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We were soon benighted, dusk prematurely advanced by the strange cloud of fumes that hung over the camp. The generators roared and the spotlights of the guard towers dissected the complex into incandescent ranges delineated by sharp, deep shadows.
I knew our time had come.
I mustered the children and, stressing the need for absolute silence and supreme caution, led them to the very edge of our shelter, where we stopped, hesitant, the younger ones awaiting my instruction.
I had no concept of direction, no plan beyond finding a hiding place more secure, and acted accordingly. We crept into the dark shadows and edged our way, hardly daring to breathe, to the end of the hut, there to purchase a better view of the camp’s layout.
It was obvious enough we should move away from the perimeter gates, but barbed wire fences loomed in all directions, intermittently patrolled by armed guards. The perimeter fences were still more securely policed, with fierce dogs as well as soldiers, while searchlights swept the outer boundary incessantly.
The inner compounds were clearly less well guarded and I knew it was in this direction we should head. Though I could see no evidence of a passage through the fences I knew there must be one and cautiously led the children as far as I dared, fearing at any minute a heavy hand on my shoulder or even, though I struggled hard to keep the thought at bay, a bullet in my back.
But we were to prove blessed, for neither event transpired and, over the course of several hours, we managed to steal our way further into the camp, running from shadow to shadow, stopping each time to regain our breath and restore our composure.
Our task was made all the easier for that the camp’s workers were kept in barracks at night, and the few guards we did encounter were more concerned with their own private preoccupations than searching the shadows for intruders. All security was geared to the opposite purpose, to prevent anyone leaving. An observation that left me quietly uneasy, reinforcing my belief that, whatever danger we might face, there could be no turning back.
Just how far we had smuggled ourselves onto the site, or what function the buildings against which we hid might have I could only guess, but already it was becoming clear Auschwitz-Birkenau was a complex of immense proportions, stretching on and on whichever way one looked, though still the true scale of the camp, like the enormity of its purpose, had yet to be realised.
Many of the buildings were raised constructions, affording useful hiding places for us, and occasionally, as we hid beneath one, we could hear German voices, laughing and joking as they partook their evening repast. The smell of hot food managed to penetrate our nostrils even over the fetid, heavy atmosphere that hung all around us, screening the sky, obscuring a bicephalous moon.
Inevitably Nicolae was reminded of his hunger and I was thankful once again for Elone’s ability to occupy my little brother’s attention.
From our hiding place beneath one such hut I became aware of a strange glow on the horizon, which I concluded must be a furnace, perhaps of an iron foundry or like industry.
While hardly anticipating Mama would be employed in such an operation this was the first suggestion of where the camp’s workers might be found, and that it appeared to be operating through the night was all the more encouraging, raising the hope we might be able to approach someone under cover of darkness and at least establish the location of the women’s quarters.
This empyreal glow thus became our goal and we began a slow, tortuous progress towards it. As ever the children were stoic, Elone indomitable of spirit, comforting Nicolae when his determination flagged.
Several times we came close to discovery, for many were the occasions when we had to race across open areas where no shadows reached, and even to smuggle ourselves through guarded gates as we crossed from one compound to the next. Fortunately the guards seemed more concerned with huddling together to share a cigarette than to perform their duties, secure in the presumption that no-one, least of all three children, would even then be making their way across the camp.
As we continued the glowing sky loomed ever closer until we could at last see the chimneys from which the candescence emerged, and with it the fetid fumes and filth-laden, ashen smog that descended everywhere, coating everything, permeating our clothes to our very skin.
So obsessed had we been in pursuit of the furnaces that time had passed unnoticed. But as dawn began to break we slipped beneath the floor of a raised hut for a final time that night. In hushed whispers I advised the children it would be necessary to remain here through the day, until night fell once more.
Elone received this news bravely, but for Nicolae the strain was too much and he began to sob, no longer able to contain his emotions, no longer able to constrain his physical needs. He, we all, were tired, hungry and spiritually drained and I knew that lassitude would be our undoing, if I could not soon make good our plight. For now, however, all I could do was offer quiet comfort.
As I turned to do so I found Elone once more had assumed this role and it sunk home to me now that this young girl, though no relative by blood, was far the better parent to my little brother, for he clung to her now as he had once, but no longer, clung to me, and it became clear he treasured her comforts more than mine.
For an instant I felt jealousy impinge sharp on my heart, but I banished the emotion with some effort, knowing I could not fulfil the role of mother to Nicolae and at the same time lead us all to ultimate salvation.
I gathered the two children to me, kissing them both, and said without conviction, “We will be fine, little ones, I promise you.”