by Irene Butter
“What’s wrong here?”
I looked up at a Nazi guard, suddenly very aware of my nakedness. She was as solid as a mountain in her thick wool uniform. Her young face was hard, her eyes as barren as a mountain peak, and blonde hair as smooth as ice-covered snow. I was suddenly and terribly conscious of my nakedness, so I looked down at the hefty buttons on her coat, avoiding her eyes.
“I…she….”
“She looks as if she’s dying,” the guard delivered the verdict. “I don’t think you are fit to go.”
Mutti’s hand cast about, feeling for a grip.
“Oh, it’s just my stomach,” Mutti said, pushing herself up. “I think… um…I must have eaten something…something didn’t agree with me.”
Another guard walked over. She was just as sturdy, but had dark hair, and her eyes and mouth clustered close to her nose. She took off her overcoat, wiped her brow.
“What’s going on here, Helga?” she asked.
“Says something didn’t agree with her,” said Helga, sizing up Mutti who now leaned on my naked torso to keep herself upright.
“Hmm, it looks like a lot of Bergen-Belsen hasn’t agreed with her.”
“She’s getting up,” I said.
“She’d better, or she will be staying down for a long time,” Helga said.
Helga smiled at the joke, and the two walked off together. I finished getting us ready and, with Mutti still using me for support, we walked outside, where we were guided to large idling trucks that looked black against the fresh lily snow. They reminded me of the delivery trucks in Amsterdam, except for the German black and white crosses on the doors.
“Men and boys in those trucks, and women and girls in the others,” a guard yelled to the crowd. “Move.”
“You will see each other at the train,” added a Kapo.
Women clambered up and into the tarped backs of the vehicles. I didn’t want Mutti to have to move more than needed, so we waited until a truck was almost full. Then several of us had to get Mutti up and in, where we sandwiched her between another woman and me. I shivered, still damp. Nobody spoke. We hugged our belongings and watched our breath rather than look at one another. The smell of gas fumes filled the space between us. After ten minutes the tailgate was flipped up and the large canvas flaps over it were flopped down.
I stole glances outside through wavering fabric as the truck jerked forward. I was at the end of the bench so there was nothing between me and everything we were leaving behind. There were other trucks behind us, but I kept my eyes on the changing scene and landscape. Bergen-Belsen reached out in all directions, as far as I could see: low gray buildings, slow moving people, distant shouts, the musty smell of canvas and wool, and ribbons of smoke unrolling up into the clouds. I saw the main camp’s center road fade away behind us and then the camp’s closing gates, like a predator’s mouth inches from missed prey. We turned left, the truck hit a bump, and I almost fell over Mutti. The high camp fence was on the right; a corner watchtower was at the end, perched on impossibly thin supports, its windows closed. A few prisoners watched. Their eyes on us, two skeletal figures walked into one another, took no notice of each other, and drifted on.
Our road was packed snow with strips of dirty tire ruts. It was straight and flat through the scrubbed, bony trees. Their branches were so intertwined it was impossible to know where one ended and another began, a frozen mass of veins waiting to thaw. I supposed that within a couple of months, the sweet smell of running sap would carry on the wind.
Three kilometers separated the camp from the train station. Eleven months before we had been hustled from the train by barking guards and snapping dogs, and had half-marched, half-run to Bergen-Belsen in the morning. Now, we were being delivered. You would think we’d all be ecstatic, but everyone was numb. I heard a crow and then others. A wooden fence, so simple it could be climbed in a moment, flashed by. Then a barn and a house…a home! Inside, I was sure, a family was sharing a large breakfast.
We turned right. Forest fell away to fields and the ride ended. I sat on the back edge of the truck and lowered myself, careful not to slip on the well-packed snow. The station was crowded, but felt lonely. It was on the outskirts of town, and marked with a tall tower. The black train that huffed on the track made me nervous. Trains had brought nothing but pain and fear, taking us to places that were worse than before.
“Reni, this is good,” Mutti whispered after I helped her down. “No cattle cars. See those markings all over the train? The white squares with the red crosses? That’s the Red Cross. The same people who sent us the care packages. No swastikas.”
“Mutti, you stay here,” I said and bundled our belongings around her on the ground. “I’ll look for Pappi and Werner.”
33
At the Train, Camp Bergen-Belsen
January 21, 1945 afternoon and evening
A group of Nazi officers looked over clipboards, heads down. One had rolled up papers he used to tap against his palm. Soldiers stood around the officers with their arms behind their backs, at the ready for the next order. Others milled in groups with stiff rifles slung over their shoulders. An officer’s German Shepherd sniffed the ground, sniffed a soldier’s rear, sniffed hands, and wagged its tail. I kept my distance.
I walked up and down alongside the six cars of the train, peering up into the windows, and even peeking into the kitchen car. At the back of the train I walked up the other side. Pappi and Werner weren’t there. I started walking more quickly, panic beginning to take hold as I could not find the rest of my family. I started up the other side for the second time, and, not looking in front of myself, I bumped into somebody.
“Oh, slow down. Are you okay?”
I looked up at a thin and ill-clothed man. One of us.
“Help me. I can’t find my father and brother anywhere,” I said.
“Have you looked through the whole train?”
“Yes, in every window. They have to be here.”
“I’m sure they are. Let’s go inside and ask.”
I thought of Mutti waiting outside, but I let the man guide me up the steel steps where snow fell off my shoes. It was so warm inside that I couldn’t catch my breath. He stopped several people, asking questions, and weaving me through the passageways between settling passengers and unsettled guards. We stopped next to a compartment. Werner looked up and smiled. Pappi was asleep with his head against the window. Pappi could not have been more visible from the outside, but I had not recognized him. I then realized how pale and gaunt he looked. Werner agreed to come with me to get Mutti. My helper was gone before I could thank him.
Mutti ended up having to be carried to the compartment by several fellow prisoners where she was gently placed on one bench, her head on my blanket. Werner and I sat on the other side, next to Pappi. Our belongings were on the floor, under the window, between the two benches. We were together. I hadn’t realized how much I took that for granted, especially now, as we were heading out of Bergen-Belsen.
Werner reached under his sleeves and scratched.
“So much for the delousing,” he said.
He was right. I felt itchy and reached behind to scratch my lower back.
“No matter how hard they try, the Reich can’t defeat lice.”
“I like that,” I said, “Knowing they can’t kill off something so small.”
“Like us,” Werner said, reading my mind.
A guard glanced in, the front of his cap as high as a salute. Another guard trailed behind him, and a train attendant after him. Like a beast, the train engine panted, its hot breath puffing through the small pipes and valves that ran the length of its giant boiler, then steaming from its stack. Within a half hour inside I was actually getting hot, but couldn’t bring myself to shed my jacket. What if we were suddenly told to get off again, but take nothing? I couldn’t shake the fear that this might be fake, that I would awaken back in my bunk to a cold room and a day filled with gray and brown—floors, ground, sky, food.
How could this be possible? Here we were, the four of us, barely alive, but sitting in a train and about to leave this…hell. It really was, or had been, hell.
“Is this real?” I asked, my face turned to the windowpane.
“Feels like a dream,” Werner said.
We held each other’s gaze for a moment. Then the huge engine revved, the powerful chug-chug of the train began, and the whistle blew. Fear chilled me for a moment, but then I let myself sink into the warmth, and I allowed a sliver of the nightmare to break away. My Mutti was in a deep sleep, her mouth open, oblivious to the departure. The same was true of my Pappi. They were missing the moment.
“They need help,” Werner said.
My brother lifted up his hurt foot, carefully taking off his shoe and sock. His toes were perfectly white with black patches on the end. They smelled like sour fruit and I wrinkled my nose.
“Stinks,” I said.
“Yeah, thanks,” he said. He winced as he touched his toes.
“Werner, I think you need help, too.” I hadn’t realized just how bad his foot was. It was like the warmth was awakening all our senses. What else had the cold made me miss?
“Nah, once my toes warm up I’ll be fine,” he said.
We traveled on, no one telling us where we were going and what was to happen next. A Red Cross woman knocked and entered. She wore dark clothes except for a brilliantly white cap.
“You don’t need those anymore,” she said pointing at the Star of David on my jacket.
Werner and I didn’t move. I thought of the German soldiers with the dog. What if she was wrong? What if somebody more important than her saw us without our stars?
“I’m just saying that you can take them off if you want. And food will be here soon,” she added before moving on.
Werner pinched at his star, so I picked loose a thread and firmly pulled at each corner until the Star of David was free in my right hand. Then I pulled out the unruly threads and padded away the holes. Lastly, I shoved the star deep into my pocket. Just in case.
More Red Cross people arrived, bringing us four bowls of thick, hot stew with bread fresher than I had tasted in…in…I couldn’t remember. Eighteen months, I guessed. The stew’s scent was like new life: a rich, buttery life beyond anything I’d imagined. Mutti and Pappi sat up for a few bites before falling back asleep. Werner and I ate greedily, barely breathing as we shoveled it in. It reminded me of Mutti’s cooking and eating meals at our sunny dining room table before the war.
Werner asked if we could have more. “In a little bit,” we were told, and then they actually gave us more!
My eyes rolled. I burped.
“That was the best soup of my life!” I said. “ I’m going to remember everything that was in it—beef, onions, potatoes, carrots—so I can make it when we get home. Look at my belly! I think I may have a soup baby!”
I deliberately pushed my stomach forward in exaggeration, and rubbed it. “And I will name her…Soupling! Lil’ Soupling will grow up and make me proud. What do you think?”
My brother belched into the back of this hand, pondered it for a moment, and followed it up with another. And another. He finished with a smile.
“That. That’s what I think.”
“Some example you are as an uncle,” I said.
I continued rubbing my stomach. I was amazed by its size. Maybe I really would gain back my lost weight. I snuggled into my pink blanket, which hugged me in return, and I napped.
In my dreams I was a dog again. The table had been abandoned and I was on the chair, lapping at the plates and butterdish, until I had to go to the bathroom. My stomach hurt. I awoke—the pain was real. My belly seemed twice the size as earlier. Werner looked equally ill and turned to belch, which steamed up the window for a moment.
“Ummm, I don’t feel well,” I said. “Was the food bad? Did they poison us?”
“Don’t know.”
We stopped a Red Cross woman as she passed in the corridor. Yes, she explained, many others felt the same. It was because we had eaten so little for so long, and the food was more than our bodies could handle. She added that our “digestive systems were compromised” and were in a “delicate condition.” “Delicate” didn’t seem a word related to Bergen-Belsen in any way. She told us we might get sick. We were to eat slowly, as hard as that was. She continued on, seemingly surprised by this sudden task of having to tell starving people to slow down eating. I looked at Mutti and Pappi to see their reaction, but they were still fast asleep. They hardly moved that evening and into the night. The chugging of the train lulled me into sleep.
Freedom and Loss
Switzerland and France
1945
34
Train Rails South of Camp Bergen-Belsen
January 22–23, 1945
The next day after breakfast Werner learned we were on our way to Switzerland for the exchange. No one knew how many days it would take to get there because most of the railroad tracks in Germany were damaged or destroyed. The train crept along, often stopping for hours. Our parents continued to sleep, only getting up a couple of times to take a little food and have us walk them to the toilet. They took up most of the benches in our compartment so that Werner and I sat and leaned against the windows. We ate more slowly and in smaller quantities, which helped our bellies, but now our legs and feet began to swell. The Red Cross woman came by again to say this too was normal considering our “delicate condition.” My shoes hurt, but Werner told me to keep them on. If I took them off, I might be like him and not be able to get them back on again.
“Reni.”
Did I hear my name?
“Reni.”
It was Pappi. I turned away from looking out the window and at the stars.
“You’re awake! Do you want some bread or drink?”
“Reni,” he said, “Help me to the toilet.”
“Food afterwards?”
He shook his head, his chin low, his head wobbly. Pappi braced himself against the wall with a shaking arm, and fell onto me as I grabbed him around the waist. His steps were small, and our shuffling to the bathroom slow. He was inside the toilet so long that I almost went for help just as the latch clicked open. Our trip back to the compartment was even slower; his breath sagged and the train lurched. After a sigh, he was quiet as he settled back onto the bench.
“Are you sure you don’t want a little soup?” I asked.
“No…no more.”
“We are close to Switzerland, Pappi,” I said, “very close. It has been stop and go, but we’ve heard that we will soon be out of Germany. We really did it. The exchange. The passports. The….”
A faint “Yes.”
I calmed.
“We heard there is a real hospital there. For Mutti. For Werner’s foot, and for you.”
“Reni…I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay Pappi. You’re hurt. I know you need help. I don’t mind.”
“Not that,” he said as he looked at Mutti and Werner, sleeping. “I’m not going to make it.”
“What?” I said, unsure if I really made a noise.
“I’m not going to make it.” Pappi leaned against me and closed his eyes.
“Yes you will. We’re almost free,” I reminded him. “We’re so close.”
“I know,” he said. “I know. Free.”
My hands wrapped his coat more tightly around him. His weight sank into me. My eyes welled, unable to quite spill over, but enough to blur the world. I didn’t dare move, afraid that the slightest movement would do something horrible like tip Pappi away from us. My shoulder began to ache, demanding a shift. I gently shook Pappi. He didn’t respond. I pushed a little harder. Nothing. I eased him down until he was lying on the bunk. Then I reached over and woke Werner, repeating Pappi’s words.
Werner sat up and told me to get help.
I walked quickly down the passageway, steadying myself against the walls, and interrupted a nurse chatting with two men. She was young and said
her name was Betty. I blurted out what Pappi said, and Betty excused herself. I grabbed her hand and pulled her back to our compartment where she listened to Pappi’s breathing and took his pulse. She adjusted her fingers. She closed her eyes and cocked her head.
“He’s very weak,” she said.
“He was beaten badly back at the camp, just before we left,” Werner explained.
“There may be other injuries we can’t see. Did he say he was hurt anywhere specific?”
Werner and I looked at one another, hoping the other could say something helpful.
“No.”
“No.”
Betty felt along his neck and head and reached under his jacket, pressing around his belly. Pappi didn’t move. His face was gray and stubbly.
“Mr. Hasenberg,” she called, “Mr. Hasenberg, I’m Betty, Betty Ischenhauser, a nurse. Do you hear me?”
Nothing.
Betty repeated herself. She asked if he felt anything.
“When was the last time he was awake?” she asked.
I explained about going to the latrine about fifteen minutes earlier.
“There’s nothing obviously broken or swollen,” she said. “I can’t really tell since he isn’t saying anything. There’s not much more I can do. I’ll check in again soon after I’ve seen some others. Find me if anything changes.”
Then there was only the rhythmic sound of steel wheels rolling along the fixed track below us. Pappi seemed so small, so much smaller than my strong Pappi who had once so easily lifted me into the air. Only his large hands, resting on his legs, hinted at his past, yet even they looked spent, as worn as a damp washrag. There was a gap between his wedding ring and finger. His skin looked too big for him. Werner and I crowded into our father, touching and holding him.
At some point in the night, Mutti shifted and sighed. We told her about Pappi. She kept her eyes open longer than she had before, only to sink away again. Her face wasn’t as gray as Pappi’s.
I couldn’t get comfortable. Hot and cold, I took off and put back on clothes. The seat was too soft, the window too hard. Werner’s foot smelled like a dead animal in a gutter, followed by the waft of dirty food bowls, and our too-long lived-in clothes. Fidgeting, I rubbed my face and scratched my scalp. It was dark in the compartment except for a couple of dim yellow lights shifting the scene into deep browns and mustards, like the newly turned soil in my grandfather’s fingers from a hundred years ago in Berlin.
