Eleven
Opa, my grandfather, is being transferred to Theresienstadt.
Father learned from Dutch Jews, who arrived after us, that shortly after we were deported from Holland, my opa was sent east on a transport. Father rarely mentions his father, but when he does, he casts his eyes to the ground. I know that means he misses him. Father’s mother died when he was a child, and so he grew very close to his father.
“I didn’t dare hope he was still alive,” Father tells us the evening the news comes.
It is Commandant Rahm’s doing. Though it’s hard to believe, perhaps the man is not entirely evil. Father explains how, two weeks before, Rahm asked if Father had, by any chance, an elderly relative by the name of Zacharias Van Raalte. Commandant Rahm had seen this Zacharias’s name on a list of prisoners in a camp called Bergen-Belsen. When Father explained that Zacharias Van Raalte was our opa, Rahm said he would try to have him transferred to Theresienstadt so he could be with us. “At least this way,” Rahm told Father, “I’ll have done one decent thing during this war.”
“Did he really say that?” I ask. Somehow, it is easier for me to think of Rahm as a monster.
“Why didn’t you tell us Opa might be coming?” Mother asks. From the way she raises her voice I know she means to reproach Father for keeping a secret from her.
“I didn’t want to build up your hopes, or mine,” Father says in a quiet voice. “But Commandant Rahm seems fairly certain Father will be arriving here today. And I can’t keep the secret any longer.”
We can’t wait to see Opa! He was always such fun. Unlike most grandfathers, ours lived in a hotel, and a glamorous one at that. There were velvet chairs in the lobby and a doorman in a fur hat. Mother said Opa lived in a hotel because he had no wife and needed looking after. When we used to visit him in Zutphen, we got to stay in the hotel. Once, Theo and I had a room of our own. We pretended we were travelers come all the way from Broek for an adventure.
Opa was also a dapper dresser. Even on weekends, he wore a wool suit and tie. And he was a great billiards player. There was a billiards table in his hotel, and he tried to teach Theo and me to play. “You’ve got a good eye,” I remember him telling me. “As for you, Theo, you’ll have to grow a few more centimeters in order to see the top of the table.”
It was no secret, either, that Opa liked ladies. We often arrived at the hotel to find him sitting at a table in the lobby, surrounded by a group of women. They’d admire his fine clothes and giggle at his stories. One of them, her name was Lotje, was almost always there when we visited.
Lotje was pretty for an old lady, with bluish gray hair and pink cheeks. “They’re only friends,” I once heard Father tell Mother, but I knew it wasn’t true. Once I’d walked into Opa’s room and found him kissing Lotje on the lips. I’d never told Father and Mother. Opa, I decided, was entitled to some fun. Besides, I liked Lotje. She almost always slipped a bar of Droste orange-flavored chocolate into my satchel. “Our little secret,” she’d whisper, putting her pointer finger over her mouth.
I wonder what became of Lotje. I never thought to ask whether she was Jewish. I hope, for her sake, that she isn’t, and that she is still at the hotel, waiting for Opa to come back to her.
That evening, the four of us get special permission to meet the train. Jewish prisoners have extended the railway tracks, so there is now a small station inside Theresienstadt. At least Opa won’t have to make the two-kilometer walk from Buhosovice the way we had to.
Mother combs my hair and Theo’s. “Stand up straight. Shoulders back,” she tells me as we spot a train in the distance. Father strains to get a better look.
The chugging noises come closer, and when the train finally pulls up to the platform, we rush over to the first door. A group of old people tumbles out. The first thing I notice is their smell. It’s so foul I want to pinch my nose. These old people are dressed in filthy rags. I’m reminded of the old people I saw in the attic on Jagergasse. Only these ones look even worse.
Father shifts from one foot to the other. “I don’t see him,” he says.
I stand on my tiptoes to help look for Opa. I look for a tall man with strong shoulders, but all of the men who step off the train are hunched over and ancient-looking. One’s face is covered in stubble. That can’t be my opa, whose face is always shaved clean and smells lemony.
Father sighs. “Perhaps Rahm was only toying with me,” he tells Mother. I think how that would be just like the Nazis, who seem to come up with every possible way to make us miserable. I can feel my hatred for them coursing through my veins like blood.
But Mother won’t give up. She pushes her way into the small crowd, getting so close to the new arrivals her face nearly touches theirs. “I’ve found him!” she calls out at last. “I’ve found him!”
Father rushes over to where Mother is standing, and Theo and I follow as quickly as we can. I’m so excited I could burst. In a moment, I will be reunited with my opa!
But how can this little crumpled man be Opa?
Has he shrunk?
Father begins to weep. He has taken Opa into his arms and is rocking him gently.
The first thing I notice are the dirty paper plasters on Opa’s hands and face. Did he contract some sort of skin disease at Bergen-Belsen? Though it isn’t kind of me, I can’t help hoping that whatever is wrong with him is not contagious. After all, Father and Mother told me I’d be sharing my side of the room with Opa.
There is no point sending these new arrivals to the Schleuse since they are not carrying anything of value. Opa doesn’t even have a rucksack of his own. Later, when we help him undress, we find an enamel cup in his coat pocket. Like mine, it has been scraped clean.
As soon as we get Opa to the apartment, Mother begins barking orders. “Anneke, see if Frau Davidels can help us find some fresh water. Even a cup or two will do. Theo, pull the bedbugs off Anneke’s blanket. Jo, don’t just stand there gawking, get your father a sugar cube. Something sweet might do him good.”
Father puts the sugar cube on Opa’s tongue and pats his forehead as if he is Opa’s father, and not the other way around.
Opa is too tired and sick to speak. I nearly vomit when Mother peels off the plasters—underneath, his skin is covered in boils. Yellowish pus leaks out from some of them. Father turns pale at the sight, but Mother keeps working, dabbing at the boils with a cloth she’s dipped in the water Frau Davidels supplied.
Theo and I help Father cut new plasters from a piece of old newsprint.
“Opa stinks,” Theo whispers, curling up his nose.
Father is too busy handing Mother plasters to reprimand Theo.
Soon, Opa is sound asleep, snoring lightly on my mattress. Though he is far more wrinkled than he was before the war, there is something almost childlike about his expression.
I can tell from the way Father is wringing his hands that he is worried. Mother notices too. “He’ll be fine, Jo,” she tells him. “Just wait and see.”
When Theo and I get up the next morning, Opa is still asleep. “Do you think he’s dead?” Theo asks.
“Of course not. He’s breathing. Look at the way his chest is moving up and down.”
Father and Mother peek out from behind the curtain. The four of us gather around Opa. He must feel our presence because just then, he wakes up. I see his eyes meet Father’s and Mother’s, then mine and Theo’s. He blinks a few times, as if he isn’t sure he can trust his own vision. Then he rubs at his eyes.
When he speaks, his voice is weak. “Tell me,” he asks us, his eyes wet with tears, “am I—could I be—by any chance—in Heaven?”
Twelve
One thing I’m learning is that even during terrible times, life finds a way of settling into a routine. I grow accustomed to sharing my mattress and blanket with Opa. At first, when he snores, I whisper and ask him to stop. When that doesn’t work—and when Opa gets a little stronger—I use the back of my hand to smack his arm. Which usually puts a quick end to hi
s snoring!
Opa rarely speaks about Bergen-Belsen, and when he tries to, Father and Mother give him a stern look. I know it is because they want to protect us.
Because Opa is considered too old to work, he spends his days resting in the apartment. Thank goodness he is living with us, and not in an attic like the one I saw.
The numbness I’ve been feeling doesn’t go away. Instead I become accustomed to it. I sometimes wonder where the old Anneke has gone and if I’ll ever meet her again. Somehow I doubt it.
Opa makes Theo a soccer ball from rags he ties together. “I’d have preferred to make a billiards table, but this was all I could manage,” Opa jokes when he gives Theo the ball.
Theo is delighted. Whenever they can, he and the other boys who live nearby kick the ball around the narrow courtyard behind our apartment. From inside, I can hear the steady thud of the ball as it hits the wall. One child always stands guard at the corner; the boys know if the Nazis catch them playing, the precious ball will almost certainly be confiscated.
It is May, and according to the old woman, the Danish Red Cross will be arriving before the end of summer. Some spindly white and yellow flowers sprout in our flowerbox. One evening, Father and Mother attend a concert at the café.
It may be the Embellishment, or perhaps it’s the soft spring air, but we prisoners almost start to believe things really are getting a little better for us. Sometimes I feel as if we are performing in a huge play, and we’re beginning to take on our stage roles.
But all that changes the morning the black limousine pulls up again in front of Commandant Rahm’s headquarters. A few hours later, the Council of Elders is summoned. It seems as if the whole camp shudders when we learn the news: There will be another transport, the biggest in the history of Theresienstadt. In order that the camp not appear overcrowded when the Danish delegation makes its visit, seven thousand prisoners will be sent east in three days time. Seven thousand! And for some reason none of us understand, Theo’s name is on the list.
Opa is the one who tells me. He is alone in the apartment when the notice arrives. When I come back from the diet kitchen, he is waving a narrow slip of paper at me. His hands are shaking.
I start to shake. My first thought is that Opa’s name is on the notice. How can anyone be so cruel, to send him back to us only to take him away again? I stretch open my arms. Opa collapses against me, sobbing.
“I know your parents will say I shouldn’t tell you, but I don’t know what else to do. The poor boy is only eleven years old.”
At first, Opa’s words make no sense. What poor boy is he talking about? Theo is eleven. Can Opa be talking about Theo? I feel the muscles around my heart clench. This can’t be!
Theo is outside playing soccer. The ball bounces against the wall. “We mustn’t say a word to him,” I tell Opa.
He wipes his eyes. “Of course not.”
As soon as they walk into the apartment, Father and Mother seem to know something is wrong. Mother bursts into tears at the news. Father’s face grows very pale, but he doesn’t say a word.
Opa stands up. “I’m going to go in Theo’s place,” he says as he reaches for his coat.
Father pushes Opa back onto the bench where he was sitting. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ll only make things worse.” I know Father is remembering what happened to Herr Adler when he tried to save his artists.
When Opa bows his head, I wonder if there will ever come a day when I will order Father and Mother about. But perhaps I’ll never live to be that old. If Theo’s name is on this transport list, who’s to say my name won’t be on the next one? Though the May air is warm, I suddenly feel a terrible chill. I know it’s fear. Pure fear.
Theo comes rushing up the stairway to our quarters. “Did you score a goal?” I ask him. It is hard to keep my voice from breaking.
Theo’s cheeks are flushed from running. “No, I scored three!” He sticks out his tongue and shakes his head. It is the sort of silly gesture that would usually irritate me.
But when he does it now, I think my heart might crack open inside my chest. I’ve never really gotten on with Theo. All my life, I’ve seen him mostly as a pest, and there have certainly been times when I wished him gone. If only I could take all those times back! In fact, I have a terrible suspicion—one that is too shameful to share with anyone now that Hannelore is gone: I feel as if somehow it is my fault that Theo’s name is on the transport list. I wished him gone so many times that now my wish is coming true. My body aches with guilt. This guilt is even more awful than the fear. I can feel it weighing me down, pressing against my shoulders and my spine.
Despite his sometimes annoying behavior, I know Theo is a good boy. He is my brother, my only sibling, and I don’t know if I will be able to carry on without him. But I also know I mustn’t cry in front of him.
Theo seems not to notice the tension in the apartment. Mother’s eyes are rimmed in red, Opa is nibbling on his thumbnail and Father is pacing in front of the window.
“Do you think I can go out again later to meet the boys and play more soccer?” Theo asks.
“I don’t see why not,” Mother tells him. I can tell she is holding back her tears.
“I have to see Dr. Epstein,” Father announces. “About the murals,” he adds as an afterthought.
Of course, I know the bit about the murals isn’t true. Father is going to join the queue of people waiting outside the Council of Elders headquarters. He is going to beg for Theo’s life.
I’ve always been the sort of person who wants to know everything, but I think sometimes it’s better not to know. We can’t let Theo know that his name is on the list.
After Father leaves, Theo babbles on about soccer. One of the other boys wants to become a professional soccer player, and Theo wonders whether we think that is possible. And if it is, whether Theo might become one too.
Opa swallows hard before speaking. His Adam’s apple moves back and forth inside his skinny neck like a ping-pong ball. “It’s a fine idea,” Opa says, keeping his eyes firmly planted on Theo, as if he can’t bear to let him out of his sight.
“What do you think, Anneke?” Theo asks.
For once, I haven’t the heart to insult him. “I think you’ll make a splendid soccer player.”
“You do?” Theo grins. But then he gives me an odd look. I know he isn’t used to my being nice to him. That makes me feel even worse.
Theo is humming to himself when we leave for the soup line. There is still no sign of Father. Mother draws Theo close as we join the line. There is a dullness to her eyes I haven’t seen before.
Everyone is talking about the upcoming transport, speculating about who will be sent away. “Old decrepit people,” someone says. “The Nazis won’t want the Red Cross to be disgusted.”
“Young people,” someone counters. “Because they’d make the Red Cross feel too sorry for them.”
Mother stiffens. Theo makes no more mention of his soccer-playing plans.
I wonder if he knows.
That night, after Theo goes to sleep in the bathtub, I pray again. This time, I think I’ll try pressing my palms together. Maybe God will hear me better. I don’t care what Mother or Opa will say, and Father can’t say anything because he is still waiting for his audience with Dr. Epstein.
Opa is lying on his side of the mattress, staring up at the ceiling and making sniffling sounds. Because his hearing is poor, I think he may not notice if I whisper my request to God. I raise my hands to my chest and drop down my head. “Please, dear God, please save Theo.” And because I think it might also help my cause if I offer God something in exchange, I add, “If you save Theo, I promise never to say another cross word to him. And never to ask you for anything else again.”
But Opa does hear me, or notices what I am up to, because a moment later, he lifts himself up from the mattress and comes to kneel beside me. And then, to my surprise, Mother pokes her head out from behind the curtain and joins us too.
/> The three of us kneel on the floor together, hands joined. We bow our heads, though none of us says a word.
If there is a God—and I have never hoped more desperately that there is—and He is capable of understanding what goes on inside people’s hearts, why then, he has to hear our prayer.
That thought makes it a little easier to fall asleep.
When I get up in the morning, Father is back. He is putting on his khaki-colored work shirt. His face looks strained, but when he nods his head at me, I know the news is good.
Father doesn’t tell us what he said to Dr. Epstein to persuade him to remove Theo’s name from the list. But sometimes I think Theo suspects the truth. Perhaps he figured out why I was being kind to him, why Opa sniffled in his sleep, why Mother looked so unhappy and Father was in such a hurry to see Dr. Epstein. I try to imagine how afraid Theo must have felt. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t imagine it. It’s too big even for my imagination.
Later that morning, Theo is quieter than usual, but by the end of the afternoon, he is back to his old tricks. He pokes me in the belly. “They’re trying to starve us, but you’re still a fatso, Anneke,” he says. My blood boils, but because I am determined to keep my promise, I don’t give him the smack I’d like to.
On the morning of the transport, I sneak out of my cauldron. Not that Frau Davidels will notice. With so many people leaving on this transport, those of us who remain all know someone who is being shipped out, and we are eager to say a last few words or give one final kiss.
Though people are bustling about, the mood in Theresienstadt is somber. People say little. I feel like an actress in a silent movie.
Like everyone else, I walk in the direction of the train platform. Only a few weeks ago, we came here to collect Opa. But now, with so many people milling around—those who are leaving on the transport and those who have come to see them off—I can’t get within two blocks of the platform. So I stand on the corner and watch the silent movie unfold.
What World is Left Page 10