Under a sunburnt sky, p.14
Under a Sunburnt Sky, page 14
A few minutes later, Mama was in the neighbour’s borrowed car. The same one she’d used to pick him up from Gestapo headquarters. She drove off with a wave, leaving Jan with Danuta. He gave her instructions to lock the door and go to bed. Usually his little sister would argue with him and tell him he couldn’t give her orders, but this time she gave a solemn nod, her eyes wide.
He added a scarf and gloves to his outfit and tugged his woollen cap down low to stave off the cold. Then, with a quick prayer to Saint Sophia for wisdom, he ran back the way he’d come earlier.
When he reached the place where the Gestapo was dragging people from storefronts and churches and pushing them in groups along the street in the direction of the ghetto, he followed them at a distance, sliding into shadowy doorways and crouching behind piles of rubbish or the remnants of dark, brittle shrubbery that’d somehow survived the violence of war.
They herded the crowds of prisoners to the Umschlagplatz, where a train awaited them. Half of the cars were already packed with human cargo. The sounds of their cries and shouts echoed through the still night air. Jan wanted to cover his ears, wanted to be anywhere but there. He hated the sound, hated thinking of his sister shoved into that cramped car between desperate strangers and gasping for air.
He lingered closer to the gate and listened to the guards. They spoke of the ledger and what they’d recorded there—how many men, women and children were already on board. How many more they could fit.
“Some of them are not Jews.”
“We have a quota to fill, and we will fill it.”
Rage formed a knot in Jan’s gut. His sister had been taken to fill a quota. She would die because of the greed and corruption of an evil government. In that moment, he wanted to kill them all. If he could have, he would’ve pushed them into a pit of lava, or mowed them down with a machine gun.
He’d never been violent, never felt the urge to harm another human being until this very moment. But he’d do it. He’d kill them all if he had the chance, to save Jadzia from the Nazis.
Then came the revelation Jan was waiting for.
“These are going to Majdanek Vernichtungslager.”
“Not to Treblinka?”
“Not today. See to it that every person is accounted for. I won’t have Meisinger say I’m bad at my job.”
Jan hurried away without looking back. He’d heard of Majdanek only recently. It was originally a prisoner of war camp in Lublin, but lately they’d been sending the Jews from the ghetto there rather than to Treblinka. From everything he’d heard about the camp, the SS who ran the place were particularly brutal.
The guard had referred to it as vernichtungslager, which in German meant extermination camp. He had to get home to wait for Mama so he could tell her what he’d discovered. If Jadzia was at Majdanek, they could rescue her. He didn’t know how, but together they’d find a way. Mama would know what to do.
21
8th February 1943
Jadzia had been interred at the vernichtungslager two kilometres outside of Lublin for the past four weeks. It might as well have been four years. It seemed longer than a lifetime. At first, she’d hoped they would realise their mistake, that she wasn’t a criminal or a prisoner of war or a Jew, but a normal Polish Catholic girl who shouldn’t be there. She’d done nothing wrong, she told them. Why was she here? It was a mistake.
Over and over, the response was—where are your papers?
When she said a guard had torn them to shreds, they’d laughed and moved on to the next person, clipboard in hand ready to take down the prisoner’s details. She’d wanted to scream in frustration. It wasn’t fair. They could call her mother and speak to her—please could someone call her mother? But her request had resulted in a swift blow to the side of her head with a baton, and she’d soon learned to keep silent.
She’d long since given up paying attention to pangs of hunger or dehydration. Listening to her physical senses would only get her in trouble. Instead, she had to pay attention to what was going on around her in the world outside her own pain, suffering and inner torment. Pay attention and do what she was told or die.
At four a.m., she was already awake. Her body had adjusted to the new schedule within a few days of arriving at Majdanek, and she woke minutes before the guards arrived. As the barracks doors burst open, Jadzia was already climbing to her feet.
Her body screamed a silent objection, pain shot through her legs as her almost-frozen feet hit the cold concrete floor. She ignored the pain with a grimace and was already smoothing her hair back from her face the best she could.
She still had her clothes. They hadn’t processed her or Hanna yet. The rest of the prisoners in the camp wore only a thin cotton sheath and shivered about their labour for the duration of the short, cold days spent toiling outdoors.
Any of the women and girls who failed to leap from their beds were beaten with clubs by the female SS guards until they were on their feet. Sometimes the beatings lasted longer, depending on the moods of the women in charge.
“Hanna,” whispered Jadzia. “Get up.”
Hanna groaned and rolled over. “Just a few more minutes, Mama.”
“It’s Jadzia, not your mother, and you have to get up or the guards will deal with you.”
Hanna’s hazel eyes blinked open and she quickly slipped off the short, hard mat that served as a bed on a bunk made of wire and metal pipes.
“Oh, I was having such a nice dream,” she complained.
“Hush.” Jadzia didn’t want to see her friend suffer the wrath of Braunstein, the guard currently tormenting a girl at the other end of the bunkhouse for hiding a piece of bread beneath her pillow, and who was known for her cruelty.
Jadzia reached up to tap the woman asleep on the bunk above her own but found the woman’s arm was cold. She was dead. Jadzia shrank back, recoiling in horror.
“What is it?” Hanna whispered, eyes wide.
“I think she’s dead.”
“We have to carry her out for roll call.”
Jadzia knew it was true. She wanted to cry. But if she and Hanna left the woman’s body where it was, they’d be the ones blamed and they might be beaten, whipped or worse. She’d seen enough in the past four weeks to know that it was better to carry the cold, dead corpse out to the yard than leave it behind.
She gave a quick nod. They’d have to move fast.
Hanna reached for the woman’s feet and Jadzia took her under the arms. Between the two of them, they dragged her from the bed to the ground with a sickening thud. Then they half carried, half pulled her through the rows of bunk beds as they followed the other women and girls outside to the cold, grey yard. Drifts of snow clung to tussocks of grass, the eaves of the buildings and filled the hollows. Puddles sparkled with shards of ice.
The women lined up in front of the guards and shouted a response when their name was called. Jadzia and Hanna set the dead woman on the ground beside them. She was dragged away after her name was called and thrown into the back of a nearby wagon on top of a growing pile of corpses.
The rest were dressed in the striped prison uniforms. Only the middle-aged woman from their barracks wore civilian clothing and had long, brown hair that’d fallen from her bun in wisps.
Braunstein eyed the group as she paced up and down in front of them, her baton dangling from one hand as she went. Her SS uniform was impeccable, her countenance pleasing. She smiled as she walked, and there was a dimple in one of her plump white cheeks.
If Jadzia saw her in the street out of uniform, she’d assume the woman was kind and sweet. But the truth couldn’t be more divorced from the guard’s appearance. She looked for opportunities to torture the prisoners and often joined in with other guards to kill them for sport, laughing and joking as death came in the most degrading ways.
A shiver ran down Jadzia’s spine as she recalled some of the things she’d witnessed since arriving in the camp. But she couldn’t think about it. Remembering would drive her crazy. Instead, she pushed the thoughts out of her mind and focused on the task at hand—to work all day in the damp cold and not draw any attention to herself.
At six a.m., they were all marched from the camp to a field nearby and given shovels. They were told to dig a long trench. Jadzia did what she was told without complaint. If she worked hard and didn’t make a fuss, she’d found that the guards left her alone.
The ground was frozen, and her shovel bounced off the soil the first few times she attempted it. But she put her weight behind it and used her foot to push down on the blade, and it entered the ground a few centimetres. The work was backbreaking and slow. How long could the older women in the group manage?
The prisoners in uniform who’d already been processed were marched off into the distance to do some other form of work. She knew her time for that would come just as soon as the SS managed to wade through the enormous amount of administrative work required to keep their meticulous accounts.
She’d heard Braunstein complain to one of the other female guards that the camp was full to bursting and they’d have to give more of the prisoners special treatment soon or they’d have nowhere to put the new arrivals.
From where she worked, Jadzia could see the entire camp. It covered almost three square kilometres of land and was surrounded by two curled rows of electrified barbed wire fence.
There were six fields, each separated from the others by barbed wire, a guard room at the entrance, and twenty-four barracks per field that each accommodated over three hundred prisoners.
Dotted throughout the fields were warehouses, workshops and three large buildings from which a constant stream of smoke emitted. The smell was sickly, and there was a steady rain of ashes that came down on the prisoners’ heads when the wind turned.
All around the camp, tall watchtowers looked out. And in each of the towers was stationed a pair of machine-gun-armed sentries. Throughout the camp was a large contingent of SS troops to guard the prisoners at all times, as well as over two hundred German Shepherd police dogs and a contingent of auxiliary police, the Kampfpolizei, who seemed to Jadzia to be mostly comprised of lowlifes and criminals with a fetish for violence.
The dogs were particularly frightening to Jadzia and the other prisoners. She’d already seen them tear apart several prisoners who’d made a run for the camp entrance when it was opened to allow a transport through, or had upset the SS guards in some other way. They were well-trained and vicious.
Around eleven a.m., the guards brought the two hundred and fifty women in Jadzia’s bunkhouse back to the camp for dinner. The striped prisoners returned as well from wherever they’d been taken. The ones who’d left in the backs of trucks, however, were nowhere to be seen.
The trucks had returned earlier, their beds empty and freshly washed, and were parked alongside the entrance to the camp. When Jadzia passed through the open gates, she felt as if she might be sick at the sight of three guards standing beside the empty trucks. They were joking and laughing as they harassed a prisoner with one of their dogs, and the woman, on her hands and knees, cried, streaks of dirt mixing with the tears in rivulets down her cheeks as the dog growled in her face, its teeth bared and saliva dripping from its chin.
They lined up outside their barracks and were treated to a cup of coffee made of roasted turnips, a mug of soup made from grass, and a chunk of bread, adulterated with sawdust. Jadzia and Hanna sat side by side, their backs against the barracks walls.
They ate slowly. The meal was meagre, but it was all they’d get until suppertime and they didn’t intend to waste a crumb. Jadzia had already lost weight since their arrival; her clothes were loose on her thin frame. And Hanna’s cheekbones protruded, making her look austere.
“We have to get out of here,” said Hanna as she studied the bread in her hand.
“I know, but how? They’ll shoot us if we try to escape. And the dogs…”
“Yes, but we can’t stay. Why hasn’t anyone come for us? Where are our parents?”
“I’m sure they’re trying. Mama will do everything she can.”
“Do you think so?”
Jadzia nodded. “I know she will. And I’m sure your parents are working to free you as well.”
“But they haven’t succeeded.” Hanna’s face fell. “We might die in here.”
Jadzia tried not to think about it. She’d held onto the hope that her family would do something to get her out of this hellhole. But she should face facts—it’d been four weeks and she was still there. Hanna was right—it was likely they’d die in the vernichtungslager, just like so many of their fellow prisoners did every day.
Just then, the prisoners in striped uniforms lined up. Their guards walked down the lines and tapped several of them on the shoulder. Those prisoners they tapped walked forward. Jadzia’s stomach curled into a knot. She hated this time of the day. Any prisoners the guards regarded as slacking in their work were punished before the afternoon shift. It was sickening and horrifying all at the same time. And soon, Jadzia would be processed and would be part of the striped crews.
When they brought out the whips, she turned away, preferring to look up at the sky and make a game of guessing the animal shapes she saw there. She and Hanna could play the game together for the rest of lunchtime and never see the punishment meted out on their fellow prisoners, many of whom had grey hair and were so thin, she thought a gentle breeze might bowl them over if they turned sideways.
But she couldn’t block out the sound of the whip as it slapped across bare skin, or the wails of the prisoners as they lay in the dirt, dying.
Jan was frustrated. They’d been looking for apartments for months now and hadn’t found anything suitable. Every place was either too exposed and likely to result in them being reported to the SS, or too expensive, too small or too mouldy.
Mama rubbed both hands over her face, then set her hands on her hips to survey the room. The apartment they were inspecting was old and the walls were full of holes. The unit next door had been bombed in the siege and there was a breeze blowing from somewhere through the living room. Not only that, but the owner wanted a small fortune for the place. It was more than they could afford.
“We’re never going to find anything suitable,” Mama said, her shoulders slumping.
Jan sighed. “I can’t think about it anyway. Not with Jadzia still locked up in Majdanek.”
Mama faced him. She had dark rings beneath her eyes and a look of defeat on her face. “I know. I can’t either. But we have to—we’ve got to find somewhere before Otwock is emptied and all its inhabitants are sent to Treblinka.”
“I don’t know why we’re even doing this. We have to rescue Jadzia.” Jan slapped the wall in frustration.
Mama began to cry. “I know we do. I’m working as hard as I can to get her released.”
“We can’t think about anyone else now. She’s our priority. I shouldn’t have been sneaking into the ghetto—I should’ve been with her instead. If I was there with her, this wouldn’t have happened.” Jan’s entire body burned with anger.
He wanted to face the men who’d taken his sister and beat them to a pulp. He wanted to run, to shout, to do something, anything other than mindlessly, pointlessly looking at apartments that would never be theirs.
Mama cupped his cheek with one hand. “It isn’t your fault, Janek. And if you were with her, you’d have been captured as well.”
“I can’t do it anymore, Mama.” He swallowed around a growing lump in his throat.
“What can’t you do?”
“Help them. I’m only a boy. I can’t save anyone.”
She sighed. “None of us can save anyone. All we can do is try.”
“But if it’s futile, why go on?” He wanted to know the answer, longed for someone to tell him that risking his life and his family every single day wasn’t for nothing. That it wouldn’t end the way so many other stories had, all the lives he’d seen cut short despite their bravery and their innocence.
“We go on because we must. What else can we do?” Mama shrugged. “You’re a good boy. I’m proud of you.”
“What if I can’t keep going, Mama? Will you be proud of me then?”
“Of course, my son. I love you and always will.”
He felt better on hearing her words. The weight of expectation had given him sleepless nights and anxious days. He didn’t know if he could keep it up, or even if he wanted to.
“This place won’t do, so let’s try again tomorrow after work.” Mama smiled, wiping her cheeks dry with her sleeve.
Jan nodded and followed her out of the apartment, his heart heavy.
They’d been working so hard at the market and spending every spare moment on getting Jadzia released from the concentration camp and looking for an apartment that they’d barely slept in weeks.
“You’re right. Let’s go home.”
Danuta was in the hallway, playing with a handful of rocks and sorting them into their various sizes and shapes. She’d learned to adapt to their new life. Without Jadzia to take care of her, she spent most of her time with either Mama, Jan or one of the neighbours and had grown accustomed to working at the market with them. She was almost as good as Jan at closing a deal.
The three of them wandered home, too tired to think about anything other than bed, although Jan’s stomach grumbled as they passed a bakery and the scent of freshly baked bread drifted out to them on the breeze.
He missed Jadzia’s bread. She made the best sourdough in the world. And he missed her laughter, her gentle teasing. Everything about her. He hated to think what she must be going through, and there was nothing he could do about it. The frustration of that ate at him like acid.
When they reached home, the short day was almost over. The sun had never really shone, but had glowed behind a bank of dreary clouds. The land was cold and the air damp. A greyness hung over it all, exacerbated by the bombed-out craters that pockmarked the city and the bullet holes that punctuated walls.
“I’m lazy today,” said Danuta, echoing Jan’s mood.
