War Torn Love (45 page)

             
I think to find strength through the darkness that now seems to be enveloping my people. We all were doing quite a bit of praying collectively, turning to “
God,
our God.” The Rabbi was amongst us, and leading us all in prayer. He read to us from the Torah. The words of our God lent a hand soothing me spiritually, calming me. I realized
that
no matter what the Germans did to us, they certainly could not take my faith from me, or any of us. As long as there is air in my lungs, I will praise – and that was a vow I made that day. Our God see’s the strength in my people, maybe when we did not. We shall somehow overcome this, now I had no idea how. But I know our prayers shall be answered.

             
Rabbi spoke loudly we the flock was silent. "I remind all of you that we are the children of “Israel,” and of Abraham - hat no matter how dark of times we may now be facing up ahead, how bleak it may become, each one of us needs to keep in mind never to give up. Look after our brother and sisters. Just like “Mosses” leading his people out of bondage, my children, we shall too be led out of oppression. Never question your conviction to faith! Do not let the Nazis be triumphant! You own your faith - the Nazis cannot take that from any of us, unless you allow them or you let the evil in. Others have tried through the history of our people, and have never been triumphant, because our faith has remained so strong."

             
Finally, to all of our relief I could sense the train starting to slow down. Which meant a couple of different things - they were once again, were either taking on water for the engine or taking on more prisoners. Or conceivably we finally arrived at our destination -
wherever
that was.

             
Cheers reverberated throughout the boxcar thinking the latter - thinking something good was going to come of this. That was right up until the realization of what maybe further ahead all of us finally struck, once we our hopefully let out. It was possible that these Nazi's were capable of doing just about anything. God did not seem to be present
in any of their hearts. People were now peeking through the gaps in-between the boards, full of wary, painful
curiously
.

             
The whistles of the steam engine train were bellowing vociferously, signaling our impending arrival. The screech of the brakes being slammed on, the sound of metal, on metal. The train had come to
a
standstill, jerking one final time as it halted.

             
About a minute after to the train stopped moving, there was a still, almost eerie silence. We all stood,
whispering
quietly trying to figure out what was happening. We could hear the shouts in German. A feeling of fright overtook me. I grabbed hold of Abram’s hand, needing him to console me. I was afraid we would be finding out quickly, the lock was being unbolted - all of a sudden, the large doors flung on open.

             
The sunshine brightness instantaneously billowed in through the door opening; my eyes had to adjust to such powerful amount of light. I experienced temporarily blindness - I held my right hand over my eyes, shielding them from the dazzling sunlight. The only light we had seen in two days was the illumination that filtered in through the gaps in-between the wood boards. And the two candles the Rabbi had with him so he could read to all of us.

             
The fresh air rushed in, it was incredibly nice to be finally
smelled
something refreshing. The foul air hurried out, and was being replaced with less-pollutants.

             
Once again, there was brutally,
fiercely
trained soldiers demonstrating their power over us, pointing their machine guns at us and yelling
incomprehensibly
. The Germans had so entirely made their presence known nearly everywhere in just months - as if this was their own country. It was quite clear - we were
unmistakably overpowered
, outgunned and considered deficient.

             
The Jewish population with me harbored no weapons to speak of - the soldiers that captured
us made
sure of this fact. This gave the Nazis the false sense that they truly were superior over the population of the country they illegally occupied.

             
Communicating in German, they ordered us to disembark from our train car. You do not have to comprehend much of the German language to know what exactly they wanted. One thing about the Nazis I shall never forget is their cold lifeless eyes – evil, calculating, completely soulless. From what I had
observed thus
far about them, was that they all acted
, as
one with no autonomous thought. I also felt the presences of
wickedness. Hitler boldly and proudly claimed that they were the superior race - a superior race would not be treating others like this, because being superior is not just being stronger, but it is about also being just, and showing compassion.

             
As we were waiting our turns to unload, inquisitiveness once again was flourishing; I turned and asked, Abram who was position right beside me, to my right, holding my left hand, "Sweetie, where do you think we are right now, it does not look so familiar. Do you think we are still inside Poland? Oh my! You don’t think they took us back to Germany do you?”

             
I was watching in-between the people that were ahead of me. Since I was small, I had to peer between, not over – so it was rather on the difficult side to see anything.  From what I could
perceive
, there was an elderly couple from our boxcar, who were attempting to unload. I got the impression that they were having a difficult time getting down out of the boxcar - the height of the floor of the boxcar sat much too far above the ground for them to lower  themselves down from their position safely - they were both weak from tremendous hunger. When they were too slow, the soldiers became angry – they were, not able to get down, I could clearly hear them asking for help. The soldiers walked over, the poor women thought he was going to show her kindness. Rather he grabbed hold of them, throwing them both off the boxcar. They ended up
down face first into the cold mud below, beside the train tracks.

             
“We all gasped!”

             
Then if they had not been humiliated enough by this, the soldiers laughed at the expense of the poor souls. As they lay there face down in the mud, a soldier held his foot onto the wife’s poor head. As her husband lay there in the mud - helpless and surely in pain - he cried for his wife. After about a minute, the soldier let her up, but was not done with her just as of yet he then spat directly in her face. We knew that if anyone of us were to had gone and helped the poor old woman out of the mud, then that person would had likely been shot for their efforts. Then when we thought it was all over, the husband rose to his feet.  He made it to his wife - put his hand to pull her up. The soldier saw this, and suddenly aimed his machine gun at the old man and fired -
he fell
backwards into the mud, dead. His wife screamed out.

             
“Shut up you, you hear me, or I shall shoot you too!” The soldier yelled out.

             
We all heard the soldier yelling at her, we feared for her, "Fraulein get up, schnell, go get in line."

             
Immediately turning attention back on the rest of us, "schnell, schnell!"

             
We all did our best to get down as fast as possible we did as the Rabbi had reminded us. To help our brother and sisters out getting each other down, even at the menace of bringing harm from whims of the soldiers watching. We did not want to lose anyone else. Providing these soldiers cheap entertainment at the expense of my own people life was something we wanted to avoid, so we were careful, biddable, and as efficient as possible.

             
But suddenly my attention had shifted from the
ghastly
soldier to my own husband - I saw that look in Abram’s eyes, he was extremely angered. I knew what he was considering doing, the way he was clinching his mighty fists, I knew what he wanted to do, what he was thinking. Abram hopped down first. Thinking quickly to prevent him from taking such an action, I went ahead and handed him the baby, trying partly to keep him full of activity until I had an opportunity to cut him off. I hopped down, he wasted no time, handing me back our daughter. So he could continue with his plan.

             
I then hurriedly lashed out and grabbed hold of his hand. Getting his attention, I looked into his eyes, “No
Abram you must not - what will it solve if you do, other than getting you killed? Our daughter will grow up without a father to love and nurture her. I will be made a widow, is that what you truly want for your family? I know how powerful of a man you are - maybe the best boxer in the entire world, if it had been for the Nazis you would had a chance to prove it – and one day you will, you wait and see. But please sweetie! Think about it, you have a well-trained fist, they had guns! I love you dear, please for me, do not do this, I love you so much, and I know you love me.  Do not do this now. I am sorry to be asking you this, trust me - your time will come, but not at the moment, think about what you are considering doing.”

             
He took a deep breath, looked away a moment in the direction of the armed soldier, the precise one that pushed the old man and woman down. He then turned back to me, unclenched his fists.

             
“You’re right Hana, I know it’s tough! God please give me the strength and power I shall need to control my temper. Help me find a way to use my strength for the safety of my family.”  He paused, and then said. “I love you Hana, thank you for setting me right, your right I would had gone in blindly! Don’t worry sweetie, with The God and you on my side I could do this.” He smiled, and began looking around – seeing if he could others.

             
He then turned away. I knew he was a man of his word. He began serving, as his God would expect of us. He helped others at getting down from the boxcar, an opportunity for him to put his strength to good work.