I Have Lived a Thousand Years

by Livia Bitton-Jackson

  A new dimension has been added to our identity. A number freshly tattooed on our left arms. I am no longer anonymous. I have a name. It is A-17360.

  THE BROKEN BED

  AUSCHWITZ, AUGUST 8, 1944

  It is nightfall when, wet and chilled to the bone, we are herded into a cell block. These barracks are different. They are unlike the partially constructed ones in the previous camp in Auschwitz or the ones in Plaszow. Is Aunt Celia still there in that camp? And Hindi and Suri? Will we ever meet them?

  These Blocks are huge, elongated, brick buildings with enormous portals on each end. When you enter, you are overwhelmed by the building’s size, its height and length, by the endless rows of bunk beds reaching to the ceiling on either side. A forbidding gabled roof looms darkly above. A curious, chesthigh, brick structure runs down the middle, slicing the Block lengthwise into two equal halves. A dank, dark dread hangs in the air.

  The beds consist of wooden planks, forming even squares covered with army blankets. We are permitted to get on the beds, twelve women to each square. The tiers are so low that when I’m sitting upright my head touches the tier above.

  I take off my soggy dress and crawl on the lowest tier next to Mommy. I am glad to get under the army blanket on the bare wooden planks. It stills my shivering somewhat. Ignoring the din about her, Mommy is lying with eyes closed, motionless.

  There is a sudden sound of crashing from above. One of the planks in the tier above cracks, sending the women on the plank into shrieking laughter. Mother’s still body, directly below the dangling plank, is oblivious to what is happening. All other women on our level move to the side. Only Mommy remains, lying motionless, inches below the broken plank.

  I attempt to rouse her, but she refuses to move. In a frenzy, I step up on the ledge to speak to the women above. I plead with them to get off the plank so as not to break it completely. But they laugh at my alarm. Food distribution is in progress, and each is eagerly expecting her turn. Not one of them pays attention to my frantic pleas.

  I have no other choice but ask the Blockälteste to help. She is a robust, pretty brunette from Slovakia who addressed us in flawless Hungarian when we came into the Block. We found out her name was Elsa Friedmann, and that she was sixteen, the daughter of a shoemaker from Presov. I am going to explain to her that I do not wish to get the women into trouble. I only wish the Blockälteste to order them off the tier until it is repaired. I am sure Elsa will understand that, and not punish them for having refused my request to move.

  I find Elsa at the entrance to her room. She is giving orders to her aide about the distribution of the food. As neither of them pays attention to me, I apologize to Elsa, and explain that my request is extremely urgent. Elsa glares at me. “Go back to your place immediately!”

  “Please, understand. The bed is broken above my mother and she is too weak to move away. Please, tell the women to get off the cracked plank before it breaks completely and falls on my mother. Please. They will listen to you….”

  My voice chokes with anxiety. Elsa looks at me incredulously. “You! You dare come here and interrupt. Get out of here, you stupid little dog!”

  Her outrage is underlined by a fierce blow to my right cheekbone. My head reels from the impact of the slap. My eyes fill with tears. I run back to the bunk. The plank is dangling precariously and the women sitting on it are unconcerned, absorbed in their food. Perhaps I am wrong, after all. Perhaps the plank is not going to break. Perhaps it is all sheer hysteria on my part. I am too young and too scared and excessively concerned about my mother because I am still a child. The grown-ups know better. I thought I had grown and matured in the camp, but I still behave like a baby.

  I am hurt and very tired. I lie down. next to Mommy, determined to stop worrying about the broken plank. After all, if it breaks, the women above are liable to get hurt, too, and they do not seem worried. Why am I alone such a coward?

  The food is now being distributed to our tier. I manage to raise Mommy to a sitting position and place the full bowl in her lap. She begins to eat. But when I reach for my portion, the cauldron is empty. I have to wait for the next batch. I lie down again, supporting Mommy’s back with one hand.

  There is a sudden loud bang. The entire upper bunk comes crashing down. I am aware of a sharp pain on my forehead: A plank has pinned me to the bed. There is broken wood all about me. Women are screaming. Naked bodies are dangling in the thick dust cloud.

  Slowly I move my head to the right to see if Mommy is all right. I cannot see anything as another broken plank presses against my right cheek, blocking my view. But I hear a thin, high wail from the other side of the plank. And again: “Yaaaaay … yaaaay …”

  It sounds as if it is coming from very far away. Yet I can hear it amid the noise. All at once I realize it is my mother’s voice. Right next to me. My God, she must be badly hurt.

  I start to move my shoulders and realize that I am completely free, except for my forehead. Pressing against the plank with one hand, I manage to free my head also. Sliding on my back, I start to crawl out from under the debris.

  I see Mommy pinned under a huge pile of wood in a most peculiar position. She is lying on her back but her head is bent forward in such a way that her face stares at me in a vertical pose. It is terrifying. Her eyes are wide open but she does not seem to see me. She keeps emitting that eerie, high-pitched wail: “Yaaay … yaaaay …”

  The women are still sitting on top of the broken planks, some shrieking in pain. I begin to yell hysterically, “Get off! Get off this instant! There’s someone right underneath you. You’re crushing her to death!” Like madwomen, they keep on screaming and crying, ignoring my shouts. I begin pulling them by their arms, savagely pummeling those who pull back. I cry and yell and pound at their naked flesh.

  “Ellike, what’s the matter?” It is Mrs. Grünwald, a neighbor from home. “What happened?”

  I am unable to speak. I point at Mommy’s body under the rubble. Mrs. Grünwald shouts at the women, and several of them get off the bed. Others refuse. They are simply beyond caring.

  With the help of Mrs. Grünwald and her daughter Use, I lift the plank that presses Mommy’s head against her chest, and start to pull her out by the legs.

  “Leave that white thing alone, and help me!” Mommy cries. “What’s that white thing you’re pulling there?”

  I am in shock. “Mommy, it’s your leg. I’m pulling you out by your leg. Mommy, don’t you feel it?” Mommy does not answer. She closes her eyes. The three of us manage to pull her out from under the debris and place her on top of the brick divider. She falls into a stupor. She does not respond to my voice, or to my touch.

  A young fellow inmate, a doctor, tells me to find a sharp object, a pin, for instance. Someone hands me a needle, and the doctor pricks Mommy in several places. Mommy does not respond. The doctor’s face is grim as she pokes the soles of Mommy’s feet with the needle, and the lifeless body does not stir.

  She puts her arm about my shoulders. “You’re a big girl now. You’ll understand. There’s no sensation in your mother’s body. She’s unconscious, and totally paralyzed. I think her spinal column is broken. She’ll never regain consciousness. It’s a matter of hours. You must be prepared. You must brace yourself.”

  No! No! No! This cannot be. I will not live if Mommy dies.

  IS IT TRUE ABOUT THE SMOKE?

  AUSCHWITZ, AUGUST 1944

  I am sitting on top of the brick structure at Mommy’s head. A steady stream of rain pours on her head from a leak in the roof directly above, and I keep wiping the rainwater off, all night long.

  It’s very cold in the cell block. I am wet, and chilled to the bone. And very hungry. Because of the accident, I did not receive my bowl of food in the evening.

  Mommy must be cold, too. Her feet feel like ice. But I have nothing to cover her with. I can rub her legs with my hands to warm them. I rub Mommy’s legs and wipe the rainwater off her face in turns. From time to time, I bend over
her mouth and touch her lips with my cheek. She’s breathing. Thank God.

  At dawn I can see that Mommy’s eyes are partially open. At times they flutter wide open, and stay open for several seconds. Please, please, let her live. I implore you. … Let her live. If she will not, I will die, too. I cannot go on without her …

  I must leave Mommy and line up for Zählappell The Blockälteste informs me that Mommy cannot stay in the cell block: I must remove her to the Revier. The Revier is the infirmary. Here the sick and the invalid are held for up to a month. Once every month there is a selection at the Revier, and those who have not recovered are removed.

  Mrs. Grünwald and Yitu Singer, our rabbi’s daughter from Somorja, help me carry Mommy to the Revier on a stretcher.

  I’m not permitted to visit Mommy at the infirmary, but Juliska, our doctor from home, brings me daily reports about her condition. But that is only in the evening, and I’m anxious about Mommy all day. Every morning after Zählappell I sneak to the end of the row of cell blocks, to the last one, which holds the infirmary, and hang around there. Whenever one of the staff comes out, I inquire about Mommy. Some stop and respond. Others just glare and say nothing. I then rap lightly on the wooden wall and call Mommy’s name in hopes of finding her.

  Once a patient answers and says that Mommy’s bed is further on, and that Mommy is alive. Thank God.

  Soon I find the exact spot where Mommy’s bed is standing. Rapping on the wall and repeatedly calling to her, I hope to raise Mommy from her stupor and stimulate her to speak. All of a sudden I notice a loose knot in the wooden wall. As I am poking it, the knot gives way and falls in. I peek inside and can see the top of Mommy’s head quite nearby.

  “Mommy,” I call in ecstasy. “Mommy, I can see your head!”

  Mommy answers! Her voice is tired but distinct. Her words, slow, halting, form a question: “Ellikém … My little … Elli. How are you?”

  I cannot answer. Tears choke me. This is Mommy as I know her. She has recovered her speech. She has recovered her old self.

  Daily I linger near the infirmary waiting for the right moment to sneak to the knothole and speak to Mommy. One morning she tells me she can lift her head. The next day Mommy can lift her right arm. Then she begins to sit up in bed. And then she starts to complain of hunger. Thank you, my God. Mommy is getting better. Mommy’s going to make it.

  Most of the time I have to hide behind the Revier so as not to be discovered by the SS. Sometimes I can speak only a few words to Mommy. If I notice a guard approaching, I disappear like lightning. But those few words sustain me for the rest of the day.

  One morning, as I am talking to Mommy through the knothole, an SS guard grabs me by the shoulder, and marches me to the command barrack. This is it. This is the end. How will I be executed? Will they shoot me? Send me to the gas chamber?

  I am not shot. I receive a punishment. I am ordered to kneel on the gravel in front of the command barrack for twenty-four hours without food or drink.

  The command barrack is far from the cell blocks, right at the entrance of the camp. The carpet of sharp, black grit upon which I have to kneel stretches to the barbed-wire fence. I have to kneel facing the fence.

  Beyond the fence I can see a road flanked on the far end by barbed wire, and beyond that fence, endless rows of cell blocks identical to the ones in our camp. From the spot where I kneel, I can look down the road in both directions and see infinite rows of cell blocks like ours, covering miles and miles … as far as the eyes can see.

  The immense proportion of Auschwitz strikes me for the first time. Never before had I had the chance to see this. A world of barracks and barbed wire.

  The road is busy with constant traffic. Trucks and various military vehicles rush past. Clusters of people keep marching by, men in striped uniform accompanied by SS guards and dogs. Women drawing carts with huge cauldrons, others carrying huge cauldrons on thick wooden bars across their shoulders. Women and men in varying degrees of malnutrition.

  There are some who can barely walk, and it seems they are going to collapse any moment. Others seem like darkened skeletons, yet they walk upright, without faltering. No one looks to the side. Not one of them takes notice of me. They move as if animated by a magnet pulling them into one direction, straight ahead.

  Suddenly, a marching column appears. Men and women and—children! They are marching in rows of five. Women with hair, wearing colorful clothes, some with hats on. Men and young boys and little children! A little girl is clutching a doll. Their faces are white, without blisters and sores. They walk fast, breathless, afraid. But they walk like people, nervous and alert. They are not robots animated by an unseen external force. They are people, moved by a force within.

  They must have just arrived in Auschwitz! From the outside. They still wear the expression of the free. They have not yet acquired the posture of the inmate. How different they are!

  Some people glance at the barbed wire in my direction. Several women look at me curiously. A young woman even smiles at me. I take a rash chance, and call out to her, in German.

  “Where are you from?”

  “From Lodz.”

  “Did you say Lodz?”

  “Yes. The Lodz ghetto.”

  “You came now from Lodz?”

  “Yes. We’ve just arrived.”

  Her last words reach me from a distance. She is marching on with the transport at a fast pace. A little boy has just dropped his clown. As he is about to pick it up, a motorcycle approaches. An older boy who holds the little boy’s other hand gives him a tug, and the little boy marches on without his clown. The clown, dirty yellow, remains at the roadside.

  The columns march on and on. Row after row after row. Then they are gone. All’s quiet, and the dust settles. Then traffic resumes. But the clown lies still in the sunshine.

  My dear God. The little children. The little girl with the doll. The little boy without his clown. And all the others. The little children of our transport, three months ago. A lifetime ago. Where are they all? Where did they march? Where are these men, women, and children marching? From where I kneel I can see the smoke, not too far away. I have seen it all morning. I have smelled it all night. Dear God. Have mercy.

  The older inmates have told us that our camp was adjacent to the crematorium, and the smoke smarting our eyes, our throats, our lungs is the smoke of burning bodies.

  Is it true, dear God? Is it true that the little children are trampled underfoot in the gas chamber? Is it true that the stronger adults struggle like wild animals to reach pockets of air high up and trample the weaker ones, and the little children?!

  They told us, over and over again. So we should stop screaming when we heard it. So we should believe it.

  I’m getting dizzy from the heat. The sun is high and strikes my bare scalp with relentless fury. I am very thirsty. The sun’s glare is blinding. My throat is dry. The sun … I can’t bear the sun.

  My dear God. Have mercy.

  THE SELECTION

  AUSCHWITZ, AUGUST 1944

  “I’m asking you to risk your life,” I whisper. “I need your help.” Without a moment’s hesitation Mrs. Grünwald’s reply comes, “I’ll come.”

  “I’ll come, too,” young Ilse Grünwald volunteers.

  “God bless you,” I whisper. “I’ll be back.”

  I need one more person to help me sneak Mommy out of the infirmary and carry her all the way to our cell block. It is a dangerous undertaking—and if we get caught we will be sent to the gas chamber. I had been warned by the SS commandant that I would be put to death in the gas chamber if I as much as approached the vicinity of the Revier.

  But I have no alternative. Mommy must be smuggled out. Dr. Tauber, our young doctor friend from Somorja, had sent me an urgent message: “The selection is scheduled for tomorrow morning. All the sick in the Revier beyond three weeks will be taken to the gas chamber. Your mother is unable to walk or stand for longer than a few seconds without support, and she has bee
n hospitalized for three weeks. If you want to save her life, you must get her out of here immediately….”

  I must act at once. I need one more person. In the dark cell block I find Yitu’s bed and climb to the second tier. She is not asleep. She nods. Yes, she understands the plan. Yes, she’s willing to join us. I can barely fall asleep. Please, God, help us.

  At dawn Mrs. Grünwald, Ilse, and Yitu join me near the entrance of the Block, and the four of us walk casually toward the infirmary. We pray silently as we slither through the semidarkness. No SS guard is in sight. It’s forbidden to walk unescorted even to the latrine. One has to wait for at least fifty girls to gather and then request an SS guard to escort them on the short distance to the latrine. Sometimes it takes hours for an SS guard to appear. We learned to wait, and control nature. No one would dare to leave the confines of the Block unsupervised.

  And now we are walking alone, the four of us, without permission, without an escort, to the vicinity of the infirmary, an area strictly out of bounds. God help us.

  Still there’s no SS in sight. We make it to the infirmary. As soon as we reach it, I quickly rap on the wall, and within an instant, four nurses carry Mommy through the door. Only two of us can carry her at a time. We chain-lock our hands, and the nurses place Mommy on our locked hands in a sitting position. Mommy is able to lock her arms about our necks, and in this fashion we carry her a few steps. Then the other two take over. None of us is strong enough to carry her longer than a few steps. Walking as fast as we can, we reach our Block undetected. Thank God.

  The inmates are lined up for Zählappell. We sneak among the lines one by one. Mrs. Grünwald and I carry Mommy behind the lines, and place her on the ground in a crouching position. We cover her with our bodies until the SS arrive for the roll call. But Mommy is unable to crouch long. She can only lie, or sit propped up against my legs with her feet stretched out. We have no choice. We must take a chance and let Mommy sit in a propped up position. When the SS brass approaches, several girls help me pull Mommy up on her feet. I stand behind her, my body giving her support. And so she stands for the few moments it takes for the SS to count the heads of the first row nearby.