What World is Left

by Monique Polak

  By now, we’ve all heard that last night, Herr Strass and his wife were badly beaten. Strass’s nose is broken and the wife can barely see out of one of her eyes. Nazis, perhaps the same three who came to our apartment, found a stash of food and drawings beneath Strass’s mattress. But what upset them most was the news that photographs of a series of drawings depicting the terrible conditions at Theresienstadt were recently published in a Swiss newspaper. The Nazis are convinced it was Strass who smuggled the drawings out of the camp.

  “Have you ever made a drawing depicting Theresienstadt in an unfavorable light?” the Nazi asks.

  When Father looks into the Nazi’s eyes and speaks in a calm even voice, I am shocked that he can lie so easily. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Do you know of anybody who has ever made such a drawing?” the Nazi asks.

  “No, I don’t.”

  The soldier’s eyes take on a strange glimmer. Opa shuts his eyes. I watch in horror as the Nazi’s gloved hand forms a tight fist and he strikes Father—right in the mouth. Blood spurts from Father’s lips, but he doesn’t utter a sound. The only noise comes from Mother, who is whimpering. I squeeze her hand hard to make her stop. If you show any sign of weakness, the Nazis become even crueler.

  When the Nazi removes his gloves, I have to suck in my breath so I will not be the one to whimper at the sight of his stubby fingers. My left breast throbs. He reaches inside a brown envelope he has tossed on my mattress. “What can you tell me about this drawing?” he asks Father.

  This time Father flinches. I lean forward a little so I can see the drawing. Mercifully, it isn’t one of Father’s. This is a charcoal sketch with more black in it than white. Though I’ve never seen it before, there is something familiar about its style: the hatched lines, the attention to detail. I’m almost certain it was done by Norbert Troller, another artist in Father’s studio.

  No wonder Father is flinching. Mother must realize it too, because I feel her body suddenly go rigid.

  Troller has covered every millimeter of the sheet with faces—thin, pale, anguished faces. And then I understand what scene he wanted to capture: the night of the census count.

  Father uses the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his lip. “I recognize that drawing,” he says.

  My heart sinks. How can Father betray his colleague?

  Father goes on, his voice as calm and even as before. “It was done by the artist Henk Van Gelder. A fellow Dutchman. He and his wife were transported east several months ago.”

  “Very well,” the Nazi says. Then, as if for good measure, he gives Father a final punch, this one in the ribs.

  Fifteen

  For about two weeks, we hear nothing further about what is being called the Painters’ Affair. Frau Strass’s vision returns, though when her husband’s nose heals it has a new bump on the bridge. The bruise on Father’s abdomen fades to yellow before it disappears altogether. His lip, however, like Herr Strass’s nose, will never be the same. There is a black blood spot in the middle of his upper lip. Mother says it gives him character. I know that for me, the blood spot will always remind me that Father has more courage than I gave him credit for.

  Everyone in the studio where Father works hopes the Painters’ Affair has simply faded from the Nazis’ consciousness. It is rumored the Nazis have begun to face setbacks in their campaign to conquer Europe. Perhaps they are too busy worrying about the battlefield to concern themselves with the artists of Theresienstadt.

  But, in the end, that isn’t how it goes. True to form, the Nazis, so meticulous about keeping records, remember the Painters’ Affair. But like tigers, they stalk their prey, and are only waiting for the right moment to pounce.

  And so, on a steamy July morning, they come to the studio and round up five artists. Not Father, nor Norbert Troller, but nearly all the others, including Petr Kien. They have already come for Herr Strass and his wife. Thank goodness there is no evidence to incriminate Father.

  “We have proof you five were involved in disseminating incriminating images,” the Nazi in charge of the operation says.

  Father tells us later how one of the artists cried out that all they did was draw the truth. The comment earned him such a hard blow across the head the man fell to the ground.

  At lunch that day, the painters are taken away on a small truck. Those of us who can, come out to say goodbye. I go to stand by Father, whom I spotted watching from a doorway. One of the artists on the truck is Fritz Taussig, who goes by the name Fritta. Father points to a small dark-haired boy waving from the crowd. “That’s Tomicek, Fritta’s boy,” he tells me, choking on his words. “He’s only four.”

  “At least they’re not sending them east,” someone calls out when the driver puts the truck into gear and drives off.

  “The Little Fortress is as bad as the east,” someone calls back.

  “Maybe worse,” another voice adds.

  The words themselves don’t sound ominous. A little fortress might be a child’s toy, like a cardboard castle or a wooden soldier. “Have you heard what happened to Otto Ungar’s right hand?” Gizela asks when we meet at the washing fountain. The humidity makes her hair even frizzier than usual. “The old woman says the Nazis have mutilated Ungar’s hand...so that he’ll never paint again.”

  I can tell Gizela wants to be my friend. But I don’t have the heart for friendship. I am too upset by the news of what the Nazis have done to Otto Ungar. Besides, talking with Gizela only reminds me of how much I miss Hannelore.

  That night, as I am preparing for bed, I can’t take my eyes off Father’s hands. I know it could have been him. Had the Nazis found that other drawing, Father would be in the Little Fortress tonight. The thought prevents me from sleeping.

  The next day after work, Gizela is waiting for me outside our apartment. She whispers that there is another rooftop we can visit. This one, she says, will allow us to peek at the Little Fortress. I can’t say no. Though part of me wishes I could forget all about the Little Fortress, another part, a bigger part, wants to know...needs to know...the truth. Even if the truth is ugly.

  But I am not prepared for how ugly the truth turns out to be.

  Gizela and I are the only two who go. This rooftop is on a smaller building, with a staircase so narrow we can only climb it one at a time. “If the Nazis find out we can see the Little Fortress they’ll kill us,” says Gizela. One of the reasons I don’t feel that comfortable with Gizela is that her frank way of speaking can be a little off-putting. But perhaps Gizela is right.

  Because I don’t fancy the idea of being killed, I am the one who suggests we lie on our bellies. From where we are, we can just see the Little Fortress, a brick star-shaped building surrounded by ramparts. It was designed to look like a miniature Theresienstadt. “I’d rather be dead than living there,” Gizela says, her voice raspy.

  We’ve heard that the artists who were arrested are being used as forced labor, made to dig in a limestone quarry in Litomerice, about a half hour’s drive from Theresienstadt. “It’s backbreaking work,” I heard Father tell Mother, “but at least they’re still alive.”

  Gizela and I watch as a truck, the same truck that took the artists away, stops in front of the Little Fortress. A group of men hobble out of the truck. I think I recognize Fritta’s dark hair, so like his son’s. Even from our perch, we can hear the tinny echo of the Nazi soldiers shouting, “Raus! Raus!”

  We think the prisoners will be led inside. But it soon becomes clear the Nazis are not yet done with them. Someone shouts an order in German and next thing we know, the men who got off the truck are herded through a narrow passageway and into a grim-looking courtyard. There, they are made to form a line and perform some bizarre sort of calisthenics, flapping their arms like giant birds and jumping up and down. Or at least trying to.

  One prisoner, exhausted no doubt from his exertions at the quarry, falls to the ground. Like snakes, Gizela and I slither to the edge of the roof for a better view.

 
A Nazi soldier takes a bucket of water and throws it over the man lying on the ground. Though I am lying on the roof, it as if I can feel the water too. The water makes a brown puddle on the ground, but it fails to revive the prisoner.

  The other prisoners seem to understand they cannot go to the man’s rescue. Instead they continue with their sorry calisthenics, only now their arms flail about more and one nearly loses his footing. It breaks my heart to imagine how trapped and helpless they must feel right now.

  The Nazi who dumped the bucket of water on the prisoner, approaches his body on the ground and kicks it. Once, hard, and then a second time, harder still. But the man on the ground does not get up.

  I groan. Gizela sucks in her breath. I know no matter how long I live, I shall never forget this scene. I’m beginning to realize that though it is difficult for me to remember the good times—for instance, our life in Broek before the war—the bad times have become impossible to forget. They are now as much a part of me as my skin.

  Gizela throws her arm over my back. “He’s better off dead,” she mutters.

  The other painters don’t remain long at the Little Fortress. They are shipped out on the next transport, so thin and battered-looking, they are almost unrecognizable. People think it best not to let Tomicek come to the train to see his father off.

  Later we get one small bit of good news about the painters. Miraculously, a postcard arrives in Theresienstadt. Mail is rare and when it does come, it is so heavily censored that when you receive it, there are more heavy black lines than words on a page. Sometimes, people devise complicated codes to convey their messages.

  This postcard comes from a place called Buchenwald, a concentration camp people say is near the German city of Weimar. The sender reports having seen the artist Otto Ungar. The card read: “Saw O.U. doing a charcoal sketch.”

  Has Ungar learned to draw with his other hand, or has he found a way to draw with the mutilated hand? Either way, it helps to think that though the Nazis broke Ungar’s bones, they were not able to break his spirit.

  Fall comes early to Theresienstadt in 1944. By October, the countryside has turned brownish yellow, and the nights have grown chilly. My blue sweater is wearing thin at the elbows. When it is announced one morning that all children under the age of sixteen must report to the Magdeburg Kaserne by seven o’clock, we are delighted to have the morning off from work. Our parents are less impressed. “I don’t like the idea,” I hear Mother tell Father.

  “Keep a close eye on Theo,” Father whispers to me when he says good-bye, kissing the tops of our heads.

  Mother walks us to the corner of Backergasse Street. “Hello,” she says, giving us each a long squeeze. After Theo’s name appeared on the transport list, Mother came up with a new habit of saying “hello” instead of “good-bye.” I suppose good-byes have become too painful for Mother. Her new habit never fails to make Theo laugh.

  Hundreds of children are already congregated in front of the Magdeburg Kaserne. A Nazi officer shouts orders through a bullhorn. When I feel how cold Theo’s hand is, I pull him closer and put his hand in my pocket.

  “You will form a line that will stretch from in front of this barracks to the shores of the Eger River,” the voice on the bullhorn announces. “Each of you will take the small cardboard box handed to you, then pass it on to the child at your left. The boxes contain materials for road paving. You are not—I repeat, you are not to speak to one another during this exercise.”

  The word “exercise” makes me think of the way the Nazis forced the painters to do calisthenics outside the Little Fortress. I shudder at the memory. It’s one more awful image I now have to carry with me, like a satchel that’s too heavy.

  Someone tugs at my elbow. It is Gizela. She puts her finger to her lips to remind me not to speak, but her eyes are full of mischief. When I wave back, she comes to stand near us.

  “Spread out so you are precisely one arm’s length from each other,” the voice commands. We do as we are told, and then, for about fifteen minutes, we wait in silence. By now, of course, we are accustomed to waiting. Theo, who is now too far away from me to put his hands in my pocket, blows on them to keep them warm.

  At last there is a rustling at the front of the line. In the distance, I can see the children standing there have begun passing down the boxes. The boxes are long and narrow, only a little fatter than the boxes Opa used to pack ties in at his store in Zutphen. Soon, things begin to move so quickly we have no time to talk, even were we allowed to.

  I take a cardboard box from Theo and pass it to Gizela. The moment that is done, I turn back to Theo, who is waiting with another box. I shift from right to left so often I grow dizzy. I try keeping count of the boxes, but there are too many and they come and go too quickly.

  Of course, we are all wondering the same thing: Why do the Nazis want to dump road paving materials into the Eger River? Our assembly line slows down when something falls out of one of the boxes, and a boy stops to pick it up from the ground. “It’s a tooth,” we hear him say. “Imagine what a road paved with teeth would look like!”

  Those of us who are old enough to read have already noticed words on the outsides of the boxes. Family names. Jewish family names written in bold black letters on neat white labels: Echenberg. Fleischmann. Friedman. Groenfeld.

  The children standing closest to the riverbank confirm what the rest of us suspect. The cardboard boxes contain ashes. Powdery gray human ashes.

  There are no terrible machines to gas people to death in Theresienstadt, but there are crematoria to dispose of corpses by burning them to ashes. The Nazis want to destroy the evidence: the ashes are proof that thousands of prisoners have died and been cremated here. And we are helping the Nazis dispose of the evidence.

  Raisevitz. Stein. Teitelbaum. Weiss.

  A terrible desperation takes hold of me. I can’t let this happen! But when another Nazi marches past where I am standing, I know I have no choice. I take another box from Theo. The thought that I am holding some-one’s remains makes me feel queasy.

  Gizela tries to make a joke of it. “There goes Mr. Weiss,” she says as she grabs the box with his name on it from my hands.

  I laugh, but mostly because I don’t know what else to do.

  Sixteen

  “Head back, child. All the way back.”

  I lean my head back as far as it will go. A spider is spinning a web on one of the rafters. How lucky he is to be a spider and not a girl with inflamed tonsils!

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to remove that pretty necklace you have on. Now say aah.”

  I say aah. Then I shut my eyes tight. Even so, I can’t stop picturing Dr. Hayek’s long thin metal tongs and the way they gleam under the infirmary lights.

  Dr. Hayek is taking out my tonsils. He’s told Mother and Father the surgery cannot be postponed any longer. We all know what that means. I’ve been missing too many days of work. Since January, there have been more transports than ever from Theresienstadt. People speculate it is all part of the Nazis’ housekeeping plan. Just as they wanted to dispose of the ashes of those who perished in the camp, they are now determined to dispose of as many inmates as possible. Lately, sickly prisoners have been the first to go.

  “The operation will be painful,” Dr. Hayek tells me, “but once it’s over and you’ve had a little time to recover, you’ll be as good as new. And no more sore throats.” I’ve had a sore throat for so long it is hard to imagine feeling well.

  In Amsterdam, I would have had an anesthetic to numb my throat during the surgery. But in the Thereisenstadt infirmaries, there is no such thing. Even prisoners whose limbs have grown gangrenous and need to be amputated are operated on without anesthetic. When I think of them, I know I shouldn’t complain about a troublesome pair of glands on either side of my throat.

  Mother and Father bring me to the infirmary, but they can’t stay with me. Neither of them can afford to be away from their work. So now I am alone with Dr. Hayek, a Czec
h Jew with a kindly face and bags so heavy under his eyes it is a wonder no one tried to search them at the Schleuse.

  Dr. Hayek has a habit of laughing at his own bad jokes. “Do you know what we call this instrument?” he asks when I sit down on the hard chair in the little operating room.

  I shake my head. “A guillotine!” he says, chuckling so hard the bags under his eyes wobble.

  The word “guillotine” makes me shiver. I remember how Marie Antoinette, the beautiful Austrian princess, daughter of the empress after whom Theresienstadt was named, died on the guillotine.

  I hear Dr. Hayek shuffling next to me, then washing his hands in the small sink. “The actual procedure will only take three or four minutes. I’m going to reach in with my guillotine, take hold of your tonsils and remove them. All in one fell swoop.”

  I clutch the sides of my chair. Why does Dr. Hayek have to keep saying the word “guillotine”?

  When Dr. Hayek puts his instrument into my mouth, I gag. “Anneke,” he says, sounding more like a schoolteacher than a doctor, “you have to cooperate. The sooner we get this procedure over with, the better.”

  And so, though I want to gag, I don’t let myself. Instead I clutch the chair so hard my nails dig into the wooden arms. I can feel my face getting hot as the long sharp end of the guillotine slides down the middle of my throat. The pain comes a moment later. A sharp searing pain—more terrible than anything I’ve ever felt before. I see a flashing silver light and then, just like that, I feel my mind leap out of my body. It flies off somewhere overhead, high, high up, past the rafters and the spider web, while my body remains seated in the infirmary chair.

  It is Dr. Hayek’s laughter that brings my mind back to my body. “I’ve never seen such tonsils,” he cackles. “These are twice the size of normal tonsils. If I were a fisherman, I’d call this a good catch. A wonderful catch—the catch of the day!” That makes him laugh all over again. Only the sound seems to be coming from very far away.