by M. Ben Yanay
When morning came, some of the passengers were already dead. Terry counted seven bodies, but there could have been more under the pile of people. Agi woke up and continued to plead for water. “Mom, I’m thirsty. Water, I want water.” Olga took her in her arms and gave her an empty tin cup to suck on. They swayed throughout the day. Then, night came once again and the car was even darker than the previous night. Death took hold of the car, etching its domain in blood over the car walls. Death’s black wings took the light from people’s eyes. It held them by the throat, inhaled their souls, and took the foul smells in. Death then finally summoned his bloodthirsty minions, the soul robbers. Though she could not obliterate the sights from her mind, Terry was nevertheless thankful for the dark.
Agi sighed in her mom’s bosom as Olga herself growled between a few short breaths. Even when the first rays of light entered the car, Agi kept swaying and swinging in her mother’s arms. Soon thereafter, the empty tin cup fell from Agi’s now motionless chest. The child’s dead eyes stared on. Olga joined her a few hours later when evening set in. They were now spared any further pain, staring at each other with frozen eyes. Terry leaned over to them. The car reeked of death. Pure souls were now on their way to heaven.
4. Between Camps
The train stopped on the third day of this hellish journey. The doors opened to reveal a small station. Guards jumped down from the roofs. Loud sounds of men came from outside.
Terry and the other passengers did not dare to get up or look outside through the doors. None of them understood what was going on. Then, a German soldier climbed the ladder that was placed onto the car and began shouting, “Quickly! Quickly! Throw the bodies of the dead out!”
None of the passengers moved. They were all struck deaf and numb with shock. Terry was no different, hardly grasping what was going on. Then, three live men were taken out of her train car. Three shots were heard. Those three shots sounded very close, right next to the car. Her fellow passengers got the merciless message loud and clear, came to, and began to throw the bodies out. Terry did not look, and would not count the dead. With each body that was removed, it got less crowded. She was now able to cross her legs. Her two boys slept, dead tired, next to her. She moved her hands over them, tapping their necks and foreheads, making sure their hearts were still beating. One of the men who were taking the bodies out turned to her. “Remove the child from her mother’s bosom.” He pointed at little Agi. Terry silently knelt on her hands and knees and picked Agi up. She rose slowly toward the entrance to the car, holding the infant. There was a pile of corpses in front of her, right on a footpath. She looked left and right and saw similar mounds piling up in front of each train car.
Her heart would not allow her to throw the little one outside. Both men left the car and threw Olga on top of the pile. “Take the child. Take her and lay her carefully beside her mother,” said Terry. The smell of decay remained throughout the car long after the bodies had been removed.
The train carried on, chugging along the tracks blissfully, speeding at times, and then slowing. Terry prayed for the living and the dead alike. Fresh raindrops splashed sparkles of water through the open window. She gathered some water and wet her sons’ lips, then drank her fill and let others do the same. The passengers dreaded each night. Come morning, they removed the bodies without an order. The corpses had been thrown in the forest. By now, only half of them survived the journey in the train car.
By noon, the train stopped, sounding a low siren. Then, the passengers heard running boots, dogs barking, and orders in German. Terry became curious. She rose from where she sat and looked outside carefully through the window. She saw a long concrete platform, patrolled by armed guards in Wehrmacht uniforms. Some of them held leashes tied to ferocious looking German Shepherds. Nearby, there was a group of SS soldiers in black uniforms. Across from the soldiers, stretched a long barbed wire fence. Terry got even more curious, “Where are we?” she asked. One of the men came up to the window. He was nearly a foot taller than Terry.
“Can you see beyond the barbed wire?” she asked.
“I can see a watch tower with a large spotlight and two guards. I can only see their backs. Behind the watchtower, there are rows of sheds and a few large buildings. I think the guards are watching over the sheds. Yes. This makes sense. There are prisoners there. I see people in striped clothes. I see a group of inmates walking into a large structure with a chimney.”
“What are the soldiers on the platform doing?”
“The Wehrmacht soldiers are smoking and talking. The SS soldiers are looking busy. I cannot see more than that.”
“Perhaps they’re waiting for instructions,” said Terry.
“Perhaps. I cannot tell,” said the man and turned away from the window.
During the long hours they spent waiting, Terry opened the suitcase and examined their scraps of food. Thus far, she dared to feed her children only when it was dark. She clasped what was left of the carrot peels. They smelled bad, but she did not care. She mashed them between her fingers, put one in her mouth and licked it. She put small lumps of this putrid mash into Sandor and Andre’s mouths. There was very little bread left so she would have to split it between them, but not today. Who knows what might happen tomorrow and what will happen next?
A faint buzzing sound signaled the train was on the move again. Terry stood against the wall, looking out. The train moved slowly. Then, Terry saw a large wooden sign fixed over a huge iron gate: Auschwitz.
The next day went by without any stops. Terry looked out every now and then. Their train passed by forests, fields, plains, villages and empty train stations.
The other passengers lay there motionless. There was scarcely any crying. Andre took to stomping on the car floor, and Sandor picked bits of straw off the floor and laid them in front of him in a row. Terry decided to take the scraps of stale bread out of the suitcase. But now, of all times, it isn’t raining so there is no way for me to get it wet. My mouth is so dry, I cannot even spit, Terry thought. She began to break the bread down into crumbs, as she used to do when she fed the birds in the churchyard. “Chirp, chirp,” she muttered absent-mindedly.
Sandor smiled at her, “Mom?”
“Here, take. That’s all we have left. Now sit up nicely. Make it wet with your spit and swallow slowly.”
She was tired, thirsty, and hungry. The train’s route was no longer of interest to her. Her eyes closed. Terry slept until the train stopped, and she could still hear its siren in the background.
Once again, she heard shouting in German. She did not have the strength to get up. The doors opened in a noisy screech. She rubbed her hands against her eyes. The shouts sounded near. She was alert. All the passengers were ordered off the train.
“Raus! Schnell!” [German: Out! Quickly!] The now familiar orders repeated.
“Form a single file!” came another familiar order.
“Come, children. We need to get off, quick,” said Terry, and she shielded them with her body.
The soldiers standing by the side of the car were impatient. They beat the people with their rifles as they came down the ladders. Terry bent over, practically crawling, and fell on top of her children at the foot of the ladder. One of the Germans used the butt of his rifle to hit the man who came down right after her. She could hear the loud thump and glanced at him with a guilty look. He nevertheless stretched out his arm toward Terry and helped her up. The children got up and stood on their own. She sighed in relief as she proceeded to the end of the line.
She saw before her a tall fence with barbed wire and a row of huts. She looked left and right; they were at the entrance of a large train station. Two pairs of endless tracks were on either side of the building. There were transport cars on the rail with numerous armed soldiers all around them, looking very busy. She looked up. The station had a large rectangular sign: Strasshof.
5. In the Thicket
The bunker was filled with the smell of warm stew. Janos breathed
it in deep along with the smoke and wiped his watering eyes with his sleeve.
Gregory held the lantern up close to Janos’s face. “Get up,” he instructed him. “Take your pants off.” He placed the lantern by Janos’s thigh.
Janos had nothing to hide. He had been circumcised at infancy and being a Jew was part of his identity. He untied the rope he used for a belt, dropped down both pants he wore and his undies, and stood in front of the light that shone over his belly and privates.
“Kharasho.” [Russian: Good] “Get dressed,” said Gregory and asked, “What shall we do with him?”
“Let’s let him go; set him free to wander on his own,” one of the men around the fire said. “If he’s lucky, he’ll freeze before the Germans get him. The forest is crawling with them.”
“But...” Gregory tried to change his comrades’ minds, “He’s a Jew.”
“No, but,” Ina cast her verdict. “It’s none of our business. He’s not staying with us. We shall send him out in the morning. I will direct him toward the railroad.”
Ina drove a long twig into the burning oven and skillfully held up the tip of the red hot pot’s iron handle. The pot swung in the air until she set it on the ground. She then turned to the man sitting to her right. The sound of English syllables crept out of their quiet exchange. Janos tried to listen in and asked himself whether to confess or not. He did not wish to call undue attention to himself or incur anyone’s wrath, but he could not remain silent and said, “I speak English.”
Ina turned to him and said, “Very good. This is Bob. We picked him up in the field. He will leave with you tomorrow.”
And Bob said, “I’m an American pilot. I parachuted a few days ago; my plane got hit. I have to return to the forces on the ground.”
Janos looked at Bob’s bandaged head and broad shoulders.
“I will lead the two of you,” said Ina, lifting a metal tray. “Who wants to serve?”
One by one, the people produced their mess tins, and Janos, too, received one of his own. Gregory began pouring the stew on to the mess tins the people stretched out to him. Ina passed along large chunks of bread. Janos dipped the bread in the stew, brought it up close to his mouth, and swallowed it whole voraciously.
“You’d better get some sleep, man,” said Mishka and curled up in the corner of the bunker.
Janos’s head was heavy. His thoughts wandered. He saw Terry right before his eyes, carrying Andre in her arms. Sandor and Arno stood next to her, holding on to the hem of her dress. This was the last image he remembered. He closed his eyes.
*
The next morning was clear, with bright, cloudless skies.
Janos followed Ina and got out of the ditch. He stood tall, hung the rifle on his shoulder, and stretched. He felt the cold hitting his bare face.
“I’m coming up.” He heard Bob’s slightly hoarse throat.
A burly man came up from the ditch. He had on a flight suit and a pair of tall boots. Reddish eyes gleamed out of his black face. The gray bandage on his head had a bloodstain. Janos looked at him in amazement. He had no clue African American pilots served in the U.S. Army. Bob noticed his gaze and laughed, exposing his white teeth. “What’s wrong? What are you so surprised about?”
“Let’s move on,” said Ina and began to walk.
They followed her for hours without uttering a single word. Walking in the snow amid the trees seemed purposeless. Janos wondered to himself whether Ina knew her way, how long this journey to be, and whether the railroad was close or far.
Ina stopped by a tree stump lying on the snow and kicked its white surface. She sat on the stump as she removed the tarp bag from her back. Her movements seemed heavy, as though she was giving in to some fatigue.
“At last,” said Janos and sat and the far end of the stump.
Bob sat on a thick branch, sinking it deep into the snow. “Not too deep,” he muttered to himself.
“Shall we eat something?” asked Janos.
“Well, if you’re hungry,” replied Ina and opened the bag’s cover. “We must hurry, though,” she added as she produced half a loaf of dark bread and two onions.
“You can have the onion, here. Take.” She threw the onions at them and took out a knife. She cut the bread into three nearly equal parts. “Here you go. Eat.”
“Hot coffee would have been nice,” said Bob, and Janos nodded in agreement.
“Well, the American is spoiled, but you, too?”
Janos smiled at her. “Well, pampered but victorious none the less!”
He bit into the bread and took a bite out of the meaty onion. His tongue burned, so he took a chunk of snow and melted it in his mouth.
They ate silently for a short while. Janos looked at Bob curiously.
“I had no idea the U.S. Army had African American pilots,” he shared his thought out loud. “Where are you from, Bob? I mean, where are you from in the U.S., what state?”
“Alabama, in a town called Tuskegee. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Nope. Never.”
“That’s where I was born. It’s a famous city in America.”
“Famous?”
“Oh yeah, certainly,” Bob answered proudly. “It’s a university town. And not just any old university, the first all-black university. I’m an alumnus. After I had graduated, I signed up for flight school at a nearby base. And not just any flight school, an all-black flight school, strictly for African Americans. I was accepted to the first class. I’ve since gone on combat operations, taken part in air battles over Europe. Our bombers are doing a fine job.”
Janos listened attentively. He looked at Bob in amazement. He never came across such an enthusiastic, patriotic African American. Well, so much is happening in the world out there, he thought. I’m aware of so little of it all.
“All the pilots in my fighter group, 332 [aka Tuskegee Airmen], are African American,” added Bob. “My fellow pilots shot down dozens of enemy aircraft. Some of them were awarded medals. I wasn’t shot down in an air battle; they got me from the ground. Bloody anti-aircraft artillery.” He went silent, his face grew grim, and he took to spreading the breadcrumbs all around him over the snow.
“Who are you leaving this for?” asked Ina, pointing down at the snow. “This whole area saw heavy fighting until very recently. All the animals are gone. Even the birds flew away. The entire forest was as silent as the grave all through winter. Perhaps the animals might back come spring, but for now, it’s all the same as before.”
Bob got up. “I hear something. A buzzing sound, but it’s coming from up there. Can you hear it too?” he looked up to the bits of visible sky they could see between the tree branches and listened carefully.
Janos was alert.
“I can’t hear a thing,” said Ina.
“Planes, I hear airplanes. These are Ilyushin-2 aircraft,” [aka Il-2, a Soviet Air Force ground-attack aircraft] said Bob. “I recognize the roaring sound of their engines,” he added, excited. The roar was getting closer and closer.
“Ilyusha!” Ina cried out with joy. “Are you sure, Bob?”
“I certainly am!” Bob shouted. “They’ll be over our heads in no time.” He stretched out his neck and waved the branch. “Look!”
A large formation of Il-2 planes flew by from west to east. “They’re coming back from the front,” Bob said with satisfaction. “What a magnificent flight.”
Janos, who was utterly in the dark as to the recent progress of the war asked in disbelief, “Are they returning from Germany?”
“Yes. The Allied forces and the Red Army have joined together and are coordinating their combat operations. The Russian planes are deployed all over the front, assisting our own armored and infantry forces. They are bombing the Germans at night.”
“Really?” Janos was greatly encouraged by this piece of news. “I’ve been out of touch with what’s going on for over six months now. I really do not know what’s happening on the ground. In fact, ever since they began retreatin
g, that, too, I only caught a clue about. You know, the Germans are experts at hiding stuff. Looks like their reports of victories were far from true.”
“Do you think the war will be over soon?” asked Ina.
“Yeah, but it’s only a gut-feeling,” Bob replied. “I’ve been out of the loop for two weeks now.”
“I don’t get it,” said Janos. “I was with the Hungarians only yesterday. We were supposed to transport supplies to the Germans. They are still on the ground.”
“They are, but they’re fleeing the front, trying to return to Germany. What I know, which is up-to-date as far as last week, is that the Red Army is operating on two fronts, one in the north, already close to the outskirts of Berlin. The other front, to the south, pushed the German armies out from Stalingrad and moved westward. They occupied Bulgaria and Romania, making their way down the Carpathian Mountains to Hungary. They may have already taken Budapest.”
“We are in a pocket between both campaigns, both Red Army fronts,” explained Ina. “This area still has German troops. Some are fleeing, like Bob said, but some have not surrendered, so they’re still fighting. Perhaps they are unaware of the new situation.”
The sheer flow of information Ina and Bob poured on Janos was too much for him to contain. The most joyous news of all concerned Budapest. After all, Debrecen was close, so if Budapest surrendered and was taken over by the Soviets, then Debrecen, too, would be liberated.
“We must push on,” said Ina. “Let’s shut this makeshift newsroom down and move on.”
“But where are we going?” Janos asked. Without waiting for her to answer, he said to Bob, “Take your branch; we’re moving out.”