Now he understood.
“I like the sound of that,” he said, nodding. “I’m sure they’re in their own heaven.”
He blinked to rid his eyes of the wetness.
They didn’t speak for the rest of the journey.
Nobody spoke.
Asher looked around at the faces, empty of flesh but full of fear. To one side, a man lay completely motionless on the floor, his head in the lap of a woman who had passed the first part of the journey gently stroking his brow. Then, with just as much care, she closed his eyes for him.
Most of the others were curled up like babies, their eyes half closed, their bodies hardly moving. Occasionally somebody would adjust their position and urinate where they sat.
But nobody spoke.
Asher knew it was hard to have hope. He ignored the smell of disease and the groans of despair, instead choosing to close his eyes and dream of his own heaven, somewhere much like Dyovsta, with clean air and seas of golden wheat shimmering in the bright sunlight. He felt warmer than he had for some time, and was soon rocked to sleep by the rhythmic rattling of wheels on track.
Asher woke up only when the train jolted to a halt. He rubbed his sleepy face, and turned to see Rina doing the same.
Their fellow passengers started mumbling and pointing to the cracks around the doors, where daylight streamed in and highlighted planes of dust gently dancing up and away, as if trying to escape. There were loud noises from outside: strident shouts, boots marching, dogs barking.
There was also a very distinctive smell.
Asher sniffed a little more.
The carriage doors opened with a squeal, and a wave of that same smell engulfed the carriage. Asher’s next breath made him feel sick.
Rina looked at him and screwed her face up. Nobody could have ignored the stench.
But horrible smells they could deal with; the armed guards shouting at them were the more immediate issue.
The disheveled bodies around Asher started dragging themselves to their feet and stepping out of the carriages. A few stayed on the floor and looked like they would never move under their own steam again. The guns and snarling dogs were hardly necessary; ramps to help the weak and injured onto the platform might have made more sense.
But what did make sense here?
Asher and Rina stood together on the platform, holding on to each other like comfort blankets, scanning their surroundings.
There were no streets or shops or housing blocks to speak of, only a few buildings half hidden by trees and bushes. And the whole area was surrounded by barbed-wire fencing, although it looked like an attempt had been made to disguise it with foliage. Were they trying to hide something here? To make something look pretty when it was anything but?
Asher looked behind him and read a large sign. It said “Treblinka.” He thought for a few moments, but no, he’d never heard of the place before. Was it some place constructed especially for Jews? A new village in the country? There must have been something here for the place to have its own railroad station.
Rina looked around in all directions, then nudged him. “Do you think this is where Mama, Papa, and Keren came to?” she asked hesitantly.
Asher didn’t dare tell her what he thought. The rest of their family plus hundreds of thousands more Jews brought here from Warsaw? If so, then where had they all been accommodated? There were nowhere near enough buildings. But surely the authorities wouldn’t go to the trouble of taking that amount of people many miles across the country only to shoot them?
“Perhaps this is only a junction point,” Rina said. “Perhaps there will be another train to take us away to . . .”
Her voice trailed off to a faint whimper. It was clear to Asher that even she didn’t believe what she was saying.
She forced down a gulp, her face contorting. “Oh, Asher,” she said, now stuttering the words out. “I’m scared. What’s . . . what’s happening?”
Asher looked around again. Ahead of them was what looked like a ticket office. On the walls were large pieces of paper full of writing—like timetables. And above them were clocks, as if arrivals and departures were to be expected.
“It’s . . . a railroad station,” he said to Rina. “A proper one. At least . . . as far as I can tell. Perhaps you’re right; perhaps we’re just changing trains here.”
Shouts and shoves from guards forced the crowd along the platform.
“Stay with me,” Rina said, now crying freely. “Stay with me, Asher, please. I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry.” He put an arm around her and held her close. “They’ll never separate us. You know I’ll die before I let that happen.”
As they were carried along by the flow of bodies, Asher glanced across at the buildings. Some were wooden cabins, and some looked familiar. But how? He’d definitely never been here before. Also the voices. The voices were . . . Yes, he was hearing voices in fluent Ukrainian. It was surreal. Was he dreaming this?
He looked around. The voices he recognized were coming from some of the guards. Yes, some of the guards were talking in Ukrainian. He shoved his way through the crowds to them, pulling Rina along with him.
“Are you Ukrainian?” he said.
They didn’t reply, just eyed him suspiciously, but they clearly understood.
“We’re Ukrainian too,” he said. “Both from Dyovsta.”
“Get back in line!” one of them shouted.
No, this definitely wasn’t a dream.
The crowd was forced into single file, around a corner and down a ramp, ending up at a desk underneath a canopy. Asher held Rina’s hand until they reached the desk.
“Names and occupations?” the man said in Polish.
“Why do you need to know that?” Asher asked.
“Because this is a labor camp and we need to find the most suitable work duties for you.”
Asher and Rina told the man their names, and said they would be prepared to do anything. He scribbled this down in a book.
Then he looked up. “All your valuables on the table.”
“I’d . . . rather not,” Rina said.
“It’s not an option,” the man said. “All money, jewelry, valuables of any sort. Put them all here. You’ll have a shower to get rid of the lice, and then you’ll get them back.”
“Are you Ukrainian?” Asher asked.
The man snorted a laugh. “Yes. Would you prefer me to ask you in Ukrainian?”
“But we’re both Ukrainian too,” Asher said. “We’re compatriots. Can’t you let us keep them?”
“It’s only for safekeeping. Please, don’t be awkward or it could get unpleasant for you. Now, empty your pockets.” He laughed again. “Would a fellow Ukrainian lie to you?”
Asher could see the reluctance on Rina’s face, but she removed the two rings from her fingers, took a bracelet from her pocket, and placed them on the table. Asher pulled a few mangled zloty bills from his pocket and put them next to the jewelry.
“Are you absolutely sure that’s it?” the man said. “No gold, spectacles, dentures, or false limbs?”
They shook their heads.
“Very well, women go this way toward—”
A German official interrupted, talking to the Ukrainian guard. At close quarters, Asher could make out the death’s head insignia on his cap. This was an SS man.
The Ukrainian guard nodded to the German, then pointed at Asher. “You go that way,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction, to a much smaller line of four or five men, all in relatively good health by the look of them.
Asher could feel Rina gripping onto his arm.
“My sister,” Asher said to the guard. “We stay together.”
“No, you don’t,” he replied loudly. “You go this way, she goes that way. You can meet up together after the delousing shower.”
“But—”
Then Asher hit the ground. He felt something trickling down in front of his ear. He wiped it and saw blood.
“Do as
you’re told!” the guard shouted, pulling his arm. “Get over there!”
Asher scrabbled to his feet and obeyed, glancing back to see Rina in the crowd, staring at him, her face creased up in distress. Seconds later, she was merely another figure in a tide of women and girls slowly drifting away. This was his big sister, the woman who had assured him as a little boy that she wouldn’t allow him to be lonely, who had kept the family fed by risking her life, who had bravely fought in the resistance. Now she looked like a little girl who knew she was drowning.
Asher told himself he would see Rina soon, perhaps later that day or the next. If this was a labor camp, they were bound to see each other again.
In all the panic and drama, he’d become accustomed to the strange smell that enveloped the place, and for the moment it hardly mattered. The buildings, however, were still bothering him; they still seemed familiar.
A few minutes later, a guard started barking orders out in Polish and beckoning the men toward him. As Asher followed he got a good look at the others. They were all young men, stronger and fitter than the average Jew from Warsaw.
They were shown through a security gate into an enclosure surrounded with barbed wire, and from there into a long cabin. A large burner stood in the middle, with a row of bunk beds along each side. The men were told to occupy the beds along the left-hand side, and that someone would return later with food and water. The guard left and locked the door.
Asher asked the other men what was happening, what this place was. He was answered with shrugs and a “How would I know?”
The men all chose bunks, and Asher settled back on his, trying to rest, trying to put his apprehension to the back of his mind. He had to be positive. This was a prison of sorts, but at least he would see Rina again. She was probably in a similar cabin, and whatever was going on at this place, there would be time to see her one day soon.
It was many hours before the cabin door opened again, and it wasn’t for food to be provided, but for more men to enter the barracks. Asher sat up and watched them trudge in and collapse onto the beds on the opposite side. There were about twenty of them—all young, but very different to those on Asher’s side of the cabin. These men were sinewy and sunken-chested—rake thin, even—and filthy. Their eyes not only seemed to have retreated into their sockets, but were also devoid of any emotion. There was no talk between them, and no obvious acknowledgment of Asher and the new arrivals.
The man on the bunk below Asher stood up and faced them. “So, what goes on at this place?” he said. “Is it some sort of labor camp?”
“You could call it that,” one of them replied.
“But what have you been doing?” the man persisted.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” another one replied. “But you should rest while you have the chance.”
Asher sat back for a moment. He thought of Rina, and how her headstrong, confident manner had been chipped away to a bare fear of everything. He decided he had to ask for her sake, if not for his own.
He jumped off his bed and strode over to the others.
“No,” he said. “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve been doing?”
Nobody replied. A few glances were exchanged, one or two shook their heads, the others simply curled up on their beds. Now Asher was close to them he could see how their bones jutted out of fleshless skin, how the outline of their teeth showed through their cheeks.
He pointed to one. “You,” he said. “Why do you look so ill?”
Again, there were a few knowing looks.
“Just rest,” the man said. “Rest and eat as much as you can.”
“But what are we here for?”
“If you really want to know,” another said, “we are the Totenjuden.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we do as we’re told.”
Asher hesitated, but thanked the man and returned to his bed.
One or two of the newer men gave him curious looks.
“What?” he said to them.
“You don’t speak German, do you?” one said.
Asher shook his head.
“The word toten means anything to do with killing or death.”
Asher lay back on his bed and wondered what was going on.
Later that evening, there was food. It was only a watery potato soup and a chunk of stale bread, but Asher was getting accustomed to sleeping on a rumbling stomach. He was cold too, but at least he was sleeping on a bed; that was something to be grateful for. He spent a few minutes convincing himself that the rest of his family were safe, that Rina was sleeping not too far from him, the others farther away but also safe. It was a comforting thought, and eventually he drifted into a deep slumber.
He was woken up by a raucous metallic banging. While pulling himself out of sleep, he had to think where he was. But that nauseating smell seemed stronger than ever. And he was still cold. So yes, he was still in this camp, whatever it was.
The guard, waiting just inside the door, stopped banging on his metal tray for a moment to shout out instructions. He told them to get up immediately and follow him. They were led out of the cabin, along a path enclosed with barbed wire, and past a few buildings—more of those that Asher found worryingly familiar.
He told himself they didn’t matter just now. They entered a forest of huge pine trees and were led to a small clearing, where they were told to wait while the guard took two of them away.
While they waited, Asher peered beyond the edge of the forest. Between the trunks and foliage, he could make out a large clearing, like a field, but with smoke rising from something—some structure raised a few feet off the ground with objects lying on it.
It looked nothing like any field of crops he’d ever seen.
For a second he thought they looked like bodies of some sort. But he’d heard no gunshots, so they couldn’t have been people—and certainly not on that scale; the structure was quite long—perhaps a hundred feet or so. What were those things on it? Animals? No; that didn’t make sense either.
As he was straining to see, one of the guards moved toward him and shouted, pointing in the other direction.
Asher looked away, toward the tall trees, and between them the sun just poking over the horizon. It reminded him of his childhood, tending to the fields on the farm in Dyovsta, of the glorious sunrises and sunsets he’d witnessed during the harvest season, when they’d worked every daylight hour. He thought of Mykhail—of their games, their fishing trips, of their shared enthusiasm for tractors. He cursed his mama for taking the family away from Dyovsta, and immediately felt sick with guilt at that thought. It wasn’t her fault, and even Warsaw, busy and congested as it was, had never had this heavy stench hanging over it like a shroud of malevolent fog.
The two workers returned carrying lots of axes, dropping them in a pile on the floor for the other men to pick up.
The guard led the men farther into the forest, to another clearing where trees had recently been felled. There, the smell of pine and cut wood was a blessed relief. A few minutes later, they were all chopping the felled trees into more manageable chunks.
Asher didn’t know why they were doing this. For a moment, it crossed his mind that they were simply producing firewood for the cabins, but this was a huge amount of wood for a dozen or so cabins.
At first it didn’t seem so bad; at least he was generating some heat. However, after half an hour he was soaked in sweat and exhausted. A bucket of water was brought by the guard and placed nearby, and each man had his turn drinking from it.
An hour later, Asher was beyond exhaustion, and still they were being told to chop more. A few times he felt faint, almost keeling over.
And still, after a couple of hours, with the sun way above the horizon, they were told to continue. The more wood Asher chopped, the more logs there were to arrange into piles. By now his muscles were numb, and he felt no pain. Even the discomfort in his throat, sticky-dry again from dehydration, was ignored.
Fi
nally, after what Asher thought was probably three hours, they were ordered back to their barracks. Now he understood—indeed all of them did, judging by their faces—what the other Totenjuden had meant when they’d told the new men to simply rest and eat as much as possible. Nobody spoke; they all merely collapsed on their beds and rested.
They had ten minutes. After that, a different guard came in and gave them some more orders. It was an effort for Asher to move his stiffened muscles, but again he followed the others out of the cabin.
Outside, he could hear a distant hiss, and looked across to see steam pulsing out above another train. He stopped for a moment to listen, and heard the clatter of shoes on concrete—hundreds of them—and the faint hubbub of voices. A shout and a crack of a stick on his shoulder made him move on.
They were led to a nearby building, where a few more guards were casually leaning against the walls, talking and smoking cigarettes, and they were told to wait inside.
It was another large cabin, with lots of sacks piled up along one side. Asher opened one of them, and then another. It took a moment to register, and he quickly checked a third sack. They were full of hair—yes, hair. How strange. And it looked like human hair. But if it was from people, there must have been thousands of them.
The guard fetched scissors from a closet and handed them out.
Even stranger.
The clatter of shoes and the blur of voices got closer, and the guard called Asher and his fellow Totenjuden to attention.
“Your job is to cut off the hair of all the women and girls who pass through here.”
Asher had to think that through. Had he really said that? More importantly, had the rest of his family been here? He glanced back at the sacks again. Were Rina’s locks—freshly cut the day before—somewhere in that mass of hair?
The guard continued: “Take care to cut the hair off as close to the scalp as possible. No waste.”
“What do you think they do with the hair we remove?” Asher whispered to the man next to him.
The man shrugged. “I can’t say I care. I’m just hoping my hands still work after all that digging.”
Beyond the Shadow of Night Page 19
