Last Words: A Diary of Survival

by Shari J. Ryan

  Leah didn’t cry. She was done screaming, and her face was void of all emotion. She knew the end had come. Our eyes met one last time, just seconds before the shot rang out. She blinked once and looked up to the sky right before a bullet struck the center of her forehead, knocking her down with so much force I was sure her body would leave a permanent indentation in the soil.

  All I could think at that moment was they murdered the poor woman because she had given birth to a baby. Monsters. The birth of a child is the purest, most beautiful thing that can happen in life, and for those men to take her life away for that, was unconscionable.

  I wanted to drop to my knees and beg for the nightmare to end, but if I did, I too would have been killed. I made a promise to Charlie to do as I was told and end my plan to escape, so I breathed in the air that was laced with death, inhaling as deeply as I could to stifle all my emotions as I turned and walked away. I felt guilt and remorse for not being able to do something to help Leah, but I knew in my heart there was nothing anyone could have done to save her.

  That day changed everything for me. We were part of the war. We were the target, and they were using us like game pieces for their own amusement. I couldn’t understand how so many people could be brainwashed to think all Jews were the reason that the Germans lost the first war when so many of us weren’t even alive then. It was pure, unfounded hatred for our people.

  Months dragged by and I kept quiet, doing as I was instructed, eating the small rations I was given, watching as my limbs turned into skin and bone. Daily, I would wonder how I had the strength to stand when so many of us no longer had that ability. There were living bodies draped over one another in my barrack, taking up every free inch of space as we ran out of room in the camp.

  Life was like a revolving wheel I couldn’t step off of, and my mind became as numb as the rest of my body while I waited for death to find me, all along wishing there was an easier way out than just waiting for my time to come.

  In 1943, on May twenty-fourth at what must have been high noon, there was a commotion at the front entrance of the camp. I wasn’t sure what could have be happening, but I didn’t have the energy or desire to pay attention to it. I had a line to get through, and that was my only goal for the day—for every day. Looking at the people as I passed them by, it felt as though I was looking at mirrors of myself. I didn’t know exactly what my appearance was at that time, but I imagined it was as emaciated as everyone else. All of us were given the same rations, but some of us were placed in worse working conditions than others—those were the people to die first. Some dropped dead while waiting for me in the line. When that happened, I had to call a guard to remove the body, which was immediately transported to the crematorium. There were so many dead bodies; they had to create a place to burn them so the space within the camp wouldn’t be wasted.

  The Nazis’ commotion grew louder as some began to salute a man walking through a man-made path. “Welcome home, soldier,” many of them said. It was not a usual occurrence, as many of the Nazis were exchanged daily for deployment or guard duty, depending on their ranking and abilities. Familiar faces were long gone, and the camp felt more like a train station than anything else. Why I had remained in one place for so long was an unanswered question I considered daily.

  As the group of Nazis passed by, I turned to watch for a moment, and to my utter surprise, Charlie was the man being praised. Decorations of metals and patches lined his coat, and there was a certain look about him that showed years of aging rather than the year he had been gone. I was in a state of shock as he passed by, peering at me with a subtly through a peripheral glance.

  My heart began to beat erratically for the first time in a year, but I wasn’t sure what Charlie was feeling in that moment. I didn’t know if he would even recognize me in the state I was in. I was afraid he had been brainwashed to believe I was in fact the enemy rather than his best friend and the woman he claimed to love the last time we were together. So many thoughts and fears ran through my head in a matter of seconds, but at the same time, there was a glimmer of hope I wasn’t sure I should have.

  I had spent the last year trying to block out anything that would cause me more pain, and I would be damned before I’d allow anything close enough to hurt me.

  I went through the motions for the next eight hours, pretending it was just another day, but my thoughts were in a fog. I didn’t know what to think or feel.

  As darkness began to set in and the doors of the sick bay closed, I made my way over to the block where the children were contained, peeking in through the window to check on Lucie, who began to walk a week earlier. She knew nothing of her dear mother, but she also knew nothing of fear or pain. That helped me sleep at night, knowing that the German women were caring for those children under horrendous conditions. Lucie was the youngest child in the block, but the other children were always around her, taking care of her as if they were siblings.

  With the daily dose of relief I got from seeing Lucie’s precious face, I dragged my worn-out body back to my barrack before settling down on the floor where I was relocated to months earlier when my bed had been taken by another Jewish woman. She was brought there in the more recent months, therefore stronger than many of us and more bullish than those who had been there for over a year. It wasn’t worth a battle, and if we were caught fighting, it would likely end in a hanging or execution. The overcrowding was a problem, and the Nazis were doing what they could to control it. Unfortunately, that often included executions for small transgressions.

  As I willed myself to sleep that night, my thoughts of Charlie forgetting about me sent an agonizing pain through my heart, and for the first time since Leah was murdered, I wanted to scream my hatred away. I thought maybe a shriek would make me feel better, but instead, I took several deep breaths, squeezed my eyes closed, and tried to bury the thoughts.

  I refused to be a victim of the Nazis or my emotions.

  Nazis were no longer coming in to pillage the women in our barrack since we were all far too weak to be of any use to them, or so we assumed. Therefore, an interruption in the middle of the night was a rarity. Yet, no one would move an inch if the door were to open.

  We had all been scared into pretending we were lifeless on the floors. Unsure what to think, I was startled when my body was lifted up with just a scoop of an arm, right off the ground, and strewn over a firm shoulder. I struggled not to scream, as I knew it would do no good. The Nazis took what they wanted, when they wanted it, and screaming only made things worse.

  I kept my eyes closed as I was brought outside. I prayed the arm around me was Charlie’s, but he hardly twitched as he passed by me earlier that day, so the hope I had that he was alive became overshadowed by my new fear that he had turned into a monster like the rest. I wouldn’t want to know him if that were the case. I would rather think he was dead.

  I was lowered to the ground, still unsure of where I was, but I refused to open my eyes. If I was to be executed, I didn’t want to watch it happen. It was the last bit of power I had over my life, and under no circumstance would I let them take that away from me.

  “You’re alive.” His voice was gruff and hoarse as if he were sick, but I recognized it. I nervously opened my eyes, forcing myself to face the truth. It was hard to see much at first after clenching my eyelids shut for so long, but as clarity set in and the moon’s glow assisted in lighting the enclosed area, I saw a nearly unrecognizable man accompanying the voice. There were tracks of scars lining his face as if someone had taken knives and dragged them in a row across his skin. I reached up to touch the scars—the texture of the indents and bulging skin. “What did they do to you? Are you all right, Charlie?” My fear-saturated words floated above us within the thick humid air. He didn’t answer. Instead, he traced a finger along the rigid bones of my cheek as a tear fell from his eye. “Charlie, speak to me.” I couldn’t help but slightly fear the man I should have never fallen so attached to because it seemed like it was takin
g forever for him to answer me.

  “We need to escape,” he finally said.

  Relief flooded my body with so many sensations; I felt as if I were imploding from the inside out. I had stayed there for him because of the promise I made, and it was apparent he was living up to his word, as well. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “The Red Cross has announced a visit to this camp, and the SS is making drastic changes in its appearance to fool them into believing this is the ghetto they proclaimed it to be. From what I gather, it seems that anyone who appears to be ill or dying will be transitioned immediately, and you are on a list to be taken to Auschwitz at the end of the week, Amelia,” he said.

  “Auschwitz?” I questioned. “What is that? Is it a new ghetto?”

  Charlie shook his head, and a sickened look draped over his face like a dark shadow. “It’s a death camp, Amelia. That’s where all the Jews are being taken when they are transitioned from here. They are forced to work in far worse conditions than they do here, and it’s only a waiting game until they’re forced into a chamber that’s filled with a poisonous gas, which kills them immediately.”

  “Jakob,” I called out in a whisper. I had held out the smallest bit of hope that he was alive somewhere, but the truth became clear in that moment…

  “He was gassed on the second of March last year.”

  I couldn’t scream, and I couldn’t breathe, but I wouldn’t let myself break either. There was nothing I could do except stare into Charlie’s eyes, with anger for the world I was forced to remain in while everyone else left me behind.

  Another rip of my collar—another shred of my heart, gone. The collar of my dress was officially destroyed, just the same as my life. “They’re all gone.”

  Charlie watched as I mourned for a brief moment, praying Jakob was in a better place. I had to avoid the thought of what he went through—the suffering he endured.

  “I’m so sorry, Amelia.” Sorry. I don’t think I ever understood that word, and I don’t think I ever will again.

  “When are we leaving?” I asked him.

  “As soon as we can,” he said.

  “I can’t leave Lucie,” I told him. I promised Leah if they came for her, I would watch over Lucie until I was no longer able to. I couldn’t abandon her, even if I hadn’t promised Leah.

  “Lucie?” he questioned. “Who is Lucie?”

  “Leah’s daughter. Do you remember—”

  “She’s alive?” Charlie asked with shock, as a glimmer of hope echoed through his voice.

  “Lucie is alive. Leah was executed.”

  Charlie lowered his head to my chest, still kneeling over me.

  “It isn’t fair,” he said, his hand gripping my arm with force. He shook as he took in a few breaths, digesting the information, though nothing should have felt surprising. The true shock was that I was alive, and so was Lucie.

  “What was it like out there—outside of these walls?” I asked him, unsure I truly wanted to know, but I had no idea what he had been through, and by the look on his face, I knew it was bad.

  Charlie pulled in a deep breath and straightened his back. Without a quick response, he unbuttoned his coat and shrugged it off, allowing it to fall to the ground behind him. It took me a moment to see the tied-off sleeve on the upper portion of his left arm. “Your arm, Charlie,” I growled with anger.

  “They took that, but they couldn’t have the rest of me, Amelia. I fought so damn hard.”

  I couldn’t bear the thought of what he suffered through. Why was I living in a world filled with death and destruction? Why? “Oh, dear God,” is all I could mutter. Starving didn’t feel like much in comparison to losing a limb.

  “I nearly died due to the amount of blood I lost, but after a month in the hospital, they released me and sent me back here for guard duty.”

  I wrapped my arms around Charlie’s neck, pulling him down on top of me, clutching him with everything I had. More tears pooled in his eyes, leaving a warm, wet spot against my chest. “I fought to stay alive so I could come back for you. My eyes were opened to the destruction this world is living through, and I couldn’t leave you here alone.”

  His words melded into the light breeze, and his lips dropped to mine, pressing against them with a force that ached, but I couldn’t manage to break away. I never thought I would see him again, let alone touch his lips or feel his body against me.

  “I love you, Amelia. I still love you. I love you more than ever, and I need to get you out of here.”

  “Thank you,” I told him, still knowing there was no way to admit my love for him verbally. I truly believed he was only alive because I spared him of those deadly words.

  “We’ll take Lucie with us,” he continued. “We’ll care for her as if she were our own. She deserves at least that much. An innocent soul is easy to love and I will give that poor little girl what I can.” My heart thumped in my chest, knowing he understood the importance of keeping that beautiful baby safe. “Tomorrow night after the rations have been distributed, we’ll do it. I’m due to seek weekly medical check-ins for my arm, and the hospital is hours away. Therefore, I would need to leave guard duty at night.”

  “How will we get by the guards?” I asked. It seemed impossible, and as he told me before, no one had ever escaped. Anyone who had tried over the previous year and a half had been executed. However, I would be dead by the end of the week anyway, so I had nothing to lose by trying. My only fear was that if we were caught, Lucie’s life would be in jeopardy, as well. It was a chance we had to take, though. It would only be a matter of time before Lucie would contract an illness there at the camp, and she could die from that just as so many of the other children had.

  “Trust me,” he said. “I came back for you, and I’m not leaving without you.”

  I clasped my hands around his cheeks and pulled him back down to kiss him—my beautiful enemy who would commit a war crime for the sake of our love.

  “I’ll never be able to repay you, Charlie.”

  “You survived a year in Terezin because of a promise you made to me. You have already given me more than I could ask for.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Emma

  My hands are shaking as I close the book, and Jackson’s head lifts from my shoulder. “That’s intense,” he says.

  “All this time, I thought she had been liberated. I didn’t think she escaped,” I tell him, confused by the muddled facts I’ve picked up on throughout my life.

  “I guess we won’t know until you finish reading,” he says, sounding as tired as I feel.

  “I don’t think I can read any more tonight. I feel like it’s all I can focus on, and it’s taking me to a place I’m not sure I’m ready to go yet.” A long sigh exhales from my lungs as I hug my arm around my knee. “I don’t know if that makes any sense…”

  “It’s hard information to digest. It would be for anyone,” he tells me. “You probably need to do something after reading to shut it off for a bit. It’s not healthy to hold yourself hostage in a situation you can’t control.” He squeezes his arm around my shoulders…to comfort me…I think.

  “Is that the doctor in you speaking or—”

  “Experience,” he says. “Maybe both.”

  I shift my body, bringing my other knee up onto the couch to face him. “How so?” We’ve learned a lot about Grams in the last few days, but I don’t know a whole lot about Jackson, and I’m curious to find out more about him, aside from the fact that he’s a doctor and a divorcee.

  “I lose patients possibly more than other areas of the hospital. I see so much pain-stricken grief in patients and their families that sometimes it’s hard to come home at the end of the day and redirect my attention to something happier, you know?” He places his empty wine glass down on the table in front of us before continuing. “For a long time, I felt guilty about compartmentalizing it and putting my feelings about patients aside when I’m off duty, but I’ve learned over the past few years that if
I don’t force myself to shut it down, I’ll become consumed and miserable.”

  He’s looking at me with such intensity that I can almost feel his words, and they make me ache for the loneliness he battles in his head. “I’ve wondered how doctors do it, but I’ve always looked at them more like super humans than anything else. I figured they could manage it, so that’s why they were meant to be doctors. I know I’d never be able to handle serious illnesses, deaths, or any of the other associated emotional pain on a daily basis. I honestly can’t imagine going through that all the time. I don’t think I’d be strong enough to turn it off on self-command.”

  Jackson rests back into the cushion behind us and glances up toward the ceiling where his lights are creating an aura of colorful diamonds. “We don’t have that option. I wouldn’t make it as a doctor if I didn’t figure out how to separate my personal life from work. That’s one of the first things you have to commit to if you want to have any kind of life outside of the hospital.”

  “That makes sense.” With his gaze still stuck on the ceiling, I look around the room for a moment, noticing the lack of pictures on the walls and coffee table. I know men aren’t typically the type to show off photos the way women do, but he doesn’t have artwork up either. “You said you have an older sister, right?”

  “Two older sisters, actually,” he says. I know he had told me one, so I’m slightly confused by the change. “They were twins, but one died in a car accident ten years ago. Drunk driver.”

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I tell him. I’m taken aback by this, and it opens up a new set of questions about Jackson. It’s like I’m slowly peeling away his layers, trying to find out what’s inside of him.