by Lily Graham
Eva left with a signed birth certificate, with Naděje’s birth listed as 6 January 1945. Officially she was Naděje Sofie Adami, and her place of birth was Oświęcim. She looked at it and frowned. ‘It should say Auschwitz,’ she said, ‘but the clerk said that it wasn’t an official place. Neither is hell, but we all know what it is.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
They listened in fear all night long to the crack of gunfire and the heavy boom of the artillery. In the early hours of the morning, Stanislav entered their barracks. The soldier was dressed in his heavy overcoat, a grim set to his lips. ‘We think it will be safer to take you all behind Soviet lines. The Germans are edging back towards us. We believe they may try to blow this place up. We’re leaving today.’
Eva and Helga shared looks of fear. Neither of them wanted to die now – not when they were so close to finally getting out of here.
They gathered together their meagre possessions, and with the other survivors walked out in to the cold February dawn. Many would walk, while some were carried by Soviet trucks to the station. From Birkenau, they would find out later that more than a million Jews had died, and only six thousand survived. Naděje opened her eyes as the cold gathered ground as they marched on, with the long snaking line of survivors. Then she closed them again, burying her face against Eva’s chest, not seeing as the mist swirled, and Auschwitz was swallowed behind them in the fog.
Eva clutched Helga’s hand and the two drew strength from each other, with one last look over their shoulders. She couldn’t believe the day had finally come. They were leaving at last.
What should have been a simple trip of a matter of hours would actually take weeks. Much of the railway had been shelled in bombings, and Eva and Helga boarded the same cattle trains that had taken them to Auschwitz. Except that this time, they were given food and there were frequent stops. As they passed further into Poland, they saw whole villages that had been wiped out, people living in makeshift shelters. The war hadn’t been kind to them either.
They survived on the benevolence of the Russian soldiers, and had to be careful to stick together. Travelling further into Poland, when they finally reached the city of Katowice, Eva couldn’t help agonising that it was the opposite of where they wanted to be, going further east when her heart wanted to lead them home. They were given lodgings, and spent the night in their first proper rooms.
Helga turned to her and smiled, her hair fresh and clean in new clothes, and said, ‘I feel almost normal.’
On their first morning in the city, Eva had new worries, cradling Naděje to her chest. Her baby’s cheeks were red, and her face was screwed up tight. ‘I think she’s got a fever,’ said Helga, feeling her forehead.
They shared worried looks, and Eva stood up to get her coat. ‘We’ll have to go to the hospital.’
They walked past smart shops and streets to the hospital, but Eva didn’t take in any of the sights – with each breath she worried over her daughter’s fate.
In a mix of German and Czech she was able to explain to one of the nurses what was wrong, and shortly afterwards a Ukrainian paediatrician, named Anna Zagorsky, with a pretty face, and short black hair, called them into her office, watching them approach with concerned eyes.
Eva tried as best as she could to explain what in years to come would remain inexplicable. News had travelled, of course, about Auschwitz, but it would take years for people to fully appreciate what had occurred there. For most, the scale of the Nazis’ cruelty and vile ideology was so far removed from normal life that it was hard to imagine. Even here, now, with a country at war. But it was the nurses and doctors who tried their best to look after the survivors who were the ones faced with it first.
Anna Zogorsky looked at Naděje with pity in her eyes.
‘She is very small,’ she said, looking her over. ‘Weak, especially her bones, which is probably due to the malnutrition,’ she said, looking up at Eva’s tiny frame.
Eva nodded. ‘Will she be all right?’
The doctor listened to her chest, and examined her some more. ‘She’s fighting an infection, I think. I will need to run some tests to see what it is. I’m concerned about her lungs. She hasn’t cried yet?’
Eva shook her head. ‘Small noises, but no real crying.’
Anna nodded. ‘I think it would be best if the three of you—’ her eye darted from Eva to Helga who was standing silently, like an old crow, by the door, watching over her chicks, ‘stayed here for a while. I’m going to need to keep her under observation.’ Then her eyes met Eva’s and answered her question, making Eva’s heart clench. ‘We can only hope. She’s got this far, I think she might – she seems tough, like her mother,’ she said, laying her hand on hers for a moment. Eva couldn’t help thinking that if she was tough, it was only because of Sofie, because of what her friend had done for her. She closed her eyes in pain, grief. Missing her was a constant ache.
Eva, Helga and Naděje stayed in hospital for over two months. As soon as they had stopped moving, stopped travelling, it was as if their starved, malnourished bodies broke down, and they spent the next few weeks in bed, struck down with pneumonia. It was agony for Eva to be separated from her child – worse still as, a result of her illness, her milk dried up. The nurses, thankfully, had powdered formula that they had received from America via the Red Cross. Eva was lucky to have found her way here. Baby formula wasn’t easy to come by in such times.
Anna, however, was reassuring, as she sat on the edge of her bed and gave her an update on her daughter’s condition. ‘She is a fighter if ever I saw one. She’s responded well to the antibiotics, and as soon as you’re better we can bring her to stay with you. Eva, I must tell you though that it will be tough for her – I’m not sure if she will be able to walk – not for many years at least, her bones are very weak.’
Eva looked at the kind doctor, and said, ‘But she will have those years now, thank you.’
It would be a long road to recovery, as Eva and Helga’s thin bodies battled with pneumonia, using up what little reserves they had left. All that was left to do was sleep, which was a luxury that they embraced. Despite her age, Helga seemed to recover faster. ‘You drove yourself hard, trying to stay alive for all of us – breaking into storerooms, hacking away at the ice, I think it took its toll harder,’ was Helga’s reasoning.
Whatever the case, Eva was grateful that Helga pulled through. She didn’t know if she could face being alone, face losing another loved one.
Her dreams were a relief, and a torment. Her brain kept putting her back in Auschwitz, no matter how much further they were from ever having to set foot there again. Some nights she dreamt that she found Michal again in that storeroom where they’d made love – his face would be covered in bruises, but she could still see his green eyes, that soft dimple, still feel the warmth of his arms as she fitted herself against his chest. She would wake with tears in her eyes, wishing for just one more day, one more moment with him.
At other times, she writhed in terror, smelling Hinterschloss’s foul, whisky-soaked breath, before she saw him. Those grey eyes, the whites turned yellow, narrowing as he pointed a pistol at her and fired in the dark tunnel, somehow it was always him who shot her friend. In the day she would wake, leaving the darkness behind, and her terror, in the delight of her baby’s soft cheeks, and warm body next to hers. She couldn’t help, when she dreamt of Michal or Sofie, how happy she was to see them again, even if it meant crossing back into hell to do so.
As her body began to recover, and Naděje grew stronger from the combined force of Eva’s will, formula milk, and the paediatrician’s care, Eva dreamt that her friend was shaking her awake. She turned, and saw her sitting on the edge of her hospital bed, her long, dark blonde hair fresh and clean, and falling over her shoulder, her dark eyes warm, a surprised smile on her lips, as she whispered her secret into Eva’s ear. ‘Kritzelei, the Germans have surrendered.’
When she woke up with a start, her eye fell on the small
cot they had placed near her bed as Anna had promised. Eva stared down at her daughter, who screwed up a fist, and from her lips came the smallest thinnest cry. Eva blinked back the tears. It was the first cry she’d made since she was born.
In the hospital halls, the news swelled, thrumming along the walls, and Eva and Helga turned to one another as someone shouted, ‘It’s over, it’s finally over – they have surrendered!’
Chapter Thirty-Six
There was a whisper of summer when they finally made their way into Prague, after weeks of travelling. The Soviets had helped them, given them clothes and food, and arranged their transport.
It was all Eva could think about: home. Her mind had filled with thoughts of her beloved city. Her family, her small apartment. Were any of them still alive?
Against Anna’s and the hospital’s wishes, Eva and Helga had decided to leave. Naděje was stronger now – stronger than she’d ever been, as was Helga. ‘I still think you should stay, rest – you’re a bit better, Eva, but you’re at a big risk of relapse if you go now. Your body has been through a lot – give it time.’
Eva had touched Anna’s hand. ‘I can’t thank you enough for your care, truly, but I need to go home, I need to find out what happened to the rest of my family. Find my friend’s son. Then I can rest.’
The doctor gave her a hug. ‘Just promise me you’ll take care of yourself.’
‘I will, thank you again.’
She would never forget that first sight of her city, as they disembarked from the train. The sun was warm on their shoulders, and for the first time in years they were on their own. It was both wondrous and overwhelming, after having their every moment controlled by others for so long – the sheer freedom that stretched before them was terrifying. Eva was so thankful that Helga was with her as they saw their first glimpse of Prague, and Eva felt her own home ground beneath her feet. After wishing and praying she would see it again, it felt foreign. The city was relatively unscathed compared to many of the towns and villages they had passed, many of which had been reduced to rubble, but it had been bombed, the worst of which had occurred in February of that year, when 152 tons of bombs were dropped on populated areas, killing over a thousand people. Compared to other cities though, the damage wasn’t as severe, despite the fact that many lost their homes. As Eva and Helga disembarked, she couldn’t help noting the change, and everywhere she looked it was as if they were surrounded by ghosts.
They were greeted warmly by many of the residents, many of whom offered them food – though some had their own worries: they had suffered greatly too under the Germans, having been forcibly expelled after a mass uprising weeks before liberation. While some offered them what little they had, others turned them away, they had had their fill of suffering.
Eva didn’t take much notice of the reaction of the city’s population, she was in a rush to go to her parents’ apartment to see if anyone was there. In the square, officials had set up vast noticeboards for the survivors, so they could look for their loved ones. Eva and Helga scanned these, their eyes filling as they didn’t recognise anyone they knew.
‘They might just be at the apartment, waiting for me,’ said Eva, still hopeful after all this time.
Helga didn’t say that it was unlikely. She didn’t need to. The faces of the people they passed said enough.
When Eva got to her parents’ apartment, her knees dropped out from under her, and Helga had to catch her before she fell to the ground. The building was gone, reduced to a pile of rubble. As she sobbed, Helga holding on to Naděje, Eva combed through the detritus, looking for anything that she could salvage. In the wreckage, she came across shoes, and scattered documents, an old leather file caught her eye, buried under grey dust. She wiped it with her palms, and opened it. Her heart caught in her throat. It was sheet music, Michal’s.
Helga had to help her stand, then they staggered on through the night, asking blindly, not sure of where to go, where to turn. She passed by her old apartment, which had been her first home with Michal, before they were asked to leave, and saw a young couple with a child walking up the steps. Her eye was drawn to the window, where she’d once laid a peach for Michal as an offering for the beautiful music that had captured her heart on the streets below.
Through the lighted window, Eva’s heart clenched to see that the same green and blue rug adorned the floor which had been worn bare from Michal’s old shoes while he played.
Did the couple who lived there now hear the whisper of the music in the walls, the echo from their old lives? Did they think of the people who once made that apartment their home, as they held their child?
She turned away from the happy couple, with their small son, seeing three pairs of feet as they crossed by the window, trying to drive away the thought that they hadn’t just taken their home, but their future too.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Eva had dreamt so long of returning home, but without her family and their apartment, it didn’t feel like home anymore. The city was full of broken people trying to return to something they couldn’t.
She walked the old city with Naděje in her arms, drawing strength from her. She had her daughter, she reminded herself, and that was reason enough to keep going, to keep moving. As dawn broke, Eva turned to her friend. ‘There’s one other place we can try. My family’s summer home. I’m not sure if they would have gone there – at this point I’m not sure of anything really.’
Helga nodded, her dark eyes full. ‘It’s worth trying. What else are we going to do? It’s not like we can stay here.’
Eva looked up, past the river she’d longed to see for so long, the castle winking in the apricot light, and admitted the truth. ‘No, there’s nothing here for us now.’
They had one thing to do before they left.
They made their way back to the square, to the noticeboards, and Eva and Helga put down their names, with the note of where they would be. It was weeks since liberation, it had taken Eva and Helga a long time to make their way here, by now surely the others would be here – if they had survived.
She put her name down anyway. ‘Oh, Kritzelei,’ said Helga, but it wasn’t an admonishment, not really.
With what little money they had been given from the authorities when they arrived, she boarded a train, and headed for Jívka in the Hradec Králové region. On the journey Eva grew ill, and couldn’t stop coughing. Helga felt her forehead, her eyes worried, and took Naděje from her, giving the baby her bottle, which they’d prepared in the early hours of the morning in the station.
‘I’m worried about you, you heard what the doctor said,’ whispered Helga.
Eva shook her head, which was foggy, her brain clouded. She felt weak and tired. ‘I’ll be all right, we just need to keep going. I’ll rest when we’re there.’
‘It’s the stress – it must have been,’ said Helga, referring to the bombed-out apartment, the empty city’s streets.
Eva didn’t deny it. Just repeated the words like a mantra. ‘I’ll be all right.’
They made it to the summer house, and Eva caught sight of the red-roofed building along the mountainside. She got as far as the drive and had to sit.
‘I’ll just rest here a little while,’ she told Helga, her eyes starting to close.
‘Come on,’ said Helga, ‘it’s not that far,’ she lied.
Eva’s eyelashes fluttered, and a deep cough wracked through her body. Naděje’s eyes screwed up and she started to make a thin gurgling sound, it was her form of crying.
Eva looked up, in the distance she could see someone running towards them but before she could lift her head to see, she’d passed out.
When she woke up, she saw her old housekeeper’s face. ‘Oh, dítě,’ she cried, seeing her awake. ‘I can’t believe you’re alive.’
Eva started to cry. Kaja was the closest thing to family she’d seen in years. The older woman gathered her to her chest.
Eva’s eyes scanned the room. ‘The baby is with your f
riend, Helga,’ said Kaja, touching her arm gently. Eva nodded, her eyes searching.
‘It’s just us, no one else has returned.’
Eva’s lips trembled, and she nodded. A hand coming up to cover her mouth.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kaja, not knowing what else to say.
As the days passed, Helga and Kaja became friends, and Eva slowly recovered from her relapse. The old housekeeper told her own story of having to hide away from the Germans, after her home was taken away. ‘As you know, I normally only come here for the summers, but there was nowhere else to go.’
Eva reached out a hand, ‘I’m so glad you did. This is your home too.’
The doctors in Katowice had warned them not to eat too much rich food, to keep their diets plain, and it was hard to convince Kaja and themselves not to cook everything they had missed – hot roasted potatoes, rich summer stews and soups, but she kept the fare simple as directed. Even so, despite meagre rations from a country still recovering from war, they slowly began to heal, and Eva started to make plans for getting to Austria to find Tomas, within weeks of their return to Jívka.
Kaja and Helga were against it. ‘You’re still weak,’ said Kaja, ‘it can wait a while, stay, swim in the lake, recover, feel the sun on your shoulders. God knows you’ve earned it, after all you’ve been through.’
Eva shook her head. ‘It’s been months already since we left Auschwitz – far too long. I need to find him, who knows where they might send him now that there’s no word of her return? I made a promise to my friend.’
‘She would understand if you took some time to recuperate, gather your strength.’
Eva shook her head, denying it. ‘She wouldn’t – she risked her life for my child. What kind of a friend am I if I won’t do the same?’
