“We boarded the same train that had brought us to the main camp. When Karolina saw the train she began to shake. Almost as though she had palsy. As she boarded, she let out a deep moan that came from the bottom of her soul. ‘Aaahhhh.’ It frightened the women. The guards came running over telling her to shut up. But she kept moaning. One of the guards swatted her with his rifle stock and knocked her down. She bruised on the side of her face.
“‘Don’t, please,’ I yelled. ‘I’ll take care of her. She’ll be all right. Please, don’t hurt her.’ I wrapped my arms around her and tried to cover her mouth. I put her in the seat and talked to her, telling her it would be okay. I told her to stay strong, we needed to survive, come back and find the girls, but I could see that Karolina was slipping away.
“The train pulled out of Gross-Rosen and started its slow journey toward Parschnitz. Karolina remained distant and lethargic. It was like she had snapped. From time to time she’d call out the names of our babies. She’d moan, she’d cry. She’d tell me how sorry she was. I did all I could to comfort her.
“When the train arrived at Parschnitz, we were marched to large barracks where the workers slept in wooden partitions. We were given new uniforms—short-sleeve, calf-length smocks with three or four buttons. They were made of a scratchy material, like a mixture of cotton and linen. Each woman was also given a scarf or bonnet to wear over her hair. I would soon learn that the uniforms were made in the camp’s sewing shops. We were allowed to keep our own shoes. Each of us had a little locker where we’d keep our cups, bowls and the week’s portion of bread.
“I guided Karolina to a sleeping area and held her through the night. The next morning we marched to the textile factory. Hundreds of women worked a variety of textile machines. Some unloaded cotton bales. Some operated spinning machines, the machines to make threads and yarn. Other women sat at sewing machines. Karolina was placed at a large cotton-spinning machine. She didn’t move.
“‘Get to work! What’s wrong with you?’ yelled a female guard, but Karolina could not respond. ‘Do you talk?’ the guard yelled in her face.
“I rushed over and told the guard that she was the best seamstress at the Shop in Chrzanów, and that she had just lost her children but she would be okay, I would see to it. I offered to watch over her if she could be assigned to a sewing station. At first the guard pushed me away and prodded Karolina with a baton. But she didn’t respond. Then the guard swung the baton, hit Karolina in the ribs and knocked her to the floor. I covered her and held my hands over her head. ‘Please, don’t. Tell them, Karolina, tell them you will work.’ But she sat with a blank stare, holding her ribs.
“‘I can take care of her,’ I cried. ‘Please.’ The guard looked at us on the floor, shook her head with a disgusted look, and said, ‘Take her to a sewing station, but I tell you both, if she doesn’t produce, I will have no more patience.’
“I pulled her to her feet, took her to the station next to me and sat her down at the machine. ‘Please, Karolina. Why won’t you work? They’ll kill you if you don’t start working.’
“There were tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘I don’t care. I don’t want to live anymore, Lena. It’s all too much.’
“‘Yes, you do. Of course you do. You need to survive. If not for yourself, then for the babies. We’re going to get our babies. Together. You and me. Please, Karolina.’”
“She started to sew, but was moving in slow motion. I knew she wouldn’t get any garments made so I doubled up my efforts and placed completed garments on her table. By the end of the day, the guard came by and commented, ‘This is not acceptable production. You two have to do better tomorrow.’
“We walked slowly back to the barracks. I could see that Karolina was wincing from the pain in her ribs. Bowls of soup and a third of a loaf of bread and some butter were provided. The bread had to last for three days. Karolina wouldn’t eat.
“I tried to feed her. ‘Eat, Karolina.’ But she shook her head. ‘You take mine,’ she said.
“I begged her, but to no avail. Karolina looked at me with defeat in her eyes and said, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t sit here like nothing has happened and make clothes for the Germans. I miss our babies. I want the little ones. I need to hold them. They need us, Lena, and I need them. I have to go to them.’
“‘We will,’ I answered. ‘As soon as we’re freed, we’ll come back and find them. No matter where they are.’
“She didn’t sleep at all that night. Every time I looked at her, she was staring wide-eyed into space. Her lips were moving and I could tell she was planning something. I saw that look on her face.
“At dawn we were awakened by the guards and told to line up. They took us out into the yard for roll call. When they had finished they marched us in groups of five across the yard toward the factory. Suddenly, Karolina bolted out of line and ran for the gate.
“‘Halt! Halt!’ But Karolina was running at full speed. I broke out of the line and took off after her. I was stronger, faster. I could catch her. ‘Stop, Karolina. Please.’
“‘Halt!’
“‘Don’t shoot!’ I yelled in German, wildly waving my arms. ‘Nicht schießen! Nicht schießen! I’ll stop her. Don’t shoot her.’
“A volley of shots rang out and Karolina tumbled to the ground. I ran up to her and wrapped my arms around her. She had been hit several times and she was barely breathing. ‘Oh, my dear Karolina. Why? Why? You could have survived.’ I held her tightly. ‘Damn it, Karolina! I love you so much. We could have made it.’
“She coughed and lightly shook her head. ‘I’m not a survivor, Lena. I never had your strength,’ she said weakly. ‘You were always my hero. You’ll survive and find our babies. I know you will. Tell them I loved them. Find them, Lena. I love you.’ Those were her last words. I closed her eyes for her.”
Lena balled her hands into fists and held them hard against her cheeks. “She knew they would shoot her. That’s the way she wanted to go out. Running after our babies. Life had become too hard for her. I saw it, I knew it, but I couldn’t save her from her despair.”
“I’m so sorry,” Catherine said.
“They pried me off of her and dragged her lifeless body away. I was pushed back into line and marched to the factory.” Lena buried her face in her hands and sobbed. “I lost my best friend.”
The room was quiet for a few moments, and Lena finally said, “Could we take a walk? Would you mind?”
“Sure,” Catherine said. She retrieved their coats and the two proceeded down Webster toward the Lincoln Park Conservatory. It was a mild spring day and they found a bench beside the dormant flower gardens in front of the conservatory. A park district worker was tilling a flowerbed for planting. In a few weeks, the gardens would be ablaze in color.
“Through the years, I never told a soul what really happened. Not even my husband. No one knew the details. Once the war was over, I closed the door. And locked it. Now, as painful as it is, I must open it. I’m grateful that I found you to open it with me.”
“Thank you. I feel privileged.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
A MILD SPRING DAY along the shores of Lake Michigan still carries a healthy dose of wind chill. Lena wrapped her scarf around her neck. “After Karolina died, I felt like I had nothing left. What more could happen? Was it even worthwhile going through the motions? Yet, for some unknown reason, I rose in the morning and put one foot in front of the other. I marched in line with the other women, slaves in a textile factory. Somewhere I found an inner drive to survive.
“Life at Parschnitz was hard in every way. Soup in the morning and at night. Bread twice a week. You could eat it all at once or portion it out. It was a pretty tough decision for a starving woman. At night we were packed into sleeping quarters in our barracks. Four women to a partitioned space.
“For months I was severely depressed. I had lost everyone. My family, Karolina, Muriel, the babies. Every day I woke up and every night I went to sleep, and every day
was just the same. The only variation was in the garments we were required to sew. Sometimes they were camp uniforms, sometimes Wehrmacht uniforms, sometimes clothes for civilians—shirts, dresses, skirts.
“There was a barbed wire fence surrounding the camp, separating it from the road, and guard towers stood at intervals. We were free to roam inside the camp outside our barracks, even near the fencing. From time to time, Czechoslovakians would pass by on the adjoining road. Sometimes kids on bicycles. And they’d stop and talk to us. The townsfolk were very nice and on occasion they’d bring a piece of fruit, a bunch of bananas, a hunk of cheese and throw it over the fence.
“Some of us still had a little money. I came into the camp with some money I’d hidden in the lining of my shoe. If the guards weren’t paying attention, it was possible to buy a piece of meat from some of the kids, who became quite adroit at black market sales. You’d be surprised how your body would benefit from an occasional piece of fruit or some protein, both of which were missing from the camp diet.
“Perhaps just as important as the occasional piece of food was the news that the townsfolk would give us about the war. They knew the Russians had repulsed the German attack. They knew that the German army had suffered defeats in North Africa. Most encouraging were the reports about the Allied bombing campaigns.
“It seemed like one woman or another would always get encouraging war information from a townie, and the word spread throughout the camp like ripples on a pond. Throughout 1943, the Allied bombing was far from us, so we could never actually hear it for ourselves. Nevertheless, the townsfolk encouraged us. It didn’t take much.
“I had reichsmarks. I told you that when Germany occupied Chrzanów and annexed the city, it abolished our currency, the zloty, and required everyone to exchange zlotys for reichsmarks. The same was true for Czechoslovakia. Korunas were abolished and exchanged for reichsmarks. Therefore, I had official currency hidden in my shoes. I learned quickly how to bargain on the black market. My chief contact was Dŭsan, a lanky sixteen-year-old, who would come by the fence on his blue bike.
“As long as my reichsmarks held out, I could stay healthy. Malnutrition was a slippery slope. If your health declined, you were weakened and susceptible to disease. If you were weak, you were unproductive. If you were unproductive, you were sent to the death camps. Dŭsan would bring eggs. Such a small item, so packed with protein, could keep you healthy.
“In the factory, many of the girls sewed pockets into their smocks. I learned that trick the first week. Dŭsan would bring eggs, slip them through the fence and I’d hide them in my pockets.
“Dŭsan was also the Edward R. Murrow of Parschnitz. His family obviously had access to a radio, and he’d delight in telling me the progress of the war. In July, he hung around the fence until late at night to tell me that the Allies had bombed Rome and the king of Italy had arrested Mussolini. ‘If that fat duce can fall, so can the Austrian Paper Hanger,’ Dŭsan said with a grin. That night he gave me three eggs as a present. I liked that kid a lot.
“The winter of 1943 to 1944 was harsh, and the frozen nights and days were a melancholy reminder of the nights Karolina and I slept together. In retrospect, our times in the little basement, the three of us and the babies, were sweet, wonderful memories, and I missed them all deeply.
“Dŭsan had relatives in Ukraine. They kept him informed on the Soviet progress through Ukraine in 1943. By the following April, the Russians had advanced to Romania, less than five hundred miles away. As much as Dŭsan’s hard-boiled eggs nourished me physically, his information was nourishment for my soul.
“In late May, Dŭsan stopped by and told me that the American army was marching up Italy. It wouldn’t be long now. I was starving that day and I asked him if he could get me a chicken. He smiled. ‘You want me to cook it?’
“‘Oh, yes. How much?’
“‘Two reichsmarks’
“‘I don’t have that much left. I’m about out of money.’
“‘How much do you have?’
“‘Ten reichspfennigs.’
“‘Ten reichspfennigs? That’s nothing. How about fifty?’
“‘Truly, Dŭsan, ten is all I have.’
“‘Okay. For you, it’s a deal. I’ll be back tomorrow.’
“The next evening, I stood by the fence waiting for Dŭsan. Soon I saw his bike roll up. He got off, reached into his back pack and prepared to throw the sack over the fence when a man shouted, ‘Hör auf!—Freeze!’
“Two Parschnitz police officers got out of the car and grabbed Dŭsan. I turned and ran as fast as I could into the barracks and quickly slid into my bunk. A few minutes later, several camp guards came in and yelled at us all to line up. It didn’t take long for the police officers to recognize me. I was taken out of the camp and put in the back of a police van.
“They drove into town and took me to the district jail. I had committed a criminal offense in the town of Parschnitz, so I was sent to jail. I was locked up to await further orders.”
“How awful,” Catherine said.
“You’d think so, but the conditions at the jail were a vast improvement over the camp. The jail had showers and indoor bathrooms. The jail had two meals a day, many of them home cooked. Marek, the jailer, was a kind, roly-poly Czech who treated everyone with respect.”
“What happened to Dŭsan?”
“I don’t know. I never saw him again. But the Czechs I met in jail were impressive. Two men and a woman were brought into the jail by the town police on a charge of drunk and disorderly conduct. They only spent a few days, but we got to know each other. They told me they were partisans, members of the Czechoslovak Forces of the Interior, the resistance movement. They told me about the Normandy invasion that took place on June sixth, two weeks earlier. Their movement was getting ready to launch its operations as well. ‘It’s only a matter of time until Germany falls,’ they said. ‘If you can last six months, you’ll go home.’
“I felt uplifted. Life in the jail was tolerable. Six months seemed easy. When the Czechs were released, they winked at me and said, ‘Stay strong. Stay positive. Germany will soon be history.’”
“Did you ever find out what happened to the Czech resistance? Was their movement successful?”
Lena shook her head from side to side. “Define success. They battled the German army, caused a significant obstruction, and helped the Russians advance into Poland. But, from what I read, the Russian army abandoned them and they were slaughtered. Stalin pulled his troops out of Czechoslovakia at a critical moment and sent them to Hungary. Without the Soviet support, the resistance was crushed. That was typical of the Russians.”
Catherine nodded. “That reminds me of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.”
“You’re exactly right. Both uprisings were crushed by the Nazis, and both of them occurred because the Soviet army stalled and did not support the resistance. In Warsaw, the Russians camped on the east side of the Vistula River and watched the Nazis level the city. In each case, the absence of Russian support condemned the uprising, and it was no accident. Both the uprisings were late in the war, and Stalin delayed his armies intentionally to weaken the Polish and Czechoslovakian resistance movements and make it easier for the Soviets to occupy the countries after the war.
“I remained in jail for a few weeks. On July 1, 1944, a few days after my Czech friends were released, Marek came into my cell, handcuffed me and took me outside. We started walking down the streets of the little town when I asked him, ‘Why did you come for me? Where are we going?’
“‘I have orders to take you to the train.’
“I figured I was headed back to Gross-Rosen. I was sure they needed help in the textile camp. I was excited. Maybe this time I’d be able to reconnect with David. I thought about him a lot. This was a great opportunity for me.
“‘Where is the train going?’ I asked.
“‘Auschwitz.’
“I froze in my steps and started crying.
“Marek look
ed at me and shook his head. ‘Why are you crying? You’re getting out of jail.’
“‘Why? Because Auschwitz is a death camp. Because I know what’s happening there. I’ve known since 1942.’
“To his credit, Marek expressed genuine concern. He stopped and leaned his head toward me, speaking softly. ‘Not everybody dies. Many are chosen to work. You are young and you are strong. You have kept yourself healthy. When you get there, they will look you over. Stand up straight and tall. Do not look them in the eyes or confront them or plead with them. But look like the powerful woman you are. Do whatever they tell you. You can survive.’ He paused and then said, ‘I hear the Russians are not far. Maybe next year. Keep your head down and survive.’”
A strong gust of wind blew and Lena shivered a bit. “I’m getting a little chilly sitting on this park bench, Catherine. The lake knows it’s not summer yet. Would you mind if we returned to your office?”
“Shall we stop for lunch?”
Lena nodded. “I’ll buy. Is that considered paying you a fee?” She laughed.
“Could be. My rates are getting cheap.”
THIRTY-NINE
A BLACK ENGINE PULLING eleven blood-red boxcars stood poised to leave at the Parschnitz train station when Marek and I arrived. The first nine cars were locked, and German soldiers were loading the tenth car with Czechoslovakians and fifty or so families heavily dressed in mountain clothing. ‘They’re Roma—Gypsies,’ Marek whispered. ‘From the Carpathians.’ He shook his head. ‘They will be treated harshly. They will die. I have seen it before. There is a special camp at Auschwitz where they put the Gypsies.’
“When we got closer, I was taken aback by the noise. There were moans and screams coming from several of the forward cars. Marek walked me directly to an SS officer and presented my transit order. The officer directed me to stand with a group of women at the far end of the platform. I recognized some of them from the Parschnitz workshop.
“Marek talked to the officer for a few minutes and then returned to me. ‘You will be in the last car with people from Parschnitz. There are only forty.’ He pointed at the first section of the train. ‘In those cars are Hungarian Jews from Budapest. Maybe three to four thousand. They have been on the train for many hours, maybe days. They have not been fed. It is hot and there is no ventilation. I suspect some, maybe many, have died. That is why you hear screams.’
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