I gathered the two children to me, kissing them both, and said without conviction, “We will be fine, little ones, I promise you.”
58.
The dawn’s rays were still struggling to banish the dark night when the reveille sounded. I heard stirrings in the cabin above our heads and in the distance saw soldiers approach this and adjacent barracks, unlocking doors and shouting commands in harsh German. In minutes the concourse was a hive of chaotic activity as labourers, all men, crossed back and forth to the latrines.
If relieved to find we were at last in the workers quarters, my fears were confirmed that the camp was segregated, for there were no women or children to be seen, and I became concerned once more for our security.
I had hoped somehow to mingle the three of us with the internees of the camp to allow us freedom of movement that we might try trace Mama. The all-adult, all-male presence clearly necessitated a reappraisal of this plan.
But before I could reconsider our options whistles shrieked and suddenly men were running to the centre of the concourse and assuming pre-determined lines, tardiness rewarded by the butt of a soldier’s rifle or by the whip of men bearing the word Kapo on their sleeves.
As we watched the men line up like school children at assembly, to be head-counted and lectured on the day’s duties, I could see they all bore sign of ill health and malnourishment, some quite skeletal. Even as I watched, as if to confirm my worst fears, a worker in an outside line began to waver and fell to the ground, his breathing laboured, his body weak.
At once two or three men around him rushed to his aid but were driven off by two Kapos, hitting out at these Samaritans with their hand whips, pushing them away from the fallen worker. Then, in scenes painfully reminiscent of Elone’s treatment at Bucharest station, a Kapo began to kick the fallen man, screaming and shouting at him in a language I knew to be neither Polish nor German.
A single gunshot cracked across the camp, bringing everything to a halt. The two Kapos stood upright as a Nazi officer approached. The workers as one turned forward and stood to attention, all eyes front, now not daring even to cast a sympathetic glance to their fallen colleague.
I clutched Nicolae and Elone to me, burying their heads against my chest, determined they should not witness the scene I now anticipated, but I could not tear my own eyes away. If I knew how this scene would end, still I watched in morbid fascination, trying to follow the shouted exchange between the Kapos and the German officer who now brusquely addressed them.
They both pointed accusingly at the man on the ground. Without further debate the officer produced his pistol, fired a single shot to the back of the fallen worker’s head, turned and walked away. Even before the blood had finished pumping one of the Kapos had seconded two men from the assembled ranks to drag the body away.
Suddenly a further whistle blew and the ordered assembly became chaos again, men running to their barracks, to emerge seconds later carrying enamel mugs and bowls and I realised a meal of sorts was about to be served.
We had not eaten for two days now, and for all my fear I knew it was incumbent on me to somehow advantage us of the situation. Imploring Nicolae and Elone to stay together where they were I crawled reptant to the very edge of the barrack floor to establish my prospects and realised my best hope lay in clambering into the room itself, there to take my chances when the men returned.
There was no time to consider the risks. An opportunity presented itself and I acted, propelling myself through the doorway as the last man hurried out, then rushing to a window to see if I had been observed.
I watched discreetly as the men collected their meagre rations from a makeshift canteen and in seconds ravenously consumed them, throwing their enamelware into a box before turning and heading back to where I waited.
I panicked, acutely aware my discovery was just seconds away. I looked about the hut in desperation then, as the door opened, I flung myself beneath a bed and trembled there, not daring to breathe, as the workers filed in silently. The Kapo barked an order in a language I did not recognise, turned and left. This was my first realisation that these men were not Germans but rather fellow internees of the camp, somehow elevated in rank above their peers.
Immediately the door closed the room erupted into whispered discussions in a multitude of languages and my heart leapt when I distinguished Romanian voices among them.
From my hiding place I could see the men were donning boots, preparing for their day’s labour, but my mind concentrated on isolating the Romanian speakers from the others. By chance I realised one such native of my homeland was astride the bed only a metre or so from me and I moved my body quietly to a position where I could, at the chosen moment, attract his attention.
Suddenly the men were rising, boots tied, making for the door.
Throwing caution to the wind I seized my chance and in a loud whisper hissed, “Friend, please help me.”
I held my breath as a dozen men turned, startled to hear a young girl’s voice emanate from beneath a bunk in their midst.
I braved their incredulous stares and edged out from the bed, eyes pleading as I sought words to explain my plight. “Please, we need your help.”
The Romanian speaker stared at me in disbelief, while other men, not cognizant of my language, shared sharp exchanges in their own. Finally, the man I had addressed found his voice.
“Child, what are you doing here? Do you wish to have us all killed? What is this madness?”
Emotion over-ruled caution and I clambered out from beneath the bunk and flung myself at him, placing myself at his mercy, tears streaming, struggling to be coherent.
“Please, we are starved and exhausted. We are looking for our mother. She was sent here from Medgidia to work. We have tracked her this far and now we –”
“Medgidia?” The voice came from behind me. “Anca?”
I stopped in mid-sentence at the sound of my name. The voice was familiar, but I could not place it in my confused mind. I turned to confront its owner and was met by a face that gazed upon mine with mutual disbelief.
He said again, “Anca? My God, Anca, is it you?”
I studied the face, the man, for long seconds, trying to draw some cognisance from the scrawny frame that spoke my name, for his skin was drawn tight like paper over bones that struggled to expose themselves to the day. His hair had receded, his eyes hollow, his back bent.
But still I recognized, from this travesty of a human being, the form of Maxim, father to my dear friend Raisa.
59.
I flung myself upon his withered frame, almost sending him to the floor, screaming, “Maxim? Maxim? I cannot believe it is you!”
Then, as realisation dawned, “Raisa? What of Raisa? Is she here with you? Tell me she is well, Maxim. Please tell me she is well?”
It took all Maxim’s strength to peel my body from his and bring me to arms length, hushing me urgently, anxious glances cast about him. He turned to his fellow Romanian and said quietly, “It is alright. She is no Nazi stooge. This is Anca Pasculata, daughter of Petre Bogdan, the Romanian resistance leader executed this year. I will deal with her. You go. Keep the Kapo occupied. I will join you as soon as I can.”
There were further excited exchanges in different languages. Maxim addressed his fellows in Romanian, then Russian, then Polish. Someone else translated his words into a further language, possibly Magyar, and the men began to exit the barrack, casting nervous glances at me, before disappearing from view. As the last man left Maxim drew me to the window, where he could keep watch.
“Forgive me, Anca, if I am brusque and appear unfriendly. I mean you no harm, you know that, but if you are caught here then you and I, and a dozen others to set an example, will be stood before the Black Wall before this day is out. Now, quickly child, how did you get into our quarters?”
I tried to explain, but my words gushed and were incoherent. I wanted to know of Raisa, my best friend, and of Mama, of course, but my urgent tones made no sense to
him.
I put my questions again, demanding he enlighten me. Of Raisa, was she well?
He said, “Anca, I was hoping it was you who would tell me. Did you not see her, in the women’s quarters?”
His question was one of hope, for of course he supposed I had somehow just come from there, but I could only disappoint him.
“We have not been that far yet, Maxim. We...”
It was impossible to explain, and I suspect I would not have been believed had I attempted to do so.
“We have just arrived. Mama was sent here and we are looking for her.” Then, “Maxim... Do you know if she is here?”
Maxim took my hands, offering physical comfort to substitute the bad news I realised he was to impart. I prepared myself.
“Anca, I have not seen your mother since before you left Medgidia. That is not to say she is not here. That she is not alive and well. There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of prisoners here. But too there is death.”
He hesitated, as if unwilling to continue.
“Typhus is rampant here, my child, though that would be a merciful release.”
He stopped himself, looking into my eyes, then, “Death is all around us, Anca. I am sorry, but it would not be fair to raise your hopes.”
I struggled to control my emotions, wanting, needing to know more.
“We have been here some three months now, Anca. We were dragged from our homes one night, not long after your own family were taken. Ours was a less dignified exit. Being of Russian descent the Nazis believed we would be troublesome, for rumour has it the Red Army is making much progress in the east. Why they could not kill us there and then and be done with us I do not know, but rather we were crammed into cattle trucks and transported into Poland.”
I nodded to confirm I understood.
“I was sent to Treblinka first, but that has been closed now, torn down brick by brick as the Red Army advanced. Raisa and her mother were brought directly here to Auschwitz. I feared I would never see either of them again, but I glimpsed Raisa only a week or so ago, across a fence, so I can tell you she, at least, has survived so far.”
My heart leapt at this news. “Oh Maxim, I am so relieved. I will find her. I promise you. But what of Catherine? Your wife? Raisa’s mother?”
Maxim’s eyes glazed, his voice stricken. “Anca, you will remember Catherine was lame of leg, crippled by polio from when she was herself a child.”
I nodded, indifferent to this fact. Her infirmity had never prevented her being a fine mother to Raisa.
“They have no use for cripples here, Anca.” Maxim clutched my hand and I watched a lone tear roll down his cheek. “She was taken to the showers on the first day, Anca. Somehow, for some reason, Raisa was spared, thank the Lord, but Catherine...”
He could contain himself no longer. Weak of body and spirit his emotions were released and he wept openly in my arms.
I persisted, “Maxim, you say she was taken to the showers? You make no sense to me.”
Still crying he took my arms as if to provide support for me. “I do not begin to understand how you can have arrived here so ignorant, my child, but let me make this clear to you.”
He looked directly at me. “The Nazis have no use for the elderly or infirm, Anca. Nor for the ailing or sick, nor for young children or the unskilled. Those who can work, who can make some contribution to the German war machine, are selected for their labour. I was lucky, Anca. I am a lapidary by trade, as you know, so I was plucked from the crowd to do their bidding. My skill is in the setting of precious stones. Even in war these barbarians still have the ability to appreciate beauty.”
Maxim paused, searching for the right words to continue. “The rest, Anca... Those that had no skill or ability to offer, those too old or too young to be of use to them, were sent to the showers.”
“The showers?” I looked at him in bewilderment, still not understanding.
Maxim grasped me tightly. “Anca, the showers do not spray water, they spray gas. Lethal gas.”
I was shaking my head, no words forming, unwilling, unable, to believe what I was hearing.
Maxim clutched me to his skeletal chest and I flung my arms around his wasted body, touching protruding bone through translucent skin.
He said quietly, “This is not a labour camp, Anca. This is a death camp.”
60.
As we lay hidden beneath the barracks that day I was quite numb.
For all that Henryk had tried to warn me, for all I had seen, still Maxim’s words occupied my every thought. It was all I could do to contain my emotions and stop my body trembling, but for the sake of Elone and Nicolae, huddled against me, I knew I had to keep control.
For all I had recently witnessed, sanity itself dictated it could not be true.
Birds sang and a blue sky could be faintly seen beyond the ashen smog, throwing my very memories into question.
Maxim must surely have been mistaken, I reasoned, for his tale of showers that issued forth gas instead of water was simply too incredible to believe. Catherine must have succumbed to typhus and her husband, wrought with ill-health, had allowed his imagination to conjure demonic acts even the Nazis were surely incapable of.
My warning to the children that we were to spend the day in hiding was ill-received and it was all I could do to keep Nicolae from crying out loud as fatigue and hunger combined to weaken his resistance. Elone too was becoming restless and I knew we would not manage a further day in these conditions without one or other of the children inadvertently exposing our plight.
Maintaining silence was perhaps the single most difficult of our myriad problems. On previous occasions I had been able to alleviate our suffering by resorting to light banter and song, but with Nazi jackboots passing us by only a few metres distant even whispered conversation was too great a risk to take.
Yet somehow, Elone perhaps sensing my fear, and Nicolae’s frail body already succumbing to inanition, we managed to avoid detection and as dusk approached I began to prepare myself for the daunting task ahead.
The men returned from their work as darkness began to fall. Across the way the mobile canteen was wheeled out and for the second time that day our nostrils could enjoy the sensation of food our bodies could only hunger for.
But Maxim had not forsaken us.
As the men returned to enter their dwelling a crowd began to congregate by the door and a squabble broke out. At first I was alarmed by this development, fearing it would attract unwanted attention so close to our hiding place, but realised it was a deliberate artifice designed to cover Maxim’s movements when suddenly a hand appeared beneath the hut pushing a canister of water and hunk of bread towards us. As I crawled forward to gratefully retrieve the offering I heard a Kapo advance on the squabbling men and bring them quickly to order with a crack of his whip. Seconds later the door was slammed shut and bolted and we were alone once more.
I divided the bread equally between Nicolae and Elone but partook of a few sips of water, fearing thirst might otherwise prove my downfall.
Elone protested briefly my abstinence then gave in to her own hunger and consumed her bread in a few quick mouthfuls.
If nutritionally deficient the meal had a powerful psychological effect, satisfying hunger and permitting both children to relax. Very soon they were both asleep, but I knew I could not join them, for fear of sleeping right through the long night and having to spend another day here.
If darkness was quickly upon us, the life of the camp seemed to continue for many hours more until eventually, as night became the early hours of morning, only the guards remained attentive, and these more to their own concerns than their duties.
I roused the children and we began again to trace our way across the camp, this time advantaged by the vague directions Maxim had set us.
It took us four long nights to traverse Auschwitz, such was the scale of the camp, for entire factories occupied this vast site, producing everything from cloth to military har
dware.
If Maxim’s words had reinforced the concerns Henryk had expressed, the enormity of Auschwitz had still to filter through to a young mind incapable of imagining the truth.
But any residual doubt, any hiding behind the hope of exaggeration or misinformation, was to be dispelled on our fourth day beneath the barracks, on our way to the women’s quarters.
61.
We had, all three of us, fallen asleep in our latest shelter when we were startled to hear the whistle of a locomotive in the distance. In the dark of the night there had been no opportunity to study our latest view, but the locomotive’s piercing scream introduced us to a new day and with it new terrors.
Somehow Nicolae was energised by the steam engine’s approach, awakening the boy within that enfeebled skeleton of a child that had for the past three days followed me like a mindless automaton from one hiding place to the next. Clinging, never letting go, of Elone’s hand.
Yet now he was aware once more, eyes almost bright, eager to see the train approach. So thrilled was I by this ostensive recovery that I abandoned caution and allowed all three of us to advance as far forward as we dared, to purchase a view.
It was evident now we had found the far perimeter of the site, all but adjacent to the glowing chimneys we had spied on our arrival, and as we watched two huge gates were opened across a railway siding that entered the camp just a few hundred metres distant. As the train crossed the perimeter boundary music, Wagner I would later learn, began broadcasting from loudspeakers hung liberally around the concourse where Nazi guards, Kapos and labourers waited to greet the new arrivals.
The locomotive ground to a halt, dragging the ophidian cattle trucks shuddering in its wake and I saw Nicolae’s expression change as memories of our own tragic journey were rekindled in his mind. I wanted to draw him back, to shield him, but he held tight to Elone’s hand. I wanted to pull him to me, but instead we watched, silently mesmerized by the scene of ostensive welcome.
Anca's Story--a novel of the Holocaust Page 17
