Karolina's Twins

by Ronald H. Balson

  “‘You have to. I risked my life to help your network, and all I’m asking you to do is to switch two women.’

  “‘And two babies.’

  “‘Yes. Please switch Karolina and Muriel.’

  “He shook his head. ‘The lists are all final. They know who’s supposed to be on each train.’

  “‘Change the lists. You can do it. You’re a colonel.’

  “‘A colonel who knows how to stay alive. A colonel who knows how to take risks when they’re for the greater good, not for two girlfriends.’

  “I couldn’t accept that for an answer. I looked around the square. ‘If you don’t switch them, I’ll expose you right here and now in this square. I’ll run over to the Gestapo and tell them who you really are.’

  “Colonel Müller laughed hard. I thought his sides would split. ‘You are the bravest little imp I ever met. Go get in the north line before I shoot you.’

  “‘Please. Please,’ I begged.

  “He shook his head in exasperation. ‘Stand here. I’ll see if anything can be done.’

  “The lines had formed and we stood for hours waiting for the trains to load. Finally the line for Auschwitz started to board the train. Soldiers were packing people into the boxcars. I broke into tears. I was ready to sprint over to the Auschwitz line, join my friends and the babies, and face whatever fate awaited us, when I saw Colonel Müller walking toward me, Karolina on one side and Muriel on the other. Each one held a baby. Colonel Müller looked at me and winked. ‘Good-bye, little hitchhiker. See you when the war’s over.’”

  “Wow. He was a stand-up guy after all.”

  “Yes, he was, and that was the death knell for him. He ended up in front of a firing squad for treason. He was a good man, Catherine. And he was right. When he took risks, they were for the greater good. His group almost killed Hitler in 1944.”

  “So, the three of you boarded the train for Gross-Rosen?”

  “The three of us and our twins.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  WE STOOD IN LINE for hours. No water, no food. We watched the group bound for Auschwitz as they were loaded into the boxcars. So many stuffed into each car. There would be no room for people to sit. We watched the Nazis push them in, pack them in, slide the doors shut and flip the locks. The train pulled out of the station with noisy jerks and slowly moved out of sight. When the train had left, our group was marched across the square to the platform.

  “Again, we waited. Evening settled in. Muriel and I sheltered Karolina so she could feed the twins. They were the only babies in our group, which was mostly composed of women, young and strong. Although many looked kindly upon Karolina and the babies, some were resentful.

  “Finally, we saw the lights of a train. It wasn’t a train of boxcars like the one that had gone to Auschwitz. It was a passenger train.”

  “A passenger train?” Catherine said. “All the pictures of Jewish prisoners that I’ve ever seen were in boxcars and cattle cars.”

  “Most were, but the Nazis would commandeer other trains whenever necessary. Cattle cars, open freight cars and even passenger trains. We were loaded onto a passenger train with comfortable seats, windows, even bathrooms. Compared to the horrors of the boxcars, our passenger train was a luxury. There were more seats than passengers and the windows could be lowered. There were guards on each car, but they hardly paid any attention.

  “The boarding was uneventful. Muriel and I sat in one seat. Karolina and the twins sat in the seat facing us. I still had some food in my duffel, so we had nourishment. Gross-Rosen was about two hundred miles away from Chrzanów. Ordinarily, the trip wouldn’t take more than four or five hours. But we were a deportation train, the lowest of priorities, and our train gave way to the needs of the German military. We traveled slowly and would be switched to a siding whenever an army transport or a supply train needed the main track.

  “As the train rocked along, we took turns hugging the babies. Karolina rubbed her hand gently over their heads, sung lullabies to them and sobbed intermittently. We all did. Their fate was unknown, but we all feared the worst. Still, we had come this far, and as long as we were all still here together, maybe we’d find a way.

  “The train poked along and the night was warm. Most of the passengers had lowered their windows down and had fallen asleep. I don’t think the Germans worried about any of us jumping out of the windows of a moving train. After all, we were the privileged workers who were being reassigned because of our skills. We were needed and we would surely survive the war. Whenever we pulled onto a side track and stopped, the guards would disembark and stand on the platform with their rifles just in case some foolish girl harbored thoughts of freedom.

  “Dawn broke on another sunny, warm day. Our train came to a stop again on a siding. Karolina was feeding the twins when an older woman, bony and unkempt, walked up the aisle and stopped at our seats. She shook her head. ‘I’ve been to Gross-Rosen,’ she said in a raspy voice. ‘Before I was transferred to the Shop, I labored at Gross-Rosen. It’s no picnic, let me tell you. Women are treated like slaves. Worse than slaves. We slept four together on a wooden plank covered with a few pieces of straw. Soup twice a day. Bread once.’ Then she pointed at the babies. ‘They won’t let you have those babies, you know. There’s no babies there.’

  “‘That’s enough,’ Muriel said.

  “The old woman wouldn’t shut up. ‘The SS. They’ll take those babies from you the minute you arrive. They won’t let you have them. No one has babies.’

  “Muriel stood. ‘I said, that’s enough. Now just keep walking.’

  “The old woman’s voice rose. In a raspy, high-pitched tone she said, ‘They’ll kill your babies. I’ve seen them do it. Those babies are as good as dead.’

  “Karolina’s eyes grew wide. She scooped up the twins and held them tight to her chest.

  “Muriel stepped out into the aisle. ‘I told you to keep walking, now get out of here.’

  “The old woman shook her head and moved toward the end of the car. After a few steps, she turned around. ‘I’ve seen them. The SS. I know. Those babies. They’re dead.’

  “‘Don’t listen to her,’ I said. ‘She’s just a crazy old hag. We need to hold on to hope.’

  “Karolina fixed her gaze upon the babies. ‘She’s right,’ she said softly. She lifted her head and stared at me. ‘She’s right. They are condemned. They’re as good as dead.’

  “‘Stop saying that, Karolina.’ But she started to shake. Her jaw quivered. She gazed out of the window and her eyes glassed over, as if she had fallen into a stupor. I lifted both of the babies out of her lap. I motioned for Muriel.

  “‘Karolina,’ Muriel said, loudly. ‘Look at me. We’re going to do our best to take care of our babies. Don’t listen to that old woman. We got this far, didn’t we?’

  “Karolina just sat in her seat, unresponsive, staring out the window, twitching, as though she were catatonic. Muriel sat right next to her and put her arm around her. ‘Talk to me, Karolina.’ But she didn’t respond. Muriel looked at me and shook her head. ‘Let’s give her some time. She’ll come around.’

  “The train jerked hard. We pulled back onto the main track and started rolling slowly again, moving along at a snail’s pace through Poland’s farm country. The wheat fields on each side of the tracks were speckled with greens and golds, new shafts waking up, sprouting green through the brown winter grass. Rarely did we see a village, and when we did, we slowly rolled straight through. Karolina sat in a daze and seemed unaware of her surroundings. From time to time she would mumble. I thought I heard her say ‘Madeleine’ and I wondered what made her think about her dog at a time like this.

  “Two or three hours later, in the heat of the midday, right after we had pulled back onto the main tracks from yet another sidetrack, Karolina looked at me and reached for Leah. We were facing each other, sitting in the window seats. I was glad to see her more alert and coming out of her stupor. ‘She’s just a little bundle of joy,
’ I said as I handed the child to her. I continued to hold Rachel and rock her in my arms.

  “After a moment, Karolina leaned forward. ‘I’m not going to let the Nazis kill our babies. I’m going to save them, Lena, and I want your help.’

  “I was worried. She wasn’t thinking straight. ‘What do you have in mind?’

  “‘Where is that paper with Siegfried’s mother’s address?’

  “I reached into my duffel. ‘It’s right here.’

  “‘Give it to me. Do you have something to write with?’

  “I shook my head. She tore a blank piece from the bottom of Siegfried’s paper, took a pin from Leah’s diaper and poked it into her finger. With her blood, she copied the address onto the torn piece of paper. ‘Here,’ she told me. ‘Pin this paper onto Rachel’s diaper.’ I took Rachel out of her rolled-up blanket and pinned the address like I was told. Karolina pinned the top portion of Siegfried’s paper with the handwritten address onto Leah’s diaper. Then we each rolled the babies back into their blankets. I had no idea what she had in mind or what person she figured was going to take these babies to the address on Siegfried’s papers. I started to ask, ‘Who is going to carry these twins…’

  “‘Shh,’ she commanded as we pulled onto another side track. A streamlined passenger train rushed past us, rattling and shaking our car. She continued to stare out the window until we started slowly pulling away from the siding. Then suddenly she stood and from the bottom of her soul said, ‘Lord, forgive me,’ and she heaved Leah out the window and into the field. ‘Good-bye, my precious.’

  “Then she looked at me. ‘Throw Rachel. Now!’

  “I looked down at the baby. Her eyes were bright and clear. So beautiful. So trusting. And at that moment Rachel locked eyes with me and smiled sweetly. It tore my heart out. ‘No, Karolina, I can’t.’

  “‘We can’t let them kill her, Lena. Throw Rachel as far as you can. Do it now.’

  “‘I can’t. I … I can’t.’

  “Like a madwoman she stood over me. ‘Throw her,’ she screamed at the top of her lungs. ‘Now!! Throw Rachel!! It’s her only chance!’

  “I stood up and flung Rachel as far as I could. I watched her little body windmill out into the field and roll down a hill. Shocked at what I had done, I sat down and burst into tears. Karolina grabbed me and pulled me close to her. Her fingernails dug into my flesh. ‘They’re going to live, Lena. They’re not going to die. Do you hear me?’

  “I nodded.

  “‘When this war is over and we are freed, we’re coming back to find them. Understand?’

  “I nodded. I was in total disbelief at what we had done. Our beautiful babies.

  “‘If I don’t make it, Lena, promise me that you’ll come back and find the babies.’

  “I swallowed hard.

  “‘Promise me,’ she yelled and shook my shoulders.

  “‘I promise. So help me God, I promise.’

  “‘We’ll tell them, Lena. We’ll tell the babies about us, how much we loved them. How we would never have abandoned them ever, except to save their lives. Promise me.’

  “‘I promise.’

  “Karolina sat back in her seat and didn’t say another word until the train pulled into the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Muriel, who’d sat frozen, dumbfounded, through the entire episode, just stared at the two of us. Nothing further was said.”

  Catherine put her pen down. She stood and took a deep breath. She teetered and placed her hands on the table to steady herself.

  “I’m sorry,” Lena said. “Are you all right?”

  Catherine shook her head. “No, not really. Not this minute.” She reached out and hugged Lena, and the two of them cried together. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I understand. I don’t know how we had the strength. They would have died at the camp, you know. I see it in my mind every day and I still can’t process it. Karolina found the strength and the resolve. It really was the only possible way to save their lives. But Rachel’s smile, that smile she gave to me right before she left us, has stayed with me ever since. Do you want to stop for the day?”

  “I do. I think that’s all I can handle today.”

  “I’m very sorry. Are you still going to be my lawyer?”

  “Lena, I’m honored to be your lawyer.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  LIAM ENTERED THE FOYER and saw Catherine’s coat hanging on the hook. He checked his watch. Three-thirty. He walked into the living room and saw Catherine lying on the couch.

  “Are you all right? I thought you were working all day? Do we need to rush you to the hospital?”

  “Will you stop doing that every time I have a headache or runny nose? I’ve had a rough day.”

  “Lena?”

  She nodded. “You have no idea.”

  “Did you get the whole story?”

  “I got enough.”

  “But you stopped?”

  “Had to. And don’t think it’s just because I’m pregnant, although I’m sure that has something to do with it. Liam, they threw them out of the window of a moving train. The twins. Lena and Karolina threw them off of a moving fucking train. They flung their babies out the window.”

  Liam sat down hard. “Oh, Jesus. How terrible. I feel so badly for them all.” He shook his head, slid over and put his arms around a weeping Catherine.

  “Liam, they thought they were saving the babies’ lives. They knew that the Nazis would kill the babies as soon as the train got to the camp. Dead on arrival. They did the only thing they could think of. Who would have that strength? Not me.”

  “Me neither. I couldn’t throw my child out of a train. A helpless baby? I would go mad.”

  “I have an inkling that one or more of them did.”

  “What does this do to our assignment? How are we supposed to find out about two persons who died as babies seventy years ago?”

  “Obviously, Lena thinks they survived. Either way, she wants closure. Can’t we do that for her? She bore the responsibility for the fate of one of those babies. She took Rachel and threw her into a field. She loved that child. Hell, Liam, the way she tells the story, it’s like the babies were hers as well. She calls them our babies.”

  “I’m starting to think Arthur might be correct. Maybe Lena has talked herself into a scenario, deluded herself into thinking that the babies had a chance at survival and that belief consumes her. Is that delusional behavior? Is it irrational? Jesus, Cat, I don’t know.”

  “Don’t, Liam. She’s not delusional. She’s a hero. Every inch of her story rings true. I can’t find a flaw. Could there be embellishments after so many years? Confusion of dates? Times? The way particular details actually played out? There could be, but I don’t think there are. She’s got every detail and one follows the other. Bizarre? Yes. But we’re talking about the Holocaust. What’s more unbelievable than that?”

  “More unbelievable? Two rational people who thought it was a good idea to throw two babies out of a window of a moving train and expect them to survive.”

  “It was done to save their lives. It was the only chance they had. They would have been killed a few hours later. Everyone knew that. She pinned an address on both babies and threw them into a field from a slow-moving train. They had a chance at life. Slim, but a chance. They had no chance if they took them to the concentration camp.”

  “That’s what Karolina did with her dog, Madeleine. Abandoned him in a field.”

  Catherine nodded. “Rather than turn him over to the Nazis to be killed. You’re right. Lena told me that Karolina went into a dazed state and mumbled ‘Madeleine’ before she abandoned her babies. Now you’re getting it.”

  “I don’t know if I’m getting it. She didn’t abandon them, she threw them out of a window of a moving train.”

  “Will you stop saying that?”

  “No, follow me here. Karolina throws the babies out of a train window in 1943 somewhere in rural Poland. For whatever reason, Lena feels compelled
to find them, but she waits seventy years before hiring me. Do I have that right?”

  “No. Lena threw one of the babies herself. She bears the guilt. And she promised Karolina she’d come back and find them and tell them that they were loved and not abandoned. She swore to God.”

  “Where was the train when they threw the babies?”

  Catherine shook her head. “She doesn’t know. Somewhere between Chrzanów and Gross-Rosen, which is now Rogoznica, Poland. A few hundred miles.”

  Liam threw his hands up. “A few hundred miles? And why now? Lena survived. She could have looked for them in 1945 at the end of the war. And anytime thereafter. And what happened to Karolina?”

  “I don’t know yet what happened to Karolina, but my guess is that she didn’t make it. As to why she’s so compelled to find them now—that’s the jackpot question. There’s a reason, Liam. That’s the undisclosed secret I’m always talking about.”

  Liam shook his head. “Without some kind of proof of her story, you’re going to have a hell of a time defeating Arthur. Maybe she’s not delusional, but I certainly think Lena evidences signs of an obsessive behavior disorder. Didn’t the doctor tell you that it could be a psychological disorder if it consumes one’s life?”

  Catherine nodded. “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do tomorrow morning before Judge Peterson?” Liam asked.

  “I’m going to stand my ground. He has no right to force me to reveal client confidences.”

  “Lena wouldn’t waive them?”

  “I wouldn’t ask her. She’s on the up-and-up, Liam. I know it.”

  Liam closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know how she expects me to find those kids. Even if her story’s all true. Without proof, it’s an unwinnable defense. This case could wind up as a disaster for Lena. And what makes it all the worse is that you’re preparing to go to jail.”

  “I know you’re upset, but don’t give up. Please. See if you can find out anything about a woman named Muriel Bernstein. She was a student nurse in Kraków in 1939 and was on the transport to Gross-Rosen. She was sitting with them. Also, see if you can find a family named Schultz in Regensburg, Germany. That may be where the babies ended up. That was Siegfried’s family name. Either one of those people could corroborate Lena’s story.”