The austere hall was bathed in sunshine, and I woke up with the knowledge that I was free. I was eager to go outside, to move about freely. Perhaps I would meet the Americans again. I swayed as I started to walk. My skin was hot and dry. As I reached the door, the first thing I saw was that strange vehicle bouncing toward us through the brilliant May sunshine. I was overcome with joy.
I called to the other girls that some Americans were coming. The soldier on the left made a motion to the driver who stopped the vehicle across the yard from where I was standing. The soldier jumped out and walked toward me. He wasn’t the one who had come the day before. Shaking my head, I stared at this man who was to me the embodiment of all heroism and liberty. He greeted me. I must tell him from the start, I resolved, so that he has no illusions about us. Perhaps I had acquired a feeling of shame. After all, for six long years the Nazis had tried to demean us.
“May I see the other ladies?” he asked.
“Ladies!” my brain repeated. He probably doesn’t know, I thought. I must tell him.
“We are Jews,” I said in a small voice.
“So am I,” he answered. Was there a catch in his voice, or did I imagine it?
I could have embraced him but I was aware how dirty and repulsive I must be.
“Won’t you come with me?” he asked. He held the door open. I didn’t understand at first. I looked at him questioningly but not a muscle in his face moved. He wanted me to feel that he had not seen the dirt or the lice. He saw a lady and I shall be forever grateful to him for his graciousness.
“I want you to see a friend of mine,” I remember telling the American, and we started to walk toward Liesel. On the dirty, straw-littered floor Lilli was lying, covered with rags. As we tried to reach Liesel, she looked up, her eyes enormous, burning in their sockets. She looked at my companion and her face lit up with a strange fire. I heard her say something in English, and saw how the American bent down closer and answered her. Her hands were shaking as she gently, unbelievingly touched the sleeve of his jacket. In the exchange that followed, I made out the word “happy.” I understood that word. Then she sighed, released his hand and, looking at him, shook her head and whispered, “Too late.”
We moved on to Liesel. Liesel just smiled, and said nothing. She didn’t seem to care much. I looked back at Lilli; her eyes were fixed on the American, a solitary tear ran down her cheek. An ant was crawling over her chin. Shortly afterward, Lilli died.
I heard the American give commands in English. He seemed furious that things weren’t moving fast enough. He explained to me in German that a hospital was being set up for us. Then he asked me:
“Is there anything I can do for you in particular?”
“Yes, there is,” I said. “If you would be kind enough, and could find the time. You see, I have an uncle in Turkey. Could you write to him, let him know that I am alive, and that I hope he has news from my parents and my brother?”
He took out a notebook, and removed the sunglasses he had been wearing. I saw tears in his eyes. He wore battle gear with a net over his helmet. And as he wrote, I looked at him and couldn’t absorb enough of the wonder that he had fought for my freedom.
He snapped his book shut.
“I would like to ask you a question,” he said softly. “But please don’t answer if you don’t want to. We are aware of what has happened. Tell me, were you girls sterilized?”
I did not answer at once. I was too full of emotion. Why should he, of all people, who looked to me like a young god, inquire about the deepest treasure that I, who must have looked like an animal to him, carried still within me?
“We were spared,” I managed to say.
A few moments later, joined by his companion and the mayor, he drove off. Before I had even asked his name–he vanished!
Within an hour, Red Cross trucks arrived. Litter bearers gently but swiftly loaded the ill. Other soldiers carried girls in their arms like babies, speaking to them soothingly in words the girls did not understand. But the gestures of warmth and help were unmistakable. In a trance I walked to a truck and got in. On the soldiers’ sleeves was a red diamond, the insignia of the Fifth U.S. Infantry Division. Their uniforms, their language, their kindness and concern made it true: we were finally free!
The hospital we were taken to was a converted school. Wounded German soldiers had been moved to the third floor so that we could be installed in the first two floors. How strange–in a matter of one day, the world had changed: Germans were put out to make room for us.
We were taken to a room where huge caldrons of water were being heated on a stove. Round wooden tubs stood steaming on the floor.
A woman in a white coat motioned me to undress.
Doing so, I stepped into one of the tubs. The warm water, reaching to my neck, felt strange: it had been at least three years since last I sat in a tub. Bidding me stand, the nurse soaped my body with quick, invigorating pressure. It was pleasantly painful to sit back in the tub again and let the warm water engulf me.
A young peasant girl came in, her cheeks rosy and shining, her colorful peasant skirt reaching to her ankles, her deep-cut blouse revealing her full bosom. I felt slight and thin. When I saw the girl gather up my clothes in a basket, I looked at the nurse with a questioning glance.
“They will be burned,” she said.
Only one thought remained. With my wet hand I reached for my ski boots, took the left one and reached under the lining. There was the dirty shapeless package containing the pictures I wanted to save. I pulled the pictures out and laid them on the dry towel beside the tub. And the other packet–the poison I had bought in Grünberg–I gratefully let go to the fire.
I stepped out of the tub; the nurse dried my body and hair. As I stood nude, before a clean blue and white checkered man’s shirt was put on me, I realized abruptly that I possessed nothing, not even a stitch of clothing that I could call my own. I owned only the pictures of Papa, Mama, Arthur, and Abek that I had carried for three years.
A blanket was thrown over my shoulders as I was led to a bunk. The sheets were fresh and white. A nurse brought me a drink of milk. Milk!–I hadn’t had any in three years. As I drank it something tremendous and uncontrollable broke loose within me. My body shook convulsively. I wanted to stop it but I couldn’t. I heard my voice and could do nothing about it.
A nurse hurried up; then a doctor. I heard him say, “No, let her cry it out.” Long pent-up emotions finally burst out. I cried for Ilse, for Suse, for other friends, and finally for my family too. Deep in my heart I had known they were dead, but dreams about happy reunions with them had kept me going.
When I opened my eyes a night had passed. A nurse was approaching with a breakfast tray. This is the life of a fairy princess, I thought.
As I lay daydreaming after breakfast there was a sudden commotion. Nurses hurried in.
“Germany has capitulated!” they told us. “The war in Europe is over!”
For me, the war had ended with my liberation. I had not realized that the fighting had continued after that.
I looked out the window. Coming down the hilly, winding road was a company of unarmed and bedraggled German soldiers. As they passed my window, I could see their unshaven faces and hollow cheeks. Proud, handsome American soldiers guarded them.
A doctor and a nurse came in. They stopped at each bed. After asking my name and birthplace, the doctor asked for my date of birth.
“May 8, 1924.”
“May 8!” the doctor exclaimed. “Why, today is the eighth.”
“Happy birthday!” the nurse chanted.
After they left, I repeated to myself, “It’s my birthday, my twenty-first birthday, and Germany capitulated!”
I thought of Tusia, who had so desperately wanted my assurance that we would both be free on this day. I remembered her lying dead in the snow. Why am I here? I wondered. I am no better.
As I lay back on my white clean pillow, lost in thought, I heard someone approach. It was
the doctor again. He put something in my hand.
“For your birthday,” he said, smiling.
It was a piece of chocolate.
Chapter 2
I DON’T REMEMBER THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED TOO WELL. THE doctors and nurses spent much time over me; I was given injections and pills continuously. My body was rubbed with oil twice a day, for my skin was flaked and dry. I was weighed–sixty-eight pounds. The nurses joked about being able to circle my thigh with their fingers.
My bed seemed very high up, and the distances enormous. I did not feel like talking to anyone; I was strangely silent for the first time in my life. I noticed that many of the girls began to have visitors. I asked for Liesel several times, but was never told where she was.
Time and again I thought of the American soldier who had been so kind to me. Just before he had driven off he had said that he would see me again. With a chill, I recalled that the fighting had gone on after I had spoken to him; something might have happened to him!
A week passed. One afternoon an American came in and glanced into each bunk. My eyes met his as he approached.
“It’s you I’m looking for!” he said.
I must have frowned as I recognized him. Out of his helmet and battle gear, he looked different.
“Don’t you remember me?” he asked.
“Oh, yes!” I said quickly, and wanted to add how worried I had been that something might have befallen him, but checked myself.
He carried a parcel under his arm. “These are for you,” he said, unwrapping two magazines.
“Do you know what this means?” he asked, pointing to four bold white letters on a red background.
I gazed at the letters: L–I–F–E.
He repeated his question. “Do you know what it means? It is a fine word for you to learn. I know no better word of introduction to the English language for you.”
I pronounced the word and tasted the strange sound of it.
“Say it again,” he urged.
I was only too glad to try.
“That’s right, that’s what I wanted to see.”
“To see what?” I asked.
“You smiled,” he said. “I wanted to see you smile.”
We talked. He told me that he had been busy with large numbers of prisoners, and that was why he had not come sooner. He said that he was stationed in a neighboring village about sixteen miles away. We talked like old friends. There was so much to ask. He seemed amazed at the limited knowledge I had about the development of the war. His German was excellent, though not fluent. At times he substituted an English word for a German one, but I nearly always knew what he meant.
The nurse came in, bringing my dinner tray, and told him that all visitors had to leave. I would have gladly foregone food if he could have stayed.
He left, and I ate my dinner, realizing that I had again forgotten to ask his name. After eating, until the light grew too poor, I studied the magazines. The pictures of the free world were exciting.
Then, unexpectedly, a voice near me said “Hello” in English. “You’re not going to throw me out, are you?”
I was overjoyed to see him. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might return in the evening. This time I learned his name.
“Kurt Klein,” he said, laughing. “By the way, I wrote the letter to your uncle in Turkey. I hope I can bring you an answer soon.”
I told Kurt about the strange sensation I felt every time I saw German soldiers under guard.
“Just hurry up and get well,” he said, “and I’ll show you how many of them are under guard.”
And he told me some of his experiences with the Germans’ surprise when they heard about their concentration camps.
“It seems we fought a war against the Nazis, but I haven’t met a Nazi yet,” he said wryly.
And I was actually able to laugh. He could make me laugh, but I was ashamed to cry in front of him. I told him about Ilse. He seemed to understand. He didn’t tell me to forget, to draw a line through the past, for he knew that I couldn’t. He didn’t ask questions either. He listened to what I had to tell him. He was silent when he knew that there was no answer. He joked about the present, and again and again I found myself laughing.
His daily visits continued. Although we came from different worlds, we understood each other. I did not want pity. I did not want him to like me because of what I had endured. Without knowing why, I sensed that there was something in his past that made him suffer.
A couple of days after his first visit he brought me some lilies-of-the-valley. The subtle fragrance brought back memories of my garden in May. I clutched the flowers without being able to speak. I remembered the roses in Grünberg which we had not been allowed to touch. But here were flowers that bloomed for me.
I kept my eyes downcast for quite a while, not daring to raise them and have them full of tears.
Finally Kurt asked, “Do you like them?”
My answer must have been written on my face. There was a catch in his voice when he spoke.
“I knew you would. They were my mother’s favorite flowers.”
“Your mother?” I asked haltingly.
Then for the first time Kurt told me about himself. He had been born in Germany. His older sister had gone to America soon after Hitler came to power, Kurt following her a year later. Finally the older brother had left for America. The parents had stayed behind. With their children safe, they waited, hoping that the Nazi regime would collapse. I remembered when Papa and Mama had talked the same way. Kurt went on to tell me how the children’s combined efforts had failed to get their parents out of Germany. The Nazis had deported them to Camp de Gurs, in the south of France, in 1941. For a while letters reached them from America, then in July, 1942 a letter had been returned, stamped “Moved–left no forwarding address.” Kurt fell silent. I understood so well. Impulsively I caught his hand.
“There is hope still,” I said.
“Is there?” His voice was slightly ironical, but there was some concealed hope in it.
I had always felt that his understanding of my feelings had been made deeper by tragedy of his own. I was glad now that I had never given him detailed descriptions of cruelty, that I had really never told him what had happened, though he heard it from others later. Yet the knowledge that I could shield him from pain gave me satisfaction.
The days went on. Physically I felt worse and worse. I tried to conceal it even from the nurses and doctors. In the hours when Kurt was not with me, I read the German books he brought and studied the American magazines. Then I began to observe that most of the girls around me were better, and were allowed to get up. Some girls moved into private homes, and I marveled at their courage and ingenuity. How did they manage?
I continually asked for Liesel, and was finally told that she had died after an amputation. I was alone again! None of my close friends remained.
Again and again, the burning question came back, “What do I do from now on?” Sometimes I woke from sleep, covered with perspiration, feeling as though someone had shaken me and shouted “What now?” into my ear. I fell exhausted into my pillows; sometimes I cried silently or tossed for hours until a nurse mercifully gave me a sleeping pill.
The first possibility that ran through my mind would be to go home. Perhaps Papa and Mama, perhaps Arthur … but I knew they would not be there. Then I must go home alone! If nothing else, there would be the house, the garden. Perhaps Niania had saved a few things. And then there was Abek. I really had not thought about him until now, and when I did, I became panicky. Why was I so afraid?
Then there was my uncle in Turkey. He would surely make me welcome. Yet he and his wife and children lived in a world so remote from mine that I did not think that I could be happy there in it.
Lastly, if these alternatives failed, I would go to Palestine.
One day after Kurt left, while leafing through a magazine he had just brought, I found an envelope between the pages. It was sealed and had my name on it in
pencil in a corner. For a few seconds fear gripped me. Was he being transferred and was this his way of telling me? I tore the envelope open. There was no letter in it, just several bank notes.
I was touched by his thought. God knows I needed money, for I owned nothing, but I felt I could not accept it. When Kurt came the next day I told him that he had forgotten something.
“You are not angry?” he asked. “Please do take it. Consider it a loan, pay it back to me. If I should have to leave unexpectedly I would like to know that you have some means to buy the bare necessities and to get home.”
He worried about me! Though I felt deeply grateful, and could have accepted the money from a stranger, I could not receive it from him.
“I can’t,” I whispered, and he argued no further.
About that time Herr Knebel, the owner of the factory in which we were hiding on Liberation Day, started making daily visits to all the girls in the hospital. When I told him my name and where I came from, he told me that he had known either my father or one of his business associates. The following day his two daughters, young married women whose husbands were in Allied hands, came to visit me. The day after that they came again, and brought me a dress.
It is hard to describe the joy that I felt, and the eagerness with which I looked forward to being able to get up and wear it. I know that I will never feel the same way toward any garment, no matter what its value or beauty, as I felt toward that simple cotton dress!
Everyone in the hospital knew Kurt by now; he was commonly referred to as “Gerda’s lieutenant.” Everyone joked about us. He was undoubtedly the most faithful visitor to the hospital, although none of the girls really understood our relationship. It was pointed out to me many times that he was a fool if he did not provide the clothing and food which I needed and which he as an American could obtain–and that I was even a greater fool for not asking him.
All But My Life Page 22