All But My Life

by Gerda Weissmann Klein

  “We will be free,” I insisted. “I know it, I feel it.”

  Ilse and Liesel sat in silence. Suse’s big eyes filled with tears, the first tears that I ever saw her shed.

  “How can you believe so strongly?” she murmured. “But then, you always believed. Remember when we met on the train?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, you lost that bet,” she reminded me.

  “I know,” I said.

  “But you still believe?”

  “I do!”

  “Tell me, Gerda,” Suse whispered urgently, “what is it? What makes you so sure?”

  “I don’t know. It’s something I cannot explain, but I know somehow that we will be liberated.”

  “And I feel,” Suse stammered, “I feel that I will not be.”

  All that last night in Grünberg I coughed. I think I had a temperature. Ilse, Suse, Liesel, and I cuddled together closely.

  “Gerda, don’t get sick,” they begged, as if I could decide.

  At dawn we were given three portions of bread, which we carefully placed in our bundles. We saw the kitchen personnel pack big parcels of food in their bundles.

  At the last moment before we assembled, the four of us decided to put on most of the clothes we had intended to carry.

  The SS women came for us. We lined up. Ilse was on my left, Liesel and Suse were on my right. We stood erect.

  “Let us be strong,” Liesel whispered.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “You be strong,” Use whispered back to me. I was now the least fit of the group.

  As we squeezed through the door, we gripped hands for a fleeting moment. Then we marched out into the bright snow.

  The outer gates were open when we reached the courtyard. Stretching as far as we could see were columns of girls. I was shocked to see so many. We learned later there were about three thousand from other camps; with our contingent from Grünberg we totaled nearly four thousand. We were divided into two transports amidst much whipping and screaming by the SS. Many girls tried to shift from one group to another, in the hope that it might be the better one.

  We four were in the column which was doomed; out of two thousand only a hundred and twenty survived. The other column was liberated much sooner. Had I been part of it my fate would have been different. Less suffering, yes, but less happiness, too, I am sure.

  Although I had seen misery, I was utterly unprepared for the picture that the girls who had already been marching for a week presented. Covered with gray blankets, they reminded me of drawings of Death when, winged and garbed in loose sheets, he comes to collect the living. Some of them were barefoot, others wore crude wooden clogs. Many of them left a bloody trail in the fresh snow.

  Suse looked at me and I looked at my feet–clad in the ski boots that Papa had insisted I wear on that hot summer day. Papa, Papa, how could he possibly have known. The boots were still in good shape, and I had precious things hidden in them: snapshots of Papa, Mama, Arthur, and Abek, wrapped in a piece of cloth, and the packet of poison. In Grünberg they had taken away all pictures, papers, and letters. Germany, we were told, needed all scrap paper she could get. Ilse and I had managed to hide our pictures. Our only worry now was that water might soak through our shoes and ruin them.

  “Forward march!” shouted the SS Wachtmeister at the head of our column.

  “Forward march!” echoed SS men. Carrying rifles, they were stationed along our column at intervals of about thirty feet.

  “Forward march!” came the high-pitched voices of the whip-armed SS women.

  We took the first step. I thought: I am marching to death or to liberation. It was the morning of January 29, 1945.

  We marched all day, with a break at noon. Ilse and I shared one of our portions of bread, guarding the rest carefully.

  At the head of the column we saw the commandant of the SS with a Hungarian-Jewish girl who, we were told, was his mistress. She and a few of her close friends knew no want; they had plenty to eat, and slept always in peasant houses, rather than in barns or in open fields as the others did.

  “How could they?” I asked myself over and over again.

  Toward evening, as it grew colder, we were herded off the road and into a huge barn. We huddled together in the darkness and again Ilse and I shared a portion of our bread. It wasn’t enough.

  “Ilse, I am terribly hungry,” I confessed.

  “So am I,” Ilse admitted. “I would like something warm to drink. We can’t eat any more bread, for who knows when they will give us more?”

  “Careful, careful!” somebody called in the darkness. “The Magyars are after our bread!”

  Yes, the poor Hungarian girls were hungry. They had been marching a week already.

  “My shoes, my shoes!” another voice cried. “They took them from right next to me!”

  Many of the Hungarian girls had no shoes. To save their lives they stole shoes off the feet of those who slept. How much I learned that night!

  When the doors of the dark barn were thrown open in the morning I could see a flood of wintry sunlight on the glittering snow. Two SS men stood at the entrance and with their rifles prodded us as we emerged four abreast.

  A little distance away stood the SS commandant with his girl friend and her court of privileged friends. They were eating bread and drinking something steaming out of a large thermos. How good it must feel, I thought, the warm drink in that cold!

  We assembled and were counted and recounted. A girl from Grünberg was missing. A few others were beaten bloody because of it, but either they did not know what had become of her or they would not tell.

  We learned the story later. A German from the factory who was in love with the girl had followed our column, and under cover of darkness had snatched her quietly away.

  We marched many miles that second day, often plowing through untouched snow. Again we rested at midday.

  “I wonder when they will give us something to eat,” Ilse . said to the three of us as we nibbled our dry, frozen bread.

  We did not answer.

  Girls who had lagged behind that morning had been beaten by the SS men with the butts of their guns.

  After the midday pause, a couple of girls just sat motionless on the snow, refusing to go. We marched on. Behind us there were pistol shots.

  “God!” I said, “God!” looking up to the sky. The sky was blue, the snow was clean, the snowy pine trees were beautiful in the sunlight.

  Chapter 12

  YET ANOTHER DAY WE MARCHED ON IN A WESTWARD DIRECTION. It was the last day that we had bread. We were no longer counted. They could not keep track of how many were shot or died during the night. I was cold and hungry but for the time being I minded the cold more. At night I felt Ilse’s hand in mine. I took off my shoes and curled myself over them, for fear that someone might steal them. There was muffled crying all around me. I did not cry, but there, in those barns, I stopped praying. Through all the years I had prayed to God ardently and with hope. Now I prayed no more. I did not consciously know why, for I was closer to my Maker than ever. One short shot away … I wanted to be at peace with God, but I could not pray.

  But later, much later, I thought about my way of praying. It started in school with a play about ancient Egypt. Each character uttered a prayer: the mighty Pharaoh prayed for a victory, his opponent asked for his own success, a sick man begged for health, the doctor asked for people to be ill, and each prayer, clean and swift, like a white bird, shot upward. In Heaven, it met with the other prayer that had asked for just the contrary. They turned against each other in bloody battle, and usually both fell back lifeless to the earth. A large number of girls had taken part in that play. I thought I had a beautiful role. I was a poor little boy, the son of a fellah. My mother told me to pray, but I didn’t know how. I had no wishes, so I just looked at the river that fertilized our field, at the warm sun, at the ripe fruit in our garden, and I said, “Thank you, God, for the warm sun, for the blue Nile, for my fathe
r and my mother,” and my little-boy prayer, like the others, sailed straight up to the throne of God. Nobody defied my prayer, and nobody else thanked the Maker. They were all asking Him for things. He turned His face upon the little barefoot boy … .

  I was about twelve years old at the time. From then on I had always thanked God for the gifts He bestowed upon me, and they were many. There had always been something to be grateful for, even after 1939, but during that cold march, when we rested in the icy barns, hungry, afraid, I could pray no more.

  On the fourth day of our march we heard artillery fire. It was rumored that the Russians were moving forward rapidly. Once I think we were almost overrun by them. We heard two SS men discussing the destruction of the railroad, and thus we learned that we were to have been shipped by rail to the death camp. Now we would have to go all that way on foot.

  On the fifth morning a number of SS women were missing. Apparently they had no mind to march on. Perhaps they wanted to return to their homes.

  The war was coming to an end, we thought, but so was our strength. We had now gone four days without food. It was over a week since we had left Grünberg. It was an icy day. A sharp wind bit at our faces. We marched longer than usual before the midday break, and when we took it, we were anxious to get moving again.

  That afternoon, as we were marching through a thicket, we heard shots. A moment later one of the SS men pointed a gun at me. “Come along!” he shouted.

  I stepped out of line. The SS pulled out three more girls. I heard the column marching on. I no longer felt the snow whip my face. I felt no rebellion, no wild pounding of my heart. I just felt at peace. Oddly enough, I thought of a winter’s day. at home, and Schmutzi, my cat, bringing her newborn kittens into the kitchen to warm them by the stove. I tried desperately to remember what we had named the kittens, but I couldn’t. After a few steps-I had been daydreaming for only a moment–we came to a clearing. There were two bodies in the snow.

  “Take them to the woods,” the SS man commanded.

  My arms felt unequal to it.

  “Take her head,” snapped the girl nearest me.

  I looked at the dead girl’s face. I did not know her. Her eyes were open. I lifted her head. The snow beneath was red. The two of us were too weak to lift her, so we took her by the arms and dragged her into the trees. When we left her, she looked alive. I scooped up snow to wash her blood off my hands. We did not see the other girls.

  The SS man stood smoking a cigarette. I thought our turn was next, but he made us hurry to join the column. Ilse looked relieved when I returned. We held hands silently. I was in a state of shock.

  We walked for a long, long time that evening, passing through tiny villages. Here and there a light showed. Smoke came from chimneys. We could see women preparing supper. How snug and warm everybody looked!

  We entered another town. It was dark now. Nobody was in the streets. The wind was howling as we were led to a low hill where a church stood. The SS women and the favorites were lodged in town. The three SS guards who accompanied us told us to lie on the frozen earth in front of the church. The wind swept the snow over us. After a few minutes we were covered. Ilse and I cuddled close, trying with our bodies to warm each other.

  Towering over us, the church stood silent, not even with its bell ringing the hours of our misery. The bells had probably been melted to make bullets.

  “I am so cold,” Ilse chattered.

  We pressed our cold cheeks together. The snow did not even melt on our faces.

  I thought of the girl I had dragged into the forest. By now the snow had given her its decent burial.

  “Ilse,” I said.

  She didn’t seem to hear me. I remembered a lamp burning softly under the yellow shade in my nursery, Niania reading to me the story of the Little Match Girl. I could hear Niania’s warm tones: “And the little match girl smiled, she did not feel the cold any more … .”

  “Ilsel” I shook her.

  “Leave me alone!” she protested.

  “Ilse!” I shouted. “Wake up. You are not going to sleep!”

  She was awake now. I rubbed her face, her stiff hands. I called to Suse and Liesel. They responded. We passed the word around not to sleep. The SS men were stamping and blowing on their hands. Here and there a girl stood up.

  “Lie down!” the SS men would shout.

  We did everything we could think of to keep each other awake and encouraged. Finally, dawn broke and the wind stopped. In the gray morning light, we could see the miserable faces, the deep, hungry eyes. Those of us who had the strength brushed the drifts from silent mounds: there were a number of Little Match Girls.

  “How foolish we are!” Suse exclaimed. “We should have all gone to sleep.”

  The frost broke. The air felt warmer. We were thirsty and started to eat snow.

  Late that afternoon we came to Camp Christianstadt. We waited before its gates a long time. Then we were admitted, put into one huge room, and given something warm to eat. I don’t know what it was, but no meal was ever more welcome.

  We dried our clothes, and most of us in the warm room began to itch. The lice had already started on us. The taste of food and the warm camp made most of us optimistic again. We did not have to stand roll call. They just left us as we were, gave us something to eat twice a day, and we were happy. We knew the war was almost over.

  When we had been in Christianstadt three days we heard that we were to move again. Ilse was beside herself. I had never seen her like that. Before, I had had the power to make her moods change–her belief in me was so strong that it embarrassed me at times–but I failed to help her now.

  We marched west again, and that first evening the streets and roads were full of people, all moving in the same direction. They were fleeing before the Russian advance–horses and buggies, children in their parents’ arms. We could hear the steady firing of artillery behind us.

  I was elated. It is coming! This is the end! The circle is drawing to a close! The Germans are beginning to pay the penalty for their crimes.

  The sight of refugees fired my imagination with new hope. That first night after we left Christianstadt we slept in another barn. A few more girls did not rise with us in the morning.

  The next day we saw more refugees. From their speech we knew that they were from Silesia.

  We began toying with the idea of escape. Several girls had already slipped away under cover of darkness when we marched at night. From various sources we learned that some survived and were taken in by peasants but that others were found and shot.

  Our column got smaller and smaller. Probably only half the girls who had left Griinberg remained. We would not be able to stand much more. Hearing a peasant woman speak to another in the dialect of Bielitz inspired me with what I considered a wonderful idea.

  That evening I told Ilse my plan. In one or two days we would disappear into the woods and wait there for night. When we were sure that our group had left the region, we would rip the stars from our clothing. Our coats were shabby, but we counted on my ski boots to make an impression. No one in camp had shoes like that–perfect for the season. Now came the hardest, but I felt most effective part of my plan. We would go to the nearest police station. We feared the police as we feared death itself, but I banked on their awareness of our fear. In their arrogance, I thought they would not think Jews capable of overcoming it. We would say that we were evacuees from Silesia–Ilse and I both spoke that type of German–that we had gone to find shelter for our mother and baby sisters and brothers (the fact that we had a big family would add another touch of truth, for all good Germans had lots of children for the Führer). We would say that when we returned our family had gone.

  There would be questions, of course. Our papers were with Mother who had them in a bag with all our valuables … . We would use our own first names, Ilse and Gerda; they sounded good and German. Our last name would be–Kügler. We would be asked if we belonged to the BDM? Yes, of course, we were in the Hitler
Youth. I memorized a chapter number. Our father was in the Wehrmacht. His serial number? I thought myself very clever to devise a foolproof way not to forget a complicated serial number: Ilse’s house number, mine, and the year the war started–56941939! It sounded impressive, and would be easy to remember. Our father, we would say, was fighting on the Russian front.

  I felt that by walking straight into the lion’s den we would overcome the first suspicion. Besides, I thought, the police now had too many problems to stage a big investigation. In my mind I tried to prepare as complete and simple a plan as possible. I knew they might question Ilse and me separately–our stories had to check. I had staged many dramatic performances in Bolkenhain; this would be my greatest coup. I was painfully aware that I held Ilse’s life as well as my own in my hands.

  Then I told Suse and Liesel. They thought the idea sound, and said that they would drop from the column a couple of days later, and cook up a similar story.

  All night I rehearsed with Ilse.

  “Ilse, remember,” I repeated, “we cannot be afraid of the police. They are our friends, Germans as we are.”

  It had now been two days since we had seen the Silesian peasant women. If we escaped the next day, stayed in the woods that night, and went to the police on the fourth day, we surely ought to be safe. In the barn we kissed Suse and Liesel good-by, for we intended to escape in the late afternoon. I was excited all day. As if in answer to my wishes, we did not have our rest break until around four in the afternoon. Shadows were already long on the snow.

  “Perfect,” I whispered to Ilse. “When the SS is not looking, we will crawl into the woods.”

  I glanced at Suse, our eyes met. Liesel bit her lip, as she always did in moments of emotion. I lifted one eyebrow, signaling Ilse to get behind a tree. She looked at me, her eyes big and frightened. Then she caught my hand.

  “Gerda, not now!” she whispered. “Please, not now! I am afraid.”

  Until then I had not been afraid; excitement had buried my fear. Only when Ilse showed her fear did my doubts come to the surface. What if our plan did not go well? Until that moment I had discounted that possibility. I knew that we just had to escape. But now I hesitated. The decision was not mine alone: Ilse’s life was as dear to me as my own. I looked at her again.