––––––––
Perhaps the first tangible evidence was when the ashen smog of cremated bodies began to dissipate and fresh, winter air began to penetrate our lungs.
Slowly the skies cleared and we could see the clouds once more.
Then the demolition began, at first orderly, later with more urgency, with less attention to detail. I watched the crematoria chimneys slowly pulled down, each night when I ventured out witnessing some advance in their destruction, and for the first time began to hope again.
I had by now lost all track of time, only the seasonal changes providing an amorphous calendar within my confused mind, but I knew autumn had passed and winter was well advanced. Snow was particularly unwelcome, not so much for the cold, for that we had come to accept, but because I feared tell-tale footprints left behind might announce our presence.
So long had we been here in this makeshift domicile, resident among these pernicious canisters, ensconced amid oddments of clothing for comfort and warmth, subsisting on the dregs raided from Nazi rubbish bins, that we began to feel at home, daring to believe we could survive the winter here, perhaps even the duration of the war.
But such complacency proved misjudged.
It was early morning, a cold sun’s watery rays illuminating another freezing day. We were huddled together for warmth, the three of us, beneath a pile of coats and camisoles, when we heard their arrival. I was upright in an instant, fear dictating my actions, a hand each over Nicolae’s and Elone’s mouths to prevent them making a sound. Wide eyed they sat up, terror etched in their faces as we heard the Zyklon B canisters being loaded onto carts.
A small window to the rear of us provided the store’s only light and surreptitiously prising it open I eased first Nicolae, then Elone, through the tiny gap. Even their small, emaciated bodies struggled to squeeze through and I feared for my own chances.
Both children were by now safely outside but as I clambered onto the ledge and began to prise myself through the tiny orifice my worst fears were realised. I became suspended halfway, my coat entangled with the window hook, leaving me hanging from the wall a half metre from the ground.
“Anca! Anca!” It was too much for my little brother and he cried out for me to join them, all caution forgotten at the sight of his sister struggling to free herself.
Too late, Elone grabbed him, urging him to be silent.
I heard angry shouts in guttural German and the sound of canisters being thrown to one side as a Nazi guard advanced on me from behind.
A heavy hand clasped my shoulders and I screamed out, “Nicolae! Elone! Run! Run!” I struggled violently as a thickset arm came around my neck and began dragging me back into the store. Limbs flailing, I lashed out as best I could, but to no avail, only the very size of the window’s aperture preventing me being pulled back the way I had tried to leave. I could see my brother below me, watching helplessly, terrified, and was reminded it was not just my own fate that would be sealed were I to lose this battle.
Suddenly my tormentor’s arm slipped over my chin and across my face and I seized my chance, biting deep into his wrist with an animal-like ferocity born of desperation.
With a scream of pain his arm was gone and I fell back to my halfway position, hung pendent by my coat. Angry voices shouted at the window even as Elone pushed her tiny body beneath mine, taking my weight, allowing me the leverage I needed to slip my arms from the coat sleeves. I fell to the cold ground, free, leaving the garment dangling from the window.
I grabbed the children, one under each arm, and with a celerity that surprised us all managed to carry both my charges across the concourse to the shelter of another building. Even as we cornered the hut, a spray of gunfire spattered the ground behind us.
We stopped for breath, to get our bearings, fearing the worst, but from our tormentor all we heard was a cold laugh, as if somehow he found amusement at our determination. He shouted out across the concourse, though I recognized only the word Kinder, children, and hoped our escapade had been dismissed as a harmless child’s prank.