by Mark Seaman
“Actually, Gerry I don’t, and yes I do mean it. A kiss and a cuddle’s one thing but that’s the last time we’re having sex.”
Gerry smiled again, weakly this time, realising, at least for the moment, he shouldn’t push his luck, not that it mattered as once had been enough.
Eight
I’ve been trying to write to my Rebecca again, or Mary as she signs her name now. I want to tell her more about my own life and why she was taken from me, but I can’t seem to find the right words to say, certainly not on a few pages of a cheap notepad.
For some time after Sarah died I just did whatever I was told by the Germans, giving up almost totally on my earlier resolve to be strong and in allowing myself to dare to believe there might be something better for my life in the future.
I became like a robot, cutting myself off from any feelings or emotion. It was easier that way, and I certainly didn’t feel able to function as a normal person in any traditional sphere either. How could I with the stench of death drifting through the air both day and night as the smoke rose from the ovens, reducing to ash the cart loads of rotting human flesh that were endlessly ferried to them for cremation. Or as the enthusiastic chatter and laughter of children turned to petrified screams every time the doors closed behind them in the gas chambers. It was like living in the very bowels of hell itself, and the struggle for life we were forced to endure appeared ever more senseless and meaningless. Yes, the natural human instinct to survive still remained, but the reasons for it became increasingly blurred and all but disappeared after a while.
My mother became sick shortly after Sarah died; I think on top of everything else her heart had been broken as well. She missed my father and Joseph so much. I know she also felt guilty she couldn‘t do more to protect me, although I never said anything or gave her reason to think that. The constant look of despair that reflected in her eyes whenever we were together said more than words could ever do.
“I love you, Ruth, but I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t have Papa here to tell me or to help me.”
I would try and encourage her but knew in my heart she had lost all hope and my words of support provided little comfort to someone whose mind was now lost to a sea of misery and desolation.
“It’s alright, Mama, I love you too. Don’t worry; we’ll come through this together.”
One day when we were in the courtyard sorting through another pile of belongings from the new arrivals she collapsed from exhaustion.
I moved to help her but a German soldier standing nearby shouted at me to leave her alone.
“Get away.” It was raining hard and she was lying face down in a mud-filled puddle.
“Please let me take her face from the water,” I begged, but the soldier hit me with his rifle and I fell to the ground with the power of the blow.
He kicked my mother. “Get up, Jewish bitch.”
The other prisoners glanced briefly towards my mother but quickly resumed their work terrified the soldier might focus his palpable aggression towards them at any moment. The rain beat down hard against my face causing me to blink as it merged with the tears now stinging the backs of my eyes. I struggled to my feet wiping my face with the back of my sleeve as I waited to see what the soldier would do next. My mother tried to stand as he kicked her again, but the strength and fight had gone from her and she fell back to her knees in the mud. Just then a cart passed by carrying bodies to the crematorium. The guard ordered two men to throw Mama on to it.
I screamed in protest, “No please, let me help her.”
He pushed me to one side. “Get back to your work unless you want to join her?”
My mother was too weak to struggle. I screamed at the soldier, “She’s still alive, the bodies on the cart are going to the crematorium, you can’t take her there she’s not dead.”
The soldier looked at me for a moment before taking aim with his rifle and shooting my mother in the head. “She’s dead now.”
I stared straight ahead in shock and horror, the rain and tears cascading down my face in disbelief as I watched the mud stain a dark red around my mother’s head.
The men threw her limp body onto the cart without any show of emotion and, anaesthetised as we had all become to such brutality, continued their sorrowful journey to the ovens.
Time stood still as I felt my body shake, not from the effects of the cold and the rain but more from the fact that, in that never to be forgotten moment, I had lost my mother forever in such an appalling way. Even the other prisoners stood motionless as they struggled to absorb this latest display of inhumanity playing out before them. The soldier shouted at us menacingly, his rifle still raised in our direction.
“Schnell, get on with your work unless you want to die as well.” Almost without pause everyone turned their attention back to sorting through the piles of soaking clothes and baggage laid before them, fearful that even the slightest glance towards me offered as some form of consolation for my loss might result in a final journey of their own to the ovens. For myself, if only for that brief second in time, I truly didn’t care what happened to me as I watched the cart, along with my mother, disappear from view. I turned to look at the soldier as if daring him to do the same to me. He recognised the passion and anger in my expression, something he had no doubt witnessed from other prisoners many times before and happily responded to with the same exhibition of brutality that he had demonstrated towards my mother. However, on this occasion he chose to ignore my glare of hatred, secure in the knowledge there was little, if anything, I could do in response to his actions and that enough time had already been wasted in completing the work before us. His tolerance of my obvious loathing towards him only served to emphasise once again the absolute control he and his fellow guards had over me and every other prisoner in the camp.
After all it was they who made the final decision as to whether we lived or died. It was a decision they were free to make at will and without fear of punishment or reprisal. I knew that on a different day and with such impunity extended towards him he would have been just as happy to add my body to that already overcrowded cart of death which had carried my mother away.
After Mama died I simply existed from day to day as though in a fog. My life becoming a downward spiral of increasing hate and despair lived out in equally gruesome and shocking proportions, and one from which there appeared no escape.
The only occasion I can remember as providing any light from the time I spent in that Godforsaken camp, apart from my brief friendship with Sarah, is the day we were set free.
We were all locked in our sleeping areas as usual the night before the liberation, but were aware that something different was happening beyond the traditional end of day routine outside of our barrack walls. I had developed a temperature over the previous few days and had been placed in one of the sick bays to recover.
This was an almost pointless exercise as there was little if any form of medication available within the camp and certainly not for us prisoners. I was scared because so often those who became ill and referred to the infirmary would then be further selected and sent for the ultimate cure, to the gas chamber.
There had been growing rumours for some time within the camp that the Germans were suffering heavy defeats on the battlefront and that our liberation might not be far away. This came as welcome news but many of us also feared that if these stories were true then our masters were more likely to kill us all; so making sure that no-one was left alive to tell the truth about what had taken place in the camp. Our suspicions were further heightened by a growing number of changes in our routine during the days prior to the liberation. The Germans suddenly became even more meticulous and exacting in their schedule as to how their orders were carried out in the running of the camp. There seemed to be an increased sense of urgency to all that went on as things moved at a new and increasingly frenzied pace.
On this particular night as we lay on our rough wooden bunks, fearful of what was happening outside we listened intently to the constant barrage of noise: the soldiers shouting at each other accompanied by loud explosions and the roar of vehicles moving to and fro within the confines of the camp and beyond. We could see fires burning as we looked through the gaps in the planks of our make shift prison and watched as the Germans ran around like an army of demented rats in a state of self induced panic. We also noticed lines of prisoners being marched out of the camp led by the guards along with their dogs who snapped and snarled at anyone who failed to keep up. We fell into excited conversation as we gazed on the events unfolding outside.
“Where are they taking the prisoners?”
“Maybe they are letting them go if the allied troops are really on their way?”
“Don’t be stupid, why would they let them go, to tell what has been happening here? More likely they are taking them to the woods to shoot them.”
“Then why don’t they come for us?”
“Maybe they’ll just set fire to the building and burn us all to death. After all there are many here who are too sick to make it to the forest.”
“Nobody slept that night, frightened by the increasing clamour of noise and apparent confusion outside; also in wondering what the Germans might have in store for us. Suddenly, as if a prearranged time had been agreed amongst the guards and soldiers there was silence. We lay there in the cold as the first light of dawn crept through the slats of wood not knowing what to do or think. We were scared the Germans would come back for us at any moment and mete out some new and even more sadistic form of punishment.
After what seemed like an age and as the light improved we looked at each other wondering what, if anything, we should do. Still nobody came for us, which only added to our bewilderment. After a while one of the women peered out of a small knot hole in a plank by her bunk.
“I can’t see anybody, maybe they really have gone?” We knew the Germans and their cruel ways only too well to trust her early optimism, even though we prayed it might be true. If they had left, then where and why had they gone, and more importantly when would they be back, as they surely would?
As we talked, exchanging various theories as to what might have happened, we heard shouting again, but this time the voices were in the distance, not loud and outside our barrack as they had been for so much of the night. At first we didn’t recognise the language, but knew it wasn’t German. As the sound of voices got nearer and louder a woman cried out. “It’s Russian, they’re speaking in Russian.” We had heard rumours that the Russians were gaining ground near to the camp but had been too afraid to believe it might be true. A few minutes later we watched in almost disbelief as the doors of our barrack were flung open, and there indeed standing in front of us were Red Army soldiers in their camouflaged uniforms.
We discovered later that the Germans, being aware of the impending arrival of the Russian troops, had fled but had also attempted to conceal the evidence of what had been happening in the camp by blowing up the ovens and the surrounding buildings along with any incriminating evidence contained within them. They had also built huge fires to burn the paperwork and corresponding detail of all those who had been murdered in the previous months and years. Apparently some of this work had been going on for a while, hence the changes in routine we had noticed in the days previously. We didn’t know what had happened to the thousands of other prisoners who had been marched away from the camp during the night but, as life in Birkenau had taught us so well, were just happy, for this moment at least, to think only of ourselves and to know we had survived to see another sunrise in this stinking arena of death.
Initial shock and trepidation at the arrival of our saviours turned quickly to relief and joy as we began hugging each other along with the smiling Russian soldiers. We cried, tears of elation running down our hollow cheeks as the freedom we had prayed for for so long and an end to the unspeakable existence we had endured in the camp became a wonderful reality.
I remember one Russian soldier coming towards me and handing me a piece of chocolate.
“Take, it’s good, you will like.”
I couldn’t remember when I had last tasted chocolate or that anyone had given me something simply to enjoy for myself.
“Thank you.” Tears of disbelief and stunned appreciation filled my eyes.
I took the precious piece of confectionary nervously from his hand, unsure at first as to whether he might snatch it back. Then, cramming, into my mouth, I let the sweet taste of the chocolate thrill my senses in a way I had all but forgotten during my time in Birkenau.
“Good, yes?” The soldier smiled again as he witnessed an expression of absolute bliss spread across my face. If I close my eyes, even today, I can still feel the smooth shape of the chocolate as I bit into it and let it melt in my mouth.
The soldier told me in broken English that our captors had fled, presumably fearing for their own lives now they had become the hunted.
“No more Germans. We here now, you safe.” As the reality of what he was saying seeped into my brain and took root I shuddered for a moment as feelings of guilt and joy surged through me in equal measure. I had survived whilst so many others had died and yet how could I not be excited at being alive and able to witness this incredible day? A moment later and with my body shaking almost uncontrollably I allowed myself to break down and weep. It was the first time in as long as I could remember that I had permitted such an open display of emotion, and for the next few minutes the tears flowed as if they would never stop. I cried for my mother, for Joseph, and of course for my father. I cried for Sarah, and all the others who had died in that filthy camp. No more would I be hostage to the threat of torture and extinction each day from the Nazis, nor the ever present infestation of the lice and rats that occupied every corner of this Godforsaken place. It was a shared moment of overwhelming grief and release I’ll never forget. The soldier took my hand to comfort me and I felt myself fall into his arms as he hugged me close, aware of both my sadness and new-found joy, but unsure of what to say.
“You safe now. Don’t cry, you safe, no more Germans.”
I lifted my head, the tears of elation still cascading down my cheeks. “Thank you.” It was all I could say, but those two words, whilst expressing my feelings at that moment, felt so inadequate a response to this man who had literally in an instant changed my life and my world, so obviously for the better, and prayerfully forever. I fought to smile at him as he put a blanket round my shoulders and handed me the rest of the bar of chocolate.
“For you.” I looked up at his smiling face, his deep blue eyes demonstrating an expression of kindness and affection I hadn’t witnessed for so long. I stood, not knowing what else to say, my gaze alternating between him and the chocolate that was beginning to melt in my hand.
“Thank you.” Once more I became overwhelmed by the moment and my tears fell again in grateful appreciation at such a simple act of humanity. After what seemed like an age I pulled the blanket tight around me and, taking another bite of my chocolate, stepped forward into a new and uncertain future, but at least one that now appeared to offer hope, something I and so many others had all but lost during those dark days in Birkenau. The cold morning breeze stung my nostrils as I breathed in deeply but, today, instead of the stench of fear and death filling my senses, there was a new and heady fragrance in the air, freedom.
Nine
Perhaps I should meet with her and hear what she has to say. After all the one truth I can’t deny, no matter how much I might like to, is that this woman, Ruth, is actually my mother. I will always think of James and Carol as my parents of course but I did come from her body and now that we have this loose form of contact I am beginning to feel unless I seek, and gain, answers to certain questions I’ll never really know, nor fully understand, the truth of what happened. And I do want to know the circumstance
s as to how I came to be in this world and why she let me go, if only for Jenny’s sake if and when she begins to ask those deeper questions herself, questions that I can’t begin to really answer without having spoken to Ruth first. So it appears I am left with little choice but to meet with her, but when I think about the two of us spending time together my mind races and becomes confused. What about Jenny? What will she think and how will she react? What if she wants to meet Ruth herself at some point, get to know her real grandmother? I can hold off on that for now but not when she’s older and making decisions for herself? And what if I don’t meet with her? What effect might that have on our relationship when she discovers she has a grandmother who she was never told about even though I knew existed but had chosen not to talk to or to meet with because I had decided to act like a truculent teenager and not consider the feelings of others? Would that be fair to Jenny or Ruth, or in the longer term to any of us? And what if they did meet at some point in the future and got on well together? Do I have the right to deny Jenny, or Ruth for that matter, a relationship of their own simply because I made the selfish choice to shut her out of my life as an act of revenge for apparently shutting me out of hers so many years before? Where is my sense of charity and forgiveness in all of this, what sort of example am I setting for myself and for my own daughter? What if the roles were reversed and it was me asking Jenny to agree to meet up and allow me the opportunity to explain what had happened, even if it wasn’t something she thought she wanted to hear or accept. Wouldn’t I hope she would allow me to tell my side of the story, no matter how unacceptable it might appear to her? Don’t we all deserve a second chance, or at least the right to seek forgiveness, perhaps even to be reconciled?
So, maybe I should meet her; then at least if we don’t get on I’ve tried. I won’t have lost anything, and I’ll know I’ve done the honourable thing and made the effort to learn the truth if only for Jenny’s sake. Who knows, maybe by meeting with her it will confirm my long held suspicions that she got pregnant by mistake as I did but, that unlike myself with Jenny, just didn’t care enough to keep me. At least I’ll have given her the opportunity to explain what really happened, even if I’m not entirely sure I actually want to hear it.