by APC APC
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Forty miles away on a dreary patch of muddy earth, Westerbork awaited Esther and her family. For hours they had been crammed into a train and forced to stand. Their bodies were packed so tightly together that there was no choice but to sit or lie down.
Esther tried not to think about that first horrible moment of terror when she heard the Gestapo banging on the front door. She knew her grandfather would try to open the door and she rushed down the stairs to stop him. But she was too late. She was only five feet away when the door burst open and her startled grandfather was thrown to the ground, a bloody bruise appearing immediately on his forehead.
“Get outside!” the Germans demanded over megaphones. “You are being relocated for your own safety. Bring nothing with you, only yourselves. Your possessions will be sent after you. Get outside now!”
Some Jews listened, wandering out onto the street with only their coats thrown hurriedly over their nightclothes to protect them from the night air. But some did not, and paid dearly for making the soldiers wait. They staggered out of their townhouses encumbered by heavy bags and other possessions only to meet with merciless blows from truncheons and rifle butts.
Esther saw a child of three or four stripped of her doll and kicked repeatedly in the stomach until there was no air left in her to scream with. All the while, her parents looked on helplessly behind the Gestapo’s Lugers and Tommy guns. Esther could not watch. She wrapped a strip of cloth around her grandfather’s wounded forehead and led him quietly into the street.
The soldiers seemed to be in a terrible hurry and yet once everyone was assembled, they were told to wait while a lengthy roll call was taken. Whenever someone did not answer, an exhaustive search of his or her townhouse was conducted. The Germans had comprehensive lists of all Jews in the ghetto. There was no place to hide, although some tried. Invariably they were dragged out from their hidden rooms and from beneath their mattresses and beaten in the street.
Several Jews whispered that maybe an Allied invasion was imminent. Some of the men were even encouraged by the raid thinking that liberation of Holland’s Jews was just around the corner. But no liberation came. Eventually the roll call was completed, and they were all marched to the train station three miles away and loaded on empty container cars eighty at a time. Sarah cried inconsolably for the first hour. Esther tried to comfort her but there was little she could do packed as they were like sardines in a can.
“It’s all right, Sarah,” she said uselessly. Eventually Sarah stopped crying on her own, and then others took up her sad refrain. After a few hours, Esther felt the pressure of her bladder growing and wondered how long she could last before she had to let go. The smell of urine permeated the train car and she was sure that others had already suffered the indignity of wetting their nightclothes.
Esther struggled against the mass of bodies to see where Sarah, father and grandfather were. Someone cursed her in Dutch. She felt a sharp pain in her kidneys from somebody’s elbow or knee. It was impossible to tell which, and impossible to find her family as well. She could hear them from time to time, but she couldn’t see them. She felt the panic of a growing claustrophobia but fought to control it. They would reunite soon, maybe after the train stopped and they were finally let out. It had to be soon. But the train moved so slowly. The sun was high overhead when they reached Westerbork. The large metal doors opened and those nearest fell out in a flood.
“Men to the left. Women to the right,” the Germans announced over megaphones and just like that, Esther was separated from her father and grandfather. She never saw them again. Sarah was wandering in a daze with a small group of children. She had lost a shoe. Esther wondered if she would be safer with them. Surely the children would be treated better. But something told her that was not the case. Something told her that they had to stay together, no matter what. Their lives depended on it.
“Sarah,” she screamed, daring to dash out of line. “Sarah, come with me.” Sarah seemed not to hear her. She sat down in the mud and looked at her shoeless foot. “Sarah!”
“Get back with the women!” an angry soldier yelled and reached for Esther’s arm. Esther ducked under his grasp and fell on her sister.
“Sarah, it’s me, Esther.”
“Esther?” she said dreamily and then her eyes brightened with recognition. “Esther, what’s happening?”
“Sarah, you have to come with me.” She stood up, struggling to pull Sarah to her feet. She felt someone grab her shoulder and yank her backwards, but she did not let go of her sister’s arms.
“Leave her with the children. Get back in line.”
“But she’s not a child. She’s a woman. She’s a woman.” Esther’s grip tightened. She squeezed so hard that her sister squealed. Somehow she managed to drag her into the line with the other women.
“Leave her,” the soldier yelled again, but soon they were lost in a sea of Jewish faces and the soldier gave up his complaint with a disgusted grunt.
“I will not leave you, Sarah,” Esther whispered earnestly into Sarah’s ear. “No matter what happens, I will never leave you.”
“I know.” Sarah smiled weakly.