I Have Lived a Thousand Years (19 page)

Bubi interrupts. His voice is a low murmur. “Whom do you expect to find?”

“Why, everybody. Daddy, Aunt Serena, Aunt Celia, Uncle Márton, Imre, Uncle Samuel, Aunt Regina, Grandmother, Suri, Hindi ...”

Bubi raises his bony hand and places it slowly, hesitantly on mine. “Look at me, Elli.” He searches my face, and I see infinite pain in his blue eyes. “Look at me, Elli.” He touches my face ever so lightly, as he says slowly, very slowly, “You will find no one. No one survived the death camps.”

His soft, tired voice drops even lower as he continues. “We. We survived. We are the only ones. We are here. We are the only survivors.”

“But there are many other camps. Maybe they are there. Daddy, and Aunt Serena, and the others ...”

“Daddy is different. He’s a young man, he may have survived in the labor camp. He may be alive. He’s the only one who had a chance. He’s strong, athletic ... But the others, don’t expect to meet any of the others.”

“You mean, Aunt Serena? But she was taken to a camp for older people.”

“There is no such camp. Aunt Serena was taken to the gas chamber.”

“That’s a lie! A lie they were telling us in Plaszow. They told you a lie. You know it’s a lie!”

“You know it’s not a lie ... I had friends who worked in the
Sonderkommando.
I know all the details.”

“What details?”

“The
Sonderkommando
was a special unit. It was they who removed the bodies from the gas chambers. It was their job to strip the bodies of all valuables, even gold teeth, even teeth with gold fillings . . . before putting them into the ovens.” Bubi’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Sometimes they recognized the bodies ... Younger siblings, parents, close relatives . . . Elli, all children, and adults older than forty-five . . . went to the gas.”

“Little Andy, Elizabeth, Uncle Samuel, Aunt Regina, Grandmother . . . ?”

He nods. “They all went to the gas chambers.”

“My God! It can’t be true . . . Aunt Celia, we met Aunt Celia in Auschwitz. And Hindi. And Suri.”

“If you met them, they made the first selection—they may be alive. But since then so many have died. Do you know how many died here during the winter? And how many are dying daily? Every morning at
Zählappell
we find friends missing. The
Blockälteste
orders two men to go into the bunker and carry out those who died during the night. The corpses are placed on the lines and counted in the
Zählappell
until they are officially reported dead to the authorities.”

I sit stunned. Shattered. We are the survivors. Perhaps there is no one else. Only the three of us.

I had known about the gas chambers all along. The shadow of the gas chambers followed us even when we left
Auschwitz. And yet, I had stubbornly clung to the myth of the camp for the children and the elderly. Some children must have survived.

“No. No children survived. They were all gassed.”

“And the mothers? The mothers were with the children. I saw the mothers go together with the children, to the other side. What happened to the mothers?”

“Mothers were gassed together with their children.”

“No, Bubi. Do not say that! Do not say that!”

We sit silently for a long time on the green slope that forms the roof of the bunker. The tall grass continues to sway and shudder in the cool April wind. Freedom. The Americans will be here soon, and we will be liberated. We will be freed—to do what? To face a world in which little children were gassed with their mothers. To face the world in which this was possible.

My God. My God. I have just been robbed of my freedom.

T
HE
L
OST
G
AME

IN THE TRAIN, APRIL 23-27, 1945

It is Tuesday morning, the last week of April, 1945. At
Zählappell
open trucks arrive in the square. In quick order we are loaded onto trucks and driven out of the camp to the train station. Mühldorf station. Thousands of striped male uniforms, thousands of gray women’s uniforms pour from hundreds of trucks straight onto hundreds of boxcars. One hundred to a car. A sea of prison population is being shipped away from the approaching liberation.

Where are they taking us? Rumors circulate. We are being shipped to a long, deep tunnel where we will be blown to bits. The Germans prefer no witnesses to their atrocities. So we are to be liquidated in the trains.

Only rumors. Pay no attention to them. We have survived until now despite rumors. The Americans are near, the Germans would not dare kill us now, so near the end. God, do not let the rumors be right.

Where can Bubi be? I was going to see him after
Zählappell,
as we had done every day since the gates between our camps were opened. Where is he now? Is he among this sea of blue stripes being loaded onto the train? By nightfall the loading ends and the train begins to roll.

The boxcar is jammed to capacity. There is a small window laced with metal bars near the corner where Mommy
and I are crouching, and I can see the lovely woods we are leaving. A cool April breeze rushes in through the small window and we drink in the fresh air with mouths wide open. Now the train goes around a bend and I can see as far as the train’s locomotive. Incredible! There are at least one hundred wagons between us and the engine! As I look the other way, I can see perhaps even more. My God. I have never seen such a chain of boxcars, over two hundred! Where are they shipping so many prison inmates, one hundred to a wagon? Where can they house so many? They are evacuating the camps to escape the enemy closing in on all sides. The circle is getting smaller. Where will they find room for us? God, help us. Do not let the rumors be true.

The train rolls slowly all night, all day. Again all night, and all day. No food or drink. How could they feed all this multitude? Tens of thousands. For days before evacuation we barely received any food. On Thursday we stand in a forest clearing for hours on end.

From my corner perch I am watching a dogfight involving three fighter planes. One plane receives a hit and bursts into flames, and now it is careening in a wide, flaming arc behind the trees. There is a series of loud explosions somewhere beyond my vision.

Now we move rapidly through deep forests and rolling hills and long, dark tunnels. And then slowly, in spurts, among budding fields and sprawling villages, little roadside inns and distant towns. We roll in and out of train stations. Sometimes we stand for hours at a station, and sometimes we pass it without pause. And through it all, nagging hunger and thirst in the boxcar.

By Friday morning I am not hungry anymore. The violent
hunger pangs have mellowed into a dull, persistent ache. Ar obliging lightheadedness lulls me into an apathetic numbness. Mommy also sleeps for longer periods. Her nagging hunger must have subsided somewhat. Brilliant sunshine filters through the cracks of the boxcar. The train is standing still.

We must have been standing for a long, long time; my recollection of the train’s movement is distant. I prop myself up on my elbows with extreme effort. My fellow passengers are sprawled on each other in a stupor. Mommy is also in deep sleep; her head is rolled on my left shoulder. I ease it slowly, gently aside and rise to my feet to get a view through the small window.

The train is perched on a high embankment above a softly sloping valley and a wide-open green cornfield. I can see houses in the distance, a small hamlet. High hills loom on the horizon, dark, beautiful, and forbidding.

The entire foreground is flushed with bright sunshine; a playful gust ruffles the green sea of corn leaves. It is a gay, lighthearted day of spring out there. In the boxcar it is airless and dark, and the scent of apathy is suffocating. I sink back onto the floor in my corner and place Mommy’s drooping head on my shoulder. How much longer will we stand still in this place?

Now it must be noon: The sun is high in the sky. Friday noon. We have been locked in this boxcar since early Tuesday morning. Without food. Or water. That makes this the fourth day without food. How long can a person survive without food? I do not remember learning anything about this in school. How much longer will we stand in one place? Who knows? I cannot bear standing still. It is easier to bear
all this when we are moving. There is hope in movement. Motion means life. It’s insufferable just to stand in one place, aimlessly, endlessly . . . locked in, crowded, thirsty, suffocating from lack of air. Why are we standing here so long?

My shoulder is getting tired. I shift Mommy’s head to my lower arm. It chafes. Mommy’s hair is very short, and the bristles are stiff and prickly. Mommy opens her eyes.

“Why don’t you sleep a little, Elli? Why don’t you get a little rest? I’ll sit upright so you can put your head in my lap. . . .”

All at once, the boxcar’s doors are wrenched open, and cold air rushes into the wagon. Two men in striped uniforms leap into the car shouting, “We are free! We are free! Get out of the wagon!”

The chill gust and noise shake everyone awake from the lethargic daze. “What’s happening?? What’s going on? What’s going on?” We all scramble to our feet and surge toward the wide-open door. Drunk with the sudden onrush of fresh air, we lumber down the metal steps. The boxcar is empty within minutes.

Out on the platform, the air is filled with the roar of thousands pouring out of the wagons, scampering down on the high embankment, and shouting, cheering, howling, whooping with ecstasy. The entire valley is filled with a swarming multitude of striped prison uniforms, gray prison dresses. The narrow embankment is also covered with men and women laughing, and crying, and embracing everyone they meet, or just aimlessly milling about among the tracks. “We are free! We are free!”

Most inmates head for the green cornfield. Hundreds are
tearing at green husks of corn and eating them. Others are devouring the young corn leaves. And some are heading toward the hamlet in the distance. But where are the Americans? Or the Germans? Only inmates are to be seen everywhere.

“Mommy, let’s go to the cornfield. We will pick some corn. Or we will go to the village to get some food there. Everyone is going.”

“I’m not going from here until we find Bubi. He must be in this transport. We must find him.”

“How can we find him? That’s impossible. There are thousands and thousands of people dispersed in every direction. He might have gone to the fields. Or to the village. We will never find him here at the train.”

“I’m not going anywhere until we find him!” Mommy’s despair spills over into fury and panic. “I’m not going anywhere!” Then, having spent the last ounce of her energy in her angry outburst, she continues in a low, tired voice, “He could not go to the fields. He could not get off this steep embankment. He has no strength to walk even . . . He must be here somewhere among the boxcars. Or, maybe he is in one of them. He might have been too weak to get off. He may just be helplessly lying there, in one of the abandoned boxcars.”

We start on a long trek along the endless row of boxcars, and peer into each. Most of the cars are not empty. There are men and women lying about in the dark interiors, and we call to them, asking about Bubi. Not one of them answers. Are they asleep? Are they dead? Should we climb into each wagon to see if any of them is Bubi ... ?

But Mommy trudges on, and I follow. There are many
others who, like us, simply plod along the tracks. But they do not seem to be looking for anyone. They are simply walking about in a daze. We address these walkers, we inquire about Bubi, but they do not answer. They do not seem to hear.

Many lie about on the ground, on the tracks, on the metal steps leading to the boxcars. They seem unaware of what is going on all about them. Mommy and I crash ahead, from one boxcar to another, in a futile search for my brother. The bulk of the prisoners has left the embankment. The valley is covered with a carpet of prison stripes.

“Mommy, there is no point in hanging about here. This train is endless. We cannot look into every single wagon. Let’s go and try to get some food. ...”

“I’m not leaving until we find Bubi. I’m not leaving until we find Bubi. I’m not leaving until. . . Bubi!!”

He is limping toward us, slowly, deliberately dragging his tattered, injured leg.

“Bubi!!” I cannot believe my eyes. How can this happen? Among the thousands, we meet face to face. He, too, was looking for us near the train.

Bubi is in very poor condition. He is barely breathing. His wound has opened and blood is trickling down his leg. His face is badly bruised from a brutal kick he had received. Who kicked him in the face? When? He cannot remember.

The three of us sit on the embankment, and all around us inmates are disappearing. We are almost alone.

Suddenly, there is the sound of rapid gunfire. Another volley, now louder. Squirts of red slash the green valley. Shrieks of pain and panic are interspersed with rounds of
shooting. Inmates are dropping among the cornstalks like toy tin soldiers, and their bodies rapidly form large red piles among the green corn.

“Zurück in die Waggonen!”
Back into the wagons.
“Los! Los!”
Orders shouted in hysterical German accompany incessant gunfire, and the multitude, like a giant torrent, surges toward the embankment. The shooting continues, and the mad, upward rush is intermittently blocked by the bodies rolling downward among the ranks. “Back into the wagons!”

What happened? Where are the Americans?

Within minutes the embankment is swarming with inmates—many bleeding from heads, shoulders, abdomens, limbs—running, limping, tottering toward the wagons.

Mommy, Bubi, and I scramble to our feet and hurry toward the nearest wagon in the segment reserved for women. Mommy tears a piece off her skirt, and ties the cloth about Bubi’s head as if it were a kerchief. “Here. You are a woman now. No one will notice the difference. I want you to come into our boxcar. I will take care of you.”