Chapter 3
THREE
CURRENT DAY
Auschwitz, O?wi?cim, Poland
A stiff hand grabs my collar, lugging me up just enough for the arctic air to strike my damp, snow-covered cheeks.
“Dear God,” a girl groans. “Everyone is running in their haste to be saved—you’re going to get knocked over again.” Her dark-eyed stare is blunt and impassive. “Roll onto your side.”
My efforts are futile as my limbs struggle to heed her command. She doesn’t wait long before jerking my arm so hard a cry rips from my throat.
“You’re bleeding, or you were bleeding. Your head—your hair is coated in dry blood.” Her words are more of a statement than a concern. She crouches beside me and shoves her shoulder under my arm to hoist me enough to yank along with her.
“I’ll be all right. I hit my head yesterday.
That’s all.” I don’t know how hard I hit my head aside from my self-evaluation of a large bump, and now knowing there was a lot of blood too.
I’m alive, so I have no choice but to move.
“Where are we going?” I’ve yet to see what the man was shouting about, soldiers being here to save us.
All I see are others like me, lining the fences, staring through to the outside, just as we’ve always done.
“Out of here before someone locks us back up.”
“Who? A man said soldiers were here to rescue us,” I argue, my voice ragged, drowning in the wind.
“We trust no one. The gate is open for now, and it’s time to leave.”
“I need a—just a—minute.” The words are poison on my tongue because that man who saved me yesterday told me to run.
“I—I’m looking for someone.” I pull away from her, my knees nearly giving in again as I scan the area for the group of detained guards.
I don’t see them. The Soviets must have taken them.
“We’ll find them outside the gates,” the girl says.
If they left too, I might be able to catch another glimpse of the strangely familiar soldier, or figure out where they’re going.
“Comrades, don’t be afraid. We’re here to help,” a man in a drab olive uniform shouts in Yiddish, his accent undeniably Russian.
“Don’t be afraid…” the girl mocks the soldier in a bad Russian accent, then spits in the snow. “All they want is our land, not the Jews.”
We’ve only heard whispers of the Soviets. Now they’re here, moving into the camp, flocked in padded jackets and thick fur hats with earflaps. Yet, they appear as confused as we are. And they are capturing the Germans…
The girl slides her shoulder back under my arm as we stumble toward the daunting gates. I hope she’s right—that I’ll find what I’m looking for on the other side.
The Soviet soldiers’ eyes are wide, startled, ajar mouths and cheeks pale… I don’t think they intended to find a place like Auschwitz.
“Stoyte!” a soldier yells, holding his hands up in the air, palms outward. “Halt…Stój!” They want everyone to stop as we surge toward the gates—more prisoners still here than I thought. “Don’t leave. Stay. We’ll help you…” They’re trying to herd the crowd away from the gates.
“We’re running out of time,” the girl says. “This way.” She jerks me toward her, drawing me against her back. I should be thankful my feet are complying now, but she’s doing most of the work.
A Soviet soldier to our left falls to his knees and vomits into the snow. Another is frozen in his tracks, holding his mouth, sobbing.
An olive-brown uniformed arm slashes between the girl and me, grabbing her arm, pulling both of us to a stop. “Halt…Let us—we’ll help. You’re hurt. Sick?”
The girl yanks her arm from his grip, nearly elbowing me in the stomach. “Don’t touch me!” She heaves through fog-laced breaths. “We’re leaving.”
“Nyet!” The soldier’s eyes fill with tears. “Medic. You need a medic.” He spins around shouting, “Tovarishch ofitser!”
It could be a trap. After what we’ve experienced, trust is hard to find.
I don’t know what he’s saying, and I don’t think the girl does either.
She turns back, giving me a brief look of uncertainty.
She’s just a girl. Maybe not even eighteen yet.
It’s impossible to know if we’re making the right decision, and it’s the first bit of control we’ve had over ourselves since walking through those gates in the first place.
I search around in the mere seconds we stand here before complying or moving through them and I spot a soldier taking photographs.
Photographs of lifeless bodies frozen in the snow, charred barracks, us.
“If we don’t find who we’re looking for, we’ll return soon,” the girl says to the soldier, her eyes wide and pleading.
“She needs to find her loved one. Just let us go. We aren’t a threat to anyone.
Surely you can see that.” She sounds nothing like the girl who peeled me up from the snow, but she’s quite convincing.
Papa said the same words, “We’ll return soon,” when he and Mama left Amsterdam. I don’t know if they ever tried to come back. If they had, I’m not sure how far they made it—if they made it.
More soldiers are shouting orders, or commands, or simply begging us to comply. A middle-aged man collapses in front of us, taking the soldier’s attention away. The girl dips her shoulder down and presses up beneath my arm and pulls me toward the gate, no longer waiting for my decision.
“Wait,” I groan, pulling against her grip to take one last look around for the German guards. Still no sight.
“No. And you’ll thank me later.” She presses through a small opening in the crowd and slips us through the open gate.
The girl trips in the process, both of us falling to our knees, but regains traction quickly and continues dragging me along like a rag doll behind her. My feet can’t keep up, I trip over myself, but don’t fall with her firm hold.
We aren’t alone on this side of the gate, prisoners pushing out all around us.
The train platform buzzes with a crowd dressed in blue-and-white striped uniforms. Only prisoners.
No soldiers, German or Soviet. To our right, just beyond the gate, a train stands still, offering no steam or motion—just a ghostly presence.
The cart doors hang open, swaying on loose hinges and revealing collections of belongings inside. Freight lies scattered across the snow, stretching between the ramp and rails.
A baby’s rattle, the handle gnawed by an animal—lies in two pieces.
“You—” the girl stammers. “You’ll be all right.”
I swallow against the burn raging through my lungs. “Celina. I’m Celina.”
She loops her arm around mine. “Avi.”
I don’t ask her where she plans to go or how she plans to get there, and I don’t tell her who I might be looking for—or leaving behind.