Vénissieux Camp
August 26, 1942
The only thing that could be seen in the distance were the chimneys of old factories and a few trees among the yellowed fields of already harvested grain. Closer at hand, the brick barracks were worn down. The buses drove through the barbed wire fence and dispensed the cargo they had carried for several hours. Hundreds of Jews filed out in rows. Many of the older Jews, famished and dehydrated, did not have the strength to walk. Younger adults supported their weight and took them to the improvised infirmary or simply left them on cots at the front of the building.
Rachel got out of the bus with her stepmother and they stood looking around, unsure of where to go or what to do. Chaos reigned. The day before, men had arrived, but they were separated behind a barbed wire fence, and there was another enclosed section of Indo-Chinese workers.
Rachel pointed. “There are men over there, Fani.” They could see a crowd of men pressed against the fence, searching among the new arrivals for their wives and children.
Rachel ran up to the barbed wire to study them. They were all too similar: bearded, torn clothing, and a defeated look in their eyes.
“I’m not sure if your father is . . .” Fani’s eyes met Zelman’s, and she burst into tears. She had become convinced that she had seen Zelman for the last time the day before. “Darling!” Fani said, thrusting her fingers through the barbed wire. Zelman gripped her tightly, and Rachel wiggled her hand into theirs.
“Oh, daughter. I am so sorry to see you here. I had hoped, had prayed . . . perhaps you had escaped.”
Fani shook her head through her tears and said, “At least we’re all together again.”
The gendarmes pulled the men away from the fence, fearing that it would collapse under the weight of families trying to reunite. Some fathers resisted and received blows for their efforts. Zelman’s and Fani’s fingers were the last to disentwine.
“I love you, Zelman!” Fani yelled. Her husband said nothing but smiled and held her gaze as long as the shoving of the gendarmes allowed.
A younger man from Zelman’s work crew hollered, “Let us see our families!” but Zelman held him back from jumping at the gendarme.
“It’s not worth it, Albert. Surely they’re sending us all to the same camp, and you’ll see them there.” Albert bit his lip in helpless frustration.
Fani and Rachel left the fence and walked toward the barracks, Rachel still gripping her violin. They stopped when they came upon the older man they had talked with on the bus. He was lying on a cot.
“Are you holding up?” Fani asked Jacob.
“If I had known this is how things would end, I would’ve stayed in Vienna. It was pointless to try to escape. I’m tired, and I’ve lost everyone. My wife died a few months ago. What have we done to deserve this?” he asked in tears.
Fani took his hand. “Nothing, dear Jacob. We’ve done nothing. But God will get us out of this.”
“God?” Jacob scoffed. “He forgot about us centuries ago. They call us the chosen people—chosen for a history of persecution and death. Would that we were the accursed people instead! Perhaps then we’d be less hated.”
Fani let Jacob’s hand drop as two men lifted the cot and took it inside. “Take care of yourself!” she called after him.
She took Rachel’s hand again and they resumed their walk to the first barrack. Finding it overcrowded, they went to the next, but it was just as full. They found a bit of space in the third barrack. People had divided up according to families and nationalities. Fani and Rachel formed a group with two other foreigners, young women who had lived in France for nine years and who spoke French.
* * *
The women and children were exhausted. A loud noise startled them, and many of the babies began crying.
“What was that?” a woman asked in German.
“Perhaps it’s the dinner bell?” another offered in French.
The women left their belongings beside the bunk beds and hurried to the dining hall. Some of the more improvising women had packed a bit of bread, butter, sausages, and canned food when the gendarmes came to get them that morning, but most had had nothing to eat all day.
Rachel and Fani joined the end of the long line. They salivated at the smell of the vegetable stew. The line advanced slowly. They spoke with the family in front of them, a mother with her daughters, Sonja and Lucy, and her eighteen-year-old niece, Ruth.
“Are you hungry, Sonja?” Fani asked.
The girl, no more than five, smiled, but her older sister answered for her. “Food is the only thing Sonja thinks about.”
When their turn arrived, the cooks were scraping the bottom of the pans. Fani and Rachel were served on metal plates and took their seats at the long tables in the former army mess hall.
“I thought we’d never get here,” Sonja and Lucy’s mother said.
“How long were we on the bus?” Fani asked.
“It was nine hours for us. So many people passed out. The old men and women and the children couldn’t help but wet themselves. How it reeked! They’re treating us like cattle,” she huffed.
Lucy glanced at Rachel and cocked her eyes at the violin case. “Why didn’t you leave that piece of junk in the barracks?”
“It’s the violin my father gave me, and it isn’t junk,” Rachel snapped.
“Don’t be rude, Lucy,” Ruth said, frowning at her cousin. “It’s completely normal to hold tight to the few things we’ve got left. The Nazis want to erase us from the face of the earth. Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I wonder if I’ve disappeared completely.”
Some of the women went out to smoke after dinner while others put the younger children to bed. Despite their exhaustion, it was very difficult for the little ones to fall asleep with so much going on. Some women were sick and feverish, and they moaned in delirium.
“We might be better off sleeping outside,” Fani said to her new friend.
“I don’t know which is worse. This heat is insufferable, there’s no water to wash up with, the latrines are disgusting, and the stench in the barracks . . .”
The two women shared a last cigarette and breathed out all the smoke before entering the barrack. It was a desolate site. A pigsty would have been preferable lodging.