Auschwitz-Birkenau
One.
I had never been on a train before. My great aunt would often come to our home, clad in gowns of deep red that seemed to address her domineering presence, paired with her graying hair that revealed an air of maturity of which demanded respect, with stories of grand statesmen sitting across her in the first class cabin, the ride filled with political conversation of which only stopped when they would take a moment to look out the window to the hushed silence of the snow blanketed mountains. I always imagined my first train ride would be to somewhere like the French Riviera: I would be dressed up in flowing black, and I would be listening to Juliette Greco and I would danse toute la nuit. For the few moments that these child-like dreams returned to my mind, fresh and vivid as ever, I was almost suspended in air, charged by a nostalgia that served as an escape. For five, ten, fifteen seconds, everything in my world was set securely in place; everything appeared to be going exactly the way I had imagined it to.
I had only to look around me to remember that I was not headed to the French Riviera; I had only to touch the bruise on my left arm to recall that I was not caked in make-up, off to the filming of Jacques Tati’s next picture, set across the surreal imagery of Southeastern France. I was not being shipped off to dramatize alongside Audrey Tatou, theatrically running through the glistening expanse of water, screaming, “Don’t leave me! Ne lachez pas de moi!” In fact, I shook the thoughts off me like they were an infection, as though they were a viral plague, and they were. They were a startlingly haunting reminder of my naivety, of the inexperienced way in which I had once looked at the world. As if in one last resort to determine whether I was grounded in reality, I allowed my numbed hand to slide meticulously along the wooden chair I vaguely remembered sitting myself on hours ago. It was exactly the way I had remembered it: Rough, hard, its surface stained with a dangerous coldness, a stunning sense of unfamiliarity. I opened my eyes, leaving behind the dazzling imagery of French cinema, the visions of breathtaking mountainside landscapes, the pungent, crisp smell of my Aunt’s Polish Silwowica as she relayed stories to me in between sharp, exhilarated breaths.
The first thing that I was made aware of was the dampness of my surrounding, a direct result, perhaps, of the manner in which everyone was tightly shoved together. It was what lay before my eyes, however, that gripped me with an urgent sense of fear, a sudden, rapidly growing air of hopelessness. Two-month-old babies, seventeen-year-old adolescents, eighty-one year old grandparents, they were all woven together like a quilt over the engulfing sweep of ligneous train ground. The same look of sharp, pained hunger lingered on their faces, their cheeks smudged from the days of travel, their eyes glazed with a look of helplessness, of longing. I wondered if they were all forced to the train station the same way I was, if the guards had barged into their homes, the sound of the shattering door penetrating through the dead, crisp silence of the night. If they had also tried to hide behind cupboards, between cushions, under the falsely reassuring comfort of their beds, all in vain. Had they been thrust out of hiding by the brutal force of the guards, shouting, kicking, screaming, or had they succumbed immediately, given up to the idea that there was no use in resisting?
My gaze shifted to my left, where my mother sat sangfroid amidst the vast, overcrowded train cabin. During the escapade of last night, it had been almost eighteen hours ago already, she had stood proudly, her features fixed, determined. She had turned to me, seen the fear in my face plastered on like a bacteria; she had understood the desperate cry for help in my eyes. “Tylko płakać raz,” she had whispered softly to me in a tone that was fragile, muted. Only cry once. I had turned to her, seen how her dress fell delicately over her ankles, her soft brown hair tightened into a bun that stood upright, as if she were telling the world that no one was capable of bringing her down. That was enough to make me stop.
Sitting listlessly on her lap was my brother, Aleksandr, only eight years old. I was envious of how oblivious he was to the world, of how little he understood. “We’re going to a camp,” my mother had told him as she stroked his growing, burnt-colored hair in a soothing up-down-down-up manner. “You won’t be able to keep your toys there, or your clothes, they’ll take those from you. But you won’t need them; you’ll have us. “
I was thrust back into the moment by the piercing sound of the train horn, which resonated through the hushed, quiet night. The wooden doors were roughly shoved open, and the scene of which I remembered, the helpless faces, the disconcerting stillness, that scene changed drastically. As soon as the train was at a full stop, the doors opened at their widest, everyone immediately began to shuffle, panicked by the raucous shouts of the guards, taken aback by the harsh manner in which they were being pushed out the cabin.
“We’re here, Rozalia. Auschwitz-Birkenau.” Mother tried to look as though she wasn’t worried, but you had only to see her hands, trembling, intertwined with mine in a manner that showed concern, to know that she was.
“Nie moje dziecko! Not my baby!” A cry echoed in a shrill, despairing tone. A young mother, twenty-five at most, was struggling between the sturdy, unmoved arms of two guards. Her hair was disheveled, her body charged with a desperateness that fought against the hours of no food, that fought against the reigning tiredness that had engulfed her body. “Let me go, a*******! That’s my baby! You take your f****** hands off him!!” I watched in staggering helplessness as she tried, one last time, to break free of the guards. The motivation in her to save a life, the only life she had with her, was almost enough. But the hands of the security only held on stronger, their tight grasp threatening to completely shatter her frail, delicate structure.
“You Jews,” the guard before her voiced coldly, devoid of any emotion, his entire being desensitized to sympathy, to human feelings, “What did He say? Let the little children come to me, wasn’t it?” He laughed, a burning, mocking laugh that made the mother stop dead in place, her deep, strained breaths ringing in my ears, stuck, haunting. The baby wailed uncontrollably, positioned tensely in the right hand of the guard standing before his mother.
“Why the hell are you so f****** noisy?” A penetrating scream let itself out the mother’s mouth as the guard shoved the barrel of his gun up the baby’s chin and moved it around as though he were a toy, as if they were all toys, unimportant, disposable.
“Only God has the power to take away a life!”
“Watch me.”
“Vengeance is His! Vengeance is only God’s! You—”
“F*** your God.”
Bang. I watched in stunned horror as the baby wailed, and kicked, and screamed, and then silenced. Suddenly silenced.
“Nie! Nie! Nie można zrobić!” The mother, shaking, astounded, knelt down and grabbed hold of the guard’s leg, raw, unfiltered anguish apparent on her face. “Państwo Bękart! You bastard!”
The guard only violently shook her off, a macabre grin spreading across his face. “Who’s next?”
I immediately felt the tip of a gun nudge at my back, although I was too agitated to muffle out a scream, too worn out to properly fathom what was going on around me. I was in a daze, caught halfway between the world of me being a star of French cinema, flooring the stage at the Cannes Film Festival, and the world I was in now, the continuous sound of gunshots, the cry of children that had become hauntingly, unnervingly familiar.
“You’re beautiful,” the guard whose firearm had been on my back just moments ago was now beside my mother, staring perplexedly at her and then at Aleksandr, who was perched securely in my mother’s arms. The guard reached his hand out, cautiously at first, and began to caress my brother’s face, a look of dread creeping over his wide-eyed, inexperienced eyes. “How would the two of you like to come home with me tonight?”
“Get your hands off my son!” My mother yelled, a sharp, cutting yell that caught even the guard taken aback. I realized that the impassive, unreadable look my mother had accustomed herself to hiding behind had broken down, and expressed piercingly clear on her face was distraught helplessness, unsurpressed fear.
“You may keep one of them.” The statement was straightforward, fluid, stated in a manner that was void of its implication.
“What, sir?”
“You may keep one of your children. The other one must go.”
“I can’t do that! You can’t make me choose!”
“Make a decision or they’ll both go! Jetzt!”
“Nie!” My mother cried out, her voice was agonizingly painful; it pierced sharply through the night that had appeared to become dead, silent. “Nie! I can’t! I can’t choose!”
“Be quiet. Make a choice.”
“I can’t! I can’t!”
“Didn’t I already tell you to be quiet? Make a decision!”
I looked at my mother, and I understood. I understood that making the choice between me and Aleksandr wasn’t a present decision, it was something she would have to live with each day, each hour, each second that she was alive. I gazed deep into her eyes, and understood how delicate she was inside, how the guilt of having chosen her child’s death would eat her alive. I understood that I needed to make it easier.
“Nie! I can’t make that decision! You can’t make me choose!”
“That’s it! Enough; get them both! Move!”
“Take me!” I said it falteringly; I tried my best to speak in a manner that was full of assurance, of equanimity, but I couldn’t.
I felt the guards as they roughly took hold of my hands, as they grabbed me unsparingly, dragging me away from my mother, from my brother. “Rozalia! Rozalia!” My mother screamed, desperately trying to chase after me, her voice growing louder, louder, as though it would shatter the night, wipe out everything completely, drive away the nightmare. But it didn’t: The guards were still behind me, my body, my will, was still out of my control, my mother was still struggling, distraught, broken. But I knew what I was doing.
The guards pinned me harshly against a cold, brick wall, the moon casting a soft, pale light across the length of the alleyway. In that moment, I was a heroine, the movie’s unlikely protagonist reaching the inevitable climax, her untimely death. For the split second between the sound of the gunshot and the moment it hit my chest, I was in the French Riviera once again, and in front of me was the vast, luminiscent expanse of water, the deep brown, swaying sycamore trees, the crisp air wafting above the silver canals. And as quickly as it had all appeared before my eyes, it was gone.
I had only to look around me to remember that I was not headed to the French Riviera; I had only to touch the bruise on my left arm to recall that I was not caked in make-up, off to the filming of Jacques Tati’s next picture, set across the surreal imagery of Southeastern France. I was not being shipped off to dramatize alongside Audrey Tatou, theatrically running through the glistening expanse of water, screaming, “Don’t leave me! Ne lachez pas de moi!” In fact, I shook the thoughts off me like they were an infection, as though they were a viral plague, and they were. They were a startlingly haunting reminder of my naivety, of the inexperienced way in which I had once looked at the world. As if in one last resort to determine whether I was grounded in reality, I allowed my numbed hand to slide meticulously along the wooden chair I vaguely remembered sitting myself on hours ago. It was exactly the way I had remembered it: Rough, hard, its surface stained with a dangerous coldness, a stunning sense of unfamiliarity. I opened my eyes, leaving behind the dazzling imagery of French cinema, the visions of breathtaking mountainside landscapes, the pungent, crisp smell of my Aunt’s Polish Silwowica as she relayed stories to me in between sharp, exhilarated breaths.
The first thing that I was made aware of was the dampness of my surrounding, a direct result, perhaps, of the manner in which everyone was tightly shoved together. It was what lay before my eyes, however, that gripped me with an urgent sense of fear, a sudden, rapidly growing air of hopelessness. Two-month-old babies, seventeen-year-old adolescents, eighty-one year old grandparents, they were all woven together like a quilt over the engulfing sweep of ligneous train ground. The same look of sharp, pained hunger lingered on their faces, their cheeks smudged from the days of travel, their eyes glazed with a look of helplessness, of longing. I wondered if they were all forced to the train station the same way I was, if the guards had barged into their homes, the sound of the shattering door penetrating through the dead, crisp silence of the night. If they had also tried to hide behind cupboards, between cushions, under the falsely reassuring comfort of their beds, all in vain. Had they been thrust out of hiding by the brutal force of the guards, shouting, kicking, screaming, or had they succumbed immediately, given up to the idea that there was no use in resisting?
My gaze shifted to my left, where my mother sat sangfroid amidst the vast, overcrowded train cabin. During the escapade of last night, it had been almost eighteen hours ago already, she had stood proudly, her features fixed, determined. She had turned to me, seen the fear in my face plastered on like a bacteria; she had understood the desperate cry for help in my eyes. “Tylko płakać raz,” she had whispered softly to me in a tone that was fragile, muted. Only cry once. I had turned to her, seen how her dress fell delicately over her ankles, her soft brown hair tightened into a bun that stood upright, as if she were telling the world that no one was capable of bringing her down. That was enough to make me stop.
Sitting listlessly on her lap was my brother, Aleksandr, only eight years old. I was envious of how oblivious he was to the world, of how little he understood. “We’re going to a camp,” my mother had told him as she stroked his growing, burnt-colored hair in a soothing up-down-down-up manner. “You won’t be able to keep your toys there, or your clothes, they’ll take those from you. But you won’t need them; you’ll have us. “
I was thrust back into the moment by the piercing sound of the train horn, which resonated through the hushed, quiet night. The wooden doors were roughly shoved open, and the scene of which I remembered, the helpless faces, the disconcerting stillness, that scene changed drastically. As soon as the train was at a full stop, the doors opened at their widest, everyone immediately began to shuffle, panicked by the raucous shouts of the guards, taken aback by the harsh manner in which they were being pushed out the cabin.
“We’re here, Rozalia. Auschwitz-Birkenau.” Mother tried to look as though she wasn’t worried, but you had only to see her hands, trembling, intertwined with mine in a manner that showed concern, to know that she was.
“Nie moje dziecko! Not my baby!” A cry echoed in a shrill, despairing tone. A young mother, twenty-five at most, was struggling between the sturdy, unmoved arms of two guards. Her hair was disheveled, her body charged with a desperateness that fought against the hours of no food, that fought against the reigning tiredness that had engulfed her body. “Let me go, a*******! That’s my baby! You take your f****** hands off him!!” I watched in staggering helplessness as she tried, one last time, to break free of the guards. The motivation in her to save a life, the only life she had with her, was almost enough. But the hands of the security only held on stronger, their tight grasp threatening to completely shatter her frail, delicate structure.
“You Jews,” the guard before her voiced coldly, devoid of any emotion, his entire being desensitized to sympathy, to human feelings, “What did He say? Let the little children come to me, wasn’t it?” He laughed, a burning, mocking laugh that made the mother stop dead in place, her deep, strained breaths ringing in my ears, stuck, haunting. The baby wailed uncontrollably, positioned tensely in the right hand of the guard standing before his mother.
“Why the hell are you so f****** noisy?” A penetrating scream let itself out the mother’s mouth as the guard shoved the barrel of his gun up the baby’s chin and moved it around as though he were a toy, as if they were all toys, unimportant, disposable.
“Only God has the power to take away a life!”
“Watch me.”
“Vengeance is His! Vengeance is only God’s! You—”
“F*** your God.”
Bang. I watched in stunned horror as the baby wailed, and kicked, and screamed, and then silenced. Suddenly silenced.
“Nie! Nie! Nie można zrobić!” The mother, shaking, astounded, knelt down and grabbed hold of the guard’s leg, raw, unfiltered anguish apparent on her face. “Państwo Bękart! You bastard!”
The guard only violently shook her off, a macabre grin spreading across his face. “Who’s next?”
I immediately felt the tip of a gun nudge at my back, although I was too agitated to muffle out a scream, too worn out to properly fathom what was going on around me. I was in a daze, caught halfway between the world of me being a star of French cinema, flooring the stage at the Cannes Film Festival, and the world I was in now, the continuous sound of gunshots, the cry of children that had become hauntingly, unnervingly familiar.
“You’re beautiful,” the guard whose firearm had been on my back just moments ago was now beside my mother, staring perplexedly at her and then at Aleksandr, who was perched securely in my mother’s arms. The guard reached his hand out, cautiously at first, and began to caress my brother’s face, a look of dread creeping over his wide-eyed, inexperienced eyes. “How would the two of you like to come home with me tonight?”
“Get your hands off my son!” My mother yelled, a sharp, cutting yell that caught even the guard taken aback. I realized that the impassive, unreadable look my mother had accustomed herself to hiding behind had broken down, and expressed piercingly clear on her face was distraught helplessness, unsurpressed fear.
“You may keep one of them.” The statement was straightforward, fluid, stated in a manner that was void of its implication.
“What, sir?”
“You may keep one of your children. The other one must go.”
“I can’t do that! You can’t make me choose!”
“Make a decision or they’ll both go! Jetzt!”
“Nie!” My mother cried out, her voice was agonizingly painful; it pierced sharply through the night that had appeared to become dead, silent. “Nie! I can’t! I can’t choose!”
“Be quiet. Make a choice.”
“I can’t! I can’t!”
“Didn’t I already tell you to be quiet? Make a decision!”
I looked at my mother, and I understood. I understood that making the choice between me and Aleksandr wasn’t a present decision, it was something she would have to live with each day, each hour, each second that she was alive. I gazed deep into her eyes, and understood how delicate she was inside, how the guilt of having chosen her child’s death would eat her alive. I understood that I needed to make it easier.
“Nie! I can’t make that decision! You can’t make me choose!”
“That’s it! Enough; get them both! Move!”
“Take me!” I said it falteringly; I tried my best to speak in a manner that was full of assurance, of equanimity, but I couldn’t.
I felt the guards as they roughly took hold of my hands, as they grabbed me unsparingly, dragging me away from my mother, from my brother. “Rozalia! Rozalia!” My mother screamed, desperately trying to chase after me, her voice growing louder, louder, as though it would shatter the night, wipe out everything completely, drive away the nightmare. But it didn’t: The guards were still behind me, my body, my will, was still out of my control, my mother was still struggling, distraught, broken. But I knew what I was doing.
The guards pinned me harshly against a cold, brick wall, the moon casting a soft, pale light across the length of the alleyway. In that moment, I was a heroine, the movie’s unlikely protagonist reaching the inevitable climax, her untimely death. For the split second between the sound of the gunshot and the moment it hit my chest, I was in the French Riviera once again, and in front of me was the vast, luminiscent expanse of water, the deep brown, swaying sycamore trees, the crisp air wafting above the silver canals. And as quickly as it had all appeared before my eyes, it was gone.