Anne Frank and Me

A squeal of brakes, a long grinding, as the train slowed, then stopped. “Have we arrived?” Liz-Bette asked hoarsely. “Can we get water?”

People shouted as families tried to organize themselves and their belongings. From outside came the sound of amplified German. The car’s door swung open, and uniformed SS—also some men in blue-and-white striped prison garb—rushed in, shouting orders. “Dalli, dalli, dalli, alles hinaus!” the SS men bellowed, swinging their truncheons. “Schneller, schneller!” At the same time, the men in the striped uniforms were shouting in different languages. It was bedlam.

“French, we are French, I don’t understand, what do we do?” Nicole cried, holding tightly to Liz-Bette’s hand.

“Go!” one of the uniformed prisoners instructed them, in Polish-accented French. “Leave your luggage, you’ll get it later. Go, go, go!”

“Schnell, Juden, Schnell!” More orders were broadcast by loudspeaker. “Alles austreten, alle Bagage hinlegen. Alles austreten, alle Bagage hinlegen.”

Nicole and Liz-Bette stepped out of the car and into the night. Up and down the track, hundreds of other frightened people climbed out of cattle cars, the chaotic scene illuminated by two huge beacons. Nicole scanned the crowd for Anne, but couldn’t find her.

That was when the horrible smell hit. Cloying, nauseating; the odor of a stomach-turning barbecue. “What is that smell?” Liz-Bette gagged.

“Jews!” Another prisoner shouted in French. “Those of you who can walk, move on. Those too sick to walk, trucks will take you where you need to be.”

“Yes,” Nicole agreed, since Liz-Bette could barely hold herself up. “We’ll wait here and—”

“No!” The French-speaking prisoner insisted. “No truck! You must walk, be healthy! Walk.” Something told Nicole to follow his directions, so she pulled her sister along. Looking back, she saw a few dozen exhausted old people sitting on the platform.

As the crowd pressed forward, the intense smell grew worse. It seemed to come from a building several hundred yards away that belched thick smoke from its smokestack. “Men left, women right, men left, women right, men left, women right!” the SS men roared, their words translated by other prisoners. “Separate and keep walking! Form fives, form fives!”

Many families were trying to proceed as a unit. Directly in front of them, an SS man tore an infant from a woman’s arms and flung him toward a group of men. Then, he slammed the woman in the stomach with his truncheon; she collapsed.

Liz-Bette began to cry. “Don’t look,” Nicole said sharply. “Act as if it is something you are reading in a book, not real. Don’t look.”

Moments later, two long columns of several hundred people, separated by sex, stood on the platform. Nicole and Liz-Bette were at the outside edge of the women’s group, closest to the road. Across that road was a fence topped by barbed wire; beyond that, a mass of low-slung buildings. What had the man called this place? Birkenau? Across the fence, more prisoners watched those arriving. In the harsh light, Nicole could see that they were ghastly thin.

Someone was yelling in French from the other side of the fence. Nicole’s eyes searched the faceless forms, perhaps forty yards distant, trying to discern who was calling. “Hey, Vel d‘Hiv girl! Over here!”

There! A prisoner—impossible to see how old she was or what she looked like—was waving her arms. “Vel d‘Hiv girl!”

Nicole tried to recall—it was so long ago—more than two years. Had she met someone at the Vel named Paulette? She searched her memory. There was Claire, of course. The mother with the baby who had stood behind Nicole in line for the toilet. And a beautiful girl with flaxen hair who had helped—

“Yes, Vel d‘Hiv girl! You must listen. Go to the right! Go to the right! Always go to the right!”

“I know her.” Nicole cupped her hands to her mouth to call back. “What do you mean, to the right?” But the din on the platform escalated, as the SS waded into several family groups that were refusing to separate, swinging their truncheons. The girl shook her head that she couldn’t hear Nicole.

The column of women moved forward. Nicole had no choice but to move with it. When she looked across the barbed-wire fence again, Paulette was gone.

Their column clomped along. Escape was impossible. Not only were they weak with hunger, but ranks of heavily armed SS guarded them, weapons at the ready.

“I think we’re being admitted to a camp. Hold my hand. Don’t let go.” As the ranks pressed forward, Nicole could see a uniformed Nazi at the end of the platform, a shorter SS man by his side, bullwhip in hand. As each woman approached, the taller man would make a quick appraisal, point right or left with his chin; the SS man indicated the direction with his whip.

Nicole watched carefully. An elderly woman was sent to the left, then a girl younger than Liz-Bette. A woman who looked to be in her thirties was sent to the right. Suddenly, Liz-Bette pointed. “Look, Nicole, it’s your friend from the train.”

Up ahead, Anne and a girl who looked like her—her sister? —approached the two Germans. They were sent to the right. Nicole leaned toward Liz-Bette. “Liz-Bette, listen to me. No matter what happens, we must go to the right. Do you understand?”

The column pressed forward. Nicole was four rows away from the end of the platform. Right, left, left, left, left, right, left, left, right, left.

Nicole was next. She stepped forward and stood before the Nazis, grasping Liz-Bette’s hand until the last instant. The taller one regarded her. Time stopped. Right, his chin jerked.

“I’ll be right here,” Nicole called, backing toward the right. “I swear it. I can still see you. As long as I can see you, we are still together.” Liz-Bette stood before the Nazi’s diffident scrutiny.

“Let her go,” a prisoner in a striped uniform told Nicole. “She’s bound for the ovens. Save your own skin.” But Nicole ran back to the tall man who had made the selection.

“Please,” she begged in French, pointing at Liz-Bette. “She can come to the right with me. She can!” He did not look at her. So she turned to the shorter SS man. “Please. Let her come to me. Or let me be with my sister.”

“Jawohl, Lentz, Jude!” the SS man mock-saluted her. “Jawohl, Jude, Heil Hitler!” He pointed left again as all around him on the platform his fellow Germans laughed uproariously. Nicole ran to Liz-Bette and hugged her.

The two columns were now separated by a rank of SS—Nicole saw Anne in the other column, not twenty feet away. A woman had her arms around Anne’s older sister, who was sobbing. Anne stood alone.

Anne turned. “Nicole?” Her eyes seemed to overwhelm her pale face. “Nicole, I’m scared. I am so scared.” Nicole wished that she could offer Anne the same strength that Anne had offered her on the train. But she didn’t have Anne’s faith; she wasn’t strong enough or brave enough to—

“Anne, listen to me. It’s important!” One of the SS men glared at her, but she didn’t care. “I lied before. I do know what happens to you!”

Anne wrapped her arms around herself, as though they were Nicole’s arms. “Thank you,” she said simply. That was when Nicole and Liz-Bette’s column began to move forward.

It seemed the only word on the planet was Schnell.

“Schnell, Juden, Schnell!” The women ran through a gate toward the building with the big smokestack. The vile smell was overpowering. The ground sloped downward and an entrance to its interior opened before them. With more shouts, the SS forced the women into an underground room.

Nicole held fast to Liz-Bette as prisoners in uniform shouted directions to them. “You will have a shower and be deloused! Leave your clothes in a pile for later!”

Nicole felt weak. She looked around—the walls were covered with signs, most making reference to LAUS. She knew enough German to understand that was the word for lice.

“It is a shower,” she told Liz-Bette firmly. “Disinfecting. It will take away your itching. That will be wonderful.”

“Hurry, hurry!” the uniformed prisoners shouted. “Into the shower room. Take off everything!” Nicole and Liz-Bette stripped naked as the girls and women around them did the same. Most used their hands to try to cover themselves

Liz-Bette crossed her arms over her nonexistent breasts. “I’m embarrassed, Nicole,” she whimpered.

“Pretend you have on a beautiful ball gown, Scar-lett,” Nicole told her. “The blue one that matches your eyes.”

“Your gown is very lovely, but it could use a good washing.” She took Liz-Bette’s hand as they were herded through a doorway into the shower room, and looked around as her eyes adjusted to the murky light. Showerheads. Yes. A dozen. No, fourteen. Spaced out on the walls. She went limp with relief. “You see the spigots, Liz-Bette? It is going to be grand to be clean.”

More people were pressed into the room. It was getting dangerously crowded. How could all these people be deloused at the same time? The crush forced them toward the rear wall. There were panicked shouts as naked men were pushed into the room. The heavy door clanged shut.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” Nicole screamed. She clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. It was too much to ask—she could not be strong. She wanted to lose her mind, tear her hair out, to beg someone, anyone, for her life.

“I’m sorry, Nicole,” Liz-Bette said. “I’m sorry that I was sick. You should have gone with Anne.”

It had come to this: Her twelve-year-old sister blamed herself instead of the ones who were guilty. That, Nicole would not allow her to do. She met her sister’s panicky gaze with steady eyes.

“Listen to me, Liz-Bette,” Nicole said, bending close to her sister’s ear. “You are not responsible. They are responsible. I am here because I chose to be. Do you hear me?”

“I will give you Papa’s Shabbos blessing. It will be my voice and my heart, but his, too. And others, everyone who ever loved you. Do you understand?”

Liz-Bette nodded again. Something like marbles clattered through the ceiling and fell to the floor. People howled in fear, pushing wildly, coughing. Nicole gently placed her hands on her sister’s head. “Yiverechecha Adonai viyismerecha,” Nicole prayed. “May God bless you and keep you. Yaer Adonai panav elecha viyichunecha. May God’s countenance shine upon you and illuminate you. Esai Adonai panav elecha vasham lecha shalom. May God turn His countenance to you and bring you peace.”

People shrieked and tore at their throats, choking. Nicole and Liz-Bette began to choke, too. But Nicole forced herself to keep talking to her sister. “God is watching us, Liz-Bette. Shema Yisroel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad; Shema Yisroel— ”

Now, bodies were falling to the floor. “Shema Yisroel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad. Hear 0 Israel, the Lord is Our God, the Lord is One. Shema Yisroel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad.”