What She Lost

by Melissa W Hunter

  “Here,” he said, wrapping a rough wool blanket around my shoulders. “You’ll catch your death standing out here like this.” He took my arm gently and led me away from the fence. As we walked, he watched me. I kept my eyes averted toward my feet. One of the buildings that had served as offices for the Germans had now become a sort of gathering spot for the lieutenant and his men. The Germans had left in such haste that papers were strewn across most of the floors and large piles of ash were heaped in the fireplaces. Many of the rooms were stripped of furniture, or desks and chairs had been overturned, but the offices were still cleaner and more comfortable than our hard, bare, pest-infested bunks. The lieutenant led me there now.

  As we stepped under the eaves of one of the buildings, he turned to me and asked gently, “How old are you?”

  I balked at the question. To my surprise, I didn’t know how to answer. At first I had tried to keep track of the days, but eventually the days, weeks, years, had run into each other. I knew my birthday was in the warmer months, when the leaves outside the camps were in full bloom and the flowers blossomed on the other side of the fence, but I couldn’t remember how many summers I had been imprisoned.

  He looked at me sadly when I didn’t answer. I thought back to my first moments in the camps, remembering the fear, the indignity, the abuse I had suffered. As the memories threatened to resurface, I felt light-headed and reached out to steady myself. Sixteen. I had been sixteen and naive when I was taken away. That much I knew. But time had ceased to exist once I entered the camps. How many camps had I been to? How many years had passed, how many birthdays had come and gone?

  “Do you know how old you are?” the lieutenant asked again, softly.

  I shook my head, refusing to meet his eyes. His finger reached out to lift my chin. I jerked away without thinking. I remembered other hands reaching out to touch me, and I shivered. The lieutenant took a step back and held up both hands. “I’m sorry,” he said in his soft voice. “I meant no harm.” I felt suddenly embarrassed, remembering that I trusted him, that I wanted to trust him. That we shared a bond.

  “What you girls have been through,” he said now, looking past me, shaking his head, “it’s unspeakable. Unthinkable. I imagine you were just a child when—” His voice trailed off.

  “I was sixteen.” I said quietly. “Almost seventeen.”

  “Sixteen?” he asked. “And do you know what year that was?”

  “It was 1942, I think,” I whispered.

  “It’s now 1945,” he said. “Did you know that?”

  I shook my head—1945? The date meant little to me. So, three years had passed since I’d first entered the camps? Since I’d last seen my mother or father? Since I’d last played with my little brothers? Since I’d last heard Jacob play the violin? Did it feel longer than that, or shorter? I wondered. What difference did it make when every day ran into the next?

  “You are still so young,” he said. “You have your whole life ahead of you.”

  I looked away again, staring out at the rain-sodden yard, rivers of mud flowing between the buildings.

  “Go inside now,” he said kindly. “Get out of the rain, before you catch cold.”

  I nodded and turned to enter the dim building, shivering slightly, thinking about his words. My whole life was still ahead of me. The thought was terrifying.

  A few days later, we were told to gather in the yard outside the main gate. The lieutenant stood before the entrance to the camp, before the large, ornate iron doors that had always been locked to us. I watched him as I entered the yard with Gutcha at my side. He held a megaphone in his hand and gazed at us steadily beneath his heavy brow as we entered. A few soldiers stood at attention at his side. I swallowed, knowing something was about to happen. My hands felt clammy and my forehead burned in the strong morning sunlight. The cold, rainy spring days would change overnight to warm, summer-like weather. I held my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun as I stopped a few yards from where the lieutenant stood. The yard was silent.

  He stopped pacing and turned to face us, raising the megaphone. “My children,” he spoke in clear, concise German, the one language we had all come to understand. “Today you are free to leave the camp and begin your life anew.”

  My heart beat faster at his words—words I’d longed to hear for so long, words I’d believed I’d never hear. I should have been happy, excited, relieved, but to my surprise, I was panicked and anxious. I saw my own feelings reflected in the faces of my campmates. As though he could sense our unease, the lieutenant’s brow wrinkled, and he said, “Don’t you understand what this means? You are free.”

  “But where do we go?” someone asked behind me. Without warning, I was engulfed in a din of voices, all shouting the same thing.

  “Where do we go?”

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  “We have nothing!”

  “I don’t know where we are! I don’t know how to get back home!”

  “Ladies,” the lieutenant shouted, his hands in the air. “Ladies, quiet, please!”

  He lowered his megaphone and pinched the bridge of his nose, waving one of his soldiers to his side. We watched as they spoke in whispers, consulting a map and gesturing to each other rather heatedly. Finally, the lieutenant nodded and turned to us once more.

  “We have sent scouts out and have been told of a town not far from here that can offer you shelter as you decide where to go from there.”

  “A town?” someone near me said in an unsure voice.

  “It’s called Reichenbach,” the lieutenant said. We repeated the name so it echoed in the air, testing the sound of it on our lips. Images flashed in my mind of my own town of Olkusz, the town square where we played hopscotch on the cobblestone streets, the flowers in the park in summer, the open door of my father’s bakery, the smell of fresh bread filling the afternoon air, the sound of the violin drifting out of the windows of our home as twilight fell.

  “My intelligence tells me the town is mostly evacuated. Some of my men have gone ahead to prepare lodging and other accommodations for your arrival. Stay together, my children, for your own safety. There are many soldiers here who have been at war a long time and are starved for the affections of women. Be vigilant on your journey.”

  I clutched Gutcha’s hand tightly at his words. “Will you not go with us?” one woman asked desperately, fear written on her face.

  “Our orders have us heading north, I’m afraid. But I send you to your lives with this prayer. May God watch over you all and keep you safe.”

  We stood back as two of the soldiers pulled open the heavy gates. I tried to meet the lieutenant’s eyes, but he was blocked from view. For a moment, no one moved. Then we surged forward like a solid wave, spilling past the gates, stepping, for the first time in almost four years, onto soil as free women.

  Twenty-Eight

  The walk to Reichenbach took the better part of two days. We were silent as we walked, eyes exploring our surroundings in both curiosity and fear. The road that spread out from the arched main gate of Peterswaldau was paved, and we followed the line of tire tracks on the asphalt, staying close to the apron of the road, where shrubs and weeds grew. The sky overhead felt like an enormous roof over a rolling landscape of hills; white buds sprouted from tree branches, and clusters of pollen, like wisps of cotton, floated in the air. My eyes, thirsty for this evidence of life, drank in all in, yet a part of me felt exposed and vulnerable. Every time a small animal scurried in the brush or a bird took flight, I jumped, squeezing Gutcha’s hand tighter.

  By midday, our steps had slowed, our energy drained as the sun rose higher and hotter in the sky. It was unseasonably warm, and soon I found I was sweating through my rags.

  “I need water,” I said, stopping to sit on a rock by the side of the road.

  “Get up, Sarah. We don’t want to fall behind,” Gutcha said nervously.
She was still pale and weak from her bout of sickness. As the other women slogged past us, I could tell she wanted to stop as well.

  “How will we make it without food and water?” I asked. “I’m so thirsty.”

  A woman named Erna turned when she heard me. She was large-boned and tall, and despite the conditions we had lived in, she had never lost a sense of authority that commanded attention. When she had first arrived at the camp, no one spoke to her. The scowl on her face had intimidated me, so I’d kept my distance as well.

  But then I remembered Fanny, a young French girl who had arrived on Erna’s transport. One night she woke us all up with loud, piercing cries.

  “Shush!” someone hissed as she continued to cry out in her bed.

  “Stop it,” a second voice demanded.

  But Erna’s dark shadow moved across the room to the bunk where Fanny lay. I heard her ask in a low voice, “Is the baby coming?”

  I sat up when I heard those words. So did many of the other girls.

  “A baby?” someone whispered.

  We were all thinking the same thing—how was she pregnant? She didn’t appear large enough to have a baby in her belly.

  Fanny lay on her side, clutching her abdomen with each contraction, moaning loudly.

  “Quiet her or the Aufseherin will come!” a voice urged in a strained hush.

  I threw my legs over the edge of my bunk and jumped to the floor. A few other women were standing beside Fanny’s bedside now, pleading with her to keep quiet. Someone found a piece of wood and put it between Fanny’s teeth, while another woman wiped sweat from her brow with an old rag. Erna stood over them all, her large body the size of two women, taking control.

  “This won’t be easy,” she said in a rough whisper. “And you have to keep quiet. But we will help you.”

  “My baby,” Fanny wailed. “What about my baby? It’s too soon. How will she survive?”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Erna said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Right now, you need to open your legs.”

  Fanny twisted, caught in a throe of pain, while Erna tried to push her legs apart. A puddle of fluid stained the soiled wood beneath her. “You have to make room for the baby, Fanny,” Erna commanded in a determined voice. “She’s coming fast.”

  I watched as Fanny bit down on the wood to keep from screaming, her back arching with pain as she pushed. The woman wiping her forehead spoke soft words of encouragement. “That’s it, Fanny. Push. It’s almost over. Keep pushing.”

  But when the baby came, there was nothing but silence.

  “My daughter,” Fanny gasped, pale in the moonlight, a sheen of sweat on her brow. “Please give me my daughter.”

  We all looked at Erna, who held the bundle of blue limbs in her arms. “It’s a boy,” Erna said, deadpan.

  “A son?” Fanny asked, lifting her head just enough to look at Erna.

  “I’m sorry,” Erna said, handing the stillborn baby to Fanny, who didn’t seem to understand.

  “He’s not breathing,” she said softly, then her voice began to rise. “He’s not breathing! Why isn’t he breathing?”

  We backed away. Part of me was relieved. A healthy baby, crying and hungry, would never have gone unnoticed. Now the poor child didn’t have to suffer the same fate as the rest of us, didn’t have to face a future of starvation in unsanitary conditions. I doubted Fanny would be able to produce enough milk to keep him alive for the first few months. But Fanny was almost hysterical, crying over her lifeless son. Erna shooed us all away and knelt beside Fanny. “Enough,” she said in her gruff voice. “You have to stop crying or you’ll be found out. This is life. This happens.”

  I was shocked at her harsh, unfeeling words, but when Fanny looked up at Erna with a desperate expression, Erna surprised me again by taking her in her enormous embrace and rocking her like she’d rock a child. We all went silently back to our bunks, leaving them to mourn as the night brightened.

  In the morning, the baby was wrapped in rags that Erna hid beneath her shapeless gown. Sometime during the day, she took the baby to the pit where many other bodies were discarded. No one ever spoke of it again. Fanny faded, performing her jobs mechanically, receiving shouts from the guards without flinching, barely eating her daily rations, until she was nothing but skin and bones. Occasionally I would wake at night to find Fanny curled against Erna’s immense frame on a lower bunk. Whenever whispers spread about who the father was and how it had happened, Erna’s glare was enough to silence any speculation.

  Fanny died a few months later.

  Now, Erna turned her scowl on me. I recoiled under her glare as she stood before us with hands on hips.

  “So, you want to stop here, in the middle of nowhere, while we leave you behind?”

  “I, I didn’t say that,” I stammered. “But I’m hungry and thirsty. Aren’t you thirsty?”

  “You think this is the first time I’ve been thirsty?” she said. “There’s nothing to drink here, so there’s no use wishing otherwise.”

  Some of the other girls had turned and were watching us. I frowned and stood up. “Fine,” I muttered, falling into step with the others again. My face burned as much from anger as from the warm sunlight. Some of the other girls began to fall behind as well, near to fainting, leaning on each other for support. The words of the lieutenant rang in our ears—there were soldiers patrolling the countryside, hungry for women. Despite our exhaustion, no one wanted to be left behind.

  I was grateful when the sun began to set. The hills around us had been growing steadily larger, and I could see mountain peaks in the distance. As night approached, we looked for signs of the town, but only road stretched ahead. Our feet dragged along the pavement, barely moving us forward. A few women dropped to the ground.

  “We have to stop for the night,” someone said. “We need to sleep.”

  My knees buckled and I fell with Gutcha, exhausted. Dusk threw shadows along the road, and I fought to keep my eyes open, afraid at any moment a soldier would emerge from the bushes. “All right,” Erna said, moving into the center of our group. “We need to rest. But we can’t be out in the open like this.”

  “Where do we go then?” someone asked. Erna turned to the side of the road and began to climb over a ditch. She waved us over. I struggled back to my feet. And that’s when I heard a low rumbling sound growing steadily louder. We paused, turning in the direction of the sound, peering into the darkness of the road ahead. I felt the ground vibrate beneath me.

  “Hurry!” Erna said urgently. “Someone’s coming!”

  My heart began to pound in fear. I tried to run with Gutcha up the embankment on the side of the road. There was a line of boulders where we could hide out of sight, but they were impossibly far away. The women around me scrambled to gain purchase of the embankment, pulling at each other as they tried to reach the safety of the boulders. Someone grabbed my kerchief and used my head to boost herself up. My face was pushed into the dirt, and I spit pebbles from my mouth.

  Erna had reached the jagged line of rocks. “Hurry!” she hissed again, reaching out to pull everyone into their shadow where we could hide. I grasped her hand and was yanked forward and thrown to the ground. I crouched next to Gutcha with my back to a boulder, feeling the coolness of the rock face through the sheer fabric of my prisoner’s uniform, my chest heaving as I caught my breath.

  The sound reached a crescendo, and suddenly we saw the glare of headlights as a squadron drove over the stretch of road where we had been standing only moments earlier. It didn’t matter if they were enemies or allies. They were men. I squeezed my eyes closed, feeling the boulder shake against my back, hugging Gutcha closer. After a few minutes that felt like hours, the line of military vehicles passed. The sound of their engines and the crunch of gravel faded away, and we heard crickets chirping in the clumps of grass that grew up the hillside.

&n
bsp; “Are we safe?” Gutcha whispered.

  “I think so,” I breathed.

  No one moved.

  Gutcha’s head rested on mine, and we both gave in to sleep.

  The ache in my back brought me out of restless dreams. I blinked in the morning sunlight and tried to move my head, but my bent neck throbbed in pain. I reached up to rub at the kink, at first confused by my surroundings. Then I remembered the night before.

  Around me, the other women began to stir. We were lethargic and weak from thirst. My mouth was parched and my lips were cracked; I tried swallowing, but my throat felt like it was closing around sandpaper. Erna stood up stiffly and glanced out from behind the rocks. “The road is clear,” she said. “We should get moving.”

  “We could stay here and rest, then move at night?” someone suggested.

  “No, we need to get to that town. We need to get to water before nightfall.”

  Silently, we moved out from behind the rocks. I noticed that not everyone joined us. An older woman was lying on her back in the dirt, her eyes open, unmoving. One of the women bent over and closed her eyelids. Another woman was leaning against the rock, her breathing shallow, her eyes closed. “I … can’t,” she wheezed. Her companion looked up at us and said, “Go on. We’ll join you when we can.” I knew as we left them behind that we would never see them again.

  We started down the stretch of road. Thankfully, the day was overcast and not as warm as the previous day. But still my limbs screamed from dehydration. I felt each step might be my last. I prayed that the clouds would release the rain from their dark bellies, but only a few raindrops fell. When I couldn’t take the thirst any longer, I cried, “How could they send us away without water?”

  “When we get to the town, how will we find food?” someone else panted.

  Erna, who had been walking behind us like a shepherd following her flock, stopped suddenly. “We’ll find out soon enough,” she said, pointing. Ahead of us, a steeple rose against the gray sky. The silhouette of a cluster of buildings was half-hidden beyond a bend in the road.