Many of the Jews were split up from their friends and families. Then they became frenzied while scanning the area for a familiar face. It was like watching a small child searching for their missing parent. In fact, that was actually the case for some children.
"Charlie, report to intake," Sven shouted to me.
Of all the men I have spent time around throughout the previous years, I hated Sven the most. Therefore, the irony of becoming Sven's subordinate bothered me greatly. He was cut from the same cloth as Hitler; that much was apparent. Sven was working toward acceptance into Hitler's high-ranking positions of the SS army—the most elite of soldiers, bred from the Aryan race back to the 1800s.
Sven would get there.
I strode to the table, where we were registering each Jew who walked through the arches of Theresienstadt. The lines were endless, and each person who stopped in front of me was terrified of what I might say.
"Oh, Charlie," Sven called out again. "Here." I walked toward Sven's outstretched hand that was holding a note. "Assignments."
I took the paper and scanned down the center.
Women with children: Cell Block GVI 21
Healthy women without children: Small Fortress Block B
Women between the ages of twelve and eighteen: Cell Block GIV 5
Men between the ages of twelve and eighteen: Cell Block DVI 6
Men above the ages of eighteen: Cell Block DVI 5
Elderly women above the age of sixty-five: Cell Block GV 16
Disfigured women: Cell Block GV 3
Disfigured men: Cell Block DV 4
Questions to be asked:
Name
Prisoner Number
Age
City of Origin
Profession
I took a seat at the table, lifted my pencil, and waved over the first prisoner. Despite that I was doing something against my desire, being forced to work in a toxic environment for illogical reasons, I couldn't compare myself to those in front of me.
"Listen up, listen up. Men to the left, women and children to the right. Make two lines now, come on," Sven yelled. "Men over here. Let's go. Let's go."
I wasn't sure why I was instructed to send the men if they were then being led to a different check-in point. I could only assume nothing was preplanned, and rules were created as we went along. That's how things had gone in the past few years. Changes were implemented with hardly any notice, and we were expected to follow at the same speed.
As I registered the women in my line, I did my best to avoid eye contact. I didn't think many would have looked me in the eye anyway.
"Amelia Baylin," I heard. I couldn't help but lift my eyes at the mention of the name Amelia. There she was; the woman whose world was stolen just hours earlier. I felt frozen as I stared up at her. At first, her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be channeling her anger; understandably so. When she opened her eyes, though, it was like seeing the ocean for the first time. There was a world inside of her that I yearned to know, in just that one second I made eye contact. The emotion and the feelings I had were a reminder as to why I was not looking others in the eyes.
Amelia and her sapphire blue eyes did something to me that day. I felt connected to her after being inside her house and doing what I could for her poor mother. Still, she would not understand that there was good in my heart—not while I was wearing a swastika on my arm. The more I looked at Amelia, the more I noticed—a gloss, marking the tears she must have cried. Her cheeks were red and chapped, and her beautiful auburn hair was in knots. Still, she held her nose up to the sky and refused to blink her long dark lashes.
"Your age, Fräulein1?" I asked.
"Seventeen," she spoke.
I spotted her assigned number scribbled on her yellow Jude patch and notated it in the registrar.
