Once I stepped beyond the partition, they made me strip and have a shower, then dusted me with lice powder. That brought back strong memories of my first day at the work camp with Lida, but this time when I came out, there was a set of soft new clothing for me to wear, and a pair of shoes that actually fit. It felt so good to be clean.
It was safe in the displaced persons’ camp, and there was food — plenty of it, although it was sometimes strange. The Americans had quite a challenge feeding so many people, so we’d have baked beans for days on end, then other times warmed-up beef stew out of cans, then maybe nothing but bread and cheese. It didn’t bother me. After so much hunger over so many years, I could have eaten a well-salted shoe.
The medics were having trouble keeping up with all of the refugees’ problems, mostly malnutrition, eye diseases, lung infections. But they also had to protect against things like cholera and typhus. Through an interpreter, I offered my help, but the Red Cross nurse just smiled. “We are here to help you.”
That same nurse came up to me later as I leaned against a demolished truck, eating a piece of white bread. “Family. Find?” she asked, mispronouncing the Ukrainian words.
I had no idea what she was trying to tell me. She took me by the elbow and guided me to a different Red Cross building. Another snaking lineup.
“Stay,” she said. Then left.
I waited in the lineup, eavesdropping on the conversations around me. Everyone in my line spoke Ukrainian.
“What is this place?” I asked the woman in front of me.
“The Red Cross,” she answered. “Surely you know that.”
“Yes, it’s the Red Cross, but this isn’t a hospital.”
The woman smiled. “This office isn’t to heal your body. It’s to heal your soul.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your loved ones,” she said. “They can trace them for you.”
Did that mean they would be able to find Mama and Tato and Lida? It seemed almost too good to be true.
I was nervous by the time it was finally my turn. I sat down in front of a woman with lips painted the colour of blood. She had a name tag, but it was written in English.
I held out my hand and said in Ukrainian. “I am Luka Barukovich. What is your name?”
“I’m Jean Smith from Wisconsin,” she replied — in Ukrainian — as she tapped her name tag with an index finger. “But you can call me Genya.”
“Thank you, Pani Genya,” I said. “Can you find my parents, my friends? I can give you their names …”
“Hold on,” said Genya. She ripped some forms off a pad and placed them in front of me. “We need to fill out one of these for each of your loved ones. We’ll enter them onto our lists and circulate them through all of the DP camps. Then we hope for the best.”
I picked up the pieces of paper and was about to leave, but Genya put one of her hands on mine. “It’s okay,” she said. “Stay here and I’ll fill them out with you.”
I began with my father.
“If he was taken to Siberia, we cannot help you,” she said. “Our records only extend to the areas that were occupied by the Nazis.”
Her words hit me like a hammer. Of course they wouldn’t know. They had defeated the Nazis, but not the Soviets. How would I ever manage to find Tato? “My mother was taken as an Ostarbeiter,” I said. “Can we start with her, then? Raisa Barukovich.”
Genya’s face brightened and she began to fill out one of the forms. “Yes. Do you have any information on where she was taken?”
“No, but I know when. She was taken from Kyiv during the last week in November 1942. The Nazis took us both at the same time, but we were put on two different trains.”
“That helps a bit,” said Genya. “We’ll put it in our system.”
“I am also looking for Lida Ferezuk.”
“Is she also family?”
“No. A close friend. She was in the same labour camp as me.”
“But you would have been liberated at the same time.”
“No,” I replied, considering how I would answer her. My escape from the camp and my time fighting in the Underground was something I didn’t want to talk about yet. On the other hand, I needed to give Genya as much information as possible. “If you show me a map, I can point out where the camp was.”
Genya got up and looked around, then came back with a big map of the Reich. Thank goodness Margarete and Helmut had shown me their actual location. “There,” I said, my finger on an area close to the Oder River. “The work camp was somewhere in the countryside here. There was a bomb factory in a small town around there.”
“That area is in Soviet control now,” said Genya. “But by the time they arrived, that camp was emptied and the bomb factory destroyed.”
“What does that mean?”
“Hard to say,” replied Genya. “Leave it with me.”
* * *
Time crawled in the days that followed, days that were some of the hardest I had ever lived through. I had become accustomed to action, to solving problems on my own. Now I was stuck waiting for others to do things for me. They gave me no responsibilities, and nothing to do. I felt so powerless.
All June, I occupied my time finding other Ukrainian-speaking refugees. “Have you heard of Lida Ferezuk or Raisa Barukovich?” I would ask. They’d shake their heads, then list off their own loved ones.
Other than that, I stood in lineups: for food, water, soap, showers. It got to the point that if I saw people lining up, I’d stand in line first and then ask what they were waiting for.
It was difficult to find a place to sleep. Every nook and cranny of intact buildings and clear patch of ground had been claimed by someone. People would roll out their blankets and sleep just about anywhere. One night I slept in the back of a potato truck. Another time I slept sitting up, leaning against a wall.
Our camp was just down the road from another and another and another. I marvelled that the Americans were able and willing and compassionate enough to help so many people. But how long could it go on? And without my parents or Martina or Lida, my life felt not worth living. Like so many others, I visited the other camps and asked everyone I met the same questions: Have you heard of Lida Ferezuk or Raisa Barukovich? Do you know where they are?
People began tacking up slips of paper at the entrances to the camps. On each one was a notice about loved ones, then a message about where the letter writer could be found. These slips of paper multiplied, fluttering in the wind like the furry pelt of a strange animal. I added my own, and each morning I checked the papers at the gates of every camp in my area.
Then one day, as I stood in a soup lineup, Genya came up to me, her eyes alight. “Why haven’t you come back to see me, Luka?”
“I’ve been looking for my mother and Lida on my own.”
“Well, come with me now. I have some information.”
I followed her through a back door of the Red Cross building into what looked like a lunchroom for the staff. “Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
A man wearing a Red Cross badge on his white shirt eyed me suspiciously as he chewed on a cheese sandwich, but he didn’t tell me to leave.
Genya came back, holding a manila envelope. As she sat across from me, she tore it open. “Twelve Ostarbeiters who were originally from Camp 14 …” She looked up at me. “That camp your friend was at has been labelled Camp 14 by the Americans. Anyway, these Ostarbeiters were relocated to Bavaria and were liberated by the Americans in April. According to our information, one of them was named Lida Ferezuk.”
I was so surprised by what she said that it took me a moment to digest it. “Lida’s alive? And you know where she is?”
“She was very ill and was being treated in an American hospital in Austria until a few days ago. We can take you to the DP camp that she was released to — it’s not that far from here. But remember, everyone goes from camp to camp, so I can’t guarantee that she’ll still be there.”