The Heart Of A Gypsy

by Roberta Kagan

  “I am beside myself.” Christian paced as he spoke to Ion.

  “Don’t worry, they will find her. This man has connections everywhere. When you were in trouble, we went to them, and they found you. Give him a chance. It will be all right,” Ion said as he silently said a prayer that his words would be true.

  Chapter 60

  Once again, Nadya was loaded into the back of an automobile. Now she was wearing steel handcuffs that cut into her tiny wrists. The car was on its way to the gypsy camp in Auschwitz. The motion made her ill, and grew worse when it was combined with the terror and uncertainty she felt. Unable to stop herself, she vomited on the floor of the back seat of the car. Seeing the mess, the SS officer pulled over and slapped her face so hard that her head flew back, and when Nadya regained her balance, her nose and mouth were a pool of blood. Tears filled her eyes, and she wished her husband would somehow come riding out of the darkness to save her. But how would he ever find her? It seemed impossible. She was lost to him forever. Nadya wiped the blood from her face with the back of her hand and hoped that her death would be swift.

  The black iron gates that circled the concentration camp were opened to allow the entrance of the vehicle. Above the gates was a sign with words on it, but Nadya could not read them. As they entered she saw the sharp barbed wire that imprisoned the poor souls dying in Auschwitz. Driving through the barracks, she was shocked at the sickly, emaciated people who walked aimlessly about, looking like the skeleton on the death card of her tarot. They were the tortured prisoners of the Nazi Party, with their shaved heads and the bony faces, wearing gray striped uniforms with arm bands in different colors. With lifeless expressions, they peered with sunken eyes into the car window at her as she rode past. At the side of the building where they parked the vehicle, she saw a pile of dead bodies, and next to it there was another mound of dissected body parts. Looking away quickly, she caught a drift of the horrific odor and felt her stomach clench again. Afraid that she would lose control and suffer another beating, she tried to breathe through her mouth, but she continued to gag. Gray dust fell like a strange unnatural rain from the sky, and at first she had no idea what it was. As the substance dropped onto her hair and arms, she reached up to touch it and realized it was ashes. Shaking with fright and revulsion, she realized that this was the crematorium she had heard about, and these ashes were all that remained of the dead. She shivered as she secretly she said a prayer for those who died. Next Nadya was led in to a large and open area. Having spent her life in the outdoors, she was amazed to see that there was not a single blade of grass in the camp, not a single flower, and nowhere was there to be seen a bird or a butterfly. This is a cursed place, she thought. Then the guard led her down a long corridor, and as she looked at the beds on both sides of the hallway she realized she was in the camp hospital. Nadya had never seen such suffering. People lay upon cots, too weak to cry, some with sores that had eaten away parts of their faces, others looking sick and hungry. In one room she saw only twins, and in another only children. Travelers, as they moved through the forests, had come to her gypsy camp and told tales of the Nazi experiments, but Nadya could not even fathom the true monster that ran this house of horrors. Gypsies who had escaped from this place had come to join her group, or pass through on their way to other destinations. They too, spoke of Dr. Mengele. She knew about the candy and about calling him “uncle,” and the cruelty of his experiments. But seeing it was different than just hearing about it. As she glanced into the rooms, her heart went out to the patients, and for a moment she forgot the peril she was in and her mind drifted to thoughts of poor little Hanzi. In her mind’s eye she saw his tiny body flung protectively over his puppy, both of them peaceful in death, murdered by Nazis.

  Finally, after a long walk down the corridor, they came to an office. The Nazi who accompanied her pushed her forward as they entered. Inside she found a heavy mahogany desk with an enormous oversized chair. On the other side of the desk, two comfortable chairs awaited visitors.

  “Heil Hitler.” A young man who stood guard in the room, greeted the officer who accompanied Nadya.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Mengle,” Nadya’s jailer said.

  “I’m sorry, sir; he’s on holiday with his family until the end of next week.”

  “That’s too long. Who’s in charge here until he returns?”

  “His assistant, Dr. Eberhart.”

  “May I see him?” the SS officer asked, but it was more of a command.

  “Of course, I will get him for you right away.”

  Taking another set of handcuffs from his belt, he bound Nadya to the back of a heavy chair, but did not allow her to sit upon it; instead she was forced to sit on the floor. Waiting for the doctor, she looked around the room. There again she saw another picture of the same man with the tiny mustache, smiling as if he had her in the palm of his hand. She was sure it was Hitler.

  Well-made shelves of cherry wood adorned the walls, and upon them she saw carefully marked jars filled with a creamy white liquid that she could not identify; inside floated pairs of human eyes. Nadya looked away quickly, afraid she might faint.

  “Heil Hitler. I’m Dr. Eberhart,” A tall, attractive man with thinning blond hair entered the room.

  “Dr. Eberhart, I’m SS Officer Dresher. I have delivered a prisoner that must be sterilized, as we would like to send her to the German soldier house. They lost two of the girls there last week, and this one would make a suitable new addition.”

  “I see… Yes, she would make a good candidate…quite young and pretty.”

  “Who are you, girl? What’s your name?” Dr. Eberhart asked.

  Nadya did not answer; she just stared him down with her dark, almond-shaped eyes.

  “Answer the doctor…or you’ll be sorry for being so obstinate.”

  The guard kicked her in the stomach, and Nadya doubled over. Then, unable to endure more beatings, she answered him.

  “Nadya is my name.”

  Her mind raced; the word sterilize hit her like a baseball bat in the face. She was sure that she was pregnant, and she had been waiting to tell Christian. Now they would kill her baby and stop her from ever having another. As a gypsy girl, she had felt that having children was the greatest gift she had to give the world and her husband. Could they, would they take that away from her? Oh, God, no, she thought. All the strength and resolve left her as she broke down crying out, “Please, not this. I beg you, please.” Her tears poured freely now.

  Ignoring her, the men continued speaking to each other.

  “As I was saying, she is a pretty, although feisty little thing,” Dr. Eberhart said as he sat down. “Please sit.” The doctor motioned to one of the chairs and the SS officer sat.

  “Yes, that she is, but as you know, with a little work she can be broken like any wild horse. Is it possible that the sterilization can be done sometime today?”

  “I don’t see why not. I have some time later. I can do it this afternoon.”

  Nadya’s face was covered in tears and dried blood, but her eyes turned to granite as she glared at the two men with hatred. “My husband will find you and he will kill all of you. You just wait and see. You won’t get away with this. When he sees that I am gone, he will come looking for me.”

  “Hush up, girl,” Dr. Eberhart said to Nadya, annoyed at the interruption. Then he turned his gaze on a hospital worker. “Orderly…come here now. Something about this woman bothers me.” The doctor turned away; he could not look directly at Nadya. He wondered if it was her youth, her beauty, or her vulnerability that unnerved him. “Put her to sleep…that will keep her quiet, and I will be in there shortly to perform the surgery.”

  Once she was unbound from the chair, Nadya began to fight. She tried to hit and claw the orderly as he tried to handcuff her hands together. Kicking at him, she fell, and he pulled her back to her feet by her arm. A pain shot through her shoulder that was so severe that it stopped her struggle. Then the orderly handcuffed her hand
s behind her back and dragged her away. When they came to the operating theater, the orderly threw Nadya inside. He flung her so hard that she hit the wall. Then he slammed the door, and she was alone. In the center of the room she saw a silver gray marble slab that was etched with white. In a few minutes, two more orderlies arrived; they grabbed her arms and held her down. Although her hands were bound, her feet were not, and she kicked, struggling as hypodermic needle slid into her arm. Almost immediately she lost consciousness and fell to the ground. Then there was nothingness…blackness….all semblance of reality was gone. Once she was unconscious, the orderlies strapped her to the table where she was left to wait for the doctor’s arrival.

  When Nadya awakened, she was nauseous and groggy. She looked around to find that she was no longer in the operating room. Now she lay strapped to a hospital bed, recovering. She was unable to control the pressing need to vomit, and so she turned her head and bile spewed all over her pillow. She lay in her own mess for hours before a nurse took pity and wiped it away.

  Broken hearted and afraid that Christian would never find her, Nadya was slowly losing the will to live. But her youthful body was strong, and within a few days, although she was depressed, she was well enough to walk again. Arriving to check her, Dr. Eberhart gave a secret sigh of relief. Something about her bothered him, and he was glad to give her the go-ahead to leave the hospital. Soon she would be out of his sight and ready to continue her journey on to the soldier house.

  “You are one of the lucky ones, my dear. If you behave, you will possibly survive the war. They are taking you to a soldier house in Berlin. It’s actually quite nice there, I hear. You will have plenty to eat, and they will allow you to keep that lovely black hair. And for all of this kindness, all that will be required of you is that you make the soldiers happy. Now, from what I can see, you have had plenty of experience with that. You probably didn’t even know it, but you were pregnant,” Dr. Eberhart said as he filled out the papers that would send this haunting girl away.

  The desire to spit in his face became so strong that Nadya had to look away, lest she act on her impulse and suffer another bloody beating.

  Nadya sighed with inner pain. She’d been right, she’d been pregnant and they’d taken her baby… Christian’s baby. They’d killed it. And the wedding ring she’d been hiding was gone. She’d endured the arrest of her parents, but this time the loss was overwhelming. How could men like this exist? How did they sleep at night? How did they hold their wives in their arms or play with their children? How…she wondered…how did such demons justify their actions?

  Two young Nazi guards arrived to transport her later that afternoon, and she was taken by auto once again, this time to Berlin.

  The building that was the soldier house had originally been an upscale hotel. It stood several stories high in the center of town. When its rightful owner, a Jew, had been arrested, the hotel had been confiscated and turned into a brothel for high-ranking German soldiers, the Waffen SS and SS officers who happened to be passing through. Inside it had been decorated for comfort, with plush sofas and chairs in the main room, and a lovely bar and restaurant with hardwood floors and private booths where the men could go to relax. Nadya had never seen anything like this place. The contrast to the concentration camp was astounding. Not only was the décor beautiful, but unlike the prisoners in the work and death camps, the women’s hair at the solider house was not shaved. They were fed well and allowed to exercise, and therefore they had kept their healthy shapes. The men who frequented the house did not want to see victims; they saw enough in the war or in the concentration camps. Here at the soldier house, the men came to be serviced by beautiful women. And it was important to many of the men that they were able to make believe that the ladies were willing participants and not tortured prisoners.

  On the second floor, Nadya was taken a room she was to share with another girl. The windows were always locked, and at night the guards came around and each of the doors to the individual rooms were locked, as well. When Nadya arrived in her room, she sat down on her bed and began to weep. A young girl who had just turned eighteen lay on the bed across from hers. She made a stunning appearance at five feet, ten inches tall, with long, shapely legs and hair the color of a candle flame.

  “Hello, I’m your roommate. My name is Yetta. You are?’

  “Nadya,” she whispered, overcome by all that she saw.

  “You are not a Jew?”

  “No, I’m a Sinti gypsy.”

  “I’m a Jew,” Yetta said, and then she sat up and looked directly at Nadya. “You look so sad. I understand that this situation is terrible, but at least we are alive, and as long as we are living, there is hope that we will get out of here.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Nadya answered.

  “Tell me…what happened? You’re a mess, all full of blood and dirt. It might help you to talk about it…if you want to talk, that is.”

  “They sterilized me; I was pregnant. I got bloody and dirty along the way.”

  “I am sorry. They do that to all of us. They don’t want us to reproduce any more of our kind.” Yetta got up; she went down the hall and brought back a wash cloth that she had wet with warm water, then she walked over and sat on Nadya’s bed. Yetta put the rag in Nadya’s hand, but when Nadya made no move to wash her face, Yetta took the cloth and began to gently rub the dirt and blood away from Nadya’s cheeks. After she’d finished, Yetta took Nadya’s tiny, cold hand into her own long, slender one.

  “Are you married?” Yetta asked.

  “Yes,” Nadya said, and she immediately thought of Christian when she said the words. Then she almost began to cry again. “Are you?”

  “I was; my husband was killed at Babi Yar along with the rest of my family.”

  “What’s Babi Yar?’ Nadya asked.

  “Oh, a very terrible thing happened there. Do you want to know?”

  “If you want to tell me…”

  Yetta took a deep breath, and then she began her story. “I am from Kiev, and when the German army took us over, at first we thought that things would be better for us. We were Jews, living under Stalin’s rule, and we hoped that the Germans might treat us more humanely. We were sadly mistaken. When the Nazis first arrived, they set up their headquarters on a street downtown called Kreshchatik Street, and one afternoon a bomb exploded in the headquarters, rocking the entire district. Both my husband and I worked downtown. He owned a clothing store for women’s apparel, and I was doing secretarial work for an accounting firm. The bombing really infuriated the Germans, and they roped off the area and started questioning everyone, and as they were interrogating their suspects another bomb went off down the street. My husband was among the men being questioned and when the explosion occurred; he and everyone else ran for safety. The bombing continued for a long time…. I can’t tell you exactly how many days…but by the time it was over, the Germans had decided for some unknown reason, that it was the Jews who were responsible, and they planned to take revenge. The Nazis put up a notice that said that all Jews living or working in Kiev, and in all of the surrounding areas, were to report no later than eight the following morning at the corner of Meinikovsky and Dokhturov Streets, located right near the town cemetery. We were all ordered to bring money, valuables, warm clothes and underwear, as well as all of our documents. If we did not follow the instructions, we would be shot on sight. Everyone was afraid not to do as they were told. We all assumed that we were just being deported, relocated. So everyone I knew: all of my friends; my family, including my parents, my two sisters , my husband of two months; as well as myself, reported to the indicated location on the following day. Believing that we were waiting in line to board a train, thousands of people showed up. It took hours to get through the line, and once we finally did we were told to leave all of our things behind. There was a growing pile of valuables on the side of the road, as everyone added their possessions. I wondered how I would find my things again, but there was no time to worry a
bout that. Someone in the crowd said they heard that our suitcases would arrive later in a special luggage car. We had no choice but to believe.

  The Nazis now stood all around us holding rifles. I was terrified. My husband and I were newlyweds and still shy with each other. As we stood there, I cuddled into his side, feeling the warmth of his body and gaining whatever strength I could. After that we were moved into another area, but only a few people at a time. There they checked our papers.

  As I stood waiting to be ushered in, holding my papers in my hand, I heard gun fire in the distance. Some people panicked at the sound and tried to get away, but they were beaten by the guards, using their rifle butts. And then a few were shot, I guess to make an example. When everyone saw the people fall dead, they stopped trying to get away. I guess we hoped that everything would somehow come out all right. There was so much confusion. Lots of the women had started to cry, and many were praying. I was holding on to my husband with one hand and my mother with the other. My papers were crinkled with the sweat of my hands. When it was my turn, I held out the documents. There were three officers sitting at the table. One of them laughed and said to the other, “Look at this one; if she were not a Jew I would have her right here on the grass.” My body cringed. I was so afraid, but I said nothing. I looked over and saw that my husband’s anger bristled. He looked at the Nazi who was in front of me and said, “You are a good for nothing pig. Put that gun down and fight like a man.” My hand flew to my mouth. I knew my husband was in trouble but there was nothing I could do but stand and watch. One of the guards took his rifle butt and hit my husband across the side of his cheek. Blood spurted everywhere. And some it landed on my face. I was terrified and sick at heart. But I guess, they did not shoot him because they did not want the rest of the line to panic. They wanted everyone to believe that if they cooperated, then they would survive. So once our papers were checked, we were forced down a human hallway which was made up of Nazi guards on both sides with clubs. They were hitting us in the back and shoulders to hurry us along. It was horrific. The strange thing was…I felt no pain. It was as if I was watching this happening to someone else. Maybe I was in shock, I don’t know. There was no place to run away…we were surrounded. The line behind us was long, and so we could not turn back. We were sandwiched in on all sides. My husband was hit in the back of his head, and as the blood ran down his face and neck, I looked over at him and I heard someone screaming. Strangely, at first I didn’t even realize that the voice I heard crying out was my own. One of the guards raised his club at me, threatening me to be quiet. I immediately grew silent, and then he put the club back down. The SS were laughing and yelling at us to hurry up…they spoke in German but I understood. When we got out of the human hallway, we found ourselves in a wide open area, surrounded by armed guards. We were forced to undress. I was so embarrassed, humiliated. My mother tried to cover herself with her hands; she was so modest. It was hard for her. I saw that she could not look at my husband or at any of the men. She kept her eyes cast down. The vision of my mother naked in the street and staring at the ground, her grey hair in a bun at the nape of her neck, still haunts me. The SS guards were hollering at anyone who tried to resist, and hitting them in the stomach and the groin. Blood was everywhere. It was so frightening.