Anca's Story--a novel of the Holocaust

by Mark Williams

  I savoured the moment. Words cannot describe how beautiful the taste of such commonplace a commodity as water after so many days of enforced abstinence.

  Then I remembered Nicolae and all thought of heaven vanished, reality imposing its presence in an instant. I felt more of the precious liquid being applied to my chapped lips and instinctively pushed myself away, for my bodily needs were as nothing compared to my concern for my sibling.

  I felt a gentle hand at my head restrain me and a voice spoke, the tone soft and reassuring, the language unfamiliar. I lay still while my mind sifted myriad unfocused images that fought for my attention. I tried to call out Nicolae’s name but pain seared through my body at the attempt and I fell back, exhausted even by this feeble effort.

  Again I tried to speak, but a finger gentle against my lips prohibited my ambition, the stranger’s words surely urging me to be still and silent.

  I felt water again applied to my lips and this time I tried to move my swollen tongue to savour it, hoping to draw strength from its refreshing powers.

  If my vision was slowly beginning to focus, still nothing seemed clear. I could see daylight around me and from above could ascertain the amorphous image of a tree swaying gently in the breeze. But of my benefactor, indeed of anyone, I could see nothing.

  I inhaled deeply, partaking of the cool, clean air, savouring the contrast as I remembered the feculence of the past days.

  Gently cupped hands tilted before my face and I felt more of the cool fluid run over my lips and cheeks, and down my neck. As the water trickled slowly down my parched and arid throat, I felt my whole body strengthen in response.

  A hand at my head lowered me until I was resting on what I smelt to be grass, though I could not move my neck enough to see it. Above me I saw a blurred figure move away. I tried to call out but the task was beyond me and I reluctantly accepted my fate, laying still, for every attempt to move wracked my body with pain. Desperate as I was to know the fate of my brother all I could do was pray that Nicolae too had been rescued with me. My eyelids were heavy and, overcome with fatigue, I lapsed once more.

  When next I opened my eyes it was dusk, but pain still wracked my body and I fell back into slumber seconds later, vaguely conscious as I did so of a fire burning a short way distant. The flames seem to carry into my sleep for fire dominated my dreams over the next few hours until, at length, I awoke again, this time finding the pain more tolerable, and slowly I opened my eyes to the night.

  The only illumination was now provided by the fire, its heavenly flames dancing gently to the unheard rhythm of the evening’s breeze, but still my muscles would not respond enough to permit me to turn.

  Perhaps attracted by my efforts, an unfocused figure again appeared above me, leaning over my prostrate form. The blur came closer until it was just above me, hovering like an angel, though I had by now dismissed such flights of fancy from my mind.

  The face came slowly into focus, first the eyes, then the other features, the contours flickering gently in the fire’s lambent illumination. Small fingers reached out and touched my face, and as they did so I felt my eyes moisten. Defying the pain a smile spread across cracked lips and my hand raised to take the fingers that lay on my cheek.

  I felt Nicolae’s hand in mine and the tears became torrents as pent emotions were released in unquestioning gratitude.

  I raised my other arm, clutching my little brother tight, drawing his body against mine. Tears of pain mingled with the tears of joy that flooded my cheeks, but I held him closer still, determined never to let him go. I wanted desperately to caress the sores on his lips, to offer comfort and tender his hollow cheeks, but I could not bring myself to let go the tight grip I held him in, for fear he might disappear, that his very presence might prove to be an illusion.

  “Anca, why are you crying?”

  Nicolae’s words were mellifluent, his question innocence incarnate, and for some minutes I could do nothing but attempt to smile through my tears. I tried to plant a kiss upon his cheek, but painful lips made me recoil. As my tears began to subside I tried again to speak, but words were not yet possible and I lay back again, now secure in the knowledge my little brother, at least, was safe.

  Of Mama... Of Chaim and Golda, and of the sweet child Elone... Of the countless innocents that had been on the train with us... Of these I could not know, taking small comfort from the thought that we surely could not be the sole survivors.

  An unknown figure approached and gently eased Nicolae to his feet, evidently suggesting I should be left to recuperate. Knowing Nicolae to be in safe hands I acquiesced without further objection, determined to rest now, that I might find the strength to rise when next I woke.

  26.

  Distant voices drifted across my mind, chasing an already forgotten dream from my consciousness. There were male and female voices both, and I fancied I could tell of varying ages. Some were in languages I did not recognize but too were some, at least, in my native Romanian.

  I happily recognized Nicolae’s voice among them, calling out to someone, and for a minute or two I lay listening to them, trying to make sense of their fleeting conversations.

  I could feel the sun’s warmth on my face, daylight once again upon us. My eyes flickered open, adjusting slowly to the brightness. Above me the tree stood proud, its branches swaying gently in a light breeze scented by a confetti of cascading pastel blossoms that evoked cheering memories of halcyon days. An effulgent sun stood proud in the sky above.

  My anxieties of the previous night were gone, for I knew Nicolae to be safe, and as yet concern about Mama was not heavy upon my mind. I felt relaxed in my decumbent position, though I remembered well the pain that attempts at movement had wrought upon me previously. Nonetheless I resolved to defy such discomfort this morning and rise shortly to investigate my circumstances.

  I lay still a little longer, enjoying the sun’s warmth and allowing my strength to build, then with slow, cautious movements, made as if to sit up. Searing pain ran through my shoulder at the attempt and I cried out, throwing my body onto one side to try and escape the torment that beset me. All at once I heard a demulcent voice at my side and firm hands took me around the waist, raising me to a sitting position before tilting my body back to rest against the trunk of a tree.

  The face of my benefactor now became apparent as he crouched before me, offering a welcome smile and comforting words, but his language was alien, only his tone making sense. He was dressed in peasant clothes yet around his waist an ammunition belt hung, and slung over his shoulder a rifle further challenged this bucolic first impression.

  I tried to speak, for the tumescence had subsided and my tongue could at least move, but my lips were still sore, the skin broken and scab-ridden, my vocal chords not yet willing to respond to my will. Realising my bewilderment the man to my fore gestured to someone behind me, and seconds later another figure appeared, similarly attired to the first.

  “Anca, how are you feeling now, child?” He spoke in hesitant, broken Romanian, but I was grateful for the familiar words.

  I attempted an answer without success and raised my strong hand to my throat to indicate my plight. The man gestured his understanding and, turning to his friend, spoke quickly in a foreign tongue, after which the first man took his leave. The second turned to me again and ventured to explain himself.

  “My name is Karol,” he said slowly. “I speak only a little Romanian. I am sorry.” He paused, as if uncertain I had understood him. I nodded for him to continue.

  “Do you perhaps speak Polish, or German?”

  I shook my head, braving the obtuse pain.

  The man calling himself Karol shrugged in resignation. “Then I will try to my best to explain. First, your brother is safe and well, as you will by now know.”

  At Nicolae’s mention I tried to look around that I might see him, but there was no sign within the limited range of my vision and pain prevented me searching further afield.

  “He is
in good hands,” Karol assured me. “He is unhurt. You, however, must rest for many days. You have a... What is the word... An injury, to your shoulder. A bullet passed through you, but no vital organs were touched and you will soon heal. It was a lucky escape for you, Anca. There were very few survivors.”

  I nodded slowly. This news was not unexpected, but the confirmation was no easier for that.

  He asked, “You are not Jewish?”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought not. Yet you were in the same wagon?”

  Again I tried to speak, to explain, but quickly retired from the challenge. Witnessing my struggle Karol urged me to be silent.

  “I will speak. You will listen.”

  I nodded again and Karol began a slow and laboured explanation of the events that had brought us together. “You will know already how you came to be on a train full of Jews. More so than I. How so is no longer important. Also you will perhaps know you were bound for Krakow, there to go on to a resettlement camp.”

  Again I nodded assent.

  Karol paused, choosing his words carefully. “We struck at the train two days ago now. Some few kilometres west of here. Explosives beneath the tracks.”

  He saw my look of confusion at this news and added, “Please understand, child, you were not the target. It should not have been your train that we took out, though your fate can only be the better for it.”

  I looked into his eyes, trying to understand his meaning, but could make no sense of his reasoning. He was speaking again and I listened carefully.

  “Unfortunately we returned too late to save many. The Nazis had already turned their weapons upon the survivors and left you for dead.”

  This much I knew already, for the image of the Nazi soldier firing upon us was not one I would soon forget.

  “We tracked a few of them,” Karol continued, “but most got away, over the border into Czechoslovakia.”

  He saw my surprise at this observation and ventured to add, “You are in Poland now, Anca, far from your own country. Perhaps when you are fully recovered you will wish to try and return to Romania? I cannot say what will be best for you.”

  I briefly considered the suggestion while my benefactor chose his next words.

  If we had crossed the border then logic dictated Krakow could not be far, for I knew it to be a city in Poland. Whatsoever its distance, I knew that Mama was bound there, and that it must be our destination. But unable to communicate such sentiments I lay still, preserving my strength, concentrating once more as Karol continued his explanation.

  “Anca, please try to understand. We can care for you for a few days, but no more. There are too many of you – about thirty in all – and we are not equipped for such a venture. Our comrades in the Resistance will be waiting for us. Already we are behind in our tasks.”

  The Resistance. I had heard this word whispered many times by Papa, before his execution. If I still did not understand who or what they were, I drew solace from the knowledge that Papa had spoken highly of them, although I knew such only from overheard snatches of conversations.

  Karol spoke again. I was thankful for the pauses as he struggled to select his words, for it gave me time to organize my own thoughts.

  He said, “But for now, child, you must rest. Your brother Nicolae is quite safe. He will come to you later. But only by resting will you have the strength to... To survive, once we are gone. So please, rest now. Build up your strength. My comrades will provide you with food and water, but they do not speak your language. We are all Poles or Slovaks, I am sorry. Please be patient.”

  He took my hand briefly, and then was gone, back into the undergrowth not far distant, and I was alone, looking forward to seeing Nicolae once more.

  27.

  Over the next few days I affected a rapid recovery, my injuries treated with a sickly-smelling poultice that seemed to promote rapid healing.

  My recovery was further encouraged by the realisation that little Elone had been among those few who had survived the massacre of the injured following the train derailment. I had to presume that Golda had perished either then or during the journey itself, for she was not numbered among the survivors there with us.

  Of Chaim’s fate, as my mother’s, I had no knowledge. I did not even know if they had been on that train, though I knew their destination to be the same. Of course the likely fate of Elone’s parents had not yet been imparted to the child, with whom I now found myself entrusted the care of, along with my little brother.

  Had I realised then the full implications of this adoption I would perhaps have distanced myself from the prospect, but Nicolae and Elone had renewed their acquaintance during my period of convalescence and now were all but inseparable. Further, their friendship prevented either of them from dwelling too long on the fate of their respective parents, my half-hearted assurances that they would be soon re-united seemingly serving to satisfy them.

  Thus it was inevitable that, when our benefactors declared it was time for them to leave us, I found myself burdened with both Nicolae and Elone as my sole responsibility. Not least this was because, among the survivors, only we three were Romanian by nationality. The others were Bulgars, Magyars and other Slav nationals, and all Jews, for what that mattered. These few, of the untold number on the train, survived. All the others had perished on the journey or been slaughtered by the Nazis after the crash.

  My few days recuperating were, in the circumstances, enjoyably spent, our benefactors proving themselves fine hosts, despite the difficult communications.

  My injuries were minor compared with some, although others, Nicolae and Elone included, seemed to have enjoyed a miraculous escape, having been buried beneath the bodies of others after the derailment and thus protected from the spray of bullets unleashed by the Nazi murderers. But even so, I knew many hundreds, perhaps thousands, had met their death during transit or by bullet at the journey’s abrupt termination and this fact weighed heavy on my mind.

  I learned that, once sure there were no further survivors among the wreckage, the Resistance had elected to give those who perished a mass cremation, destroying bodies and train as one in a fiery inferno, using fuel from a Nazi convoy previously hijacked.

  This much Karol imparted to me during our infrequent conversations, and once my voice returned I managed to establish the vaguest of directions for Krakow.

  I began making plans for Nicolae and I, with Elone in tow as I now realised we must, to pursue my mother’s fate. Karol tried to convince me that return to my native Romania was in our best interests, but I would brook no such advice, and at length he abandoned his protests and supplied me with what little information he could.

  I did not relish the prospect, with the burden of two young children, for Krakow was stated to be many hundreds of kilometres distant, even further into Poland than we currently found ourselves, and I knew my injured shoulder would oblige both children to make their own way, for carriage would not be possible.

  Of course we had no money for food or shelter, bore only the clothes we stood in, cleaned but still ragged from the excesses of our journey, and had not even a command of the language to help us by.

  But Karol aside no-one objected, for truth be told they were glad not to be burdened with three children themselves.

  Thus it was, that soon after our benefactors had bid us good luck and disappeared into the forests to pursue their fight against the Nazis, I gather Nicolae and Elone around me and we hesitantly began the long trek north in pursuit of those we loved.

  28.

  Our first days alone in the wilderness were to prove surprisingly easy, for the spring climate remained favourable, a warm wind rising from the south-west. We were blessed with clear skies of a day, the spring sun quickly warming the atmosphere, and clouded evenings that kept the night’s temperature from dropping too low.

  After the extreme discomfort we had so recently endured we found little problem sleeping, snuggling together beneath bushes for additional
warmth, and countless sub-alpine streams provided cool, fresh water whenever we required it. Even when back in Medgidia we had grown used to eating unripe fruit and strange plants and, if we missed the luxury of a warm meal, this was no great hardship.

  We followed a route approximating north-west, using the sun as our guide, always keeping the mountains behind us. Eventually I hoped to come across a road or railway that we could follow at a discreet distance in the hope of obtaining a keener direction.

  By the second day I could stand it no longer and, making the affair into a game for the benefit of Nicolae and Elone, had us all strip and play in a shallow stream in order to cleanse our bodies and clothes. The water running down from the distant mountains where winter still held sway was ice cold, such as to be barely tolerable but we all, I am certain, felt better for the ablution.

  Our clothes were badly soiled and ideally some form of detergent would have been welcome, but the worst excesses gave way to the combined efforts of running water and brute force and by the time I had completed my task, the three of us were once again respectable, though I longed for the luxury of a brush to tend our hair.

  Fortunately, Elone had been well dressed by her parents in a heavy winter coat as well as a warm frock and camisole, and even underclothes, a luxury I had not experienced for a long time. Her family, I surmised, must have been one of relative wealth in the not so distant past, but I dared not question her upon the matter for fear of enkindling her interest in her missing parents.

  For Nicolae and myself, our attire left much to be desired. Nicolae still wore my coat wrapped awkwardly around his body, for it was much too large for him. His own clothes, such as they were, had came reasonably clean in the stream and quickly dried. My sack-cloth frock was much the worse for wear, one shoulder having been ripped away by our rescuers when they tended my wound, and my dress now hung limply from the other shoulder, revealing the necklace and amulet Raisa had entrusted me with.