Forever Fleeting

by Bret Kissinger

  The prisoners dashed away from the two canisters of Zyklon B, an early pesticide until its lethal effects had been tested on Russian prisoners of war. Hannah was the furthest away from the ceiling openings. People coughed and screamed. Hannah fell to her knees and covered her mouth with her hands. An invisible plastic bag pressed over her face. Her frantic inhales brought no salvation. As her body fought, her mind left the cold room. She was back at her parents’ home with Wilhelm for Hanukkah. Her mother and father smiled at her as she lit the last candle of the Menorah. But the hissing noise stopped. It may have been minutes or only seconds, it was impossible to tell. The lock on the door cranked, and the door swung open. The guard yelled for them to leave. Hannah and the prisoners rushed through the door like a wave. They hurried to grab their clothes but, in their hysteria, no one could remember exactly where they had put them. Instead, they reached for the closest pair of clothes in an attempt to leave as quickly as possible.

  Hannah grabbed a pair of pajamas, half-expecting the owner to yank them from her hand. But no one cared. She pulled the pajamas on and then her shirt. In the shuffle, the pajamas were now too short, barely covering her ankles, but the wooden clogs she ended up with fit perfectly.

  The prisoners were ushered back outside. Men were atop the building that was Crematorium 1. Something had gone wrong with the canisters. The words “mechanical failure” were spoken amongst other words that, even though Hannah had spoken German her entire life, she had not heard until her late teenage years and words Heinrich routinely spoke after losing a round of cards.

  “Do we bring them to the wall?” a guard asked.

  The leader mulled the suggestion over. “No. Save the bullets. When it is fixed, we will bring them back.”

  Hannah had averted death, but only temporarily. She needed to find herself in a position of value again, or she would be killed. She did her best to hide it from Eleanor and assured her nothing had happened. But that night, not even complete exhaustion could bring her to sleep. She could have been dead. She should have been dead. As relieved as she was that she had escaped death, there was the awful reality that hundreds, if not thousands, hadn’t been blessed with a similar fortune. Had God intervened? But how hubristic to believe that. But it had to be more than luck and a mechanical failure. But whatever it had been, she was not foolish enough to think it would happen again. She wouldn’t last one more day in the field nor would the Rottenführer be pleased to see her. He had sent her to die, and if he saw her, he might rectify the fortunate mistake. Her moment came the following morning during appell.

  “I need someone to aid in the cleaning of the toilets,” Standartenführer Usinger said.

  “I will do it,” Hannah volunteered.

  Hannah had never been one to speak in front of large numbers of people, but nothing short of her life depended on being reassigned.

  “Very well,” Standartenführer Usinger said. His lips puckered as if he were biting down on a lemon. Only a Jew would be so eager to clean shit.

  Trugnowski nodded to Hannah and marched to the farm for more manual work. His once muscular frame was gone. His horse-like strength had faded.

  The guards did not want to stand in such filth and breathe in such foulness, so Eleanor and Hannah had the bathroom to themselves. They were each equipped with a short spade, and they shoveled the feces from the hole and placed it into a bucket that was to be emptied elsewhere.

  “Breathe through your mouth,” Eleanor advised.

  But the smell, although bad, was no different than any other smell at the camp. Hannah had not had a shower in only God knew how long. The pajamas she wore were covered in dirt and sweat, and now that it was January, the wind and cold went right through them and into her very bones. When the winds were exceptionally nasty, they threatened to freeze her bones to ice. The brutal wind was blocked and the inside was marginally warmer. But warmer was warmer, no matter how marginal.

  “Will you teach me English?” Hannah asked.

  “Yes,” Eleanor replied in English.

  Hannah had not abandoned hope of being able to leave the camp someday, but she knew there would be no place in Germany for her. She had thought about Paris or London, but New York City seemed to be the safest place for her. As far as she knew, the Americans were not at war, and the country was a land of opportunity and embraced those who were different.

  The English language was not as poetic as French and entirely confusing. But Eleanor was a patient teacher, and it gave her something to do. She loved teaching, and Hannah could see that, and at times, it was frustrating how patient she was. She was entirely in her element when teaching. Hannah now understood when Wilhelm described the way she looked when she took photos or painted.

  They started small with greetings. But as soon as she thought she understood the rules, the pronunciation, and the spelling, there was always an exception. Words like “read” and “read” that were spelled the same but pronounced entirely differently were beyond infuriating. There were dozens of them, and contractions were even worse. To help with her spelling, Eleanor had Hannah write words and sentences in the dirt, and it was a good thing it was not paper, for she made her fair share of mistakes. But the key to learning anything new is devoting time, and time was something she had plenty of.

  For the first few months, it had been the nights that had been comforting and the days, hellish. But her days, although doing a job that months ago would have made her vomit, were filled with deep conversations and learning. Hannah was a student with a private teacher, and her lessons extended beyond English. It was so much more. There was no letter grade, certificates or diploma but the gift of a kindred spirit to share an immense crucible with.

  Aiding in the reversal of day and night was the spread of Typhus fever. The barracks had become an infected and dangerous place. Each cough was a potential death sentence, and Hannah slept with her arm draped over her face. Even if she could not see them, the barracks was covered in a plague of poltergeists, looking for people to terrorize. During its worst night, the fever claimed twelve.

  Each day brought new prisoners. They were separated left and right. Left meant life and right meant death. But the hundreds of new arrivals also brought with them thousands of possessions—possessions that were not returned to even those who were spared their lives. Each day, Hannah saw the new arrivals, and she and Eleanor had been around long enough to know who among them would be dead within the hour. Young children, mothers, and the elderly were a demographic the Nazis had no use for. The Jewish possessions and plunder were moved to a building known as Kanada.

  The nights were freezing, and when a woman died, she was looted for bread and her pajamas, taken. The corpse drew out what little body heat one had, so the body was rolled onto the floor. In the mornings, it was a horror to see three or four women stiff as boards on the floor and as cold as the winter outside.

  During a bitterly cold morning, on their way to the bathrooms, Hannah and Eleanor were stopped by one of the low-ranking guards.

  “You are needed elsewhere,” the guard said.

  Hannah had heard similar words before—words that had brought her to the gas chambers. She wanted to run, but Eleanor looked at Hannah and squeezed her hand.

  “It’s okay, Hannah,” she said.

  But so many had thought the same. Hannah knew what waited for them. She would rather be shot than willingly walk back into that horrific chamber. She tried to pull her hand away, but Eleanor secured it.

  “Trust me, Hannah,” she said.

  Hannah nodded, her eyes taking in Eleanor’s certainty. Her faith was rewarded. The guard led them to Kanada. Eleanor smiled at Hannah, squeezing her hand once more.

  “Sturmbannführer Waltz, I have two workers for you,” the guard said.

  Sturmbannführer Waltz was dressed in black and would have been handsome had it not been for the maniacal way his eyes caught the light. He was a man who prided himself on his appearance. His boots were polished, his face
, cleanly-shaven, and his clothes, pressed. Yet, no matter how well his clothes were pressed and his face shaven, it did nothing to draw attention away from the scar that covered nearly half of his left-side. He inclined his head, and the guard left.

  “What you are about to see cannot be shared with anyone. Now that you will see this, there is no leaving. The only way out is through the chimney,” Waltz said, pointing to the smoke coming out of the gas chamber that was Crematorium 1.

  Waltz opened the door of the wooden building. The women inside scurried about, sorting through mountains of shoes, coats, pants, and thousands of suitcases that stretched the length of the room and almost reached the massive ceiling.

  “You will search through this. You will find women’s coats. And you will find men’s coats. You will find me fifty coats every day, or you will be punished. Do you understand?” Waltz instructed.

  “Yes, we understand, Sir,” Eleanor said.

  Waltz was taken slightly aback at her German. He pointed to Hannah, “women’s jackets” and then to Eleanor, “men’s jackets.”

  The room was a moratorium of life—families forced to fill a lifetime of possessions into small suitcases. Massive piles of eyeglasses, rings, and watches as tall as Hannah were near the front. It was a great plunder of the treasure of the Knights Templar lore.

  “You will be searched upon the ending of each shift. Pray we do not find anything on you,” Waltz warned. He stared at them both, fully aware of how uncomfortable his disfigured face made them and left.

  The place was nicknamed Kanada by some of the prisoners, as they believed Canada to be a country of wealth. The sight was enough to make Hannah’s eyes water. When she first sorted through the cascading heaps of clothes, it was like sorting through trash, but after finding her first coat, the horror of it all avalanched upon her. Each shirt, coat, dress, pants, and pair of shoes belonged to someone. She was grave robbing, even if she had not dug up the grave.

  “Look for food,” Eleanor said. She spoke in English as to not be overheard by unwanted German ears or snitches in their midst.

  Hannah’s vocabulary had improved greatly, and some words stuck better than others. But “food” was a word that nearly caused her to drool like a dog waiting for a treat. No English word sounded more heavenly than food.

  A frail woman, slightly older than Eleanor, came over to Hannah and Eleanor and pointed to a spot on the floor. “You speak English?” Hannah asked. The woman shrugged and both nodded and shook her head. She had simply ascertained food would be on their mind.

  A pile of canned foods was hidden under a few coats and suitcases. Hannah took the knife the woman offered and stabbed it into a can of pineapple, sawing at it to open it enough for the juicy fruit inside to pour out. Before it was fully opened, Eleanor pushed the can to Hannah’s lips for her to drink the watery syrup. Hannah took a gulp before giving the can to Eleanor and letting her have a drink. They dug their dirty fingers into the half-opened can and pulled out pieces of the circular slices. It revitalized their malnourished bodies the moment they bit down. It was the first genuine smile the two had in months, and after a diet of bread, imitation coffee or tea, the occasional slice of sausage and bowl of watery soup, the pineapple was so sweet that it tasted like pure sugarcane. It was tempting to eat the entire stockpile.

  “We need to bring Trugnowski something,” Hannah said.

  “Nothing that will cause a search. We need to be careful,” Eleanor cautioned.

  Hannah nodded, and she and Eleanor sorted through the clothing. They intended on doing this job permanently for, with each new train arrival, there would be more and more food making its way into Kanada. They opened suitcases and piled their findings on the floor. Both Hannah and Eleanor were nervous to steal food, but when the other women grabbed food to bring back, they too looked for food that could be hidden. Six potatoes, still relatively fresh apart from a few spots of mold and grown sprouts, filled a new arrival’s satchel she had brought along for the train ride.

  It was less invasive and far easier sorting through food than a person’s jacket. Hannah used the knife to cut the potato in half the long way, slicing off the mold and sprouts, and shoved the potato into her wooden clog, resting it against the side of her foot. Eleanor took the other half and did the same. As she finished adjusting her wooden clog, the door opened, and Sturmbannführer Waltz stepped in. He had a habit of walking with his hands behind his back and resting on his elbows to ensure none of the Jewish “filth” touched him.

  “How many coats for you?” Waltz asked, standing over the two piles of coats, neatly folded.

  “Sixty-two,” Hannah answered. She had counted them five times. She knew if she was a single coat off, she would most likely be punished.

  “And you?” Waltz asked.

  “Sixty,” Eleanor said.

  “Above average,” Waltz remarked, surveying the room, trying to find something displeasing. “Your shift is over.”

  Hannah, Eleanor, and the four other women stepped through the door. Two guards came forward and patted the women down. It was a more thorough search than any had hoped. Hannah had counted on her grimy pajamas, body odor, and the fact they were “diseased” with Judaism would lead to a simple eye search for protruding pockets. Hannah tried to calm her breathing, for she considered Waltz a dog who could and would sniff out fear. The guard roughly smacked her arms and legs before nodding at the Sturmbannführer. Waltz stared at the women before giving a nod of his own for them to leave. But walking naturally with a half of a potato in your shoe was difficult and required more of a shuffle than a walk.

  When they moved through the food line and joined Trugnowski, he had already finished his bread and piece of sausage.

  “I may be dead in the morning. I will not die with uneaten bread,” Trugnowski said.

  “Take out your bowl,” Eleanor whispered in English.

  Trugnowski had been forced to listen to Hannah’s dinner lessons and had picked up some English due to sheer annoyance. He held out his bowl. Hannah kept a lookout for approaching guards while Eleanor slid the potato half from her clog and slipped it into Trugnowski’s empty bowl. It seemed disgusting to eat an uncooked potato stored in a sweaty, dirty clog, but Trugnowski almost drooled enough to fill his bowl.

  “How?” he asked.

  “We worked in Kanada today,” Hannah explained.

  “Thank you,” Trugnowski said.

  “We will try to bring more if we are able,” Eleanor added.

  “Do not get caught because of me,” Trugnowski said.

  But Trugnowski needed it. Of those who had worked the field with Trugnowski and Hannah that first day, only the two of them were alive. He had a stubbornness about him that seemed would not allow him to die.

  The gong struck, and the prisoners rose to their feet and rushed back to the bathrooms and then to their barracks.

  “I’ll bring you back a rock tomorrow,” Trugnowski said, cracking a smile—his first since Hannah had known him.

  Trugnowski left, and Hannah and Eleanor followed the mass of women.

  “I have not seen Kitty,” Hannah mentioned.

  “Nor have I,” Eleanor said.

  They searched for her in the line for the bathrooms, but when they returned to the barracks, Kitty was already in bed, sweating profusely, yet shivering.

  “Kitty, are you alright?” Eleanor asked.

  “Don’t touch her,” Hannah said.

  Eleanor paused with her hand hovering mere inches above Kitty’s forehead.

  “She is sick. The same as the others,” Hannah said.

  Typhus continued to run rampant in the camp, aided by the fact that nearly everyone had lice. Kitty’s arms were covered in red blotches. She mumbled in her sleep, and her forehead was covered with sweat. Hannah and Eleanor slept nearly face-to-face. They wanted to keep as much distance between themselves and Kitty. But with so many people packed in like sardines in a can, it was impossible. There was no worse feeling than lea
ving a dying friend. But there was truly nothing they could do for Kitty. When the morning gong woke them, Kitty was not in bed. Her body was on the floor, nude, her pajamas and headscarf taken. Hannah and Eleanor paid their respects silently from afar—at least her suffering had ended.

  They returned to Kanada each day, sneaking precious amounts of food into their mouths and hiding food in their clogs to keep giving Trugnowski lifesaving portions. After a few months, Kanada was no longer a building but an area. The Jewish possessions stretched the entire length and reached the top of the fence line that separated Kanada from the gas chambers. But it did not block the disturbingly clear view of children and mothers standing, waiting for the chamber. The mothers looked about nervously as their children played. Hannah wanted to yell out to them that they were waiting for their deaths, but if she had, she too would find herself back in the chamber.

  Gas chamber usage increased greatly after the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, had seen them in action. The extermination of the Jewish race was the Final Solution to the problem and threat the Jews posed. Some mothers held newborn babies in their arms as they entered the gas chamber—a sight that was a sledgehammer to the heart. Trugnowski had been reassigned to work in the chambers where he lifted the corpses onto a cart and burned them. Their ashes were spread into the pond behind the crematorium. On windy days, the ashes fell like snow. Hannah would rather clean a million toilets than load one dead person, but Trugnowski did not have that choice.

  The smiling children she saw moments ago were now cold corpses. Their deaths were neither instantaneous nor quiet. Their screams carried out of the building and over the fence line. The spring weather was warm with a bright sky, and it seemed impossible that something so macabre could occur under such a peaceful sky. But the screams were so loud that the Nazis worried the new arrivals would hear them and pandemonium would ensue. To counter this, the motor of a lorry, parked beside the building, was switched on to drown out the noise. During the times the motor ran, disturbingly more frequent, it was impossible to talk. But during the quiet moments, Hannah and Eleanor carried on conversations in both German and English.