My Mother's Ring: A Holocaust Historical Novel

by Dana Fitzwater Cornell

  We had no choice but to overlook the doubts consumed by our minds. We had to follow the orders we were given. If we didn’t, we knew what the consequences would be. We had all seen what had happened to dissenters during previous deportations. So, we moved in a fast-forward pace, rushing to the railroad tracks where cattle cars, not commuter cars, were standing idle waiting for us to board. During the massive surge forward, the elderly, the ill, those pushing baby carriages, and families that were delayed trying to find each other, fell behind. This “purposeful delay” was unacceptable to the Germans. A few people dropped their bundles or kicked them along if they were too heavy to carry. Looking behind me, I saw guards thrusting their batons and their fists across the backs of many such stragglers. A woman with snow-white hair curling out of her shawl and skin painted with wrinkles scooted along dragging her suitcase on the ground, her back hunched from osteoporosis. She looked to be a very gentle spirit, someone I imagined I would have enjoyed having as a grandmother. She was moving as fast as she could, probably faster than she had moved in decades, but the guards considered her pace to be too slow. As she scooted up to one guard, becoming level with him, he pulled his baton from the holster around his belt, reached it upwards, and thrust it across the poor woman’s shoulders. She wilted from the pain and fell to the soil, motionless. I scrunched my eyes closed and said a silent prayer for her. Ruthless, that is what the guards were.

  When the pack of the thousands of us reached the rail yard, we saw rows of about fifty cattle cars resting on the tracks, awaiting their passengers. That was a moment of disbelief for all of us. In the Nazis’ made-up hierarchy, we realized just how insignificant we were. They thought us to be no better than farm animals. We were on the bottom level of their totem pole of worthiness.

  My family and I were near the back of the crowd, lending us the ability to observe the pattern of movements playing out ahead of us. Everything happened quickly: First the guards shouted for the deportees to quickly run to the mouth of the cattle car as they made forward movements with their arms while brandishing their whips and their guns. Next, the deportees ran forward and formed a bottle neck around the opening due to the delays caused by boarding the car. After that, one or two people who had already boarded assisted with the boarding of others. As people struggled to climb onto the car, others had to help pull them inside, which was difficult for the very old and the very young. Then, the guards would inevitably use their weapons or their German shepherds to physically abuse those who slowed the process by questioning the capacity of the car. Finally, after about seventy to one hundred and twenty people and their luggage were packed into each small cattle car, the guards would close the heavy door. Sometimes they used white chalk to write a number corresponding to the number of occupants inside. I presumed that they would conduct random quantity checks when the cars reached their destination.

  “This can’t be happening,” I told my mother. She brought her hand into mine and told me, “I wanted a better life for my babies than this. Stay strong. Remember to always stay strong.” I nodded in approval and looked down at helpless little Blima; she was twirling around so that her skirt would balloon out as she held onto mother. I thought about how she had never experienced summers at our grandparents house, trips to the zoo with our father, or imaginative daydreams as she strolled the streets of formerly beautiful Warsaw. I felt sorry for her and for the other young children like her.

  My thoughts were abruptly broken apart when I was shoved from behind. It was time for us to run forward and board the train. As my family made our way to the cattle car, Mendel caught his foot in a rut in the ground and fell in my direction. I steadied myself and pushed him upright before the Germans could unleash their anger on him. It was a close call. I was the first from my family to board the wooden car. Standing at the doorway, I pulled up mother, Blima, and Mendel. After we were all inside, more people continued to stream in and mother made sure we remained on the perimeter of the group so that we didn’t get smothered inside. When close to one hundred people were crammed into the cattle car, an SS soldier slammed the door shut, shrouding us in darkness. It took several minutes for our eyes to adjust to the lack of light inside the car, during which time we were shoulder-to-shoulder amongst strangers. Sweat bathed my body, but it wasn’t my own. I cringed. Warm, stale breaths hit my face. I heaved.

  When my eyes had adjusted, I tilted my neck to look at the faces of those trapped inside with me. One hundred Jewish faces ranging in age from less than one to greater than ninety looked back at me. No one was sitting regardless of age due to the lack of space. Those in the middle of the car appeared to be struggling to breathe, but from human compression or from the heat, I couldn’t tell. The temperature inside the car rose quickly, causing the enclosed space to act like a sauna. The elderly and the very young experienced side effects first, followed shortly thereafter by the rest of us even before we began moving. Saturated with sweat and fanning ourselves with our caps, we must have waited an hour before we felt the car lurch forward. Instinctively, mother wrapped her arms around Blima to prevent her from falling, although there was no open space for her to fall into. Mendel pointed for me to look over at the corner of the car. When I did, I saw two metal ten-liter buckets, one full of water and one empty. Both of the buckets were misshapen and didn’t sit flush with the floor, causing them to wobble as we moved.

  “That one next to the water is our bathroom,” Mendel said. I nodded and replied, “That’s sickening, but I’m more concerned about the lack of water. We must conserve the water.”

  As we rolled along, the empty bucket soon became full of fecal matter and urine, causing the car, already stinking of perspiration, to reek of excrement. The mingling of smells emanating from each body was suffocating. Mixing in the coughing from ill passengers as well as the weeping from infants and adults alike, the atmosphere was deplorable. My family talked amongst ourselves at intervals but we found it easier to pass the time when we were silent, absorbed in our own thoughts. I made several attempts to get the attention of everyone in the car so that I could enact a conservation method for our pail of water before it was empty. I was able to silence everyone long enough to offer up the suggestion that we pass the bucket around and each take one two-second gulp and then save the rest. The sick would drink last to limit contamination to the healthy. Aside from a few grumbles, my suggestion was well received and so the bucket was passed. As it made its way around the car, we monitored its movements, making sure that each gulp was uniform. “Careful!” we all yelled when someone tilted the pail back too fast causing the liquid to slosh over the rim. After it made its way to everyone, we placed it back in the corner—still one-third full—by the waste bucket. But that was the flaw of the system; because not thirty minutes later a child mistook the water bucket for the waste bucket and so our water became waste. A few people berated the boy, criticizing him as he clung to his mother crying. Mother gently told them, “At least we all had one sip.” That was the last sip we had for three days.

  We must have traveled through most of the night when we came to an abrupt halt. Through a slit between rotted wooden slats, I observed a sliver of the moon and a sprinkling of stars. From their light I saw a sign marked with the word “Malkinia” in a clearing in the distance between groups of trees. We were at the Malkinia transfer station on the rail line waiting for what we didn’t know. We didn’t realize that we were just a few kilometers away from the so-feared town of Treblinka. Various thoughts crossed my mind: Would we be getting out? Would we be continuing on to Treblinka? Should we try to escape?

  As I contemplated these questions, a piece of trash wedged in between two wooden slats caught my attention. Boredom caused me to stick my fingernails into the slats and pick at the balled up piece of garbage until it came loose. I had nothing else to entertain me. When my index finger finally caught the corner of the discarded object, it flicked at my face. I grabbed it and looked at it. It was just a piece of paper folded over and ove
r until it was no bigger than the buttons on Blima’s shoes. I tossed it above my head like a ball and then I unfolded it, thinking I could maybe make a paper airplane with it. But as I was doing so, Mendel took it from me, wanting to be the one with something to tinker with. He started folding the corners on one side and when he turned it over he started shaking. I snatched it back from him, annoyed. My paper airplane plans were dashed when I saw seven menacing words scrawled on the paper: “The rumors about the camps are true.” What did it mean? Who wrote it? Was this a warning from a prior passenger? I showed the piece of paper to the rest of my family with mixed reactions. Mother refolded it and wedged it back between the slats. Who would be the next to find it?

  As we waited, people began to go crazy with fear, thinking that we were in fact headed to Treblinka. All attempts possible were made to separate the wooden planks from the car, to force our way out. When every effort failed, some people collapsed from exhaustion, having exerted themselves too far. In the midst of the panic, the waste containers were knocked over, sending contaminated debris across the floor of the car. Those unfortunate enough to be standing near the buckets were freckled in waste. Pleas for water and food came from the people in the cattle cars connected to ours. Across the darkness, we all tried to communicate, yelling questions to one another, trying to find out any information that we could. From one of the cars, a hysterical man kept asking if anyone had seen his wife, Esther. Eventually his cries were drowned out by others. Did he ever make contact with his wife? I don’t know. Mother was right; it was better that we were together. The longer we sat there on the tracks, the worse our situation became. Occupants who had brought food with them began to unwrap it from their bundles, resulting in jealousy and the pressure to share. Some people kindly broke their bread and portioned other provisions out to those who needed something to eat, while others shooed away the beggars. In another time, in another place, if food was not so hard to come by, we all would have shared. But this was not an ordinary situation. My mother, a woman who had taught us the value of helping a friend in need when we lived in our home in Warsaw, urged us not to share. Under the cover of darkness, she carefully unwrapped a handful of potato slices inside her bag and cupped them in her palm as she grasped each of our hands. We slipped the starchy pieces into our mouths and chewed with our heads down and away from the group so that no one would notice.

  When we finally started moving again, it was not in the same direction we had been traveling in. Was it possible that we were not headed toward Treblinka? The car became full of chatter as we discussed where we might be going. Some people thought we were going back to the ghetto while others said we were headed to another camp. Mother remained mute, massaging her ring finger, still clutching on to Blima. I didn’t believe that the Germans would send us back to the ghetto—we had seen too much already. No, they would never have mercy on us and let us live in peace. They would play this deadly cat and mouse game with us as long as they occupied Poland.

  We rolled along for another two days during which time the speculation intensified and the situation inside the car grew increasingly more disgusting. I chastised myself for the loss of our drinking water; I should have devised a better system to make sure it wasn’t confused with the waste pail. I felt personally responsible as I watched as a handful of occupants took their last breath and I listened as the mood of the car turned from frantic to quiet. During these additional two days, people grew weaker with every passing hour.

  Suddenly, the hypnotic thundering sounds of the train ceased. The forward sensations stopped. We had come to a standstill on the tracks. The events that unfolded next happened as quickly as the movement of dominoes falling.

  CHAPTER 22

  Just as quickly as we came to a stop, we were whisked out of our cattle car. The door was slid open with one swift tug and, at the same moment, two strange looking men without hair wearing thin, striped cotton suits and matching caps extended their arms to force us out of the car. Rows of tall, uniformly spaced floodlights lit up the night. Strings of train tracks crisscrossing through paths laden with rocks were all around. SS guards were milling about our train, holding on to leather leashes attached to angry, barking German shepherds. Quarantine areas were enclosed by electrified barbed wire fences with equidistantly spaced taller guard towers. I didn’t know where we had arrived. There were no signs above the gates. Confusion and fear set in. An unusual smell tickled my nose; a mix of sweet and smoky that caused me to reflexively gag and throw up.

  I took in all of these new sights, sounds, and smells as I was yanked out of the car. We were poured out onto a large platform. The oddly dressed guards spoke different languages but we could extrapolate what they were telling us to do by their gestures. We were to leave all of our belongings; they would be taken to us after we checked in. Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to just take our things with us? I wondered.

  After my family jumped down from the car, we were made to follow the drove of people already forming into lines from the other cattle cars. As always, I couldn’t resist looking back. Forgotten unpaired shoes littered the car along with a hundred or more bags and suitcases. Five motionless people—three men, one woman, and an infant boy—were left behind. I looked on as the striped-suit men offloaded them, placing them into a pile along with the deceased from the other cars. Maybe if they had more water or food they might have made it. Maybe if the journey had lasted one fewer day they would have made it. Maybe if the trip had lasted longer I, too, would have ended up in the pile.

  Mother scooped up Blima so that she wouldn’t get crushed by the masses of people clustering together. I stayed right behind her with Mendel at my side, the four of us moving forward to meet the end of the two lines that had formed. As we approached the lines, we saw men were standing in one line while women and children were standing in the other. The guards wearing striped suits begged us to give them any items we had in our pockets, telling us everything would be taken away from us anyway; but my family had nothing to give them and even if we did we wouldn’t have given it to them. They also demanded our shoes. There was no way I was going to hand over my shoes. Why were they so eager to take our things?

  Guards stood every few meters along the length of the platform. I felt a dizziness take hold of me. My intuition was telling me not to let mother stay with Blima. My uneasiness was confirmed when one of the striped-suit-wearing men began walking down the line whispering to women with small children. Many of the women shooed him away, telling him that he was crazy. When he walked past my mother, in a foreboding tone he told her, “Save yourself. Give the child to an old lady.”

  With this, mother stared at Mendel and me not knowing what to make of the comment but not disregarding it either. She had only a few minutes to decide what to do with Blima. As we continued to move forward, now in separate lines five people wide with Mendel and me in one line and mother and Blima in a different line, we looked at least a hundred meters ahead of us to the front of the lines. A small group of guards was pointing people from both lines to either the right side or to the left side. Those who were pointed to the left appeared to be the very old or the very young, while those chosen to walk to the right were just the opposite. All of the women who were holding babies or who were pregnant, even if they appeared to be in their twenties or thirties and healthy, were sent to the left along with their children. Some women were gripping a child in each arm as they walked to the left. A few of them even had one or two attached to their legs, dangling and dragging along in the dirt as they struggled to proceed. The children didn’t want to let go of their mothers just as the mothers didn’t want to let go of their children. Simultaneously, SS soldiers were walking back and forth along the line containing women and children. They were yelling: “Twins! Step forward if you have twins!” Some of the women pushed their twin children forward, while others shielded or tried to separate theirs. The soldiers led the twins away to a separate area. Was it good to be a twin or was it bad?


  In the moment, I hoped that the women and children sent to the left would receive special care in the camp. But, I quickly retracted that thought. The Germans had always valued capable workers in the past and carelessly disregarded the needs of women and children. I knew in my gut that mother would not survive if she approached the guards holding Blima. No one could make that decision for mother—only she could. Just then, I looked over at her line and watched as she kissed Blima and her teddy bear on the forehead and said something to her with a smile as she handed her to a frail woman two rows ahead of her. Blima kicked and screamed, and mother looked away. Satisfied yet sickened, I also looked away.

  The line moved rapidly forward, meaning that the selections were probably taking place without discussion or thorough examination. Thinking back, it seems like we scooted ahead in silence with our three-day-old sweat and excrement covered clothes clinging to us, our conversations drowned out by the barking of the dogs and the thumping of our terrified hearts. With no indication of where we were, what we were in line for, or how long we would be there, we were all trying to detangle the web of questions we had. The further I moved ahead, the more chaotic the surrounding scene became. I looked on as families were torn apart. I saw couples running toward each other from separate lines, hoping to steal one last kiss before they parted for an unknown length of time, only to be shot in the midst of their reunion. I watched as mothers wailed as infants were torn from them and haphazardly thrown aside. I looked on as siblings were divided, their hands reaching towards each other as they were pushed apart. Gunshots and thwacks from whips startled me at unpredictable intervals. The worst, for me, was standing near the front of the line and seeing Blima crying for mother as she sat in the arms of a strange gray-haired woman and was led away to the left side. I looked on as Blima’s short, wavy ponytail bounced away. I stood staring as the knot tying the red ribbon on her stuffed animal loosened and fluttered to the ground. I simply watched as her maroon and green plaid dress and her heart-adorned leather shoes seeped into the darkness of the group forming at the left side of the platform.