The Family Behind the Walls

29. Dalia

TWENTY-NINE

DALIA

APRIL 14TH, 1944 – O?WI?CIM, POLAND

It takes women approximately nine months from the time of conception to the moment a new life begins. At the beginning of those nine months, one out of a million cells miraculously finds its way through the complex inner workings of a woman’s body and secures its place within minutes. Then, the wait begins.

By the time a woman might have an inkling she’s with child, the baby is hardly the size of a poppy seed. Minute by minute, day by day, this precious new life takes its time developing: every cell, organ, and single strand of hair. The heart finds a beat, a brain fills with instinct, toes curl, fingers wiggle, and an unknown world awaits their completion.

The unique details and intricacies of every one of us then make up a singular mark on the world’s most magnificent painting. Filled with assorted colors, sizes, and shapes, no two strokes the same, resulting in an inexplicable and unimaginable masterpiece.

No one can see this composition as a whole. We can only be a part of it.

Imagine the misfortune of one measly mark bleeding onto millions of others, making a change that will forever alter the beauty that once was.

The world’s painting has been torn and people are falling through the rip into an oblivion. No one will ever know what it felt like to be a part of something whole again.

One in a million chance then nine months to become a life, and yet, it only takes seconds to erase that mark. I’ve been here nine months and it’s impossible to count how many innocent people have been murdered here in that time.

I hate staring up at the smokestack, the plume of charred bodies.

Worse, I hate walking past the line of unknowing victims, promised a shower, only to soon find out the shower nozzles will release a deadly gas that will steal their last breath in minutes. Their bodies will be taken away, toppled on a pile of others and sent to the crematorium. Sometimes I think I see Jordanna and Lilli standing in the line and my heart jumps into my throat, suffocating me until I walk closer and take a better look.

It’s always been someone else’s children.

I feel empty inside, making me think the worst. I have no sense of intuition or mindful connection telling me the others are fine, or not. Maybe because I’m familiar with the feeling of losing one of them, I might not be able to feel anything else again. This isn’t my life.

I’ve sent so many encrypted messages out into the world through the chain of resistance, facts of what is, indeed, happening within these barbed wire fences from the perspective of Birkenau. So, why has no one come to rescue us?

People might have tried, I suppose. They could be one of us now.

It’s becoming harder and harder to remember Leo’s words about life after death and that it’s something of a reward rather than the end. Nothing makes sense here. Sometimes I wonder if I’m already dead and this is what came after life—an endless loop of a void.

“Your assistance has been requested in block twenty-eight,” one of the newer nurses in the infectious disease ward tells me.

“Do you know what for?” I ask, dropping silver instruments into a tub of disinfectant.

“She didn’t say,” the young nurse says. “I can take over here for you.”

She’s quiet and still has hope in her eyes, reminding me of the way I was when I arrived last year. Realization doesn’t come all at once here. It steals over you slowly, insidiously.

It’s clear, I’ve lost hope—the one thing I was so eager not to give up. But I have no say over my future, only my past, and I can’t change that either.

I shuffle out of the block, heading down the row of others until I reach Block 28, the block I have to be mindful about where I walk because half of the infirmary is for Germans and the other half are for those who shouldn’t be breathing the same air as the superiors. They might catch Judaism. That’s what they want us to think. We’re a contagious disease.

Hate is the only contagious disease that’s killed more people here than typhus.

The moans and groans are no different in this ward, the Jewish prisoner half of the ward. The smells mirror the barracks more than anything that would resemble an infirmary. Bodily waste, fresh and old, is so pungent it snakes around my throat. From what I’ve heard, most of the people here have endured some form of surgical procedure without any relief for pain or anesthesia. I haven’t been here often. Only once or twice to pick up supplies.

Marie is sitting at the front admission table, her head down, busy with paperwork. I assume she’s the one who called for me. Now that she isn’t assigned to the same block as Ina and me anymore, she comes up with excuses to visit us throughout the week. She’s been here so long that most don’t question her. She does what she’s told and doesn’t argue.

I place my hands down on the wooden desk, keeping my presence quiet. She glances up and lifts her pencil away from the logbook. Standing, she leans over the desk to my right and whistles affirmatively. Another prisoner nurse stumbles around the corner and approaches the desk within seconds. “Watch the desk,” she tells her.

Marie still hasn’t said a word to me, making my stomach churn more than it usually does at this hour. It’s either something bad or dangerous. There isn’t much in between.

I follow her into a stuffy stairwell and down the stairs, feeling the air thicken and stick to my skin. She shoves through another door and then one more. This one releases steam into the corridor and for a moment my heart stops, considering the thought of the steam being gas.

Then I smell the putrid stench of rotten food, cabbage mixed with burnt vegetable broth, with a hint of cigarette smoke—meals being prepared within the clanging metal bins. Still following Marie, we end up in a mint-green tiled room with wet floors. Prisoners peek over makeshift walls but Marie isn’t concerned as she begins talking.

“It’s happening,” she says. “A plan has been put in place for an uprising.”

I recognize the smell now. Potatoes and leafy broth, wheat, dirt, smoke. Mealtime.

“Where are we?” I whisper. My voice might not be louder than the commotion on the other side of the barrel stacked wall.

“The infirmary kitchen.”

I’ve heard about this place. It’s where the Polish prisoners work, the non-Jewish ones considered political prisoners, marked with their red triangle badges.

“What will the—” I cup my hand around my mouth to remain discreet despite who may or may not be on the other side. “Uprising consist of?”

Marie glances toward the wall as if she’s waiting for one of them to join our covert conversation but then looks back at me. “Our source has secured pistols, and will be obtaining more, as well as gunpowder and other supplies.”

“Then what?”

Writing encrypted notes is one thing, going on a murder spree is another. No matter what the situation or shock the SS face, they will be faster, stronger and more powerful.

“The workers at the crematorium are heading this up. If we can blow one of those up, the smoke will surely be seen from a distance. It could bring us a chance to liberate ourselves.”

She’s so hopeful and I can’t seem to find any optimism within myself to join in her moment of high spirit.

Marie grabs my hands, waiting for me to say something more. “If it allows me to see my children again…”

“Me too,” she says.

“When will this happen?”

“I’m not certain. It depends on whether we can collect enough of what we need.”

“Where will we store it?”

“That’s where you come in,” she says.

I clench my fists behind my back, unsure of where this conversation is about to go. I want to free us all from this place just as much as the next person, but I’ve seen what the SS do to the rebellious ones. If they catch anyone doing anything out of order, the punishment could be as severe as death.

“Go on,” I tell her, knowing I can’t walk away without finishing this conversation.

“In Block twenty, the infectious disease ward on the bottom floor has rooms that aren’t being used. The SS will never go down there because they’re terrified of contracting typhus. It’s their one fear, Dalia, and it’s our golden weapon.”

I can’t argue with her theory but it’s a matter of smuggling materials down there that she’s yet to suggest a plan for. “And how will I go about doing this? There are kapos who will trip on their way to rat us out, plenty of them meandering around the wards in Block twenty.”

“You’ll find a moment that’s right. We’ll keep the loads light so you don’t have to take too much at once.”

“And if I tell you I don’t want to take part in this?” The commotion on the other side of the kitchen wall hushes and I’m scared I’ve made them mad or worried them that I’ll become a loose end in their plan. “I will support this plan, of course, but?—”

“We need you, Dalia. Ina will be helping too, of course, and there’s more in it for us after.”

“More?”

“You want to find your children and husband, right?”

I found one of them , the blessing, short-lived. “Yes, of course.”

“Someone can help with that.”

But will I be endangering them more by giving someone their names? There is no answer to any question I think up. Everything is a risk and there’s more of a chance of losing it all than making even a small gain.