18. Dalia
EIGHTEEN
DALIA
AUGUST 15TH, 1943 – O?WI?CIM, POLAND
My stomach groans and whines as I make my way to my newly assigned labor position at the infirmary. Yet, the pain is dull in comparison to the cloaking shame from not being able to help Magda last night. I keep questioning if there was something more I could have done.
We trudge through the muddy grounds, my body weak and weighed down by my heavy clogs. They squelch with each step. The bird-size helping of bread with bitter coffee I ate and drank this morning isn’t enough to keep my body upright for an entire day of being on my feet. I didn’t imagine the walk feeling so long between Birkenau and the main camp of Auschwitz.
Not one of the two dozen of us can walk in a straight line, or move many steps without stumbling. Our close proximity to each other only adds to the discomfort as mud splatters and sloshes against my arms and legs.
Finally, we reach our assigned location—two looming buildings guarded by iron gates. “Prisoners assigned to Blocks twenty and twenty-one, report to the SS officer inside the front doors,” the kapo tells us. She points back and forth between two red-brick schoolhouse looking buildings separated by a brick wall and conjoined by iron gates, blocking in the exterior courtyard between Blocks 20 and 21.
Shallow stone steps lead up to each of the front doors and I walk toward the building clearly labeled Block 20. The three-story-high building has six windows facing the walkway which are as dark as night, masking what’s taking place inside. This is where I’ll be working. My stomach snarls as I recall Magda’s words from last night. It’s the place where everyone goes to die. What about the people working here?
My knees shake as I mount the four stairs before reaching for the door handle. I picture Jordanna gleefully climbing the stairs in our apartment building, her infectious laughter filling the stairwell. She would always climb the stairs in pairs, never slowing down, never hesitating, just to make it to the top faster than the rest of us. No one wanted to race her, but that didn’t slow her down. I wonder whether she is scared now, if she still possesses that bravery, or if our separation is depriving her of that. I must believe she has enough strength, and I know I must find my own strength for her.
Inside, I squeeze between people in the too-packed space, moving further into the crowd. Groans, moans, cries, and whines fill the air like an out-of-tune orchestra. Dank vile, sweet and rotten chemical stenches fill my nose and burn my throat. I’m afraid to nudge anyone, unsure of how weak they might be, but I slip through every slight opening between people until I spot a wooden desk angled in what looks to be the corner. Another prisoner is at the desk with a pencil and logbook, taking notes while trying to calm the people surrounding her.
“Pardon me,” I say, speaking up. “I’m here, reporting for duty. It’s my first day. I hold out my forearm for her to see my number in case she knows anything of where I should be.
She points along the shorter end of the space we’re in. “An SS officer is by the corner window.”
“Thank you,” I offer before turning in the direction I need to make my way through. I trip over someone lying on the ground. I try to avoid the sight, knowing I can’t do much of anything to help anyone until I check in. What if it’s Max, Jordanna, or Lilli? What if I just stepped over my child’s motionless body, just for the sake of reporting to where I need to be? I turn back, trying to spot the body through the crowd, but shoulders shove me in every direction, nearly knocking me over because I’m facing the wrong way.
An opening between people offers me a quick glimpse of a pair of black shoes dragging along the ground. All the children were wearing black boots when we ran from our apartment.
Another shoulder pushes me hard enough that I spin back in the direction I should be moving.
The crowd spits me out between a small desk and the SS guard overseeing the crowd. I’ve come into contact with many kapos, block elders, and camp clerks while being here—all who report to the SS, but this is one of the few times I’ve had to speak directly to an SS officer.
I slide my feet together, straighten my posture and hold my hands firmly by my sides. “I’m reporting for duty with nursing experience from Block thirteen in Birkenau.” I hold out my forearm to show my number despite the number being displayed on my chest too.
The officer’s cold stare sends shivers down my spine. “You will work in triage here, separating prisoners with treatable conditions from those unfit for work. Anyone unfit for work will be moved to another facility for better treatment. You will report to the worker at the reception desk across the way,” he says, pointing back toward the woman at the wooden desk.
Treatable versus unfit for work.
With another push and shove through the crowd of sick prisoners, I return to the wooden desk. “I’ve been ordered to assist you,” I tell the woman, speaking over the multiple prisoners trying to ask her questions.
“Are you familiar with the selection process?” she asks.
I shake my head, not sure what she means. “Deciding who needs more than simple care?” I ask.
“Yes, you will report their number, diagnosis, and whether they can stay or should wait for the transport to the other facility.” She points over her shoulder toward the ground, where a wooden stacked crate, shorter than the desk, sits. “All minor skin infections, wounds, cuts, common cold, stomach issues or skeletal sprains can be treated with what we have on those shelves. All others must be seen by an SS doctor down the hall in the extermination space.”
“Extermination?” I ask with a quiet gasp, covering my mouth. My pulse surges as I stare at her in confusion.
“Examination space,” she says as if I must be the one who misheard her. Am I?
“Oh, I see. I—I understand,” I tell her, trying to keep note of everything she’s just said.
“Simply—you’ll decide based on necessary treatment if the person can be treated quickly versus?—”
“Yes, of course, I-I do—I understand.”
“Also, anyone with symptoms of typhus should be sent to the isolation chamber,” she adds. “You should move through people in a matter of seconds.” She peers across the room toward the officer, making it clear that her statement is a rule and not her choice. “And I’m Ina.” Her introduction comes in a hush of a whisper since we are only entitled to our numbers.
“Of course. I’m Dalia,” I reply in a similar whisper to hers.
“Next!” she shouts.
I stand awkwardly beside the desk with nothing in my hands, waiting to play God to whoever walks up to me. This hardly compares to what I’ve been accustomed to in the past. This is chaos and a mistake waiting to happen.
The people in front of me fight to be seen first and I can’t understand why there is so much disorganization here when we’ve done nothing but line up in rows and columns since arriving.
“Miss, you have to help me.” The elderly man’s desperate plea for help echoes in my mind as I study his number. His appearance is all too familiar here, a result of starvation and deprivation of the bare necessities. His eyes struggle to stay open and it’s hard to know if it’s from fatigue or weakness but I can’t help wondering how long he’s been suffering.
I read his number off to Ina who jots down the digits faster than I’ve ever seen anyone write, and so clearly too. I wonder how long Ina has been here. I wonder this about everyone I pass. I question what the odds of survival are based on the arrival date too.
“What is it you’re ill with?” I ask the man who is pleading with me for help.
He slips his clog off his right foot, pulling out his bare foot. His first three toes are purple and black, sores so deep the tissue is exposed. I can’t imagine the pain he must be feeling. The infection has spread too far for ointment to be effective. Amputation may be his only chance at survival. Yet, even with advanced treatment, there are no guarantees, and much less here.
Throughout the Great War, I saw more amputated limbs than I wish to remember, gunshot wounds through a skull, half a face blown off and now, I’ve also witnessed bodies melding to stone lined streets from a firestorm. Still, my chest aches, my stomach twists and gnarls, and I do the thing where I imagine the pain in order to understand what they must be feeling. I can’t help it; it happens on its own. The burn, an infection eating away at healthy skin. He might as well hold a flame over the open injury because it wouldn’t feel much different.
I press the back of my hand to his forehead, finding an obvious fever.
“You know—” I gasp for air, trying to hide the raw emotions threatening to spew out of me. “We-we are—” I clear my throat and catch the eyes of a nearby SS officer, feeling the unspoken warning to move faster. “We’re going to send you to a different facility for more advanced treatment,” I tell him.
“No, no you can’t do that. Do you have ointment and a bandage maybe? Just something to help the pain?”
“Gangrene.” I shake my head ever so slightly at Ina, telling her without saying the words out loud that he isn’t fit for work. “He might not survive much longer without severe intervention.”
“You need to step into this line over here,” Ina says, pointing alongside the wall to her left.
“I know where you’re sending me!” he shouts. “You can help me here. Please, just help me. I don’t want to?—”
A guard in uniform grabs the man by his arm and pulls him toward the wall. I didn’t know there was a guard nearby, listening, but I should have expected so. I watch Ina complete her note on the man, wondering how she controls her expression, not even flickering a hint of remorse.
I could never become numb to human pain. Never.
“Next,” Ina shouts.
A young man steps up in front of me, holding his stomach. “I’ve eaten something bad,” he says. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure of it.” He’s young, maybe just over twenty. He’s covered in dirt. “I need to get back to work as soon as possible.”
I read Ina his number for her to take down. If he has stomach pains from whatever he’s eaten, which can’t be much, a charcoal tablet would likely take the edge off his pain.
“What is your assigned labor?” Ina asks him before I have the chance.
“Constructing one of the new blocks.”
She nods and I squat down next to the wooden boxes containing various treatments. I spot the tablets and drop two in my hand. “Just one,” Ina says. “We are in short supply.”
I slip the other back into the small container and replace the contents in the wooden boxes.
“This should help,” I tell the man, dropping the tablet into his palm. “You can return to work now.”
“We don’t have a large supply of charcoal tablets. We can only hand them out to top laborers,” she says. “And one likely won’t be enough to help him.”
I’m unsure of what she’s insinuating, whether I should have given it to him or not. There are no written rules to follow here, just an understanding that no one should care too deeply about another’s life.
After hours of separating people and barely helping anyone as nothing is simple enough to just bandage, triage begins to thin out. The last three waiting to check in with us are sent to the left, to a “better” facility, whatever that might mean.
Ina slides her finger down her written logs as if checking her work. “It will get easier as time gets on. You stop feeling emotions for others when you realize no one has any for you.”
My tongue feels lodged in my throat, listening to her words. They aren’t a lie, and they aren’t intended to be cruel. I know they’re the truth.
Ina glances up at me, recognizing my lack of response, I suppose. “And that’s how I know you were a real nurse at some point before arriving at this purgatory.”
“I was a nurse during the Great War. I thought I’d seen it all.”
“You’re a fighter,” she says, her words soft though the SS officers have left the area. “I didn’t during wartime, but I worked in a hospital before my children were born. My skills all came right back to me, despite thinking I knew nothing other than how to be a mother.”
“Do you know where your children are?” I ask, clasping my fists over my chest.
Ina stares at me and her jawline tightens as she sucks in her cheeks. “Almost four years ago, my husband and I decided to find a way out of Warsaw with our two little girls. The fighting in the city was growing worse by the day and we knew no one was safe. We were heading to stay with an aunt who lives away from the city—we left early in the morning, thinking that would be the best time to travel. The Siege of Warsaw. An ambush of nonstop air bombardments trapped everyone in the city. No one knew where to run. There was just complete chaos, and the four of us were pushed and shoved apart. The three of them were hit with heavy shrapnel and died. I found them covered in rubble.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t get air into my lungs as I stare at this stranger looking back at me with hollow eyes. “Ina, I’m so?—”
“Please don’t. I joined the resistance after that and well, here I am.”
“No one deserves to go through what you’ve been through,” I tell her.
“I’m not even Jewish. How can I comment?” she asks.
“Your loss has nothing to do with faith. You’re an innocent mother and wife,” I state firmly.
“I was.” She swallows hard and puffs her chest out, filling her lungs with the air I still can’t seem to find. “How about you? Children, husband?”
“Yes, but we were separated, and I don’t know where they are, or if they’re?—”
Ina rests her hand on my shoulder and stares directly into my eyes—hers suddenly aren’t as hollow now. “The ability to have hope was stolen from me—hold on to yours for us both.”
I nod. “Very well, thank you.”
“Pain makes us stronger—it makes us all stronger,” she says.
Her words are ones I have lived by and words I will die by because we can only become so strong before a different choice is made for us.
It’s all a lie. Strength means nothing when our survival is based on luck. Everything I’ve taught the children will only sabotage them now. What kind of mother am I if I can no longer believe the words I used to preach?