Annelies

1944

KL Auschwitz II

BIRKENAU

Frauenlager B1a

Barracks Block 29

GERMAN-ANNEXED POLAND

“Mummy.” Her sister is frantic. “Mummy, we’re going to die here, I know it!”

“Shut up, Margot,” Anne bites out, shivering against their mother’s body. “You can’t say that!”

“I can say it, because it’s true!” Margot shouts back, her anger raw and shredding, her face like a crumpled wad of paper.

“Quiet, girls, quiet,” their mother demands. The three of them are crammed in with seven others onto the bottom pallet of the hardwood koje that serves as their “bed,” so the matted layer of straw they lie upon reeks like a latrine, since shit and piss can only travel south. They are all starved to madness, and freezing, but in this nightmare Mummy might have found her true self. Anne is astonished by the transformation. She feels shamed by all the enmity that once divided them and is so grateful for even a thin shield of protection. Separated from Pim, her mother has become a different person, one whose every word and action seems to reflect the strength of her single purpose: keeping her daughters alive. And even though her body is a shrunken glove of yellow skin stretched over bones, she’s making them a promise. “We’re going to make it through this. We are.”

“But, Mummy,” Margot breathes, always the logical one, “how can you say that? How can you make such a promise? We’re a step below the lice here,” she says.

“Mummy, make her shut up!” Anne demands, firing her angriest look at her sister. “You heard what Mummy said! She said she is going to protect us!”

“Protect us from the cold, Anne? Protect us from dysentery? You think anyone can protect us from that? Stop being an idiot!”

“And you stop being a bitch!”

“Anne,” Mummy snaps at her.

“Well, she is a bitch, Mummy. She’s a stupid bitch!”

But suddenly her mother’s arm is wrapped around her with a tender power, enveloping her, as Anne hears her mother’s voice burrowing into her ear. “It’s all right, my child. My baby. It’s all right.” Rocking her so slowly. Whispering, “My baby, my little girl. I know you’re so angry. So very angry. And so very afraid. But we are here, and we are together, and we are alive. Both my girls are here with me and alive.” Shifting, she scoops her children into the circle of her arms. “Both of you are here with me and alive,” she says. “And for that I thank God. And I pray to him that he will protect you from the cold when I cannot. And that he will protect you from sickness when I cannot. And that he will guide us through this trial. I am so proud,” her mother whispers. “So proud of you girls. My beautiful Margot and my beautiful Anne. You are so strong. So very strong. And I know that God is watching over you. I know it. And that he will bless you and keep you whole.”

Anne can feel the tears chilling her eyes as she clutches her mother’s hand. “Amen, Mummy,” she weeps. “Amen.”

“Amen,” her sister weeps.

“Amen,” their mother whispers.

A prayer offered in the swamps of Poland.

In the cold of Barracks Block 29.

Frauenlager B1a.

Auschwitz II.

Birkenau.