“A chance?”
He looks back at me as he’s about to open the exiting door. “To live another day, young man.”
I may not make it another day if I don’t have water and food. I follow the pianist outside, where an SS guard waits. He doesn’t speak to us, just follows in our muddy shadows. I wouldn’t know where to walk if it weren’t for the pianist leading the way, but we weave in between two other long buildings before arriving back at the main gate I entered through earlier today.
The SS guard continues to follow us. The sound of his footsteps now accompanies a crunch—the man chewing on food. The thought of food makes my stomach cramp again, forcing me to clutch my arm around my waist.
We arrive at the block I was assigned earlier, realizing the pianist has also been assigned to live in this block. Before dismissal, the guard tosses something into a nearby muddy puddle. I spot a piece of biscuit and a slice of sausage floating. I lunge for the food, scooping it up and shoving it into my mouth, ignoring the foul taste of flinty dirt.
The guard laughs, a high-pitched squeal. “Damn rat,” he says, trying to catch his breath through the scornful laughter.
He grabs me by the collar and shoves me into the block, face first, sending me skidding across the splintered floor. I hit the bottom of my chin, and my chest burns as I push myself back up in the pitch darkness of the block where many are either asleep or pretending to be asleep, leaving me to find the slim, empty spot where I left my assigned belongings earlier, before I was taken away to perform.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ELLA
May 1943
I know it’s May. It’s been a year and a half since I arrived here in Auschwitz. A year that has dragged on as if ten. It’s the repetitive cycle of doing the same thing every single day that causes the days to blur into one. I wouldn’t know it was May unless I was forced to write the date down over a thousand times a day.
The memory of a May when we set up part of the grocery store out on the front stoop flashes through my mind. Tata would be waving at everyone on the street, inviting them over with his friendly smile. “This is how you find happiness, Ella,” he would say. “When you offer a smile, you give someone else a reason to smile.” He was right. Only in front of our store did it sound like the bees were singing rather than buzzing, and daffodils would blossom for months. Birds would weave between customers’ feet as if we were all one of a kind, and everyone knew our names. Life felt magical then, almost unreal compared to this. It might as well still be winter here with how cold the air is and the relentless dense fog that hovers over us like another imprisoning wall or gate. Would Tata tell meto smile now? Would he tell me it would work, fix everything around me? I’m not sure.
Day after day, I question whether I’m alive or in some form of hell, but there’s no answer.
Rain falls in fat plonks as I amble away from the roll-call square to the administration building. The mud is thick and sticky, sucking the clogs off my feet just to splash back at me after I place my foot back down.
I once loved the rain. I thought it was magical and romantic—a perfect setting for a first kiss with a symphonic background made of drips, drops, and plonks that would silence the world’s chatter. If I could have that moment back, that one kiss, the only first kiss I might ever experience—I would love the rain again. That was a dream, it had to have been. How can one person go from living a life like that to one like this?
I push my sleeve up to show the guard at the gate my number and wait for him to let me through. The world around me becomes a blur as I walk down the corridors into the room where I will catalog names until the muscles in my hand seize.
The stack of papers on my desk grows taller each day, despite making it through the full pile daily. More and more innocent people are being brought into these confines. By the over-population of Polish resistance members now imprisoned within these walls, it’s hard to imagine there’s anyone left to rescue us. And worse, I’m terrified to think what might have become of Tata and Miko—if they’ve been caught.
“Ella…” the whisper of my name tells me the coast is clear of officers, guards, and kapos in the near vicinity. I peer behind me, finding Tatiana with her hand cupped around her cheek, calling for me. I’ve come to learn she’ll only call for me here if there’s a reason worth taking the risk.
She waves me over and I scan the room to make sure there are no watchful eyes before scurrying to her side with my back arched to conceal myself behind the front row of typists.
“What is it?”
“I’ve made a friend,” she says, her eyes growing wide as if I should understand what she means by her statement. We all have “friends”, but there are varying forms of friends here: those we can trust and rely on, share emotions and secrets with, some who offer help in exchange for help, and then, of course, there are the foes who act as friends but will rat out us out to receive an extra crumb of bread. Without knowing who each of these people truly are deep down inside, it’s easy to walk into a deadly trap.
“Go on,” I tell her.
“Iza, she works in a room down the corridor, processing incoming and outgoing post. She’s looking for a name—her sister to be exact—and she’s desperate to know what barrack she’s been assigned. I told her I would look and ask you and the other girls the same. If we manage to find this name, she’s offered to help clear a letter for each of us.”
My mouth falls open, shock swelling through me as I consider the thought of sending a letter out of this place. Then I remember how feeble our luck has been upon trying to locate names in our logs. We tried to find Tatiana’s mother’s and sister’s names before, but we couldn’t. She’s convinced herself they were sent somewhere better than here and that’s why she can’t find them. I think that thought helps her sleep at night.
“What about the restrictions and SS reviews?” We had once been told we could send an occasional note out of Auschwitz, but that “generous” offer came without any ounce of privacy. Every letter would be reviewed before being sent to the addressee and anything found to be stated negatively against Auschwitz wouldbe a violation and result in severe punishment, torture, or death. That’s why I haven’t sent anything home.
My notes would be full of lies, forcefully positive and upbeat, as well as offering false hope to Mama and Tata. They might find relief in knowing I’m alive, but no one in Auschwitz is promised a tomorrow.
The guilt I live with, knowing they must assume I’m dead or held prisoner somewhere showers my mind with images of them grieving for me daily, especially after Miko warned me not to go help Luka that night. He’s likely aware of what happened to me and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Tata and Miko will travel to the ends of the earth to find me. That thought alone leaves me with more dread than anything else.
“She’s a Funktionshäftlinge, a functionary prisoner who screens letters under SS supervision, but her supervisor wanders about more frequently than most,” Tatiana says. “It’s something, a bit of hope for us.”
I stare through my friend, knowing tears should be filling my eyes, but I’m not sure I remember how to cry through the staleness of my mind. “Thank you—what—what is her sister’s name? What should I be searching for?”
“Zofia Jonowicz. She’s seventeen from Krakow.”
