My Mother's Ring: A Holocaust Historical Novel

by Dana Fitzwater Cornell

  Most people, it seemed, were being sent to the left. Half of the floodlights on the left side of the platform had burnt out, sending me the encoded message that the people sent to this side would not make it through the night. I had a strong feeling that when the sun finally awakened, the people sent to the left side would not.

  During the selection, mother was sent to the group formed to the right. Though she was in her early forties, her smooth, unwrinkled skin made her appear to be about ten years younger. As she turned to walk to the right, I saw that her face was dripping with tears as she looked once more to the left and blew a kiss to her youngest child and then covered her face in her hands and continued running to the right. None of us would ever be able to kiss Blima again. Four years of life were all that Blima was given. In those four years she had lived through a multitude of events that most children can’t even create in their nightmares. Four years, and then just like that, she was gone.

  My mother made what is possibly the most painful decision a parent can make. Many would judge her harshly for her decision to save herself rather than to remain with her child until the bitter end. Is it more honorable to die along with your child so that you are both bonded together in death? Or is it better to save yourself—if you know that you would die if you stayed with your child—so that at least one of you remains alive? There is no correct answer. In my heart I know that mother made the right decision, given the alternative.

  Standing there in that moment, though, we only knew that Blima was probably not going to the same place as the rest of us who were sent to the right. Only later did we find out that everyone sent to the left side was immediately led to the gas chamber and killed. Within a matter of minutes, the lot of us, including one hundred faces I had spent three days breathing the same recycled air with, was separated.

  When it was my turn to step to the front of the line, I saw that a refined young man with neatly slicked back hair was sitting at a small table leading the selection process. He was not the type of man I had expected to see. He had a gap between his teeth and was wearing a spotless uniform with black, shiny boots and white gloves. I stood there trembling for the roughly three seconds he took looking me up and down. I wished I had relieved myself before that point, because even my nerves were shaking. I held my breath as he sternly pointed to the right. As I was walking in that direction, Mendel came up behind me, having also been sent to the right. Hearing him, I felt a sense of relief. Wherever we were, at least I had my brother beside me.

  Mother was already far ahead of us. Mendel and I were propelled forward by the guards and were led off to yet another unknown place. As we marched, I looked around to get a better feel for where we were. We passed through a metal chain link gate and walked past dozens of wooden and brick buildings. Large groups of peculiar looking individuals swarmed about in the same striped outfits as the people who had helped unload us from the train. None of them had any hair and most of them were so slender their outfits fit them like dresses. Their eyes were huge in proportion to their faces, making them looking like human owls. Who were these people? I felt as though I had landed on another planet, one in which children were taken from their parents, bizarre outfits were necessary uniforms, and crazy, animal-like people terrorized new arrivals in the middle of the night. Where were we?

  The odd world I had found myself in would soon become incorporated into my very existence.

  CHAPTER 23

  After walking for about a kilometer, we came to a brick building. Two Germans stood at the door and instructed us to wait. We stood there in the heat for two, maybe even three hours before we were allowed to enter. Another group from our transport had entered minutes before us. Standing there in silence, I prayed for Blima and for mother. I looked up to the sky, searching for at least one star to wish on, but there were none. Not even the moon was out that night. It was as though this new place we had been brought to was so dreadful that even the celestial beauties avoided it.

  Finally, we were shepherded into the building. Mendel and I entered along with roughly five hundred other men. Inside the building we saw undecorated white concrete walls and rows of hundreds of brass hooks with small pieces of wires on them nailed into the walls. We all begged for water to moisten our parched mouths. Though we were famished from lack of food, our thoughts zoned in to quenching our thirst. We could almost feel the cells in our body shriveling as the moisture in our skin and bloodstream dehydrated. But, we were given neither food nor water that night. We had to continue to suffer until the following morning.

  Breaking through our pleas for water, the guards ordered us to be quiet. While we didn’t understand German very well, we had for the most part by then—because of our time in the ghetto—learned the basic commands. The language barrier only added to our fear. They told us to fully undress immediately, using the pieces of wire to hang our clothes. Our shoes were to be placed neatly on the floor under our hooks with the laces tied together so that the pairs wouldn’t become separated. All jewelry, watches, and other personal effects were to be removed. I had not seen my brother naked since he was a baby, nor did I want to, but there was no time to think about modesty. We had to disrobe rapidly and orderly. I carefully removed my clothes and only reluctantly removed my handmade leather shoes, the only physical reminder I had of my father. Not everyone complied. Some of the more Orthodox Jews hesitated, pulling at their shirts and pants, not wanting to expose their bodies. For their delay, they were clubbed as punishment. Finally, when everyone had hung up their garments and removed their shoes, we were instructed to walk into the next room and stand in rows of ten while the guards—ungloved—explored every crevice of our bodies for hidden belongings. The only item we were allowed to keep was eyeglasses. Having become so dependent on mine, I felt grateful at least for this. I repositioned them on my nose, pressing them close to my forehead, protectively. Standing there completely vulnerable, waiting for our body cavity searches, we were also told to open our mouths for the extraction of our gold fillings. I panicked, thinking of the filling in my bottom molar. I bobbed my head up and down, nervously. Since there were so many of us, the guards performed random searches. No one knew if they would be chosen. The uncertainty was awful. We kept our heads glued to the floor, our thoughts someplace else. When I felt a pair of eyes focus on me, I froze. The guard turned me around, but his hands did not abuse me. My face flushed and I held my breath as he looked over me. When he finished with my body, he focused on my mouth. Risking retribution, I covered my filling with my tongue, praying that it would go undetected. I felt childish as I did so. I kept my mouth opened wide, my tongue firmly planted, and closed my eyes. Somehow, I was lucky. He moved away from me without gouging me. I closed my mouth and exhaled. My heart bled for those individuals, including Mendel, who were prodded and maimed. There was nothing I could do to comfort them, not even my own brother. All I could do was stand there as fingers and rusty pliers violated countless men. The room was awash in screams of pain. With no anesthetics and no way to stop the bleeding, the victims were expected to carry on with the rest of us as if nothing unordinary happened in that room. The truth is that nothing ordinary happened in that room.

  Searches completed, we were moved along. Still stark naked, we were forced to run outside for several meters and then into another building. I used my hands to shield my most private area from the group, just as the rest of us did. None of us wanted to avert our eyes from the space on the ground directly below ourselves. Entering the room, we saw a long row of wooden stools with men—in the same striped uniforms we had seen before—standing behind them. The first dozen people each walked up to a stool and sat down; it took less than a minute for the striped-uniform men to take a straight razor and remove their hair. As the men rose to leave the stool, their pubic hair was also removed, after which a careless swipe of disinfectant was applied. Small pools of blood formed in this delicate area. Watching the men walk away, I saw gashes on their heads where the razor had bitten down t
oo close to their scalps. I had no strong attachment to my hair, but I was not prepared to have it so hastily sheared from me, either. Mendel and I took our turn going through this painful defacing process and emerged from the chair both bleeding and burning from the effects of the razor. The “barbers” remained silent while they shaved us, as if the razors had removed their tongues just like our hair.

  Following this, we were herded into a sterile, cement-floored room with multiple rows of shower heads hanging from the ceiling. We were pushed inside so that we had to stand shoulder to shoulder to fit. Being naked so close to hundreds of strangers felt more than uncomfortable. We waited for a few minutes for the showers to turn on, quivering both from fear and from the coldness of the room. When the water was turned on, dribbles of icy water fell from the shower heads. We opened our mouths to welcome droplets of water, but we were only able to catch enough to dampen our lips. There certainly wasn’t enough water to clean our skin, especially since we weren’t given soap. Within a few minutes of this ridiculous shower we were led into yet another room, this time a much smaller one, where we were rushed through as a strong smelling chemical was sprayed onto us. Put simply, we were disinfected much like an insect infested house would be. I made the mistake of removing my glasses during this process, choosing to hold them in my hands as I ran, but this resulted in the chemical entering my eyes, causing them to sting in pain.

  Putting my glasses back on, I saw that we were being taken into another room, one with a long wooden table running the length of it. We were given registration cards in which we had to write information like our names, home addresses, and next of kin. We were branded with numbers which would become our new names. No longer would I be called “Henryk”; from this point forward I would only be referred to by my number. Again, the striped-uniform men were the ones degrading us. I wanted to ask them who they were and why they were treating us so unkindly, but we were enclosed in a silent bubble in which no one dared to talk. When I reached the table, one of these men instructed me to hold out my left arm and place it on the table. I did as I was told, resulting in a dab of alcohol making contact with my upper forearm, followed by the etching of a long needle attached with an inkwell digging into my skin. The pain was pronounced. Excess ink ran down my arm and stained my skin. When the man was finished, a five-digit number and a tiny triangle were embedded into the surface of my arm. Just like a farmer marks his livestock, I too had been branded. My number was recorded on a ledger and on my card and then the card was filed away. I looked past the tall stack of cards and saw four cameras sitting on another table. Would we have our pictures taken, too? It turns out that since we had arrived in such a gigantic transport we would not be photographed. Part of me was disappointed in this. If we were photographed at least if something happened to us we would be easily identifiable. Our name on a flimsy card did nothing to document what we looked like especially if the skin around our tattoos was somehow removed. I thought: Why am I thinking so morbidly? Has this depressing place already polluted me with its venom?

  At that moment, I stood naked, hairless, and burning with pain from my head, crotch, forearm, and eyes. It was the most dehumanizing moment in my life. From the look Mendel was exuding, he was suffering from overwhelming pain. I looked at him, empathetically, and he looked back at me, his eyes welled up with tears. Cautious of appearing vulnerable to the Germans, he blinked them away. My thoughts drifted to my mother, surely as a woman she didn’t also have to go through the same experiences. Little Blima—safe in the group with the children and the elderly—most definitely wasn’t being exposed to such hatefulness. I hoped that wherever she was, she was blissfully unaware of the torment my group was facing. I hoped she was playing with her teddy bear, happy and waiting for mother to reunite with her.

  My thoughts were forgotten when Mendel nudged me to continue walking forward. Walking forward into the unknown—it seemed like that is what I had been doing since we arrived. When I did so, this time I was not poked and scraped apart, instead I was handed a bundle of clothing. Picking through it, I saw that I was given the same uniform as the men who had just persecuted us. But, I wasn’t like those men. I was normal. It didn’t make sense to me. Shaking my head, I sifted through my pile, noticing that underwear was not in it. Surely there had been a mistake. I ignored the lack of this necessity for the moment while I put on a white undershirt, a gray-blue striped button-up coarse cloth shirt and matching long pants, striped cap, and a pair of unpadded wooden clogs. I was also handed two strips of white cloth about 15 cm (6 inches) in length with my tattoo number on both of them and two canary-colored triangles superimposed to form a star beside the numbers. I stood in line as one of these was sewn onto the left breast of my shirt and the other was sewn onto the cuff of my right pant leg. The uniform was too large for my frame, but I reckoned too large was more advantageous than too small. Mendel’s clothes appeared to be sized better than mine, although his shoes were mismatched. Our clothing fit us far better than it did for the portly men; they were already pulling downward on shirts whose edges barely caressed the curvature of their bellies. Some of the men shouted, asking to exchange their items, but their pleas were unanswered. Because our numbers—our new identities—had been sewn into our clothing, we couldn’t trade, at least not then. Later we would find ways to do so. Questions regarding the clothes we had arrived in were disregarded. Quite simply, we were left to accept the cards we were given.

  Looking at myself and at the men huddled around the room, it was apparent that the crazy men we had seen walking around the camp in striped uniforms were not crazy at all—they were ordinary men just like us. I wondered how many other people had gone through this same initiation. Shifting my feet into my ill-fitting shoes, I thought back to father’s comment about good shoes equating to life. If his reasoning was true, then I wouldn’t be alive for long with such useless, uncomfortable shoes.

  As we approached the backside of the building, we were given one final item—a round tin bowl. We didn’t know it at the time, but this bowl would become our most precious commodity; having it meant that we could eat, without it meant that we would starve. We would come to protect this bowl with every ounce of our being. We would do the same with our shoes. Our bowl and our shoes, those were two items we couldn’t live without.

  The next step of our registration process was to be assigned a place to sleep. All five hundred or so of us were assigned to one building, which we later learned was one of many quarantine buildings. Packed into the enclosure, we could barely breathe as we waited for further details. The prisoner workers, who we had up until then mistaken for guards, read numerically from a list, calling out our numbers as they assigned us numbers corresponding to beds. An eruption of confusion filled the gloomy space as many of us failed to catch our assignments—we had not yet memorized our numbers and could barely read our tattoos. Without windows, the brick building was wrapped in total darkness. Three-story wooden bunk beds framed the edges of the building with a thin wooden bench running across the length of the floor. To one side I saw a couple of dirty metal buckets, much like the ones we had traveled with in the cattle cars. They were to be our waste containers once we were locked inside for the night. Mendel and I had been assigned the same number. We were on the middle level of a bunk along with two other men, with four people sharing the top and four people sharing the bottom, so that twelve of us filled the three levels. I don’t know the measurement of these bunks, but they were so small that each of us had to sleep head to toe, scrunched up so that we were reclining on our sides. Only a scratchy 2.5 to 5 cm (about 1 or 2 inch) mattress covered the hard, blistered boards. There were no pillows to cushion our heads from the rigid planks and only one paper-thin blanket too small to stretch across our shoulders and feet at the same time. Rolling over required awkward coordination because the lack of space required us to all move in unison; if one of us wanted to switch from our right or left side we all had to switch sides. The first night, however, we w
ere so exhausted that we immediately fell into a deep sleep with our tin bowls in our hands and our wooden clogs on our feet.

  CHAPTER 24

  The next morning, well before the sun made its appearance, we were roused awake when a domineering prisoner wearing a green triangle beside his number unlocked our door. We learned that he was a criminal prisoner from Poland named Jakob who had lived in the camp for over a year. He was to be our building leader, but we were to refer to him as our “block” leader from then on. Although SS guards were typically in charge of new prisoners, he said an exception had been made for our transport since many of the guards were on leave temporarily working to establish camps in other areas of the country. Their absence, I figured, was probably to our advantage; a Polish civilian would relate to us and treat us more humanely than German soldiers. After all, we were from the same motherland. We spoke the same tongue. We had maybe even walked down the same streets and shopped in the same stores. No, he would not harm us; it would be like harming himself.