My Mother's Ring: A Holocaust Historical Novel

by Dana Fitzwater Cornell

  During this time, there was the usual roll call two or three times a day, breaks for our starvation rations of watery coffee, soup, and bread, and intermittent trips to the “barbers” to have our hair shaved and our bodies decontaminated and bathed. I cannot say that it was monotonous, for that would imply that it was mundane and we were bored yet comfortable with our situation; there was no adjusting to our twisted existence where at any moment we could be killed. We were led off to work by the musical notes of the orchestra and walked back to camp to the same upbeat marches. Dead or alive, all prisoners had to return to camp after the workday. When members of my labor group became sick or keeled over when they physically and mentally could no longer exert themselves, we were expected to carry them with us to the inlet of the camp at the end of the day.

  I can’t tell you how many times I walked back to camp with a man slung over my shoulder, the same man who had taken bricks out of my hands only minutes prior. But I carried the weight of the dead more so in my heart than on my shoulders.

  CHAPTER 29

  Mendel and I reunited in bed each night to recount the events of our day, sharing stories of both hope and horror. Mendel was working as the leveler for the crematorium he was working to construct, causing him to become hunched at the waist. The curvature of his spine became more pronounced each night. Constant, excruciating throbbing encompassed his entire back. I empathized with him; his pain seemed to far outweigh mine. My lumbar vertebrae ached all the time, but the soreness bothered me mostly when I was standing; I had no trouble ignoring it while I slept. As Mendel lay in bed, I would massage him, firmly pressing my hands into his muscles, hoping to bring him some relief. As I did this, he would sometimes spasm and expletives would spring from his lips. I wished he could give me his pain so that I could carry it for him.

  One night Mendel appeared to be standing just a little bit straighter, the pain in his back seemed to have eased. I brought him close to me and hugged him tightly, happy to see him looking so well. He pushed me away, taking me by surprise, and launched into an uninterrupted spiel. His words jumbled together, and I was thankful when he ran out of breath and was forced to pause. “I saw her,” he told me. “I saw her, and she is alive, Henryk. She is alive!” I stared back at him, confused. He grabbed my arm and shook me. “Listen to me! Mother is alive!” he exclaimed. “She is working in Canada. Can you believe it?” The news seemed incredible. “No, I can’t believe it,” is what I wanted to say. Had he really seen her in that section of the camp? What if he was mistaken? I didn’t want to get my hopes up, so I responded with an apprehensive smile.

  My smile turned into a scream as Mendel went on to explain that he had seen mother from his worksite. She had been placing a bundle of clothing from Canada onto an awaiting truck. He had somehow bribed one of his kapos to let him use the bathroom so that he could talk with her. He watched as she disappeared into a building, and then he followed after her. Inside, he saw dozens of women sorting through suitcases—luggage from the transports. There were mounds of clothing three meters high or more, he said. Around the concrete room he saw other massive piles: glasses, shoes, furniture, photographs, silverware, and every household and personal item imaginable. Women were opening paint-labeled suitcases, examining each item and tossing it onto the appropriate pile. Guards looked on as they worked, resulting in strict silence during the sorting process. He peered further around the thick wooden door and saw mother bent over a pile of prosthetic limbs and canes, scooping up an armful and placing them into a wheelbarrow for removal from the room. As mother approached him, he was nervous with anticipation. When she rounded the corner, exiting the doors right in front of him, he touched her arm. She reacted by flinching, causing her cart to tip on its side and spill its contents. She whipped around, ready to yell, only to look up and realize her son was standing there. She kissed him and wrapped him near her, tears falling from her eyes. He helped her replace the articles into the wheelbarrow and went with her to the dump truck, checking for guards as they went. Talking as they walked, she let him know that she was doing well considering the circumstances. Working in Canada provided her with several advantages, she told him, including the opportunity of smuggling out valuable items and having the luxury of working mainly indoors. She seemed at peace with her labor group, although she was suffering from the same lack of food, bodily needs, and yearning for connections to family that we all were. Mendel told her that I was also alive and living with him. I asked him if she was still wearing her ring, but he didn’t know. It would have been one of the first things I would have noticed, but Mendel didn’t know mother the same way I did. I wondered if she was still nervously rubbing her finger—ring or no ring—out of habit.

  Hearing all of this, my initial reaction was one of skepticism. I couldn’t imagine prisoners picking through other prisoners’ belongings. I also found it unbelievable that Mendel had found our mother amongst the thousands of other people in the camp. Perhaps he had been hallucinating; after all, malnutrition was clouding reality for all of us.

  Annoyed with my lack of enthusiasm, Mendel’s face turned red and he shook me again, telling me, “I’m not lying to you! It’s all true, Henryk.”

  Sitting on the edge of our bunk, I thought about what he had said. A few moments later I nodded my head and smiled at Mendel, finally convinced he had told me the truth. I told him that I must also find a way to see mother. I needed to see her. It was like I was a child again; I wanted my mom to make everything okay.

  We devised a plan, confiding in no one, in which I would switch places and uniforms with Mendel so that I might have the opportunity to break away from my work group and speak with my mother. We reasoned that as long as the correct number of prisoners showed up, there would be no trouble in deceiving the guards. If Mendel’s prisoner number was called out, I would pretend to be him, and vice versa. Our shirt sleeves would cover our forearm tattoos. We only hoped that no one in our labor groups would betray us. Even so, we were willing to take the risk.

  On a snowy January day in 1943 we executed our plan. Changing into Mendel’s clothes and stuffing paper from our mattress into my clothing as insulation, a punishable offense if caught, I walked off to work with his labor group and blended in as the work began. Because I was pulling my weight and everyone was consumed with their own work, no one noticed I shouldn’t be there, or maybe they just didn’t care. The whole time, I was anxious to split from the pack and see mother. I waited until just before lunch to make my move, at which time I begged for permission to relieve myself. I followed Mendel’s advice, looking out for guards and scanning the building for mother. The wooden doors cast a shadow that I hid behind. Piles and piles of household items filled the vast room. I looked on with awe particularly at the collection of shoes, clothing, and eyeglasses. Various smells intermingled, drifting over to me; traces of perfumes and cigarette smoke from the clothing piles, pungent stenches of sweat from all of the well-worn shoes, and musty undertones from the stacks of leather suitcases irritated my nasal passages.

  Just in that one room on that one day at that one moment there were enough shoes to cushion the feet of an entire town, and the sad thing was that they once did. It was just too much for me to take in. I turned my focus to the women working in Canada. Not all of them were wearing prisoner uniforms. Some appeared to be wearing regular clothing, which I found strange. Several minutes later, I saw her sorting through suitcases, wearing a long, black cotton dress. Her beautiful milky face was as smooth as when I had last seen her. I stared at her, burning my eyes into her eyes, willing her to look at me.

  Minute after minute went by as I stayed perfectly motionless. Just when I thought too much time had passed and my plan had been foiled, she finally looked at me—her eyes widened and her face lit up. I felt an inner warmness although my body was numb from the cold. She spoke to a woman beside her who was filling a cart with men’s clothing and then took hold of the cart, wheeling it in my direction. Every step she took towards
me was a gift in itself. When she finally reached me, I felt every pain in my body melting away. I looked at her hand and didn’t see her ring, but I didn’t have the heart to ask her about it. I just wanted to look at her, to make sure she was real. We were overjoyed to see each other. She spoke rapidly in a quiet whisper, afraid that we might be caught. She was on her way to a building across from us known as the “Sauna” where clothing was sanitized prior to being loaded into trucks for exportation. It was also the place where prisoners were registered and deloused. When we walked past the row of dump trunks in front of the Sauna, she explained that all of the items were being loaded onto trains—the same ones we had arrived to camp in—and transported to Germany where they would be sold for profit. The items she sorted in Canada had belonged to everyone who entered the camp, whether they remained in the camp as a prisoner or were terminated upon arrival. Upon question of her dress, she remarked that not all women who worked in Canada had to wear the prisoner garb. I wondered why, but I didn’t ask her.

  I wanted to think that it was a job that got easier over time, although I doubted it. I didn’t want to believe that mother suffered during her time in the camp. If she stopped to think about the significance of each article it would have been awful for her. The truth is that she had a sickening job. She touched people’s most treasured items and placed them into piles where they became nothing more than another watch or another shirt to be carted away to Germany.

  It took me decades to come to grips with what else she told me that day. It’s heartbreaking to acknowledge. During one shift she came across a small leather shoe. As she was about to throw it into a pile of thousands of other shoes, something caused her to glance at it again. When she did, she saw that it was decorated with hearts and etchings of butterflies. It was unmistakably Blima’s shoe; the one my father had crafted for her in the ghetto. It was the same one she had been wearing when she arrived at the camp. Holding the shoe, mother knew that Blima’s whole life had been chewed up and spit out; her future had been discarded. Mother attempted to hide the tiny Mary Jane in her dress. As she did so, one of the guards yanked her from her chair and whipped her until she became an unconscious heap on the floor. When she finally opened her eyes and peeled herself off the concrete, she patted her dress only to find that the shoe was no longer there. The last remnant of Blima, her baby girl, had been taken from her. She felt helpless and alone. She briefly lost the will to live.

  When we parted, she reached under her dress and placed a cold piece of metal into my hand. I looked down as she looked up at me and said, “I want you to have it. I know you’ve always liked it. For some reason I feel as though you will be the only one who survives to see the end of the war. You must keep it safe. A piece of my soul, of your father’s soul, and of Blima’s soul lives within it. No matter what you are forced to endure, promise me that you will always protect it and yourself. I love you.” I acquiesced, swearing that I would not give up and assuring her that I would cherish and protect her ring with my life. She told me that she had hid it under her tongue during registration despite the risk, and had continued to hide it by fashioning a necklace out of the laces from the shoes she had sorted. I placed it around my neck, told her I loved her, and hugged her. That gold ring, smooth in places because of her nervous fingers and scratched in other places because of her twenty-some years of housework, was the only physical remnant I had from my life before the war. I felt honored to have it, but I was haunted by her words.

  Although Mendel and I continued working on the crematoria until February, we were under stricter watch from our kapos as the construction neared completion. Despite how desperately we wanted to sneak away to visit our mother, we weren’t willing to take the risk. The longer I went without seeing her, the more I thought about her. Would I ever see her again?

  CHAPTER 30

  As the months ticked by and I was transferred to various other work groups separated from Mendel, including repairing tracks of railroad and expanding sections of roads, the days droned on and my thoughts turned only to surviving. Mendel was temporarily assigned to a punishment detail in charge of emptying human waste containers into sewage treatment vats. He was castigated stringently for the seemingly innocent act of standing at a gate talking to a woman. He had hoarded his bread ration for three days before exchanging it with another prisoner for pieces of string so that he could braid a bracelet for the woman he had fallen in love with. Right after he gave his lover the bracelet, he was caught as he stepped away from the fence. Instead of killing him and thereby doing away with a young, strong prisoner, he was beaten and reassigned to the waste removal group. He worked from nightfall until morning. The work was revolting, but he did it without complaining.

  Prior to this, he joyfully told me stories about the woman he had fallen for, telling me that she had caught his eye from across a row of fences during roll call one night. Once crippled, he had been healed. Though he could never touch her during the month he saw her, he developed an intense bond with her and expressed his desire to marry her once the war ended. He tore out pieces of our paper-filled mattress and used rocks to write her short love notes that he then threw to her from the gate that separated them. Dorothy Katz was her name. She was an eighteen-year-old prisoner from Krakow—a city in Poland—who had arrived to camp shortly after we had. “My gentle sweetheart” is how he referred to her. He talked of how she was a rare beauty; a Jewess with remarkably vibrant, green eyes and rich, black hair that was growing back in and springing out in short little curly tufts behind her scarf. She worked as a typist documenting incoming prisoners, a rather fortunate position. Mendel said she had a smile that was unparalleled. The constraints the camp imposed on her did little to extinguish her spirit. She focused on the positive just like our mother. Writing to Dorothy brought him bursts of joy and vitality. He was as happy as when he was teaching the children in the ghetto. Resting on his stomach in our bunk, he spoke aloud as he tapped his rock like a pencil, groping for the crispest words to weave together into verses to express his heartfelt love to Dorothy.

  By the time he completed his punishment detail and resumed his daily excursions to the fence, knowing just how far he could approach without alarming the guards, Dorothy no longer appeared. Although he checked for her each night for many weeks—asking other women where she had gone when possible—he was unable to locate her. Therefore, he spent an entire week meticulously writing and revising one last letter to his sweetheart. When he was satisfied with it, he folded it into a tiny wad and sewed it into his left shoe. “For when I find her,” he told me. I envied yet delighted in their love. While poetry enabled me to understand what passion was supposed to feel like, I feared that I would only get to experience romantic love vicariously through others.

  CHAPTER 31

  I would rather not dwell on the time I spent in other labor groups. I saw men beaten to death for stopping to catch their breaths, dogs mauling prisoners for breaking to urinate, and more despair than I care to elaborate upon. Prisoners were losing digits from frostbite and every day at least one person did not survive the always-extended workday. We greedily fought over the deceased’s clothing and shoes as we carried them back to camp—elated to supplement our wardrobe while in turn despising the world for creating such a perverted place. My fingernails were wearing away and my teeth were loosening from my gums due to a lack of nutrients. My uniform was spotted with holes. Our rations were reduced, and reduced some more. Eventually our soup was diluted to the point that if one person in a group of five found a vegetable or a dime-sized piece of meat in their bowl, it was a good day. Our small loaves of part sawdust, part moldy flour bread were shared between more people nearly every week. Two people sharing one loaf multiplied into four people sharing the same loaf, and so forth. The melody of the orchestra—talented mixes of violins, accordions, and brass instruments—encouraged us to march off to work and welcomed us home. This music lost its jubilant appeal because the same musicians who eased our spirits
morning and night played similar compositions during public executions and selections of transports. We were all required to attend public executions. They were treated as lessons about what would happen if we disobeyed. The hanging of prisoners who had attempted to escape was the most common reason for our forced attendance. Going through all of this, my soul—the one part of me that made me who I was—seemed to be decaying just as rapidly as my body was.

  What little free time we were given, if it can be referred to as such, was mostly spent sleeping. The strenuous work required and the revolting scenes playing out all around us left our bodies and our minds drained of might, causing us to disintegrate into our bunks at night. This was not always true, however, even though we always returned to our sleeping blocks exhausted from the day, there were times when groups of us would remain awake for a few hours talking. Popular topics of conversation revolved around food and family. Some people used this time to secretly assemble together to pray or to observe holidays.

  Birthdays were commemorated rather than being celebrated. From time to time, a bunkmate would mention that it was his birthday and we would congratulate him and perhaps sing to him, but we had nothing to offer as a present. Only on very few occasions did someone share his slim rations with the honoree; on Mendel’s birthday I let him eat half of my soup and he did the same on my birthday. Without traditional gifts to give, we gave the gift of life through extra calories. By giving up our own food, we in essence gave up a few minutes, hours, or perhaps days of our lives.

  Regardless of how prisoners spent this time, it was important to our well being. Human interaction away from work and punishment fortified our will to live. Without these connections, depression would have surely overtaken our bodies, eating away at it like acid.