Rena's Promise (32 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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Danka is waiting outside our block with tear-stained cheeks. "Rena?" We grab each other in a fierce hug. "I thought you were dead for sure," she weeps.
"I was. Emma saved me."
"How is that possible?"
"We will never know." I thought there was no joy in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but there isI am still alive, that is joy. There may not be presents, or parties, but the fact that one gets to be with one's loved ones again, that is a rare gift behind these walls. And this brush with death inspires rather than defeats me. "We have to see if we can get some kerchiefs for the elder women in our detail."
"Rena, you're hurt. You should lie down."
"I will feel better if I can help these women." We go from one block to another telling the block elders and room elders and other prisoners about the elder women, begging for kerchiefs so they can at least protect themselves from the sun.
"They can't stand the heat," I tell them. "Look how I got beaten for letting them rest. They are the age of our mothers and they're not going to survive if we don't do something." Everyone who has a kerchief donates one to our cause. With damp eyes, they give Danka and me a scarf in honor of their own mamas who are now mere memories in the ashen air. We get ten kerchiefs altogether.
"I have been looking for you." The woman who looks so much like Mama comes up to me as I am gathering the scarves.
"How are you?" I ask.
"I should be asking you that. I want to give you something. Will you please take this?" She holds out her portion of bread.
"No, I can't." I shake my head, retreating from her gesture.
"Please, you are young. I want you to live," she pleads.
"You're going to need it tomorrow. Please, save it and eat it in the morning. It's going to be another hot day. You have your kerchief. You can live. I know you can. Look, my sister and I have got-

 

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ten more kerchiefs for your friends to wear in the sun. It's going to get betterreally it is!"
"You can talk like this after the beating you had?"
"Oh, that. Next time I'm going to look all the way around and be more careful . . . You'll see, it's not so bad here," I lie to my Mama's face. "Try to eat the bread and drink the tea, for me. Please, try to live . . . Have you got your tea?"
"Yes, a friend is watching it in the block. I'm going to drink the tea but not the bread. You have it, I don't need it."
"I can't take it from you. That would be like taking bread from my own mama."
"Your mama wants you to have her bread, to live for her."
My eyes sting. "I'm sorry. Thank you, but I cannot take it. Please. Promise me you'll eat it." I hold her hand, folding it firmly around the crust that is so precious many would fight her for it.
"What's your name?"
"Rena."
"You're a good daughter, Rena." She smiles into my eyes. "I know it's unlikely, but I'm going to pray that you meet one of my sons when you are free. Either would be a good husband to you and if you're not going to meet one of my boys, I'm going to pray to the Lord that you have a husband just as good as my sons, and have a good life." Our hands slip apart slowly and she leaves me standing alone in the night clutching white and red kerchiefs to my breast.
"Rena, are you done?" Danka's voice pulls me back to the present. "We have to get inside."
"She has her bread," I tell my sister. "She'll be okay, won't she?"
"Who, Rena?"
"Mama. We'll see her tomorrow, right?" I fall into sleep.
Four
A.M
.
"
Raus! Raus!
"

 

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We arrive at Emma's kommando after roll call, but the elder women are not anywhere.
"Where are they, Emma?" I have never asked her a direct question before.
"I don't know," she answers, humbly.
"Stay here," I tell Danka, hoping to save my place in the kommando. Running across the camp, I look for their stooped and tired bodies in the nearby kommandos lining up for work. Her face is not anywhere. Dashing into their block, I see the block elder. "Where are they?"
"Who?"
"Our mothers," I stammer. "The elder women!"
"Oh." Her voice is quiet. As hard as we have all become, these women have touched our hearts and made us feel again, but the wounds are deep and sore to the touch. "They took them late last night."
Words are stuck in my throat as if someone were strangling me. The block elder and I stare at one another in grief and shock.
"Get out of here before you get caught!" Her voice jerks me back to reality. I leave the block unable to run anymore. My legs are heavy as iron.
Emma's ranks are full. I stare at her, lost, unable to muster my usual gusto of self-assurance. I am slipping into the pit, about to be swallowed up, about to disappear.
Rolling her eyes at me, she jerks her head. "Get in!"
Stepping next to Danka, I shake my head and bite my lip. Heads bowed, we march out to another day of work and blistering heat. There are no motherly faces to comfort our losses, but Emma does not crack her whip today unless an SS is riding by. The pain in my back and ribs reawakens and I am unable to think anything away.
The numbness in my heart expands through my body. The body digs the dirt. The body sifts the sand. The body screams with pain as the lungs expand against bruised and maybe broken ribs. But it is the eyes which hurt most. They ache until it feels as if the

 

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head will split apart, bleeding across the barren land as we sift more sand to make more bricks and concrete, to make more blocks for more Jews. Despite the sun the sky is black.
We aren't living in Birkenau. We are always almost dead.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Stibitz is in a foul mood, stamping back and forth cursing loudly at our hungry faces while we wait for our ration of tea and bread. We don't pay attention to the reason for his tirade; these outbursts of temper are nothing unusual. Even the SS have bad days. He picks the lid up off the teakettle, flinging it like a discus against a wall. It ricochets, flying toward those of us in line.
"Duck, Danka!" She swerves.
Smack!
It slices into her head, toppling her under the weight and sudden impact. Blood pours down her face and across the earth. The bone under the wound is visible, but this is a good thing, I tell myself, at least her skull isn't cracked. I pull the cloth I use for my periods out of my sleeve and press it hard against the gash, praying the blood will clot quickly, before any SS notice her lying here. She stirs. "Hold this to your head and press hard." She holds it as I rip a piece of my slip off, another gift from Erna long ago.
"Be still, Danka. Don't move until I tell you to." Her eyes wince with pain. Placing this new strip of fabric against the cut, I wring out the other one before replacing it. The girls in line hide us by moving forward for their bread. Obscured by them, I have a few precious moments to stop the bleeding, check Danka's breathing, examine her eyes. She's in shock; the wound is large and ugly, arching from the center of her forehead down to her eyebrow. My head begins to ache in sympathy with her.
"It's not too bad, Danka. We have to get something on it, though, some salve." I dab the blood gently from her brow. It's oozing more slowly now. "We're going to stand up now, and get

 

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our tea." I direct her into line to get our tea and bread. We head inside our block.
"I'm nauseous."
"Eat anyway, Danka. You need your strength. It's the cut making you feel sick, not your stomach." She sips her tea slowly, stopping every few moments as if fighting the urge to vomit. I cover her with our blanket before going to wait by the block elder's door.
"Salve for a cut." I hand her my bread.
"Let me see what I have." She takes my bread and disappears. I wait, trying to keep watch on Danka from where I stand. My legs grow tired of standing, so I crouch with my back against the wall and wait. The block is still. My knees begin to ache in this position, so I sit on the dirt floor, and wait. The door cracks open. The light from inside falls across the darkness of the now sleeping block. The block elder hands me a smear of salve on a piece of paper, then shuts the door in my face.
I wash Danka's wound gently. "Am I going to die from this?" she asks.
"No way. It's not so bad, Danka, really. But I know it hurts." What I'm really worried about is infection, a scar, selection. The wound may not kill her, but the effect of it can. I stamp out these worries that divert my attention and resourcefulness. Smearing the antiseptic salve on her forehead, I assure her, "We'll get more tomorrow."
Four
A.M
.
"
Raus! Raus!
"
My stomach growls all day. The soup sloshes in my belly like an ocean of waves with nothing to cling to. Danka is weak and I can tell her head is hurting, but she manages to work. I trade my bread for more salve to put on her cut and then step outside to go to the latrine. It is in the latrine that information is passed and things can be bartered for. I miss Erna, wishing for a moment that I had someone to talk to, someone to share my burdens with. "Have

 

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you heard?'' a girl whispers next to me. "There's going to be a big selection. They're going to clean out camp." Another voice echoes the information. "There are too many of us."
I walk back to the block in a daze. All I hear, over and over like a child's nursery rhyme chanting in my head, is the rumor: There's going to be a big selection; there are too many of us. Like an itch I cannot scratch, it eats away at my silence. It's an ominous secret, an unshareable burden. I almost wish they hadn't told me. The worry about Danka's scar eats away at my morale. She'll be selected if they see the cut, and it's healing too slowly. My head churns until I am thinking of everything and nothing at all.
We march out with Emma, but the work worsens with the weather; this is our second fall. There are no days off for snow or rain, I know that now. They will always stand there watching us struggle to move bricks, digging, building. We march in from work, our hands and feet blistered from always being damp and cold; we wait to be counted, wait for our tea, our bread, always workingalways waiting.
The SS are more agitated than usual. Swinging their whips and clubs more often, they beat us without any provocation. The work details are stricter and harder. It's as if they're trying to clear out those who won't make the cut when the big selection comes. I scan the rows and rows of women who share my fate. I've never seen the camp this crowded. "There are too many of us." I wonder how it makes the Nazis feel when they can't kill us quickly enough by working us to death. I wonder if they feel at all.
The SS walk up and down our rows counting the evening crew, making note of those who collapsed and died during the day. A hush descends through the columns of women. Dr. Mengele has come into camp. We know who he is; there are rumors about him. He stands before us, the glorious angel of doom. It's difficult to

 

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