by Lily Brett
Representations of women with mixtures of feces and menstrual blood running down their legs. Was this what she expected?
She expected something more than what was here. She had thought the air would ring with violence and insanity. She thought it would be choked with pain, bewilderment, disbelief, and anguish. She thought it would be clogged and plugged with unsaid farewells. She remembered her mother telling her about her first Appel, in Auschwitz. “We did join the other prisoners,” Rooshka had said. “We were ourselves very thin from the ghetto, but we still looked like people. The people in the Appel did no longer look like people. They were not round, they were flat, like they were made of paper, not flesh. They stood so still in the Appel. There was no sign of life in them. Nobody moved. They stood with their rags hanging on them like broken torn paper puppets. Soon I looked just like them.”
Jerzy was waiting for them outside Block 11, which housed the prison cells within this prison. “Would you like me to tell you about the prison block?”
he said.
“No thanks,” she said. She looked at Edek.
“No thank you,” Edek said.
Ruth walked over to the formerly electrified barbed-wire fence. She
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touched it. Nothing happened. She put her face against the fence. She wondered what had touched this particular piece of fence? She knew that pieces of prisoners’ flesh often stuck to the fence after they had tried to escape or to kill themselves. That fence must have looked pretty tempting.
One fling against it, and you were gone.
Rooshka had been ashamed of herself for being able to live through the nightmare of her days at Auschwitz. Ashamed that she didn’t just die. “The best people did die first,” Rooshka had said, many times, to Ruth. “They couldn’t have,” Ruth said to Rooshka when she was older. “Niceness and goodness were not criteria the Nazis were using in their selections.” But she knew what her mother was saying. Her mother was saying that she felt a contempt for herself for surviving all that brutality, all that baseness. Ruth wondered if the fence had tempted her mother. Edek came over and touched the fence. He looked surprised when nothing happened. He touched it again. “Who would believe I would one day do this?” he said to Ruth. Ruth took Edek’s arm.
More tourists had arrived. Groups of people were walking around with and without guides. Most of the visitors looked somber. Still the visitors bothered Ruth. She would much rather have been here alone with Edek.
Several classes of Polish schoolchildren walked by. They were talking and laughing. Ruth was surprised that the teachers accompanying them didn’t ask them to be quiet. Ruth glared at several of the noisier children. The schoolchildren, who looked about twelve or thirteen, were chewing gum and eating snacks. Two boys not far from Ruth suddenly started fighting. A few punches flew from one boy to the other. The teacher who was closest to the boys ignored them.
Ruth strode over to the two boys. “Excuse me,” she said loudly, “this is a burial ground, a gravesite, not a circus.” The taller of the boys laughed, and said something Ruth couldn’t understand in Polish. The teacher just looked at Ruth. “You are disgusting,” Ruth said to the teacher. Her heart was racing. She could hardly catch her breath. What were they doing bringing these adolescent hooligans to this place? For these boys, this was just another trip, just another opportunity to get out of the classroom.
“Ruthie, Ruthie, what are you doing?” Edek said, running up to her.
“Nothing,” she said. “They’re assholes.”
“Ruthie, we cannot fix up anything by speaking like that,” Edek said.
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“We cannot bring back anyone. If somebody does behave badly here what does it matter? The people who are dead are dead. They do not see this bad behavior.”
“You don’t know that,” she said to Edek. Edek looked at her. “Ruthie, darling, the dead are dead,” he said.
“Would you like to go to Birkenau soon?” Jerzy asked.
“Do you think you’re up to it?” Ruth said to Edek.
“I am up to it,” he said. “I will show you my barracks and where I did sleep.”
“Would you like to go to the museum shop before you go?” Jerzy said.
Ruth had known that there would have to be a profit-making section of the Auschwitz Museum business. She didn’t want to contribute to their profits.
“Let us see what they got,” Edek said.
“Okay,” she said.
A fly flew into Ruth’s face and began buzzing around her head. She tried to brush it away, but it kept returning. It was a large black fly. Ruth watched the fly warily. Why was it attacking her? And what was it doing here in winter? She thought flies appeared only in summer. Was this fly lost? Was it supposed to be somewhere else? The fly flew at her again. She tried to flick it away by shaking her hair at it. It flew right back. She felt the sting of its bite on her cheek. The fly, apparently pleased with its successful mission, flew off.
Ruth felt her cheek. It felt hot. She could already feel a swelling. She looked around. There were no other flies in sight. Where did this fly come from? And why did it bite her? Maybe it wasn’t a fly? Maybe it was someone’s spirit. Who had she hurt that would need to get back at her with a bite? She shook her head. She had to put an end to that kind of thinking.
It was absurd to imbue a fly with a spirit. A spirit that belonged to someone else. Poland was twisting her vision. Distorting her beliefs and understandings.
Edek turned and noticed the bite. “Look what you got on your face,” he said. “What happened?”
“It’s just a bite,” Ruth said. “I was bitten by a fly.” She felt her face. She could feel the bite still swelling.
“There was no flies in Birkenau,” Edek said.
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“Mum said there were no flies in Auschwitz,” Ruth said. “Mum said she didn’t see one single fly here.”
“No?” said Edek.
“She said there were no flies and no birds,” Ruth said.
“It doesn’t look good, your face,” Edek said. “It looks bad.”
“I’m always allergic to flies,” Ruth said. “To all insects. I swell up twice as much as anyone else. And every gnat, mosquito, or fly anywhere finds me in minutes.”
“You must have sweet blood,” Edek said.
“Plenty of people have said that to me,” Ruth said. She laughed. “But you know my blood is not all that sweet. You know I am not all that sweet.”
“What are you talking about?” Edek said. “Why do you think always that you are bad? You did do this even when you was a girl. You was never bad. You was always a good girl.”
“I felt it was my fault,” Ruth said.
“What?” said Edek.
“My fault that Mum had to suffer so much,” Ruth said.
“That is crazy,” said Edek.
“All children feel it must be their fault if their parent feels bad,” Ruth said. “It’s too hard to understand that it’s not your fault. That you didn’t cause it. And you can’t fix it up.”
“You did fix up a lot for Mum,” Edek said. Ruth was quiet. “She was very happy with you,” Edek said. “It was other stuff she was not happy about.” Tears came into Ruth’s eyes. She didn’t want to cry again. She didn’t want to set Edek’s tears off again. He often still wept for Rooshka.
“Terrible things did happen to Mum,” Edek said.
“I know,” she said. Her cheek was burning. She felt it with her fingers.
She could feel a large blister forming in the middle of the swelling. “I’m not usually bitten in winter,” she said to Edek.
“It does look terrible,” Edek said. “It must have been a big fly.”
“It must have been the commandant of flies,” Ruth said, and laughed.
Edek laughed. “Maybe he was the Generalfeldmarschall Reichsführer-SS
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Edek fell about laughing. Ruth thought he was going to fall over. She grabbed his elbow.
“What is the lowest this fly can be?” Edek said.
“A second lieutenant, an SS-Untersturmführer,” Ruth said. Edek looked at Ruth’s bite. “I do not think that this fly was an SS-Untersturmführer,” he said, and collapsed with laughter. They both laughed until they cried. Edek had to lend Ruth his handkerchief to wipe away her tears. Jerzy stood behind them silently.
“This was very funny,” Edek said to Jerzy.
“We walk to the museum shop,” Jerzy said. Ruth and Edek walked to the shop, still laughing.
The shop sold postcards, slides, books, and videos. Ruth didn’t want to buy anything. Two collections of postcards in folders were on sale. One was labeled Auschwitz I, the other Auschwitz II—Birkenau. Ruth opened the package of Birkenau cards. Every shot of Birkenau had a poetic hue, including the electrified wire fence. The railway tracks were photographed with yellow flowers growing in the grass at the side of the tracks.
On the back of the postcard of the International Monument to the Victims of Auschwitz, the postcard said that the memorial was located between the ruins of “two mass genocide devices.” Ruth was struck by the strange, detached wording used to describe the gas chambers and the ovens of the crematoriums. There was also a photograph of the guard towers. It was a mid-distance shot. The towers and electrified fencing beside them looked too innocuous. Ruth felt flat. Nothing, not the most detailed graphic photographic enlargements, would ever be enough. Nothing was adequate enough to express a fraction of what should be expressed.
She bought the postcards, eight books, two videos, and a box of slides.
“I’ll have to leave these in the car,” she said to Jerzy. Jerzy was beaming at the woman who was wrapping Ruth’s goods. Ruth hoped Jerzy wasn’t going to get a commission from this sale.
“What for did you buy all this stuff?” Edek said.
“I wanted it,” she said.
“Have you not got enough stuff like this?” Edek said. “Your apartment has got plenty of stuff like this. You got books, videos. Is it not enough?”
“It’s never enough,” Ruth said.
Edek shrugged his shoulders.
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“I am not sure this stuff is good for you,” he said. “It could hurt you to read too much stuff like this.”
“Oh yeah?” Ruth said. “You could live through it, but it’s too dangerous for me to read about. The real danger is not reading about it. Isn’t ignorance the real danger?”
“Maybe you are right,” he said.
“I am right,” she said.
“Okay,” Edek said.
“Can you put this stuff in our taxi for us please?” Edek asked Jerzy.
“Of course,” Jerzy said.
“Put it in the backseat,” Ruth said to Jerzy, “not in the trunk. I don’t want to forget it.”
“I do not think that our driver would want to keep this stuff,” Edek said, and laughed.
Ruth laughed. “I don’t think he would want to either,” she said.
“I will drive you to Birkenau in my car,” Jerzy said. “Then I will bring you back to your taxi.”
“Are you up to Birkenau, Dad?” Ruth said.
“I am up to anything,” Edek said. Ruth looked at him. He looked quite robust. In good spirits. His resilience reassured her. They drove the two miles to Birkenau. Auschwitz II.
“Survivors have the privilege of driving into Birkenau,” Jerzy said.
“Everybody else must walk.”
“Wow,” said Ruth, sarcastically. Edek silenced her with his look. “It is not necessary, Ruthie,” he said quietly. They drove inside the entrance gate.
“You would like to drive to the monument?” Jerzy asked.
“We didn’t come here to see the monument,” Ruth said.
They got out of the car. Birkenau was deserted. It was an eerie and ghostly place. Ruth shivered. She felt cold. She felt she could sense shrouds and shapes and presences. She felt she could feel haunted visions. Tormented prophets. She wasn’t sure why she was so sure of this. She felt frightened. What she could feel was what she was able to imagine, she decided.
There were very few people in Birkenau. There were no exhibitions, no shops, no central heating. Just the bleak fields dotted with run-down barracks. The fields and broken barracks seemed to stretch for miles. Ruth T O O M A N Y M E N
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knew that Birkenau covered four hundred and twenty-five acres. It had contained over three hundred buildings. She knew there had been four crematoriums with gas chambers, two makeshift gas chambers in farmhouses that had been specially converted for the job, and large cremation pyres and pits for when the job became too large for all the gas chambers and all the ovens.
A mournful mist hung low in the sky. Above the mist were dismal, grim clouds. Were the clouds permanently blackened and soiled by soot? Ruth wondered. Everything was as deserted and abandoned as it must have been when the Nazis fled. Partly destroyed buildings had been left in their relative states of destruction. Empty patches of earth marked where barracks and buildings had been torn down. Wrenched out of the earth by Nazis who were trying to cover up their tracks. It was so still. So quiet.
“How do you feel, Dad?” she said.
“I am all right,” he said. He looked very subdued. She took his hand.
“We’re here together, you and me,” she said. He nodded. Together in Auschwitz-Birkenau, she thought. Not a location most people would choose to share with each other.
“Here is where the prisoners were unloaded from the trains,” Jerzy said.
Edek looked bewildered.
“Here?” he said.
“Yes, here,” Jerzy said. “The prisoners did often come in sealed cattle wagons. Jammed together like cattle.”
“We know that,” Ruth said. “My father was one of them. So was my mother and two of her sisters and her mother and father.”
“Of course,” Jerzy said.
“It was not here,” Edek said to Jerzy.
“What?” said Jerzy.
“The place where the train did arrive and stop,” Edek said.
“It was here,” Jerzy said.
“It was not here,” said Edek, agitated.
“It was here where the prisoners were unloaded from the trains,” Jerzy said.
“Don’t begin your speech again,” Ruth said to Jerzy, in what she hoped was a menacing tone.
“It was not here,” Edek said. “I was here. This was not where I was
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pushed out of the cattle wagon. This is not something what a person does forget.” Edek looked distressed.
“This was the only place where the prisoners were unloaded,” Jerzy said. “The train came into the gates and stopped here.”
“It was not here,” Edek said. He looked close to tears.
“They get old,” Jerzy said to Ruth. He had turned away from Edek so Edek wouldn’t hear him. “They get old,” he said. “And they forget.”
“They?” said Ruth. “Say that one more time and I’ll punch you.” She clenched her fists. Garth had taught her to punch effectively. He had grown up boxing with his father.
Jerzy looked completely startled. “I’ll punch you,” Ruth said, “if you say that again. I’d like you to walk behind us now. My father and I will find the location my father is looking for.” She felt livid. How dare he refer to her father as “they.” As though he wasn’t there. As though Edek was one of the dead Jews that the guides were trained to talk about. The guides in Auschwitz were supposed to have completed a course of study not only on the facts but on how to pres
ent the facts, on how to conduct the guided tours. What sort of a course could it be? Ruth thought. She wished she could tell Jerzy to piss off. But she didn’t want Edek to have to walk the two miles back to Auschwitz to their taxi.
“There were transports that were unloaded outside the gate, many times,” Ruth said to Jerzy. They were both now facing Edek again. “Especially in 1944,” she said, “when they were overloaded with prisoners. Prisoners were arriving faster than it was possible to gas and burn them. Trains stopped at different places. Sometimes there were several trains that were backed up. Not everything was working like clockwork in those days.”
“Let’s walk, Dad,” she said to Edek. Jerzy walked behind them.
“You are a clever girl, Ruthie,” Edek said. “You do know many things.”
Edek looked to the right and to the left as he walked. “I did walk straight ahead from the train and then I did turn left,” Edek said. He looked flustered. “I have to find it,” he said, “I was here. I know where I was.”
“Of course you do,” Ruth said. Suddenly Edek sped up. He walked across a field and into an area to the left. He signaled to Ruth to hurry.
“Look,” he said. “Here is the tracks, and here is where I did get off the train.” He looked triumphant.
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“That asshole doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Ruth said.
“Please, Ruthie, don’t speak like that.”
“I knew you would find where you were unloaded,” she said.
Jerzy had caught up to them.
“The ramp in Birkenau was built in 1944,” he said. “Previously all of the trains were unloaded in Auschwitz.” Edek dismissed Jerzy with a wave of his hand. A curt gesture, as though he was getting rid of a bad smell.
“We do not want to hear this, please,” Edek said.
“Could you allow us some privacy, please,” Ruth said to Jerzy. Jerzy looked angry. He walked a few feet away.
Ruth started thinking about her mother. Her mother had first been in Birkenau before she had been transferred to Auschwitz.
“I was separated from Mum here,” Edek said. He looked miserable. “I will show you where my barracks was,” he said. “I do remember every step I did take from this train to the barracks. I did know when I was walking away from Mum that my life would never be the same again.”
