The Family Behind the Walls

42. Dalia

FORTY-TWO

DALIA

MAY 10TH, 1945 – HAMBURG, GERMANY

A Soviet doctor spared my life with emergency surgery on my foot. The recovery took quite a while and despite wanting to move along faster, I was groggy, weak, and unstable. The Red Cross finally released me last week. One of the nice young ladies from the Red Cross told me the displacement camp in Hamburg would be the best place for me to go if trying to reconnect with other family members. Everyone should be directed home if they’re searching for loved ones.

Home; the word meaning very little to me without my children and Leo by my side.

It’s only been a few days since I arrived here. I feared what this place might resemble with the word “camp” in its name, but it couldn’t be more different than Auschwitz. The people here are kind, warm, and welcoming. Everyone wants to help those of us who have been held captive and went as far as checking through all their lists of registrants for family members. The response was: Not yet. It was more than the hope I might have given myself at that moment, and for that, I’m grateful because I will continue to wait for them, for however long that might take. She also told me that buses full of displaced people arrive throughout the day just at the front entrance of the camp. Each person is registered right away, and if their information matches mine, we’ll be reconnected.

Despite the amount of rehabilitation activities that are offered here, the only thing I want to do is sit on a bench near the bus drop-off and watch every single person arrive. If one of my loves finds their way here, I want to be the first to see them.

The door closes on bus number ten today. The gear grinds and the release of the brake screeches as the empty bus pulls away. I grip my fingers around the wooden slats of the bench, urging the pain to stop building. The disappointment is so heavy it’s hard to hold my head up.

I’ve only watched a quarter of the number of buses today that came through yesterday. Each time another pulls away, my heart cracks and burns. One less chance.

The next squeal of brakes pierces the air, followed by a metal rattling from the gears. Then the hiss of air releases before the doors crank open.

It’s agonizing to watch anyone step off the bus. We all look the same: emaciated, skeletal, pale, weak, and hopeless. Most everyone is alone, seeking out the idea of someone waiting for them here. Their pain is loud but silent and felt through every bone in my body. Does hope ever truly die? Or does it just dull with time? Do we wake up one day and just say This is what I’m left with ?

This eleventh bus of the day might be empty. No one else is coming out, but the bus hasn’t closed the door to continue on. I grind my teeth, trying to remember to stop doing so when I have so many dental issues to tend to, but it’s become a habit I can’t seem to break.

A thump thump rattles the bus as another person steps off, followed by two others.

A young girl turns and waits for the other two so the three of them can walk up to the registration desk together.

“My girls…” I call out, my voice raspy and not carrying very far. My heart is cracking. “My girls! Jordanna, Lilli, Alfie?”

The three of them continue to walk forward, not taking a moment to look around. That’s them. I can feel it in my bones. It’s them.

The girls have much less of a height difference than when I saw them last, and their chocolate brown hair is curled into their chins—a style I’ve never seen on either of them except for when they were very young. The oldest has the younger one’s hand squeezed within hers as if she’s never released it in all the time they were gone. And the boy, he stands behind them, guarding them as if he’s their protector. He’s much taller than he was too, more man than boy. His hair is short but swept to the side as he’s always worn it. They all look fairly healthy, healthier than me, thank God.

I push myself up from the bench and will my body to move faster than it usually does now, which the crutch I rely on would help me do more than just lean on it. The limp from my injured foot has created a shift in my body, making it hard to move without sharp pains. I limp toward them. “Jordanna, Lilli, Alfie,” I try to shout louder. The wind is stronger than my voice.

Lilli forces Jordanna to stop walking toward registration, demanding she step into the line behind the portfolio book of names beneath a sign that says:

Search registered family members here.

I close in on the few steps between us, recalling the thing I said to them. “It’s all right, my sweethearts. We’re safe here.”

Those words fed me nightmares every night, knowing the last thing I said to my daughters wasn’t true—whether knowingly or not. They relied on me to be honest with them and I wasn’t because I didn’t want them to be afraid.

This wavering moment we’re inside of compares to the trapped air inside of a snow globe, every little piece of us drifting into place as crystal snowflakes.

“My girls,” I say again. “Alfie.”

Lilli is the first to spin around and step away from Jordanna in search of my voice. Jordanna’s shoulders rise and stiffen. I watch as she holds in a breath as she battles with herself whether to turn around too. But of course, she does.

Their eyes are still full of light and life. How could they have been so strong?

“Mama!”

“Mama, is it really you?” The shrill of each of their voices bounce off each other.

Jordanna stops short, tears pouring from her eyes as her hands cover her mouth. Lilli’s arms lock around my waist as her head bounces against my rib cage. Jordanna is in shock, her eyes wide, her mouth ajar. I hold my arm out for her, and she trudges to me, wrapping me in her arms so tightly I can hardly breathe.

Alfie’s arms fold around all of us. “You’re here,” Alfie whispers.

“You’re alive,” Jordanna cries out.

“I am now, sweetheart.”

The weight of their embraces reminds me of the crutch beneath my right arm and the heaviness of my left leg that I can’t bear weight on.

It takes them a moment to realize I have a crutch holding me up and they carefully take a step back to give me a bit of space. “What happened?” Alfie asks, staring down at my bandaged disfigured foot.

“I’ll be fine. I might need this crutch to lean on, but I’m alive.”

Jordanna becomes pale, staring at me, pleading for the truth without asking. “Mama.”

“It was an infection in my heel. The doctors were able to save most of my foot but not all. It doesn’t matter. We all need to learn to walk again, and we will do it together.”

I grab Jordanna’s arm and tug her out of her state of shock. I don’t want to imagine how many times she might have fallen faint over the last year and a half, and yet managed to remain alive after what I saw happen to so many others.

“We got your letter,” Lilli says.

Pins and needles prickle across my cheeks, wondering who managed to deliver a note to my girls. “You did?”

“Yes. We received it in February but we’re not sure who passed it along. The writing on the envelope wasn’t your handwriting.”

“Do you still have it?” I ask.

A faint smile flickers across Jordanna’s face as she pulls it out of her coat pocket. “Of course,” she says, handing it to me.

I study the envelope, recognizing the handwriting right away. Ina. She never gave up. If she sent this in February that means she made it out of Auschwitz too. I didn’t see her again after we stopped reporting to the infirmary. I didn’t know what became of her, if she made it out. I read enough of her notes on charts within the wards to recognize her perfect penmanship. She made sure the children got one of my letters. An angel, that’s what she is and will always be to me. I press the envelope to my chest and take in a deep breath. Thank you, God. Thank you .

“Let’s go to the registration desk,” I tell them, nudging my head toward the table set up beneath a white tent.

We walk in silence while questions scream through me, wanting to know if they’ve heard from their papa. Would they have already said so?

Lilli stops walking as if she forgot something and needs to go back to where we were standing. She turns around, lowers her head and curls her hair behind her ear.

“What is it, sweetheart?” I ask.

She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls something out then returns to us and hands it to me, dropping it into the palm of my hand and holding it there for a long second before releasing it.

I uncurl my fingers, finding the compass I gave Leo many, many years ago.

“You have Papa’s compass?” I ask, my words lodging in my throat.

Lilli nods her head as the memory of Leo’s words whirl around me.

“So long as I’m alive, darling, I’ll carry this with me so I always find my way back to you,” Leo said to me after admiring it for the first time.

So long as I’m alive.

I cup my hand over my mouth, trembling, trying to keep myself composed for the sake of the children. “How did you—did he give this to you?” I ask through a whimper.

Lilli peers down between us. “No, but he used it to find us at the children’s prison where we were taken. He helped us escape. But?—”

“But what? What happened?” I ask, swallowing the lump in my throat.

Jordanna’s chin dips and fresh tears fall from her eyes. “It was my fault, Mama. I was so hungry, and I took some horse fodder on a train and the horses got upset. Then the Nazis came after us. Papa made us all jump from the train, but then I don’t think I moved fast enough. He couldn’t jump with us. We found him by the tracks later that night.” Jordanna is crying so hard she can hardly take in a breath, and I’m not crying at all and still feel as if I can’t take in a breath.

“He’s gone,” I say, my voice trailing off in a whisper. “And Max, both of them.” I pull them back into my arms as each other’s tears fall onto one another. It wasn’t supposed to be like this—our life. This wasn’t our plan. We were supposed to grow old together and watch all our children go on and have families of their own and then remind each other of where it all started—how hard we fought for what we have. But they’re gone. The strongest of our family, the backbones, we’re here without them. Forever.

I grab the back of Jordanna’s head and lean back enough to look at her. “Listen to me right now. Whatever happened to Papa, it is not your fault. Don’t you ever think that way.” I know it was not her fault. She didn’t ask for this life. “Do you hear me? It’s not your fault. Your papa came to your rescue. He found you, then saved you. He would never blame you. Ever. He did what he set out to do. He’s the reason we found each other. That’s the last thing he did in this world, and he would call that a heroic story if anyone asked.”

Jordanna takes in a shuddered breath and says, “He said—he said—the Gestapo took you away from him but when he was able to return, he couldn’t find you. He didn’t know if the Gestapo had taken you somewhere too. He told us he was doing everything he could to find us all,” Jordanna says.

“That’s what warriors do. They give up everything for the ones they love, even if that means we must live without them.”