by Malka Adler
One day I saw a long, lovely woman on the snow. I stopped beside her to rest. She had two five-centimeter ponytails with two clips and a ribbon-like belt for her dress. Most painful of all was seeing a lovely woman die in the middle of the road, it touched my heart and sometimes I could have wept. I knew that if I died in the snow and a woman stopped beside me all she’d see would be a few spots and red blemishes on disgusting skin. SSman screamed behind me, walk, walk, and I fell into the snow. I tried to jump up, but couldn’t. My legs were tangled in the blanket I wore, it was wet and heavy. I saw the barrel of a rifle aimed at me from a distance of six meters and my ribs shut down like a door. I threw the blanket off me, stuck my heels into the snow, leaned on my palms, raised my backside and jumped to my feet. I walked upright as if my dress and I got along fine in the snow. After a few steps, I turned around, grabbed the blanket from the snow and covered my head with it. That night I couldn’t sleep for the cold. I was certain I was getting pneumonia and would slowly begin to die like some poor souls the previous week.
One day the storm was particularly wild and the soldiers couldn’t bring us soup in the wind. Almost a whole day went by without food, and then we were told that the Essen municipality had invited us for supper. Trucks with tarpaulins arrived at the camp and by the whispers of the girls near me I realized they were also thinking of the crematorium. Nonetheless, we got onto the truck. The soldiers took us to a large hall and we were given good food, bread, meat, potatoes, vegetable soup, cakes. We were overjoyed. We returned to the camp with good color in our faces and a great swelling between the décolletage and the belt, and all because of the food we pushed inside our dresses. We received life for the time being.
They hadn’t taken us to the shower for a long time.
In some of the barracks were ovens. We’d strip and put our clothing into a large pot on the stove to get rid of the lice. The lice would die with a pak sound. Pak. Pak-pak-pak, from the beginning of the boil. What I liked best was wearing clothes directly from the pot, it helped me to sleep even if my body was dirty.
I didn’t dream at night. I craved a little quiet, I could no longer bear the constant buzz in the barracks: whispers, crying out to God, father, mother, Rosie, Ester’keh. I couldn’t bear hearing the whistling and wheezing of the poor souls before death. I’d already realized that death had an early sound. People usually didn’t weep before they died. First they’d whistle through the nose, then through the mouth, finally dying with a dry throat. I wanted to flee far far away from the barking of soldiers and dogs accustomed to eating human beings. I longed for the quiet of my room at home, when everyone was outside, mainly the little ones, Dov and Yitzhak. They always made a noise, those two, and I loved reading books without other sounds.
One day they took us on foot to a place we didn’t know.
They didn’t tell us in advance. They told us to stand in line like any other day. We thought, we’re going out to work. Trembling, we stood wrapped in our wet blankets. My nose dripped like a tap, my fingers and toes were paralyzed. I looked at my shoes, there were holes in the leather, and there were also holes in the scuffed soles. I always slept in my shoes, mainly since Gelsenkirchen, when I saw a woman eating her shoe.
At roll call, I saw the SSmen turning in another direction from the one we usually took. And then they shouted, walk, walk, indicating the opposite direction. We didn’t know where they were taking us and I understood that the time had come to part from the world. I looked up, there was ordinary snow. We progressed slowly in a line and there were gaps. I felt my mind leaving me as well as the desire to fight for my life. My feet walked by themselves, following the feet in front of me. I knew that if the woman in front of me fell, I’d fall after her. If she stayed on the snow, I’d also stay on the snow, that’s it. And then I saw a lace on the snow. I don’t know why but I felt a little joy in my heart. I bent down cautiously and picked up the lace. Behind me I heard a woman cry, it was the whistling cry through the mouth before dying. I said to myself, stay away from that woman, or you will fall onto the snow from her whistling without pulling yourself together. I managed to persuade myself to stay on my feet a little longer, and then I tightened the blanket round my shoulders, tied the lace round my head, the knot in the middle on top. I arranged my only clip in my hair, rubbed my lips hard with my finger, pinched my cheeks, and then I whispered, there you are, Sarah. Now you can lie on the snow forever.
I didn’t fall. We continued to walk and walk, we reached places without snow. At night we slept at the first place when night fell. Sometimes there was a roof in some building, or barn, sometimes we slept without a roof, sometimes under a tree or bush. Women around me were dying like the rain. They put down their heads and tak. And tak. Tak-tak. The Germans killed some with a rifle, don’t know why. Afterwards they loaded us onto a train. We traveled for several days without food. There were times the train stopped in the middle of a field, as long as they grew their local vegetable there. This vegetable was larger than a sweet potato, not sweet. Not everyone could get down into the field. The German soldiers helped us, they got down from the train and brought us the vegetables, because they knew us from the camp, they particularly wanted to know the educated girls, the kind and polite girls among us. When we left the camp they stopped shouting and hitting and looked for an opportunity to talk to us. I saw they were glad to bring us the vegetables, bringing and bringing, until we were full. I looked at the Germans, and didn’t feel anything, I was tired.
We reached Bergen-Belsen and the first thing I saw were tents.
In the tents there were only human bodies, layers and layers of bodies stinking of rotten flesh and disease. I looked for Jewish prisoners and saw none. I remember thinking that there were no Jews left in the world, and if there were, then only a few poor Jewish women. From where I was standing I could see a small group of Jewish women beside a tent. They wore dirty dresses, two had blankets on their backs. Each one of the women faced a different direction, they weren’t speaking, they had died on their feet. Near the path I saw another group, some stood barefoot in their dresses, their feet black and dirty, and some sat bent over like stones near the path. I approached two women who were standing near the barracks. One was missing a shoe, the second held a small empty bag. I asked what’s happening in the camp, is there food? The woman with the bag saw me and didn’t answer. The woman without a shoe scratched a little at her belly, didn’t see me standing beside her.
At Bergen-Belsen I saw that the German soldiers were closed up in the guard towers. They didn’t move around the camp. Sometimes they fired a few rounds into the camp and fell silent again. Maybe they were afraid of germs and disease, maybe of cannons. We heard the sound of cannons in the distance, prisoners said, those are the Russians and they’re getting closer to Bergen-Belsen.
Hungarian soldiers did wander around among us, mainly guarding the central kitchen that was no longer in use. Near the kitchen was a huge pile of rotten food. Prisoners tried to steal potatoes or cattle beets from the rotten pile, but the Hungarian guards were waiting patiently there with guns aimed, may they rot in hell. The prisoners in our group looked a little healthier and then a Hungarian soldier with a hateful expression approached us and said, women are needed to dig graves for the dead, whoever digs will get bread, d’you want to? We dug graves and dragged the dead there from the tents. I tied a rag around my face, and I still suffocated, the smell was like a sharp poison that burned the nose, throat and chest. Sometimes I’d take hold of a body and pull, pull, and suddenly find myself with just an arm or a leg. Sometimes I put the leg on the belly and continued to pull the head or neck. I didn’t think of anything, I wanted to get bread.
At Camp Bergen-Belsen I met Aunt Yuli Levkowitz.
She was mother’s sister. Mother had three sisters. Yuli Levkowitz, Sari Levkowitz and Margaret Levkowitz. Margaret was deaf and dumb. Aunt Yuli was thin, bent, with a hole-sized sore on her leg.
At first I didn’t recognize her. She wa
s standing next to my barracks. I approached her. Her face was pale and a bone stuck out like a ball under her neck. I stammered, Aunt Yuli? She looked at me, her face remained frozen. I came closer, Aunt Yuli, is it you? I’m Sarah, Sarah, Leah and Israel’s daughter.
Aunt Yuli opened big eyes, hid her mouth with fingers as thin as matches, and said, Sarah? We hugged, wept and wept. Aunt Yuli hugged me and pulled me into her barracks. It was dark with the heavy smell of excrement. The floor of the barracks was full of excrement. Women with huge eyes lay on bunks, held out a thin hand from the cubicle, saying water, water. Aunt Yuli quickly took a small parcel from under her blanket and showed it to me. She said, its tobacco, let’s go. We went in the direction of the fence. On the other side of the fence stood dirty prisoners. I thought, ah, so there are more Jewish men in the world. Aunt Yuli shouted something, and threw the parcel over the fence. Several minutes went by and someone threw her bread. Aunt Yuli gave me the bread and said, you must finish the bread now. I finished it at once. She asked me about the family, I didn’t know what to say. Aunt Yuli and I didn’t live in the same barracks. We’d meet during breaks when I wasn’t dragging the dead to the pit. One day I came to her and she’d disappeared, don’t know where. My brother Yitzhak met her and her sisters after the war in the village of Humenne. I didn’t meet anyone. Didn’t return to Hungary.
Bergen-Belsen was a place of germs and disease.
Most of the women with me in Bergen-Belsen were ill with stomach typhus, dysentery, fever.
Those who could stand on their feet and walk would leave the barracks to look for bread and marked their way with drips of diarrhea. It was impossible to stop the diarrhea in the camp. Sometimes, to clean up, some would rip off a piece of the dress they wore. There was no running water in the camp, just a few puddles of dirty water near each barracks.
Day and night you could hear howls like wretched animals and a lot of wheezing prior to death. There was a woman who raised her hand, pointed at the sky and murmured words I didn’t understand as if she was having an important talk with God. There was a woman with a ribbon on her bald head who held a dirty plank wrapped in a blanket. She coughed, spat blood, and sang a lullaby to her blanket. I saw her lifting her dress and looking for a breast. She had no breasts, just two empty sacks. She began to howl, the coughing increased, she still held the plank to her chest, patting it with her weak hand as holding a baby who needed to burp. There were two women who lay in each other’s arms in the cubicle like mother and daughter. One was long, the other small. They looked like two old women of sixty. The as-if-mother barely moved. The as-if-daughter scratched herself on the back, neck, legs, scratched the mother’s back too.
When a woman died, the lice on her body would leave the cold body and look for a warm one. That’s why I tried to stay away from fresh bodies. I had enough with my own lice. Sometimes I talked to my lice. I said, if I die in the crematorium or by gas, you’re finished too.
Fresh bodies were dragged from the cubicles to the corridor at the end of the bloc. From there to a large pile, then to a big pit dug by the healthy ones behind the bloc.
One day we heard shots and cries of joy I’d never heard before.
I lay on the bunk without strength and the shots and new cries approached the barracks. I soon grabbed a bone in one leg and then a bone in the other leg, got down on the floor and from there dragged myself outside. Apart from myself, a few other women went outside. The two who held each other like mother and daughter went out before me. The as-if-daughter had her arm around the waist of the as-if-mother who was very tall and she supported her head on her shoulder. Beside me was the woman with a ribbon round her bald head, she left without the plank she called Yoszi, just with a blanket tightly around her chest. She coughed and held out her arm in the direction of the shooting. After her came several other women. Some stood open-mouthed, another just wept, one sat on the ground and covered her head with a blanket. It happened in the afternoon, as light was fading. I leaned against the wall of the barracks, the shots stopped but not the cries of the prisoners who ran together, some limping, some jumping, everyone hurrying to the gate, and then I saw that all the Hungarian guards had vanished and the guard towers stood empty. I wandered about the place like an airless ball and didn’t understand anything. I stood on a box, raised my head and heard shouts of joy from outside the camp. I approached and saw prisoners throwing their arms in the air, come on, they shouted, the British have arrived, the war is over. I ran with everyone without knowing where, and I felt my heart fly out.
I found myself in the German part of the camp, near huge storerooms of food. I didn’t know there were food storerooms in the camp. The gates to the storerooms were open. Prisoners grabbed heavy sacks of flour, sugar, rice, and dragged them along the ground, Sometimes a sack tore, and everyone leaped on what spilled out and filled their pockets. I saw canned food, jams, bread, oil pouring like water, prisoners rushed about like madmen, grabbing more and more cans, some left the storeroom unsteadily with a bottle of alcohol. I found bread, there were piles of bread loaves. I sat on the side and ate bread. I looked up at the guard towers and again saw they stood empty. I saw no Germans. Saw no Hungarian soldiers. Only British soldiers, tall, clean, with a beret on the head and a three-quarter coat. They looked at us in astonishment, as if they’d never seen standing or walking dead.
One woman shouted, clothing store, and immediately a few more dead straightened up with cans and bread and cartons in their hands and began to run in the direction of the storeroom. I approached and saw prisoners putting on one sweater then another, a coat and another on top of that, they put on an entire wardrobe. There were some who stripped completely and put on clothing they took from a large pile. Everyone put on a whole wardrobe, holding another in their arms. Some grabbed something, quickly dropping it. I took a clean dress and a thick sweater and returned to the barracks. On the way I saw a woman without a scarf, in prisoners’ trousers and a long Pepita coat, opening a private kitchen not far from the pile of the dead ready to go into the pit. This woman collected a few planks and paper, lit a fire, opened the canned food and poured it into a large tin container that she put on the fire. She had at least six portions in the container.
And then I saw another long line. The British had brought us clean water in special tanks. I didn’t have the strength, but my throat was burning with thirst so, with difficulty and in pain, I stood in line. In the meantime I saw prisoners who, without being ordered to, began to drag bodies in a large fabric hung on sticks instead of a stretcher. They dragged the bodies into a big pile, then they laid them in a common grave, without names.
In the meantime, the area between the barracks was filled with rags and boxes, and spilled wasted food. The camp filled with colorful garbage and weak prisoners who walked about dazed, wanting to understand what had happened in the camp. There were some women who dragged buckets of water to the barracks and began to give water to those in the bunks who were unable to get up on their feet. A group of at least ten women dragged a large pot of soup, some went to the barracks with six-seven loaves of bread and returned with more and encouraged those who lay exhausted. Anyone who could walk dragged something into the barracks, the storerooms of food moved into the barracks and those about to die were given another chance.
I couldn’t sleep that night because of the block in my chest. Although I understood that the war was over I knew I wouldn’t live, that I’d die with joy, a thick sweater and a few blemishes on my face. All around was the sound of cans opening, the rustle of paper, the taps of forks on a plate, and women chattering. Beside me was someone who called out Gretti, Gretti, Gretti, and wept, and again Gretti, Gretti, Gretti. Finally I fell asleep.
The following evening, the British brought us canned meat. By the color I saw it was fatty meat. Women who could get down from their bunks shoved large chunks of meat into their mouths and swallowed without chewing, taking more meat and more bread and more meat and more cakes, they didn’t
talk, just swallowed and swallowed. The chin was oily and shiny, eyes moistened, some got a strange purple rash on their cheeks. The barracks filled with inhalations and exhalations and swallowing sounds like a huge vacuum cleaner. Afterwards they brought us thick cocoa mixed with sweet condensed milk like jam. The women drank one cup of cocoa and asked for another. I ate a little. I just put something into my mouth and immediately wanted to vomit because of the smell of the dead. There were a few other women who refused to eat. The woman who pointed at the sky didn’t leave God. They gave her food, she grabbed the food, hid it under the blanket and continued to talk nonsense with a white tongue.
After the food I felt faint and dizzy. I thought, I have bread, I have water and I’m getting weak. I was sure I’d caught an illness and I would die in Bergen-Belsen. I wanted to sleep for at least a week. I couldn’t sleep because the women next to me began to cry and shout, oy, my belly, my belly. Some got down from the bunk and pressed on their backside, they wanted to relieve themselves outside the barracks but didn’t have time. A stink we didn’t recognize settled in the barracks like a heavy moist cloud. I blocked my nose with two fingers and the dizziness in my head increased.
The next day, towards noon, I woke from the smell of goulash. Was I dreaming of my home? I got down from the bunk and saw real goulash with a real smell. Women were sitting with a plate full of goulash hurriedly swallowing potatoes and meat that the British had brought. I saw several women with stained trousers asking for another helping. I tasted a little goulash and went outside. People continued to wander about the camp like a dirty market, each one holding something in their hand, a parcel of clothing, or a loaf of bread, or a plate of food, everyone looked busy. There were people standing in groups, some smoking cigarettes, some holding a bottle. There were people who sat alone with no teeth in their mouths, staring ahead and I understood that they’d left a long time ago.
