CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Amelia
May 1943 - Day 520
Icouldn’t thinkof one moment worth writing about from the time Charlie left Theresienstadt until almost a year later. As I learned more about the situation I was held hostage in, I found that the definition of a ghetto had changed during the prior years to my imprisonment. A ghetto was formerly defined as a place where segregated religions would gather and live in a communal area. In 1942, however, the definition had apparently changed, becoming a place where prisoners were kept against their will between barbed wirefences.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I was still alive after more than a year of starvation, brutal work conditions, no sanitation, and so many people around me dying from various diseases and ailments. It was beginning to feel as though God had chosen to keep me alive for a reason, one I didn’t think I’d ever understand. Misery was my only companion after the one reason I had for happiness went away, just like all the other precious parts of mylife.
I clung to Leah during the days following Charlie’s departure. Helping her with baby Lucie was a slight distraction from the permanent pain in my heart. Without hope of future happiness, each ache and pain became abundantly noticeable, and I lost the will to keep pushing myself as hard as I hadbeen.
Keeping Lucie quiet was very challenging, considering a baby doesn’t understand the danger her mama could be in if she was heard. However, by the luck of something larger than I could understand, somehow, a whole month went by before Leah was reported for not showing up at her assigned job in the administration building. It was the middle of the day, and I was outside in the sweltering heat when I saw a group of Nazis heading for the barrack Leah was living in. My heart ached because I knew it was not end well. Then I heard one of the Nazi’s shout, “There is a babyinside.”
My clipboard fell from my hands, and I ran as fast as my bony legs would carry me. My heart pounded in my chest as I followed the Nazis from behind. I had seen enough to know that something terrible was about to happen to Leah and Lucie, and there was nothing I could do to stopit.
I stood to the side of a barrack, watching and waiting, scared and hardly breathing through the fear overwhelming my mind. I heard a shriek, followed by an infant’s wailing cry that I hadn’t heard from Lucie since she was born. Despite her circumstances, Leah cared for her so beautifully that there was hardly a need for her tocry.
Leah was dragged out of the barrack, her thin arms locked tightly within the grip of two Nazis’ hands as her bare heels dragged through the gravel-ridden dirt. They were shouting at her in German as she screamed at the top of her lungs, but it would make no difference. Her pleas for mercy would change nothing, but at least screaming gave her an outlet to express the palpable fear and pain she was experiencing. Hopefully, that would slightly help her face the impending wrath of the guards. She had broken the rules, and she had deceived them. I was unsure if her punishment would be a whipping, imprisonment, or an immediate transition to the next stop, which I was sure at that point was off a cliffsomewhere.
I didn’t move from the corner of the wall I clung to, gripping at the brick finish so tightly my fingertips began to bleed. After Leah was halfway down the alley between the barracks, another Nazi came out with Lucie locked firmly within his hands, holding her as if she were nothing more than a sack of dirt. The soldier screamed at her—damning her for being born a dirtyJew.
I wanted to murder theNazi.
I wanted to brutally destroy him for the words he was screaming at an innocent baby, and for the way he was handling Lucie. She was not old enough to hold her head up on her own yet, and it was hanging to the left and bouncing around as the Nazi carried her toward the sick bay, where I was not tending to my job as I should havebeen.
I raced for my clipboard, passing by the Nazi with Lucie in his hands. I retrieved the clipboard and continued questioning the others inline.
As the Nazi and Lucie disappeared inside of the block, I continued down the path where the other Nazis were taking Leah. The direction was opposite of where the prison was, and I wasn’t sure if that was a relief ornot.
I soon found out how little a relief it was that she was not taken to the solitary cells. Instead, she was brought to the execution field. She was forced down to her knees as one of the Nazi’s took his position across the way, aiming his rifle directly at Leah’s head. I wanted to move, run away, avoid the scene that would permanently be marked in my soul forever, but I was paralyzed as Iwatched.
Leah didn’t cry. She was done screaming, and her face was void of all emotion. She knew the end had come. Our eyes met one last time, just seconds before the shot rang out. She blinked once and looked up to the sky right before a bullet struck the center of her forehead, knocking her down with so much force I was sure her body would leave a permanent indentation in thesoil.
All I could think at that moment was they murdered the poor woman because she had given birth to a baby. Monsters. The birth of a child is the purest, most beautiful thing that can happen in life, and for those men to take her life away for that, wasunconscionable.
I wanted to drop to my knees and beg for the nightmare to end, but if I did, I too would have been killed. I made a promise to Charlie to do as I was told and end my plan to escape, so I breathed in the air that was laced with death, inhaling as deeply as I could to stifle all my emotions as I turned and walked away. I felt guilt and remorse for not being able to do something to help Leah, but I knew in my heart there was nothing anyone could have done to saveher.
That day changed everything for me. We were part of the war. We were the target, and they were using us like game pieces for their own amusement. I couldn’t understand how so many people could be brainwashed to think all Jews were the reason that the Germans lost the first war when so many of us weren’t even alive then. It was pure, unfounded hatred for ourpeople.
Months dragged by and I kept quiet, doing as I was instructed, eating the small rations I was given, watching as my limbs turned into skin and bone. Daily, I would wonder how I had the strength to stand when so many of us no longer had that ability. There were living bodies draped over one another in my barrack, taking up every free inch of space as we ran out of room in thecamp.
Life was like a revolving wheel I couldn’t step off of, and my mind became as numb as the rest of my body while I waited for death to find me, all along wishing there was an easier way out than just waiting for my time tocome.
In 1943, on May twenty-fourth at what must have been high noon, there was a commotion at the front entrance of the camp. I wasn’t sure what could have be happening, but I didn’t have the energy or desire to pay attention to it. I had a line to get through, and that was my only goal for the day—for every day. Looking at the people as I passed them by, it felt as though I was looking at mirrors of myself. I didn’t know exactly what my appearance was at that time, but I imagined it was as emaciated as everyone else. All of us were given the same rations, but some of us were placed in worse working conditions than others—those were the people to die first. Some dropped dead while waiting for me in the line. When that happened, I had to call a guard to remove the body, which was immediately transported to the crematorium.There were so many dead bodies; they had to create a place to burn them so the space within the camp wouldn’t bewasted.
The Nazis’ commotion grew louder as some began to salute a man walking through a man-made path. “Welcome home, soldier,” many of them said. It was not a usual occurrence, as many of the Nazis were exchanged daily for deployment or guard duty, depending on their ranking and abilities. Familiar faces were long gone, and the camp felt more like a train station than anything else. Why I had remained in one place for so long was an unanswered question I considereddaily.
As the group of Nazis passed by, I turned to watch for a moment, and to my utter surprise, Charlie was the man being praised. Decorations of metals and patches lined his coat, and there was a certain look about him that showed years of aging rather than the year he had been gone. I was in a state of shock as he passed by, peering at me with a subtly through a peripheralglance.
My heart began to beat erratically for the first time in a year, but I wasn’t sure what Charlie was feeling in that moment. I didn’t know if he would even recognize me in the state I was in. I was afraid he had been brainwashed to believe I was in fact the enemy rather than his best friend and the woman he claimed to love the last time we were together. So many thoughts and fears ran through my head in a matter of seconds, but at the same time, there was a glimmer of hope I wasn’t sure I shouldhave.
I had spent the last year trying to block out anything that would cause me more pain, and I would be damned before I’d allow anything close enough to hurtme.
I went through the motions for the next eight hours, pretending it was just another day, but my thoughts were in a fog. I didn’t know what to think orfeel.
As darkness began to set in and the doors of the sick bay closed, I made my way over to the block where the children were contained, peeking in through the window to check on Lucie, who began to walk a week earlier. She knew nothing of her dear mother, but she also knew nothing of fear or pain. That helped me sleep at night, knowing that the German women were caring for those children under horrendous conditions. Lucie was the youngest child in the block, but the other children were always around her, taking care of her as if they weresiblings.
With the daily dose of relief I got from seeing Lucie’s precious face, I dragged my worn-out body back to my barrack before settling down on the floor where I was relocated to months earlier when my bed had been taken by another Jewish woman. She was brought there in the more recent months, therefore stronger than many of us and more bullish than those who had been there for over a year. It wasn’t worth a battle, and if we were caught fighting, it would likely end in a hanging or execution. The overcrowding was a problem, and the Nazis were doing what they could to control it. Unfortunately, that often included executions for smalltransgressions.
