The Daughter of Auschwitz. My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope

Chapter Nine. Into the Abyss

After nearly five years of Nazi Germany’s occupation of Poland, they came for us with the trains of Europe’s death railway. The Soviet Red Army was moving in from the east and it wouldn’t be long before they were within striking distance of the munitions factory at Starachowice. The Germans were shutting it down and moving production closer to the Fatherland. They were being squeezed. And now so were we.

“We’re going to have to let them see her”, said my father, with anxiety etched across his face. “We can’t keep her hidden any longer”.

“There’s nothing more we can do”, my mother replied. “I don’t think they’ll do anything to us or her. Why would they bother now, as we’re going to Auschwitz?”

I knew my parents were talking about me. And I sensed the terror coursing between them as they tried to come to terms with the realization that this time, they really were trapped. We’d had an extraordinary run of good fortune — better than millions of others — but now, as slave laborers, my parents had reached their expiry date. For them, and therefore for me, there could only be one outcome, the one-way journey that millions of others had taken.

I’d heard the name Auschwitz before. And I knew it brimmed with evil connotations. People enunciated the word with a combination of fear and awe. They used the same tone when they spoke the names Treblinka or Majdanek, another extermination camp east of Starachowice where an estimated 80,000 perished. I was smart enough to know that when people went to those places they vanished. But nobody seemed to know how. I had overheard whispered conversations where the word “gassing” was mentioned. But I didn’t know what it meant. And Mama had taught me that if you obeyed the rules and didn’t do anything stupid like staring at an SS officer in the eyes, you would survive. And so going to Auschwitz didn’t hold any horrors for me. Imbued with the innocence and optimism of childhood, I believed that we would be fine.

Anything, even Auschwitz, had to be better than staying in the darkness in a single room for weeks on end, not being able to look out of the window past the blanket. Besides, it was a beautiful day. Mama had brushed my light brown hair, which now reached down beyond my shoulders. She had created a center parting and twisted the back into two braids. I could feel their weight as they bounced around behind my head while I skipped outside our building in the labor camp. It was the first time in months that I had been outside.

Mama carried on doing chores inside. She had packed the one small suitcase we were allowed to bring. She’d selected clothes, some other essentials and a few small black-and-white photographs of her family that she cherished. No matter where we ever went, Mama always carried her family with her.

Mama performed one last chore before we left. She took a broom and swept the floor. We were about to travel to the deadliest place on the planet and she was cleaning a room to which we would never return. Why did she do that? Did she find sweeping therapeutic? Did she need to do something to divert her mind from the journey we were about to make? No, I think she was doing it for me. She was trying to portray an air of normality. She was displaying remarkable composure at a time of unimaginable stress.

Mama was putting on a bold front for the benefit of her husband and me. Women are the glue that binds families together. When they crack, families fall apart. That image of Mama with a broom will stay with me forever. She had my best interests at heart, every minute of every dark day.

Too soon, the soldiers came. My playtime in the sunshine ended.

The three of us began walking to the railhead. From every corner of the camp, clutching small suitcases, other inmates emerged from their barracks and headed in the same direction, as if lured by some magnetic force. Some were on their own. Others were with their spouses. I looked for other children. But there were none. Perhaps I was indeed the last Jewish child on earth. I suddenly found myself wanting to be invisible. After all, I wasn’t supposed to exist.

Yet none of the guards covering our progress with their machine guns seemed to register surprise or concern that a lone child was at large. My parents had been worried about attracting attention, but if anything, the soldiers manifested an air of studied boredom.

The roundup was going to plan. There was no drama. The Jews were obediently heading toward the black engine snorting steam and cinders into a cloudless Polish sky.

Over the years, I’ve often wondered why they didn’t shoot me on the spot. They probably just assumed that within a few hours we would all be turned to ashes and asked themselves, why waste a bullet?

After walking for maybe fifteen minutes, we approached the train, and my courage faltered. It wasn’t the sight of the cattle cars stretching endlessly behind the locomotive that shook me. And I knew the power of guns — they had my respect, but they didn’t intimidate me.

I was unnerved by the dogs. Those German shepherds. Beneath the fur, there was nothing but muscle. They were lean because they were permanently hungry. The dogs were straining on their leashes, baring teeth, panting in the heat and salivating. They wanted nothing more than to be let loose. They smelled our fear and wanted to feast on it. When one barked, they all barked, and they never stopped. My ears rang from the endless loop of their snarling.

I didn’t dare catch the eye of any of the soldiers surrounding the cattle cars, but I observed expressions from oblique angles. They were facilitating genocide, yet their faces revealed no hint of sorrow or empathy for the doleful creatures before them, not a trace of shame that their battle honors included herding defenseless slaves onto cars that were barely fit for cattle. But of course, their consciences — if by chance they had any — had an escape clause. They were only following orders.

Mama picked me up and I wrapped my legs around her. My mother’s chest was heaving as she gripped me. I looked up at my father for reassurance and saw something I had never seen before, except when he had helped his parents to their own deaths. He was crying. He was kissing my hair and whispering to me to be good. With tears cascading down his cheeks, he kissed Mama goodbye. They were convinced they were being sent to oblivion. And to make it worse, they were going to be forced apart, separated for the first time since their marriage in 1936.

The Germans put an end to their goodbyes. All the men were ordered to move toward cattle cars at the back of the train. A soldier strutted up to my father, stuck a gun in his ribs and forced him to join them. All the women — their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and nieces — were commanded to board the cattle cars closer to the engine. This was my first experience of men and women being segregated.

We moved toward a car with its wooden door wide open. It was too high for me. Mama lifted me up and I climbed inside. She followed behind. It was empty, apart from one woman sitting on the floor with her back against the side of the cattle car. We sat down next to her.

A quizzical expression transformed her face. It was as if she saw an apparition before her. “You have a child?” she asked in a tone that suggested such a thing was impossible. “May I touch her?”

My mother nodded. The woman gently cupped my face in her hands. There was reverence, kindness and deep sorrow in her eyes. “How did you save a child?” she inquired. Tears tumbled down her face. “I lost three children. They were just ten, seven and four. They were taken by force in the last selection. I will never see them again. I know I won’t”.

My mother leaned forward and hugged her in silence. Their embrace was cut short by other women climbing into the cattle car. They kept coming. All three of us — the bereaved mother, Mama and I — were forced to stand to make room as scores of women were shoehorned inside. As the numbers increased, so the car darkened. My mother pointed to a large vessel in a corner that was supposed to be a latrine. It was the only concession to our bodily needs. Neither water nor food was provided. It was high summer. And Central Europe at that time resembled a furnace.

Still more women were squeezed inside. There were, perhaps, some 150 souls inside the car by the time the Germans deigned that it was sufficiently full. A guard slid the door along its runner. It slammed shut with an ominous clang, and the rattle of a bolt and chain confirmed we were sealed in. Escape was impossible. All we could do was shuffle our feet a couple of inches either side of our position. Cattle would never have been treated so inhumanely. They would have been given more space.

We were consumed by darkness. The only illumination came from a small barred window to one side near the roof. Scores of hands reached toward the thin shafts of light. I couldn’t see the color of flesh. The women’s hands were silhouettes. They fluttered like a murder of crows. A chorus of screams and cries rose as we lurched forward.

As the train picked up pace, so did the wailing. Some women prayed aloud. Others, weary of beseeching God in vain, caterwauled. Stoic as ever, Mama kept her thoughts buried deep inside. Occasionally, she offered words of encouragement. But I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Her voice was drowned out by the rhythm of the wheels, the creaking of the car’s coffin sides, the women’s sorrowful ululation and the jarring chirpiness of the engine’s whistle.

For mile after mile, we swayed in unison as the train trembled over switch points and navigated bends. Everyone in that car was fighting to remain upright. When someone buckled, anonymous hands reached out in support. We were predominantly strangers, but our collective hunger and thirst bound us together, as did our sorrow and whatever time we had left. Our solidarity was unspoken. There was no need for words. Our humanity remained intact, and where possible, we each shared a little of ourselves with our neighbor to ease their burden. A gesture here, a side step there.

All the while, the temperature rose. My nostrils filled with the smell of perspiration and fear. My clothes were drenched with the sweat of the bodies propping me up. Thank heavens my mother hadn’t made me wear the coat she had packed. I would have died of heatstroke.

I was gasping for water, but there was none. I had never been so hot before. Nor had I been so thirsty in my entire life, and I had no idea if I would be able to drink when we reached our destination. On top of dehydration, the hunger pangs were crippling. Images of food floated in front of my eyes, taunting me. My mother stood helplessly by my side. There was nothing she could do to make it better. I tried to marshal all my willpower and convince myself that I could do without. That I was strong enough.

I rested my head on the small of the back of the woman in front of me. I must have fallen asleep standing up. It was physically impossible to sit down. There simply wasn’t enough room. It was a blessing that the woman accepted me using her as a pillow. I felt as if we were suspended in space. I had a sense of weightlessness. The mass of people crushed together meant that our bodies were incapable of moving of their own volition.

I tried to tell Mama that I needed the bathroom. But she couldn’t hear me. The rank smell enveloping the entire car told me what to do instead. We did what cattle did. We went where we stood.

Although I was only five, I accepted the situation as if it were destiny. I had heard of so many other people making a similar journey that I concluded it was now our time.

The strain of standing upright and being crushed, together with the never-ending motion, was exhausting. The journey seemed interminable and the few rays of sunshine that penetrated the barred window far above never seemed to reach me. I was desperate for the train to stop and for our journey to be over.

As it was the height of summer, the day was long, but eventually, the last rays of evening light were replaced by the pitch of night. Not being able to see provided me with some respite from the trauma I was undoubtedly enduring. Still, the moans and cries intensified with the darkness. As if I needed reminding that we were heading to a terrible place.

I returned to a state of mind I had visited while alone in our room in Starachowice. I began floating again and my emotions disconnected me from the situation. I don’t know how long we traveled, or how long I slept. I entered that halfway station between sleep and consciousness, where your mind loses perspective, the sharp lines of reality become blurred and your brain is peppered with fluctuating nothingness and silent moving images that are at odds with the sounds around you.

We were still moving forward when the dawn came. Our journey seemed to have lasted an eternity already. In reality, it was about thirty-six hours before the train slowed to a crawl and juddered to a halt, accompanied by a great exhalation of steam. I heard the sound of a steel bolt being manhandled, then we were swamped by the rasp of harsh German commands.

Suddenly, we were blinded by the light.