Rena's Promise (22 page)

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Authors: Rena Kornreich Gelissen,Heather Dune Macadam

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical, #test

BOOK: Rena's Promise
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When we march out to work and return at night, now, there is a band playing and we're supposed to step in time to the music.
6
It is a paradox to everything else we do, a slap in the face to what dignity we have left. I think the Germans like the fact that it degrades us just one more rung down the ladder of life. The musicians have it better than we do, but we do not begrudge anyone who has the luck to find inside work. Besides, they're forced to play no matter what the weather, and they can be selected, just like anyone else, if they get ill or look poorly. They do not have it so much better. We're all slaves. One slave may have an easier job, but we're all still slaves. The only way to avoid sure death is to work inside, but even that doesn't mean you can escape death completely.
Four
A.M
.
"Raus! Raus! Schnell!"
We rise off our beds of icy, hard wood. It is difficult to move. We are stiff and worn out. Every joint and ligament cracks with fatigue. It is freezing. The tea has lost its steam in these sub-zero temperatures. Even the SS, who are so punctual in everything, take their time entering the gates, counting our shivering bodies. It is the first frost of the season and our bodies are not yet used to the chill in the air.
My mind moves as sluggishly as the blood in my veins. A temporary lapse of conscious alertness, being at the end of the rows, and a brief pause crossing the yard to our detail, and Danka and I are late for Emma's detail.
"I'm full," she tells us. An S S signals for her to march out. She shrugs her shoulders; there's nothing she can do. We stand there looking forlornly at the kapo we have adopted as our own guardian, but her kommandoour kommandomarches out, leaving
6. Wardress Maria Mandel, former supervisor of Ravensbrück, became head supervisor on October 8, 1942, and organized the female orchestra in Birkenau. (Source: Rittner and Roth, 29.) Mandel's sister, Wardress Elisabeth Hasse, is also in camp.

 

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us behind. With a shiver I turn away, my sister in tow, hoping that Erika's detail is still open.
"Fall in!" A whip crosses my shoulder blades as our course for Erika is redirected and we're herded into the rows of another kommando. Snatched up by a kapo eager to fill her numbers, we line up behind this stranger and set off to work. Her eyes are bright and cruel. Her face is grim. She is all we have been trying to avoid. Her triangle is green. This kapo is a murderess. The tension in our ranks is palpable. We march in perfect unison.
"We have to be careful," I warn Danka, daring only the briefest of whispers. "Very careful."
It is a day without end. This kapo delights in finding fault and brutalizing us for it. She has a nose for the weak, and these she tortures unmercifully until they collapse and she can finish them off with one quick kick. By lunch she has killed three prisoners. She is as deft at killing as the SS man Taube. At lunch she merely splashes our bowls with broth; it lasts for barely a few sips. There are no regulations on food. No one cares whether she hoards it for herself, or does it out of cruelty. She is evil embodied, relishing every moment she can impose pain, a sadist at home in a world of victim-masochists. We are her personal peons.
Won't she tire of her abuses? No, she continues throughout the afternoon, beating, destroying, demolishing us like little dolls. One girl is crippled beyond belief, and then, as an added measure of spite, the kapo leaves her broken and suffering on the ground next to the dead, knowing her turn will not come until she is dragged to the gas. There are no mercy killings here.
When the order comes to stop working, the crippled girl is forced to walk with only the aid of one other girl. Her whimpers and moans accompany us as we carry the dead and the wounded back into camp: six bodies in twelve hours.
Like all kapos, Emma hits us, but she does not do it out of enjoyment, she does it for show. If the SS are around she has to act tough, but she never beats anyone to bleed and she never beats

 

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anyone to death. She hits you if you're lazy or do something stupid, and she'll smack you so the SS won't think you're favored, but the only dead we ever carry in from working under Emma's eye are killed by the SS or have collapsed from starvation or illness.
No matter what work atrocities they give us, Emma rarely adds to it. There are very few constants in camp, but Danka and I are a constant to Emma, just as she is to us. The three of us are there day after day. Maybe Emma isn't mean to us because she recognizes us. There are so many prisoners now that there are always new faces, new numbers, but we're the old-timers, standing in front of her every morning, doing our best to survive.
Not until we suffer the kommando under the murderess's command do we realize how lucky we are to have this secret ally in Emma. It is not that we are friends, or that she will do anything out of the ordinary for uswe are Jews, after allbut I think there is a place in her heart for my sister and me. I am counting on itwhat else is there to depend on? There is so much uncertainty. Emma simply gives us one less thing to worry about.
Four
A.M
.
"Raus! Raus!"
At morning roll call I see the familiar faces of Erna and Fela Drenger and their cousin Dina, from Tylicz. There's not time to do anything but wave before we must hurry to Emma's detail, but we have seen our best friends from childhood and work through the day hopeful that we will find them that night. After evening roll call I find them in a neighboring block.
"When did you arrive?" We hug each other.
"A few days ago," Erna tells me. "Where's Danka?"
"She's holding our space in the block and making sure no one steals our blanket. Are you all okay?"
"As well as can be expected. This is some hell. How long have you been here?"
"From the first. You've got to be real careful and always on the

 

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lookout,'' I warn them. "I'll try to help you any way I can, for now just remember to avoid the kapos with green triangles. They'll kill you for the fun of it. Im going to try to get Danka into the White Hats. It's a sewing detail."
"Winter will be terrible if we have to work outside, and in these shoes," Erna observes.
"I'm going to organize some kerchiefs for Danka and me," I tell her. "You have to have white kerchiefs on to get into the sewing detail. I'll get you three, but you'll have to give up a portion of bread."
"Whatever we have to do, Rena. You know best."
"I don't know about that, but I've been here a long time and have learned a few things. I'll see you tomorrow or in a few days." I tell them which block were in so they can find us, and then depart.
Friendly faces amid so many strangers is a comfort, but it is also a burden. I realize this immediately after I leave their block. Now I have three more people to worry abouthow will we manage? Danka is the most important, of course, but we grew up with these girls. If we don't help each other, who will?
It takes me a few days to organize the kerchiefs, but finally a girl who is working in Canada agrees to bring me four white kerchiefs.
7
In exchange I trade her two portions of bread, one from Erna and one from me.
I hand the kerchiefs to Erna and explain the plan to her. "In the morning, stand as close as you can to the sewing kommando kapo. As soon as roll call's over, give them to your sister, Dina, and Danka, then get into the line as quickly as you can."
"What about you, Rena?"
"I'll keep working with Emma to keep the door open in her de-
7. The place where personal effects were stored after having been removed from prisoners and those who were condemned to die was referred to as Canada because that country symbolized abundance and a place far from the war. "Canada" grew from five barracks initially, to thirty. (Source: Rittner and Roth, 427.)

 

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