The Jew . . . is nothing but a dangerous parasite from which we Germans had to free ourselves were we not to perish slowly but surely as a people.
—Newsletter for Nazi youth leaders in Franconia, February 1944
The black bread and hot water were even more disgusting than usual today.
Her stomach had gotten used to the indignity of the meal, so it rumbled in hungry satisfaction despite the protesting of her tongue.
Ida forced herself to continue chewing, knowing better than to not finish. The last time she had done that, food had been withheld for three days, and she had been hit in the face several times. Just until her eyes had swollen enough to make seeing difficult.
Then she had received more punishment when she was slow to respond to orders or required motions, her limited eyesight apparently no excuse.
There were never any excuses.
She forced the final portion of her bread into her mouth and took a swig of the nearly painfully hot water. It burned, but it softened the bread enough to make chewing easier.
Small mercies.
The whistle sounded, and everyone stood from the tables, moving to deposit their poor excuses for plates into the pile. Those assigned to dish duty would take care of the plates, but that wasn’t Ida’s assignment. She did her best to leave a clean plate for them, but others demonstrated no such consideration. It wasn’t that they wanted to make life harder for their fellow prisoners; they just no longer cared about anything at all.
That was easy to do in here.
Ida had done it quite a few times herself but had worked hard to not make it a permanent state of mind or being. She had no desire to give up on life itself, no matter how bleak the present appeared. She had little hope for great changes in the future, but she could do nothing if she was dead.
Alive, she might at least be of use.
Besides, she had connected with Maurice and Esta again in the barracks, and having them close made her feel less alone.
Esta had been put to work as one of the secretaries in the camp, usually working with newly arrived transports. She had, at least three times, if not more, changed the addresses of known resistance workers when they’d been brought into camp and made to turn in their keys so the Gestapo would not be able to search their true homes. It was a small thing, considering what else was submitted to and suffered, but it seemed to make a difference to those she helped.
Maurice worked in the kitchen for children. But he had made enough connections throughout the camp and held enough respect there to be allowed certain freedoms that led to unique opportunities for helping his fellow prisoners. Last week, he’d somehow accrued a number of missing belongings and returned them to their rightful owners. Nothing that would be missed from the stash of goods the prison guards had collected, of course. But small items like a good razor and other basic necessities that were a godsend in this place.
Ida had heard rumors that he’d even been able to help a few people escape transport to one of the other camps, but he refused to comment on that.
She wouldn’t doubt his abilities there.
“Time to wash!” one of the VNV officers shouted in his native tongue.
Ida had learned that particular phrase rather quickly. She had hated this part of the process early on, and nothing about it had improved, but she had grown so accustomed to the horrors that the words no longer triggered any sort of reaction.
The women filed into the washroom and stripped themselves to the waist to wash. As per usual, not one of them had gotten halfway through before a pair of VNV officers entered to “ensure the rules were being kept,” or some such other lie. The officers always muttered to each other in Dutch during this, and any woman who stopped the process of washing would be struck across her bare skin.
It was not worth the objection.
Even now, Ida barely blinked at the disruption.
She finished her washing and rearranged her clothing, then helped the much older woman next to her to right herself. She nodded at the gratitude in the woman’s eyes, both of them knowing not to speak.
Speaking during washing was also a problem.
They filed back out of the washroom, and Ida caught sight of Horse Head, her least favorite, and the camp’s most vicious, VNV officer. He saw her as well, and, like always, he grabbed her hair and yanked with all his might as she passed. When he had first done this, she had fallen out of the line and stumbled, her scalp aching. Now . . .
Well, now she stumbled, her scalp tingled, and a chunk of her hair wound up in his hand.
He laughed and made a show of dropping the hair bit by bit to the floor.
Ida and those with her proceeded to the courtyard, following the usual pattern of each day. They would engage in activities created by the guards while the SS searched the rooms for any contraband, items of value, glimpses of life or pleasure. And while any who were unwell and in bed in the rooms received beatings with leather straps or blackjacks to the soles of their feet.
It wasn’t enough to torment the prisoners with such actions in the middle of the night, as was the guards’ favorite pastime. The middle of the day was also viewed as a perfectly good time to abuse those already unwell.
There were no humans in this place. There were only the real animals and those they viewed as animals.
“Run!” one of the guards ordered as the prisoners entered the courtyard. “Go! Now!”
They all did so, following along the perimeter of the courtyard. Most of the prisoners limped at least a little, due to recent lashes upon their feet. But some, like Ida, who had recently taken a turn in the torture bunker just outside of the barracks, and had gaping and still-healing sores on their feet and bruises in various places along their legs, exhibited an even more complicated gait.
A pair of guards cocked their rifles loudly and began chasing the pack of them. “Faster!” they shouted, laughing together. “Faster, or we’ll shoot!”
An older woman sobbed as she tried to move faster, and Ida’s heart went out to her. Only the week before, the woman’s husband had been shot for not going as fast as the guards liked during this very activity. There were no jokes in this camp. No idle threats. No humanity.
There was only danger and the moments when that danger escalated.
“Jump!” came the next order.
Like a herd of blind sheep, the prisoners began jumping. Ida’s left leg still throbbed from yesterday’s blow with a rifle butt, so jumping was more difficult than usual. Even more so when she landed, but at least she could put more weight on her right leg most of the time.
“Lower!”
She bit the inside of her lip against the searing pain in her leg as she was forced to stoop further for her jumping.
“Left leg only! Jump!”
Tears burned at the corners of her eyes as she jumped on her injured leg, bending as deeply as required and feeling every muscle scream in agony as she did so. Her knee shook more with every landing, and her balance, already poor, was best described as flailing. But there was no thought of refusing, or of using her right leg for rest, or collapsing to the ground.
It was too soon to take the beating that would result from failure to comply. She had only just regained proper hearing in her right ear and ceased having intense headaches in the daylight. Returning to that misery would be too brutal.
The feeble prisoners continued to jump on their left legs alone, the guard now laughing and speaking with his associate about something rather entertaining, it seemed. The guards paid no attention to their prisoners, nor did they seem to care what they were doing. But orders had been given and must be followed on pain of death.
“Close your eyes,” one of the guards suddenly shouted. “And skip!”
Ida almost groaned at the command. Blind skipping, as it was called, was one of the more humiliating “exercises” prisoners were forced to do, and the guards’ laughter always rang out whenever people fell, collided with each other, or hit one of the barracks walls. More than one inmate had received nasty wounds that needed tending due to blind skipping, and the number of those injured in the exercise had only increased as time went on.
It was cruel, these routines labeled as “healthy exercise” for prisoners. There was nothing healthy about them. The exercises were entirely designed to dishearten those involved, to strip them of any remaining pride or dignity, to remind them of how weak and vulnerable they really were to those who ruled them, and to emphasize the fruitlessness of resistance or refusal.
After a dozen or so people were too injured to continue, the order came to stop, and the inmates gradually formed a ragged line, waiting for their next order.
“To the truck!”
Ida groaned, knowing what was to come.
They all raced to the nearby truck as fast as they could, almost frantic, as rocks were thrown in their way. All existing pain was ignored for this. It had to be.
“What are you doing?” a guard bellowed. “Get back here and line up!”
Ida and the rest raced back to their previous position, forming as perfect a line as they could manage. Those who had not reached the truck had to turn in place and race back with them, barely making it before the next direction.
“West wall!”
They dashed to the wall, setting their noses against its cold stone.
“Line!”
Back to face the guard they went, eyes forward like soldiers.
“Truck!”
With scattered scampering, they returned to the truck yet again.
“Touch it!” he screamed, as some of the stragglers were already turning back for his next instruction. “Touch it now or you’ll all be taken down to the shed!”
Ida shook her head as they came closer to the truck. She knew the guard was going to shout again before they really could touch it.
He always did.
“Back here, you lazy Jewish dogs! Now!”
They returned to him, lining up, every one of them panting hard from the exertions. Some of them shook, some of them leaned into others, but most of them were able to stand firm.
For appearances, anyway.
The soldier walked along the line of them as though inspecting his troops, and he stopped directly in front of Ida, staring into her face. She kept her eyes forward, careful not to look at his face or his eyes. Just straight ahead as though there was nothing and no one there.
“Eyes down, Jewish vermin,” he sneered. “We’ll have that pride knocked out of you yet.”
Ida cast her eyes down, saying nothing.
A sudden glob of moisture hit her right cheek, and she did her best not to react. Spittle was a common weapon, and, while degrading, it was not worth reacting to. There were no indignities here, only realities. The prisoners were forced to exhibit silent endurance and mute obedience, allowing themselves to be dragged here and there by the commands of others, incapable of independent thought or action.
They were lemmings, she thought to herself. Following one another, even if it led them right over a cliff, at which the Nazis would undoubtedly laugh hysterically as the prisoners tumbled to their deaths.
“To your work,” the officer ordered, suddenly sounding bored with the entire game. “Quickly now, or you’ll get thrashed.”
Ida allowed herself a sigh of relief as she turned from the courtyard and headed to the laundry. She wasn’t permitted all that much freedom by having an indoor position, but there was some privacy and space to think. She had only one task: to unravel the sweaters that came in so the wool could be repurposed. She had never been told where the sweaters came from, and she had never asked.
She never would.
Entering the empty room, she sank onto her usual stool and covered her face with both hands. There were no tears to shed, not anymore. There had been a month of silent tears before they had all dried up. Before she realized that tears stung the wounds on her face. Before she understood that tears encouraged the guards.
Before tears no longer provided relief.
Now she just breathed and reminded herself who she was. What she was. That she was.
Sometimes, just the reminders were enough.
Inhale . . . exhale . . . inhale . . . exhale . . .
Ida smiled ever so slightly on the last exhale. Her ribs did not ache as much today. That was a relief. Her first week in the camp, she had endured a horrible beating, mostly from the boots of the SS and VNV, and the bruising still had yet to fade completely. The pain had been excruciating. Every breath, every movement, every attempt to sleep had sent sharper and sharper bolts of pain ricocheting through her frame.
And heaven forbid she ever had to sneeze or cough.
But today, the pain was dull.
It would be a good day.
She picked up the sweater from the top of the pile at her table and began to unpick its threads, fingers no longer tender from the work, rapidly flying across the lines of wool once carefully woven together to form the article. Once the weather turned cooler, she would have to try to set a few items aside, if possible. There were some very frail figures here, and a few children who were looking rather waiflike. They would need all the help they could get to keep warm when the chill came.
If she began setting a few pieces aside now, would she have saved enough to make any kind of difference? And where would she store the sweaters for safety?
Maurice might have an idea. She’d ask the next time she saw him.
“Jeanne, I’ve got someone to help you for the day,” his voice suddenly sounded from nearby.
Ida turned with a quick grin. “I was just thinking about . . .”
Her voice trailed off when she saw who stood beside him in the doorway.
Andrée.
She was dressed very poorly, rather perfectly blending in to the mix of inmates in the camp, her fair hair covered with a rag. She was smiling in a way that told Ida she had not been arrested to enter this place.
She had come on purpose.
“This is Mary,” Maurice told her clearly, his eyes widening. “We want to see how she does here in the laundry. You’ll only have an hour. I’ll be back then.” He squeezed Andrée’s arm, winked at Ida, then left.
Ida could only stare at Andrée in shock, words entirely beyond her capacity.
Andrée, on the other hand, began to cry. “Oh, Jeanne!” She rushed over and hugged her tightly, so full of warmth and goodness that Ida was tempted to shy away from her influence.
But instinct, dormant though it had been, soon returned, and Ida shoved up to her feet and embraced her friend more fully. “Claude! Oh, Claude, how are you here? Why are you here?”
“Seeing you, of course!” Andrée said with a laugh, rubbing her back. “Do you think I would have myself sneaked into the Dossin Barracks for my own amusement?”
Ida pulled back, somehow smiling amidst her disbelief. “But the risks! Claude, you shouldn’t have!”
Andrée scoffed and waved a hand. “Of course, I should. Maurice and I have been working on this for weeks. And Frank has been a most excellent help.”
“Frank?” Ida repeated, racking her brain. “You can’t mean Frank, the Jewish head of the camp?”
“The very same!” Andrée chirped. “Having a half-Jew, half-German at the head of things is mighty useful. The Nazis don’t hate him more than they do the inmates, so they trust him more, never suspecting that he identifies more with the inmates than with his countrymen.” She grinned and patted Ida’s shoulders. “Never fear, we are safe for an hour.”
Andrée’s smile faded as she felt Ida’s shoulders again, her clear eyes raking over her frame quickly. “Oh, Jeanne . . . you are so frail. So small. And these bruises . . .” She touched Ida’s cheek very gently, but Ida still winced at the contact.
“It’s nothing,” Ida assured her, taking her hand and sitting. “Honestly, this is a great improvement.”
Andrée swallowed and sat on a nearby stool, scooting closer. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here. Maurice told me it’s hard to keep anyone from being deported.”
“I was supposed to leave on the twenty-sixth transport,” Ida murmured, shivering at the memory. “We were all assigned a number and a transport when we arrived. But somehow, when the day of transportation came, I was spared. I watched everyone else load up. Every person that I was supposed to be with. A tuberculosis patient, a blind man, a woman paralyzed in both legs, a woman six months pregnant, a four-month-old baby. No one is spared here. They screamed as they left. Fear and worry and fatigue and despair . . . I’ll never get that out of my head. And—” She looked down at her hands, the filthy nails and calloused fingers seeming to bleed anew in her mind. “And I was ashamed.”
Andrée gasped. “Ashamed? Why?”
“Because I was staying, and they were not. We are not free here, but we are alive at least. I don’t know if any of them still are. And it is hard to live with knowing you should be dead with them, if they are.”
“Oh, Jeanne . . .” Andrée took her hands, holding them in both of hers, effectively cupping the image of blood pooling in Ida’s mind. “You mustn’t allow yourself such guilt. Don’t you think you were spared for a purpose? If I’ve heard rightly, Queen Elisabeth herself intervened for you. And not her alone, but others, too. We’ve all worked so very hard to keep you here, if we cannot get you out.”
Ida shook her head. “But why am I more deserving of saving than they? Who do they have to intervene for them? No one.”
“Maurice tries,” Andrée reminded her, the gentleness of her tone like a weak slap to Ida’s soul.
“I know he does.” Ida nodded, swallowing hard. “I know. And I know there is a difference made in saving even one life, but it all feels so helpless in here.”
Andrée glanced behind her, faint sounds of the Germans in the courtyard making her frown. “And I trust the blasted Nazis don’t help with those feelings. The SS, indeed. One might as well call them Slayers of Souls.”
“When I was in Gestapo headquarters,” Ida murmured, the faint memory seeming like years ago rather than scant weeks, “they would have Romanian and Hungarian SS members guard us at night. I don’t know if they were conscripted, but they were kind to us. One of them was a man in his forties, and when the Germans had turned their backs for the night, he opened our cell doors and allowed us water and light. He kept us company, telling us about his family and showing us pictures of his wife and children. He did not hate us, but he was in the SS.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Andrée stared, wide-eyed with shock. “And he wasn’t in trouble for it?”
Ida smiled very faintly. “Who was to know? It was the night watch. There was another one, practically a boy. He had a fiancée, and he showed us her picture. She was just lovely, smiling and bright. All he wanted to do was return home to marry her and to live freely. He was not afraid to tell us all this, or to treat us as humans. He did not want this war. This position. He was not filled with hatred toward anyone.”
“He deserves that life,” Andrée said with a sigh. “We all do.”
“He may very well get it. The rest of us, however . . .” Ida shrugged, then began coughing, the sound racking and choking, thunderous in the small, enclosed room.
Andrée rubbed her back. “That sounds painful. Are you well, Jeanne?”
Ida nodded, gripping at her now throbbing sides. “Yes, for this place. My lung was injured after some treatment I received at the hands of our wardens out there. It’s never been quite the same, but truly, I have no fever or illness.”
“Treatment? You mean torture.”
The word sounded worse coming from the mouth of someone who had no idea what was endured here. And, as if her friend were a child, Ida felt the need to shield her from the true horrors.
“Beatings are part of daily life,” Ida hedged, looking away. “My friend was beat about the face and forced to stand facing a corner for two hours for not saluting one of the SS guards.”
Andrée growled darkly. “And where is your friend now?”
“Deported. I could not tell you where.” Ida forced a smile, praying it looked better than it felt. “But it is so good to see you, my dear!”
Andrée did not smile back. “Because you can see me or because I am here?”
Ida felt a weary sigh well up within her. Andrée had always seen more than she was supposed to. Why she thought this would be an exception . . .
“I see how sunken your eyes are, Jeanne,” she went on. “I see the cuts and the scars. I see the swelling and the discoloration, and I can feel the very bones of your hands. They are killing you in here, only more slowly than elsewhere.”
“We are already dead to them.” Ida could not help the flatness of her tone and did not bother trying to soften the truth with a smile. “You cannot kill what is already dead.”
Ida sighed, looking back down at her hands. “I met a girl here not long ago; she was only fifteen. But she was not afraid. She told me that she does not feel alone. She recalls passages of the Torah that she had been taught and had read. She recites them to herself. And she said she has no questions because of that. She has faith, and that faith strengthens her, even in this.” She shook her head. “She was transported to a camp.”
“I have never had faith in anything like that,” Andrée admitted, her tone raw. “I’ve seen too much to allow me to have faith.”
“I wish I had her faith,” Ida whispered. “I would love to feel that I am not alone.”
Andrée suddenly leaned forward, seizing Ida’s hands tightly. “Hold on, Jeanne. There are rumors from reliable sources that the Nazis are going to leave soon. Don’t let them kill you. We need you when this is over. The work has continued since you’ve been here, and will keep going, but I need you to come back out. To help me put these families back together. Hold on and find a way to hope.”
Somehow, by some miracle, Ida’s eyes began to well with the first tears she’d shed in weeks. “I will always hope in you, my friend, even if I cannot find it anywhere else. We can have faith in each other, and in the work we do.”
“Yes,” Andrée urged. “Faith in the ability of good people with the right motivations to create change in the world. That is what we can do and what we will continue doing.”
Ida nodded, one of the tears falling, stinging a cut somewhere on her face. “Tell me what you are doing, Claude. I want to hear everything.”