by Lily Graham
‘Can you come again?
‘Yes, tomorrow.’
She smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As the weeks passed, Eva knew she was pregnant, it was inescapable. Her life became about trying her best to conceal it, and to protect her unborn child.
At night she sat, eyes wide, feeling her belly under cover of darkness. It was tiny, barely more than a small bulge. If she stood naked it would be hard to tell for sure, but Geneva had confirmed it, after a short examination in the Blockalteste’s rooms on Sofie’s behest.
‘I think you should let me abort it,’ said the tall woman, peering at her, not unkindly.
Eva swallowed, shook her head. Tears fell from her eyes. ‘Are you going to tell them?’
Geneva shook her head. ‘No. I should – that’s what they expect us to do – but I won’t. They’ve stopped killing pregnant mothers now.’
Eva blanched. She’d known that they had done that but to hear it so bluntly took her breath away.
‘Look, I’ll leave it with you – think about it – I’d say you’re due in about February next year, that’s five months away, you’re not going to have that much time.’
Eva blinked, nodding. She was four months pregnant. She left promising that she would let her know. But she had already decided. She’d decided on the day she’d suspected that she was pregnant.
That night while she lay in her bunk, she whispered to her unborn child. ‘I don’t know how you came about in all of this, my darling, but you are a miracle, of that I have no doubt,’ she whispered, while everyone slept.
It was a strange thing, Eva realised, being pregnant. It was like having some new hope coursing through her veins. While she’d been so focused on finding her husband, and imagining that one day they might make it out of this – that seed had found its way inside of her and created new life already. She touched her belly and thought, If it’s a girl I’m going to name you, Naděje. It meant hope.
There were other worries too, like Sofie who came down with tonsillitis, which was brought on, no doubt, by the lack of proper nutrition.
Meier had been moved on to some other detail, after he’d been caught by a senior officer giving extra food to Sofie.
In many ways, she was relieved, Meier had grown pushier, more demanding, his actions emulating Hinterschloss’s. He seemed to swing from day to day, being kind one moment, cruel the next. It was as if he couldn’t decide if she were his girlfriend, or his whore. She felt a bit like both. Whatever the case, once she’d slept with him, there had been no turning back, and no escaping him. While he had been good to her in the sense that he always brought her extra food, it came at a high price, and that had grown to include slaps and bruises over the weeks, as well as Hinterschloss’s renewed interest in her, as the guard found every excuse to test his friend’s merchandise when he passed her way.
‘Meier has grown up a lot, little Bette Davis,’ he said, his hand sliding towards her groin. ‘It makes me wonder about this man-maker,’ he said, then laughed at her horrified eyes.
With Meier out of the way, she hoped that Hinterschloss would lose interest too. She had begun already to fear what she might end up doing to Meier, she had dreams of killing him as he lay spent in her arms.
Eva was terrified that her friend would get pneumonia, which was rampaging through the camp along with Scarlet fever and other illnesses, due to the lack of hygiene and poor diet. She fed her her portion of bread each night and while Sofie spent two days in bed, Eva cared for her as best as she could.
‘No, don’t give me your food, Kritzelei, you’re working – and expecting – you need it.’
‘What I need is for my bossy friend to live, and get better, okay?’ said Eva, giving her some water from her mug. She’d got some painkillers from Geneva for her as well.
Sofie closed her eyes. Her throat was on fire as she whispered, ‘If I don’t make it through this, you’ll go and get Tomas, you’ll raise him, won’t you?’
Eva turned to look at Sofie, her eyes concerned. ‘Don’t speak like that, we’ll get out of this alive, together. Like we said, okay?’
Sofie shut her eyes. ‘I’m serious, Kritzelei, please. If I don’t make it – you’ll need to go to Bergenz – it’s on the Austrian border, it’s where Lotte lived. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it – she wouldn’t have had a chance to go far to find an orphanage if that’s where she took him – so it has to be close by. Maybe a nunnery, one of the churches – who knows. Or a non-Jewish friend, she had a few of those, you’ll have to ask around. The midwife who delivered Tomas was called Liesl, I can’t remember her surname – but you could ask her. They should have records if she did it officially…’
‘Sofie—’
‘No, Eva. It’s important, listen to me. I haven’t given up, and I’m sticking to our plan – but in case,’ she swallowed, ‘in case I don’t survive I need you to do this. He might even be with Lotte’s husband, Udo, if he’s still alive. After what she did to my father and I – to Tomas – well, I just don’t want my son to be raised by someone like that. I know she was afraid – God, it’s probably not good of me, but still, I can’t forgive it. I’m sorry. And I can’t let her husband raise my son or have him live forever in an orphanage, I can’t let that happen. Okay? Promise me you’ll go get him if you survive and I don’t. You’ll raise him as your own. Please?’
Eva took her friend’s hands in hers, her eyes were full of tears. ‘I will, I promise. Now eat.’
And Sofie did.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Terezín, December 1940–1942
At first family visits happened only once a week but soon, as time moved on and Eva and her family had been in Terezín for several weeks, there was more freedom and they could see them more regularly, though the men and women were still separated at night.
Eva started working in the kitchen gardens, and her daily life settled down into a routine.
It was bearable, because she was with her family, and she got to see Michal.
The New Year brought with it new arrivals. Every day there were new transports and friends and family and people they used to know crowded into the old town.
There were fears that there would soon be too many. Transports would begin sending them somewhere else. A whisper only of ‘East’. It brought terror to all their hearts.
Eva and her mother were moved into a new barrack, but they were separated when her mother was put on a cleaning detail.
She’d been at the camp for just under two months when she heard the news. Her mother came rushing at her, her eyes wide. ‘It’s Mila and Bedrich, they are here!’
They rushed towards the area of the Schleuse, but the wait for them was long, and the gendarmes sent her back to work. She couldn’t wait to see her cousin.
When, at last, she saw her, she was shocked. Mila had grown thin, she looked ill. Her eyes were large and sad, but she embraced Eva firmly. ‘I have missed you so much.’
Eva nodded. ‘Me too. What happened?’
‘Father tried to get us out – a last attempt, when they sent the papers to our flat. Arnold—’ she closed her eyes, and tears leaked down her pretty face, ‘and I followed him there in a car. We made it as far as the border. But they caught us, in the end. Arnold was killed.’ Eva closed her eyes in horror. ‘We were so close, Eva,’ Mila said, her blue eyes pooling with tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Eva, gathering her cousin’s thin frame in her arms. She led her to the barracks, and sat her down with her mother, who fussed over her, offering her something to eat. The light seemed to have gone out of Mila’s eyes, as she climbed into bed. ‘I just want to sleep,’ she said. Eva nodded, and pulled a blanket over her cousin. Sharing a worried gaze with her mother. They had never seen her like this.
Uncle Bedrich was worried about his daughter. Otto, Eva’s father, had got him a job as a handyman, but it was soon apparent that his skills could be used in other ways – carting off the de
ad for instance. He didn’t ask too many questions, and wasn’t afraid to do the sort of work that needed someone with a strong stomach.
Eva managed to slip out and be with Michal as often as she could. It felt cruel to her that she had him, while her cousin pined away for Arnold. Summer arrived, and the camp was soon groaning with people – the facilities couldn’t cope. The transports went every day. A shout ran out for her, and her father rushed towards her in the kitchen garden. ‘Come quick, Eva.’
She rushed to follow, asking what was wrong, what was happening. ‘Is it Mama? Michal? Mila? What’s going on?’
‘No time, even now, run.’
She raced after her father, her lungs burning, till they reached the trams. Her heart thudded in her chest. Michal was standing on the platform.
‘No!’ she shouted.
He turned, trying to come towards her, and the gendarme pushed him back, and herded him and the others onto the train. The doors slammed shut, and she sunk to her knees, watching in horror as it sped away from her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eva couldn’t do hard labour anymore, not in her condition, and she managed to convince Maria to help get her assigned somewhere else, with a bribe of a large wedge of salami she managed to organise in exchange for her mug.
It was worth it.
She was put into the kitchen detail. In the long wintry months while she peeled potatoes and helped make the horrible soup, and cut up bread, it was possible to get extra portions of peelings, potato and small bits of other vegetables. It wasn’t much but it was enough to keep her going. The work was tedious but it wasn’t hard. Where she was was warm and dry, and she didn’t need to stand all day which was the main thing.
Her tiny size, along with her loose clothing, hid her growing abdomen effectively, but she was terrified that she would have the baby here and that they would take it away from her before the war ended.
Every day, the rumours and whispers that the war was beginning to turn against the Germans, with the allied armies advancing ever closer to Auschwitz, spread like wildfire.
The commanders were beginning to see the end was near, and that things were not going to go the way they hoped. A month before, the crematoria were blown up. It was a massive explosion. They’d leapt from the bunks to see a fireball lighting up the night. There were cheers when people realised what had happened. ‘Does this mean it’s over?’
‘There will no longer be gassings? We’ll get to live!’
An old woman behind them snorted. ‘Don’t be such an idiot, if they’re trying to cover their tracks before the Reds arrive, they won’t leave us behind to tell the stories.’
Eva swallowed. The old woman had a point.
The air raids had gained in intensity. At night the shooting was relentless, turning the sky red.
‘Kritzelei, I think it’s going to be over in a matter of months, they say the allies are nearing the camp.’ Then she looked down at Eva’s belly and said. ‘You just need to hang in there all right, they’re coming soon.’
As winter marched on, order and discipline began to break down. There was an uprising and some of the crematoria workers – Sonderkommandos, men who had been forced to gas their fellow inmates – revolted. Perhaps they knew that they were going to be killed – it was they after all who had seen first hand what the SS had done. They led an uprising, killing several guards and managing to get away to nearby villages, but their escape was doomed, as they were all hunted down and killed.
The effect the turning war had on the guards was worrisome, though for the most part they were distracted and the hated Appells began to come to a halt, which was a relief. Even so, the guards were still a dangerous threat, and it was clear that they didn’t want to leave any witnesses behind. Meier had left his other post and returned to Birkenau, which was both a blessing and a curse, as having him around offered a tiny shred of protection for Sofie and Eva. But it meant that Sofie was once again under his thumb.
The Soviet advance caused panic every day, and one day in January they bombed the food store. The SS began tearing down some of the fences, and getting rid of documentation, destroying evidence of what they’d done.
Hinterschloss took his vengeance out on those he could. They were marched out into the cold night air, and back again, and whenever one of the women tripped or fell he was there. Eva watched in horror as he took a pistol and shot Vanda in the head, her body slumped over – there was a dark pool of blood from her wound. It was agony losing their friend, and their bunk was a lonely place without her deep belly laugh and bright ginger hair.
As the weeks passed, work had stopped completely, which was a relief, but also a concern, because food was harder to get. At eight months pregnant, Eva’s stomach still barely showed. The baby was tiny, yet alive, somehow. Eva tried to give it encouragement, even as she scrounged on scraps, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t starving.
Meier managed to get them some food, but he was distracted. He walked around as if he were in a daze most of the time, his blue eyes anxious, shadows beneath them.
‘I don’t think he quite realised that this place was evil – that what they were doing here was wrong – till he was told to start burning the evidence,’ said Sofie.
Eva looked at her friend, trying to take that in – how someone could have seen all this every day and still not got that what they’d helped to do was beyond evil. ‘So now he’s sorry?’ she asked.
‘No, I just think maybe he’s just starting to lose some of his blinkers, but perhaps not soon enough.’
She prayed that her baby would hold on. ‘The Soviets are coming, just hang on a little while longer,’ she told it.
It was late at night when she was woken up by Sofie.
‘Come on,’ she whispered. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’
She got up, quickly, putting on her shoes in the freezing cold, her heart starting to race. Was it Michal? Was he back, somehow? Her heart flooded with hope. Only he would risk coming here. There were rumours that the work had stopped in the factories, perhaps they’d been sent back. Would he come straight here? she wondered, heart flooding with hope. It was foolish of him, but she would reprimand him later, after she hugged him till he begged her to stop.
She followed after Sofie. The Kapo was still asleep in her room, and Eva went outside, pausing in a mixture of confusion, disappointment and happiness as the light shone on an older figure with bushy eyebrows. It was Herman; behind him was Meier.
Herman greeted her with a quick hug.
‘I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,’ he said, his eyes sad.
‘Me too.’
He reached out towards her. ‘I asked Meier if I could come.’ He darted a look at the guard, who looked away. ‘I know I would have wanted someone to have done the same for me,’ he said, his eyes full of remorse. ‘It’s bad news I bring, I’m sorry.’
Eva felt her heart start to pound. She didn’t know if she wanted to hear it.
‘Skelter returned from Freiberg last week – I’m afraid there was an accident. One of the wings collapsed in the aeroplane factory where he was working. They weigh a ton, there were a lot of injuries. I’m afraid Michal didn’t make it.’
Eva felt her knees give out, a low keening wail wracked throughout her body, and she found it hard to breathe, she fell into the mud as her heart shattered within.
Chapter Thirty
Somehow Eva made it inside, she wasn’t quite sure how, her legs were shaking uncontrollably, and tears coursed unchecked down her dirty cheeks. She stumbled towards her bunk, her knees wet and bruised from where she’d fallen in the snow. She didn’t feel it. All around her the sounds of hundreds of women trying to sleep was like the muffled drone of bees, but all she could hear was the roaring in her own ears, that was calling Michal’s name. Every time she closed her eyes she saw him. Saw that dimple that appeared whenever he touched her face.
How could he be gone? How could she go on without
him?
Pain, like a knife to her abdomen, ripped through her and she gasped aloud, stumbling in her sodden clogs, doubling over, she clutched her stomach, then turned white in sudden, crippling fear.
She felt wet down her legs. The baby was coming. She closed her eyes in horror. ‘Oh God, haven’t you made me suffer enough?’ she cursed. Fresh tears tracked her cheeks. ‘I won’t let you take my child too,’ she vowed. ‘I won’t.’
Sofie rushed to help her, ‘Come on, just a few more steps, then you can lie down.’
Helga came down to help her.
Eva fought for breath, her head between her knees. At last she looked up, horror on her face as she whispered it aloud: ‘I’m in labour.’
Sofie blinked. ‘It must be shock.’ She looked at the old woman and said, ‘She just found out, Michal – he’s gone.’
Helga’s old face creased in sympathy, and she took Eva by the crook of her arm. ‘Come on,’ she said, helping her, her hands shaking in sudden fear. ‘Let’s get you to the top, you’ll be less visible there, the girls won’t mind.’
Two of the women from her bunk came to help her climb to the top. While Eva writhed, pain shooting through her, Helga explained what was happening. As Eva got into position, one of the women handed her a rolled-up piece of fabric. ‘Put this in your mouth, bite down,’ she suggested, not unkindly.
Eva nodded, tears leaking from her eyes. It would help keep her cries down in case Maria came to investigate, and called one of the guards.
‘What are we going to do?’ said Helga. ‘I’ve never delivered a child before, have you?’ she asked. They all shook their heads. Two had sat up to watch, to help, the others had their backs turned, refusing to get involved other than by keeping their mouths shut. In their eyes Sofie could see the fear they all shared. So much could go wrong in childbirth.