I walked to the Umschlagplatz with thousands of other people, holding the baby in my arms. I had left the silly suitcase standing somewhere ages ago. There wasn’t anything in it that would have been any use to either the baby or me. What do you need in a gas chamber?
The little thing was sleeping in my arms. It hadn’t noticed that its mother had given it away yet. How was the woman going to be able to live with her decision? Would she really bring new children into the world in the unlikely event of managing to survive the war? Would they be a comfort to her for having sent her firstborn to the gas chambers?
Lulay, lulay …
I wouldn’t ever sing that song to the child, no matter what.
As I thought about the woman, I realized that I was never going to be a mother. Not that I’d wanted to be one; I was still too young. But apart from this baby who was going to die, I would never hold one in my arms. Never hug my own child.
Was that the worst thing about dying? To have no future?
When we reached the Umschlagplatz, I hugged the child closely. The place was at the very edge of the ghetto and was surrounded by a high wall. There was only a small entrance at one end. Through which we were forced, squashed, and beaten.
The place was totally overcrowded. Everywhere, there were despairing people sitting next to their few belongings. They were squatting in urine and feces. If there were toilets anywhere, then there were nowhere near enough for all these crowds of people. The stench in the air was bitter. I would have liked to put a scarf over my mouth, but I didn’t have one.
There was almost no one left with the strength to comfort anyone. Children were crying; couples sat listlessly beside each other. There were bodies everywhere—people who had slit their wrists with knives or razor blades.
The Umschlagplatz could rightly be termed hell, but it was just a taste of what was to come. The real hell was waiting in the camps.
The crowds of people pushed me toward the center of the area. The baby I was holding woke up and started to cry. I hoped it wasn’t hungry.
I started to rock it gently. “Hush, it’s all right … everything is fine…”
That was ridiculous, of course. Korczak would probably have said something like, “You’ll soon be in a better world…,” but I couldn’t say that. I didn’t believe in God anymore. How could I? There would be nothing after death for me or the baby or anyone here.
It would have been better if the Ukrainians had shot me. And if I’d allowed them to kill the baby at the gate. The little thing calmed down and went back to sleep. A small miracle in the middle of hell. I concentrated on listening to the child’s breathing. I hoped it would distract me from my fear. I tried to breathe in time with the child. Was it a boy or a girl, I wondered? I didn’t dare look to find out. I was afraid I would wake it up again. But I decided I’d give it a name before we died. What would I call it if it was a boy?
Daniel?
Amos?
Captain Carrot?
I started to laugh and cry all at once when I thought of him. I wasn’t going to see Hannah ever again.
I saw a doctor in a white coat. She was giving exhausted children something to drink. She looked feverish and haunted herself. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but when I looked at the children again—I’d stopped crying about Hannah by this stage and had managed to pull myself together—I realized the doctor had not been handing out water: The little things were lying lifeless on the ground, one in a pool of urine. She had given the children poison. Probably cyanide.
The doctor had put them all to sleep as gently as she could, to spare them the horror of Treblinka. She was even more caring than I had supposed.
If I saw her again, I’d ask for cyanide for the baby and for myself, too.
I pushed my way through to the edge of the space with Amos—yes, I’d decided to call the baby Amos for now, and if it turned out to be a girl, then I’d call her Amy. I concentrated on the child’s breathing again and tried to forget about everything else as best I could.
I reached the wall, found a little spot, and sat down exhausted, even though there were feces nearby. The afternoon sun was shining brightly—like some sick joke.
The baby started crying again. No matter how much I rocked it, I couldn’t calm it down this time. It had realized that I wasn’t its mother, and it was hungry, too.
A gaunt man sitting in a pool of urine next to me said, “Either you make it shut up or I’ll thrash it against the wall!”
He was serious.
I stood up and moved away. I popped my little finger into the baby’s mouth, which calmed it down for a moment until it realized that my finger wasn’t its mother’s breast and it started to cry again. And it stank. It needed its diaper changed and to be cleaned, but how was I supposed to do that without another diaper or water or anything?
The crying got to me, and I started to hear all the other noises going on around me because I could no longer concentrate on the baby’s breathing. I heard the most despairing wails, “Water, I need water!” Desperate self-hatred, “Why did I leave him? Why?” Useless prayers, “Schma yisrael adonai elohenu adonai echad,” and screams and yells: “Mama! Wake up! Please wake up!” “Mira, is that you?… Mira … Mira!”
Mira?
Someone meant me!
I turned round. There was Amos. Wearing the uniform of a Jewish policeman. He wasn’t a policeman—he must be in disguise! And he had one of the lifesaving tags! It was bound to be a forgery. What was he doing here? He risked being thrown into the trains, tag and all.
“You’ve got a baby?” Amos asked me, surprised.
We were on the verge of hell and he wanted to know about the baby?
“It’s not mine,” I answered.
He nodded, didn’t ask anything else and looked around instead. For soldiers who could catch him? Or for something else?
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m looking for Zacharia.”
The guy who had slit open my arm was caught in the cauldron, too.
“You are going to smuggle him out!” I felt a tiny hope sprouting in me. Maybe Amos could get me out of here, too. Me and the baby. Us.
“I can’t find him, though,” Amos said, looking everywhere for his friend and getting more and more nervous every minute.
“Take me with you, then!” I burst out.
“I’ve only got enough money to free one person,” he said. “I can only get Zacharia past the SS.”
“But you can’t find him!” I answered quickly.
Amos looked at me, dismayed. The idea of abandoning a comrade in the resistance for me was not something he could contemplate. But I wasn’t going to give up. “Your friend could be on a train by now.”
“You don’t know that!”
“You don’t know, either! And the longer you stay here, the bigger your chances of being gassed, too!”
Amos knew that, too, and he started to waver.
The baby was crying louder and louder.
“You’ve got to get out of here,” I kept saying to him.
He didn’t argue.
“But can you really leave without taking someone with you?”
“By someone you mean you?” he asked scornfully. He had come here to save his friend, not some girl he kissed once.
“Yes.”
He couldn’t make up his mind. Why couldn’t he make up his mind?
The baby was screaming right in my ear.
I held it away from me.
“The money is really important for the movement.”
“More important than someone’s life?”
“Than your life?” he corrected me.
“Is it more important than my life?”
“We can buy arms.”
“And that’s more important than my life?”
Amos bit his lip. Until it started to bleed. Then he made up his mind, “All right, I’ll get you out of here.”
I couldn’t believe it. I was going to escape the gas!
“But the baby has to stay here.”
I stared at the little baby whose face had turned bright red by now.
“I told you, there’s only enough money for one person.”
Now it was my turn to waver. The child screamed and screamed and screamed. As if it knew what this was all about.
“Come on,” Amos insisted, “before I change my mind.”
What kind of human do you want to be?
One who is there for her sister! And one who stays alive.
I turned round in panic, trying to find the doctor I’d seen before. She must be somewhere. She could put the child out of its misery! But I couldn’t see her anywhere. So I handed the crying baby to a woman standing beside me, just like its mother had done to me. She looked at me, horrified, and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Keep a lookout for the lady doctor. Ask for cyanide.”
I didn’t stop to say any more. I headed after Amos.
“Wait!” the woman called, and tried to follow us, but we pushed through the crowd and she lost sight of us. Her shouting and the baby’s wailing faded away until I couldn’t hear them anymore.
I’d abandoned a child. And I didn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.