Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Auschwitz, O?wi?cim, Poland
Herr Drexel stands behind me at the towering iron gates with the words “Work will set you free” bent into the iron, highlighted by the glow of the farmer’s moon.
The Drexels didn’t allow me the time to lie or come up with a story about the photograph of Noah and me.
What lie could I come up with? Herr Drexel told me to gather my belongings and go to the door at once.
“She’s capable of labor, a seamstress or launderer.
” He hands the guard in front of me a paper and leaves without another word.
As if I hadn’t been working for them for over six months—as if I’m nothing.
By the time I’m on the inside of the gates, a woman in a blue-and-white smock dress approaches me, takes my suitcase from my hand and tosses it into a pile of others beneath a spotlight, as if the pile itself is something to showcase.
I watch my suitcase land among the others and try, instinctively, to memorize what surrounds it.
A hard case with red and gold stripes on one side, and a brown leather bag with a black ribbon on the other.
I tell myself it will make it easier to find later.
Though, even as the thought forms, I know how foolish it is.
From where I stand, they already all look the same.
My photograph is in there…the last piece of Noah I have left.
My heart pangs and my stomach sours, a familiar feeling that would normally lead me to tears.
But here, tears won’t make me feel any better. They’ll be a sign of weakness and fear.
It’s all I feel.
The woman yanks me to stay by her side as she leads me to the front of a wide brick building where the line of hundreds of women snakes down the side of the edifice. Spotlights pin us from above, a warning more than a source of light.
“You wait,” the woman says, leaving me at the end of the line.
“I’m so tired, Mama. I could just fall asleep right here,” the young woman in front of me whispers, tugging at the long braid falling down her back.
The curls slip loose between her fingers as she pulls at it again and again.
My neighbor, Cora, used to do the same thing.
I called her Curly Cora in my head and memorized the way the light caught each bend of her hair so I could recreate it later when I painted.
She’s probably still playing with her hula hoop outside on the curb with the other children.
She isn’t Jewish. She gets to live. Unlike this young girl in front of me, I’m sure.
“Soon, darling,” her mother murmurs.
I wonder what Mama would tell me now. Would it be the truth, or something to make me think we’d be all right? I’m not sure what I would tell my little love, but it’s clear she wasn’t meant to endure this.
More women funnel in from the same direction I came, adding to the end of the line by the dozens.
“Why haven’t we moved forward at all?” the young woman continues questioning her mother.
“Ruhe!” a German soldier shouts toward the line.
The mother presses her finger to her lips just as we’re all shoved forward into one another.
My gaze drifts toward a crooked signpost pierced into a pile of dirt. A skull and crossbones on top and on the bottom, the words:
HALT!
STóJ!
The irony of having a sign telling people to stop for danger when no one wants to keep moving must be a tease. If we don’t stop before the sign, danger will follow. That’s what it wants us to know.
My body feels hollow like it knows what’s coming. My eyes are heavy, and my stomach cramps.
I’ve heard the whispers long before today.
Despite the Drexels’ attempt to masquerade the ideal of Auschwitz, it didn’t erase what I had already heard.
The rumors flew through Amsterdam like summer crowds—everywhere and impossible to escape.
People would speak of trains packed so tightly people couldn’t breathe inside. No one could sit or move a limb.
The other nannies on Herr Drexel’s street spoke of the smoke that never stopped reaching for the sky, and families swallowed by these gates, never to be seen again. I wanted to believe the stories were mere exaggerations—something meant to scare people into obedience.
But standing here, my toes touching the heels of the mother in front of me, hot breath fogging the back of my neck from the woman behind me, beneath the glare of lights…the truth and reality settle into my stomach.
This isn’t a prison.
Not even a labor camp.
It’s the place where people go to die. And now I’m in line.
The line finally spills into the building. Plaster walls surround me—all of us inside. Wall-mounted lamps, tables set up in rows. The wind masked the odor of sweat and wet clothes, but inside, fear and exhaustion are pungent.
Ahead, a chair scrapes against the floor. A ledger slaps open on a desk. A woman clutches her arms around her body as if it’s cold rather than hot inside. The clerk doesn’t look at her before shooing her away.
I move up further, hearing a pen scratch against paper. The woman behind me coughs, her breath hitting the back of my neck.
One room leads to another, each worse than the last. The floor is covered in hair in this one, a single braid drapes over a small pile.
This is where I lose my hair.
Next, I trade my name for a number—one I’ll never be able to forget.
When I lose my clothes, forced to stand naked in the same line I’ve been in all night, I realize I’ll never see my suitcase again. No one will ever know my real name or fake one. Or what color my hair was.
We all look the same now…