––––––––
Over the next few days I affected a rapid recovery, my injuries treated with a sickly-smelling poultice that seemed to promote rapid healing.
My recovery was further encouraged by the realisation that little Elone had been among those few who had survived the massacre of the injured following the train derailment. I had to presume that Golda had perished either then or during the journey itself, for she was not numbered among the survivors there with us.
Of Chaim’s fate, as my mother’s, I had no knowledge. I did not even know if they had been on that train, though I knew their destination to be the same. Of course the likely fate of Elone’s parents had not yet been imparted to the child, with whom I now found myself entrusted the care of, along with my little brother.
Had I realised then the full implications of this adoption I would perhaps have distanced myself from the prospect, but Nicolae and Elone had renewed their acquaintance during my period of convalescence and now were all but inseparable. Further, their friendship prevented either of them from dwelling too long on the fate of their respective parents, my half-hearted assurances that they would be soon re-united seemingly serving to satisfy them.
Thus it was inevitable that, when our benefactors declared it was time for them to leave us, I found myself burdened with both Nicolae and Elone as my sole responsibility. Not least this was because, among the survivors, only we three were Romanian by nationality. The others were Bulgars, Magyars and other Slav nationals, and all Jews, for what that mattered. These few, of the untold number on the train, survived. All the others had perished on the journey or been slaughtered by the Nazis after the crash.
My few days recuperating were, in the circumstances, enjoyably spent, our benefactors proving themselves fine hosts, despite the difficult communications.
My injuries were minor compared with some, although others, Nicolae and Elone included, seemed to have enjoyed a miraculous escape, having been buried beneath the bodies of others after the derailment and thus protected from the spray of bullets unleashed by the Nazi murderers. But even so, I knew many hundreds, perhaps thousands, had met their death during transit or by bullet at the journey’s abrupt termination and this fact weighed heavy on my mind.
I learned that, once sure there were no further survivors among the wreckage, the Resistance had elected to give those who perished a mass cremation, destroying bodies and train as one in a fiery inferno, using fuel from a Nazi convoy previously hijacked.
This much Karol imparted to me during our infrequent conversations, and once my voice returned I managed to establish the vaguest of directions for Krakow.
I began making plans for Nicolae and I, with Elone in tow as I now realised we must, to pursue my mother’s fate. Karol tried to convince me that return to my native Romania was in our best interests, but I would brook no such advice, and at length he abandoned his protests and supplied me with what little information he could.
I did not relish the prospect, with the burden of two young children, for Krakow was stated to be many hundreds of kilometres distant, even further into Poland than we currently found ourselves, and I knew my injured shoulder would oblige both children to make their own way, for carriage would not be possible.
Of course we had no money for food or shelter, bore only the clothes we stood in, cleaned but still ragged from the excesses of our journey, and had not even a command of the language to help us by.
But Karol aside no-one objected, for truth be told they were glad not to be burdened with three children themselves.
Thus it was, that soon after our benefactors had bid us good luck and disappeared into the forests to pursue their fight against the Nazis, I gather Nicolae and Elone around me and we hesitantly began the long trek north in pursuit of those we loved.