The Girl in the Striped Dress: A completely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 page-turner, based on a true story

by Ellie Midwood

  Finishing what was left of my dinner – Róžínka and I managed to smuggle some sausage and crackers from the Kanada today, on which we now feasted – I turned it this way and that in my hands, mystified. It did have my name on it and an insufferable number of postage stamps, with Hitler’s face glowering from them in different shades of blue but I didn’t have anyone to send me parcels. Róžínka scooted closer, poking at the brown wrapping paper.

  “There’s something hard inside.”

  “I’m afraid to touch it,” I admitted.

  “It has your name on it. Maybe it’s from the Red Cross?”

  We did receive the Red Cross parcels just last month but this looked nothing like it. The return address was also torn off and quite deliberately at that. Someone inside the camp must have done it.

  At last, I tore the paper off and found a small box inside. It had Christmas motifs on it – a bit early for that but I suppose they sold these things in Germany already. Around the box, a red ribbon was wound and tied into a nice bow.

  Róžínka and I exchanged uncomprehending glances. Was this some sort of a joke?

  Slowly, I pulled on the red ribbon and lifted the lid. The most heavenly smell filled the space around us, instantly summoning the rest of the girls from their bunks on which they were resting. Surrounded by a great swarm of bodies, I extracted a cookie out of the box – one of many, neatly stacked one on top of the other. A small note was visible in between the cookies and the side of the box. Róžínka quickly pulled it out and hid it in her pocket as I set to distribute the contents of the box among my exhilarated fellow Kanada girls. Only after we ate and only after I responded to all of their questions and inquisitive looks with shrugs – no, I have not the faintest clue as to who sent it to me – did I ask Róžínka for that note.

  I miss you.

  That was all it said, in German, in printed letters as he didn’t want to run the risk of someone recognizing his handwriting. I pressed my trembling hand to my mouth and bent in half, consumed by uncontrollable, yet silent sobbing.

  “Who sent this to you?” Róžínka’s whisper was uncharacteristically cool.

  Who sent you a parcel from Germany? That was the question which she didn’t dare to utter for she was certainly very afraid of the answer.

  “Franz,” I barely whispered in reply. “Unterscharführer Dahler.”

  An interminable, pregnant pause followed. “Why do you call him by his first name?”

  “He told me I could.”

  My face was still covered with my hands. I didn’t see but felt her pull away from me in astonishment. She suddenly didn’t know her own sister anymore.

  Suddenly, I didn’t know myself any longer.

  The following morning, I was knocking on Rottenführer Gröning’s door as it was my duty to deliver the box with valuables and foreign currency to him that day. He told me to sit down and wait while he was opening the boxes – such was the protocol as only he, the accountant, had the key to them. I watched him as he carefully separated each country’s currency into neat stacks and couldn’t help but marvel at how many countries were represented there. There were American dollars and German marks, Polish zloty and French francs, and so many others which I didn’t even recognize. Gröning counted them on his adding machine that stood on his desk and put the numbers into the narrow columns in his accountant’s book.

  Without looking up, he suddenly asked, “Did the boy give you the parcel?”

  I started momentarily but then quickly collected myself. “Yes, he did, Herr Rottenführer. Thank you.”

  “It wasn’t from me.”

  “I know who it was from. Thank you for delivering it to me. I know it mustn’t have been easy.”

  He didn’t acknowledge my words in any other way, only opened the second box and began separating the wedding rings from diamonds and silver.

  I chewed on my lip anxiously but gathered enough strength to ask him at last, “Herr Rottenführer, is it true…”

  Gröning looked up, shifting the glasses on the bridge of his nose. Words suddenly failed me.

  “Well? What?”

  “Is it true that he asked for a transfer?” I barely whispered, thoroughly hiding my eyes.

  “Yes. So did I. Both requests were denied,” he announced abruptly. “No front for us. Not even the Eastern one. He’s out of commission with his knee and I can barely see my hand in front of myself without my glasses.”

  I looked at him, positively mystified and, making use of his good disposition, decided to ask another question. “Why would you ask for a transfer to the front? Isn’t being here better? Safer?”

  “Safer, yes. Better? Hardly.”

  “Why?”

  He looked at me as though I asked something incredibly idiotic. “Come now. Do you truly think anyone wants to see this every day?” He gestured vaguely around himself, indicating the camp, no doubt.

  I suddenly understood why he hardly ever left his office. Gröning pulled himself up as though he’d let on more than he initially wanted to and pushed the empty boxes towards me. “You may go.”

  17

  Helena

  Much like all people who had no personal achievements to their name, Maria prided herself on her nationality. She possessed neither outstanding – or even mediocre – intellect, nor any talents except for inventing new ways of making life harder for us, inmates. However, she took immense pride in her blonde hair which she wore in braids wrapped regally around her head – owing to the neo-Germanic ideal, no doubt and, in her “stately,” as she referred to it, figure. She was particularly proud of her wide hips that “any German woman of childbearing age would be envious of.” She, herself, had no children and had never been married (owing to her former profession, was our common guess) but even this ironic contradiction had not once prevented her from regarding us mockingly up and down before wading through our, miserable twigs’, ranks, like a battleship in between the flimsy yachts.

  She was a most pathetic mediocrity, a former farmhand turned streetwalker, whom the new Reich had placed above professors, physicians, opera singers, journalists, and just decent human beings solely due to her “superior Aryan blood.” It was pitiful and unjust to them but to her as well, for once the Great German Empire will have fallen, she would be left with nothing at all, except for the shattered illusions that she was once someone even though it was in the camp, even though it was only due to her armband of the Kapo, even though it was only due to the fact that we had been forced into the position of being her slaves, just because some madman had decided that a mean-spirited and, unburdened by intellect, German prostitute was somehow better than even the most brilliant, accomplished Jew.

  Out of the entire camp population, I hated and pitied her the most. She could have used her position to help us but all she did was take pleasure in humiliating us, for Maria belonged to the type of people who could only elevate herself by putting the others down. Rottenführer Wolff whipped us only when “the occasion called for it” – quickly, harshly, but without any glee. Maria, on the contrary, acted with the sly vindictiveness characteristic of the naturally sadistic women who demean for the sake of demeaning and not out of a desire to punish for a sloppy mistake.

  Hundreds of baby prams of all shapes and colors had accumulated in the Kanada warehouse in the course of the past couple of months. The transport was about to arrive from Germany to take them all to the Reich and Maria had us lined up outside, in the freezing cold, forbidding us to fetch any warm clothing for ourselves from the barracks. I doubted that Rottenführer Wolff would have permitted us to venture outside without any outer clothing – SS or no SS, they did know what was good for them and always ensured that we were not only clean but healthy – but he was still eating his lunch in his office and, therefore, Maria could do as she pleased.

  “No time to go back to the barracks to fetch your coats, my tender lambs.” She smiled sweetly at our neat rows of five – the usual formation; only, this time we
were a pitiful parade of childless women peering tragically into the empty prams that our freezing hands were holding onto. Maria herself was clad in a warm overcoat and a scarf to make the joke complete. “If you move your lazy tails fast enough, you won’t get cold. Now, make it snappy before I help you find your legs.”

  By the evening of the same day, half of our “baby pram Kommando” was wiping their noses on their sleeves. The following morning, many of us woke up with a fever. Not that it would change anything in our daily routine. In the KZ, a common cold simply meant that one was to work through it instead of staying in bed and drinking tea with honey. Half-heartedly heated warehouses and constant drafts didn’t contribute to one’s already failing health either. I did work through the fever itself, but after nearly a week, I suspected that it went into my lungs and ended up as bronchitis. Hopefully, it was not something worse.

  “You ought to go to the infirmary with that cough,” Rottenführer Wolff commented, observing me closely as I was struggling to get my breath under control.

  I looked at him pleadingly with my inflamed, tearing eyes. It was everyone’s biggest fear here, the infirmary. To the infirmary, people went to die, not to get cured.

  I forced the brightest smile onto my face, feeling my dry lips cracking with the effort. “I’m all right, Herr Rottenführer. It’s nothing serious. It’ll go away in a couple of days.”

  He regarded me with suspicion. “Watch that it does.”

  Naturally, it didn’t. If anything, it had gotten worse and I didn’t know what upset me more those past few days, the fact that I could hardly breathe without nearly choking myself with this dry, barking coughing, or the fact that I kept the entire barrack up at night. Not one of the girls complained or reported this, for which I was extremely grateful but my condition was not so easy to conceal during the day and particularly in front of Rottenführer Wolff.

  I watched his boots approach as I was sitting on the ground, trying to get at least some air into my lungs.

  “You can’t even breathe, let alone work. I don’t know what plague you have but I don’t need you spreading it here. Go to the infirmary. Well?” He nudged me on my shoulder with the handle of his whip, propping me up in an upright position. I managed to get back onto my feet yet would not stop coughing into my hand even with the best will in the world. “Off you go, I said! Do not come back until the doctor says it’s all right.”

  With my throat sore from the fit and my eyes still tearing, I snatched the first coat I saw from the sorting table and stumbled my way out of the warehouse. It was snowing outside. Heavy, leaden clouds hung so low they risked entangling themselves in the high-tension wires. For some time, I stood undecided. I knew nothing of the SS doctors in charge of the infirmary, only that very few of their patients made it out of their quarters alive. There was a chance they could offer me treatment if I had something to offer in exchange. I stuck my hand into the pocket of my slacks and rubbed the golden coin, Unterscharführer Dahler had given me some time ago, between my fingers. How ridiculous and positively terrifying it was, the very idea that such trivial matters as seeing a doctor could have been a gamble with life and death here in the camp!

  They could take the gold and still put my name on the list.

  They could take it and give me something for my cough and very well save my life if I only implied that there was more where that coin had come from.

  They could report me for bribery to the Political Department.

  I shivered against the cold and threw a glance, full of longing, back at the warehouse. There was no going back there now – Rottenführer Wolff had made himself more than clear – and I was too much of a coward to try and steal my way into our living quarters to conceal myself there and hope for the best. With my lungs, fat chance I wouldn’t be discovered within ten minutes, by anyone diligent.

  Trembling violently, though not from the cold this time, I headed in the direction of the infirmary. In the distance, the women’s camp lay. A few of the inmates were digging aimlessly into the frozen ground under the supervision of an SS warden clad in a warm gray overcoat. Her Alsatian’s breath was coming out in the form of crystal-gray vapor clouds. As soon as my gaze locked with the inmates, I at once chastised myself for cursing my fate. Their bare legs, in wooden clogs with a single leather strap on top, were blue with cold under their striped dresses. As if on cue, one by one, they turned and looked at my coat, woolen trousers, and warm half-boots, with infinite longing. They envied me and I – them. They weren’t coughing; not a big deal, at any rate, under ordinary circumstances but a death sentence in the camp. Under the great fluffy flakes landing softly on top of my head, I dragged myself toward the infirmary.

  “Hey!” A familiar voice made me halt in my tracks. I swung around and smiled in spite of myself. It was Andrej, my new friend from the Sonderkommando. He had outfitted himself with a nice sheepskin jacket as well. “Where are you off to?”

  He leveled his steps with mine but walked some distance away from me. We weren’t supposed to be talking.

  “I was sent to the doctor,” I croaked and cleared my throat once again.

  His smile fell at once. “You’re sick?”

  “Bronchitis, I think. I hope.”

  He cursed in Slovakian under his breath. “Go to our doctor, will you? And I’ll try to fetch you something later.”

  “He’s a pathologist…”

  “What does it matter?” He lowered his voice to whisper as we passed a guard’s watchtower. Not that he would hear us but it was a reflex in us, to hush ourselves in front of the SS. “He’s a Yid, just like us. He won’t sign you off at first glance like those Nazis in the infirmary. The SS cure your cases with a shot of phenol into the heart. Surely, you don’t want that kind of treatment, do you?”

  I slowed my steps, hesitating between following Wolff’s order and Andrej’s advice. Sensing my uncertainty, Andrej walked over to me, took me by the elbow and marched me straight to the barrack that housed the Slovakian doctor’s quarters and the dissection facility. They knew the universal rule of the camp, the Sonderkommando; act as though you belong here, walk with a purpose, and you’ll be all right. With the same unshakable confidence, he led me inside, saluted the doctor and reported that my supervisor ordered him to bring me here.

  The doctor put away the report he was writing, removed his glasses and regarded me closely. Recognition flickered in his eyes.

  “Would that be the same supervisor who brought you here the last time?”

  “No.” I grinned, shaking my head. “A different one. I have a bad cough.”

  “Ah. That’s not good.”

  “No, it’s not,” I agreed and broke into yet another fit.

  The doctor listened to the wheezing noises in my chest with a telling scowl and mouth pursed into a thin line.

  “I already told Helena that I’ll bring her something later.” Andrej appeared to understand him without words as well. “Shall I be looking for anything specific?”

  “A cough syrup would be helpful but unlikely you’ll find one among—”

  “The SS has it in abundance,” Andrej interrupted him calmly. The doctor was just about to object to something but Andrej waved that objection aside. “I won’t steal it, don’t fret. I have a man there who will sell it to me for a few dollars.”

  “Well, if you say so.”

  “I’ll go at once.”

  The doctor produced the stethoscope out of the medic’s leather bag that still bore his name sewn onto its silk lining – surprisingly, they allowed him to keep it – motioned for me to pull my shirt up and listened for my breathing for a good minute. Front. Back. Cough. Breathe through your mouth…

  “Not good,” he announced his verdict. “Not good, but not deadly. Sounds like bad bronchitis. Lots of phlegm.” He regarded me for some time. “We could risk having your X-rays done.” He tapped his pencil on top of the papers pensively.

  “Would I have to go to the infirmary?”

&n
bsp; “I’m afraid so.”

  “Is it true that they inject sick people with phenol there?”

  “Not all sick people,” he replied hesitantly. “It really depends on the doctor in charge.”

  “In that case, I’m not going.”

  “It would be best to ensure that it’s indeed only bronchitis—”

  “I’m not going there,” I repeated, staring at the floor under my feet.

  The doctor looked at me sympathetically. “All right. Let’s hope its bronchitis. Is your superior expecting you back any time soon?”

  I shook my head. I doubted Rottenführer Wolff wanted me back at all.

  “I have a room where I sleep, over there in the back. Why don’t you rest on my cot while I’m working here? In the evening, I’ll send you back to your barrack again. We can do this every day until you get better. Herr Doktor hardly ever comes in here. Ordinarily, it’s the medical clerks that bring in the bodies. They’re all reliable fellows. They know how to keep their mouths shut.”

  I found his hand and pressed it in a surge of gratitude. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He only smiled wistfully and patted my hand slightly. Perhaps, he did have a daughter my age who had died here.

  18

  Helena

  After a week, I was back with my Kommando. Never before had I thought that I would be so ecstatic to see the warehouse, never before did I fold the clothes with such ardent enthusiasm to demonstrate my goodwill to whatever superior might be watching. Just to be back with the living, just to show that I’m useful again! Even Rottenführer Wolff refrained from his disdainful remarks and kindly permitted me to keep the bottle with syrup which the doctor had provided me with – well, according to the version which I offered and he accepted.

  Andrej managed to trade positions with someone in his Kommando and could visit me daily now whenever he arrived with the trucks and unloaded the suitcases for us to sort. Each time, in addition to syrup, he succeeded in smuggling a few mints or French bonbons for me to soothe my throat. No matter how I begged him to accept at least some payment for his services, which, I knew for certain, cost him dearly, he positively refused to take even the smallest trinket from me.