“Fall victims
At your side
May a thousand
And a myriad
At your right hand
But to you
It shall not approach.”
Psalm 91:7
One morning after Leah and I leave our makeshift tent, we walk to the factory and see a large crowd of people surrounded by the Gendarmerie. There are cattle cars on the train tracks behind the people.
“What are those for?” I ask Leah.
“Who knows?” she shrugs. “Come, we don’t want to be late. We walk together to the factory and we each pick up a pile of bricks. I watch her perfect hands wrap around them. Hands that could turn any fabric into a couture dress. I cannot believe she is doing this now.
We drop the bricks at the far edge of the field and return to the factory for another load. Now there are more soldiers, and they are pushing and bullying nearly everyone in the brick area. There is mayhem and confusion as they grab arms and push backs. A few soldiers come up behind me, Leah, and some other girls who returned with us from the field, and they push us into the group of people being herded toward the cattle cars.
“Get on! Hurry up! Get in!” the Gendarmerie yell. They hit people from behind with their sticks. Women scramble to get in with their babies. Men young and old climb in, along with children. Right before my eyes, they become a mass of bodies being pushed and shoved as they vanish into the boxcar.
“Get on you little girl!” a Gendarmerie shouts at me. “Wait! First I need to check you for valuables.”
He puts his rough fingers down my dress and checks my entire body. I am nauseated by his touch. I want to push him off me, but his rifle is on his hip and the ladies hanging from the tree flash before my eyes. Finally, he pushes me toward the crowd, and I become part of the mass of people as I am swept onto a cattle car along with them. I move through the open doors and stumble back onto Mama. She is here with me and Leah, and she tells us that Yecheskel is in the car too. She tries to hold me up, but the crowds of people pouring onto the car are like waves crashing into us and pulling us from one another. Leah gets pushed to the side, a little distance from me. We are in a metal, rectangular cattle car with no seats and no windows. More people are being pushed into this small space. I find a sliver of a spot to stand in, but then more people are pushed onto the cart, and a wave of arms and legs and backs hits me and pulls my torso one way, my legs another. I stumble backwards. The girl in front of me has her back to me. The crowd presses her so tightly against me that neither of us can move. I think I hear her moan. Her hair is in my mouth, and I struggle to breath. I try holding my hands up to block myself, but more and more people crash into me. There is no more space, if one more person is forced into this car, I fear it will burst apart. There is a slam of the door and the clank of a lock, and our only stream of light is cut off. I feel panic set in. There is not enough air in the car and the heat is thick and stifling. Sweat pours down my legs. The girl’s hair is in my eyes now. I want to brush it away, but my hands are pinned to my sides by the people surrounding me. A baby starts to cry and then another baby follows. Soon all the babies on the cattle car are wailing together. My heart beats fast, I need to get out of here, but I am caged in like my heart is caged inside my ribs. The cars jerk forward, and we are on our way. As we move along, I pray for a breeze to seep into the car, but no air comes in. I feel someone’s elbow in my belly and another’s sweaty body on my back. We rattle through space, but to where we do not know.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I hear Yecheskel say from somewhere behind me. I look around, there are no bathrooms, not even a bucket, not that we would be able to get to one anyway. I hope we will stop soon, but the car shakes along on the road, on and on and on. I hear someone shout, “She is dead right next to me!” My heart stops in my chest. The girl’s hair sticks to my face, and I can barely breath. It starts to smell like body waste. I feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment. We rumble down the tracks, twisting and turning as the air gets staler and the smell even worse. Soon my mortification gives way to the agony of the need to relieve myself. I close my eyes and let myself go, wetness trickles down my legs and onto my ankles, a tear slides down my face, wanting to join the wet floor. What seems like hundreds of more hours pass and my feet burn from standing so straight for so long, my arms are tingling and numb. I am weak from hunger.
“My baby, my baby,” I hear a woman whimper close to me. “My baby . . . she’s dead.” I try to cry out, but no sound comes. It feels as if there is no air left to fill my lungs. I am so weak, and so tired, my brain cannot not think anymore.
I fall asleep and then suddenly there is light sneaking through the cracks and my head is stiff and leaning to the right side. I wonder how Mama and Leah and Yecheskel are. They are only a few feet from me, but it may as well be miles away because I cannot get to them. I am pinned in my place. I am starving, my insides churn, and I feel like I will vomit, but I force whatever I still have in my body to stay there, and I swallow. I close my eyes again. The light dims slowly, and it is night. My knees ache and beg for me to give them a break. I close my eyes and, again, fall asleep standing up.
Mama’s hand snakes around the people between us and suddenly there is bread in my hand. Her shaking hand squeezes mine. I hold the bread. I don’t know where she got it from, but I know I cannot eat it. There is a little girl next to me and her face is green, and her eyes are closed and fluttering. I open her mouth and place a piece of bread inside. Her eyes shoot open. She opens her mouth for more. I place the rest of the bread on her tongue.
Finally, the train lurches to a stop. It is deathly quiet in the car. Then there is a clank and a click, and the metal doors are swung open. Light and sound floods the cattle car. I am not ready for the light. I need to close my eyes. A few soldiers stand at the door of the car. They look different than the Gendarmerie soldiers. They are taller and slimmer, with light skin and blue eyes piercing at us. I look beyond them. There are thousands of people on the platform. I don’t think I have ever seen so many people in one place at one time. Children cry and mothers scream and, before I can try to take it all in, I am pushed off the train by the person behind me.
“Schnell, schnell!”1 say uniformed soldiers standing outside the carts with guns in their hands. “Get out, line up!”
We are on a train platform. I am standing, but I feel only half alive. I am not hungry anymore. I feel the world spin around me. I hear gun shots and then thankfully Leah is next to me.
“They shot Perl,” she says. “She couldn’t get off the train fast enough. I think she is dead.”
Perl Waldman is married to one of Mr. Waldman’s sons. She had polio when she was a child, so she has always walked with a slower gait than the rest of us. But she is all grown up and married now, so she is ok—she cannot be dead. We find Mama. She clutches onto Yecheskel.
“Schnell! Move!”
We walk to where to the soldier points us. When he is out of sight Mama puts her hand on my cheek. She looks at me and then at Leah and a flash of raw panic crosses her face.
“Rosie, Leah. You are sisters. You need to stay together. Whatever happens, I need you to know the most important thing is to stay together. You need to promise me this.”
“Of course, Mama,” Leah says.
“I won’t let her out of my sight,” I say.
Mama nods her head. “My girls, I just want you to always, always have each other. Stay together! Nothing will make me as calm as knowing that you have each other. You must never leave each other!” She talks loud and fast with panic. “It was always my family that kept me going. Stay together!”
I take Mama’s hand. “We will always be together.”
Our words calm her a little.
Another train pulls up to the platform we are on, and like a factory line, the soldiers open the train car and rush the people out. Hundreds of people stream onto the already crowded platform. I watch a man help his daughter step off the track, she looks at him hopefully with her big brown eyes, and then a soldier kicks them apart. I hear shots. Boom! Boom! Boom!
A stick is in my back and a soldier is nudging me along. He does not look into my eyes.
“Get into line!”
There are five lines of people. Leah, Yecheskel, Mama, and I are side by side, each of us in a line, with a man I do not know next to me in the fifth line. A soldier pushes the man as we all inch forward. All I hear are shots, and screams, and snarling officers.
“Schnell! Schnell!”
Dogs bark loudly and run around and in between the people. I feel like the chickens in our courtyard when the dogs used to chase them.
Our row stumbles forward and I crane my neck to look to the head of the line.
There are little people around us. They look like elves. They are men but they look like children. Their eyes are huge, their heads are shaven, and they wear funny striped uniforms. They push us and move us along with their bony hands. Finally, after what seems like hours, we reach the front of the gate. There is a man sitting up ahead on a chair, like he is sitting on a throne. He has his finger up and he looks bored and lazy. One elf man brings the lady in front of us to him. He flicks his finger to the right and the elf pushes the lady to the direction of his finger. Another elf brings the next woman to stand before the cruel-looking man. He reaches his gloved finger into her mouth and pries it open. Then he flicks his hand to the left and the elf man holds the women by her shoulder and walks her to the left. Then it is our turn. I step up to him first. He lifts his eyes ever so slightly and runs them down my whole body. I shiver slightly and I am glad he does not look at my face. I wait. Then he points his finger to the right and the little man pushes me to the right. Leah is next and, in a moment, she is by my side on the right. Then comes Mama. The man barely looks up at her, and he lazily points to the left. An elf man moves Mama to the left. We watch Yecheskel step up to him. Right. He looks at Mama with fear on his boyish, perfect face and, very slowly, he steps over to join Leah and me.
“Yecheskel!” Mama cries. “My baby! My baby! They cannot take my baby away from me. He’s my baby!” She puts her arms up in the air, but no one responds.
An elf man brings the next woman up to the man on the chair. He points to the left. People are piling up in front of Mama and also us.
“Come to me! Yecheskel!” Mama screams from behind them. She sounds like she is falling.
“Mama!” cries Yecheskel.
The people being moved to the left are swallowing her up and we can hardly see her anymore. Yecheskel looks around, right, left, no one is looking at him.
“Mama!” he cries again, and he runs to her side. More people join both sides and I stand on my tiptoes and crane my neck to try to see them. I find them, finally, and I see he has his arms tightly around Mama’s waist and then more people are ushered to the left side, and they are blocked from my view.
Leah lets out a sob.
“It is ok,” I say, ”It is good that one of us is with Mama.”
She nods and then she takes my hand, and we move with the group on the right.