by Joan M. Wolf
For the next two days Elsa refused to get out of bed or participate in anything. At first Fräulein Krüger was kind and understanding, as she tried to coax Elsa back into our daily routine. But by the third day she was losing patience, and on the fourth she resorted to a beating. All of us stood in our morning salute listening to the German national anthem on the invisible phonograph, as Fräulein Krüger hit Elsa with a leather belt. The sounds of the belt mixed with the tinny chords of the music, but Elsa made no sound at all. She just lay in bed, receiving strike after strike.
The next day Elsa, too, was gone. We were told she had been sent to the same place that Heidi had gone for "additional training." With a bright smile Fräulein Krüger assured us that both girls would come back as soon as they were ready. But somehow, deep in my heart, I knew that wasn't true.
Late into the night, long after the lights had been turned off, we discussed this from our cots.
"Maybe they were sent home?" Gerde whispered hopefully.
There was a grunt from Franziska. "Fräulein Krüger said they were sent to a camp for additional training."
Several murmurs of agreement came from across the room.
"What if they were shot? I've seen that happen. Once, in Poland," Siegrid whispered from her cot.
"Oh, Siegrid, don't think such thoughts. I don't exactly know what happened, but I am sure they are safe." This came from Gerde.
"I saw someone shot once too. Right out in the open. A Jew." Ilse spoke up from her cot. "They do shoot people."
"Jews deserve to be shot," Franziska interrupted.
I winced and heard Liesel gasp beside me. It was such a cold statement. Fräulein Krüger would have been proud.
"Just go to sleep. Don't talk of such things. Everyone just go to sleep," whispered Gerde.
I lay awake for a long time after that. Fräulein Krüger had said Heidi and Elsa had gone to a camp. She had assured us everything was fine. But she was also the one who said my town had come under attack by the Allies, and I knew that was not true.
I tried to put the sisters out of my mind and finally fell into a restless sleep.
Five
Winter–Spring 1943: Puschkau, Poland
BY January we had been in the center for seven months. The air outside was cold, and the short skirts of our uniforms had been replaced with long, itchy woolen ones. Each of us had a lined winter coat, complete with the Nazi eagle sewn on the collar, and a pair of warm winter boots.
Routine settled over the center like a thick blanket, covering everything in dull, lifeless shades of gray. Day after day was the same. Even the food that had once seemed so wonderful now tasted plain and dreary to my tongue.
Every morning began with the German national anthem and our salute to Hitler, then calisthenics and German lessons. In the afternoon there was more saluting, history and math lessons, and dinner. Then finally bedtime arrived, when I had a brief moment to think about my family, until I fell asleep and the same routine would begin again in a few short hours.
One night, just as I was drifting to sleep, Liesel's voice brought me fully awake.
"That is not so." She was arguing with Siegrid, whose cot was on her left. Liesel's voice was loud and angry.
"Yes, it is true," Siegrid replied. "You heard what Fräulein Krüger told us. Your mama doesn't want you anymore. You were too expensive. That is why no one has come for you."
"I am sure that if Fräulein Krüger said that, it is the truth," Franziska added from her own cot.
"No! That is not true. It's not." Liesel turned her back to Siegrid and faced me. Doubt and confusion rested in her eyes.
By that time almost everyone had stopped asking Fräulein Krüger or the other guards about their parents. The story was always the same. We were orphans from Allied air raids. Or we had become too expensive for our families. No matter which story was told, the end was always the same. We had been chosen to serve Hitler. We were Aryan girls of Germany. We were the hope of the future.
Secretly, I was glad no one asked much about their families anymore. Every time I heard the story that Lidice had been bombed by Allies, there was a small part of me that was actually starting to believe it. I could almost feel the vibrations of the bombs as they fell. It was easier to imagine that than to re member how I had been taken in the middle of the night by Nazis.
I lay awake, listening to the sound of Liesel crying.
"Liesel," I whispered. "Do you want to talk?"
"No, Eva. Go to sleep."
I looked around in the darkness. Moonlight was coming from the four small windows that lined one wall. To my right Franziska's eyelashes caught the light, and I could see she was also awake.
"Liesel," I continued softly. "You know what Siegrid said is not true. You know someday this will end and you will go home. We will all go home."
"What if Mama doesn't want me? What if it is true?"
Her questions brought tears to my eyes. "You have to think about what you do remember, Liesel. You have to hold on to that."
"I didn't even get to see my sisters to say good-bye. Mama was the only one home when they came for me. It was so awful. I will never forget the sound of her crying. Never."
"I remember my mama too. I try to think about her every night," I said. My finger traced the outline of Babichka's pin underneath my nightdress. "I think of everyone in my family every night."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Eva." Liesel's voice softened. "At least I know my mama is safe. It's so awful how your family was killed in an air raid."
"There was no air raid," I said. The words came out louder than I had intended.
"What?" she asked.
"There was no air raid," I repeated, needing to hear the words again myself. "We were taken in the middle of the night by Hitler's soldiers."
"But Fräulein Krüger said..." Liesel's voice held both doubt and hope.
"We were taken. In the middle of the night. By Hitler's soldiers," I repeated, highlighting each word carefully in the cold darkness.
The images of my last night in Lidice appeared vividly in my mind. I could see Papa's face, his hand outstretched toward Mama's as they were pulled apart. His eyes had been filled with a pain I had never seen before. I could still smell the sweet sourness of the hay as we waited for hours and days in the gym, and I could see my own hand outstretched toward Mama's as I was carried away.
Now I threw off my blankets in fury. Franziska sat up in her cot.
I turned to her. "You remember. You were there. You were taken too."
"No." Franziska's voice was soft and sure. It stung me as hard as Fräulein Krüger had when she had slapped me my first day at the center.
"What?" I was on my feet, anger making my head throb. "What do you mean no? How do you not remember? The soldiers, the guns, the trucks, the gym! What are you saying?"
"My family is dead." Her voice sounded strange, as if her throat had become too small for her words. I felt cold as all the anger left my body in a sudden rush. "They were killed in an Allied air raid on our town," Franziska continued.
Before I could reply, she lay down with her back to me and curled her blanket around her, leaving me to stand alone and shivering in the moonlight.
"Eva?" It was Liesel. "Eva?" she repeated.
I didn't look at her. "Good night, Liesel." I crawled into bed, hiding myself under the thick blanket.
"Good night," she said softly.
I lay on my cot, running one finger over and around Babichka's little star pin. It was the only thing I had from my home.
I thought of my last night in Lidice and the beautiful telescope Papa had given me for my birthday. Was someone looking at the stars through it at this moment?
I remembered the night Terezie and I had been planning my party, discussing the songs we were going to sing and the games we were going to play. And we had been gazing at the stars. Eva, look. Terezie had said, pointing at a shooting star as it streaked across the sky.
No, something wasn't
right. I ran my mind back over the memory. Terezie had said, Look. But she had not used the name Eva. What had she called me?
Butterflies fluttered softly in my stomach. There was an empty spot where my name should be, like the hole left in your mouth after you lose a tooth. For a long time I lay in the dark, running my mind over and around the hole, trying to remember what I had been called before coming to this place. But no name would come.
Over the next few weeks the hole grew into a thick fog, clouding everything I did. I tried to smile and nod and continue with lessons and exercises and routines so that I would not be sent away like Heidi and Elsa. But every night I would touch Babichka's pin and search for my name, growing a little sadder each time I could not find it.
I thought of her words as she gave me the pin. Remember who you are, she had whispered. Remember where you are from. Always.
I had broken my promise to her.
***
Several weeks later I was awakened during the night by a sudden sharp pain in my leg. Babichka's pin had come open beneath my nightdress and was sticking me. I took it off and held it in my hand as I listened to the rhythmic breathing of the other girls mix with the scraping sound of wind blowing bits of snow against the windows.
Snow had come to rest permanently on the ground, signaling that winter had found its way to us. We could see our breath in the morning when we did outdoor calisthenics, and hot cocoa had become a regular part of our meals.
I traced Babichka's pin, touching each tiny garnet, and pictured my grandmother that last day with her fingers wrapped around mine. I searched again for my name, trying to find it in the crystals, hoping it was not lost forever.
I turned and looked through the little window on the other side of Franziska. Frost covered the lower part of the pane, and only the smallest bit of night sky peeked into the room from the top. I squinted into the small space of blackness, trying to catch a glimpse of any stars.
I needed to see the stars, to look up into their light as I had done so many times in Lidice. For several minutes I listened for the sounds of the night guard. Hearing nothing, I quietly put on my boots and coat, crept down the hall, and slipped outside.
The night was crisp and beautiful, the sky dotted with thousands of stars. Amazed, I stretched as high as I could. The stars in Poland looked exactly like those in Czechoslovakia! Somewhere, perhaps at that very moment, my family was looking at those same stars. I found the North Star and stared at it, as if I was looking through a telescope, searching for a glimpse of my name.
Suddenly, a tiny streak of light raced across the sky. Then another. And another. Shooting stars! The sky filled briefly with them. Babichka! It had to be a message from my grandmother, telling me to remember, remember who I was.
I started crying, the tears freezing almost immediately on my face.
Sleep, my little one, sleep.
The angels watch over you.
I remembered the soft, sweet words of the lullaby Babichka used to sing to me. It filled my head in the darkness, and I closed my eyes, humming softly, tracing her pin with my finger.
And then, I remembered what Babichka called me as she sang this lullaby. I remembered my name.
Sleep, my Milada, sleep.
All the whole night through.
Milada. My fingers touched my name, my beautiful sweet name. Milada. The name that belonged to my grandmother and her mother before her.
Milada. There it was, lovely and pure and real.
"I won't forget," I whispered out loud as the streaks of light faded. "Babichka, I won't forget."
Milada, Milada, Milada, I promised, as I made my way back to the sleeping room.
***
Remembering my name brought bits of color back into the center, lifting an edge of the gray blanket that had settled over everything. It was a little easier to do home economics lessons and a little less difficult to look at Hitler's face every day because I knew, beneath everything, who I was and where I belonged. And even though Franziska didn't believe it, I knew someday I would go back to my village and live in my house with my family and be called by my real name again.
This was all the knowledge I needed to help warm the winter and make the center and the daily lessons more bearable.
Not long after I had remembered my name, Fräulein Haugen brought a full-length mirror to a health lesson. Each of us was weighed, and had her heart checked and her head and nose once again measured. Then, one by one, we were brought to the mirror, where Fräulein Haugen showed us how to style our hair into an intricate twist.
I had not looked into a mirror since coming to the center, and the person who stared back at me from the glass was someone I did not know. I put a hand up to my face, and the girl in the mirror did the same. My hair had grown past my shoulders, and my face had changed as well. It was longer, and the freckles had faded. The person in the mirror looked less like a little girl and more like a young woman.
I peered at the blond hair and blue eyes, things I had never paid attention to before, things that had changed me from a Czech girl into a future German citizen.
***
A month further into winter, I awoke again in the middle of the night. From someplace far away I could hear Babichka's Czech lullaby, beautiful and pure, floating in my ears. But someone was trying to shake it out of me.
I opened my eyes. Liesel stood above my cot, shaking my shoulders gently.
"Eva. Eva? What are you doing?" she whispered in German. "You're singing and I can't understand you. Wake up. Wake up!"
"What?" I asked in Czech.
"Eva, wake up! I can't understand what you are saying."
"I am awake," I whispered in German, disappointed to realize where I was. I wanted to fade back into the warmth of the song. Pieces of it still floated in my mind like soft feathers.
I sat up and looked into Liesel's eyes. Even in the darkness, with only the moonlight to see by, their blue color was striking. I patted a spot on my cot, and she joined me, curling her legs up under her nightdress and wrapping her arms around her knees. We sat for a long while in silence, listening to the breathing of the other girls.
"You have the prettiest eyes, Liesel," I whispered.
"Thank you," she said. "They're just like my mother's...." She stopped and turned away.
I looked at Franziska's sleeping form beside me as I thought about Liesel. She was the first person who had smiled at me after coming to the center. Her eyes were the only pretty thing I had seen.
What had she been like before coming to this place? Had she been someone I would have liked or someone I wouldn't have wanted at my birthday party, like Franziska? How had this place changed Liesel? How had this place changed me?
I stood and paused to hear if any of the other girls were awake or if the night guard was near. Liesel looked up at me, and I held out my hand to her.
"Come," I whispered, when I was sure no one else was awake. Quietly I led us down the narrow aisle between the two rows of cots to where our coats and boots were stored. I pulled mine on and motioned for Liesel to do the same. She didn't hesitate but followed what I was doing without question. Together we slipped outside through the small door near the sleeping room and into the cold darkness.
Twinkling stars filled the sky. Our teacher in Czechoslovakia had once told us that stars are really like suns: giant balls of heat and light, and not the tiny shining crystals we see when we look up.
Liesel huddled close behind me, shivering in her coat and trying to see the path beneath her so she wouldn't stumble.
"Look!" I stopped and pointed. "Look! That's the North Star. Do you see it? It's always in the sky, no matter what the season. Even here the stars are the same."
She followed the direction where I pointed and nodded. "Stars," she whispered. "I guess I had never noticed."
We stood for several minutes watching the stars blink randomly, as if each one had its own rhythm.
Liesel began shivering, and I too could feel t
he cold trying to slip into my coat. I wasn't sure why I had wanted to bring Liesel outside, but I wasn't ready to return to the sleeping room either. On a sudden impulse, I pulled her toward the little church, which we saw every day but which I had never entered. I hoped the door was not locked and that we could find warmth there.
The wooden door was old and heavy, much like the door on our church in Lidice, but it opened easily. Inside, everything was dark except for the altar, which was decorated with League of German Girls posters and adorned with a large picture of the Führer. Dozens of tiny red candles burned in little glasses beneath the picture, the flames flickering like the stars outside. Near Hitler's picture stood a statue of the Virgin Mary. The expression on her face seemed mournful, as if she was sad to see the changes in the church.
I walked slowly to the front of the church, feeling the smooth, worn wood of each pew with my bare fingers. Liesel stood at the back of the church with her arms wrapped around herself. She looked unsure of what to do next.
"This is a Catholic church, yes?" she asked quietly in the darkness.
"It used to be. Yes," I answered.
"Are you Catholic?" she asked. "I mean, I guess ... were you Catholic? Before coming here?"
"Yes," I answered. "And you?"
She nodded, adding, "But I don't think this church is Catholic any longer."
I shook my head. "They have turned it into something ugly. I think this used to be a convent. But now, it is..." I stopped, unable to think of words to describe what it had been turned into. "Evil."
Liesel found a pew in the middle of the church and sat down. I went and sat next to her. Even though the air in the church was warmer than outside, it was still cold and we could see our breath. We sat without speaking until she broke the silence.
"Katarzyna," she whispered.
"What did you say?" I asked, turning to look at her.
"Katarzyna. That is my real name. That was my name before I was brought here."
A shiver, not caused by cold, ran through me. I wasn't the only one who hadn't forgotten about life before this place. "Oh, Liesel ... I mean, Katarzyna! My name is Milada."
