“Are you sure? I’ve heard that before,” someone else said.
“No, of course not. No one is sure of anything.”
Almost three days later, the train stopped in front of Buchenwald, and the prisoners were unloaded. Caleb walked beside Ben. Ben’s eyes scanned the camp. His head ached with hunger, his limbs felt rubbery and unstable. Are they planning to kill us? he thought. Have they brought us here to kill us? His heavy eyes searched for a gas chamber or crematorium. There was none. Perhaps they have a more efficient and quicker method to murder us at this place than they did at Auschwitz.
The prisoners were driven like cattle, forced to run as fast as they were able, into large barracks. The room was filled with sickly men laying on bunks and on the floors. The smell of feces, urine, and unwashed bodies was even stronger than it had been at Auschwitz.
Ben couldn’t forget what Caleb had done, but he began to forgive. And slowly his anger faded away. He needed a friend. He searched everywhere for Isaac, but he was unable to find him. Caleb was all he had now.
During the transport, Ben lost his two little toes, but other than that his feet were still functional. Caleb was not as fortunate. His wooden clogs had cut into his toes on his left foot and now the cuts were hot, red, swollen, and oozing pus.
“Your foot is infected,” Ben said.
“It’ll be all right.”
Ben helped Caleb clean the open wound with snow: a thick, ill-smelling pus still seeped from the wound.
“I’m glad I got to know you,” Caleb said.
Ben nodded.
“You still don’t forgive me, do you?”
Ben shrugged. “I suppose I do. I just wish you hadn’t done what you did.”
“It wouldn’t have changed things. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been some other fella. Believe me, I regret it every day. Every day. But no matter what I would have done, we all would have ended up in Auschwitz anyway.”
Ben didn’t answer.
“Listen to me. This is important. It’s something you should know.”
“Go on."
“I have a cousin who works in the diamond district in New York City. That’s in the United States of America. Anyway, in case I don’t make it, I mean in case something happens and I die, I want you to contact him. Tell him you were my friend. Ask him to sponsor you. His name is Levi Mansky. Here, take this.” Caleb handed Ben a dirty, yellowed scrap of paper with Levi’s address scribbled on it.
“You’ll survive,” Ben said, trying to sound reassuring.
“Take the paper. Please . . .”
Ben nodded and took the paper.
“I wish you would forgive me. What can I do?”
“I do forgive you, Caleb. I don’t hate you anymore. I’m too tired and hungry to hate. All I can think about is food. If I fall asleep, I dream about food,” Ben said.
“Maybe I don’t believe you could forgive me because I can’t forgive myself.”
It had been two days since they’d each received a raw potato. At Auschwitz they’d been starving, but at least they’d received ersatz coffee each morning, a watery soup at midday, and a piece of bread at night. Here at Buchenwald, days could pass before they got anything to eat. Then Ben continued, “I’ve even considered eating pieces of flesh from the dead bodies. God forgive me.”
“I understand,” Caleb said. “The thought of it is disgusting, but I know how you feel.”
That night after everyone was asleep, Caleb got out of bed and snuck into the kitchen. He was going to see if he could find some food for Ben and himself. The throbbing in his infected foot was so great that the foot cramped up and he fell, knocking over a pile of empty, wooden containers. A rat who’d been nestled inside one of the boxes ran out and scampered across his head. The noise alerted a guard who came rushing in.
“What are you doing here? You don’t belong here.” Then the guard surveyed the situation. He glared at Caleb. “Stealing, no doubt! You filthy Jew.”
Caleb cowered, huddling into the boxes that he’d knocked over.
“Stand up. Now!” the guard commanded.
Caleb tried to stand, but his foot was paralyzed with pain. He let out a small scream of agony. He’d overcompensated and sprained his other ankle when he fell, and now it was too twisted for him to straighten it out.
“I said get up. How dare you defy me?”
Gripping the side of a box, Caleb pulled himself to his feet. Sweat poured down his brow. Holding on to the box, he tried to stay on his feet. His breathing was labored.
"Show me what’s in your pockets.“ The guard was toying with him.
Caleb showed the guard his empty pockets.
“Hmmm . . .” The guard shook his head. “I don’t like the way you look. You look like a thief to me. But then what can one expect from a Jew, right?” He pulled out a black pistol and aimed it at Caleb. “Goodbye, Jew,” he said, smiling, and fired the gun.
There was only an instant before Caleb’s entire body surrendered to death, and in that instant he thought, God forgive me for all I have done.
CHAPTER 38
A feeling of dread lodged itself deep in the pit of Ben’s stomach when he awakened the following morning and Caleb was not in bed. He got up and immediately began to search for him. But it was not long before one of the other men, who slept in the same barracks and knew Caleb, came to tell Ben that Caleb’s dead body was on top of the pile of dead bodies outside the building.
Frantic, Ben rushed out to see if Caleb might still be alive. A sudden need came over Ben. He wanted Caleb to know that he was truly forgiven. But it was too late. Ben returned to his block alone.
A month passed. Ben grew so thin and weak that he found it difficult to get out of bed. He had no friends left. Everyone he’d known was gone. And he began to feel like he was waiting to die.
Something was happening with the guards. They were no longer the enthusiastic sadists he knew them to be. They’d stopped implementing roll calls. They huddled together in groups, speaking to each other in whispers. It seemed they’d lost all interest in the prisoners.
Then on a morning nearing the end of April, the old familiar whistle sounded. It had been months since there had been a roll call. Over the loudspeaker came a voice: “Report for roll call.”
One of the other prisoners in Ben’s block tried to help Ben to get on his feet. Ben turned over in bed. He shook his head and refused. “I’m not going,” he said. “Let them shoot me. I don’t care. I’d rather be dead than go on like this.”
All the men in Ben’s block left Ben and ran outside. Lying in bed, barely strong enough to move, Ben waited for a guard to come and inspect the block. He hoped the guard would shoot him and finally put an end to his misery. But no one came.
A loud air-raid whistle reverberated through the camp. The sound was so deafening that it hurt Ben’s ears. Prisoners came running back into the block. They threw themselves on the floor and covered their ears.
“What’s going on out there?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” one of the men answered.
Then there was a thunderous roar. The ground shook. Then it happened again.
“We’re being bombed. I think the Allies are here,” someone said.
Ben felt a wave of strength course through him as he forced himself to rise from his bed and walk to the door to look outside. The prisoner was right. They were being bombed. The guards were running for shelter, scattering across the camp. Dead bodies flew like black bats through the air. Fires erupted in angry bursts of red-and-orange flames.
One of the other prisoners grabbed Ben and pulled him to the ground. “Stay down,” he said.
The bombing continued through the night. By some miracle, the block where Ben lay on the dirt floor was not hit or burned.
The night's activities left Ben too weak to move. As the sun peeked her golden head through the gray, smoke-filled sky, Ben still lay coughing. Then one of the prisoners came running into the block. “They’
re gone! All the guards, all the Nazis, they are gone!”
Gone? Ben thought. Then he closed his eyes. The war must be over and I am dying. How ironic. He wanted to laugh, but he was too weak. His eyes began to close. But before he drifted off, two thoughts went through his clouded mind. A milk carton is buried somewhere near the building where Rumkowski worked in the Lodz ghetto. It’s filled with valuables. And somewhere in New York City, America, lives a man named Levi Mansky who just might be willing to sponsor a friend of Caleb Ornstein’s. If I can just live through this . . . I might be able to start over.
CHAPTER 39
Heidelberg, Germany 1927
Ilsa
Ilsa Guhr sat huddled next to the fireplace in the small cottage where she lived. Her stomach was in knots as she gripped the doll her mother had made for her out of rags.
“I’m sorry, Hans,” the small-town doctor said in a somber voice. “It’s too late. We did everything we could for her.”
“I don’t know how I am going to go on without my wife. I can’t take care of the child alone. What does a man like me know about raising a six-year-old girl? I have a farm to tend to and no sons to help me.”
Ilsa could hear the despair in her father’s voice. He had always been a cold man but nonetheless a man she both feared and admired. Her body trembled. She was unsure of what all this meant. Ilsa’s mother had been ill for over a week. Every day she’d sat at her mother’s bedside waiting for her mother to speak, but her mother had not said a single word. And only once during that entire week had she reached out to hold Ilsa’s hand. If only her father would come and hug her. If only he was warmer and she could somehow feel as close to him as she felt to her mother. Ilsa desperately needed someone to talk to, someone to ease all her fears, but her father was not ever going to do that for her. He was a quick-tempered man who was frugal to a fault. And his love for money had prompted him to wait to fetch the local doctor. He had been hoping that her mother would get better on her own.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said.
“It’s not about missing my wife. It’s about the harsh reality of living on a farm. Once my wife fell ill, things got very tough around here. I’ve been exhausted trying to do her share of the work as well as my own. This little girl needs cooked food. She needs to be disciplined. I can’t do it all.”
“You might consider putting the child in an orphanage for a while: at least until you get on your feet.”
“I could, but I need my daughter’s help. She does some of the farm work. She feeds and milks the cows. She churns the butter. It would be a mistake to send her away.”
“You will find a way to make this all work, Herr Guhr. Little Ilsa might be able to do more than you think.”
“Possibly. But I could marry again. It might be the best thing to do.”
“Might be too soon for that,” the doctor said sympathetically. Then he continued, “Perhaps you might want to hire someone to help you.”
“There’s no money for that,” Hans said as he came walking out of the bedroom. Then he turned to Ilsa who stared at him with wide eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, but his voice was cold. “Your mother passed away this morning.”
Ilsa began to cry, but no one came to comfort her. She wiped her tears on her doll’s dress.
CHAPTER 40
Two months after Ilsa’s mother died, her father hitched up their horse and wagon and drove into town leaving ten-year-old Ilsa with the neighbors. As she watched the little wagon disappear down the dirt road, she felt lost and alone. The neighbor lady was nice enough, but she was not Ilsa’s mother. And she had three children of her own. If her father did not return, she felt sure that she would end up in an orphanage. The neighbor's ten-year-old daughter, Margret, secretly taunted Ilsa, telling her that if her father did not return, Ilsa would be an orphan. Margret and her two siblings made up terrifying stories of witches who ran the orphanages. They told Ilsa that they’d heard tales of how badly these witches treated little girls who were unfortunate enough to fall into their clutches.
“And eventually, after the witches are done torturing the children, they eat them,” Margret said.
Ilsa felt terror strike her through her heart.
“Do you remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? Well, they're the same witches who run the orphanages.”
It was a week before Ilsa’s father returned. He had a woman with him, who was younger than Ilsa’s mother had been but not nearly as pretty.
“This is your new mother. Her name is Adelle. We got married in town,” her father said.
Ilsa cowered in the corner.
“What’s the matter with you? You’re acting like a half-wit. Come over here and say hello,” her father commanded.
She was too old to suck her thumb yet she did. Ilsa was unable to speak. She stared at the woman with fear.
“Didn’t you hear me? You idiot. I said to say hello,” her father demanded. He was getting impatient with her.
“Hello.” Ilsa choked the words out. This woman is not my mother. No one can replace my mother.
“You’ll mind Adelle, and do whatever she tells you to do. I don’t want to hear of you giving her any trouble. Do you understand me? If she tells me that you aren’t minding her, I’ll take my belt to your backside.”
Margret was standing in the corner. She giggled.
Ilsa stared at the woman named Adelle. She was slender with a nice figure, but her face was plain, her eyes too small, her chin too pointy. “Yes, Father. I’ll do as you ask,” Ilsa managed.
The woman looked Ilsa up and down, then she shook her head.
“Come on, let’s go home,” Ilsa’s father said.
Ilsa followed her father and Adelle. They sat in the front and she in the back.
That night, when Ilsa’s father went outside to wash before dinner, Adelle turned to Ilsa and said, “You’re fat and sloppy, and I have to admit I’m ashamed to say you are my daughter. You will just have to stop eating so much, and clean yourself up.”
Ilsa’s feelings were hurt, but she just nodded. She hadn’t kept herself clean since her mother passed away. And her hair was a mass of knots because there was no one to help her comb it.
“I’ll bet you don’t have many friends in school, now, do you? Being fat and slovenly like that? I would have to think that your mother was just like you.”
“Don’t talk that way about my mother,” Ilsa said. It hurt her when Adelle said cruel things about her. But when Adelle made nasty comments about her mother, Ilsa was willing to risk a beating to stand up to her.
“And what are you going to do about it? Tell your father?” Adelle sneered. “If you do, I’ll tell him that you are just being difficult. I’ll tell him that you refuse to do your chores. And you know what that will mean, now, don’t you? He’ll beat you until you can’t stand up.”
All through dinner, Ilsa watched Adelle as she charmed Ilsa’s father. He seemed so pleased with her cooking and her soft voice. But Ilsa knew the truth. The woman was mean and hurtful. However, she dared not tell her father; he would never believe her anyway. He would take Adelle’s side.
After dinner, Adelle told Ilsa to clean up. Once she’d finished, Adelle inspected the kitchen. Pleased, she nodded.
The following morning when Ilsa awakened, her stepmother was waiting. She was given a slice of bread and a glass of milk for breakfast. Ilsa glared at her stepmother. This was far less than what she had become accustomed to eating. “This is not enough food. I’ll be hungry,” Ilsa said.
“I have to cut back on the amount of food you eat. You are just too fat, Butterball,” Adelle said. Once she’d finished, her stepmother said, “Now get outside, and start churning the butter. Make yourself useful.”
Ilsa did as she was told. But once she was alone in the barn, she sat down on a pile of hay and began to cry. She hated this woman, and she hated her father for bringing her into their home.
A half hour passed.
“Ilsa, hurry up and c
hurn that butter,” Adelle yelled out to her from the porch. “And don’t eat it all, please. I’m sure that eating that butter is what’s turned you into a fat, little butterball,” she scoffed.
With tearstained cheeks, Ilsa began to churn the butter. She was a chubby, little girl, and it had always been a sore spot for her. Her mother had been kind. She’d promised Ilsa that Ilsa would grow out of it. Now her mother was gone.
The weeks passed. Ilsa felt so alone that when she went to sleep at night she wished she would die before the morning came.
In school Ilsa was withdrawn and painfully shy. In her worn-out clothes that were too small, and dirty, broken shoes, she looked a mess. Her hair was always matted with dirt and knots, and it made a strong contrast to the other girls whose mothers curled or braided their hair. Instead of being kind, the other girls teased her mercilessly.
To add fuel to the fire, every Sunday in church, Adelle called Ilsa "Butterball." She used the nickname loud enough for the other girls to hear. Ilsa was already an outcast, so the nickname stuck. It followed her to school where, to make matters worse, she’d never been a good student. She struggled with her studies while her classmates made up cruel singsong verses about her that they sang while jumping rope.
Ilsa, Ilsa, fat little butterball
Ilsa, Ilsa takes a fall
Ilsa, Ilsa so fat she blocks the entire hall
Ilsa was not a pretty child. Her pale skin and chubby body made her an easy target for the school bully. Her family owned a dairy farm that made and sold butter, among other things. So her dirty, tangled, yellow hair made it easy for them to compare her to a round, yellow ball of butter. The name Butterball stuck. And every time Ilsa heard it she cringed.
The other girls her age, who lived on the neighboring farms, walked home from school together. But they made it clear that they didn’t want Ilsa to walk with them. And when she passed them, they would call out to her.
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