by Irene Butter
“A couple of weeks, maybe longer,” he said.
The hospital barracks was similar to our sleeping barracks except that the beds were single, not bunk. There seemed to be only two types of people. The first were sick, quiet, and resting or sleeping. The others acted weird. Some stared, barely blinking. Some rocked back and forth, or yelled. I was so tired, but not tired enough to know that I didn’t like this place. Mutti talked with a nurse, and then walked to a window near my new bed.
“Reni,” she said when she came back, “you see that window? Just beyond the window is the fence. We can come to the fence, and you can look out the window so we can see each other. We will come every morning and evening. See? We will not be far away.”
She smiled. I knew it was forced since I had not seen her smile for a long time, and I had never known her to smile about sickness. I returned her smile with a small one to make her feel good and so I would look brave. Mutti gave me a long kiss on my forehead and tucked in the sheets that didn’t need tucking. She reminded me she loved me, and I told her the same.
I fell asleep, and dreamt of worms in bathrooms. The bugs opened their mouths to talk, getting louder and louder until I awoke to screaming. The noise was from the other end of the building, near the door. A bushy-haired man was crying out the name of someone named Sarah over and over. Two big men in white pushed him down and tied him to his bed. The bushy-haired man howled, straining his head up off the pillow. A calm doctor leaned over him and stood back up with a syringe. In a few minutes, it was quiet again. I closed my eyes.
I awoke to shaking. A nurse told me to get up: my family was outside and wanted to see me. Did I need help walking to the window?
“Can I have some water?”
She brought me a glass, which I drank so quickly I coughed. She wiped my face, reminding me to go to the window. The air around the glass was cool. Standing beyond the outside fence was my family. Werner was kicking at something. Mutti and Pappi were looking my way, and tapped Werner’s shoulder when they saw me. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“Can I open the window?” I asked.
No.
I shook my head at my parents with my hand to my ear to show that I couldn’t understand. Mutti moved her mouth slower: “How are you?” I smiled and nodded my head a little. In reality, I didn’t feel any better, and I was scared. We smiled back and forth until Pappi mouthed that they had to go to work, and they would be back. I was sorry to see them go, but happy to get back into bed.
That night was filled with more moans and screaming. A voice yelled in the dark to “shut up.” I hid under my sheets, telling myself that even though they were threadbare, they could protect me. I missed my blanket so much.
The next day I learned from other patients and patches of conversation that all kinds of people ended up here: the sickest of the sick, even from other camps. There were people who had tried to commit suicide, their wrists swaddled like diapers, or their stomachs pumped. Others were so broken that they just stared or yelled.
Being sick was good for one thing; I slept through a lot of noise. As I got better, it was harder to sleep to escape the craziness. I looked forward to eating, when I could drown out the scary noises with the heavy taste of thick soups, bread, and actual sweets, which the nurses said were good for making the yellow in my skin and eyes go away. I ate very slowly.
Pappi, Mutti, and Werner came almost every day to the fence. We couldn’t do much except look at each other, and mouth out “Miss you” and “Love you.” Looking at them like that, I realized they looked different. I played a trick on my mind, pretending to be looking at them for the first time, as if I didn’t know them. They looked older. I probably did, too, so I decided to think about other things: Mutti’s gentle touches on my cheek, Pappi’s tight, bright smile, and Werner’s funny comments. The details helped to keep the shouts and moans at bay. I couldn’t wait to see—no, touch!—my family again. I rubbed the window so I could see them a little better, and I watched them leave until they were fully out of sight.
Never in my life was I as happy as when they let me out. I had to keep myself from running ahead of the nurse who was leading me to the gate. I fell into Mutti’s arms, promising to never let her go. Then I hugged Pappi until he chuckled, and I even squeezed Werner until he coughed. I vowed to stay healthy and do whatever I needed to stay with my family: I didn’t ever want to hear, smell, or see that hospital again.
For an afternoon, Westerbork seemed like freedom. Even the long, black, heavy train sitting on its wiry rails didn’t bother me. That night, we ate as a family. After dinner, Mutti and Pappi had to share some bad news about a distant relative who had died recently here at Westerbork.
It was Omi Silten, the grandmother of Gabi, who was some sort of cousin to us, but I didn’t know exactly how. Gabi, Omi Silten, and her family had arrived here at the same time as us. Her family had come to some birthday parties and holidays in Amsterdam, but Gabi was younger than me so we didn’t play together much unless there wasn’t anybody else.
“Wait, Omi Silten wrote in my Poesie book,” I said.
I remembered Omi Silten’s note not because she was close to me, but because I had liked her words. They had reminded me of my heroine, Heidi. She’d written about the importance of being helpful and strong, because that would help lighten the load of others. Those words became more important the longer we were in Westerbork. I had a job beyond keeping things clean: to be helpful and strong.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Gabi and her parents must be sad.”
Later that evening Werner finished the story.
“Gabi’s dad is a pharmacist here at Westerbork,” he said. “When Gabi’s grandmother found out that she was going to Auschwitz last week, she begged her son for drugs to help her die.”
Werner’s face twitched, and he bit his nails. “Reni, he helped his own mother die rather than see her forced to get on the train.”
19
Train Rails East of Camp Westerbork,
the Netherlands
February 1944
I felt almost giddy. We were out of Westerbork, bound for the camp called Bergen-Belsen. The shock of having our names called to leave was lessened by the fact we were not surprised, and also because our train was so nice. Pappi’s contacts and our passports had kept us in Westerbork longer than most people, almost nine months. What was amazing, though, was the train that pulled in to take us away. It had boxcars, but that wasn’t all—–it had passenger cars with seats, big windows, and heat. And that’s what our family got to ride in. For the first hour after departing Westerbork we stared through the hard windows at vast fields of snow that looked porcelain blue under the half-moon. The stars sprinkled the heavens like spilled sugar. My spirit plowed the deep moonlit drifts, sailing through the softness. It was all so beautifully different.
Hearsay wafted between the cars, kept afloat by a lack of details. The rumors trailed behind the German guards who patrolled the aisles. Some prisoners believed we were bound for someplace bad, referring back to the notes found in the cattle cars. Most felt it would be better. Pappi said to focus on what we really knew, and what we really knew looked promising. We were on a nice train and not in cattle cars like the ones that had taken us to Westerbork. We were sitting in compartments with leather benches. The train was heated. There was a toilet with a door that closed at the end of the car. These were sure signs—at least likely signs—that things were improving.
“Really, would the Nazis bother putting us on a train like this if they only meant to take us to a worse place?” asked Mutti.
“Doubtful,” said Pappi.
I shrank into weariness, comforted by the adults’ chatter. I looked out at the occasional passing light or village, though mostly I watched Pappi and Mutti talk with their friends Mr. and Mrs. Loewenberg. Pappi and the Loewenbergs sat across from Mutti, Werner, and me. The three of them looked cramped, but they insisted that Werner and I had space to curl up and sleep i
f we wanted. Talk revolved around Bergen-Belsen. What was the camp going to be like?
“I bet when we get there, we’ll even eat on tablecloths,” Mr. Loewenberg said. “And oh, how we will eat: tender meats; soup so thick it will not fall off your spoon even if you turn it upside down; the chewiest, crustiest, steamiest breads; chilled butter and fresh jam and desserts piled on silver platters.”
“And oh, how we will pass gas from eating such rich delicacies!” Pappi said. “Gas galore from such gluttony, and yet we will never be happier.”
“My, such a poet,” Mutti said in a high voice, fanning her face.
Was that Mutti playing around? Werner and I exchanged the same look of amazement. Mrs. Loewenberg turned her face towards the window and blew cigarette smoke before breaking into a grin.
“What about punishments?” Werner asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Loewenberg said with an overly serious face, “you are right Werner. The Nazis do like to punish, but…but you will only be beaten if you don’t mind your manners, or don’t eat all your chocolate tart! The commandant will march up smartly to our table, click his heels and say, ‘That spoon is supposed to be on the left!’ ‘That linen is wrinkled!’ ‘You did not finish your plate!’ ‘No second helping for you, young man!’”
Mutti gave a sharp salute. I laughed along with everybody else. I would be happy if only a little of this was true.
“I’ve heard,” Pappi said, “that Hitler is a busboy at Bergen-Belsen… but only on weekends.”
“Hitler is a rather busy man,” said Mr. Loewenberg. “Invading and killing takes a lot of time and can be so exhausting. Nobody really understands the stress that comes with being the Führer. He needs a place to get away to and relax. He has been known to even kick off his boots at Spa Bergen-Belsen. When he’s not bussing tables, of course.”
Mrs. Loewenberg gave her husband a focused smile, eyeing him from down the bridge of her nose, before tapping her cigarette ashes on the floor. A few flakes found her skirt, which Mr. Loewenberg brushed away.
“Sorry darling,” he said, and looking back up at us, he added, “Kids, I may be exaggerating, just a little.”
Mrs. Loewenberg pulled deeply from her cigarette. She looked fancy and content when she smoked. “Since you seem to know sooo much, darling, will Bergen-Belsen have enough cigarettes?” she asked.
“Oh yes, they grow on the trees, but in the off-off chance they don’t, you know I’ll find them for you.”
“I know,” she said, making big kissy lips at him.
Werner leaned over toward me and whispered, “Old Hitler might be a busboy, but ‘everybody knows you can’t turn your back on Old Hitler.’”
I giggled, thinking back to Shirley Temple’s Heidi movie and the mean goat Old Turk. Werner made big eyes at me, waiting for me to deliver the next line in the movie.
“Well, Old Hitler isn’t much of a….”
Werner widened his eyes, making me laugh harder.
“Well,” I started again and finally finished in a rush, “Well, ‘Old Hitler isn’t much of a gentleman.’”
We doubled over. The adults joined in.
“I don’t even know why I’m laughing,” said Mutti.
“Because they are,” said Mr. Loewenberg with a finger in our direction. “That seems like a good enough reason.”
Our fits sputtered and calmed.
The window glass radiated cold. Deeper Germany was in front of us, the Netherlands behind. Though Mutti reminded me that this land used to be my home, it was hard to imagine that now. Mostly, I remembered my grandparents, and the powdery warm smell of my grandmother, and my Opa making breakfast, bending over the garden plants, and joking.
Had it really been eight months since we were last on a train and I’d thought about Heidi? I was Heidi again, on another adventure, in a story where things always worked out for the best. I dreamed of Switzerland’s tall mountains and Heidi’s loving grandfather. Like my heroine and her grandfather, my Opa and I were sledding together, coasting downhill and being pulled by horses through villages that looked like they had been dipped in icing. At least leaving the Netherlands and entering Germany took us a shade closer to the Alps.
Except that not everything worked out all the time. Heidi had her grandfather in the end. I wouldn’t have my grandfather again, but I had something Heidi didn’t: my immediate family. Things working out didn’t always mean everything worked out, but the important things did.
At some point, I drifted off.
20
Camp Bergen-Belsen, Germany
February 1944
I was in the cavernous, lavender-colored, smelly stomach of a whale, eating colossal beets that reeked of wet earth. They were as big as my head and bright purple, lined up on long tables. A floating hand gave me a fork, and a vague voice said to eat as much as I wanted, and as soon as the prongs pierced the tough, rippled skin of the beet, it turned into one of my favorite foods like anise cupcakes or chocolate. But as I brought the food to my lips, expecting a rush of flavor, it turned back into beet, as rancid as the great belly that trapped us. I gagged, except that I was so hungry I bit down, my teeth touched tines, and I scraped the mush down my throat. The floor moved with a low rumbling, lurching back and forth. My ears filled with growling. But it was the whale. My stomach felt sick. Hissing and squeals. Sharp screeches. Words. Barks.
Where was I? I thought, eyes wide, light-flooded.
The barking got louder and louder until I covered my ears. Our compartment door was thrown open and a young German guard stood there, shaking, saying nothing. I searched his face for what he wanted. He had thick blond hair under a moss green cap pulled so low that the back tapped the collar of his sweeping overcoat. His boots reflected the lights, as shiny and new as if the cobbler had just delivered them. His lips were red, red enough to be rouged. I thought he started to smile, so I relaxed a little. And then there was a whistle and he began to yell.
“Get out! Raus! Get out now!” he yelled through his loud red lips.
He swore, using words that I knew were bad, even if I didn’t understand them. The German he spoke sounded as hard, high, and brittle as an icicle, not like the lower, softer German of my parents.
“Raus! Raus! This train is too good for your kind!”
He jabbed the air with a baton so smooth it caught the light. Pappi stood, putting himself between the boy soldier and the rest of us, nodding at Werner and my mom, using his gestures to say, “We hear you. We are moving.” Passengers and German soldiers shuffled past in the passageway, pushing the young guard into our compartment. He stumbled into Mr. Loewenberg who caught him by the shoulders to stop his fall. The boy soldier regained his balance, shoved away Mr. Loewenberg, and recoiled back into the doorway. His whole face was now red. His eyes seemed to see something invisible to us. He raised the baton higher and stood trembling.
“Let’s go, Hasenberg family. Let’s go,” Pappi commanded.
He and Werner pulled our few belongings off the rack above the seats. I folded my pink blanket, and tucked it tightly under my arm. The boy soldier backed into the aisle, stick still raised, as we slipped into the stream of people. The thin hallway smelled of grease, and soot, and too many people. As we stepped down to the platform, German soldiers were everywhere, and large tan and black Shepherd dogs with long snouts snarled from the ends of leashes pulled as tight as piano wire. I tripped on something, falling to my knees on the frozen, pockmarked ground. An immense bristling dog jumped at me and would have bitten me if not restrained. I screamed.
“Reni, look at me,” Mutti said. “Look at me. Dogs that bark don’t bite.”
I looked at her, then back at the lunging beasts, then back at her.
“Did you hear me? Dogs that bark don’t bite! Look away.”
My eyes jumped upward to the sky. Dawn clawed at the tree line.
This is all wrong, I thought as I got up. I had not really expected Bergen-Belsen to be like Westerbork, but this felt like a
trick. Nearby, a man tried addressing a guard.
“Excuse me sir, but there must be a mistake,” he blurted. “We… we are to be exchanged…we are to be sent to a different…not this….”
The guard looked like he was chewing something, then his mouth curled just as he hit the man across the face. “Shut up! Move!”
I turned away. The glowing fields washed into the distance, broken by clusters of wiry trees. Orders to move. We walked. Orders to run. We did. The road paralleled the rail line before breaking off to the left. We were a crowded current; a human river whose banks were steeped with toothed and rifled predators. I bumped into Werner and then Mutti as I tried to hide in the middle. Pappi breathed heavily. Werner, Mutti, and I fell behind with him, the guards screamed, and our fear forced us forward again. My blanket fell. Without thinking I turned to pick it up, almost getting run over by a panting couple. Werner grabbed my arm, his eyes pleading for me to not get sucked into the undertow.
After about twenty minutes we slowed. People doubled over, but those who stopped were ordered to move. Our collective breath fogged around our faces, floating and disappearing into the cold, now blinding morning sun. Squinting, I could just make out the grid of a high fence.
“Women to the left and men to the right!”
Mutti and I were shoved to one side and Werner and Pappi to the other. I began to cry. My mother held me close as I struggled to get loose and reach my father.
“Pappi! Werner!” I called, even when I couldn’t see them. I looked for their familiar legs, a big pair and a smaller pair. A Shepard growled, its fangs frothy, and a dark crust had formed along his muzzle.
“Pappi, we are over here!” I screamed. “Here!”
Other prisoners screamed. The guards yelled louder.
“Reni, stop!” Mutti said with yank on my arm.
“But what about Omi and Opa?” Daring to speak my grandparents’ names. “They were taken from us, and now they’re gone for good!”
