Ben’s voice morphed into my father’s, and, once again, I heard those familiar words: life is precious. But my ache was too deep. I wanted to hold on to my pain to avenge the deaths of my family members—to return their hatred back to the monsters who began this nightmare. The time would come when I could do something about it. Then my mother’s sweet voice came to me: you are taking the poison of hatred and hoping it will kill them. I realized that what I do to them, I’m doing to myself. My parents’ wisdom crystalized for me at that moment, as obvious as the bright morning sun lighting up the once dark sky. I knew then that I had to breathe in something stronger than the acrimony. I had to replace these feelings of hatred and revenge with gratitude. Letting go of the hostility was my only way to have a life worth living. Could I transform the traumatic hurt into something good for me? Gratitude? What does it really mean? How can something so elusive supplant the tangible agony I feel? I whispered softly, “Mamma,” as if to beckon her.
Remembering Mamma brought a crooked smile to my face and a glow that warmed my cold arms and legs. I envisioned my mother laughing in the kitchen when she caught us stealing cookie dough from her mixing bowl. I saw her rushing to us when we’d burn our hands on the hot baking tray. There was a lot of love in my family; plenty to be remembered when we needed it. As if at their funerals, Ben and I spent time reminiscing about silly, fun family antics that made us smile. As the memories permeated us, laughter returned.
I found gratitude in that basement. My heartache never stopped, but I learned to be grateful for the essentials of life: for the air in my lungs, the visions my eyes behold, and the very experience of being alive. It was in that cellar with Ben that I gained a firsthand appreciation for the resilience of the human spirit. All thanks to Max, who gave me a safe hiding place and the gift of life.
Although we could not confirm it, we imagined there must be a network of underground efforts to help Jews. I felt sure that there were others out there like Max, risking everything to help others. Reflecting on the worst in the human condition also highlights the best. “I believe there are more good people than bad ones in this world,” I said to my brother.
“Of course, there are. Only a few bad apples…”
“You and your metaphors,” I smiled.
“Hey, if that made you smile, I’ve got a few more up my sleeve.”
“Spare me,” I joked back. My healing had begun with the contemplation of good people in the world. It was a mirror that our parents held up to us, to see the best of the human condition despite reasons and temptations to look at darker elements. To emulate them gave meaning to my existence.
Chapter Seventeen
Another day, another week, another month went by, and I still struggled with turbulent emotions. I felt helpless when unbearable grief or blinding anger smothered me, but then light banter with my brother nearly always pulled me back to feeling better about life. I had made a big ball out of a bundle of dirty clothes for use as a punching bag when the anger returned.
Ben and I were good company for each other. When I was down, he was up, and vice versa. We balanced each other. Chattering, mostly mindless blathering, kept us occupied. We were never able to get the radio to work. We must have been out of all stations’ distance ranges. I never succumbed to my urge to take it upstairs to see if it would work up there. While our confinement and absence of news were frustrating, we never lost sight of what we imagined was going on in the outside world.
As winter melted into spring, then summer, and into the autumn of 1939, we approached our first anniversary in the cellar. Max had continued his regular visits in the middle of the night every couple of weeks. He brought more food: bread, vegetables, and fruit. He came with bags of potatoes. Using the wood down there, we built small, contained fires to cook them.
He also brought more bleach for us to clean our toilet bucket and rinse our waste down the sink. That simple act of kindness prevented us from getting intestinal problems or whatever other sicknesses come from exposure to human urine and feces. Although both Ben and I suffered from bouts of nausea and vomiting, we never had diarrhea. I attributed our upset stomachs and retching to being nervous so much of the time.
Max also brought news about current events that we craved to know. Without a radio or newspaper, I ached for information about what was happening in the world outside the basement. Max wasted no time giving us the highlights. Hitler had invaded Poland. Since Britain and France were legally bound by a treaty to help Poland, they declared war on Germany. World War II had started. He also mentioned that he had convinced his parents, Ludwig and Ela, not to come to the farm during the past year due to the unrest in society, and now, due to the increased danger of civilians traveling during wartime, they agreed to stay away from the farm during the war.
“Oh, that’s good news, Max.” Although I hated the idea of war, I felt hopeful that the Allies would stop the atrocities, and we would be free to find Shana. Max hadn’t had any luck finding her.
“No, I’m afraid it’s not good news.” Max frowned as he spoke.
I had jumped to the wrong conclusion and assumed the result was favorable when, in fact, it was just the opposite. I detested the idea of Germany being ravaged by war, but I also hoped it meant that Hitler’s armies would be defeated, and we’d be safe, that all Jewish people would once again be free in Germany. Instead, Hitler’s armies had used the strategy of blitzkrieg, an intense campaign of military aggression, for a swift triumph. Before Britain and France could come to Poland’s aid, Hitler’s forces claimed victory with relentless armored attacks and air assaults on Polish territories.
“That’s awful,” responded Ben. “The bloodshed is spreading. What will it take to stop that madman?”
“You’ve no idea how bad it is,” sighed Max. Having been upgraded in his security clearance status, he was privy to highly confidential material. “Poland isn’t just a territorial success for Hitler,” he explained, “it’s another way to segregate and exterminate Jews.”
Jolting back, I hit my elbow on the wall. “Exterminate Jews!”
“Oh, it’s pathetic.” Max walked to the far wall of the cellar and stood still. The only sounds I heard were the familiar “voices” the house made—noises I had become accustomed to, and even fondly anticipated. Finally, he turned to face Ben and me. “Do you really want me to tell you what is happening? I don’t see how this bad news is of any help to you two.”
“We want to know,” Ben replied as he looked at me.
Rubbing my throbbing elbow, I nodded agreement. “Yes, and,” I stopped to wipe tears from my eyes, “Shana’s out there somewhere. Perhaps we’ll learn something that might help find her.”
“Rumors are being spread by the SS in Poland against the Jews.” Max paused. Again.
Seeing my best friend hurting and shamed by what he was telling us—hesitating, shaking his head, and his bleak, downcast countenance—I felt sick to my stomach. “Just say…” I swallowed back food particles that regurgitated into my mouth. “Please Max, just say what you’re holding back. It can’t be that bad.”
“Trust me, it’s worse than anything you could imagine.” He went on to tell us that the rumors were propaganda to turn the Polish people against the Jews.
“Like what?” asked Ben.
“That Jews carry infectious disease, particularly typhus. That’s why they need to be segregated. Jewish neighborhoods are being converted into prisons. To make it easier to identify a Jew, any Jew eleven years or older has to wear a Star of David armband.”
When Max stopped talking and we thought that was all he wanted to tell us, Ben said, “It’s complete madness.”
“That’s not the last of it. There’s another phase that’s worse.” I held my breath as Max told us that, once the Jewish neighborhoods had been transformed, Jews would be shipped out to concentration camps. “Experiments will be conducted in these camps.”
“What…what kind of experiments?” I asked.
; Max swallowed hard. “There’s a doctor named Sigmund Rascher, who’s designed dangerous human experiments involving high altitudes, freezing and blood coagulation.”
“Huh?” I was confused.
“Humans…Jews…are going to be used to test things that, up until now, have been deemed too dangerous to apply to people. Jews will be human guinea pigs—their lives are not as important as scientific discovery. I don’t know what the specific programs will entail. I only saw the memo that mentioned planning for this is underway.” He released a heavy sigh and raked his fingers through his blonde hair.
I was about to protest this latest Nazi cruelty when Max put up a hand, palm facing out, in a signal I knew meant, stop. He said, “That’s not all.” Max’s hands shook as he straightened his collar. I wanted to pick at my skin. I needed to. When my nerves were too much for me to handle, I resorted to the self-destructive habit of picking, scratching, or pinching my skin. At first, the physical pain distracted me from my emotional distress. Then, the act itself became soothing, calming. Ben didn’t understand or appreciate my habit, so I stopped for his sake. But as Max revealed layer upon layer of devastating news about the world in which he lived and Shana was lost, I had an overwhelming urge to pluck at myself—to relieve the tension.
“What else, Max?” asked Ben.
“Gas.” Max’s body shivered. “There are experiments underway using gas to murder people. Initially, they used carbon monoxide to kill the politically undesirable—the disabled. Now, there’s talk of exhaust gas and something called Zyklon B, a cyanide compound.”
“For use on the Jews?” I shuddered.
Ben, mouth agape, stared at Max.
“Yes.” Visibly upset, he broke eye contact with us as he told us the final piece of Hitler’s plan. “Buildings with chambers are being planned to gas massive numbers of Jews. What Hitler ultimately has in mind is the total annihilation of all Jewish people.”
Max stood motionless.
Ben started to cry.
I slumped to the floor and, ever so weakly, scratched my neck.
Chapter Eighteen
It had been six days since Max last visited us. I was a tightly bound bundle of nerves. I paced and cried in the stark vault we had been living in for way too long: fourteen months.
I was being held a physical prisoner for my safekeeping because of Hitler’s war on Jews, and I hated it. Also at the mercy of my imagination, thoughts, memories with no one but Ben to talk to, I developed a tension headache. It had been building for days. My scalp felt like it was being pulled off my head. No amount of rubbing my temples helped.
Clinging to my lifebelt, Ben, I demanded attention. I needed to get my mind off my heartache and obsessive conjecturing about Shana. I needed a breather. The constant rumination of the unthinkable was making me ill. “Ben,” I moaned. “Could you please give me a massage? I can’t get rid of this headache.” When I reached for his arm, he jerked it away from me. And when he turned his back to me, a sharp pain struck my chest “Ben…”
“Leave me alone!” he mumbled.
Ben’s rebuff hurt my feelings. I knew he was grieving, the same as I was, but I took it personally. When I reached for his shoulder to turn him around, he resisted. My whispered plea in his ear, “Can I have a hug?” was met with silence. When he refused to embrace me, I exploded and took my agitation out on my punching bag of balled-up dirty laundry. Pounding it over and over until I was longer capable of suppressing my voice, I let him have it. “Stop rejecting me! I can’t take it!”
His body jerked backward. “Why you selfish little brat. Everything is about you. You want this. You need that. I have needs as well, and I need to be left alone! And for God’s sake, keep your voice down!”
When he turned his back on me again, the dam burst and out came a flood of grief, the linchpin of my anger. A tidal wave of loss, sorrow, disbelief, shock—turbulent emotions all stirred up together—surged out of me. Once the tsunami calmed, I heard Ben laugh. It was as if I cried for both of us. His laughter made me giggle. That day, the laughter and the crying created a pathway to something new.
After that exchange, our relationship changed. Something new had formed. Not quite brother and sister anymore. Something deeper, something different. Ben’s rejection had scared me. I realized that, for the first time in my life, I feared being alone. I feared facing each day without a living soul who cared if I lived or died. Ben’s turning away from me that day ignited a longing deep in my soul: to have a normal life, with a boyfriend, with intimacy in every way. I needed to be a part of something. To belong to someone. And to have someone belong to me. I realized that everything I desired was reflected in my muddled relationship with my brother. His touch had become a soothing comfort. His attention fed my hunger to be treated like a valuable person. A smile from Ben warmed me more than any number of coats or blankets could. Being able to tend to his needs filled me with a sense of meaning, of indescribable joy. And his rejection triggered my greatest fear: living an empty, vapid life alone. I needed external validation to feel loved, to feel worthy, to feel I was someone. With Max’s visits infrequent and brief, Ben was all I had.
Ben and I spent hours talking and opening up about things we didn’t want to face: what was happening in Germany, the death of our parents and Lawrence, the mystery of Shana’s whereabouts and what she could be going through, and what our futures might be if we made it out of that basement alive. We cried together. We laughed together. And I did get that massage from him. His touch was soothing. And stirring. Tempting. But we never crossed that sexual line. Not that I didn’t think about it. But the guilt of what the consequences could have been and how it might have changed our relationship was a chance I didn’t want to take.
Besides talking and providing each other solace, we found activities to occupy our attention. We made up games, I continued to draw, we took turns spying through the hole in the wall, and, finally, Ben consented to let me read from one of my books.
He told me he wasn’t interested in “that stupid love story, referring to “The Great Gatsby. I got defensive over him disparaging my affinity for romance. “It’s a good story,” I whined.
“Oh, come on,” he smirked. “Which book do you want to pester me with?” He patted my hand.
I savored the sweet softness of his hand on mine. The warmth in my heart dissolved the walls my ego was building because he criticized one of my favorite books. “Babbitt. How about that one? The author, Sinclair Lewis, won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Okay, okay, already.” He smiled.
I read while he listened quietly. I wondered if he was even paying attention. Then, he announced that the Babbitt character was an idiot who judged his self-worth by the fact that he owns an alarm clock. “What he owns and how much he owns gives him status. Ridiculous!” And when I commented back about how Babbitt changed and evolved while being on a vacation, Ben said, “You’re an incurable romantic. He has a moment in nature, but then look what happens to him and his friend. One lands in jail and the other ends up having an affair. People are people.”
Confused by his last statement, I shook my head.
Ben continued, “I just wonder if people ever change? Once corrupt, always corrupt. That’s where we differ, Helen. You look at someone and see the sun rising, bringing in the light.”
“And you?”
“I see the sun, but I also see it setting. When the afterglow is gone, there’s nothing but the dark.”
“What’s all that supposed to mean?” I shook my head again. “How about speaking a common language?”
“Metaphor, my sis, the sun removes the dark, but it also brings it back when it sets; it’s part of the same movement. No one is without a dark side. We’re all mixed bags. We’d like to think we’re loftier than the next, but we’re all shades of the same stuff. Who knows what we’d do given different circumstances? Even Hitler may have—”
“Don’t put me in any cate
gories with that monster!”
“There by the grace of God, Helen…” He motioned to my dirty laundry punching bag. “What is it inside of you that pounds that bundle of clothes over there?”
“I’d never kill hundreds of innocent people!” I slammed the book shut.
“For the sake of argument, I agree with you. I believe you don’t have a mean bone in your body.” He held my arm to still me from further eruptions. “But…”
“I knew there’d be a but.” I exhaled. This time, his touch wasn’t so endearing.
“Really, we’ve never been in a position to find out, and I hope to God we never are. I don’t know what lives inside of me. Sure, I’d like to believe I’m decent. I want people to like me. I want to feel I do some good in the world and that I’m a good person. But I don’t know how good I’d be with a gun pointed at my head.”
I had to admit that he made sense. My gut reaction had been a biased self-protective one—that I’d never be able to kill another human being. But when I carefully considered Ben’s argument, I knew without a doubt that, given the opportunity to bring my parents and Lawrence back, I’d kill. The same was true for the rest of my family. Then I thought about Max. What would I be willing to do for a friend, for someone not my family? I was sure it wouldn’t be pleasant, but I would have to protect them any way I could. It was then I became aware I was capable of committing murder. “I see your point.” Making eye contact with Ben, I said, “I hate to admit it, but I think you’re right.”
Laughing, he said, “Good. I promise not to rub it in.”
Our time continued like that, reading the books, arguing back and forth, commiserating over our mutual losses, and trying to get that darn radio to work while fighting back the urge to smash it against a wall.
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