But education alone cannot solve the Jewish question. A people that recognizes the Jews must also have the strength to deal pitilessly with the world enemy. Just as the danger of poisonous snakes is eliminated only when one has completely eradicated poisonous snakes, the Jewish question will only be solved when Jewry is destroyed. Humanity must know that in the case of the Jewish question there can only be a hard “either/or.” If we do not kill the Jewish poisonous serpent, it will kill us!
—Lines from a Nazi children’s book, 1940
“Aufstehen! Jetzt! Du gehst! Jetzt! Schneller!”
Ida held up her hands as she got to her feet, waving at Maria and Julia to do the same. “All right,” she tried to soothe, hoping not to be prodded again by the rifle in the soldier’s hand. “We don’t speak German. No speak Deutsch.”
“Schnell!” he barked, gesturing for them to come out.
Ida grabbed her bag, along with Maria’s arm, and moved toward the cellar door. Maria had grown feverish lately and was weakening quickly. If they were going to Malines, perhaps Maria could be treated by a doctor.
If they were going somewhere else . . .
The three women were prodded up the stairs from their coal cellar and into the courtyard of the building. The sky was still dark, and Ida could not see the horizon to tell if dawn was approaching yet, but it was certainly early. There were other people waiting in the courtyard, perhaps twenty or so, and they spanned ages. Some old and some young, mostly women but a few men as well, and none of them looked particularly well.
Ida supposed she probably did not look well either. She hadn’t been interrogated again, which had been a blessing, but there had been more mockery of them lately when they had asked soldiers for things. Even for something as simple as the chance to relieve themselves.
“Oh, I haven’t the time,” one had said in perfect French.
“I can’t find the key,” another had said at one time.
All a joke for them, and a stark inconvenience for the three women.
Would things be better or worse where they were going next?
A truck rumbled into the courtyard, and the canvas was pulled back by one of the soldiers in the courtyard. “In!” he ordered. “To Mechelen!”
Mechelen. The Dutch name for Malines.
A destination. And an acceptable one, given the alternative.
The group trudged to the truck and started the process of entering. There were no support points for them to grab onto, so the smaller women and older people struggled to get in. There was no help from the soldiers, naturally, so they had to help themselves. Ida did what she could to assist, though the lack of proper food lately had weakened her more than she would have liked.
Still, they were soon all aboard, and as they were trying to settle themselves, the truck took off. The abruptness threw them all together, some on top of each other, squeals and grunts and groans filling the space as they tried to right themselves. There was nothing within the truck for them to hold onto, so they held onto each other.
Ida looked around the truck bed as they jostled along the cobblestone roads of Brussels. There weren’t even any benches in this truck. No suitable place for anyone to sit.
It was not designed to be sat in, she realized. This was not a truck designed for transporting people. It was for transporting items.
Things.
Not people.
Another bump in the road threw them together, and a young girl’s shoulder slammed into Ida’s arm.
“Pardon. Het spijt mij,” the girl murmured.
Ida smiled at the sound of Dutch. She did not speak it well, but so many in Belgium did. “Ja, zeker,” Ida replied.
The young woman smiled a little and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil from her coat, beginning to sketch.
Ida stared at the paper, an idea striking her. “Have you more?” she asked. “Erm . . . Meer? Schrijven?”
The girl glanced at her, her smile spreading, no doubt due to Ida’s poor accent. “Yes,” she answered. “Here.” She handed over her paper and pencil, as well as an envelope from within her cloak.
Where she had procured these things could not possibly be comprehended at the moment. Ida had writing utensils and such in her belongings, but not on her person. This girl, for whatever reason, had been slightly more clever than she, and Ida was so grateful for it. She began to write quickly, hoping her words were legible enough. She wrote her false name and where she was headed, a few details about her state, then listed the social work office on Rue du Trône as the delivery address on the envelope.
It would have to do.
She handed the pencil back to her new friend and shoved the letter through the cracks in the truck bed. It fell through to the ground beneath and, with it, Ida’s hopes of any sort of rescue.
If rescue was possible.
Brussels soon disappeared from view through the back of the truck, and then so did Vilvoorde. Lovely views and places that Ida had known so well in recent months and years as she’d helped children to safety.
Now she was being taken out of these places, and sent into danger rather than safety. Forced to endure the very things she had been trying to save children from.
Perhaps there would be children in the camp she could tend to or comfort or help. Families that might benefit from her experience in social work. Or life. Or her work for the CDJ.
Anything. It would take her mind off her own suffering if she could do that.
She winced as the truck thundered over new roads, the change in quality meaning only one thing.
They had arrived in Malines.
Ida closed her eyes, forcing herself to swallow. For two years, the Dossin Barracks at Malines had been something feared by all who had been persecuted in Brussels. Being sent to Malines, for most, meant eventual deportation to Auschwitz. And while reports were never explicitly clear about what happened in Auschwitz, it was well known that no one came out of that place.
And now Ida was going to be in those barracks. This entire truck would be.
For however long the Nazis saw fit.
The truck turned into the barracks courtyard and came to a stop. Again, Nazi soldiers yelled at them and waved rifles. Some of the truck’s occupants screamed as they were forced out, directed roughly to stand in a line nearby. Their luggage was taken from them and tossed aside, no care or concern for the owners or contents displayed.
A tall, severe man stood at the head of the line, hands behind his back, a horse crop in his grasp. He said little, from what Ida could see, but the line proceeded toward him steadily. People split off in one direction or the other after seeing him, and when Ida reached him, it became clear why.
“Jew?” he grunted, giving her the same disapproving look he gave them all.
Ida nodded once.
He jerked his head to her right, and she followed the line of others heading toward the barracks themselves.
They filed into a room one after the other, and a stern-faced woman handed each a cardboard box with numbers on it.
“One forty-four,” she told Ida without feeling. “Transport twenty-six.”
A number. No longer a name, but a number.
There was an odd sort of irony in this. She had been turning children into numbers for years now, not that any child knew what their number was. The number was a code for their safety, but each child was a number. And had a new name to keep them safe. A new identity to keep them alive.
She had been given a number instead of a name. To strip her of life.
The line continued into another room of the barracks, this one oddly chilling.
A man in a VNV uniform walked around the person in front of her, examining him and yelling out things in Dutch. A VNV working with the Nazis! Ida had known they were doing this, of course. The VNV—the Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond, or Flemish nationalist party—had made a deal with the Nazis on their invasion of Belgium. But she had yet to see one acting as jailer for the Nazis.
He had an exceptionally long countenance, this man, his face naturally sullen by the dimensions. When he spoke, his mouth bore large teeth, and his jaw worked in a strange manner. Yet there was nothing abnormal in his manner or his bearing, other than the sheer ruthlessness he exuded. He could not have come to this rank of his with any deficiencies noted by recruiters, superiors, and fellow officers.
He reminded her of something, but she had no idea what. Someone, perhaps, though she was certain she had never seen anyone look like him.
What was it that made him of such interest to her mind at present?
He pushed the man ahead of her along and waved for her to come in. He walked around her slowly, and she could feel his eyes raking her in a strange manner. Not predatory or with any interest, but somehow just as thorough and just as unsettling.
He yelled out again in Dutch, though the words weren’t as familiar to her as her conversations in the truck had been. Then she was shoved ahead.
Ida walked on, all of them following the line like cows headed for slaughter, not knowing what lay at the end, only knowing this was the path.
Dogs barked somewhere in the vicinity, and there was nothing playful in the sound. It was as though they, too, hated the sight of the Jews.
A series of somber-faced, poorly dressed figures came next, and they stepped forward as Ida reached them.
“Your brooch,” one said flatly, holding out a hand. “And the watch.”
Ida’s mouth fell open and she thought to protest, but one of them shook their head very slightly.
She looked ahead to the others and saw one handing over jewels, another his keys, and yet another some money.
Their identities were not enough; now they had to be stripped of anything valuable they possessed.
With some agitation, Ida pulled off her watch and gave it over, followed by her brooch. The ring from her hand was taken off, the one she had been given upon turning fifteen. Her bag was taken, and the purse removed from it.
Then all four thousand francs she had brought, which Fat Jacques himself had suggested she would need when he had allowed her to pack a bag in her flat, was removed and the seemingly empty purse placed in the box around Ida’s neck.
The VNV officer walked up the line of them now, making adjustments he thought were necessary. Cutting off buttons, tearing epaulets from jackets, slicing into bags. There was nothing in it but destruction, though; from what she could tell, they weren’t looking for anything hidden.
He reached Ida and took her bag, slashing it randomly and focusing on ruining the lining. Stamps, papers, her compact, a pencil—all of it fell free to the ground. Then he put it in her box, the purse now flat, as though it had never been an item. Her pockets were thoroughly searched, but she had nothing remaining in them.
She stared at the man directly, daring him to look her in the eye.
He never did.
A horse, Ida decided then. That was what he reminded her of.
An ill-tempered, cantankerous, poorly bred horse.
He sniffed at her and moved on.
They all stood there for what had to be an hour, and then, finally, they were free and escorted from the room.
A series of screens greeted them in the next room, a poorly dressed attendant standing beside each. They were lined up at the screens according to gender of the attendant, and Ida moved forward when indicated and stepped behind the screen in front of her.
The attendant moved to her and reached for the collar of her blouse.
“What?” Ida protested, leaning away and grasping tightly at the filthy linen of her blouse.
“Your clothes, mademoiselle,” the attendant told her. “It is required.”
Ida blinked, unable to believe what she was hearing. “I am to be divested of my clothes?”
“Inspected, mademoiselle.” She gestured for her to get on with it, so to speak.
Face flaming, Ida began undoing her own buttons, glaring at this woman, who had no control over what went on here or her assignment, if her state of expression and dress were any indication. She was probably a prisoner here herself and was forced to subject her fellow man to this humiliation.
Which was worse? Enduring the humiliation or participating unwillingly in doling it out?
The attendant stooped and worked at Ida’s laces, removing her shoes when she could.
Fully stripped of her clothing, Ida stood behind her screen, wishing there was some place, any place, to hide. But no, she stood here naked while the Horse looked through the soles of her shoes, cut her corsets, ripped open her hems. She could see all of this. She could see him doing the same to all of the clothing, all of the shoes.
What did he think they were going to smuggle into the camp in the soles of their shoes or sewn into their hems? It was utterly ridiculous and entirely unnecessary.
The only reasoning could be, of course, to further their humiliation.
The dirty, ruined clothing was then returned, and Ida did her best to reassemble herself with some dignity, though it was clear there was no dignity to be had in this place.
Her small group of now completely disheartened prisoners traipsed back out into the courtyard, waiting for the rest of those transported with them to suffer the same fate. Their luggage was taken from the pile it had been tossed in and walked to a particular corner of the courtyard.
There it was opened, and all of the contents examined. Items of value were removed and set aside. Everything else remained.
Very little seemed to be remaining.
The man with the horse crop, who had been at the first line Ida had stood in, now played with dogs in the courtyard, chatting with another officer as he did so, laughing and clearly enjoying the fine weather of the day, in spite of the dozens of workers circling the yard to go about their tasks.
Other soldiers seemed to just circle the courtyard like caged dogs, no rhyme or reason to their being there, and something soulless in their demeanor.
Was that what this camp turned a person into?
“Number 144!” a voice called out.
Ida jerked belatedly, realizing she was that number, and she looked around for the source of the voice.
An officer stood at a doorway in the rear of the courtyard, staring at her with impatience and waving her over.
Heart racing, Ida walked over, tattered and dirty, stripped of pride and property, and utterly dreading what else could await her on this day.
She was led, with a few others, up two flights of stairs and then down a hall. She counted the doors, and when they reached the eleventh, their officer stopped and gestured for them to go in.
The room was disgusting.
A double row of bunkbeds was arranged, rags and clothes hanging from the head of the mattresses. There were cardboard boxes of all sizes scattered throughout the room, open and untouched, no doubt containing whatever sad possessions the inhabitants were allowed to keep. There was a stench to the room, too, but not one that could easily be placed.
Men, women, and children were in the room, some lying in their beds, clearly unwell, and others clustered together in groups. But they all stared at the newcomers, the same hollow, hopeless eyes in each and every face.
And this was where she was to stay. Among crowded strangers and mixed genders?
What fresh hell was this?
Ida shook like a dried leaf as she moved to a vacant bed, gingerly sitting down and praying that she would not burst into tears or howl like some sort of trapped animal. Yet those were her inclinations. She was no longer Ida Sterno, Jeanne Hendrickx, or any other human creature.
She was number 144. A Jew.
Nothing more.
And, apparently, nothing was less than that.
The door closed, making Ida flinch, and she sensed someone approaching her. She moved back in anticipation, but a kind-faced man from within the room crouched before her.
“Hello,” he said gently, his French careful, but not great. “I am Dago, the head of the room. I promise you that things are not as bad as they seem. You get used to it. I am here to help, and, if you like, you can go wash and change into something new.”
Ida looked at him as though he had appeared from some magical forest she had never heard of. “Wash? I haven’t washed in days; I haven’t been allowed.”
He smiled sadly. “Yes. But here, it is allowed. Come, I will show you where.”