platform was swarming with SS men, all holding rifles with fixed bayonets glinting in the sunlight.

  The second the train stopped, the soldiers pulled the doors open and jumped on board. In carriages further up the train, doors slammed, boots marched along the corridors and men barked orders.

  Inside our compartment, everyone was silent. You could feel the tension in the air. Nobody moved. It felt as though nobody was even breathing.

  The dreaded boots sounded in our corridor. A soldier appeared behind the glass. Eva jumped in fright as he flung the door open.

  He pointed his rifle around the compartment. He had blond hair and a downy moustache. He looked very young.

  “Take your cases down!”

  Everyone got to their feet. Older children took down the younger ones’ cases.

  “Sit with your cases open on your knees.”

  We sat in petrified silence. Would he go through all our possessions? Would he steal our things? If he found something forbidden, would we get sent back?

  The Nazis were capable of anything, we knew that by now.

  And Ezra was definitely forbidden.

  “Give me your money,” the soldier ordered. “All of it.”

  I felt a surge of rage. How dare he demand the money our parents gave us?

  But I said nothing. Nobody said anything. If we did, we might be sent back, o
r worse. So we all handed over the ten marks our parents had given us.

  He pocketed the money without a word. Then his eye lighted on Franz’s wristwatch.

  “Hand over the watch! You know you were not allowed to bring anything of value.”

  Franz’s fingers were trembling so much that he couldn’t undo the leather strap. The soldier made an impatient gesture. Dorit, who sat between me and Franz, undid it for him. Franz, white-faced, handed the watch to the soldier. He pocketed it with the money.

  Ernst began to cry. Ilse put her hand on his knee, but he pushed it away and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. I couldn’t hear a single child anywhere on the train. All I could hear was guards giving orders, doors slamming, bangs and thumps.

  The soldier’s eyes roamed around the compartment and came to rest on Eva.

  “Stand up,” he ordered.

  Eva slid off the seat.

  “Give me your case.”

  She handed it over. Her hands were shaking.

  He tipped all her beautifully pressed and folded clothes on to the floor. Eva gave a little cry, which she quickly stifled.

  The soldier rifled through her clothes, shaking each item, presumably to check for hidden valuables. I felt a burning anger mixed with shame on Eva’s behalf as her underwear was revealed to everyone in the compartment.

  The man kicked the heap of clothes and ordered Eva to put everything back. She slid off her seat and knelt on the floor, stuffing her clothes back into the case. She glanced at him, white-faced, but he had lost interest in her. He was glaring at the basket under my seat.

  “Whose is that?”

  “Mine,” I said, in a strange croaky voice that didn’t sound like my own.

  He jabbed his bayonet at me.

  “Why do you have two cases? You are supposed to have one case only. Open the basket.”

  My heart was pounding so hard that I thought it might burst.

  “Are you deaf?” he barked. “Open the basket.”

  I couldn’t move.

  He pointed his bayonet at the basket.

  “No!” I yelled, leaping out of my seat. My case tumbled to the floor. “Don’t hurt him!”

  Ezra started to cry. I crouched down, pulled the basket out from under the seat and opened the lid.

  “Where is the number?” asked the soldier.

  I was silent. What could I say?

  Ezra’s cries grew louder. The soldier looked at him. He looked at me. Then, without a word, he turned his back and walked out of the compartment.

  Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.

  Had he gone to fetch a superior officer? Were we all doomed?

  I picked Ezra up and held him tight. When I sat down, I felt Eva shaking beside me. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to me.

  Otto bent down and picked up Ezra’s almost-empty bottle. He handed it to me and I popped the teat in the baby’s open mouth. He stopped crying and sucked noisily.

  Doors clanged. SS men swarmed out on to the platform. The train started to move. Did that mean we were safe?

  The train slowed to a stop. I felt sick.

  It started to move again.

  Then it stopped. There was the sound of clunking metal. I held my breath. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the train began to move again. And then I saw a sign. We were at the Dutch border.

  Please don’t stop now, I prayed. Please cross the border. Please take us out of Germany.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Holland!

  The train jolted forwards. Another sign appeared ahead of us.

  Holland! We were in Holland!

  From further up the train, we heard cheering and whooping. We glanced at each other. Could we really be safe?

  The train slowed again. We were coming into a station. The platform was full of smiling, waving women. We stared at each other in disbelief. Were they really smiling and waving at us?

  The train stopped. Doors opened. Two women came into our compartment. One looked about Mama’s age and the other was much older, with a smiling, wrinkled face. They carried big baskets, and from them they handed round cheese sandwiches, shiny red apples and chocolate bars, smiling at us and speaking kind words we couldn’t understand. The little children looked amazed, and some of them glanced at me to see if it was all right to take the food. I nodded and smiled at them.

  The older lady cooed over Ezra. Even though I didn’t understand Dutch, I could tell she was saying what a lovely baby he was. I smiled with pride. Then I held up the empty bottle. “Do you have any milk, please?” I asked, hoping she would understand, even if she didn’t speak German.

  She did understand. Smiling, she produced a large bottle of milk from her basket. She took Ezra’s bottle, filled it to the brim and held out her arms for him. I hesitated for a second, and then handed him over. She tucked him expertly into the crook of her arm and popped the teat into his mouth.

  The younger lady handed round paper cups and filled them with lemonade. It was the most delicious lemonade I had ever tasted. With the older lady looking after Ezra, I took a bite of my sandwich. The bread was thickly spread with butter and was the best food I had ever tasted.

  The older lady handed Ezra back to me with a smile. Both ladies gave out the last of the food from their baskets, hugged each of us in turn and kissed the tops of our heads. They waved a final goodbye as they left the compartment. All the other women were getting off the train too. They stood on the platform, waving to us through the windows as the train began to move.

  A picture came into my head of my own family, my parents’ faces on the platform, their brave, forced smiles. I pushed the image away and looked around the compartment.

  All the tension had gone. The children were dozing, their heads on each other’s shoulders. I glanced at Eva, who was leaning against the window. She was dozing too.

  Ezra slept soundly in my arms. I leaned down and pulled the basket out from under the seat. Very gently, I placed him in the basket, tucking the blanket around him. He continued to sleep.

  As I leaned back in my seat, I felt as though a great weight that I didn’t even know I’d been carrying had been lifted from my shoulders. To my surprise, I found myself crying. Strangely, it was a relief to cry. It actually felt comforting. The tension in my body melted away and I was left with an exhaustion so heavy that I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Where Are His Papers?

  I woke with a jerk. Everything was dark. There were sounds of clanking metal and raised voices. The train wasn’t moving. Eva’s head lay heavy on my shoulder. Compartment doors were opening. There was a jumble of voices, but I couldn’t make out any words.

  The others were waking up too, moving and stretching, opening their eyes. Eva lifted her head from my shoulder. I looked down and saw that Ezra was still sleeping.

  “Where are we?” I asked Otto.

  The compartment door opened. My stomach lurched as a man in uniform appeared from the shadows. But it wasn’t Nazi uniform. And he was smiling.

  “Gather all your belongings,” he said, “and be ready to leave the train when you are told to do so.”

  He spoke in German, but with a foreign accent. I wanted to ask him where we were but, even though he looked friendly, I couldn’t bring myself to trust him. I waited until he’d left the compartment, and then I asked Otto again.

  “I think we’re at the coast,” he said.

  I had always wanted to see the sea. But this boat journey would take me even further away from my parents.

  Luckily, there was no time to think. We were told to leave the train, and Otto and I were busy buttoning up the little ones’ coats and checking under the seats in case anything had been left. I took the rinsed-out nappies from where I had hung them to dry on the luggage rack. They were still damp. I folded them and put them in my coat pocket. Hopefully there would be somewhere warm on the boat to dry them.

  Otto carried my s
uitcase so I could carry Ezra’s basket. The lighted platform was full of kind, smiling faces. It felt as though we really would be safe now.

  We stood in line on the platform for a long time, slowly shuffling towards a table where two smiling Jewish Agency ladies sat with lists in front of them. They were checking each child’s label and the matching label on their suitcase.

  Otto was in front of me. When his name had been ticked off the list, the lady indicated for him to move forward and join the next line. He shot an anxious glance at Ezra as he walked off.

  The ladies smiled at me. They checked my labels and ticked my name off the list. Then the younger one said, in German, “And what do you have in the basket?”

  I panicked. “Nothing.”

  “Shall we have a look?” asked the younger lady kindly. She stood up and reached for the basket. I clutched it more tightly. She opened the lid.

  “Oh! The dearest little baby!”

  The other lady peered into the basket. She smiled and cooed at Ezra.

  “Your brother or sister?” asked the young lady.

  I shook my head, and then immediately cursed myself. Why was I so stupid? If I’d said he was my brother, perhaps they would have let me take him through.

  But it was too late now.

  “He’s called Ezra,” I said. “Ezra Neumann.”

  “Can you show me his papers?” the lady asked.

  I stared at her dumbly.

  “Do you have his papers?”

  I shook my head.

  “Where are his papers then? Who has them?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  She frowned. “What did you say his name was?”

  “Ezra Neumann.”

  She ran her finger down the list of names. For a split second, I had a brief, crazy surge of hope, like a flash of sunlight through the clouds. Maybe his name was on the list. Maybe his mother had registered him for the transport but had forgotten to pack his papers in the basket.