“Mama!” they shout, scampering out of their bedroom.
As if on cue, Flora begins to cry again. Perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that Halina can manage to keep her calm when the baby’s mother is gone. To think Frau Schäfer’s bringing another child into this hostile environment is beyond my comprehension.
I spin around the unfinished space and stop in front of the hidden alcove. I knew this small space would come in handy. I pull open the two panels of wood, hinged on the inside to conceal any breathable space. Then, I loosen one of the shorter wall panels, built the same way as the doors, revealing the small, cubed compartment, perfect for hiding smaller objects, and this pistol.
“Of course, my child is wailing when I walk in through the door. What else would she be doing?” Frau Schäfer shouts.
Footsteps cross through the hallway below me and disappear at the stairwell. Halina must be bringing Frau Schäfer her wailing child.
“Where are the hounds?” Adam whispers. “We should be halfway back to Auschwitz by now.”
“I don’t know,” I answer. We’re standing between the SS-owned homes and the brink of the wooded path that leads back to the camp. The two lines of us, men and women, are facing each other, in formation like we should be. By this time, there is usually a guard or two waiting to escort us, but not even the kapos are here. It’s late, and much darker than usual. Something isn’t right.
Schäfer is sitting in his parked car just a dozen steps away from our lines. There’s no way he would be the one escorting us back to Auschwitz, not through the woods. Another setof headlights flashes down the street, a slow, smooth gliding vehicle—another officer.
“What are they expecting us to do?” Benson utters. It’s one of the first times he’s walked back with us at the same hour. He’s been brought here to cook for one of the other two families and doesn’t return to the barracks until midnight some nights.
“They’re all watching,” Reuben says, holding his soot-covered broom in hand.
“If we don’t report back on time, we’ll miss roll call,” Kasia says. “If we miss the roll call, everyone in the barracks will suffer. Maybe we should just go on our own.”
Kasia knows just as well as the rest of us that Bea was killed today after her failed plan to escape, which means we’re likely awaiting punishment for Bea’s decision. But for what purpose when she’s already dead?
I turn over my shoulder, and whisper to Adam, “I did something today…”
He swallows hard, the lump in his throat dry and coarse. “Wh—what’s that?”
The officer in the newly arrived vehicle steps out in front of the next house down, and his boots thud against the gravel as he walks like a deadly shadow backlit by his headlights.
“I’ll tell you later,” I say, quieter than my previous whisper.
Officer Schäfer steps out of his vehicle next but walks into the house. He doesn’t acknowledge our existence, which should give me relief. Instead, every muscle tenses as I watch the last slice of sun melt into the horizon. We’re in the dark. There are no kapos. One of us is dead. And we’re going to miss the roll call.
I should have taken the pistol with me. I don’t know how good of a shot I would have, but there’s a chance I could have taken them both out, set us all free. Though, a guard in the distance at a checkpoint too close for comfort would pick up the sound. We wouldn’t have anywhere to run. We’re trapped.That’s why Bea likely gave up and stayed where she was in the cellar. We walk between two checkpoints with nowhere else to go.
I don’t know who I am, even thinking this way. Never in my life had I imagined hurting another person, but this rage building inside of me, it’s taking over every fiber of my being, and each day I continue to survive, seems like a year in passing.
“Someone knew about the girl who was hiding in the cellar,” the silhouette of an officer belts out. “Which one of you was it?”
No one in the group opens their mouth to speak. None of us knew. At least, I don’t think any of us knew. Maybe there was suspicion of Bea’s whereabouts, but nothing more. Anytime a guard or officer tells a group of prisoners one person is guilty of a crime, it’s to get someone to confess, even when there’s nothing to confess. This is when prisoners turn on each other, hoping to save themselves. The SS likely need someone to blame, someone other than a kapo they trusted.
Adam’s breathing harder than he was. We had nothing to do with her plan to disappear and hide in the Schäfer’s cellar of all the terrible places.
The officer steps up to me, the toes of his boots touching the toes of mine. “You work in the same house as that rat.” She’s dead. Name calling isn’t necessary.
“I work in the attic, away from any others. Hammering all day, leaves me with a hissing buzz in place of any type of quiet.”
The officer steps to his right, in front of Adam. “You. You also work there.”
“Yes, but outside, in the garden,” Adam says. “I—I haven’t a clue what’s happening in the house.”
In the seconds of the following silence, a shout echoes from the Schäfer house. I fight the urge to whip my head around and convince myself I can see through the walls. What more is there to yell about? He already found and killed the girl in the cellar.Flora wasn’t crying when I left twenty minutes ago, and Frau Schäfer was setting the dinner table—or so I believe due to the clinks of dishes and silverware I overheard.
The front door of the house storms open. “Find it, Ada. Find it now,” Schäfer yells, his voice carrying loud as he comes closer.
“Anything?” Schäfer asks the other officer.
“No,” the interrogator replies.
