It Rained Warm Bread
Page 4
a single bound.
We feel our way through the night.
Are we going?
We are going,
going,
gone.
AND THEN THERE WAS ONE
We were not free.
But we were no longer inside the walls
of that prison.
We stayed hidden during the day.
We had practiced how to be invisible.
We knew the woods well and
traveled only at night.
We were like lost dogs.
We did the only thing we knew to do.
We went back home.
Kielce.
If we could work,
we could live.
Saul and I had gotten strong.
Our strength gave us purpose.
I stayed close to my brother,
following him around like a
second shadow.
He didn’t seem to mind.
To look up from our work and see
a familiar face was …
everything.
Until.
Saul was out on a work detail
when the wolves showed up
and put me and the others that were there
on a train to Auschwitz.
I did not know that I would never
see my brother, Saul, again,
but I could feel him being ripped away from me
with every chug-chug of the train.
I didn’t cry.
I couldn’t cry.
I had lost the last thing I could lose.
ARBEIT MACHT FREI
When we arrive at
Auschwitz
the gates are opened wide
to receive us.
Above us there is a sign that reads:
ARBEIT MACHT FREI.
WORK SETS YOU FREE.
I wonder how that could be true.
All we have done is work,
and still …
There is a man
handpicking people.
Twins.
Anyone cross-eyed.
Anyone with a cleft palate.
“That’s Mengele,”
I hear someone say.
“They call him the Angel of Death.
He’s picking people for experiments.”
“You,” Mengele says to a boy with a clubfoot.
We watch as he limps off to the right to join a group there.
I stand to the left with my team.
We stare across at each other.
We are silently asking the question,
Do we want to be where you are?
We don’t know.
Neither side is sure which side we want to be on.
IT MATTERS—REPRISE
The wolves have taken everything
from us.
We own nothing.
But then I remember the one thing that is still mine—
my name.
My name is Moishe Moskowitz.
My name is Moishe Moskowitz.
It belongs to me.
And no matter what the wolves do to me,
my name is mine.
I own it.
I make a point of saying my name
to myself every time I think of what I have lost.
But wolves have keen hearing
and they already had a plan in place
to take even my name from me.
They took us to a huge brick building.
Shoved us inside.
We had to undress down to our shoes.
My name is Moishe Moskowitz.
They shave our heads,
our faces,
our entire bodies.
They strip us of our dignity.
My name is Moishe Moskowitz.
We are sent to another station,
where we are branded
with a number.
I clench my teeth
and try to comfort myself
with my new mantra.
My
B-
My name
6
My name is
4
My name is Moishe
7
My name—
They call me
B-647.
But where there is life, there is hope.
My name is Moishe.
And where there is hope. There is life.
My name is Moishe Moskowitz.
IT MATTERS.
THE SOUP PLATE
Each day the wolves serve up
dry bread and black coffee for breakfast.
Lunch and dinner bring
watery soup.
A soup that will never live up to its potential.
A soup with such low self-esteem
it fills itself up with water.
Diluted, it shrinks away from all that it can be.
I carry my soup plate with me
always.
It is a part of me.
An extra limb.
No soup plate.
No soup.
I don’t even notice that it is a plate,
not a soup bowl.
A bowl would corral my soup
with no means of escape.
But a plate
is an open field for my watery soup.
If I do not eat it quickly,
my soup will run to the edge of my plate
and leap off like a wild stallion.
It is not good soup,
but I make sure every drop finds its way
to my mouth.
Hope must be fed.
A GOOD MAN
The wolves come for me.
I can hear their low growl
as they bare their sharp teeth.
I know that I will not be coming back.
Every part of me trembles.
My feet forget what they are supposed to do.
I pull back, but the wolves hold firm.
I can smell my future.
I can smell death.
But before I am dragged across the open field
toward the line of those too sick,
too young, or
too old to work,
a voice calls out—
“Let me keep this one boy.
He is my specialist.
I need him.”
Fritz gives me extra soup.
I share it with my hungry bunkmates.
Fritz is a convict from the prison,
not a Nazi.
They use him and others convicted of crimes
to supervise in the camps.
They are called kapos.
They are a step up from us.
And because they have nothing to lose,
they can be vicious.
Because the kapos are
making sure we stay on task,
the wolves go quiet,
lock their teeth back up in their mouths.
Fritz does not look at me,
my eyes so full of gratitude
it is overwhelming.
I hope he sees the good in me.
In this horrible place
I have found
one good person.
Only one.
But when the wolves come to take you away,
one good person is all you need.
WEIGHTLESS
Today,
we are moving mountains,
those who can.
Hefting rocks onto our shoulders
while the rest of the men and boys
walk in a stooped-over position,
too weak to lift their cargo
more than a few inches off the ground.
I surprise everyone.
I transfer rock after rock,
never feeling the weight of my burden,
and I know why.
From the moment we were separated
I have carried them with me.
My beautiful mother.
My erudite
father.
My rebellious brother, Saul,
and my wide-eyed little sister, Bella.
They are always with me.
I never put them down.
Carry the thought of them in my heart.
I imagine them safe.
Their images seared into the inside of my eyelids,
their voices, wind chimes in my ears.
To be with them again,
that is my hope.
And as my father would say,
“Where there is hope, there is life.”
I tote them around with me everywhere,
the weight of their memory
never so heavy that I would set them down.
I never stop thinking of them.
I carry them.
And because I carry them,
I feel each of them, in turn, reaching out their hands
to lighten my load.
I carry them
and that makes my burden
easier to bear.
DREAM TRAIN
We are finished
for today.
We drag ourselves back to the bunks
in our threadbare pants and shirts.
Wearing (if luck is with us)
old shoes too big for your feet.
Or, if we are clever,
our feet are swaddled in the wrappings
from cement bags.
We trudge through.
It is the only way to get us to our cots.
We are every word for tired.
Some walking with their eyes closed,
letting their feet find their own way.
We are given soup
and struggle to get it down.
We are tired.
Swallowing is yet another task we must undertake.
When my head finally hits the mat,
I close my eyes and sleep comes quickly.
It is a train I have waited for all day.
I jump on.
Grab a window seat.
It will be a short trip.
Morning comes quickly.
My view is always the same.
My mother in the kitchen making pierogi
or turning Bella’s tears to laughter.
My father sitting at the table,
solutions to problems rolling out of his brain
on a conveyor belt.
My brother in his “I’m a man” costume.
It all goes by so quickly,
and then I hear the conductor shout,
“Everybody off.”
It is time to wake up.
Time to repeat yesterday,
and the day before that, and the day before that.
The conductor yells again, “Last stop!”
Everyone begins to stir.
Look at this scene.
My family landscape.
I press my hand to the glass,
try to touch each family member.
It is time to get up.
Time to disembark.
I am always the last one off
the dream train.
CHAPTER 7
WINTER
1945
HIDING THE EVIDENCE
In the night
we hear whispers of the impossible:
“Americans are coming from the West,
Russians from the East.”
The wolves walk around trying to look innocent,
feathers hanging out of their mouths.
Those of us who still have life in us
are marched away at gunpoint
to a faraway camp.
We travel only at night.
The Nazis are thieves,
and we Jews are being stolen.
We feel our way
through the darkness,
through countrysides,
through forests,
and we are given nothing but orders.
March by night. Sleep by day.
No food.
No water.
Our journey looks bleak.
No food. No water.
But we want to survive:
We make our own food and drink.
We drink the dew from blades of grass
and then eat the evidence.
WALKING WITH WOLVES
The wolves are nervous.
There is a lot of commotion.
The younger wolves have left us with the old wolves.
They are worn and tired,
but they are still wolves.
Their teeth are strong.
They march us only at night under the watchful eye of the moon
and hide us during the day like a well-kept secret.
We can tell that they don’t want this job,
they are only following the orders of their pack leader.
These wolves look a lot like us.
They try to make their bodies look small
by flattening their ears against their heads
and tucking their tails between their legs.
There is a lot of commotion.
There is whimpering
and barking.
They seem nervous.
Afraid.
But what have wolves to fear?
And then there is bombing.
Getting louder
and louder
and louder.
I can tell there are some
who are hoping this is the end.
They have no more fight in them.
I am only at the beginning of my story.
If I have to,
I will fight to stay alive.
THE FIRST DEATH MARCH
It is the dead of winter, the dead of night, and
the walking dead.
Someone whispers that we are headed for Germany.
But many know that we are being herded to our deaths.
I don’t know how some of the men are able to keep going.
But then I catch sight of their eyes and see they are
anxious to get to Death’s house.
He is more merciful than the wolves.
Whenever a man falls to the ground,
the wolves yell for him to
get up.
But Death has him pinned down on the ground and
the man cannot move.
The wolves think he is refusing,
but Death’s commands outweigh
anything the wolves say or do.
And then the man lets go
of the balloon that is his life
and it floats away from him.
But it’s not enough to be dead.
The wolves jab at the fallen with the butts of their rifles
or the toes of their boots.
If the dead man remains still,
the wolves move on.
I am not satisfied with either option.
So I fall.
There are so many things that could go wrong
with my plan.
I am in shock.
I’m sure I’m not breathing.
They stab me with a bayonet.
I feel it, but I don’t even bleed.
Weariness and fear paralyze me.
I don’t move.
They kick me.
I still don’t move.
Convinced.
The wolves move on.
I am left for dead.
I am afraid to move.
I wait. And wait.
And wait some more.
I get up.
Everyone is gone.
I’m alone.
The sun is shining as I sniff for food like a dog.
And I remember something my mother says—
Hope is a thing with feathers—
I see a farmer.
The farmer sees me.
My striped uniform is my identity tag.
The farmer turns me over to the police.
His eyes never meet mine.
He doesn’t want the trouble that comes wi
th helping me.
The death march has passed, so I let myself hope
that I’ll be let go.
I think I’m safe.
And then I hear the familiar shuffle of despair.
I turn to see Nazi guards marching by with other prisoners.
They put me in the line.
I march.
Will myself to stay on my feet.
Watch as the thing with feathers
flies away.
CATTLE CARS
The trains stand still on the tracks, snorting like bulls.
We are herded in.
Packed tight.
I am pushed up against the side wall.
I can see out between the boards.
My breath escaping like puffs of smoke.
We no longer know if it is dawn or dusk.
Are we asleep or awake?
The train jerks forward, tossing us about.
We are moving.
Steel wheels clacking.
The outside world goes by in a blur.
Like cattle we stand huddled together
so close that we hold each other up.
We hear a mournful whistle,
long and low.
We cannot tell if it comes from one of us
or the train itself.
THROUGH THE BOARDS
The train stops.
Through the mist we see
a town.
Whispers ripple through the car like water.
“We are in Czechoslovakia.”
We are hidden from the world.
The wolves have eaten what was not theirs
and they hide their shame inside
boxcars.
Through the boards we can see.
There is sky and grass and that thing we all cling to …
There is life.
The wolves stand tall,
hold their guns at the ready.
They hide their shame inside cattle cars.
No one can see us.
We fight for a chance to look out.
We are like hungry kittens, and what we see
is milk.
We squirm and cram together,
our eyes searching blindly,
searching for a bit of light, sky, grass
to latch on to.
IT RAINED WARM BREAD
When it is my turn
I press the side of my face up
against the boards and become a cyclops.
I am trying to see everything.
My wild eye sees one solid thing
among the many things that are rushing by.
It is a woman.
No, a group of women.
Standing.
And my one wild eye knows
that even though we are unseen …
These women SEE us.
They stand still.
They stand out.
They stand up.