Karolina's Twins

by Ronald H. Balson

  “Many could not endure such a hardship. The Nazis made it quite clear what our choices were. Those who were unable to walk on such a journey and wanted to stay behind could do so and they would be shot. As hard as it is to believe, some chose not to go and went back into the barracks. The rest of us walked out through the front gate into the bitter Polish night. Snow was up to my shins and in my shoes. Chaya and I walked side by side. I kept telling myself, ‘Lena, you can do this. You’re a survivor. You can do this.’

  “So we walked. Anyone who fell behind, anyone who stumbled, anyone who couldn’t stay in line, was shot and left by the side of the road. We marched during the night and rested during the day. The SS guards had warm coats compared to our threadbare coats, but they were cold as well. After several hours of walking, they would try to find a barn or an empty building for us, and for them, to get shelter from the snow and to rest.

  “We were into our second day, somewhere in Silesia, and the blowing snow would not quit. ‘Keep going, Chaya,’ I said to her. ‘You can do this.’ And she said the same to me, even though I could not feel my feet. They were mostly numb, except it felt like I was walking on needles. Finally, the SS found a large empty barn and told us we’d have three hours to rest. Chaya and I laid down in the corner of a horse stall and covered ourselves with hay and straw to get warm.

  “The sound of gunfire, machine guns and tank cannons grew louder. The Russians were a stone’s throw away. Finally, a large boom sent vibrations through the barn. I thought the walls would break apart. Even the guards themselves were frightened. ‘Get up! Get up!’ they yelled. ‘Everybody out. Now! Raus, raus. Schnell. Macht schnell.’ The inmates scrambled to their feet, the guards collected them and prodded them and they all rushed out of the barn. But not me. I slid under the hay. I covered myself up with hay and straw and did not move.

  “The guards kept yelling, hustling the inmates to get in line, and I tried not to breathe. ‘Move, move, hurry up,’ they yelled. ‘Schnell. Macht schnell.’ But now their voices were fading, farther away, down the road. They hadn’t stopped to count. No roll call. The sound grew thinner and thinner. I didn’t move a muscle. I didn’t move a single straw or piece of hay. An hour or so later I poked my head up, brushed the hay from my face and looked around the barn. Nothing. Everyone was gone. Even Chaya. And then it came to me.

  “I was free!

  “I was free for the first time in four years. My tormentors had rushed away in fear, heading deep into Germany. They herded their captives, pushing the women through the snow, to trains, to boxcars, to other concentration camps far inside Germany, where they would be starved and abused and worked until they died. But I had escaped. I was free. And the first thing I did was to drop to my knees and pray for those women. I prayed for Chaya. Isn’t that funny? I never prayed for myself. Never believed in prayer, never gave it a second thought. But at that moment, when I stood alone in the barn, a free person, I prayed to God to protect those Jewish women, to strike those Nazis down and free those women. I knew there was a God, because I was free, and now I urged him to free the others. ‘Do it, God.’ Crazy, wasn’t I?”

  “Not at all.”

  FORTY

  “ANY LUCK RESEARCHING KAROLINA or her babies?” Catherine asked. Liam sat at the dining room table with papers spread about, his laptop opened to the database of “Gross-Rosen in Rogoznica” Web site and a Guinness on a coaster. Catherine hung her coat and walked into the dining room.

  “Not so far. Right now I’m trying to find the records that reflect registration for Lena after her stop at the main Gross-Rosen camp. I haven’t found any specific databases for Parschnitz.”

  “Are you doubting her story?”

  “No, no. I’m just tying up all the dates, making sure she got her dates right. I want them to coincide with Muriel Bernstein.”

  Catherine looked shocked. “You found Muriel?”

  “Sure did. I mean, I found the record of her stays at the concentration camps, yes.”

  “Did she survive? Can we talk to her?”

  Liam shrugged. “I know she survived the war, but I don’t know what happened after the war ended. Gross-Rosen’s main camp, where Muriel worked as a nurse, was evacuated as the Russian army was advancing. The inmates were marched to a train and transferred to Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and other camps.”

  “What happened to Muriel?”

  “Muriel Bernstein, if that’s our Muriel Bernstein—there’s more than one—arrived at the Mauthausen concentration camp in February 1945, coincidentally about the same time as Simon Wiesenthal arrived there from Auschwitz. That might have been where Lena would have gone had she not escaped. On May 5, 1945, the U.S. 11th Armored Division liberated the camp. Muriel’s listed as a survivor. That’s as far as I got.”

  “That’s great. If Muriel’s still alive, she’d make a great witness. She knew Karolina and the babies. She was there when the babies were born and when they were thrown from the train. Eyewitness proof. So, keep after it.”

  “I know.”

  “What records have you uncovered for Lena?”

  “Well, she was enrolled at Gross-Rosen along with Muriel but transferred to the Parschnitz sub-camp, and as I’ve said, I have no records from there.”

  “Any records from the Parschnitz jail?”

  “Forget about it.”

  “Lena went to Auschwitz on July first.”

  “I know, but many of the Auschwitz records were destroyed.”

  “I have someone else for you to look up. Chaya Aronovich. She was with Lena in Auschwitz and left on the death march on January 18, 1945.”

  Liam nodded. “What are your thoughts with regard to Chaya?”

  “She wasn’t in Chrzanów and didn’t know Karolina, but she was close to Lena for six months in Auschwitz. Lena may have had conversations with Chaya about Karolina and the babies as early as 1944.”

  “How does that help?”

  “It goes to the issue of whether those are recent delusions brought about by senility. If Lena discussed Karolina and the babies with Chaya in 1944, then her current beliefs aren’t a product of a deteriorating mental state. She believed them seventy years ago. Either Muriel or Chaya would dispel the notion that her so-called delusional obsession was caused by senile dementia. That might be enough to win our probate case even if we can’t prove that Karolina’s babies survived.”

  “I get it. I’ve also made requests through the Yad Vashem Museum’s Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names. It’s the most comprehensive identity search available, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

  “Well, add Chaya Aronovich. Does Yad Vashem keep current information on survivors?”

  “Some. And they store millions of pages of testimony, video and audio remembrances. I’ve made contact with a staff member in the archives and she’s agreed to meet with me next week.”

  “Next week? You’re going to Israel next week?”

  “Yep.”

  “Liam, you didn’t tell me.”

  “Oh, sorry, I was going to, I just forgot. May I have permission to go to Israel next week to meet with a staff member at Yad Vashem?”

  “Well, maybe I wanted to go too.”

  “Then buy a ticket.”

  “Liam. You know I’m not flying.”

  He hugged her. “Actually, it’s better for you to stay and finish up with Lena. I’m going to find out what I can in Israel and then swing by Poland. Maybe I can turn up something useful.”

  “Okay. Good idea.”

  “Where do you stand in finishing up with Lena?”

  Catherine stared longingly at Liam. “God, I wish I could have a beer. Or a stiff drink. Lena’s narrative today was about as tough as it gets.”

  Liam smiled and put his palm on her considerable baby bump. “My guy doesn’t drink yet.”

  Catherine covered his hand with hers. “He’s kicking. Do you feel it?”

  “So you agree it’s a he?”

  Cathe
rine laughed. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Nope.”

  FORTY-ONE

  “YOU WERE FREE,” CATHERINE said. “After all those years of enslavement, you were free.”

  “Yes, I was. But freedom is a relative term. The SS had left and I stayed behind, but I was in a barn, in a prison uniform, with wooden shoes. I hadn’t eaten in a day. I wasn’t sure where I was or where I could go. I had no money, no family, and I was scared to death of the German army and the Russian army.

  “But, as you say, I was free. I stood up, brushed the hay off my body and took stock of my surroundings. I called out, ‘Anyone here? Chaya?’ But there was no answer.”

  “Can I stop you for a moment?” Catherine said. “Have you spoken with Chaya since that day in the barn?”

  Lena shook her head.

  “How about Muriel?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. After the war, as I’m about to tell you, things became chaotic. All of Europe was in shambles. Millions of people were wandering around with no place to go. There was no way of contacting anyone. By the time things settled down, it was several years later. I was in Chicago. I don’t know where Muriel and Chaya went.”

  “But I understand there’s a database. You contributed testimony to the Yad Vashem database, didn’t you?”

  Lena nodded. “Certainly. I gave them a video statement. They have all my information on file.”

  “Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Muriel and Chaya, if they survived, would have done the same, or that others might have provided Yad Vashem with information about them?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I’m a little surprised. Why didn’t you look up Muriel and Chaya? And what about David?”

  Lena shrugged. “Life became too complicated and I just wanted to move on. I didn’t want to think about the Holocaust anymore. I wanted to put it all behind me.”

  “I hate to be so lawyery, but that’s not entirely true. You voluntarily sat for a video statement with Yad Vashem after the Holocaust. You’ve been very active in survivor organizations for years. You were a leader in the protest against the Neo-Nazis’ plan to march in Skokie, Illinois, in 1978, holding a placard on the street. You didn’t exactly move on.”

  “How did you know about Skokie?”

  “Liam. He’s pretty damn good at what he does.”

  Lena sat for a moment biting on her bottom lip. “Well, the answer is I didn’t search for Muriel or Chaya.”

  “What about David?”

  “That’s a different story. May I just proceed with my narrative now?”

  Catherine picked up her notepad. “Of course. Please do.”

  “Everyone had left. I peeked out of the door of the barn. There wasn’t a soul in sight. I saw a farmhouse a few hundred yards away, but I’d been there and done that with a woman that turned me in. I wasn’t about to trust some stranger again and end up in a Nazi truck. I knew what direction the march had gone—west, into Czechoslovakia, running away from the Russians, who were coming from the east. I knew where Oświęcim was on the map. It was almost due east, and from there Chrzanów was only thirteen miles northeast. I knew I would have to circle around Auschwitz, going straight north from where I was and then east. I didn’t want to take a chance on going anywhere near Auschwitz again, so I headed north.

  “The road was empty. I saw no pedestrians or wagons, which was understandable because I was in the middle of a battle zone and no civilian in his right mind would be out and about. Rapid bursts of machine gun fire filled the air to the west. I was pretty sure the next town, Kobiór, was about three miles due north, but that’s not where the road went. It went west toward the Nazis. Standing between Kobiór and me was a thick forest. There were no trails and the snow was fresh, but I had no choice. I would go north through the woods.

  “I was exhausted, famished and thirsty. I tried to melt the snow in my hands and drink it, but it was too cold and the snow was too dry. In many places the snow was knee deep and, underneath my smock and coat, my legs were bare. My lower extremities were frozen.

  “I talked to myself in the third person. ‘Keep moving, Lena. You can do it. One step after the next. Keep moving, Lena. Take another step. One more step. You’re a survivor.’ Encouraging words, but in truth, I didn’t have much left.

  “Finally, I exited the forest and when I did, I ran smack into the Soviet brigade. I came around a tree and found myself staring straight into the barrel of a cannon on a Russian T-25 tank. My legs wobbled and I passed out.

  “The next thing I knew I was lying in a booth in a Kobiór coffee shop. A Russian soldier and a woman in a bakery apron were standing over me. An olive-green Russian jeep with a white star on its hood was sitting by the curb. The woman tried to offer me a cup of hot tea.

  “‘Are you okay, honey?’

  “‘How did I get here?’

  “The Russian soldier raised his hand. I sat up, took a sip of tea and a bite of cookie. Oh my God, a cookie. My taste buds didn’t know what to think. How long had it been?

  “‘You were in the camp? The very large one to the south?’ the soldier asked. I nodded. ‘You’re very brave,’ he said, and he kissed me on the forehead. ‘My troops have now taken the camp and freed a few thousand of your people. It was just the same as we saw at Majdanek.’ He shook his head. ‘Where will you go now?’

  “I shrugged. ‘Chrzanów, I guess. That’s my home. Are there any Nazis still there?’

  “He shook his head and smiled. ‘There are no more Nazis in Poland. They ran like rats.’

  “‘Thank you for bringing me here. I don’t think I could have taken another step.’ I started to get up. ‘I better be going now.’

  “The shop owner looked at my body of skin and bones, shook her head and wagged her finger. ‘You sit right here. Let me get you some food and dry clothes.’

  “I didn’t know how to respond. For four years I struggled, I fought just to subsist through the meanest of human conditions, under the boot of the most sadistic, savage monsters the earth had ever known. No one cared whether I lived or died. Actually, they hoped I would die. And now a total stranger was insisting that I accept her caring offer to give me nourishment and warm clothes. I couldn’t hold it together. I fell apart.

  “I didn’t know who to hug first. It had been such a long time. The soldier—his name was Yuri—said he had to leave; he had a war to fight. He was proud to have helped me. The bakery shop owner—her name was Alicja—brought me hot pierogies and steamed vegetables. She told me she had a room over the shop. I could stay there as long as I wanted. How do you repay such kindness? She didn’t want anything. She was repaid by the opportunity to do good. She didn’t care if I was Jewish. I was a human in need.

  “In the little apartment upstairs there was a bathtub. I hadn’t had a bath for four years. Alicja filled the tub with hot water and laid out a sweater, a long wool skirt, boots and warm socks. That night I slept on a feather bed for the first time since the Nazis broke into my home and seized my family. You can’t imagine what that felt like. When I woke up the next morning, it took a while for me to realize that I hadn’t died and gone to heaven.

  “I dressed and walked down the stairs into the bakery, where Alicja dished up a hot breakfast. My stomach had shrunk, so I couldn’t eat much. But it was delicious. Afterward, I took a cup of coffee and walked outside to look at the market square. The sun was shining and reflecting off the freshly fallen snow. The world was so bright, I had to squint. The air was fresh and smelled so clean. There were no chimneys, no Germans, no roll calls, no marches. No SS with rifles. People strolled through the snow with their children, going anywhere they pleased, without fear.

  “I stayed with Alicja and accepted her generous care. Finally, on the sixth day at breakfast, when I had regained some of my strength, I said, ‘I have to get back to my home. I am forever grateful to you, but I need to know if anyone survived.’ Maybe some of my friends had returned. Maybe David had returned. G
od, I longed to see David. Alicja arranged for her neighbor to take me back to Chrzanów. She gave me a warm coat and a duffel that she filled with rolls, fruit, sausages and a bottle of milk. I promised to come back and visit.

  “Alicja’s friend dropped me at the Chrzanów town square and I looked around trying to assimilate the present. I wasn’t wearing an armband, I had no papers and I wasn’t subject to arrest. So different from the last time I stood in that spot, when there was a megaphone shouting commands and there were lines forming to march groups to the railroad tracks and we were holding our babies. The Nazis were gone, as was more than half of my town. But I was free and I had returned.

  “A few of the shops had reopened, but the square was quiet. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but as I stood there looking at my town, now free of Germans, I didn’t see the memories of my childhood, of the happy, bustling village I knew. I didn’t see my classmates heading home from school. I didn’t see my friends and myself running through the square, or eating ice cream in the summertime. I didn’t see my parents, or Milosz, or Karolina or any of the things I remembered from my childhood. The square only held visions of SS officers sitting in cafes and bars, laughing and drinking, while Jews with their heads down quietly tried to slip by without abuse. My mind saw German officers stopping and bullying elderly men. I saw me, pushing a cartload of coats.

  “I walked slowly northeast to where the ghetto once stood. The Shop was an empty shell. Most of the ghetto buildings had been torn down or bulldozed, presumably when the Nazis cleared it out in the spring of 1943. I returned to the building where Yossi had his basement apartment. Half of the building had been obliterated, most likely by a tank, and it lay open like a gaping wound. What remained was mostly rubble—bricks and twisted metal—but I was able to pull some bricks away, find the entrance and walk down the stairs to the furnace room. There, still sitting on the floor, were the two drawers we used for baby cribs. Soft wool blankets still lined the drawers. I sat on the mat that had been my bed and cried until I had no more tears.