What World is Left

by Monique Polak

  “I’m against it,” the second officer says, without bothering to lower his voice. “And there are many who agree with me: We should get rid of every last Jew while we can.” His words make me shiver even more.

  I try to steady my nerves by taking a few deep breaths. “Is something wrong, Anneke?” Ronald asks, looking up at me. The Nazis soldiers have disappeared around a corner, but their words still hang in the air. My body feels icy cold.

  Ronald wrinkles his nose. “I smell smoke,” he says.

  I sniff the air. Ronald is right. Why didn’t I notice the cloud of smoke directly over SS headquarters?

  We have to pass there on our way to the children’s barracks where Ronald is living. Tiny black cinders swirl in the air and one lands in Ronald’s eye. He cries out from the pain. “Don’t rub it,” I say as I kneel down to inspect the eye. “Rubbing will only make it worse.”

  A scrap of charred paper lands on the cobblestone in front of me. I pick it up and hold it to the light. I can make out a few typed numbers and words. “12/3/1901, shoemaker, born in Brno, Czechoslovakia.”

  Later that night, I hear Father tell Mother that the Reich Central Security Office has ordered the destruction of every single file and index card in Theresienstadt. The Nazis emptied a water tank in the central courtyard and burned the documents inside the tank.

  There will be no trace left of the Czech shoemaker.

  I am too sad for words.

  Eighteen

  What is an empty freight train doing at the station, its doors wide open? No one has said anything about another transport.

  Our mouths drop when we see the latest passengers preparing to take their leave of Theresienstadt. They are all, each and every one of them, Nazis! What can this mean? Where are they going?

  Though they have proper suitcases, not rucksacks, and they wear shiny shoes and coats with brass buttons, they have something in common with the thousands whom we’ve already seen off at the station: an empty terrified look in their eyes. I’m glad it’s their turn now to be terrified. Let them see what fear feels like!

  So it has to be true: The Russians are coming, and the end of the war is near. The Nazis are fleeing back to Germany.

  I think I see the soldier who squeezed my breast and beat Father. He is smaller than I remember, and I note with pleasure how his hands shake when he picks up his suitcase from the ground. I would like to shout at him, to let him know how much I hate him and how I hope he will pay for his sins, but Berta won’t let me. “It’s best not to provoke them,” she says, lifting her chin toward the rifles hanging over the Nazis’ shoulders.

  They all leave on the train, except for Commandant Rahm and a handful of his men. When Rahm himself gets on the public address system and announces there will be a meeting at the café that was built during the Embellishment, we don’t know what to think. What can he possibly have to say to us now?

  A dark-haired boy races up the stairs to our apartment. “The watchmen are no longer in their stations!” he shouts excitedly. “The Russians are coming!”

  No watchmen on guard in the tall towers that surround Theresienstadt, surveying our every move?

  We could leave—walk out the front gates and begin our new lives right now. But we don’t dare to leave. Instead we do as we are told and go to Rahm’s meeting.

  There are no more than two hundred of us. Frau Davidels says there are several hundred other prisoners still in the camp, lying in their sickbeds, too weak to attend. So this is what has become of the many thousands of prisoners who were sent to Theresienstadt.

  Rahm clears his throat. His nose looks red and veiny. I wonder if he’s been drinking. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he begins.

  There is a twitter in the audience. Someone laughs out loud. Others jab each other’s elbows. These are things we’d never have dared do even a few days ago. In the time I’ve known Rahm, he has called us many things, but never “ladies and gentlemen.” He dabs at his forehead with a handkerchief that he takes out of his jacket pocket. “I want you to remember one thing,” he says, “just one thing. And that’s how lucky you have been. Remember always how the German Fatherland looked after you.”

  I turn first to my left, then my right. Everywhere I see thin, pale, broken faces. Someone coughs. Rahm is partly right. Compared to all those who have perished, we are indeed the lucky ones. But Rahm’s Fatherland has not done a very good job of looking after us.

  A youngish man stands up and jeers. Others sit in silence, astonished by what they’ve heard.

  Without saying another word, Rahm turns his back on us and marches out of the café. His lackeys follow close behind. There is a truck waiting for them outside.

  With no more Nazis in the camp, I’m not sure what to do next. It’s a strange feeling. I’ve been following orders for so long I feel a little lost without someone telling me what to do. “Clean that cauldron!” “No talking in the soup line!” “Pass those cardboard boxes, dirty Jews!”

  There is no sense reporting to work. On the other hand, we have to eat. And those who are ill require medical attention. So yes, there is much to do.

  “Are we still prisoners?” Theo asks Father.

  Father hesitates. “Of course not.”

  “Then why don’t we go home?”

  “Everything in its time.”

  Mother grabs my hand and kisses my fingers. “Come help me find food,” she says. The diet kitchen is teeming with people who have the same idea. Someone tosses us an onion. I hold it to my chest. A whole yellow onion!

  When we pass the Podmokly Kaserne, where the Nazi officers were billeted, I spot a long roll of what seems in the distance to be fabric. Bright yellow fabric, as bright as the sun, lying against the side of the building. “Should we take it?” I ask Mother. “Perhaps it can be used for bandages.”

  It is only when we are close enough to touch it that we realize what sort of fabric this is. Yellow stars. Rows and rows of them, with the German word Jude—Jew— inscribed beneath each one in heavy black letters. The bolt must weigh nearly as much as me, but even so, I manage to cart it back to our apartment. I’m still hungry, but my strength is coming back.

  We hear the tanks before we see them. A low roar, growing steadily louder, then dozens and dozens of dusty tanks, followed by almost as many dusty cars. There are men on horseback, and there are cannons too. “Hurrah! It’s Koniev’s Fifth Army Guards!” voices call out. “They have come to liberate Theresienstadt!”

  I want to be happy, but mostly I feel as if I am in a dream. Or as if I am just beginning to wake up from a terrifying nightmare.

  Theo wants to go off with one of his soccer friends, to see the tanks up close. “Bring this to the soldiers,” Mother says, handing him a cup of water. “They’ll be thirsty on such a warm day.”

  When Theo comes back, his eyes are glowing. “Look what they gave me,” he says breathlessly. Then he shows us what he is hiding behind his back: a German pistol. A Luger, but thank goodness, with no bullets inside.

  Mother gasps, but Father laughs. His old throaty laugh, the one that starts in his belly. It is a sound I’d nearly forgotten.

  Before the Russians came to Theresienstadt, I sometimes dreamt of what I’d do when I finally got my hands on a Nazi, or any German, for that matter. Aren’t they all responsible, after all?

  Sometimes my victim was the Nazi officer who’d thrust his sweaty hand inside my nightgown. In my dream, I pulled his hand away, called him a dog and told him to leave me alone. When he tried to hit Father, I tripped the Nazi from behind, and I laughed when he fell to the floor. Or sometimes I stared him in the face and spat at him, watching as my saliva dribbled down his chin.

  Sometimes my victim was Commandant Rahm. In my dreams, I planned a special torture all for him. I did to him what he had ordered done to the artists. I sent him to work all day in the quarries, then forced him to do calisthenics until he collapsed. And then I kicked him until he was dead.

  That dream was so r
eal that when I woke up the muscles in my legs ached. As if I really had kicked him.

  Theo and I will return to Holland by train. Dr. Hayek has examined us and pronounced us strong enough to make the journey home.

  “We still have some business here, and your Opa needs to be a little stronger before he is ready to travel,” Father explains. The Russians have set up a temporary office and are interviewing inmates in order to decide whether and how soon they can be released.

  They have some questions for Father. They know about the other artists who died, and they want to know how he managed to survive.

  “Can’t we wait for you?” I ask Father.

  “It’s better this way. The Lunshofs will meet you in Haarlem. Mother and I will join you there. Don’t worry so much, Anneke.”

  “I thought you always said the most important thing was to stay together.”

  “Not right now, Anneke.”

  “Will everything be all right?” I ask Father. I am watching his face.

  Father nods. “Of course it will.”

  “But the Russians. They’ll want to know...” I don’t finish my sentence. But Father knows what I mean.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he says. “I did what I had to do. There was no choice.”

  And so, two days later, Theo and I board a train bound for Holland. This time, we have proper seats, and there is a bathroom in the next carriage. I wonder whether, like me, Theo is remembering our last train ride. But I don’t ask, in case he isn’t. I don’t want to remind him of it. Right now, Theo has no one but me to look after him.

  I gaze out the window at the bright green fields and the puffy clouds. The landscape still looks the same. But everything else has changed. Theo falls asleep. I try to sleep as well, but my mind is too awake. I keep seeing pictures of Theresienstadt and the people I’ve known there: Frau Davidels in her white bonnet, Hannelore the first time I saw her climb out of her cauldron, Franticek giving me his necklace, the Bialystok orphans dressed in rags, Berta watching over me at the infirmary.

  Will my mind ever settle down or will these images stay with me until my dying day? I’ve left Theresienstadt, but it seems I’ve taken the place with me. I shake my head as if that will make the pictures go away. But it doesn’t work. Now I see Ronald’s purplish blue eyes.

  Once we leave Czechoslovakia, we have to pass through Germany before we can reach Holland. The train screeches to a halt at the Bremen station. A girl with thick glasses is waiting on the platform. She gasps when she steps into our carriage.

  She takes the seat closest to the door. I can see she is watching us, watching her. She crosses her legs. “Guten tag,” she says in a quiet voice.

  That is all she has to say.

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you? A no-good Nazi!” one of the older boys in our carriage cries out. The boy sitting next to him leaps to his feet. The commotion wakes Theo. “What’s going on?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

  One of the Dutch boys has got his hands on an ink pen. Was it also a gift from the Russians? If so, I think it is a much better gift than Theo’s Luger, now safely stashed at the bottom of his rucksack. An ink pen can be used to make drawings or to write down stories. A gun is only good for scaring people—or worse.

  The boy with the pen forces the German girl to her feet. “Turn around,” he tells her. And then he uses the ink pen to draw a swastika on her back.

  “I’m not a Nazi,” the girl protests, her voice trembling.

  “Of course you’re a Nazi,” her attacker says. “You moffen are all Nazis. Every last one of you! Now give me your shoes! Now!” The way he says it reminds me of the Nazi soldiers who came to our apartment looking for illegal art.

  Whimpering, the girl unlaces her shoes. I did not notice them before, but now I see that they are black and scuffed. But unlike mine, they have no holes. I stare at them. Shoes without holes. I’ve forgotten what that looks like.

  The boy sticks his nose inside one of the shoes. “They don’t stink too bad,” he says, laughing, “for moffen shoes!” Then he tosses the pair of shoes in my direction. “Here,” he says, “a gift from the Fatherland.”

  The girl is sobbing now. Her shoulders shake. One of her white socks has a hole at the toe.

  The shoes land in my lap. The boys return to their seats, calmer now that they have turned on the girl. The shoes will probably fit me. I could put them on, or I could go over and kick the girl. Like in my dream. But this is nothing like my dream.

  When I get up, I know that now everyone in the car is watching me. I walk over to the girl and hand her back her shoes. “I don’t want any gifts from the Fatherland,” I say, loudly enough so everyone will hear.

  When Anita Lunshof sees us she bursts into tears.

  Theo looks confused. “Father said you’d be happy to see us.”

  “I am. It’s just that, you look so...” Anita crouches down and gathers us in her arms.

  Her husband, Jan, shifts from one foot to the other. “Let’s get the two of you home—and into the bathtub.”

  Because the Lunshofs live in the center of Haarlem, we walk to their house. Theo and I visited Haarlem before the war, and though it isn’t home to us, the Dutchness of the city—the fishing boats moored alongside the canal; the narrow, linked, brown brick houses; the white lace curtains in the windows; the bicycles parked in the lanes—feels familiar. I wish Father and Mother and Opa could be here too, so we could share the feeling of being back in our own country.

  In the streets, people glance over their shoulders at Theo and me. Some point or whisper when they see us pass. Perhaps it is our old clothes or because we are so thin, but they seem to know where we’ve been. Will people always be able to tell?

  “How would you like some bread with syrup for your dinner?” Anita Lunshof asks when we are seated at the wooden nook in her bright kitchen.

  “I’d prefer poffertjes,” Theo calls out. He hasn’t forgotten the small pancakes Mother used to make as a special treat.

  “I’m afraid it takes milk and eggs to make poffertjes,” Anita says, “and we haven’t had either of those things in ages.”

  “Bread with syrup sounds delicious,” I say.

  Our rucksacks disappear. Flore, the Lunshofs’ housemaid must have whisked them to the backroom because soon I smell soap and a little later, I hear the creak of the wash line as Flore hangs out the clothes in the back garden.

  When I can’t eat any more bread with syrup, I go to look out the kitchen window. A black and white cat is lying on the grass, his belly exposed to the air. The wind is growing stronger; the clothes hanging on the line fill up like sails. That is when I see my cream silk dress, the one I wore when I was little and which I packed without Mother’s knowledge. How could I have forgotten all about it? Mother must have found it and put it in my rucksack.

  When I get up, I can hear the sounds of the household, and I realize I have slept late. Our laundry is neatly folded on a chair by the door.

  “I need a hammer and nails,” I tell Theo, who is sharing the guestroom with me.

  “I saw a toolbox in the hallway.”

  When Theo returns with the box, I go straight to work, hammering six nails into the mahogany paneling. Three for me, three for Theo. I do my best to keep them in an even line. Now we have a place to hang our clothes.

  There is a knock on the door. “Are you two sleepyheads awake?” Anita Lunshof asks. “I thought I heard sounds coming from up here. Did you sleep well?”

  Anita puts her hand to her mouth when she sees my handiwork. “Why in the world have you gone and hammered into the fine mahogany, Anneke?”

  I didn’t mean any harm. I take my silk dress and hang it carefully on the first nail.

  Anita shakes her head. “Why, Anneke, we keep our clothes in a closet. Have you forgotten what a closet is for?”

  I am too embarrassed to admit I have.

  Nineteen

  “you are Anneke?”

  The man is stan
ding in front of me, but his voice echoes in my ears. The brass buttons on his jacket gleam, distracting me from his question. The buttons, the uniform, the shiny black boots and the man’s sharp tone of voice all distract me. I feel the backs of my knees turn to jelly. My stomach churns.

  Father pats my elbow, a quick warm pat that brings me back to reality. A pat that tells me everything is all right. The war is over. We are in The Hague in Holland, safely back in our own country. The nightmare is over.

  Father has been summoned to the Dutch military headquarters to answer some more questions. In the end, he agreed to let me tag along. But he never said they might have questions for me.

  “Anneke?” Father says, his voice not much louder than a whisper. He turns to the officer. “She’s been through a lot,” he tells him. “She’s only sixteen.”

  I gulp. It will be easier if I look at the man’s face—his clear blue eyes, his rosy cheeks—and not at the row of gleaming buttons. “Yes,” I say, “I’m Anneke Van Raalte.” There, that wasn’t so hard.

  The officer sits down behind his desk and reaches for his glasses. They have wire rims. Then he reaches into his pocket for a handkerchief and polishes the lenses. When he finally puts his glasses back on the edge of his nose, he looks like an owl. “Tell me where you spent the last two years, Anneke.”

  When I turn to look at Father, he nods his head.

  I gulp again. “Theresienstadt,” I say.

  When the officer jots something in his notebook, his pen makes a scratching sound. Then he looks up at me again. “So you and your father survived Theresienstadt?”

  “Yes, and also my mother and my brother, Theo, I mean Theodoor. And my opa too. We all survived.”

  The officer turns to Father. “I see,” he says. “All five of you Jews survived?” He rubs his chin. “It’s highly suspicious!”

  I can feel my heart pounding under my blouse. I cannot let myself be frightened by a row of brass buttons or a pair of shiny black boots, even if they look like the kind of boots the Nazis wore. No, I have something important to say to this Dutch officer.