The Last Train

by Rona Arato

  “Rest, Lenke, rest.”

  Oscar watched as Aunt Bella placed a wet cloth on Anyu’s forehead.

  They were back in the barn and Anyu was lying on her bed. Oscar stood beside her. “Anyu, are you sick?”

  “No, darling.” She took his hand. “I’m not sick, I’m tired.” She turned to Bella. “And worried. Bella, where are the men? What has happened to our parents, to our sisters, and brothers, and their children? What is this madness doing to our families?”

  Oscar swallowed. He was worried, too. And scared. What if we never see Apu again?

  “Anyu, please don’t worry.” He gave her a shaky smile. “The workers just brought supper. I’ll get you some food. You’ll feel better after you eat.”

  Anyu squeezed his hand. “When did you become the man of the family?”

  As he walked away, Oscar heard his mother say, “The harvest is almost finished. Do you know where we will go next?”

  He didn’t hear Aunt Bella’s answer. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know.

  He walked outside. His brother was playing tag with Kati and Madgi and some other children. I wish I could be like them, Oscar thought. But he was frightened. Whenever the SS officers wanted to scare someone, they threatened to send them east. And he remembered the conversation in the brickyard, when the women were discussing Auschwitz. The thought of going to such an awful place terrified him. He had heard that the conditions were dreadful. People became ill. They were killed or died of disease. He had promised Apu that he would protect his mother and brother. I will try to keep my promise.

  But what if I can’t? It was a possibility that Oscar didn’t even want to consider.

  Chapter 16

  “Wake up, birthday boy. It’s October 30, and you are six years old!

  Paul opened his eyes. His mother was smiling. She bent down and kissed him. Paul threw his arms around her neck. “I’m six years old!” He jumped up from his mattress.

  “Hey, brat, stop making so much noise.” Oscar turned away from him, eyes still shut.

  “But it’s my birthday. Anyu, can I have a cake?”

  For a moment, his mother looked sad. Then she brightened. “Not a cake, but we will do something special. Tonight.”

  That evening, after they had eaten, everyone in their barn gathered around Paul to wish him a happy birthday. One woman brought out some apricots she had secretly gathered from trees on the farm and dried over the summer.

  “A birthday treat,” he said, as she passed them around.

  “Happy birthday, Paul.” Kati hugged him.

  “I’m going to be five soon,” said Magdi. She handed him a small stone. “I found it. See,” she said, pointing, “it’s shaped like a frog.”

  “Thank you, Magdi.” Paul pecked her cheek.

  “What’s all this noise?” A guard appeared in the doorway. “You should all be in bed.” He turned off the lights and shut the door.

  Everyone went to their beds.

  “It was a nice birthday,” Paul said as he settled down. And clutching his frog-shaped rock, he fell asleep.

  Chapter 17

  “Up! Out! Everyone!”

  Oscar awoke with a start. Soldiers were tramping through the barn, ordering everyone outside. He staggered to his feet and looked over to his mother, sitting on the edge of her bed. Paul began to scamper for the doorway.

  “Paul, wait for me,” Oscar ordered. “Anyu, here, take my hand.” He helped his mother up and held her arm.

  “Move! Outside!” the soldier barked.

  “Paul, take Anyu’s other hand.”

  “I can walk.” His mother said, moving forward.

  “Oscar, is Anyu all right?” Paul looked from his mother to his brother.

  “She’s very tired.”

  Paul didn’t think his mother was just tired. Every day she became weaker and weaker and it frightened him. They walked outside and joined the line of prisoners. Paul shivered. The sun had not yet risen and the air was cold. A light snow had fallen. It was late November, but they were still wearing the lightweight clothing they’d had on in April. His mother’s thin cotton dress was no protection from the frigid air. And he was in shorts.

  The officer in charge stood before them. “Guten morgen.”

  Everyone came to attention as the soldiers began the daily head count. No one dared move; they barely breathed. Oscar remembered the soldier who whipped the woman in Szolnok and the guard who threw the coughing woman into the mud. He had seen soldiers lose their tempers for the slightest reasons.

  Sometimes these lineups lasted for hours, but this day the roll call was quick. The guard checked off everyone’s name and then turned to address them.

  “The harvest is over. Today you are being moved.”

  Oscar felt, rather than heard, the moan that swept through the line. This was the moment they all feared. The farm was safe. Wherever they went next might not be this good. The farmers treated them kindly. There was food and beds.

  The crunch of tires broke into his thoughts. Two big trucks rolled to a stop. Fear clouded the air like a wet fog.

  At that moment, the farmer and his wife appeared. Each carried a large box. Is she crying? The woman, whose name he still didn’t know, set the box down in front of him. The farmers were Austrian, not German. They weren’t Nazis. They had been kind to the prisoners. They, too, feared the Nazi soldiers, who ordered them around and talked to them as harshly as they did to the prisoners.

  The woman stood in front of Oscar. She wore a coat of green wool and a matching hat with a feather. Her expression was somber, but her eyes were kind. “Molasses, from the sugar beets,” she said in German and handed him a glass bottle. She looked into his eyes. “Good luck,” she whispered. Then she and her husband moved down the row and handed each person a bottle of the syrup.

  When all the bottles had been distributed, the soldiers waved the prisoners onto the trucks. Oscar sat on the floor, between Paul and their mother. As the truck left the farm, Oscar saw the farmer and his wife looking after them. Then the truck turned a corner and they were gone.

  Chapter 18

  Strasshof Concentration Camp, Austria

  December 1944

  They were transported back to the Strasshof Concentration Camp. Once again, everyone was stripped and hosed down. Only this time the air was so cold that the water felt like ice cubes. By the time they were dressed, Paul was shivering so hard he could barely stand. After their shower they were put into a barrack.

  “I’m cold.” Paul hugged his chest.

  His mother pulled him onto her lap. She rubbed his arms and legs with her hands and then motioned for Oscar to sit beside her. “Lie down on the bed. We’ll huddle together to warm each other.”

  “Anyu, I want to go home.” Paul buried his face against her chest. “When can we go home?”

  “I don’t know, Paul. We must be brave a little longer. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes, Anyu.” Paul closed his eyes and was soon asleep.

  Like before, they stayed at Strasshof for two weeks. When they weren’t lining up for roll call, they were in the barrack trying to keep warm. Then, on December 6, after the morning lineup, they were told they were being moved. And like before, they were taken to the train station and shoved into boxcars.

  The inside of the car was freezing. Wind whistled through the cracks in the walls. Paul was crushed between his mother and Oscar, Aunt Bella and the girls crammed beside them.

  “Thank God we’re all together.” Anyu hugged Paul.

  “When we get off, hold my hand,” Oscar commanded.

  “Yes, Oscar.” Paul clamped his mouth shut to keep his teeth from chattering. His whole body was shaking.

  The train lurched forward and began to move.

  Chapter 19

  Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp,
Germany

  December 7, 1944

  Paul opened his eyes. The train had stopped. The boxcar door opened and they repeated the now-familiar routine of getting off and lining up. Paul clung to his mother’s hand. Oscar was on his other side. The line of prisoners was four deep and stretched as far as Paul could see. Everyone wore the yellow star, so he knew they were all Jewish. No one spoke. The only sounds were the tramp, tramp, tramp of thousands of feet, the shouts of guards, and the growls and barks of dogs.

  Oscar tightened his grip on Paul’s hand. He knew the dogs terrified his little brother. Their eyes glittered with the same hate Oscar saw on the faces of the Nazi guards.

  Bang! Oscar jumped at the crack of a gunshot. He knew what had happened—the soldiers had shot some poor person who couldn’t walk any more. He grasped his mother’s arm and motioned for Paul to hold the other one. We can’t let her fall! We’ve got to keep her moving!

  They trudged along in silence for several hours. The temperature dropped. Oscar’s teeth chattered. His feet were numb. He looked at Paul, whose lips were blue. His brother clutched his heavy molasses bottle to his chest as he walked. One foot in front of the other.

  The line stopped moving. Oscar looked ahead and saw a row of low buildings surrounded by barbed wire. A sign said “Bergen Belsen.” The line inched forward. When they reached the front, a guard wrote down their names and directed them to the left. Oscar sighed with relief. The guards hadn’t taken their molasses, and their families were still together.

  “Compared to this, our barn was a castle,” said Anyu.

  She covered her mouth and nose with her hand as she viewed the long room. There was no stove for heat or windows for light. Wooden bunks were stacked three high on both sides of the barrack. The dirt floor and air reeked of filth.

  People continued to arrive and soon the room was almost as crowded as the boxcar had been. There were too few bunks, so Anyu and the boys shared a single bunk, and Aunt Bella and the girls took the one above them. Each bunk was a slab of wood with a thin straw mattress.

  “Hey, Oscar,” said Paul. “Now I can put my foot back in your mouth.”

  “Very funny.” Oscar gave Paul a weak smile, fighting panic. Now what? What will happen next?

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  “Everyone, out!”

  Two soldiers entered the barrack and motioned for them to form a line outside. Paul’s breath came out in puffs. He looked at the soldiers, warm in their wool coats, hats, gloves, and leather boots.

  A short, stout soldier went from prisoner to prisoner, checking their names off a list attached to a wooden clipboard. When he was finished, he stood back and surveyed the line.

  “Look to your left and right. This is where you will stand for the appel each morning and night.” A female prisoner translated for the soldier. “Everyone must appear for the roll call. No exceptions! You will not leave until you are dismissed!”

  Everyone remained standing. They stayed this way for two hours. Guards patrolled the line. Back and forth, they walked, their boots tramping in the mud while the prisoners stood, eyes forward, knees locked, barely daring to breathe. By the time the line was dismissed it had grown dark. They filed back into their barrack. Anyu collapsed onto the bunk. Oscar bent over her.

  “Are you all right, Anyu?”

  “Just tired.”

  “Rest, Lenke,” Aunt Bella said.

  “Yes, I will rest.”

  “The children need food,” Aunt Bella continued. “We have the molasses that the farmers gave us, but we must ration it. We don’t know how long we’ll be here. Everyone take one sip now and put the bottle away. Then we should all try to sleep.”

  “It’s a miracle the soldiers let us keep it.” Anyu unscrewed the cap on the glass bottle and handed it to Paul.

  He took a sip. The thick, sticky syrup coated his tongue and throat. “Mmm.” He licked his lips. He passed it to Oscar, who took some and then passed the bottle back to Anyu, who hid it behind the mattress. Around them others were settling into their bunks. A heavy silence filled the barrack.

  Their first day in Bergen Belsen was over.

  Chapter 20

  Life in this new camp fell into a harsh pattern.

  Every morning, the guards woke the prisoners before dawn and marched them outside, where they stood for hours in the freezing cold. Their teeth chattered; their hands and feet went numb. Yet they stood still as stones because any movement might give the guards an excuse to shoot or to set the dogs on them.

  After roll call, they trooped back to their barracks, which were as cold as the outdoors. Twice a day they were fed watery soup made of duergemuse (chopped turnips). Paul hated the soup because the turnips were caked with dirt. Other times, the soup contained dirty potato peels. After they ate, Anyu let them have one spoonful each of the molasses.

  The winter of 1945 was especially cold. Gusts of icy wind whistled through cracks in the barrack walls. Icicles hung from the ceiling. The only toilets were filthy outhouses. Outside, snow covered the ground, and it seemed that the colder it got, the longer the guards made them stand in the lineups. One day, it was so frigid that Paul started to cry.

  “Don’t cry!” Oscar hissed.

  “I can’t help it.” Paul sniffled.

  “Stop that!” Oscar poked him. “Stand up tall and don’t cry!”

  A guard stopped in front of them. He looked down at the boys. Paul saw the dreaded SS pin on his collar. His heart was pounding so loudly he thought the soldier could hear it. The guard laughed.

  “You scared, little boy? Good. Stay scared.” He turned to a boy standing next to Paul. “You look happy today. Why?”

  “It’s my birthday,” the boy stuttered.

  “Then you should have a present.” The guard removed his pistol from its holster, started to hand it to the boy, and then pulled it back, aimed, and fired. The boy crumpled to the ground as his mother screamed. The soldier whirled around to face her.

  “Quiet, or I’ll give you the same gift.”

  Paul looked at the boy on the ground. His stomach heaved; his knees buckled. He was shaking so hard he could barely stand. But he knew he mustn’t move or show that he was afraid. Oscar put an arm around him, and they stood in stunned silence until the guards dismissed them and they returned to their barrack.

  After roll call, they had their meager breakfast. Paul sat on the bed with his plate, but he couldn’t eat. He couldn’t get the picture of the murdered boy out of his head.

  “Why did the soldier shoot that boy?”

  “Because he is a miserable excuse for a human,” said Aunt Bella.

  “These people aren’t human,” said Anyu. She looked at Oscar and her hand flew to her mouth. “Tomorrow is your birthday,” she whispered.

  “I’ll be eleven,” Oscar said proudly. Then his face darkened. “Will the guard shoot me, too?”

  “Oscar. We can’t tell anyone that it’s your birthday. No one. Do you understand?” She turned to Paul. “No one must know!”

  “Yes, Anyu.” Paul nodded solemnly.

  “Kati, Magdi? You will keep this a secret.”

  “Yes, Auntie Lenke,” they chorused.

  “No one must know,” she repeated, her eyes wide with fear. “Absolutely no one must know!”

  For a moment everyone was quiet. Oscar slumped on the bunk, his face in his hands. Paul clenched and unclenched his fists. Anyu covered her mouth, as if stifling a sob. Then she raised her head and took a deep breath.

  “Now we must try to forget what happened,” she said in a shaky voice. “Come.”

  She pulled her comb out of her pocket and motioned for the boys to sit beside her. This was their morning routine. First, she used the coffee grounds to wash the boys’ hands and faces. Next, she sat, first Paul, then Oscar, on the bunk and combed their hair, pic
king out lice and nits. She set Paul on her lap and tugged at his hair.

  “Ouch! Anyu, you’re hurting me.”

  “Sit still! If we don’t remove the nits you’ll get sick.” Her hand shook as she continued the combing.

  Paul yelped and pulled away. “You’re mean. Leave me alone.”

  His mother threw down the comb in exasperation. At that moment a guard stomped into the barrack. “Everyone, outside!” he ordered.

  Not again. Oscar sighed. The Germans used surprise lineups to torture them. He looked at his mother. She was weakening. How many more hours of standing in line in the freezing cold could she take?

  A sudden thought made his knees go weak.

  Do they know that tomorrow is my birthday? he thought. Are they calling this roll call to shoot me?

  As they walked outside, Anyu gave him a warning look. “Remember what I said,” she mouthed.

  “Yes, Anyu,” Oscar mouthed back. He thought again of the boy, shot dead because he was happy. He looked at his mother, so weak she could barely stand, and at Paul, trying to be brave but actually terrified.

  I must stay strong, he thought. Whatever happens, I must stay strong like I promised Apu.

  Every day new transports of prisoners arrived. Sickness and a disease called typhus spread through the camp and hundreds of people died. Food became scarcer. The women often sat together on their bunks, planning meals they would make when they returned home.

  “I will make chicken soup floating with schmaltz,” said Aunt Bella. “What will you cook, Lenke?”

  “I will make goulash with dumplings.”

  “Ah, I make the best cholent. That is what I will bring,” said Sadie, a woman from another barrack who had come to visit.

  Paul huddled in a corner of the bunk. All this talk of food made him hungry. It also made him sad because it reminded him of happier times in Karcag. Every Saturday there, Paul, Oscar, and their parents used to walk to the synagogue for Sabbath services. On the way home, the boys would stop at the bakery to retrieve the pot of cholent, the thick stew their mother left there on Friday evening so it could cook overnight in the baker’s oven. At home, they ate their meal, and then Apu and Anyu rested while the boys went outside to meet their friends. Paul thought about holidays at the synagogue, dinners with grandparents, cousins, and friends, and lazy summer days when he and Oscar would ride their bicycles to the Berek, the park with hot springs and a large public swimming pool, on the outskirts of town.