Rena’s Promise

Was I born from a stone?

Did a mother not bear me?

If you cut me don’t I bleed?

From a Yiddish song sung by Mama

The brakes squeal with such finality that we know instinctively that our journey has ended. The doors are pushed open to a dull gray haze. We blink at the light stinging our eyes. The sign reads AUSCHWITZ.

“Get out of the car,” the Germans order. We shift from blank stares to the business of collecting our belongings.

“Go quick!” Men in striped caps and uniforms prod us with sticks, whispering under their breath, “Move quickly. We don’t want to hurt you.” The SS aim their guns, forcing these poor prisoners to hit us so that we jump from the car. And we jump, half dead, with our luggage, if we have luggage.

It is four feet to the ground. My knees, cramped from being stationary for so long, feel as if they will snap as I land. I turn to help the woman with her baby. A stick taps my shoulder, “Go quick.”

I look for the eyes belonging to the voice, but there are only hollow black holes staring into my face.

“Get in line!” Orders are sharp, punctuated by whips against shining leather boots.

I place mine upright, neatly, next to the growing pile, then turn to ask one of the SS guards, “How are we going to find our suitcases later?” I figure I am a human being I have a right to ask.

“Get in line and shut up!” he yells in my face, pointing his gun at me. The hair on my skin bristles. He doesn’t see that I am human.

There is an odor I cannot identify. It is not from human waste or girls who have not bathed in days, although those smells are also prevalent. It is the scent of fear permeating the air around me.

It is everywhere, in the eyes of the girl-women around me, in our clothing and our sweat.

The baby isn’t alive anymore, but its mother does not notice the limpness of the form in her arms. Her desperate grasp on its corpse spooks me. There is too much happening. Everything is so hurried, so haphazard, that there is no way to make sense of the situation. I look through the crowd for some direction, for someone to tell me why we are here and what will befall us. I see him.

He stands before us, superior and seraphic, taking control, directing us to go this way or that. He is so neat and refined in his gray uniform; he is gorgeous. I smile into his blue eyes, hoping he will see me for who I am.

How kind of him not to point out to her that her infant is dead, I think to myself. How kind of him to place her to the side.¹

There is madness here. My mind begins to whirl. Struggling to focus on something, anything, to keep me from screaming, I stare at the man in gray. He is so stunning I am sure he must be considerate too. His orders are always obeyed. The SS around us defer to him quickly, answering, “Heil Hitler!”

I watch the proceedings with semi-fascination before lapsing into the fog where nothing needs to make sense. This is not daydreaming, this is electric shock. There is a smudge on my left boot. Spitting into my palm, I stoop to wipe it away. It is white again.

“Line up! Get into rows of five! Raus! Raus!” The prisoners poke us with sticks. The SS aim their guns at us. We are civilians unfamiliar with military drill. We line up clumsily. “March! Stay in your rows! If you step out of line you will be shot! March!”

Nine hundred and ninety-nine girl-women step in semi-perfect time, in semi-perfect rows of five, through the iron gates of Auschwitz. Above our heads, welded in iron, are the words ARBEIT MACHT FREI, and we believe what the sign says: “Work Will Make You Free.”

“We are young,” we remind ourselves. “We will work hard and be set free. We will see what happens.” But on the outside we are walking as if we are doomed. It is raining, chilled like March rain. We are lost in thought but it is too cold to do much thinking. Everywhere it is gray. My heart is turning gray.

There are men along barbed-wire fences, in striped jackets, caps, and pants, watching us.² Their eyes reflect nothing. I think to myself, This must be an insane asylum, but why would they make the mentally ill work? That’s not fair.

I do not comprehend my surroundings. I keep thinking, I am well brought up, well educated, well dressed. I was looking very nice when I went to the barracks in Slovakia wearing my beautiful suit, though it does not look so good now. Still, my white boots look pretty and spotless because I’ve been careful not to step in any mud. Walking through these gates, I forget my resolve and think for one moment about who I was at home. I’m a neat person. I should not be here. I am different. I come from a good family. The desire to curl up in a warm blanket of past memories permeates my effort to keep in step. Forget about that now, Rena, I reprimand

My weakness, that’s history. I stare at the acres of barbed wire around us. This is reality.

“Halt!” We freeze, complacent and obedient under the rifles and watchtowers around us. There are rows of brick buildings going down the side of the camp road, the Lagerstrasse, and a high wall with barbed wire. We are forced to line up so as to be going in the door of the first block. Time passes. Is it hours or is it days? I am somewhere toward the end of this line when people start coming out of the other side with no hair on their heads.

Leaning toward Erna, who is standing next to me, I whisper, “There are more crazy people. We must be in an institution for the insane.” She and Dina nod in agreement.

“Piri! It’s me!” some crazy bald person shouts to one of the girls nearby.

“Don’t ask questions.” Her bald head checks around her to see if anyone is listening. “If you have jewelry, step it into the mud.”

I look down at the watch on my wrist. I can still hear Erna and Dina and Danka laughing with me as we run through the streets toward the post office. “Rena has a boyfriend!” they chant. “Rena has a boyfriend!” “Do you like the watch I gave you?” my current beau asked on the crackling wire. “I love it,” I flirted, “I will never take it off.” “Well, you better if you go swimming or bathe,” he flirted back.

You cannot have my memories! You cannot have anything of mine! Driving it into the mud with my heel, dirtying my precious white felt boots, I smash it into a thousand pieces.

The door to Block One looms before us. Inside, the unknown is happening. We can hear screams. We can see the girl-women coming out, but we tell ourselves we will not look different when we exit this place. Digging my fingernails into my palms, I pray I will be the one girl to exit with my hair. Then I am inside the block.

In a daze I walk up to the first table, as I have just seen the girl in front of me do. “What are you?” a German woman asks.

She does not ask me what race I am, and I do not offer the fact that I am also Jewish. All of us are Jewish, except for the communist woman and she is gone now. I am puzzled by the German woman’s clothes. She is not SS. She is definitely Reichdeutsche though, and she is wearing a triangle with a number over it. It occurs to me that she may be a prisoner.³

Oh, my God, they’re going to take my crowns and then I’ll look ugly. I go to the second table pulling my upper lip over my teeth, tilting my head down just slightly so no one notices the money in my mouth.

I look around wondering who is being spoken to in such a tone of voice. “You there! Take those earrings off or I’ll rip them out!”

“Me?” I am stunned. Touching my lobes gingerly, I realize my mistake. The earrings my Grandpa Zayde gave me when I was six years old are glistening from beneath my curls. I have worn them for so long that they are not jewelry but a part of me.

“I forgot about them,” I tell her quickly, placing the last remnant of my life on a cold table, to be tossed into a box with everyone else’s past.

“Take your clothes off and leave them here.” They grab my clothes from me before I have a chance to fold them neatly or place them in a safe corner to be retrieved later.

“Raus! Raus!” We hurry forward. We have never stood naked in front of strangers before. Trying to cover ourselves with our hands, we look at the floor, hoping this will protect our modesty. Insensitive to our nudity, they prod us into a tub of disinfectant.

“They are filthy. Don’t touch them.” Their voices sting as badly as the solution against our bare skin. We stand for several minutes embarrassed to look at each other, staring into a green liquid that feels as if it will eat the flesh off our bodies.

“Get out! Get out!” Orders, more orders. The guards’ words jump into our brains, dislodging free thought, exiling it to the nether regions of sanity. There are no towels to dry our shivering frames. Our clothes are not waiting for us, but the line is. Our lives have become one long line moving slowly from one horror to another.

I am held by the head and pushed abruptly into a chair. The cuss of electric shears moves closer to my ears as a tough hand pushes my head forward. “Don’t move!” I am spoken to roughly, handled as if my skin were sandpaper. Running from the nape of my neck to my forehead, the clippers cut and scrape against my skin, tearing the hair from my head. Digging my fingernails deeper into my arm, I try to prevent tears from falling down my disinfected cheeks. Only married women shave their heads. Our traditions, our beliefs, are scorned and ridiculed by the acts they commit.

They shear our heads, arms; even our pubic hair is discarded just as quickly and cruelly as the rest of the hair on our bodies. We are shorn like sheep and then ordered back into the vat of disinfectant.

My flesh burns like fire. I wonder if I will get my jacket and skirt back now that the ordeal is over. They can’t possibly do anything more—what else is there?

There is a long table where an officer is standing. He has rubber gloves on and there are other men holding the girl down. I hear her scream again. I have no idea what he is doing but I know I don’t want him doing it to me. There are two lines, the one I am in, going to the table with the man and his gloves, and the line facing in the opposite direction. Blood drips down the thighs of the girl-women coming away from the man and his gloves. It only takes a second for me to weigh the consequences of action against the consequences of inaction—I turn quickly around, stepping into the other line. This is my first accomplishment in Auschwitz: no one gives me a gynecological exam.

The German women prisoners, who are obviously superior, toss woolen uniforms at us. There are Russian insignias on the breasts of the uniforms. We fumble, then try them on, quickly discovering that they are too huge for most women to wear. There is a tall woman next to me whose pants are too short. “Here, try mine on,” I suggest. We trade. Around us, other women do the same, trying to find something that won’t fall off. I balk at pulling the trousers over my body without any underwear on. Sniffing my dark green woolen shirt, I am nauseated by the dampness of the fabric. There are no buttons to close the shirt, but there are holes and reddish-brown streaks and stains. “They haven’t even washed these clothes!” I remark. Touching a smear of dirt, I wonder if I can scrub it out later. But this is not mud. It is sticky. It smells sweet. My stomach lurches. I stare at the women around me who are already clothed. Still damp from the disinfectant, they are simply grateful for something to put over their bodies. Like myself, they do not notice at once, preferring to think that the cloth has been eaten away by moths rather than bullets. They do not see that the streaks are not dirt and mud but blood. We are like lambs being led to slaughter, following one another because we know of nothing else to do. Despite the sweet-sour smell of stale blood and scratchiness of the wool against my nipples, I modestly pull my shirt across my chest. What will be next?

In the last room there is a pile of wood slabs with leather straps across the top. These are supposed to be shoes. Again, we try to help each other find a matching pair, but they were not made in pairs. They’re not even made for human beings to wear. Scuffling out of the block onto the camp road, I move into position. We stand in neat rows of five, bald, practically barefoot, and wearing dead men’s uniforms. It begins to drizzle.

“Line up!” The drill is repetitive, mundane. We are capable of nothing but obeying orders. “March!” With one hand clutching the stench of my shirt close around me and the other hoisting up the pants which sag below my hips, still possessed by a false sense of modesty, I march.

We are so busy trying not to lose our clothing that we do not notice the room we are led into. The door slams shut and a bolt falls on the other side. We are trapped, standing almost on top of one another in bloody straw. Bedbugs jump, making our bodies black.

We hold our clothes up over our faces; they jump on our bare heads, our hands, all over any exposed patch of skin. In the straw, lice crawl hungrily between our toes.

We have gone quietly for too long. Suddenly there is a surge of dissension. Running to the door, we pound and pound. “Let us out! Let us out!” With both hands we beat the walls imprisoning us. “This can’t be!” the voices around me scream. “Please, let us out. We did nothing wrong. There’s got to be a mistake. Help us!”

I watch the anguish around me. We have revolted too late. It is no mistake. Joining the mass of betrayed girl-women, I pound against the oak of injustice. It beats thinking. Anything is better than facing the facts on the floor and under our feet.

I am tired of being vigilant. I am tired of watching the sun rise on despair. The girl-women around me mirror my thoughts; my face must look as doomed as theirs. The filth, the smell, the sounds of guard dogs barking in the distance-it is too much. The whole night I crouch on the floor, exhausted yet alert. There has been no water for over four days, no food, not a drop of anything. I don’t fall asleep, but quite a few do. Dropping off into unconsciousness, they collapse on the floor, no longer able to feel the gnawing bites of these terrible bugs.

The door to Block Five opens at four A.M. I am still where they left me, wide-eyed and awake. We scramble into line and march out for roll call. We stand silently, being counted, unable to move from our neat and orderly rows of five. I do not turn my head. I do not shift my feet. I want to scratch at the bites and the irritating wool against my bare skin. My thumb twitches against my leg; it is the only movement I allow myself to indulge in.

They divide us evenly into two different groups. We are given a bowl for our tea, but there aren’t enough; some people share theirs, but right away there are arguments and some of the bowls disappear. We march into Block Ten. It is late morning when we are finally given a little of something like tea, a piece of bread, and a pat of margarine, which they slap onto the open palm of our hands. I notice that everyone gobbles their food quickly, too quickly for their shrunken stomachs. Some get in line again, expecting more, but there are no seconds. They are beaten for being so presumptuous. I chew my bread, slowly spreading my margarine as if I were at a proper dinner. My tea tastes strange, but I do not care. I sip it slowly, forcing myself to make it last, telling my body that it is full and this is plenty to eat.

The first day we clean the inside of Block Ten. Moving in a daze, I hold my shirt closed and keep my pants up while dusting, sweeping, washing. We carry out our duties. I am simply grateful to be let out of the block, with all its lice and bugs. There is little else to do but watch and learn. The Germans are disorganized. I notice this immediately, but it means nothing-organized or not, I am at their mercy.

More girl-women march into camp and I spend all afternoon watching them come out of the barracks bald and dressed in uniforms like myself. With so many coming in, I cannot imagine Danka avoiding the transports for long. Standing by the fence watching the line of newcomers, I am torn between praying that I won’t see her here and praying that we find each other if this is where she ends up. I wonder if she will recognize me. I wonder if I will recognize her. Each new face is carefully scanned before I dismiss it for not being my sister. Lost in an ever-increasing sea of despair, my heart has one last hope that Danka will hide in Slovakia.

I see my lovely white boots with their red trim on an SS woman across the compound. I want to say something, take them from her and put them on my own feet. Trying to control this impulse to take back what is mine, I start to return to the block. “Line up!”

“Line up!” We move into neat rows of five. The sun sinks in the west as one thousand of us are counted.

A concrete wall divides camp. The men’s blocks are on the other side of this wall, but from the second story of the blocks we can see each other through the barbed wire. In the approaching darkness I stand before the upstairs window looking at the same men I had seen the day before. At least they look the same. Each of the blocks in Auschwitz has windows in the front, and from the second floor we can open them and speak to the men on the other side of the wall. They are half-starved, eager to hear news of the outside world and to make friends with us.

I go to the window and spit on my hand. The reflection is dark and obscured, but I stand rubbing the dirt from my face, smearing the tearstains into my skin so they will not know they’ve made me cry. I rub my scalp as if I had hair to comb. It is a futile but comforting gesture, reminding me of Mama’s hand brushing back my hair. I shut out these thoughts quickly; there is only one thing to remember—don’t reminisce. My reflection in the window blinks back her tears. I want to rant and rave but I can only stare at the picture before my eyes. What have they done to us? The silent screams inside my head rip my soul apart. Who is this person staring back at me? The men in camp no longer look insane. They look like me.

“I could use a rope to hold up my pants, and a nail.” This is called organizing. Really it is scrounging, but organizing is more appropriate when you consider our circumstances and how dangerous having anything extra is.

“Run downstairs. I’ll throw something over.” This is my first care package, and with grateful admiration I retrieve a rope with a nail, wrapped tightly around a stone.

It does not take me long to figure out that resourcefulness is as precious as food in this place, and nothing passes under my feet unnoticed or unassessed for its potential. By taking a stone, I am able to hammer the nail through the metal rim of my bowl, then I thread one of the pieces of rope—my new belt—through the hole.

To keep my shirt closed I tuck it in my pants and tie the belt tightly around my waist. This is how it is. My life depends on this precious bowl which I can drink from and wash in. I will work with it.

There are no showers, but there are three toilets in Block Ten and a place to wash our hands. For toilet paper there are scraps of newspaper, but these disappear quickly. There’s always a line, so we don’t have a chance very often to use the toilet or wash our hands, but at least it is possible. There are bunk beds which have straw mattresses on them and thin blankets. The first night we have two people per bunk, but there are empty bunks waiting for more girl-women just like us. They must be in Block Five tonight.

My bed is next to a wall with a window that is boarded up, but through the slats in the boards I can look into the yard of Block Eleven. The struggle for sleep is not hard after so many nights of sleeplessness, but somewhere in the middle of the dreamless night there are gunshots. Awake and alert, I lie on my pallet of straw pulling the blanket closer around me, but it cannot warm the chill in my spine; my cup attached firmly to my waist is no comfort either. I know somewhere someone is dying.

Roll call on the second morning comes just as early, just as rudely. It is four A.M. They shout for us to form a line in alphabetical order. Frantically we jostle one another, trying to get where we belong; anyone not in place is beaten into line. We seem to always be marching from one place to another and standing for a long time doing nothing. This time we are funneled into a barrack with benches and long tables. There are two sisters in the front of our line, I believe they are numbered 1001 and 1002. The tattooing is painful. The men prisoners do not delight in sticking the needle, like a shot, in our left forearms over and over. They know how much it hurts. Still, the Germans force them to hurry, so there is no time to be gentle or concerned. It is as if each stab will burst any shred of ego left. My number is 1716. Branded and numbered like cattle, we rub our arms as we had rubbed our naked heads, trying to make the pain go away.

This map is according to Rena’s recollection of the women’s camp and has been corroborated by the Director of the Women’s Museum, Poland. The wall dividing the men and women’s camp was torn down in 1942 after the women were moved to Birkenau, where the Russian POWs were being held (see B Ia in Birkenau Map) (Wyman). The wall was torn down in 1942, after the women were moved to Birkenau. The black blocks represent the guard towers around the camp perimeter.

The Nazis are starting to arrange things now. The kapos, who are German prisoners, are put in charge of us when we are outside of our blocks. We learn how to distinguish the kapos by the color triangle they wear: green signifies that she is in for murder; red means she is a political prisoner, and black represents a prostitute or asocial prisoner.

A young Slovakian Jew called Elza is chosen to be our blockowa, our block elder, and is in charge of us when we are inside the block.

Her duties include getting us out to roll call and dividing the bread loaves which are assigned to each room. There are also sztubowas, room elders, who divide the loaves between everyone in the room and hand out our portions. Between them, the block elders and room elders steal bread for themselves. It is easy to see that they are doing this and I realize almost immediately that I have to be frugal with what I get. Sometimes there might be half the portion allotted for me and sometimes there might be the whole portion; it all depends on luck and whether the room elder and block elder are honest people.

From the window I hear a man outside and across the wall asking, “Where are you from?”

“Go downstairs,” he instructs, leaning his head sideways to see which way the watchtower guard is facing before tossing a piece of bread over the barbed wire for me to eat. I run out the door and grab this morsel just as a stone wrapped with paper lands at my feet. I grab the note and run back in the door before the watchtower guard swings back toward the camp road. Panting inside the doorway, I put the bread in my pocket and crumple the note in my hand before walking nonchalantly past Elza’s room. In the corner upstairs, I unfold his note and read: Destroy this note the moment you read it, in tiny pieces. 12,000 Russian soldiers were here when we came. 5,000 are left, 7,000 have been shot. Your clothes are their uniforms. I am from Warsaw. Shredding the paper into tiny pieces, I return to the lower floor to stand in line for the toilet, where I dispose of the confetti.

Block Ten is now full. I sleep next to strangers who cry in their sleep. We seasoned prisoners of two days eat our bread slowly and sip our tea as the precious rarity it is. We have bowls tied to our waists and spoons in our pockets while the new women argue over these utensils. We seasoned prisoners have seen the new arrivals go up to Elza and ask for a bowl or more food and get slapped. We know to get up in time for roll call; we have already seen the sleepers beaten. We are fast learners.

I have organized a scrap of paper and scratched on it, Thank you for your note. Where are they killing the Russians? I try to throw the stone over the wall, but miss. It takes three tries before I am finally able to arch it past the electric fence, where it lands at his feet.

Turning my head, I try to pretend that I am doing nothing, breathing a heavy sigh of relief that no one has seen my poor attempt at communication.

Along Block One there is a new line of well-dressed women who have just gotten off the trains. On the other side of the barrack, a line of newly dehumanized girl-women wearing Russian uniforms exits. My heart begins to beat faster. Narrowing my eyes, I squint against the sun, scanning for a face in the crowd which my heart distinguishes long before my eyes.⁴

“Danka!” Her beautiful chestnut-red hair is gone, but they cannot remove her brown doe-like eyes or touch her pretty face.

My arms itch to grab her. If I can just touch her I know I will never let her go, but there is nothing I can do because there is a man with a machine gun and a dog standing guard over the new prisoners.

My feet hold their ground, forcing me to wait, but I see her and in that instant of recognition I find my reason and will to live.

There is a moment of general confusion while the new girl-women mill about. I take this chance to merge with their ranks.

“Danka!” I grab her frail shoulders. For a moment she looks into my eyes terrified and threatened by this stranger. The stone in my stomach hardens-she does not recognize my face. Then she throws her arms around my neck, sobbing. “Rena!” She falters.

“I can’t remember. Oh, Rena, it was horrible. There were so many people on the train. We were sitting on top of one another and someone died who was sitting next to me. It was unbelievable.”

“Our friends were going to hide me on a farm, but I had your letter and I told them I wanted to go work with my sister. You are all I have, Rena.”

“Danka, you shouldn’t have come. We should have stayed in Slovakia and hidden. This is bad . . . real bad.”

“March! Get in line!” The block elders push us into line so they can march the new prisoners into Block Five.

“She has had no food since Bratislava. Please, Elza, let her be in our block! I am afraid for her.”

“Okay, your sister can share your bunk.” We are lucky, Elza has a heart today. “You can help me with dealing out the bread and take an extra portion for your sister.”

I do not ask what will happen to the girl who was sleeping next to me; I know already that one does not ask. This is a selfish act, perhaps, but I have a sister who I have to keep alive and she is all that matters.

I know this is going to be a tough assignment for Danka. I can see in her face a look of bewilderment and shock. I will have to try to be by her side every moment. As if I have the power to shield her from the SS. But I actually believe I can; I have to believe I can.

We are in Block Ten for the night. Staring at our surroundings with a frozen face, she asks me where we are. The man I have been corresponding with calls my name from the windows, tossing over a bit of bread and another note. I go downstairs and retrieve it with more expertise and less hesitation this time.

“Here, Danka, a little extra bread from a fellow Pole.” I am grateful for the extra food. She does not notice the note, which I read and tear up quickly. They are being shot in the Block Eleven, next to you. Tear this up immediately.

I sit down on our bunk, taking Danka’s hand in mine, looking into her face for an undisturbed moment. She is so tired she can barely keep her eyes open, but she tells me all that has happened to her.

“Maybe.” It is a dim prospect, but we cling to whatever hope we can muster. There are tears streaming down our faces as the magnitude of what is happening around us begins to sink in. I am frightened. We are in prison. Our only crime is that we were born.

“We can’t cry very much here,” I say, dabbing her tears with my sleeve. “We can’t let them know they’ve gotten to us. You see here-this is the enemy and we’re going to have to be real clever to outsmart them. Are you listening to me, Danka?” She nods as I wipe the tears from her cheek.

“Then listen good to what I’m going to tell you. We’re farmers’ daughters. We’re going to work, but that is what we do already.

“The work here will be nothing to us. And this is my dream, Danka—I am going to bring you home. We’re going to walk through our farmhouse door and Mama and Papa will be there waiting for us. Mama will hug and kiss us, and I’m going to say, ‘Mama, I got you the baby back.’”

I stare into the darkness cradling my sister until her breath lengthens and deepens and I am sure she will not wake. Gunshots crack open the night. Through the slats of the boarded-up window I watch Russian soldiers collapsing to the ground. There is so much I want to ask God for, but my lips are numb and my mouth is frozen open in disbelief.

I am wearing the uniform of these dead soldiers’ comrades. Tomorrow morning more girl-women will march through the gates; they will be handed the uniforms of the men I have just witnessed die. My throat swells shut. I cannot tell anyone what I have seen.

Only my whispers can be heard, but I do not believe that anyone is listening. “God help us.”

The room elders beat the bunks, poking the girls who are not early risers. It is Danka’s first morning and she wakens with a start. I wish there had been time to prepare her for the ordeal of rising and roll call, but there has been no time to prepare her for anything. I have waited for my sister and that has kept me from thinking about much else.

“Rena?” In a daze she looks at me. How I hoped it was all a dream, a nightmare.

Today we will work. I have been eager to get busy and finish this prison life, and wonder if they will release us sooner if we work harder. Anxious to wash my face, I am in line for the toilet immediately.

Danka moves slower, and as the line of women desperate to go to the bathroom lengthens she gets pushed back.

The kettle sits outside the door of the block. We hold out our bowls as the block elder scoops a ladle of tea into our bowls. We step into the dark. Our breath, the steam rising from our tea looks like specters and phantoms floating in our midst. We sip our tea quickly, hoping it will warm our insides, but the chill sweeps through our muscles.

The mist traces halos in the searchlight beams above our heads. Harsh light. I am not sure if it is the actual coldness of the morning, the lack of sleep and food, or abject fear that is making my knees and teeth knock together uncontrollably.

The SS walk up and down our rows counting our heads. They seem to take a long time as they compare notes and lists. They are not sure of what they are doing.

“You have to wait until roll call is over.” Reality is cruel. She holds her legs together.

“Pick your kommandos!” an SS man orders. The kapos come toward us, sizing us up and down. I take Danka’s hand, leading her back to our block where Elza is standing on the steps.

“Elza, will you please let my sister inside? She has to go to the bathroom, she has diarrhea.”

“I can’t do that. You know nobody goes into the block after roll call. There are rules! Besides, the room elders have already cleaned the bathrooms.”

“She has got to go!” I grab Elza’s shoulders, shaking her. “How can you be that way?” I nod at Danka to run inside while I distract our block elder. “Don’t you have a mother?” I yell. “A sister? Were you born from a stone? Who do you-arghh!” The words catch in my throat as the breath is slammed out of me and my collar is pulled back, choking me. Hurled through space, I fall roughly to the ground, seeing only the reddening face of an SS woman before her boot finds my ribs.

“You! Scheiss-Jude!” My arms fly across my face, my most precious possession. She pummels my thighs and my back, but I do not scream or cry. I have seen enough abuse in the past few days not to encourage it through pleas to stop. I bear her assault like a stoic as she steps on me again and again and again. When she finally stops, I crawl to my knees looking for someone to help me up. Danka has returned from the toilet and is crying without any noise. My legs are bruised, my ribs hurt, I can barely breathe, but I have my face, and after a few moments I can walk.

“You there! Line up here!” I grab Danka’s hand, pulling her with me. We fall in behind the kapo. She must have seen me get beaten and I wonder why she’s chosen us. I have never been hit before and hide my eyes, ashamed to look into our kapo’s face. I feel so small and insignificant. I feel completely worthless.

“March out!” The fog is rising. We follow the other groups out the gate, toward the fields, to work. Shuffling our feet so as to keep these so-called shoes on our feet, we try to march. Some girls are still holding their pants up; some, like myself, must hold our shirts shut. The wind pierces the bullet holes in our uniforms.

There is a draft at my knee and one by my heart. I wish I were not so sore. After three days of doing little else but cleaning and worrying, I had thought work would be a welcome relief. I want to show them what a hard worker I am and how proud a farmer’s daughter can be of her strength. I ache all over.

“How are you feeling?” I manage to ask Danka. I know that worrying about her will take my mind off my throbbing bruises.

She nods, afraid to answer. An SS man passes us. They are the monsters hidden in the mist, our nemesis dressed in gray. They are everywhere.

Our kapo orders, “You will sift this sand through these nets and load it onto those lorries. Schnell!”

We take shovels from the shed before beginning to dig the rocky soil and toss it through the net. It does not take long for our hands to ache and our shoulders to grow sore. Blisters appear almost immediately, and just as quickly they pop and make the shovel handles slippery. A young girl leans against her shovel to breathe for a moment. The whip cracks across the air, striking her on the cheek. Her cry is spontaneous. Shocked, she returns to her task with renewed vigor as a welt of blood forms on her cheek. I catch Danka’s eye for a split second; we know not to stop.

Once the lorry is full we are ordered to push it up the hill, where we must unload the sand in a separate pile. We line up, four on each side of the lorry. The wheels are steel and made for railroad tracks. Forging forward, we hold onto the cold metal sides, heaving with all of our might. Movement is slow, but once the momentum is built we manage to complete our task. Unloading the carts, we push the lorries back down the hill with relative ease and start all over again. By noon we have completed many trips.

Other kommandos arrive at the kettle and we line up for the noonday meal. Hungry and eager to have time to eat, Danka and I push our way into line. The kapos serve us. The servings are pitiful. We can see a few vegetables hiding deep in the murky depths of the water, but the ladle does not even graze them. It does not deserve to be called soup; it is barely turnip broth.

“Because the less water there is on top, the more likely we are to get a piece of meat or turnip.”

We sip our noonday meal slowly, hoping to savor what little there is, hoping it will give us the energy we need to continue. My mind tastes these circumstances like strange food. For a moment I allow myself to brood. This is slave labor we are doing. I cannot accept this thought, though. Maybe it will get better. I am just hungry.

Maybe they will give us more food tonight after a hard day at work. We are working toward a goal-freedom. We are helping the Germans build something. These justifications, no matter how small and insignificant, help me get up, get in line, help me continue working.

The weather is not encouraging as the afternoon labors on and a steady drizzle turns to sleet. The mud becomes like cement, grabbing at the wheels of our carts, and as the temperature drops, the metal we cling to freezes to our skin. Whips snap above our heads, sometimes landing against our backs like stinging wasps.

At least we have wool shirts on to protect us from the elements and the rawhide. Like a team of plow horses we are prodded. A girl pushing the lorry loses her shoe. Our kapo pulls her out of line quickly, before the cart can lose its momentum. The girl looks in the mud for her shoe and then I do not notice what happens to her.

Somewhere in the late afternoon, as the gray sky above us darkens, we hear the blessed order to “Halt! Line up!” We stand in line, muddy and worn out. We are not the same girls who marched to work this morning; our heads hang lower, our eyes do not dart as quickly and alertly. Danka’s cheeks are sunken, her eyes almost vacant. We march defeated to the blocks.

Evening roll call lasts forever. We stand in our neat rows watching the other details enter camp. Some of the girls are carrying bodies. I want to shield my sister’s eyes from this sight, but I cannot move. An SS guard orders that the bodies be dropped in a pile next to us. They are counted. I am counted. Danka is counted. The living are tallied in a separate column from the dead. I think it is dark but cannot be sure; the lights from the watchtowers are a constant brutal sun which does not warm.

We hurry into Block Ten, our new home, in silent shock. The room elders dole out our crusts of bread. There is no extra food for the hard day of work; there is not a slice of meat or cheese, just a smear of margarine on our dirty hands. Sitting on our beds, we stare at this meal. How did it come to be called dinner? Slowly, gently, we begin to lick our palms.

“I can’t take this.” “Look at my hands.” “I have blisters.” “I’m starving. Why won’t they feed us more?” The voices timidly emerge along the rows of bunks. Others are already curled up on their mattresses, weeping in their sleep. A few voices can be heard talking to the air and I wonder if I was right about the men I saw on my first day here. Maybe this is a place for the insane, maybe it will not be long before we are all talking to the air. It seems so long ago that I thought the men in camp looked like lunatics. It has not even been one week.

I go downstairs after eating, then wash myself. My nipples are raw and red from the scratchy wool shirt and the cold which corrodes my skin as viciously as the bugs I am infested with. Why didn’t they let me keep my bra and underwear? I feel as if someone has taken sandpaper across my breasts until there is no skin left. I close the shirt and return to our bunk upstairs. Danka is already fast asleep. I try to lie down next to her but my side is too tender.

Pulling my knees under me like a fetus, I crouch over my legs, allowing my shoulders to fall forward. My head rests on the mattress.

We roll out of bed and race to the bathroom before the line is too long. We get our tea and drink it quickly while we wait for the SS to count our heads. The tea is not warm enough to warm our hands or our bellies. We line up behind Emma, our kapo. Somehow we have learned her name in the past two days. She has a black triangle. She is a prostitute. We march behind her in rows of five in the dark to the field where we will sift rocks and sand all day.

The mud is so deep now that it is almost impossible to push the lorries. Still we haul our loads through the muck. Like Sisyphus, in the Greek myth, we are punished, forced to push that eternal rock up a hill.

Again at noon we are allowed a few moments of rest and some turnip stock. Even waiting at the end of the line does not assure any pieces of vegetable or meat, but the broth is a little thicker or maybe we just think it is.

On Saturday, our Sabbath, we work. It is just another way that they undermine our faith and challenge our fortitude. We toil in the mud, forgetting that it is against Hebrew law to lift a hand in labor on this holy day. We shovel and push, sift and haul, from sun up to sundown.

On Sunday there is no roll call. It is the Christian Sabbath and they honor this day of rest, although not out of Christian charity.

It is a free day, if anything can be called free in Auschwitz. We sit on our beds, speaking to one another for the first time. “Where are you from? How old are you?” Meaningless chatter that has no place in memory. We do not discuss our circumstances. Bashfully, we try to rid ourselves of the lice imbedded in our uniforms and every crevice of our bodies, scratching our heads, brushing out our underarms. I take off my pants and run my fingers along the seams and pockets, pulling the bloodsuckers off and squeezing them between my fingernails until they pop or squish with my blood.

Within an hour my fingernails are black and blue from killing the parasites, so I toss them on the floor, squishing them with my shoes or just ignoring their squirming white bodies. If I think about what I’m doing, if I look at them for too long, I will vomit.

It takes all day, this ritual cleansing. I wash my face and hands three or four times, hoping to feel clean again. It is futile. Finally, I must lie down and rest. Sleep is not forthcoming, though, for there is the gnawing of the lice I have missed, the voices of Slovakian girls around me, my sister’s heavy breath. She slumbers. I must keep watch. I lie on my bunk staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take me away. Some nights it comes swiftly. Some nights it lingers just on the fringes, out of reach. Sometimes I hear the rifles firing at the wall in Block Eleven. Other nights I hear nothing, but this does not mean there are not Russians being shot.

It only means I don’t have the energy to hear or think about the dying next door.

I wake in the morning, before anyone else has even opened their eyes, knowing that something has changed in my body. I stare up at the bunk above me for a few minutes, wondering what I have sensed about myself; then it comes. The slow moistness on the wool against my legs. The cramp in my stomach. I sit up with a start and pull down my trousers to check. The stains on my thigh are unmistakable. I have my period.

Slipping downstairs to the toilet, I look for something to use, but there are no rags or sanitary napkins, only small squares of newspaper. The flow has increased since I stood up. As I check the searchlights before stepping outside, blood trickles down my leg. I remember Mama handing me a soft piece of cloth and saying, “Go put this on and bring me the other one. Don’t look at it!”

“Yes, Mama.” I obeyed her words. She didn’t want me to be frightened by my own blood.

I scour the ground looking for anything that might help me hinder the flow. There is nothing. The kettles are being brought to our door; I know Danka is up by now, wondering where I am.

Wiping them against my trousers to make sure they’re clean, I shudder. Then, without thinking any further about it, I crumble them up and place the newspaper between my legs. I spend the day completely self-conscious, afraid of what getting my period means in this place. I cannot speak to Danka about it. Dealing with this curse means praying that it will go away quickly and never return.

There are more girls in our ranks today; a transport must have come in. Emma collects us for work and we march out to a large, open field. I am grateful that there are no lorries and sand for us to cart today. My back is still sore, though the bruises on my leg are almost gone.

There is a large pile of bricks. “You will carry these to the other side of the field. You must carry ten bricks apiece!” Emma tells us.

We pick them up one by one, balancing them in our arms until we have a full load.

Arms throbbing, pulled almost out of their sockets by the weight, we walk carefully so as not to trip. The shoes impede us, slipping side-to-side underneath our feet. It’s hard enough to keep the shoes on in the mud, now we cannot even see where we are going with so many bricks in our arms. The rocks and brambles grab at our feet as if we are making our way through a maze. We cannot drop one brick and pick it up without losing the whole load. Emma follows behind us, whipping us to work harder.

“Halt!” Emma stands by the kettle serving our noontime snack. We sip the broth hungrily. It is hard to slow the gulping tendency because the stomach craves more. We march back to the field, carrying bricks the rest of the day until we hear “Halt!”

We take our bread at the door. Am I imagining it or have the portions gotten smaller for Danka and me? The block elder’s sister has arrived in camp and Elza has seen to it that she is in our block.

“I’m going to go to the window to see what I can organize,” I tell Danka, walking to the front of the block. It is a newly born bartering system, and what I trade with the men on the other side of the fence is simply being Polish. They long to speak with their countrywomen and Danka and I are two of just a few Poles in the women’s camp; we have this one advantage over the Slovakian girls, who do not speak Polish.

Elza’s door is a crack open. I worry that she will punish me for being downstairs after yelling at her the other morning. Something falls in the dirt. I check the guard tower. He is looking the other way. I dash out the door, grabbing my parcel. Inside I lean against the wall, breathless. It is hard to comprehend that such a mundane task means risking my life-I could die for something as insignificant as a piece of bread the size of my hand.

We roll off our bunk, slipping the sandals onto our feet. We divide the extra portion of bread and quickly eat.

“March!” Even though we are tired we try to march proudly, just as we are instructed to. “March!” Heads forward, we step in unison, playing the part of dutiful servants to the Third Reich, but there is nothing to be proud of. We organized an extra piece of bread; it means a lot to us, it is nothing to them.

“Line up across the field!” The pile of bricks has not gotten any smaller overnight. We line up wondering what this chore will mean.

“Face me!” We shuffle into position. We stand about ten feet apart and wait. Orders are barked in German. The girl in front of the line picks up a brick and throws it to the girl next to her, who throws it to the next girl. The whip cracks as the girl in the front shakes the cobwebs from her brain and grabs another brick.

The girl to the left of me tosses the first brick into my hands. I toss it easily to Danka, turning back just in time to receive the next brick. At the front of the line we can hear the SS yelling, “Schnell! Schnell!” The tempo increases so that there is barely a moment between tossing the brick to our neighbor and receiving the next brick. Within twenty passes, blood begins to ooze from cuts on my hands. The rough edges of the baked clay slice into our palms, repeating the injuries over and over. Danka is slow at this chore and doesn’t always turn in time for me to throw my bricks, but the girl by my side is not waiting for anything. She throws them anyway.

I want to scream at the pain in my foot when the bricks land on my arches or toes, but I do not. I do not do anything to call attention to myself. I throw the bricks as I have been instructed, but I do not throw them at my sister’s feet, I do not inflict the torture on her that is being inflicted on me. I grab these bricks quickly from my feet and hold them until Danka can catch up; sometimes I am holding two or three bricks at once, sometimes I have four. Danka sees that I am in trouble and speeds up, but she is like me, unwilling to throw bricks at her neighbor’s feet. We are lucky in one thing only, the SS do not see the bricks falling on our feet; others are beaten for the same offense. Last week our backs hurt from the strain of pushing and shoveling; today our sides hurt as we twist and sway with the weight of the bricks. Every muscle throbs.

Lunch comes hours after the sun has risen, hours after the first welt raised its angry head on our hands. Each a mass of rough cuts and torn skin, our hands hurt just carrying our red bowls full of gray-white soup. We sit for about twenty minutes before marching back to the line, to the bricks. Our stomachs and the pain in our hands gnaw like persistent rats at the last vestige of our humanity.

At sundown we march back to camp. We stand at roll call. We are counted. There are several bodies piled next to us. They look so alive, as if you could reach out and wake them. If they don’t look dead, I speculate, could we all be dead? Maybe this is all there is, maybe there is no world beyond us. One can’t think like this without going insane. I stop pondering any thoughts which might lead to insanity. I focus again on the present. The girl-women who carry bodies into camp at the end of the day are in work details under the kapos with the green triangles that signify they are convicted murderers. At least our kapo is not one of those.

We stand for inspection. We can barely keep our eyelids open except for the crisp German orders cracking around us in the night that is really morning. We line up behind Emma. There are a few missing and a few added to our kommando.

My heart sinks as we near the field where we worked the day before. The SS orders are derisive; if they could laugh at us they would. “Move this pile of bricks back to the other side of the field.” We stand unable to move, unable to comprehend these orders.

Danka stands next to me, away from the pile we must move. I pray that the girl next to me doesn’t throw bricks on my feet. The first brick slices into my hand as the sun breaks through the clouds. Pain and light. I toss it to Danka, willing it to land gently in her hand, pleading with the brick not to hurt my sister. This is useless! It hurts a lot more knowing that this work is futile, knowing that they see our labor as worthless. How long will this go on?

Our hands will be stumps if it continues. This is not work. It is meant to destroy us. Like a thunderhead obscuring the sun, I blot out this thought.

After evening roll call, for some reason I linger outside, unwilling to run into the block for the night. Maybe it is the faint smell of spring in the air, maybe I am too tired to run behind the others and wait in line. Danka has gone ahead.

“Rena? Rena!” I look through the wire of the men’s camp at a skeleton who seems to know who I am. I cannot move. Squinting my eyes, I stare and stare.

“It’s me. Tolek.” The bones of his skull seem to stand up out of his skin. His eyes bug out above his cheekbones. He checks the guard tower to make sure no one sees him.

“Did they hurt you?” His mouth does not speak but his eyes answer my question. “You look hungry,” I say. “Wait here. I’ll get you my bread. Lucky for you I haven’t eaten yet!”

“I can’t eat your bread, Rena!” He turns slightly so no one can tell we are having a conversation.

I turn away from him. “You and Andrzej saved our lives, Tolek. Danka and I would be dead or worse if you hadn’t taken us to Slovakia. You have been arrested for saving people like us!”

“We are alive and that is enough. You never took money for that trip, now you must at least accept my miserable bread.” I start to walk away against his protests. “I won’t take no.”

My feet have hope in them again as I run to find Danka. I have seen someone from our past; we are not dead. I can help someone.

I no longer feel helpless or at the whim of a fate governed by German SS. I run breathless and tired up the stairs to the bunk Danka and I share. “Danka! Tolek is in the men’s camp!”

“Outside. Come on. He’s very hungry. We will have to share your bread tonight.” I stop, looking directly into her eyes. “He looks terrible, like he might drop of starvation. We must help him.”

“Yes, of course.” Her eyes are full of tears. We run downstairs and out to the camp road, throwing our meager meal high over the barbed wire. There are no second tries tonight; it lands at his feet.

“May God reward you, Tolek,” we answer, moving away from the fence, unable to risk speaking further.

The next few days we hoard our bread jealously so that whenever we see Tolek we can throw him an extra portion. Then he stops coming to the fence.

On our fourth Sunday in camp they shave us again. We had secretly hoped they would let us grow our hair back, but after the weeks of itching stubble it is shaved off again. Between the lice, the bedbugs, and the hair, there is always a nagging prickle somewhere on our bodies. I long for order and neatness, any way to feel better and not so filthy.

More Poles have arrived. Some are Gentiles and put in separate blocks from us Jews. They are better than us. Some of the Jews are from the ghettos in Krakow. There is one young girl called Janka who we all cherish. She is just fourteen but had the guts to lie about her age on the train platform. For one so young and pretty, it is hard to believe she is also so streetwise. Her young life has been war and the ghetto, and I think she can be ruthless, but then Auschwitz is a good place to learn to be ruthless. Janka is a rare bird. She loves to flirt with the men and they give up many portions of bread for her smile and because she has news of home, and perhaps because she reminds them of their own daughters.

Our kapo, Emma, is brunette. She pulls her hair back tight against her head and wears a babushka. She is taller than most of us. Her friend Erika has blond curly hair and a pretty round face. She is slim and of medium height. Our blocks go from Five to Ten. Emma, Erika, all of the kapos live in different blocks but they are in camp with us. Only the SS live outside of the electric fences.

I haven’t seen Tolek in quite a while and am worried about him. It is dusk, time to be going into the blocks, time to be getting to sleep soon so we have energy for tomorrow, but I scan the men’s camp for our friend’s face .

Erika walks by and then turns back. “You want to come and see our block?” she asks me. I am startled but do not show surprise.

“Yah, of course you’re Jewish or you’d be living in my block, but come see it anyway. I’ll take the responsibility.”

Sure, I think, you’ll take the responsibility, but I’ll take the beating if we get caught. The sun glows red on our faces as I follow her lengthening shadow.

She opens the door for me and I step into a world of neatly made beds and rooms where there are sheets and pillows. There is a blanket that looks thick and warm. How I’d love to have a blanket like Erika’s.

I come out of my reverie. “Of course. I love my mama and my sister, who is here with me.”

“Oh, no. I’d be terrified! My sister would worry, too. It’s not fair that I should get to sleep on cotton sheets while she has straw.”

Then, fearing that I have been rude, I quickly apologize. “Thanks for asking, anyway. I can’t leave my sister even if staying here meant having a good night’s sleep and being warm.”

Erika laughs. “You go back to your block. You’re not ready for this.” She leads me toward the door. “Here.” She slips me an extra portion of bread. I take it quickly, not understanding why she would offer me such a nicety, not comprehending anything that has just happened. The light from the kapos’ block illuminates the ground and then is severed as Erika shuts the door. I disappear into the closing night.

In our block I split the extra piece of bread with Danka. The crisp, clean whiteness of the sheets in the kapos’ block haunts me. I cannot bear to think about the filth I wear, the conditions in which we are kept. Where our hands were once blistered we have grown huge callouses. My chest and legs are always red from bites and the wool rubbing against my skin. I want to scratch and scratch at the dirt on my body until there is nothing left for the bugs to gnaw on. Suddenly I am struck by an idea and take off my pants.

“I’m going to fold these horrible trousers and put them under our mattress at night so they have a crease down the leg.”

“I want to look neat, and there is no place to wash and iron these clothes.” I spit on the fold and begin running my fingers down the material, squeezing it together. “If I can’t be clean, at least I can be neat.” My glance falls to the floor. My shoes are filthy.

Our poor feet are too miserable to look at for long. They are no longer pink with health but pale and dyed with reddish brown stripes left by the leather straps. Soon it will be summer and at least our feet will not be cold, but now it is spring and the weather is the worst it’s been in years. I spit on the leather strap, using the inside of my pant hem to polish the leather. “I can clean my shoes first without dirtying my pants too badly!” I hold the first strap out for Danka to admire.

I return to pressing the crease into my uniform before motioning for her to move. Lifting the mattress up, I lay my trousers lengthwise, smoothing them until there is not a wrinkle. I place the mattress back in its place and let Danka get back in bed. She shakes her head but doesn’t say another word.

In the morning we roll off our straw pallets. I lift up the mattress, retrieving my neatly pressed pants. Shivering a little, I pull them on, tuck in my shirt, and tie them with my rope. Smoothing my trousers down my leg, I smile; the leather strap has a sheen even in the dark. What I wouldn’t do for socks, as well as a bra.

We rarely have to use the bathroom more than once a day because of dehydration, although I try to wash both morning and night. It is more to my liking to use the facilities in the evening than to wait in the morning line and chance a beating at roll call.

We turn over the dirt in a field. Shovel after shovel, we lift the damp dirt and rocks into the air, dropping them back to the ground. Sprigs of spring grass shoots stick up from the earth.

When no one is looking we sneak these little blades into our mouths. The white portions of the grass are sweet and succulent.

The SS woman over our detail today is gorgeous. Her raven black hair gleams in the sun. She must have had a perm. I remember the last perm I had before I came to Auschwitz. She is dressed in gray. Her skirt is tailored to her waist and her boots are polished to an obsidian gloss. Her skin is alabaster, radiant against her rosy cheeks, and her lips shine with health despite the wind.

It is a cruel day. The wind is damp and nips at us between the holes in our clothes. Her black cape keeps snapping in the wind as if teasing us, saying, Look at me! Look at me! Aren’t I gorgeous?

Look how far superior I am to you. She stays far away from us. We have lice. We are poison to her sophisticated senses. I cannot help but steal a few precious glances. Her beauty holds my gaze. I am in awe. We are so wretched in comparison.

She is Reichdeutsche. Her German shepherd has fine bloodlines, too; his head is not too pointed and his ears are upright, attentive to her voice, her commands. He is gray and black. He matches her outfit. Together they strut outside of the postenkette, the work boundary that separates her from her slaves. Her whip cracks against her boot. The wind cracks her cape. We shovel.⁵

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her take her army cap off her head. Her hair dances in the wind, against her cheeks. Her eyes are defiant as she looks at Emma, who is not, who will never be, her equal. She throws her cap outside of the boundary which we are restricted to work within. I quickly drop my gaze to my work. The wind is still.

A girl looks up from her work, glancing at the rest of us, but we are busy. We are invisible. She is not. She puts her shovel down, running quickly across the field to obey the order. She does not think about it. She does not question it. She is a slave just as we all are. Hesitating before crossing the boundary to retrieve the Wardress’s cap, she casts a glance back at the SS woman.

“Schnell!” The wardress cracks her whip. Stooping to retrieve the cap, the girl moves tentatively toward the Aryan. Her frail and skinny arm holds out the cap timidly.

“Attack!” The wind grabs the order with a hiss. The girl freezes, paralyzed between fear and confusion.

He lands on the girl’s chest, driving her into the ground. Her screams lacerate the sky, rending the breath from our mouths, splitting our hearts apart. We cannot cover our ears. We cannot breathe.

I glance, just once. Her bloodied arms flail the air. The dog reaches her throat. Cemented before my eyes, never to rest, is her spirit as it departs, separated from her body by a dog’s jaws on her neck.

The reverberation of death. I turn over the earth. Danka follows my lead. The girls next to us lift their shovels. Nobody breathes.

We work harder than before. As fast as possible we shovel, almost hysterical, faster and faster. Our muscles ache. Our ears weep with the echo of her screams. Only the sounds of the dying are immortal in Auschwitz.

The dog pants. The wardress pats his head. He licks his paw. “Good boy.” The wind whips her cape. It begins to rain. We shovel faster and faster.

“Halt!” Jarred, Emma motions for two of us to carry the body into camp. The girl looks like a little spider somebody squashed underfoot-so thin, so fragile. I take her arms. They are not cold.

They are sticky. We march. With every step I take her head flops against my back. With every tap of her head, every step I take, her screams tear my soul. I tighten my grip, afraid that I may drop her, afraid that I might damage her further, afraid . . .

We roll off our bunk. My period has arrived again, even though everyone else’s has stopped. I rush to the toilet. Today I am lucky; there are newspaper scraps. I stash extra in my pocket before hurrying outside to get my tea. We get counted.

It is Sunday. How many Sundays have we been through? We do not talk about it. Danka and I pick lice off ourselves. It is disgusting, but it is worse to have lice than to pick them off. We go outside for a look around. It is not hot yet, but summer is nearing.

Some days are very warm, but I wonder if the chill will ever go away or if it is like the permafrost in Finland, always just below the surface of our skin.

“Danka! Rena!” We can barely believe our ears. Scanning the fence, we see Tolek. He is looking much better, more like the boy we used to know.

“ No, no bread. I have gotten a good work detail emptying the latrines. We take the filth to the fields, where the local farmers take it to use on their crops for fertilizer. There is a kind farmer who sneaks me food from his kitchen whenever he can.”

“If you had not shared your bread with me I would never have been given such a good job. You gave me the strength to go on.”

‘‘I’m going to throw something over.” That is the cue to keep our eyes peeled for danger and to be ready to hide the thing coming over the wires. The guard in the watchtower is looking in the other direction. The coast is clear. A large chunk of real bread falls at our feet.

“Thank you both. I must go.” We watch our friend disappear into the men’s camp.

Huddled next to each other we divide the bread. This is not the sawdust-and-water biscuit-shit we get from the Germans, this is heavy Polish bread that comes from the earth and has been kneaded by a farm woman’s hands. Our taste buds cannot cease watering. I imagine that the whole block can smell it. Our teeth tear at the dough and our jaws hurt after not chewing anything substantial for so long. There is a memory that surfaces just behind my eyes, something about bread and Mama. I push it back. I cannot think about anything dear or sweet right now. Tucking the thought back where it belongs, I continue the meal Tolek has shared with us. There is a constricting pain in my chest and something dampening my cheeks. I chew tenderly, wondering where my sniffles came from and if I’ve caught a cold, while wiping my nose with the back of my woolen sleeve.

Roll off the bunk. Stand in line to pee. Get a splash of tea. Step into the dark. Wait on the camp road. Stand for roll call. Get counted.

The sun rises. Get counted. Step in line behind Emma. March out to the fields. Work until they say “Halt!” Get soup. Sit down for a moment. Get up. Get in line behind Emma. March back to the fields. Work until they say “Halt!” March in neat rows of five back through the gates, under the words ARBEIT MACHT FREI—the sign means nothing anymore. Stand in neat rows of five. Get counted. The sun sets. Stand in the dark. Get counted. Go to the block. Get a piece of bread. Stand in line to wash. Nibble at dinner. Make it last. Lick your hand. Lie down. Wake up.

At roll call a man called Himmler appears in camp. He must be important.⁶ He watches the order in which we line up. The kapos are counted. They are prisoners too. He looks at his list. “One in the ranks has finished her prison sentence today!” he announces.

Silence. He reads her name. There are a few shouts and hugs of congratulations among the kapos. We watch, stricken. No one will read our names at roll call, pronouncing freedom. We know this now. They are prisoners. We are slaves. They are human. We are not.

It is hot. We crave water. We work in the hot sun until we are burnt and blistered by its rays. The wool makes us sweat and scratches worse than before. There is no relief.

There is a rumor that Auschwitz is going to be used just for men again. We are going to be moved to Birkenau.⁷ There are other rumors of a gas chamber and a crematorium.

“What is Birkenau?”We do not believe the other rumors, they were started by the Germans to dishearten us.

Roll off the bunk. Stand in line to pee. Get a splash of tea. Step into the dark. Wait on the camp road. Stand for roll call. Get counted. The sun rises. Get counted. Get in line behind Emma. March out to the fields. Work until they say “Halt!” Get soup. Sit down for a moment. Get up. Get in line behind Emma. March back to the fields. Work until they say “Halt!” March in neat rows of five back toward. . . Wait! We’ve turned. We are moving away from Auschwitz.⁸

Voices murmur through our ranks. We march. This is a change to our routine. The unknown is dangerous. Eyes vigilant, senses alert, we march away from Auschwitz, away from the walls and watchtowers. The sun sets. There are fences and more barbed wire towering before us. We march under a different gate with the same sign, ARBEIT MACHT FREI. We are not fooled. We stand in neat rows of five. Get counted. Emma and Erika and the other kapos go to their new blocks. They have moved with us to this new camp.

We stand in the dark getting counted We are assigned to Block Twenty, or is it Twenty-Two? It is dark when we step inside.

The floor is dirt. There are no bunk beds here; there are shelves, wood planks, three tiers high. We are supposed to sleep here? Where are the mattresses? Our beds look like horse stalls. There is a sour smell of human odor. There are rags for blankets. We stand, squeezing our bread in our hands, unable to cope, unable to move.

A girl begins to cry. Like fire in a stable her fear grabs us, and like dried straw we burn inside. Tears cannot quench these flames of disaster. We are lost. This is Birkenau.

Lower yellow highlight: Block of Death (#25) where Rena saw Pepk Drenger (Erna and Fela’s sistera; center yellow highlight: Canada; upper yellow highlight: Sauna. Maps from Wyman can also be found online http://www.remember.org/camps/birkenau/

¹ It has been thought that there were no selections on the train platform prior to July, 1942 (source: Czech, 148). Lenka, No. 1735, a survivor from Poprad, the town where the first transport originated, states that she was taken from her home because she was over the age of fifteen, while her younger sister was left behind. For some reason this system of selecting only young women was not practiced in Hummene, which is far east of Poprad. Because of this oversight, there was a selection on the train platform but there is no mention of that selection in the historical record.

² Prior to March 26, 1942, the only prisoners in Auschwitz were men, mostly Polish Gentiles serving time for their political or religious beliefs and Russian prisoners of war.

³ “March 26 [1942] . . . 999 German women prisoners classified as asocial, criminal, and a few as political prisoners . . . receive Nos. 1–999 and are lodged in the part of the main camp separated by the wall along Blocks 1 to 10 . . . 999 Jewish women from Proprad [near Hummene] in Slovakia are [also] sent to the women’s section of Auschwitz. This is the first registered transport sent to the camp” (Czech, 148). The record of the names of the first women in Auschwitz were destroyed, we have only their numbers.

⁴ “March 28 [1942] . . . 798 Jewish women from Brunn [Slovakia] . . . receive Nos. 1999–2796” (Czech, 150). Danka is numbered 2779 and was therefore on this transport.

⁵ This SS woman was most likely Juana Bormann. In March, 1942, “Bormann was one of a handful of women selected for guard duty at Auschwitz in Poland. Short in stature, she was known for her cruelty. Victims called her ‘Wiesel’ or ‘the woman with the dogs’” (Clark, Capital Punishment UK Website, 1995).

⁶ “July 17–18 [1942] . . . Himmler inspects the Auschwitz camp complex, takes part in the killing of a transport of Jews, attends roll call in the women’s camp, and approves the flogging of female prisoners. He also orders Rudolf Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz, to proceed faster with construction of the Birkenau camp” (Rittner and Roth, 29).

⁷ Auschwitz (Auschwitz I) is approximately two kilometers from Auschwitz II, often referred to as Birkenau; they were both a part of the same camp complex known as Auschwitz-Birkenau.

⁸ “August 5–10 [1942] . . . The women’s section at Auschwitz I is moved to Section B—Birkenau” (Rittner and Roth, 29 ). “Birkenau was a swamp fenced off by electrified wire. No roads whatsoever, no paths in between the blocks. . . . March to mid-August 1942 . . . about 17,000 women prisoners, most of them Jews, arrived at Auschwitz. A large number of them (probably about 5,000) perished before the transfer of women to the camp at Birkenau” (Strzelecka, 401, 394).