by Irene Butter
I turned away, amazed that she could talk with no clothes on.
“Maybe,” said the perfumed woman, “but they don’t seem that friendly.”
The stubby policewoman came back. Everybody stopped talking, and I pretended to unbutton my dress.
“You’re too slow,” said the policewoman to me, reaching for my fingers. “Do I need to do that for you?”
Her hand followed mine as I flinched to the side.
“She will undress quickly,” Mutti interrupted.
The policewoman took back her hand, using it to push some stray hairs from her face. It was such a sudden, simple gesture that I wanted to think we had something in common. Closing my eyes, I imagined myself back in my bedroom or in our bathroom, alone. I loosened the belt and undid a few top buttons to pull off my dress. I followed with my undershirt and underpants. The air tightened my skin. I couldn’t look down at myself, which allowed me to pretend I was wearing something. My lips pulled in and my shoulders hunched as I looked straight ahead and then up to catch Mutti’s eye. Her mouth was stiff, but her arched eyes and slight nod looked almost proud. I rocked from foot to foot, fending off the urge to pee on the floor. I was sure the policewoman would not like that.
Old- and middle-aged women, mothers with sagging breasts, and young girls with firm skin. Brown hair, red hair, black, and blonde. The buds of bodies to come and the scars of the old were equally exposed, but almost everybody had their arms wrapped around themselves even in the warmth. I shifted my eyes away to the small, vacant places between bodies, offering the only privacy I could. Others did the same. Their look-away gaze made me feel a little better.
We carried our clothes and shuttled to a smaller examination room. If someone was suspected of having lice, they were shaved. As I got closer to the head of the line, I could see a large nurse running a comb over an old woman’s head and peering down onto it as the old woman cowered and shook. Soon it was my turn. Fingers dug through my hair, pushed and pulled on my skin and then around body parts that had only ever been touched by soap. The large nurse moved Mutti and me along, without a shave. I had my clothes back on in no time. Outside again, we marched again. I took my mind off what had just happened by looking around, hoping I might spy Rudi. Or find a bathroom.
“Mutti,” I blurted, “I really have to pee.”
Nearby women and girls nodded in agreement. Somebody spoke up. Our guide stopped the line by the latrines, and we walked quickly toward the small building. The smell of urine was strong as we approached. There were no stalls; just one long board with many holes. Yuck, but I didn’t care. I sat down. My eyes closed. I felt more relieved than I could remember.
Next door was our barracks, a long, low wooden building. Inside was noisy, but all heads turned as our group walked in. Women were already in bed, or standing and talking and getting ready for sleep. The long space was mostly filled with steel-framed, three-tiered bunk beds, with thin mattresses. Windows were high on the short walls; a few were decorated with curtains. It was humid, yet a fine layer of dust seemed to coat everything. The furniture consisted of picnic-style tables and wooden benches. It was obvious that there were not enough seats for all of the barracks’ residents at once. Did that mean we wouldn’t be able to eat as a family? Suddenly, I was hungry for dinner.
The policewomen were gone, replaced by a woman who told us she was the barracks leader. She directed us to empty beds. Mutti and I found two, one on top of the other. Mutti talked with some of the other women, while I ate some hard bread and rubbery cheese I picked from one of our knapsacks. I found the small washroom off the back of our barracks and washed up. I drank a lot of water, each glass making me want more. Then I crawled to the higher bunk and made up the bed. Mutti settled below. Bits of straw poked from the mattress, like exclamation points. I broke off the worst, tossing the bits on the floor, and pushed in what I could. I doubled up my sheet, but I still felt the little strands poking me. I heard Mutti’s sighs and felt her every move.
“Reni, sleep well,” she said.
“Mutti, are Werner and Pappi okay?” I asked, my eyes watering.
“Yes. We will see them tomorrow. The other women said the men and boys are fine.”
“Okay. I’m still hungry. And it’s dinnertime, and we are sleeping.” I yawned.
“It’s been a long day,” she said. I felt her stir. “We have some more food, but we should wait and see if we need it for later. Go to sleep; it will all seem better in the morning.”
“Okay, Mutti. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I silently cried into my blanket, not wanting Mutti to think I wasn’t strong. I had never gone to bed this hungry before. I didn’t want to have to go to the bathroom again, not with other people. I was sure Mutti was as tired as me, and I wanted her to believe that I believed her. If Mutti felt the bed shake from my crying, she didn’t say anything. Then I thought of Rudi and let go a long sigh. Maybe he was with Pappi and Werner and the other men and boys.
Prisoner
Camp Westerbork, the Netherlands and
Camp Bergen-Belsen, Germany
1943-1945
15
Camp Westerbork, the Netherlands
Summer 1943
The next morning. Werner jolted me awake. I leapt from my upper bunk and hugged him, kissing his head over and over.
“Blech,” he said. “You’re like a puppy.”
“You’re here!” I said.
And there was Pappi talking with Mutti. I ran to him and held on; he hugged me back so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. Pappi and Werner had slept in the same barracks as we had, just at the other end in the men’s section. We sat at the picnic table with some warm coffee and bread. Mutti was right: this wasn’t so bad.
With nothing else to do, it was time to explore. I found myself looking at every boy with dark hair, which was just about every boy. I also kept my eyes open for Rudi’s parents. Pappi and Mutti met people they knew, made boring small talk, and we followed pointing fingers until we found my aunt and uncle, Tante Alice and Oom Paul. It was the widest smile I’d seen on Mutti’s face in a long time. The day’s young sun brought out the gold in her brown hair. She was beautiful.
“You don’t look so bad,” Mutti told Tante Alice after the sisters pulled apart and looked at each other close up.
“Well, it isn’t awful here. We have food and there are shows with skits, singers, and dancers. Some big theater names, actually: Max Ehrlich, Johnny and Jones, Jetty Cantor, Kurt Gerron….”
“Max Ehrlich and Kurt Gerron as neighbors?” Pappi interrupted. “Who would have guessed. We’ve come up in the world!”
“Oh yes. Under any other circumstances you couldn’t buy your way into such company,” added Oom Paul.
“So, you are used to it? Living here?” Mutti asked, ignoring the men.
“In some ways,” said Tante Alice. “Honestly, though, there might be a lot of people here but there is a…distance. We’re physically close, not emotionally.”
“You never know who might be gone the next week,” said Oom Paul. “Why get close?”
“Gone?” asked Mutti.
“The weekly train that leaves for other camps,” Tante said. “It arrives each Saturday and leaves on Tuesdays. The Germans order the Jewish Council here to make a list of who will go. The Germans give the quotas.”
“What’s a quota?” I asked
“A number,” said Werner, from the side of this mouth.
“Then they get on the train,” Tante continued. “The train pulls away, and nobody hears back from any of them. Not a one. From here, at least, we can send postcards, like we did to you. And we can get mail. But nobody seems to send or get anything from the other camps.”
“Well, we have heard…” Oom Paul interrupted.
Tante gave her husband a warning look.
Oom continued. “We have heard that notes have been found in the boxcars when they come back from the other camps like Sobibor
and Auschwitz. We haven’t seen the notes, but there is talk. The Jewish Police find them, sometimes carefully hidden. The notes say the other camps are…” He looked at Werner and me. “...Really not good.”
“The train leaves tomorrow,” said Tante. “So names will be called tonight.”
The adults all looked at one another.
I pictured the men in their coveralls, ties, and caps sweeping out the cattle cars as if they were cleaning up from any other daily chore, just getting things back in order like I should have done with my bed yesterday morning. Snow White’s “Whistle While you Work” played in my mind, and I pictured one of the men bending down and squinting at a crack between two boards, not far up from the stained floor, where he spies a fold of white. His fingers clamp on a paper corner and pull it out.
Little discoveries could feel like treasures, rare and light, but these sounded heavier.
“Hm,” Mutti said, “we got your postcards. Didn’t you get ours?”
“Yes, yes. And we so appreciate all the food you sent to us,” Tante continued. “We still have some of it left.”
I had gotten Rudi’s postcard, but I hadn’t sent him food. I wished I had thought of that.
“There are rumors about what happens,” Oom Paul continued, “but they are only rumors. We just hope the people who leave are okay, but who really knows?”
Yes, who really knows, I said to myself. I decided to ignore what Oom Paul said about bad rumors. What did that mean anyhow? Westerbork was small and cramped, but we were still together as a family. We’d found our tante and oom, so we would find Rudi.
That afternoon a man in coveralls assigned work to everybody but me because I was too young. Jobs started at thirteen, and I was only twelve. Pappi was to report to the Metaal Werkplaats, or metal workshop. Mutti was assigned to the kitchen, and Werner was to be a messenger. He was so happy at having such an important job, and thrilled when he learned he would have a bicycle. The bike was black, its paint pitted and scratched, with a brown leather seat. A rack sat over the back tire, with wire cages on either side to carry things.
“It’s nice,” I admitted.
“I know,” he said, running his hand over its smoothness. “I haven’t ridden a bike for…”
“…since they took ours away. Over a year ago.” I remembered. “Can I try it?”
“No, this is an official bike, Reni,” he said, too seriously.
Mutti told me I still had to work: it was my job to keep our things clean. This wouldn’t take much, as we only had a few pots and not many clothes. It left plenty of time to search the camp for Rudi.
Westerbork was square-shaped, and big enough that I couldn’t see from one end to the other. It was cut in two by a railroad track, and had a trench around the outside that made the barbed wire fence just beyond look even taller than it really was. It took about fifteen minutes to walk from side to side, if I didn’t stop. I strolled about, poking my head into barracks and workshops. One tall chimney piped skyward against the low horizon, seeming like a cloud maker. Wind sailed across the plain, blowing dirt everywhere. And there were little biting bugs. Amsterdam didn’t have many bugs, and I quickly realized that I didn’t like them. There were so many people: thousands, it seemed to me. I scanned all the faces, recognizing a few. I would make small talk and politely answer questions about my family. Just before we ran out of things to say, I asked them about Rudi’s family. Nobody knew.
I was surprised there were not more Nazi soldiers. A few were around the gates and in the towers. It was the Jewish Police who really seemed to watch over the camp. Most seemed eager to be bossy, so I didn’t walk near them. I could walk everywhere within the camp except the quarantine hospital and the punishment barracks, which were inside the camp but cut off by barbed wire. There was a field where men and bigger boys played football. I thought for sure Rudi would be there, but he wasn’t. Evening came and went, and then it was time for bed. My second night in Westerbork, and I still hadn’t found him.
I was sound asleep when the lights came on. The barracks leader, a woman about Mutti’s age, began to yell. Two police stood beside her. I bolted up and looked down at Mutti and the other women around me.
“Get up. Get up. Out of your beds. If I read your name, you are to report to the train early tomorrow morning. You will be going to work camps in the east.”
Mutti looked up at me. Her eyes were huge. I jumped down and sat next to her.
“They are calling the people who will leave,” she said and smoothed my hair with a shaky hand. “If we hear our name, we must go find Werner and Pappi.”
I sat next to Mutti as we listened to names. “Berkowitz…Borman…”
“Alphabetical. They are calling names in alphabetical order,” I said.
“Yes,” Mutti said.
And so we waited.
“Haas, Hanef, Hirsz…”
No Hasenberg. The alphabet passed us by. Mutti kissed my head. Others readied themselves to go. The barracks was alive in the middle of the night. Some people were crying. Pappi and Werner came in and sat down on our bunk.
“This isn’t paradise, but be thankful for every week we get to stay here,” Pappi said.
“Pappi,” I asked, “how many people go on each train?”
“I don’t know, Reni,” he said, and shook his head.
“I do,” said Werner.
Of course he did.
“It depends on the orders from Berlin. Mostly, it is eight hundred to over a thousand.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Pappi,” I tried again, “why does the train leave every week?”
“Reni, I just don’t know. But it seems that it leaves a lot since there are new people arriving every day and Westerbork can’t hold us all.”
“And the other camps don’t always have the room, either,” Werner added.
I was going to tell him to shut up, but I didn’t need to. Pappi gave him a stern look.
A few days later we received a food package from friends in Amsterdam. We got canned goods, chocolate, fruit, and something resembling a meat salad that had spoiled. The smell was terrible and the only reason we opened it was that Mutti said she wanted to send an accurate thank you.
“Werner, Reni,” Mutti commanded through a pinched nose, “come closer.”
“Do I have to?” I asked.
“I need to get going. I have to deliver messages,” Werner tried.
“This will not take long,” she insisted. “Just tell me what is in here.”
“Beef?” Werner guessed from a safe distance.
“You have to actually smell it. Come here,” Mutti said. “I can see some vegetables….”
“I can smell it from here, Mutti,” Werner said. “Honestly.”
I took the smallest whiff possible. “Pork?” I coughed out.
Mutti gave up, penning that we were very happy to get their “excellent dish.”
Werner promised to get me an “excellent dish” for my next birthday, but only if I was nice enough to him.
16
Camp Westerbork, the Netherlands
Summer 1943
On another night, after our first week, our family talked about their work as we ate some soup and the last of the sausage and bread that we had brought. Pappi’s hands were cut and he had a burn on his thumb.
“I have to get used to this new work,” he explained while softly rubbing red scratches.
“And keep your hands clean,” Mutti added. “You don’t want an infection.”
Mutti said her work was boring. She had to sort dry beans, the good from the bad.
“And not many of them are that good,” she said.
“So you are really throwing out the worst of the worst,” Pappi said, laughing. “That’s good!”
“No, it’s bad, because we are told not to waste too much, and the best of the worst is never enough. If only I had a magic wand to turn bad beans into good.”
“And a wand that turns beans into ones tha
t don’t make you fart,” suggested Werner.
“That would be magic!” I added.
“And turns sisters who fart into ones who don’t.”
“I don’t fart!” I yelled.
“Reni!” Mutti snapped.
“Okay, maybe a little…,” I confessed.
“That’s not what I meant!” said Mutti. “No such talk and keep your voice down.”
Werner was smiling.
“And that goes for you too, young man,” she said.
“That’s not why I was smiling.” he said. “I get to hear everything with my job.”
“What do you mean?” Mutti asked.
“Who’s in charge. Who’s working where. Talk.” He looked a little smug.
“Can you find out about friends from home, like, say, Rudi and his family?” I asked.
“Don’t you mean just Rudi?”
“No! I mean anybody. Everybody.”
“I’m sure I can.”
“Be a little careful,” advised Pappi.
Over the next few days we found more friends. It was nice to see them and eat together. It was just a matter of moments before I found Rudi, or he found me. I was sure of it.
Then the train arrived. It was Saturday afternoon when I felt, more than heard, the rumbling, especially as the huge black tube of the engine ground past, dragging a long link of faded black or brown cattle cars, slithering through the entire length of the camp. The Jewish police threw open the heavy doors and jumped up and inside with buckets and brooms, looking around to make sure nothing was left.
Whistle while you work
And cheerfully together we can tidy up the place
The boxcars sat there, doors open, looking empty and hungry. No matter where I was in the camp that weekend, there was the train. When I went to the bathroom. When I walked to dinner. When I hung out the clothes to dry. When we visited others in nearby barracks. I noticed numbers were written in chalk—74 Pers—on the sides of the cars. Werner said this was the number of people each car held from the last trip. Smears of past numbers were there too, as faded, smudged, and unreadable as the people they represented. Carefully counted, quickly erased. On to the next.
