A Delayed Life

by Dita Kraus

  In the camp commander’s office, Mother typed letters to my great-uncle Adolf in Palestine and to Aunt Manya in Prague, in which she described what we had endured. The letter to Palestine is now in my possession; my uncle gave it to me several years later, when I came to visit him in Tel Aviv. It had been opened by the British military censor. Mother had written in sober, unadorned sentences to say how we were deported to Terezín, then to Auschwitz, where Father had died, to Hamburg to work like slaves, and finally to Bergen-Belsen. She also wrote that all other relatives were most probably dead. Despite all her descriptions of the facts, the letter could not convey the pain, the suffering, and desolation we had to endure. Even as I am writing this, I feel that my words are not adequate. Human language doesn’t contain terms to describe Auschwitz. The magnitude of those horrible experiences would require a new vocabulary. The language I know has no words to describe what I feel.

  The weeks passed. It was already June, and we were still in the camp. Even now people kept dying; thousands of those who had been liberated succumbed to typhus and the consequences of malnutrition. Some had been already sent home; others like us were still waiting. Many could not return to their homelands and wished to emigrate to America.

  We were informed that the Swedish government would accept a certain number of survivors to recuperate in Sweden, all expenses covered. The British doctors screened the candidates. Only the people who had a paper from the hospital, certifying that they were released from quarantine, were eligible. Mother and I decided to apply, and so did Mausi and her mother. We thought that in Prague no one was expecting us, so it would not matter if we returned a few weeks later. I had the necessary report from the hospital, but Mother didn’t.

  Help came from Mausi’s Scottish boyfriend, Sean. He suggested that my mother enter the hospital on some pretended illness and have herself released after a few days. This way she would become eligible for the Swedish project. The doctor promised to take care of the necessary document.

  And so Mother went to the hospital. It was located in one of the red-brick buildings, like the one where we had our room, but it was at the other end of the compound, quite a distance to walk. I accompanied Mother, carrying her bag with a few necessities; we already owned a toothbrush, soap, a few items of clothing, and, of course, cigarettes. I left her there in good humor; everything had gone smoothly, thanks to the letter from the English doctor. They gave her a real bed with sheets in a room with a few other women. The hospital was now much improved since the previous month, when I was there with typhus. It was, however, still critically understaffed; there were perhaps two or three doctors, but the few caregivers were volunteers rather than trained nurses.

  I went to see Mother the next day. She was in bed, as she was supposed to be, but much less happy than yesterday. She complained of bellyache and, indeed, when she lifted the blanket to show me where it hurt, her belly was distended and protruded like a ball from the rest of her body.

  We spoke of our intended journey to Sweden and worried together about how to keep our new possessions, since the Swedes did not allow anything to be brought in, not even our own clothes. They gave the people new clothes and other necessities. We understood that they wanted to prevent any infection or vermin from entering their country. Yet after the years in which our sole possessions were the clothes on our bodies and the bowl and spoon, we were attached to our newly acquired wealth. We each owned a coat; I had a pair of rubber boots stolen from the abandoned German store of the camp, a blouse, and a skirt, as well as a blanket and bedsheet allocated to us by the British army and a blue head scarf, one of two that we found in the lining of my coat when I and Eva Kraus participated in the looting of the camp stores.

  Some time after our liberation, we received a few clothing items, used but clean. I suppose they were collected from the German population, to be distributed among the former prisoners. I got a pair of black bell-bottomed trousers and a few other items, but the trousers were the best. I was very proud of them. It would be a pity to lose such valuable items, which probably were also not available in post-war Prague. We planned to tie everything into a bundle and send it to Prague with the next coach that would take repatriates home. Someone may kindly keep it for us until our return. The Swedish sojourn would last only a few weeks.

  Then Mother told me a few things that she wanted me to remember. I have forgotten what she said, but I knew they were important and wise words, such words as parents tell their children at momentous turns in their lives.

  When I left, I promised to come again next day.

  That evening Mausi and I were invited to a party. I was looking forward to it. It was a private occasion with music, not like the dances in the square, where anybody could come uninvited. It was held in the rooms of the higher-rank officers, among them Mausi’s Scottish doctor.

  It was a very pleasant evening: there were cookies, chocolate, and drinks; the atmosphere was lively yet civilized. However, I didn’t enjoy myself as thoroughly as I might have. At the back of my mind, I felt a nagging worry about my mother. She was probably suffering, and I also wondered why she had found it necessary to tell me those important guidelines for life. I wanted to go home, but I could not break up the party; we girls had been brought together in an army jeep, and I could return only with the others. Fortunately it wasn’t very late when we got home.

  Next day was the third day since Mother had entered the hospital, and according to the plan, she could now be released. I hoped she would feel well enough today. We had barely time to register for Sweden; if we delayed, we would miss our chance altogether.

  I came to the room where I’d visited her the day before but realized I must have made a mistake because the bed was empty. I wanted to ask the women where my mother was, but then I saw her bag on the bed.

  I turned to the women. “Where is my mother, where is my mother, where is my mother?” I demanded, my voice getting louder and louder until I was screaming.

  Silence. No one answered. They all looked at me without a word. The silence became unbearable, but I knew already. Finally one of the women said in Slovakian, “Tvoja mamička zomrela.” Your mummy died. Then they were silent again.

  “What shall I do?” I shouted. “What shall I do? What shall I do now?”

  I grabbed the bag and started running back. All the way, dry sobs came out of my throat. It was a long way, some twenty minutes’ walk. I wanted to cry, but I had no tears. I knew I should cry, but there were only those sobs like a cough, and I spoke aloud: “What shall I do? What shall I do…?”

  I was terribly worried what would become of me. If only I could remember what Mother told me yesterday. She knew she was dying—that was why she gave me this important advice for life. Yet I forgot what she said. I racked my brains to remember my mother’s last words. Perhaps if I remembered, it would help me decide what I must do now. What should I do? What will become of me? I repeated and repeated the questions all the way, stumbling along with the cumbersome bag.

  I burst into our room, where Mausi and her mother were sitting, each doing something trivial.

  “Mother died,” I yelled. “Mother died.” They looked at me in disbelief. I could tell from their stares that they thought I had gone crazy.

  “Sit down, come and tell us what happened. Calm yourself.” Mausi spoke to me kindly, putting her arm around me, but she did not believe me.

  “I’m telling you! Mother died. My mother is dead. What shall I do now? How will I live without Mother?”

  I felt an enormous heaviness like a weight pressing on my chest from within, and all the time these sobs like hiccups continued. Yet I wasn’t weeping. No tears came out of my eyes. I felt mainly worried, worried. What will happen now? What shall I do?

  I felt so sorry for myself. I was alone. I had no one now. Mother was dead. Who would be with me? I belonged to nobody. I was only by myself.… No one would care. And I had forgotten what Mother told me yesterday. Was it yesterday? They were her last
words. She was so wise; she had told me the most important things she knew, all the wisdom she learned in her life, and miserable creature that I was, I had forgotten her last words.

  Suddenly it occurred to me that that wasn’t all. Last night I was dancing. Maybe I was actually dancing the moment my mother died. I wasn’t at her side. Mother died alone while I was laughing at a party. Who knows when she died? I hadn’t even asked, I ran so fast.

  Under the thick frozen layer that eclipsed all my emotions, there was the guilt. Already then I knew that I would never be able to forgive myself. The guilt for permitting my poor mother to die in that shabby way has stayed with me all my life. My mother’s death has returned to me in my dreams in a hundred variations. If only I could return to that cursed night and undo the scenario.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Grave

  I haven’t seen my mother’s grave, nor was I present at her burial. The very same day I came with the news, Mausi took me to the repatriation officer and asked him to put me forward on the waiting list. She convinced me to return to Prague and not go to Sweden. Perhaps I would find some relatives or friends who would take me in. I waived my right to the Swedish recuperation; she told him that I was now an orphan and should be treated with special consideration. They spoke in Czech, and he was very kind and decent. He placed me on the next coach to Prague, which would be leaving the following morning.

  There were no proper funerals at Bergen-Belsen. Yet I didn’t want my mother to be buried in an anonymous mass grave. I wished her to have a separate grave with her name on it. This, however, I could not arrange in the short hours I had left until my departure.

  Sean, Mausi, and another woman, Elly, who had been Mother’s schoolmate back in Brno, promised to attend the funeral and see to it that Mother got a separate grave.

  * * *

  Some years after the end of the war, an organization was established in Hamburg, consisting of people who remembered the Jewish women who worked there during the war. Their aim is to commemorate our group of about five hundred women who worked in Freihafen, Neugraben, and Tiefstack. They have placed memorial plaques in the places where we were housed, and they write and speak about us to the younger generation.

  In the late 1990s, the moving spirit behind the organization, Herr Heiner Schultz, invited a few of us former prisoners to visit Hamburg. I declined the invitation. I never wanted to see Germany again.

  They kept sending more letters, politely trying to make me change my mind. I still refused. But then I received the itinerary they had planned for us and, among the various visits to Gedenkstätten (memorials), there was Bergen-Belsen.

  That changed my attitude. It was a chance to see my mother’s burial place.

  There were six of us: four from Israel and two from the Czech Republic. Everything was arranged perfectly, accommodation in a hotel in the center of Hamburg, guided tours of important Jewish sites, meals in restaurants, transportation … Everything functioned without a hitch.

  On the morning of our trip to Bergen-Belsen, I bought a bunch of flowers to put on my mother’s grave. The camp is now an off-limits NATO base, but our hosts had arranged a special permit for us to enter. The cemetery is inside the fenced-in compound. The location of the memorial with the mass graves and the monument is some distance from there, on the grounds of the former concentration camp, which was burned down.

  The cemetery looks like a well-kept park. There are no graves in the usual sense, but several rows of low green mounds, with sandy paths between them. Here and there are a few headstones with a name and a date.

  How could I find my mother’s grave? I walked among the rows and noticed that the dates on the stones rise chronologically. There were a few with the date May 1945, then June. I continued looking, and there was one with the date June 27. My mother died on June 29. A few paces ahead there was a tree. I decided that if one person was buried each day between the two dates, Mother must be under that tree. I placed the flowers on the elevated mound and stood there for a while. I was expecting something, perhaps a sign that this was the right place, that I was standing near my mother’s remains. The others stayed apart, respecting my privacy.

  But there was nothing. Everything around remained silent and green as before. However, I was sure now that I had done the right thing by returning to Germany.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Return to Prague

  The day after my mother’s death, June 30, I was on the coach driven by its Czech owner, who was doing the shuttling as a volunteer. I carried two bundles, mine and Mausi’s. She asked me to take it to Prague to be kept by her friend Ruth until she and her mother returned from Sweden. Of course, we had no suitcases; the things were just tied in an army blanket. What was in my bundle? A pair of black rubber boots looted from the German storerooms in Bergen-Belsen, a pair of blue British navy trousers with a “drawbridge” flap in front. There were also a blouse and a flower-patterned skirt, which the British had collected from the German population and distributed to the survivors. But above all there was my treasure: some eighty packets of British Woodbine cigarettes.

  There were about forty people on the bus. I didn’t know any of the other passengers. They were all liberated prisoners of various nationalities; for them Prague was only a transit station. I sat with a young Slovak girl named Marta. I felt very lonely. My travel companions were not aware that I had lost my mother just the day before. Even if they knew, they wouldn’t have cared; everyone was absorbed with their own worries and fears of the future.

  We traveled all day long across Germany, through cities demolished by bombs, while the bucolic countryside and villages were unharmed, peaceful and green. Our Czech driver kept driving until dark, because he didn’t want to stay in German territory overnight. It was late evening when we crossed the border into Czechoslovakia. The bus stopped in the nearest town, Františkovy Lázně.

  The place seemed lifeless. No one was in sight, and the windows of the old-fashioned hotels around the town square were dark. The area had been liberated just a short while ago, all the hotels were closed, and there were no guests. After several attempts, our driver found one hotel whose janitor, after hearing who the passengers were, was willing to let us stay overnight.

  Such luxury! I was amazed. I had forgotten that such comfort existed. I walked along the carpeted corridors, through halls full of mirrors, polished furniture, and heavy velvet curtains. We got a luxurious room with a shiny bathroom and a huge double bed, meant for the rich, spoiled guests of a prewar era, who came to cure their ailments and show their jewels.

  Two people had to share a room; my roommate was Marta. We looked strange in those surroundings. I wore my raincoat, my trousers, which had come from the British surplus stores, and my rubber boots. I had preferred to put them on rather than carry them. On my shoulders hung the two bundles. But most strange of all were those staring eyes reflected in the mirror. Could those be my eyes? And indeed, who was this tall girl whom I hadn’t seen full-length in a mirror for the last three years?

  I lay on the soft, springy bed on a white starched sheet covered by a fluffy light eiderdown and couldn’t fall asleep. I turned and turned, and each time the bed heaved and bounced in response. The same was the case with my roommate.

  Unlike the princess in Andersen’s fairy tale, who couldn’t fall asleep because of a pea placed under a pile of mattresses in order to find out if she was a genuine princess, the two of us were unable to fall asleep because the beds were too soft and springy. We had been sleeping on hard bunks for too many years. In the end, we just pulled off the fluffy eiderdown and spent the night sleeping on the carpet.

  The following morning, our driver took us as far as Pilsen, his hometown. He took us to the railway station, arranged the tickets for us, and wished us a good journey.

  We continued the rest of the way to Prague by train.

  Part III

  1945–21ST CENTURY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

&nb
sp; First Weeks in Prague

  The train reached Prague by noontime on July 1. There I was then in my native town, alone, without Father and Mother, just two weeks short of my sixteenth birthday.

  At the main railway station, our group was met by two people from the Repatriation Office. They handed each of us a pink identity card and took the people who had no place to stay to a nearby hostel. I left my two bundles there and set out to find Aunt Manya.

  I remembered which tram went to the borough of Podolí, but I had no money for the fare. I showed the conductor my pink repatriation card, and he said I didn’t have to pay. People looked at me strangely, and I realized that I must somehow seem odd to them. I didn’t know why. I thought there was no visible mark on my person that could explain their stares. I guessed that it was the way I was dressed, with my rubber boots and a raincoat on a summer day. Only much later did I hear from others that something in the expression of the face, especially in the eyes, revealed the ravages of the years spent in Terezín, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen.

  I climbed the stairs to Manya’s little flat and rang the doorbell. The door opened, and there stood my Aunt Manya. She did not recognize me. When she had seen me last, I was a child of thirteen, and now I was an adult of sixteen.

  “Yes?” she said.

  I couldn’t answer.

  “Dita?” she said doubtfully. I nodded.

  She peered behind me down the stairs.