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

by Ellie Midwood

  “Just get better. It’ll be the best payment I can possibly receive,” he merely said, with a timid smile, carefully hiding his gaze.

  Today, he brought me more bonbons. Another transport from France must have arrived. I was in the middle of thanking him for his concern when his hand flew to his cap and he tore it off his head before freezing at attention.

  I swiftly turned around as well and instantly broke into a beaming smile at the sight of an SS man in a gray overcoat. Unterscharführer Dahler was back.

  Only, he didn’t smile in return. As a matter of fact, he had not once acknowledged me with a single look, boring his gaze into Andrej instead.

  “Jawing at work?” He looked at Andrej derisively.

  My smile faltered and dropped eventually. I was suddenly afraid of him again, much like I was in the beginning. He wasn’t Franz at that moment, he was the man with the whip. I saw it twitch in his gloved hand.

  “Follow me. We’ll take a little walk in the woods,” he barked at Andrej and stalked off without waiting.

  Andrej threw an odd look at me, full of longing and unspoken goodbyes and trotted to catch up with the SS man. I made a step after him but quickly realized that it was no use. Unterscharführer Dahler, no matter how romantically my clouded memory pictured him in the past few weeks, was as moody and erratic in his behavior as they came and I was suddenly not too certain if he, in a fit of rage, wouldn’t do me in, along with Andrej, in those woods. Who knew what he had imagined himself from our friendly conversation and my friendly smiles?

  He confirmed my suspicions when he returned soon after. He barked, “In my office!” at me as he passed my station by and locked the door as soon as I crossed the threshold. His eyes were mad with fury.

  “So, this is how you repay me for all I’ve done for you.” It was not a question he hissed at me but an accusation and a guilty verdict wrapped in one – typical Nazi-served justice. How slender and tall he was in that gray overcoat, how imperious and positively terrifying! “You’re too proud to touch my murderer’s hands but you’re not too proud to touch the hands of a Sonderkommando pig, who drags corpses out of gas chambers daily. That you don’t find repulsive. That is acceptable to you because he’s a victim of the cursed Nazis and, therefore, is a much better person just due to that fact. A veritable martyr and a God-chosen man on top of things. Now, that’s a match, every girl dreams of, is it not?!”

  His entire body was shaking with rage. I began trembling too but out of fear that he’d hit me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his fists clench.

  “Well?! Why are you silent?” he bellowed.

  He didn’t have to force his voice under control. Shouting at the inmates was not against the camp’s rules.

  With the best will in the world, I couldn’t squeeze a word out of myself. I wanted to ask whether he killed Andrej or just beat him – his gloves were off and his knuckles were freshly bruised – but didn’t dare.

  The silence didn’t go down well with him. “I asked you a question!”

  I pressed myself into the door. The sweat was pouring down my body.

  “I’m sick, Herr Unterscharführer.”

  “You seem fine to me.” He looked at me with his cold eyes.

  “I have a bad cough. Andrej was only bringing medicine for me.” I extracted a small bottle of syrup out of my pocket and demonstrated it to him along with the bonbons. He regarded it all with suspicion. “Rottenführer Wolff ordered me to go to the infirmary, but…”

  I didn’t finish. Unterscharführer Dahler knew perfectly well what the infirmary meant for the inmates.

  “It was just that, Herr Unterscharführer. Because he works in the Sonderkommando he can organize these things; surely, you understand…”

  “Oh yes, surely I understand,” he repeated mockingly. “I understand all too well how those rats steal everything they can from the Reich.”

  I looked at his watch that I, myself, had given him but I wasn’t stupid enough to bring it to his attention that he and his comrades were helping themselves to everything they fancied from the dead Jews as well.

  “And how did you pay him for going through all these pains?” He spoke with a cruel, sardonic smirk and crossed his arms over his chest. “They don’t do anything for free, those pigs.”

  I could take a lot from him – the shouting, the scornful, cold-hearted remarks, anything really but not such a disgusting, suggestive insinuation. Hot tears sprung to my eyes.

  “You can stop that performance right this instant. Tears don’t work on me.”

  “Of course, they don’t,” I replied bitterly. “Why would they? All human emotions are below you, the master race.” The dam was broken and I suddenly couldn’t stop the flood of accusations that was pouring out of me. “All you know is how to be cruel. That’s why you can’t see the good in other people because there’s none in you!”

  “None in me?” He paled and stepped away as though I had slapped him. “How short your memory is. After everything I’ve done for you.”

  “No, it’s not short!” I wiped my face in helpless misery. “I’ve been waiting for you like a dog. Every single day, every passing hour in this hell I kept thinking about you and yes, about how kind you were to me. Every time Maria would berate me, I would think about you and all her words would instantly lose their power. When I had to go to Hauptscharführer Moll’s quarters to clean his uniform and he began tormenting me, guess who I was comparing him to and thinking what a different person you were. Even with an SS doctor and his revolting personal searches during the disinfection, even him I could survive because I kept telling myself that you’d be back soon and just one kind look from you would be enough to wipe all those memories out. No, Herr Unterscharführer, my memory is definitely not short. There wasn’t a minute when I wasn’t thinking of you, there wasn’t a second when I wouldn’t hope to see you again. And now, you’re back and I wish you weren’t because whatever I was beginning to feel for you, you destroyed. You may as well take me to the woods and kill me, as you did with Andrej. I won’t survive here alone.”

  He let me cry silently for some time, suddenly ashamed of his childish behavior and unsure of what to say to me. I began coughing again. For a few moments, I almost wished for some blood vessel to break inside my lung and kill me right there and then because for the life of me I couldn’t accept the fact that the last person who I had faith in had just turned his back on me in such a cruel manner.

  “You’re really sick.” His warm hand was on my back in an instant while the other one was already digging in the pocket of my slacks. “Drink your syrup! Gott, you sound horrible.” He nearly forced the bottle into my mouth, suddenly concerned. I made a few soothing sips and waited for the medicine to take its short hold, sniveling quietly.

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  I looked up. Dahler shook his head again, seemingly calmer now. “I didn’t kill him. Just swiped him a couple on the snout and told him to stay away from my Kommando.”

  “From me.”

  “Yes, from you.”

  “He was just trying to help. He wouldn’t even take any money as payment.”

  “Because he pursues other interests.” The smirk was back onto his face, but at least it wasn’t malicious like before.

  “You’re imagining things. He doesn’t pursue anything.”

  “I saw the way he’s looking at you.”

  “Herr Unterscharführer, you can’t control the way people look at other people.”

  “No, but I can control the people themselves and what happens to them if they disobey my wishes.”

  “But that’s precisely what I’m saying!” The attack had passed. I wasn’t afraid of him any longer but infinitely disappointed instead. He was no different from the others. He was just like the rest of them. “You are cruel and selfish and think that you’re better than others just because of your Aryan blood! You treat people like they’re mere things!”

  “What rot are you saying no
w?”

  “Rot? Just how is it rot, Herr Unterscharführer? Don’t you control us all? Look at you; you’re mad with fury because I dared to smile at someone other than you. How is such tyranny not cruel? Isn’t it a sure sign of how you consider me merely as your possession? I don’t know why you bother with all these theatrics at all. Why all the presents and sweet words… You don’t have to court me. I’m not German. I’m not a human in your eyes. You want me to be yours – you don’t need me to reciprocate your feelings for that. Just do like your comrades do. Take whatever you want; it’s not like anyone would ever punish you for it. You are the masters of the world. We’re the slaves. You made your position more than clear and I owe you for my sister anyway.”

  He pulled away from me in horror. “What blooming nonsense is this? What is it, an invitation to force myself on you, at any rate?”

  “You don’t need any invitations.”

  “I don’t deserve being spoken to this way.”

  “And neither do I.”

  The silence hung over the room. For a long time he had not budged and then he suddenly turned on his heel and marched over to the window. To my astonishment, I noticed him wiping his eyes subtly, with his back to me.

  That was the last thing I had expected. “Herr Unterscharführer…” I made a hesitant step forward. “Forgive me, please. I didn’t mean to say any of that.”

  “Yes, you did.” His voice was cool and controlled but he still sounded like someone mortally wounded.

  I cursed myself and my long tongue. But who would have expected that he could actually feel anything under that uniform of his, let alone be so affected by some Jewess’ words?

  “I’m glad you said it all,” he continued, staring blankly through the glass. “Now I know exactly how you feel about me. You may go now. I will never bother you again.”

  I looked at the door, then at his stiff back and slowly wiped my forehead. “You know nothing at all about me, Herr Unterscharführer.”

  “I know that you think me to be cruel and vile.”

  “Just cruel.” I sighed. “What else am I supposed to call you? A knife cannot take offense at being called sharp, just like a cruel man cannot take offense at being called cruel, else he shouldn’t act like one. The only difference is that the knife can’t control itself while a man is perfectly capable of choosing how to behave. I suppose it’s not your fault though; sentimentalism, compassion, and understanding have long been considered un-German among your kind.”

  “What kind?”

  “The SS.”

  “We’re not all the same,” he grumbled in self-defense. “I’m no Moll, by any account.”

  “I know you’re not. That’s why it upsets me so when you act like him when I know that you can be so very different.”

  He turned around and regarded me tragically. “I only want you to love me. Am I asking too much? Do you really find me so revolting?”

  “No, of course, I don’t, but…” I made a desperate gesture with my hands. “Look at this; this is not a normal relationship between a man and a woman. I’m afraid to touch you. I’m afraid to even talk to you sometimes because I never know how you will take things.”

  “You’re afraid of me?” He blinked in astonishment.

  I nearly laughed in response. “Is it really so surprising?”

  “Quite so. Just why would you be afraid of me?”

  I shrugged. “You’re the SS. We’re all afraid of you.”

  “Nonsense.” In a few long strides, he closed the distance between us. He looked at my hands, took them suddenly in his and placed them on his cheeks. His eyelashes were still wet. “There. See? Same flesh and blood as you. I’m just an ordinary human under this uniform.”

  Now, you’re saying the very right thing that your own leaders can’t seem to get through their thick skulls, Herr Unterscharführer.

  He slowly removed his hands from the top of mine in the hope that I’d keep them there of my own accord but I dropped them at once. It was a strange moment and I didn’t quite know what to make of it. His skin was so unexpectedly soft but touching him still felt unnatural. He was still the SS.

  He had caught on to that and now stood before me, suddenly vulnerable and irresolute.

  After a while, he began talking. “While on furlough, I wished for nothing more than to come back here and hug you. Can I hold you just for a few moments, Helena?” he asked and, I could swear, held his breath awaiting my reply.

  I nodded, much too quickly. He thought it to be the instinctual inmate’s compliance and didn’t move.

  “You don’t have to agree just to please me. I would never do anything to you against your will. If you don’t want me to touch you, nothing will change between us. I will still protect you and look after you.”

  “You can hold me if you want to. It would do you good. I don’t think your mothers hugged you enough there, in the Reich and that’s the reason for all this now.”

  A fleeting ghost of a smile passed over his face. I guessed by the pitiful sight of it that I was not far from the truth.

  “Did your mother hug you a lot?” he asked.

  “Daily. As often as she could.”

  Slowly, he wrapped his arms around me and rested his chin on top of my head. Unsure of what to do with my arms, I let them hang by my sides. He didn’t seem to protest or take offense at that.

  “I was raised differently,” he admitted softly. “We were to be little soldiers from the beginning. No coddling was allowed, just strict discipline only. When I fell off the bicycle and twisted my ankle, my father beat me with a belt. For crying, not for the ankle. I never cried in front of him after that. Only after he died at the front.”

  “How old were you?”

  “He was killed only a year ago. So, nineteen.”

  “No. When you fell off that bicycle.”

  “Eight.”

  What was one to say to that? Overcome with sudden emotion, I lifted my arms and wrapped them tightly around his waist. He froze at first and then nearly choked-up, with the unexpected joy of being embraced. For a few moments, we stood without moving, without breathing even and marveling at how insanely, maddeningly nice it was, just to be held like this in this hell of a place where no human emotions were allowed for either side and where love itself went up in smoke from the industrial oven’s chimney.

  “How nice…” he sighed, echoing my emotions and rubbed his cheek softly on top of my hair. “If only we could stay like this all day.”

  I didn’t argue.

  He stroked my back gently. “I don’t like the way you breathe. I can hear it. Did you go to the doctor at all?”

  “To the Slovakian one. The pathologist you took me to.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing. He told me to drink whatever syrups were available and hope that it’s not typhus.” I smiled weakly.

  “Do you have red spots on your chest?”

  “No. I check every day.”

  “You do have a fever, though.”

  “A slight one. It was gone before but it’s returned again.”

  “Any abdominal pains?”

  They were well trained to detect the first symptoms of typhus, the SS. Yet, I was grateful that he didn’t move away from me even after I voiced such a possibility.

  “They may be just hunger pangs.”

  “You lost weight while I was away.” He regarded me with concern.

  “I didn’t have an appetite.”

  “You’ll be all right, Leni.” In spite of myself, I was touched, to the marrow, at the unexpected term of endearment, be it just a short German version of my name. “I’ll see to it. Don’t fret. I’m back now and nothing will happen to you while I’m here. I’m an old, watchful soldier.”

  19

  Helena

  The SS doctors appeared unexpectedly, before the morning roll call even and began their usual rounds, checking the general state of the inmates. We, the Kanada women, looked much healthier compa
red to the camp’s general population but they still weeded out anyone, who had the misfortune to sport scabies, sores, or who was foolish enough to break into coughing in front of them, much like I did.

  “Lift up your shirt.”

  I silently obeyed, unsuspecting and still groggy with fever and sleep.

  The SS doctor quickly stepped away.

  “Typhus. Out. Now. The entire barrack – to the quarantine for two weeks.”

  In disbelief, I looked down at my chest and stomach. Yesterday still white and clear, today – a map of red dots. My head swam, struck by the suddenness of it. Just like that, one day you are alive, and the next…

  I didn’t remember being led outside.

  I was oddly calm when the doctor’s orderly pointed me to the truck with the red cross, which they used for driving the inmates to the gas chambers. I only regretted that I didn’t get a chance to exchange shoes with Róžínka, whose sobbing was still ringing in my ears as I was climbing inside the truck. My half-boots were much better insulated for winter than hers and out of the two of us, she still needed to survive it. I also regretted not being able to say goodbye to Unterscharführer Dahler but the officers hardly ever rose before the roll call. Someone would tell him later what happened to me. I only hoped he’d still find it in himself to be kind to my sister after my death.

  The drive was short and morbidly silent. Everyone knew where we were heading and not a single person uttered a word or a cry. I appeared almost like an outsider among the group of striped uniforms and emaciated faces but even then, no one paid any heed to me. In no time, the SS and the members of the Sonderkommando were herding us out. One of them recognized me as a Kanada girl and pressed my hand sympathetically as he escorted our pitiful procession in the direction of the familiar bunker. “Don’t be afraid. Today is a good day, dry weather. It’ll be over quick. Sit right under the hatches in the roof and take deep breaths. You’ll lose consciousness before you know it and won’t suffer.”