Accidental Saviors

by Jack A Saarela

  Many times, the repetitive routine of her work in the clothing barrack allowed her to think. She dared not think of her great aunt, so sad was it. She had probably grown weary and weak in short order and died of exhaustion, or been shipped to one of the extermination camps. She though often of Algot Niska, the sweet man who had resisted her offer of sexual favors when he had taken her into his flat in Berlin, and then provided the fare for the train to come to Bautzen. He saw her. He actually saw her for who she was―a human soul. Had any gentile ever looked at her and seen her in that way?

  Had he evaded capture and imprisonment? Had he become just another sorry victim of this horrendous war, this brutal and inhuman Nazi system? Was he even still alive?

  The Kapo shouted to the women in the barrack to settle down for the night and put out the lights. Before long, a few of the women began their chorus of snoring. Otherwise, the barrack was silent. Hannah received sleep as a gracious gift.

  All of a sudden, she was awakened by a loud, sharp, thumping sound against the floor at the end of her bunk. She looked down toward her feet to see what had made the harsh, unwelcome sound, but since it was dark, she could barely see. She heard the smacking sound again several times, presumably on the floor by the nearby bunks of one or two women.

  The shrill voice of a female SS guard pierced the darkness. “Wache auf! You who have been designated, get out of your filthy beds and stand at attention at the foot of your bunks! Come on. Hurry up! Schnell! You know who you are. The rest of you, back to sleep.”

  Hannah presumed that the violent slapping of the guard’s truncheon against her bunk was the signal that she was one of the “designated.” Designated for what? In the middle of the night? How many hours after falling asleep?

  “März auf den Platz! Form orderly rows. Hop to it!”

  Out to the cold Platz again? Hannah asked accusingly—silently, of course. She knew such a query uttered openly would be judged as insubordination for which there could be any number of painful, degrading repercussions.

  The barrack was still dark. The three women felt under their bunks for shoes or boots for their feet.

  “Nichts! Take nothing but your shoes,” the guard shouted.

  Hannah reflexively tossed the thin coat she had picked up back on her bunk.

  When they exited the barrack, the women had to shield their eyes from the punishing light of the searchlights from the turrets, which were directed down onto the Platz. Some of the women were dressed in nightclothes they had pilfered from the clothing barrack. Since Hannah worked there, she had secured a pair of warm pajamas for herself and traded other pieces of clothing for end pieces of stale bread. Their crime of stealing was now in plain sight in the glaring light. Other women were still dressed in the filthy, ragged clothes in which they performed their daily labor.

  Hannah saw that though there were hundreds, maybe a thousand or more, women standing on the snow-covered Platz, shivering helplessly, this was not a general roll call. Not all the female prisoners, apparently, had been “designated” the way she had been. This confused her even more. Each woman wore bewilderment, disorientation, fear, in some cases panic, on her face.

  Without speaking—though their hearts surely were spilling over with questions—the women organized themselves into orderly rows with an efficiency that comes from habit. Hannah could hear the loud, slow, laboring sound of a locomotive on the tracks just beyond the gate.

  What, dear God, is happening? Are they going to march us out into the woods again behind the barracks? Will we be forced to witness once again some obscenity of execution at the pit and ordered to cover the bodies with dirt? Or is it we who will be shot and buried in the pit this time? But why the train? Are we being sent somewhere...Oh God, maybe to Auschwitz? God, no! Not Auschwitz. I knew my time would come.

  “The first row, march forward!” ordered the female guard, now joined on the Platz by seven or eight others.

  Hannah watched as the first row of inmates obeyed the guard’s order. They were directed toward the gate that separated the camp from the railway landing, the gate above which the words Arbeit Macht Frei mocked them.

  The second row marched in the same direction. Then Hannah’s row. All was silent but the sharp commands of the guards, the shuffling of the inmates’ feet, many in worn and holey socks, and the earsplitting hissing of the locomotive’s air brakes. The women dared not look into one another’s faces lest they discover there a mirror reflection of the fear and bewilderment on their own face.

  “Auschwitz,” the woman beside her said quietly. Hannah couldn’t tell if she was making a statement or asking a question.

  “I don’t know,” answered Hannah, almost inaudibly.

  “It’s Auschwitz, I’m sure of it,” the despondent women insisted. “Or Solibor. It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same.”

  Once they arrived on the train platform, they were ordered to boost themselves into the empty cattle cars. It was a rise of over a meter. Some of the women helped lift others weakened by the previous day’s labor so they could climb into the rail car. A guard shouted angrily for the women to hurry up.

  Hannah was reliving in her memory the December night she and her great aunt were loaded in the same way onto the train that brought them to Theresienstadt. Neither she, her great aunt, nor anyone of the Jews squeezed onto the train knew what was happening or where they were going. It had been then much like this dark night when not knowing left space for projecting their worst fears.

  A Kapo poked his head into Hannah’s rail car, then with forceful effort, slid the door shut. The whole car shook as the door rolled and slammed shut.

  There was an almost knowing silence in the rail car as the door shut. It was a silent, nonverbal, communal statement by every inmate that the night they had feared, in spite all the fervent Hebrew prayers that the bitter cup be passed from them, had now indeed arrived.

  There was a collective gasp as the locomotive let out its first churning chug and the rail car was thrust forward. The force of motion after being in a stationary position caused a few of the women who had not found space on the floor to sit to tumble to the floor with a shriek, landing on top of others who were seated.

  The intervals between the clicks of the steel wheels against the small gaps in the rails grew shorter as the train picked up speed. No light whatsoever dribbled into the car through the cracks in the walls from the dark night outside, only frozen air.

  A woman near Hannah was rocking back and forth and muttering a prayer. A young Hasid woman was reciting a psalm quietly. Another woman was moaning mournfully about a pain in her legs. Against all the odds, Hannah’s eyes closed and sleep returned miraculously.

  At the first hint of dawn the train came to a sudden stop. The inertia of forward movement caused the women to lurch forward into one another. Those, like Hannah, who had been able to sleep were awakened by the abrupt, unannounced halt. One or two women tried to peer outside through the cracks in the walls of the car.

  “I don’t think we’re at a station. All I see is trees, I think.”

  The car door slid open with a violent thud.

  “Jeder auf und ab!” a Kapo shouted into the car. “Everyone up and out. Time to do your business.”

  Again, the women were confused. Had they been brought out here to be abandoned in a forest wilderness?

  The Kapo pointed with his truncheon toward a ditch along the railroad tracks. Once one woman stepped down into the ditch, pulled down her thin, ragged trousers, and squatted, others followed. Then Hannah understood what the Kapo meant by “doing your business.”

  Hannah wondered if the other women had also been asleep, or so overcome by fear and bewilderment, that they hadn’t noticed how urgently their bladder was crying out for relief.

  “Zurück in den Zugwagen. Schnell,” a female guard shouted. “Back into the rail car. Immediately!”

  The women again performed the calisthenics of raising themselves or one another from the stony rail
bed into the rail car. The locomotive lurched forward once again and resumed the clickety-clack rhythm.

  A palpable hunger overtook the passengers. One young woman in the corner near Hannah dug into her pocket and tried to pull out a small dried end of a loaf of bread without being seen by the others. Her eyes met Hannah’s as she pulled it out. Without a word she tore the bread into two pieces and handed one to Hannah, who nodded her thanks.

  Is this the prisoner’s last meal before execution?

  One of the woman, trying to look through the cracks in the car’s walls, shouted to the others, “I think I see mountains. Yes, they’re mountains all right, big, tall ones.”

  “Are we in Bavaria then?” another woman asked out loud. “Isn’t Dachau in Bavaria? Are we going to our death at Dachau? Oh, my God, I’m sure we’re going to Dachau. We are going to die.”

  The mention of Dachau and death caused the women to look at one another for some kind of affirmation or denial of the woman’s apprehension. Hannah resented the woman’s violating the unspoken code of the rail car that no one articulate out loud the dark, collective thoughts and fears of their hearts, nor pronounce the dreaded, taboo word “death.” It was as if to say the word out loud was an act of surrender to it, a capitulation and submission to the dark fear that hung over them all like a black thundercloud about to erupt.

  Not long afterward the rhythm of clickety-clack slowed. As the train decelerated the woman peering through the cracks announced, “We’re in some kind of city now, I think. Yes, I see houses...I see streets and people walking. Not guards, but real, ordinary people.”

  Several women scampered up off the floor and rushed to one of the cracks in the wall of the car. They pasted their faces against the crack in order to see if the other woman was telling the truth.

  “It looks like we’re coming to some kind of station,” one announced to the rest of the passengers. “Yes, there are railroad men on the platform...but...that’s strange. They’re wearing some kind of uniform...but not Nazi uniforms.”

  “This is no time for a joke,” one woman said sardonically from the floor.

  “No, I’m sure. Those are the standard-issue conductors’ uniforms they’re wearing.”

  The train came to a stop. The women didn’t know whether to be in dread based on their fears, or in expectation based on the woman’s reconnaissance.

  “Listen,” one woman said. “Are those violins I’m hearing?”

  The women stopped chattering. Hannah could hear a strangely merry tune waft in through the cracks in the walls. She recognized the tune as one she had heard a long time ago, but her mind was too foggy from confusion and interrupted sleep to be able to name it.

  Is it Beigalach? How strange for them to be playing such a playful, jazz-like, upbeat song at the entrance to a death camp.

  Others recognized the tune as well. Beigalach? But they were too drugged with fear and apprehension to smile in recognition, their feet too exhausted from years of standing in the snowy Platz at Theresienstadt to tap along the unanticipated happy beat.

  The door to the car was pulled open. Daylight streamed into the car like golden honey. The women shielded their eyes from its brilliance and blinked uncontrollably in an effort to see.

  The female guards and Kapos were strangely absent. There were no Wehrmacht or SS soldiers to shout out orders. Though the air was colder even than at Theresienstadt, it was light and sweet and devoid of the amalgam of foul orders at Theresienstadt.

  The women slid down from the rail car warily on their backsides as though anticipating that the lightness would end at any moment. They placed their feet on the cold ground gingerly as though to do so any less delicately would break the spell of the wondrous magic of the moment. How long had it been since the women had not been barked at, or ordered to do something?

  A very dignified fiftyish woman dressed stylishly and expensively in civilian clothes stood on a podium that had been erected near the violin players.

  “Dear women of Germany. Welcome to Lausanne.”

  Lausanne? Isn’t Lausanne in Switzerland? In neutral Switzerland, a nation not occupied by the Germans and contaminated by Nazi lies?

  Soldiers in pea-colored uniforms—not the gray of the Wehrmacht—formed a line on the street in front of the station and behind the inmates on the other track. They wore bright red berets and held rifles in a stance of readiness. Only, their backs were turned to the inmates, their bodies facing outward to the street and the field behind the station, as though they were guarding against some kind of potential attack from beyond rather than preventing the escape of the inmates. They formed a protective human wall around the station. Hannah looked up to the roof of the station, and there were several soldiers there, too, thoroughly scanning the skies above.

  “You will likely not believe me when I say that you have been transported to your freedom,” the woman continued. “But I assure you that is precisely the case. You are the fortunate two thousand who have been liberated. You have been brought far away where the Nazi terror cannot reach you.”

  The women looked around them, but they could not see a single German soldier. They looked at one another in confusion, and eventually, happy disbelief.

  “You have been liberated through the intervention of the Swiss government and the International Red Cross, with the valued help of a compassionate private individual, who must remain nameless for his own safety and security. Women, you will be free!”

  The word “free” was too profound and sacred, too rarely spoken or heard in the past seven years, a word the women had not dared allow themselves to whisper, even to themselves. Most of the women continued to have a stunned, uncomprehending looks on their faces.

  “You will be transported shortly in trucks to a debriefing camp run by the Red Cross, where you will be issued Swiss passports. Do not be afraid. This is a different kind of camp from the one you know. There will be hot food and clean, potable water for you. Please believe me. You will get a pass for the Swiss railroad system and you will be free to stay and make a life in Switzerland unimpeded if you should choose. There will also be a representative of the Jewish Council for Palestine to discuss with any of you who may be interested in applying to start a new life in Palestine. In any case, you will be free from now on. We Swiss take great pride in assisting you.”

  For Hannah, it was all too much to assimilate. Freedom, Swiss government, International Red Cross. A mysterious nameless compassionate individual. Another one? A new life in Palestine.

  “I have asked Rabbi Rosenstein of the Beth Yaakov Synagogue in our city to welcome and accompany you in prayer. Rabbi Rosenstein...”

  The middle-aged rabbi, with hair graying at the temples and an intelligent face, came forward to the microphone.

  “Ladies,” he began in Swiss German. The dialect sounded almost foreign to Hannah. But she was able to make out enough words that the rabbi spoke to understand somewhat.

  “Meine Damen,” he repeated.

  How long had it been since Hannah had considered herself a lady?

  “You, dear women,” he continued in German, “are the she’arit hapleta, the surviving remnant, of the Jewish people, the children of the nation that, in these few years, has been suffering more than any nation throughout history. You, who have been blessed to be rescued from your tormentors, are called to strengthen your faith and trust in our God that He will comfort you and help you establish a new life in a new world in which will reign righteousness and justice, in which no nation shall be persecuted because of its race, in which each nation shall live in accordance with its faith, practices and religion.”

  Hannah’s eyes welled up with tears, as did those of the rescued inmates beside her. She still could not believe that there was no SS guard or Jewish Kapo nearby to interrupt the rabbi and herd the inmates back onto the train and send them back to Theresienstadt. Is this just a dream from which they will be awakened by the dreaded siren calling them to their breakfast of dried bread a
nd weak tea? The taste of liberation was still too novel and foreign for her palate.

  The rabbi switched to speaking in Hebrew. He recited a prayer:

  Barukh atah Adonai Eloiheinu Melekh ha’olam shehecheyanu vekiymanu vehigi’anu lazman hazeh.

  Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe who has granted us life., sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion.

  Hannah could no longer remember the name of the prayer, but it sounded dear and familiar and washed over her with the sweetness of childhood.

  Hannah and the others bowed their heads tearfully and stood transfixed. They had thought they’d never hear prayers in correct Hebrew again. Even the Hebrew of the hasidim in Theresienstadt had eroded and evolved until their prayers were recited in a language that bore an auditory resemblance to Hebrew but was almost desecrated by the occasional insertions of words in German, Yiddish and Polish, especially Polish. This prayer, uttered in the sacred language, made Hannah feel an unaccustomed swelling of joy grow within her heart and spread to the farthest limbs of her body.

  The rabbi spoke again in German. “Even as we celebrate and rejoice with these she’arit hapleta, we remember with profound sadness those whose lives have been snuffed out in concentration camps. We pray also for those who still remain in those camps, their lives hanging by a thin and fragile tether.

  “May His Great Name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He has created as He willed. May He give reign to His kingship in your lifetimes and in your days, and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel, swiftly and soon.”

  Almost reflexively, Hannah and the Theresienstadt women joined the gathered crowd and responded with “Amen. His great Name be praised forever.” This was the Mourners’ Kaddish. Many times in Theresienstadt, the women in each barrack had joined hands out of the sight of the guards and Kapos and tried to pray these words of sanctification in memory of women who had grown weak and weary and had collapsed from exhaustion or were shipped to Auschwitz.