The Plum Tree

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  At last, the train started to slow. The iron wheels caught and screeched, caught and screeched. As they got closer to their dreadful destination, the occupants of the boxcar grew agitated. People tried to change positions. Everyone tried to talk at once. Children cried, and men gave instructions. Isaac had been anxious and quiet during the long trip, but now he lifted his chin and yelled above the commotion.

  “When we get off the train,” he shouted, “we’ll be separated. Women to one side, men to the other. But don’t panic. They don’t like it when you panic.” Everyone in the car grew silent and listened. “Look calm and strong. No matter what they do, act strong. If you want to survive, you have to look like you can work hard. If you need to, lie about your age, tell them you’re somewhere between eighteen and fifty.”

  “How do you know these things?” a man’s voice shouted.

  “I’ve been here before, and if I can survive, so can you.”

  Again, everyone started talking at once. Isaac looked down at Christine. “You’ll survive this too. You’re young and strong. Tell them you’re not Jewish. Tell them you worked as a cook. That will save you. I need you to survive. Someday when this is over, you and I will be together. We’ll find each other. We’ll get married and have babies.”

  His eyes were wet with tears, but Christine felt a strange sense of joy and strength hearing his words. He still had hope. He’d found the will to survive.

  “I’ll be strong,” she said. “I promise.”

  “Until we meet again,” he said, taking her face in his hands. He kissed her long and hard, not taking his lips from hers until the train came to a complete stop. “I love you, Christine.”

  Then the iron latches lifted, the boxcars were unlocked, and the heavy doors slid open.

  CHAPTER 23

  Blinking and squinting against the enormous spotlights that lit up the night like brilliant fallen moons, Christine and Isaac, along with the rest of the exhausted captives, climbed down from the confinement of the cattle car. A few hundred yards from the tracks, centered between wooden watchtowers and high wire fences, the gates to the concentration camp Dachau stood open and waiting. A row of soldiers equipped with submachine guns and barking German shepherds stood prepared to redirect strays. Long, shadowy buildings and black uniforms darkened in contrast to the artificial white light. With surreal clarity, wide, dark eyes and animated mouths looked like shifting black holes in pallid faces, giving captors and captives alike the illusion that they were the dead come to life.

  The smell of something burning replaced the stench of the boxcars. Christine put her hand over her nose and mouth. Recognizing the distinct odor of burning flesh, she fought back the urge to vomit. She looked along the tracks toward the hissing, wheezing engine and saw hundreds of people spilling onto the gravel beside the train. Several people fell out; some refused to come out by any means. A handful of soldiers climbed into the boxcars and pushed out women, children, and old men. On the platform, men carried suitcases and women carried small children on their hips, holding tight to the hands of older siblings. Piped over loudspeakers from inside the camp, a German waltz played into the cool night air. The music sounded metallic, abrasive, haunting, yet eerily carefree. Signs that read: “Achtung Gefahr der Tötung durch Elektrischen Strom,” “Warning: Danger of Electrocution,” hung from high electric fences topped with coils of barbed wire. Above the main entrance, a welded iron sign read “Arbeit Macht Frei”: “Work will make you free.”

  The soldiers had started yelling as soon as the doors to the boxcars slid open, and now they continued, nonstop. “Move! Get out of the train! Leave your luggage beside the train. It will be delivered to you later, after you’ve settled in.”

  A dozen prisoners in gray and white striped uniforms handed out pieces of chalk, instructing people to write their names on their suitcases. Christine and Isaac had nothing but the clothes on their backs, but she knew it didn’t matter. Isaac had told her they would take everything. She knew the soldiers were lying, trying to make the newly arrived inmates believe they could trust their captors, so they wouldn’t cause trouble.

  She and Isaac walked beside the boxcars within the horde of shuffling, murmuring people, and suddenly she remembered how her father had ducked under the train and escaped. When they reached a gap between the cars, she looked through the opening, toward dark fields edged by forest. A spark of hope sent electric currents through her body, and for an instant, she felt elation. But just as she was getting ready to suggest a plan to Isaac, she saw an armed soldier walking on the other side. The crush of helplessness returned. Evidently, such an escape had been attempted before.

  Christine and Isaac gripped each other by the hand and entered the line of people trudging between the gates of the camp. Just inside the main entrance, six guards stood at the head of the line, pushing the men to one side and women and children to the other.

  Ahead of them in line, she saw the boy and his mother. One of the guards pried the boy from his mother’s arms and took him to the left with the men. Mother and son reached for each other, fighting desperately not to be separated. The other women held the mother back as the guard dragged the boy away, but she broke free and ran to him. When the guard saw her, he pulled out his Luger and held it to the boy’s head. Another guard dragged the mother back into line with the women. She shrieked, each scream longer and louder than the one before, shouting his name until her cries became ragged and hoarse.

  The guard kept the gun to the boy’s head, eyes scanning the crowd, daring them to try something. Horror flooded Christine’s esophagus, and her throat felt sore, as if she’d just swallowed a mouthful of jagged ice.

  The guard was Kate’s boyfriend, Stefan.

  For a brief second, their eyes met, and a flash of recognition crossed Stefan’s face. Before Christine could open her mouth and point him out to Isaac, Stefan disappeared into the crowd, taking the crying boy with him. Two sounds rapidly intensified in Christine’s ears: the devastated mother’s guttural wails of anguish and the tinny resonance of the soaring, whirling waltz. She closed her eyes and leaned against Isaac. How can this be happening? she thought. A block of icy terror settled deep in the pit of her empty stomach. Maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe I’m having a nightmare.

  Christine and Isaac reached the guards. Before she knew what was happening, she was being pushed to the right with the women. They were separated, and Isaac was getting farther and farther away. She couldn’t remember letting go of his hand, and she tried desperately to remember the feel of it, the warmth and width of it in hers. She berated herself for not clinging to him, for not taking in and remembering the feel and the scent of him for as long as she could. Everything was happening too fast. Sent deeper and deeper into the yawning void of the camp, they watched each other as long as they could, until long, dark buildings and high fences came between them.

  Christine tried not to hyperventilate as two female SS Unterscharführers, “Under Group Leaders,” herded the women into a large building lined with wooden benches. Emaciated female prisoners holding oversized scissors waited silently behind the seats. They wore ill-fitting striped uniform dresses, and their hair was stubble short and ratted. They looked at the newcomers with sunken, vacant eyes, the skin of their faces stretched taut over their cheekbones, their collarbones jutting from their chests.

  “Sit down!” the Unterscharführers ordered the incoming prisoners.

  Almost before Christine had obeyed, the woman prisoner behind the bench had pulled her long, blond hair into one hand. In one big chunk, she cut it off with the scissors. Christine could hear the dull blades chewing through her hair, like a rat chewing through a wall. She could feel the woman’s hands shaking as she held up what was left of her hair and cut it off, just half an inch from her scalp. Then, with a razor, the prisoner shaved her head. Christine closed her eyes.

  The Unterscharführers walked back and forth between the benches yelling orders. “After your hair is cut, stand up, move
to the rear of the building. There, you will undress. Put your shoes in the pile to the left, clothes in the pile to the right, watches and glasses in the center.”

  Christine stood and ran her hands over her bald head, her fingers running over alternating patches of stiff stubble and smooth skin. On trembling legs, she walked to the rear of the building, toward the growing piles of shoes and clothes. There were other piles to either side, but at first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The towering heaps looked like giant masses of wire or tangled yarn. Then, her breath seized in her chest, and she looked away. In the two back corners of the room, mountains of human hair went nearly to the ceiling.

  She took off her high, black shoes and tossed them on top of thousands of dress heels, winter boots, and pairs of leather footwear. Then, she took off her clothes and cast them on the pile of peasant dresses and tattered aprons mixed in with fur coats and silk chemises. Teeth chattering, she tried to cover herself with her arms and hands.

  “Come on, you filthy pigs!” the Unterscharführers yelled. “Take everything off! You’re going to get the first real shower you’ve probably ever taken! Move it! Come on! Don’t be shy!”

  When everyone had been shorn and had undressed, they stood there, over a hundred of them, naked and shivering, like something out of a nightmare: bald heads, wide and frightened eyes, protruding ears . . . old women, young women, fat women, skinny women, little girls, and little boys. They all stood there together, wondering what was going to happen next. This can’t be real, it just can’t be, Christine thought. How is this possible? How did I get here?

  “Line up!” the Unterscharführers said. “We’re going to clean you up!” They opened a wide set of doors that led into a windowless, concrete room.

  Inside the long, gray space, multiple nozzles protruded from the ceiling, and metal drain tiles lined the center of the concrete floor. The Unterscharführers used their truncheons to herd the women through the doors, dealing blows to anyone who didn’t move fast enough. Some of the women held on to one another and sobbed, their desperate cries echoing in the hollow, empty room. Some walked in without a sound, while others prayed and whimpered. Mothers with babies and small children held them in their arms and hummed in their ears, their eyes locked on the nozzles in the ceiling. Evidently, Christine wasn’t the only one who’d heard the stories about people being gassed. She wanted to turn and run, but the guards had pistols strapped to their sides.

  After the Unterscharführers had shoved the last woman into the cold, damp room, they shut and locked the doors. Shaking and covering themselves, the women and children looked at each other, silent and waiting. They heard a screech of metal. Pipes banging. Then the showers came on. Women screamed. A few clawed their way toward the doors.

  When they realized it wasn’t gas or chemicals, they laughed and smeared the water over their faces and heads. But it was mixed with a disinfectant that burned their eyes and made them cough. Christine held her head down and closed her eyes, the water burning her nostrils. After a few minutes, the doors on the other end of the room opened. She could hardly see as they were led into the next room, blinking and spitting. She wiped at her eyes, stumbling and colliding with the others. No one spoke, but she felt an arm link through hers, a uniform and a pair of shoes pressed into her hands.

  “Do not put on your uniforms until after you’ve been examined,” a voice shouted. Christine used the uniform to wipe her eyes and face. She pushed her feet into laceless, rigid shoes. By then, the arm that had helped her along was no longer there. She looked at the women nearby and tried to convey her gratitude with a weak smile.

  On the other side of the room, two Gruppenführers and a man with a stethoscope waited beside a table. One by one, the women were questioned while a soldier wrote down their information and the doctor looked into their mouths, eyes, and ears.

  Then the doctor pointed, to the left or to the right.

  The ones sent to the right, the healthiest-looking adults, slipped their uniforms on over their heads. The ones sent to the left, the old, the sick, and the very young, were instructed to put their uniforms and shoes into a pile. Toddlers and babies were yanked from their crying mothers’ arms and handed to the people being sent to the left, before they were led naked through another wide set of double doors, where they vanished.

  Christine stepped up to the men, clutching her dress to her chest.

  “Name?” one of the Gruppenführers asked.

  “Christine Bölz,” she answered in as strong a voice as she could muster. “I’m not Jewish.” The Gruppenführer laughed. She looked straight ahead.

  The doctor, wearing thick, black glasses that made his eyes look oversized, looked into her eyes and mouth, breathing heavily through his open lips, his face just inches from hers. His hot breath, sour with the smell of strong coffee and tooth decay, swept over her face.

  “Address?” the Gruppenführer asked.

  “Schellergasse Five, Hessental.”

  “Occupation?”

  “I am a domestic servant, in charge of gardening, housekeeping, and cooking. I shouldn’t be here. I was falsely accused of helping a Jew.” The words were like acid in her mouth. But she knew Isaac would understand.

  The second Gruppenführer came over to get a closer look.

  “Can you cook proper German food?”

  “Jawohl! Yes, indeed!” Christine answered. “I’m a very good cook, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  “Lift your arms,” the doctor said, making a turning motion with his finger. Christine lifted her arms and turned.

  “She will replace Lagerkommandant Grünstein’s cook!” the second Gruppenführer said to the man who was taking down names and information.

  The doctor pointed to the right.

  Danke, Isaac, she thought, heaving a shudder of relief. She slipped her uniform over her head and went into the next room. There, the incoming women held out their arms while more female prisoners tattooed numbers on the inside of their wrists. When it was her turn, Christine stared at the girl looking intently at her work. She never felt the number being needled into her right forearm. When it was over, the girl smiled at her, her remaining teeth rotten and yellow. Christine looked down at the black and bloody number near her wrist: 11091986.

  “Keep it clean, or it’ll get infected,” the girl said.

  A female Blockführer, block leader, approached Christine. “Follow me!”

  Christine hurriedly fell in behind her and followed her outside. They walked toward the rear of the immense complex, passing hundreds of wooden barracks and working prisoners. After a while, they came to a small, half-timbered house surrounded by a high, metal fence. The dark, soft mud that seemed to cover the rest of the camp stopped short at the outside perimeter of the enclosed space. The house, lit up by miniature spotlights from various directions, was simple and neat, but in the bleak compound it stood out like a shimmering gem in a pile of coal dust. Waiting for the Blockführer to open the gate, Christine looked at the yard surrounding it. In the false daylight of the spotlights, she could see smooth, green grass, purple coneflowers along the porch, and two clay pots filled with red geraniums on either side of the front door.

  Inside, Christine followed the Blockführer to the rear of the house, past rooms filled with framed paintings, Persian rugs, and antique furniture. At the island counter in the spotless white kitchen, a middle-aged prisoner stood peeling potatoes, her drawn, thin face expressionless, her eyes fixed on the potato in her hand. When she looked up and saw them standing there, her eyes widened; the corners of her mouth turned down.

  “Your job is finished here!” the Blockführer barked.

  The woman dropped the knife and the partially peeled potato, her face contorting in fear. “Nein,” she muttered, starting to weep.

  “You’d better know how to cook, or you won’t last long, either,” the Blockführer warned Christine. Then she grabbed the woman by the wrist and dragged her out of the house.

  Chris
tine stood in the center of the kitchen and tried to clear her head. She needed to get her wits about her if she was going to survive. She took a deep breath, walked over to the stove, and lifted the lid on a boiling kettle. Inside, a thin, watery broth bubbled around a pale chunk of brown meat. It was a piece of pork. She could tell it was missing seasonings and spices, so she searched the cupboards and found rosemary, salt, and pepper. There was a bag of onions in the lower cupboards, so she sliced one up and added it to the broth. Then she cut two strips from a side of bacon she’d found wrapped in brown paper, and added them to the pot.

  Trying to ignore the cramp and growl of her empty stomach, she finished peeling the potatoes and put them on to boil. There were carrots on the counter, so she peeled and shredded them into a bowl, all except one. She hid the extra carrot in the pile of peelings and took small bites of it, keeping her ears open and one eye on the kitchen door. Then she added vinegar, oil, and a heaping tablespoon of sugar to the shredded carrots. With the carrot salad finished, she just stood there, panicked, not knowing if what she had done would be right. She had no idea what kind of person would be coming home to sit at the single place setting in the dining room.

  She sat on a stool next to the woodstove and tried to collect her thoughts. She put her head in her hands, staring at her filthy, tattered shoes. She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, blowing her breath out through her mouth. After a few minutes, she sat upright. She pulled her feet from her too-small shoes and examined the red bumps on the back of her heels, her skin already forming raised blisters. Maybe I should go barefoot while I’m alone here, she thought, relieved to realize that she was still capable of rational thought. Then she heard footsteps coming across the porch. The door handle rattled and turned. The front door opened and closed.

  She pushed her feet into her shoes, got up from the stool, and wiped her face with the palms of her hands. Footsteps were coming down the hall, toward the kitchen. She heard a man sigh and mutter under his breath, and the tight creak of leather boots. She hurried over to the counter and gathered the potato and carrot peelings into a pile. The door to the kitchen swung open. She kept her head down, her eyes on the task in front of her. The heavy boots stopped beside her. A thick, age-spotted hand rested on the counter, and an overpowering scent of Kölnisches Wasser 4711 filled the room.