A Story by Allyson Bell
The moon shimmers glared onto the barracks exposing the mound of white figures that coated the ground with innocence. A deep trench close by was constructed the day before. The friends of the deceased were forced to dig for six hours, while the burning light stung the back of their necks. Fresh sweat dripping from their hairlines and dampening their clothes. “Graben!” The Nazi would yell. And when the work was done, and the figures ached, they were marched back to sleep until the sun rose again.
Morning hour, they rise once more. On a good day, coffee and a slice of stale bread. Pour the cool coffee into your hands. Feel it drip through your fingers, let it represent your life. Bring it up to your face and rinse the filth off from the day before. Eat the slice slowly. I know it’s hard to resist. Let it last more than a second, savor the feeling.
“Where’s Martha?” Someone asked. “Martha!?” She was now yelling. The woman continued to scream out Martha until her throat was numb. Her voice now scratchy, her limbs shaking. “Has anybody seen a girl!? A pretty, pretty, little girl? She’s nine.” You could tell she was holding back, she was about to cry. What nobody had the courage to say, the truth, silenced the walk back. Word spread yesterday, a young girl tried to escape. Didn’t even make it ten feet past the wire. Her mother’s sobbing echoed through the silence. “Ruhe!” A guard hushed her.
What had we come to? A point where the murder of a young girl was tolerated. That the only one crying, was her mother. Death was no longer uncommon. To hear screams coming from the medical infirmaries, to hear crying from inside the chambers.
Martha was eight when her family was taken by the Nazis. When they arrived at the train cars, hundreds of Jews spilled out onto the lawn. They were ordered into three lines. Men, women, and elders. My father kissed my hair and whispered “Mein Engel , ich liebe dich.” Then he turned to face my mother. He wiped the tears from her cheek and kissed her softly one last time. To her all he said was “stark bleiben.” She nodded and moved towards Jacob, my brother. Together, my mother and I both hugged him tightly as he tried to wiggle out from our grasp. My mother whispered words of love into his little ears. Then he looked at me. Fear filled his eyes as they started to swell. Tears came pouring out as I pushed his tiny head into my chest. “Shhhh, Shhhh” I tried to comfort him. He looked up at me with the biggest of eyes and said “Ich liebe dich.”
When Jacob was a toddler I used to play with his hair and dress him like one of my dolls. He would cry and cry and cry until my mother would come to get him as she scolded me. I always thought of Jacob as mine. He was my little brother. I used to say to him “Ich liebe dich mein Püppchen” Meaning, I love you, my little doll. He would just laugh and laugh and laugh. But he never repeated those words back. For as long as I can remember, Jacob thought the words ‘I love you’ were a sign of weakness. That a man only said those words when a man had to say those words.
That morning was the first time Jacob ever said those three little words out loud. So in response I said “Ich weiß, Sie tun”, ‘I know you do’. He smiled and ran to his favorite spot, under father’s legs. We waved one last time then turned and walked to our lines. Mother kept eye contact with father as the line moved. When we got to the plump guard he asked for our age and relation. My mother answered “Ich bin neunundzwanzig und meine Tochter ist acht.” ‘I’m twenty-nine and my daughter is eight.’ “Dieses hier” ‘This one’ he said and pointed to a green car near the front. Mother helped me up into the car but I couldn’t reach. A hand appeared to help pull me up. I grabbed it and pulled hard. Once I was in the car, I saw at least twenty women and children squeezed into this tiny room. My mother came in and quickly grabbed my hand. She walked me over to the right wall and we sat down. We watched and waited as twenty more women spilled into our car. It was packed full. Some were coughing, some groaning, and some not surprisingly were weeping.
A young Nazi with grey hair walked up to the guard in front of our train car. “Wie viele?” ‘How many?’ he asked. The plump guard responded “Fünfundvierzig insgesamt” ‘forty-five total.’ he answered. The Nazi with grey hair looked into our car and smiled. Then he stepped up onto the platform and slammed the door closed. Everything went dark.
For the next four days all that could be seen was the blur of trees through the cracks in the wood. Everyone was hungry and the stench of urine and excrement filled the tiny space. The train finally came to a halt, and the same plump guard opened our car door and immediately blinding light rushed in. All of us moaned as we covered our eyes. He counted “sechs Tote” ‘six dead’ he mumbled to himself as he wrote it down on his chart.
At the camp we were all assigned jobs. My mother was sent to work in the factory with most other women her age. Girls from the ages six to eight weren’t assigned jobs. Mother thought it strange, what use do they have for us? But I didn’t care, I was just glad I didn’t have to work in the factory. Mother said it was smelly, and if you go too slowly the Nazis will drag you out by your hair. She doesn’t know where they take you though. Mother said she’d rather me know the truth then be surprised by the consequences when I do something foolish.
One day my mother came back crying. She said that she overheard two Nazis talking. That she now knew why they had kept the young girls. They were going to do medical tests on us. The medical infirmary was the biggest building in the camp. Like lab rats, Jews were brought in and tested. Nazis would give injections of polio and then record how long it would take us to die. They would break Jews legs and then study bone placement and recovery times, etc. It was a death sentence but longer and more painful. I was terrified, too terrified to move. I just stared at mother and asked “wann?” ‘when?’. “Eine woche.” ‘One week.’ She said. I began to cry. She held me tight and combed my hair with her fingers. Soon, we were both a mess, weeping until our eyes stung dry and our throats too raw to swallow. I missed Father. I missed Jacob. I knew my mother did too.
I decided that I wasn’t going to do it. I was not going to let the Nazis break my legs and inject me with polio. If I was going to die, it wouldn’t be for their benefit. So I came up with a plan. As I laid on my bunk, I thought of different outcomes, the good and the bad. I was going to escape. In two nights I would sneak out of our shack and cross through the patch of farming soil. Tomorrow all of the other women will farm, making the mound big enough to hide behind while the Nazis makes their nightly check-up on all the shacks. Once they finish and go back to their houses I’ll slip through the hole that I will dig tomorrow behind the mound. That’s the hard part, digging with no one noticing.
I could’ve told mother but I decided against it. She would have tried to stop me and for some reason I had this thought, that if somehow I did escape, I would come back for her too.
That day, I dug a small hole big enough to squeeze through. I think the women just assumed I was farming close to the wire. For the first time since we had gotten to the camp, I slept through the night. When I woke up mother already had left. When she got back I hugged her tight and told her that I loved her. She thought I was acting strange, I could tell. I wanted to let her in on my secret so bad, but I knew I couldn’t. I was so close.
That night, I waited. When the lights went off, I snuck out of our shack and ran quickly across the patch of farming land. I dove behind the mound, afraid of being seen. I was surprised at how exhilarated I felt. I thought I’d be afraid, but no. I felt like I could do anything. Two Nazis emerged from the houses and made their way around the shacks. I closed my eyes when one entered my shack. “Bitte nicht bemerken. Bitte Bitte.” ‘Please do not notice. Please Please.’ He made his way to the other guard. I was sure he was telling him about me. Turns out he didn’t notice me at all, he noticed a young woman in my shack. One Nazi dragged her as the other held her arms and covered her mouth. They brought her into their house where I could hear her crying. I was too young to understand what was happening that night.
If I was going to escape, now was the time. I looked over the mound, no Nazi to be seen. I lowered myself to the ground and slowly began to sink into the hole. I wormed my way under the fence and soon the top half of my body was free. ‘Just a little further’ I thought. I had to use my arms to pull my body weight. All of a sudden, I couldn’t move. I looked back, and the pant leg was stuck on the fence. I tried to pull it but it wouldn’t budge. It had tangled itself. The wire was scratching my legs and feet. “Ow!” I cried out. I covered my mouth and wiped the tear from my face. I continued to try and wiggle myself free. I was worried now that someone had heard me, I had to move quickly. I turned over on to my back and sat up so I could use my hands to get myself untangled. I did it! I pulled my legs out from under the fence. Soon, I was standing. Then, I was running, I felt the cold air whipping at my face and hair.
Martha was nine when she was shot and killed. Her mother, was rescued by the United States only two weeks after her death. She was found later, after she committed suicide in her displaced persons camp. Martha’s father was murdered shortly after his arrival in a labor camp for trying to protect another prisoner. Jacob’s camp was liberated two years later. Jacob now lives in New York with his wife. He has five children, and three grandchildren. When asked about his mother and father, Jacob was sad to say that he didn’t have many memories of them because he was so young when they were separated, but he remembered both of them loving each other so completely and so fully that he noted their love as unconditional. When asked about his sister he smiled and said “Ich liebe dich mein Püppchen”.
The moon shimmers glared onto the barracks exposing the mound of white figures that coated the ground with innocence. A deep trench close by was constructed the day before. The friends of the deceased were forced to dig for six hours, while the burning light stung the back of their necks. Fresh sweat dripping from their hairlines and dampening their clothes. “Graben!” The Nazi would yell. And when the work was done, and the figures ached, they were marched back to sleep until the sun rose again.
Morning hour, they rise once more. On a good day, coffee and a slice of stale bread. Pour the cool coffee into your hands. Feel it drip through your fingers, let it represent your life. Bring it up to your face and rinse the filth off from the day before. Eat the slice slowly. I know it’s hard to resist. Let it last more than a second, savor the feeling.
“Where’s Martha?” Someone asked. “Martha!?” She was now yelling. The woman continued to scream out Martha until her throat was numb. Her voice now scratchy, her limbs shaking. “Has anybody seen a girl!? A pretty, pretty, little girl? She’s nine.” You could tell she was holding back, she was about to cry. What nobody had the courage to say, the truth, silenced the walk back. Word spread yesterday, a young girl tried to escape. Didn’t even make it ten feet past the wire. Her mother’s sobbing echoed through the silence. “Ruhe!” A guard hushed her.
What had we come to? A point where the murder of a young girl was tolerated. That the only one crying, was her mother. Death was no longer uncommon. To hear screams coming from the medical infirmaries, to hear crying from inside the chambers.
Martha was eight when her family was taken by the Nazis. When they arrived at the train cars, hundreds of Jews spilled out onto the lawn. They were ordered into three lines. Men, women, and elders. My father kissed my hair and whispered “Mein Engel , ich liebe dich.” Then he turned to face my mother. He wiped the tears from her cheek and kissed her softly one last time. To her all he said was “stark bleiben.” She nodded and moved towards Jacob, my brother. Together, my mother and I both hugged him tightly as he tried to wiggle out from our grasp. My mother whispered words of love into his little ears. Then he looked at me. Fear filled his eyes as they started to swell. Tears came pouring out as I pushed his tiny head into my chest. “Shhhh, Shhhh” I tried to comfort him. He looked up at me with the biggest of eyes and said “Ich liebe dich.”
When Jacob was a toddler I used to play with his hair and dress him like one of my dolls. He would cry and cry and cry until my mother would come to get him as she scolded me. I always thought of Jacob as mine. He was my little brother. I used to say to him “Ich liebe dich mein Püppchen” Meaning, I love you, my little doll. He would just laugh and laugh and laugh. But he never repeated those words back. For as long as I can remember, Jacob thought the words ‘I love you’ were a sign of weakness. That a man only said those words when a man had to say those words.
That morning was the first time Jacob ever said those three little words out loud. So in response I said “Ich weiß, Sie tun”, ‘I know you do’. He smiled and ran to his favorite spot, under father’s legs. We waved one last time then turned and walked to our lines. Mother kept eye contact with father as the line moved. When we got to the plump guard he asked for our age and relation. My mother answered “Ich bin neunundzwanzig und meine Tochter ist acht.” ‘I’m twenty-nine and my daughter is eight.’ “Dieses hier” ‘This one’ he said and pointed to a green car near the front. Mother helped me up into the car but I couldn’t reach. A hand appeared to help pull me up. I grabbed it and pulled hard. Once I was in the car, I saw at least twenty women and children squeezed into this tiny room. My mother came in and quickly grabbed my hand. She walked me over to the right wall and we sat down. We watched and waited as twenty more women spilled into our car. It was packed full. Some were coughing, some groaning, and some not surprisingly were weeping.
A young Nazi with grey hair walked up to the guard in front of our train car. “Wie viele?” ‘How many?’ he asked. The plump guard responded “Fünfundvierzig insgesamt” ‘forty-five total.’ he answered. The Nazi with grey hair looked into our car and smiled. Then he stepped up onto the platform and slammed the door closed. Everything went dark.
For the next four days all that could be seen was the blur of trees through the cracks in the wood. Everyone was hungry and the stench of urine and excrement filled the tiny space. The train finally came to a halt, and the same plump guard opened our car door and immediately blinding light rushed in. All of us moaned as we covered our eyes. He counted “sechs Tote” ‘six dead’ he mumbled to himself as he wrote it down on his chart.
At the camp we were all assigned jobs. My mother was sent to work in the factory with most other women her age. Girls from the ages six to eight weren’t assigned jobs. Mother thought it strange, what use do they have for us? But I didn’t care, I was just glad I didn’t have to work in the factory. Mother said it was smelly, and if you go too slowly the Nazis will drag you out by your hair. She doesn’t know where they take you though. Mother said she’d rather me know the truth then be surprised by the consequences when I do something foolish.
One day my mother came back crying. She said that she overheard two Nazis talking. That she now knew why they had kept the young girls. They were going to do medical tests on us. The medical infirmary was the biggest building in the camp. Like lab rats, Jews were brought in and tested. Nazis would give injections of polio and then record how long it would take us to die. They would break Jews legs and then study bone placement and recovery times, etc. It was a death sentence but longer and more painful. I was terrified, too terrified to move. I just stared at mother and asked “wann?” ‘when?’. “Eine woche.” ‘One week.’ She said. I began to cry. She held me tight and combed my hair with her fingers. Soon, we were both a mess, weeping until our eyes stung dry and our throats too raw to swallow. I missed Father. I missed Jacob. I knew my mother did too.
I decided that I wasn’t going to do it. I was not going to let the Nazis break my legs and inject me with polio. If I was going to die, it wouldn’t be for their benefit. So I came up with a plan. As I laid on my bunk, I thought of different outcomes, the good and the bad. I was going to escape. In two nights I would sneak out of our shack and cross through the patch of farming soil. Tomorrow all of the other women will farm, making the mound big enough to hide behind while the Nazis makes their nightly check-up on all the shacks. Once they finish and go back to their houses I’ll slip through the hole that I will dig tomorrow behind the mound. That’s the hard part, digging with no one noticing.
I could’ve told mother but I decided against it. She would have tried to stop me and for some reason I had this thought, that if somehow I did escape, I would come back for her too.
That day, I dug a small hole big enough to squeeze through. I think the women just assumed I was farming close to the wire. For the first time since we had gotten to the camp, I slept through the night. When I woke up mother already had left. When she got back I hugged her tight and told her that I loved her. She thought I was acting strange, I could tell. I wanted to let her in on my secret so bad, but I knew I couldn’t. I was so close.
That night, I waited. When the lights went off, I snuck out of our shack and ran quickly across the patch of farming land. I dove behind the mound, afraid of being seen. I was surprised at how exhilarated I felt. I thought I’d be afraid, but no. I felt like I could do anything. Two Nazis emerged from the houses and made their way around the shacks. I closed my eyes when one entered my shack. “Bitte nicht bemerken. Bitte Bitte.” ‘Please do not notice. Please Please.’ He made his way to the other guard. I was sure he was telling him about me. Turns out he didn’t notice me at all, he noticed a young woman in my shack. One Nazi dragged her as the other held her arms and covered her mouth. They brought her into their house where I could hear her crying. I was too young to understand what was happening that night.
If I was going to escape, now was the time. I looked over the mound, no Nazi to be seen. I lowered myself to the ground and slowly began to sink into the hole. I wormed my way under the fence and soon the top half of my body was free. ‘Just a little further’ I thought. I had to use my arms to pull my body weight. All of a sudden, I couldn’t move. I looked back, and the pant leg was stuck on the fence. I tried to pull it but it wouldn’t budge. It had tangled itself. The wire was scratching my legs and feet. “Ow!” I cried out. I covered my mouth and wiped the tear from my face. I continued to try and wiggle myself free. I was worried now that someone had heard me, I had to move quickly. I turned over on to my back and sat up so I could use my hands to get myself untangled. I did it! I pulled my legs out from under the fence. Soon, I was standing. Then, I was running, I felt the cold air whipping at my face and hair.
Martha was nine when she was shot and killed. Her mother, was rescued by the United States only two weeks after her death. She was found later, after she committed suicide in her displaced persons camp. Martha’s father was murdered shortly after his arrival in a labor camp for trying to protect another prisoner. Jacob’s camp was liberated two years later. Jacob now lives in New York with his wife. He has five children, and three grandchildren. When asked about his mother and father, Jacob was sad to say that he didn’t have many memories of them because he was so young when they were separated, but he remembered both of them loving each other so completely and so fully that he noted their love as unconditional. When asked about his sister he smiled and said “Ich liebe dich mein Püppchen”.