The boys had been living in the cellar of an abandoned factory building. The Nazis had sent a group of dignitaries and soldiers around with plans to reopen the factory to produce leather goods for military uniforms. They came in just as Isaac and Herschel were awakening after a long night’s raiding for food in alleys behind small restaurants. They scrambled out a ground level window but a patrol had just been marching by. They each spoke the local German dialect and would have gotten off with no more than a warning, except that a passerby identified them as Jews.
They were quickly loaded into a truck and taken to the rail yard, where they were herded into a pen, to await the next boxcar going east to one of the many concentration camps in Poland.
All around them were fellow Jews, Gypsies, crippled and deformed men and women, and some children. Isaac knew most of them, as they all lived in the same small town. The Gypsies, he did not know. They lived in a camp of wagons several miles east of the town in a field near a river.
“What is happening to us?” An old man asked in a quavering voice. “Where are they sending us?”
Another answered, “I heard a soldier say that they are going to send us to a work camp in Poland.”
“Poland? Why Poland? What is there?” Asked a woman holding the hand of a small child.
The old man just shrugged resignedly, “Poles. What else? Some say they are as bad or worse than the Germans.”
The captives remained in the cattle and sheep pens for nearly three days with no food and just a few buckets for water. A large, mean soldier directed that they relieve themselves in the corner of one of the pens. He gestured with his machine pistol. When a woman went, the men formed a circle and turned their backs. Soon the pens became full and the smell grew.
On the third afternoon, they heard a train in the distance. Soon, it pulled into the rail yard where the engineers filled a tender with coal and the engine with water from a great tank on steel legs. Then the captives were herded onto a siding and forced to climb into several old wooden boxcars. Isaac stayed on the ground and assisted the elderly, and the women and children up and into the cars. Herschel was one of the first in and gave a helping hand also. After his car was full, Isaac started to climb in but a soldier pricked him with a bayonet attached to the barrel of a Mauser rifle.
“Nein! Go help others,” and he gestured Isaac to the next car.
Isaac looked over his shoulder at Herschel standing in the doorway just before a soldier slammed the large door closed and snapped a padlock onto the rusty hasp. He tried to wave to his stricken brother, but the soldier gave him a shove. That was the last Herschel ever saw of Isaac. Both presumed that the other had died in the camps.
After the last car was loaded, Isaac was kept behind. “You are a strong boy. We will have more Jews for you to load,” one of the younger guards told him. “You will sleep in the cellar of our barracks. We will send you on when we are done with you.”
In the dim cellar, Isaac managed to find an old blanket and some straw for a bed. Each day, he polished the soldiers’ boots and made up their bunks. As payment, they usually beat him, though not so hard as to prevent him from working.
One day he noticed a scrap of paper and a short pencil lying on a table. As soon as he finished polishing, he sketched a quick print of the guard assigned to watch the barracks room, a fellow named Dieter.
“What’s that you are doing, Jude?” Dieter asked, getting to his feet. He stalked over as Isaac just handed him the paper, expecting a rain of blows. Dieter just stood there gazing at the paper. “This is quite good, Jude. Where did you learn this?”
Hesitantly, Isaac told him that it had been his job to design the jewelry fabricated and sold in his father’s shop. He went back to making the bunks. That night while he was washing his hands and face in the bucket of water he was allowed in the basement, one of the soldiers called to him, “Jude! Kommest du hier!”
Isaac wondered what he’d done now, what they would beat him for tonight. It had been more than one week since Herschel’s train had departed, and twice he’d help load cars with more people he knew. The last of the Gypsies had been caught hiding in a small copse of trees near their camp. It was rumored that one man had killed three soldiers, although he didn’t see the man they talked about. He had either been killed in the woods or escaped. Isaac hoped it was the latter.
“Yes, sir?” Isaac asked, standing at the top of the stairs, looking around the doorjamb.
“Kommen, kommen,” he said and gestured. It was Dieter with his tunic off, a sleeveless white undershirt over a broad chest. As Isaac shuffled forward, Dieter thrust two newly sharpened pencils into his hand and pointed him toward a seat on a bench at a table. Two other guards sat at the table, at ease, drinking beer from tall steins. “Show them what you can do, Jude.”
On the table was a half-meter square pad of pebbled white drawing paper. Isaac looked from Dieter to the two guards seated across from him. Dieter waved a hand at him, “Go on, show them like you did today for me.”
Isaac sat and motioned with his hands for the two to move closer together. They obliged. One, the taller with silky blonde hair and a broad face, threw an arm over the other’s shoulders. Isaac nodded and quickly began sketching. It only took him two or three minutes to capture the essence of the two friends. His pencil strokes were rapid, no erasing. Once he used his thumb to create a shadow and, with Dieter standing behind him, finished with his name, indecipherable, scrawled just in a line as part of a crease in a tunic fold.
Dieter laughed, delighted at the impromptu work. He yanked the pad out of Isaac’s hand and showed it to the two men. They grinned and pointed, making ribald remarks and laughing at each other’s depiction.
“That is very good, Jude,” Dieter told him and grabbed an end of a loaf of dark bread, jamming it into the boy’s hand. “Now, go. Perhaps tomorrow, we shall have you do more.”
The two models each thanked him, but Dieter frowned and, as Isaac, descended the steps, he heard Dieter admonish the men, “No thank yous. He is our slave.”
And that is how our Isaac was able to stay temporarily alive in an insane world.
Chapter 7
A week later, Dieter called him from his basement and thrust a package into his hand and propelled him toward the door. “Go, Jude. Go down to the rail yard with the others. It is time for you to go.”
Isaac had grown bolder as he spent time with the soldiers while drawing their likenesses on the sketchpad. “Where do you go? Do you stay here?”
Dieter shook his head, “Nein. We are going to France. To Paris.” He gave Isaac a gentle shove. “I will trust you to go now.”
Isaac turned, “Paris. That is good for you. Better than Russia, ya?”
“Oh, mein Gott, yes.” He stood and observed Isaac trudging down the road. “May Gott be with you, Jude. Maybe we will meet again after this filthy war is finished.” All this he said to himself, then turned and began packing his kit.
Isaac was tempted to run and hide, but there were soldiers everywhere. He realized that this town, with its rail yard, had to be a staging area for the assault on France. He wondered if the French would be able to repel the German troops. He wondered about the fighting capabilities of the soldiers he observed. To him they seemed like the average lads he’d known in school or the older brothers of his friends.
Las Isaac walked down to the rail yard, little did he guess what horrors awaited him, and that it would be almost five more years before this war was finally over. Before he reached his goal, he paused and unwrapped the package Dieter had given him. Inside were a large crust of black German bread, some pieces of smoked sausage, and most of an apple. In his pocket he carried a beer bottle filled with water and capped with a piece of cork. As long as he didn’t have to wait too long in the rail yard, he would eat and wet his throat.
“Jude,” a voice called. It was one of the junior soldiers from the barracks, one whose picture he’d drawn.
“Ya?” he answered, w
ith a wave. It was the shorter of the two from his first night. Isaac couldn’t remember his name. Rolf, or Reinhardt, or something like that.
“Get along with you! Hah, you go east and we go west. Perhaps it is you who will be fighting the Russians.” He swung open the gate for Isaac and ushered him inside. There were fewer people here this time than in the three other times he’d been here.
He looked across the boards at the soldier, “So few?”
The soldier nodded sadly. “There are no more Jews in this district. We got them all.” He said this as if it were just a job like herding sheep or goats.
In truth, Isaac decided, it was like herding sheep. The Jews rarely fought back, did as they were told, and were led off to this Poland place docilely. Isaac vowed that if he survived this war, he would never go docilely anywhere ever again. They would have to drag him screaming and kicking, and he would take as many of them as he could along with him.
“I hope you enjoy Paris. I heard that it is a beautiful city.” He actually hoped that a French bullet would take every German soldier before they even had a chance to cross the border, but knew that was a forlorn hope.
Inside the enclosure, he sat on a pile of wood with several other men. Two of them were smoking pipes and discussing Poland. He introduced himself, “Hello. I am Isaac Rothberg. Are you the last of the Jews here?”
One introduced himself as Shlomo Krackour and the other as Abraham, his brother. They were both in their late forties or early fifties, very fit. Abe frowned and asked Isaac if he was from the Rothberg family that owned the jewelry store.
“Yes. My brother and I were all that was left. Hershel was sent away a couple of weeks ago. Do either of you know Poland?”
Shlomo gestured to Abe. “My brother was there several years ago to buy some cattle. We are farmers. Well, we were farmers.” He snorted, “I don’t know what we are now.” He puffed on his pipe.
Isaac asked, “Do you think we are being sent there to work?”
Shlomo snorted again, “If we are, it will not be for long. There are plenty of Polish workers.” A quiet gloom settled over the group.
Isaac looked about and surveyed the three or four dozen people gathered in the pen. Most were robust men and women, obviously from the outlying farms and mills. There were some children, but only a few older ones, boys and girls in their early teens.
“Where are the younger kinder?” he asked.
“Gone,” said Abe. “We sent them away when we heard the stories of the beatings and killings. Mine, to some family we have in Switzerland. Shlomo doesn’t have any, though. He was too ugly to get a wife.” He clapped his brother on his shoulder good-naturedly.
They sat and watched a locomotive enter the siding, pushing three ancient boxcars. As soon as it stopped, the guards started yelling, “Schnell! Mach schnell! Kommen, Juden!” One guard slid back the door and the people headed toward the cars, dragging bags and bundles.
Isaac hurried to help as he’d done before. He recognized one of the younger soldiers from the times past. He was about Isaac’s height but broader and had his head shaven at the same time attempting to grow a small moustache. He was a cruel man who screamed and delivered blows to anyone too slow for his liking. Isaac recognized his accent as coming from Emden, a seaport on the north coast. It was said that inhabitants of Emden were low-class fisher folk, stevedores, ship builders. Isaac had rarely met folk from Emden but this man was distinctly from a low class, a thug.
Isaac was helping a family into the car while the soldier stood behind the screaming and shoving. One daughter, a rotund girl, had trouble climbing into the high rail car. Her mother was pulling on her arm but couldn’t manage to lift her. As Isaac stepped in to help, the guard reached out with his bayonet and slit her dress from waist to neck. The dress fell to her waist, exposing her breasts, then slipped down until she was clad only in a large pair of cotton knickers. She was humiliated and pulled her hand free, attempting to cover her nakedness. Her father scowled and said something to the soldier about how he should be ashamed of himself.
Before Isaac could warn the sturdy farmer, the soldier lunged forward and stabbed him in the abdomen with the bayonet. There was a look of utter surprise on the fellow’s face. He clutched his stomach and stared down at the blood pouring between his fingers and spattering on his naked daughter. With a puzzled look, he toppled to the ground between the girl and the soldier. The soldier spat on the body and reached out and squeezed the daughter’s plump breast, laughing.
The mother screamed and drew back against the throng already inside. Isaac hurriedly boosted the girl by her wide bottom into the car with all his strength. Just as he grabbed the side to propel himself inside, another soldier stuffed the remnants of the dress into his hand. Isaac looked over his shoulder and nodded at him. After he was inside, the door slammed, and he heard the snick of a lock closing. Isaac looked between the loose planks that made up the sides of the car. The soldier stood with his foot on the dead man’s broad back.
“I will never forget you, you motherless pile of pig dung,” Isaac vowed. Someday.
Someday.
Chapter 8
The old locomotive pulled out of the yard, the three cars clanking along behind. As they rolled along, they frequently had to pull onto sidings to allow the faster troop trains to pass, going in the opposite direction, carrying soldiers to the French front. It was May, and the weather was just starting to feel warm. Behind him the girl’s mother had her covered up, her torn dress held together with hair clips and safety pins.
Since this car was not too full, there was room to sit. A battered container of water was affixed to the wall just inside the door. In a corner was another, a wooden bucket, obviously meant for them to use when they needed to relieve themselves.
Slowly the train chugged east. Once a day, the train stopped and the soldiers allowed one man to alight from each car and toss the contents of the slop bucket into the ditch running alongside the tracks. When they were at a station or near a creek or rivulet of flowing water, the guards would let them refill the water containers. Some of the guards were nasty, others indifferent, and none friendly. By now the Jews had been dehumanized, marginalized. The military considered them, if they considered them at all, a hindrance to their conquest of the world. The civilian population had been brainwashed to believe that the Jews were responsible for all the ills that had befallen the Reich since the Great War. Their homes and businesses had been confiscated, their personal property, artwork, and savings taken “for the good of the Reich.” The people themselves had been uprooted and sent to work camps, most in other captured countries.
All through the days, Isaac looked through the gaps in the car walls. He wasn’t sure when they crossed the border into Poland but the scenery changed subtly. There were bomb craters, burned buildings, a number of destroyed vehicles on and off the roads. He could see tank tracks over crushed autos and alongside cobblestone streets. The blitzkrieg must have taken the Poles by surprise, although the buildup along the border had not been very well concealed. It had taken the Germans a mere thirty-six days to defeat the Polish army. It helped that the Russians had invaded from the east, leaving the Poles squeezed between two powerful armies.
Now Poland was a part of the Third Reich in the west and annexed to Russia in the east. Though France and England had treaties with Poland to come to her aid, they did nothing. Some Polish forces escaped to neutral Romania, though that neutrality wasn’t fated to last.
As they left the border behind, the train traveled through a surprisingly untouched countryside. People worked in the fields, and the occasional town they passed through was unscathed. At least three times a day they were shuttled to a siding to allow newer and faster trains, usually loaded with German troops headed east. Isaac wondered why the troops were going east. He knew that Germany had a non-aggression pact with Russia.
The ancient train slowed again, late in the afternoon on a darkly overcast day. The internees were wea
ry of the constant rattling, starting, and stopping. The last day, there had been no water and, of course, no food. The slop bucket was overflowing onto the floor and the stench was horrible. Isaac and the man beside him, Zvi, jostled for a look out the gaps in the slats. They expected another siding but this time about a quarter mile away was an old fort that looked like it had been built during the crusades. The stonework was crumbling in places, but in others, fresh cement work was evident.
The track ran past the entrance, which was fronted by a drawbridge. Several guards stood before the gate, rifles held across their chests, inscrutable looks on their lean faces. Two of their guards alighted from their car in front and started screaming at the prisoners to hurry. They unlocked the padlocks and slid the doors open. Zvi and Isaac jumped down and turned to help those behind them. The people crowded the doorway and poured out, anything to escape the stench and crowding. The men helped the women and children until all were out, their personal bundles piled around their legs.
The guards pushed and yelled for them to form a line of twos, then marched them through the gate and into the courtyard. It was paved with stones worn smooth by centuries of feet, high walls towering above. The group halted and was again divided into men and women. They were directed by an officer to deposit their belongings on a large cart to one side of the gate. The men were directed to the right and the women and children to the left. Two soldiers, a man and a woman sat at each table, large pads of paper poised before them.
“Your name, your age and your former profession,” directed the woman in a monotone.
Isaac was several back from the front of the line. He watched the women’s line inch forward. Any woman with a child was automatically directed to a dark doorway behind their table, as were the elderly, fat or emaciated. The male officer appraised the remaining younger women. He made gestures with a flick of his wrist.
The woman soldier instructed these women to disrobe. She seemed alternately nasty and fearful. The women prisoners were unsure of what to do, until the officer stood and shouted, “Disrobe! Take your clothes off, you worthless bitches!”
Long Lost Brother Page 4