635798

I knocked again. There was muttering inside but no one came to open the door. 635798 was shaking harder and her teeth chattered nonstop. Her eyes were open and she quickly took in her surroundings. She looked at me before falling asleep again.

Without warning, someone opened the door and I jumped. Despite how late in the night it was, the old nun on the other side was in full uniform. Her striking blue eyes stared into mine, sending what felt like daggers. I shifted from foot to foot.

“Czego chcesz?” the nun asked.

I blinked my eyes in surprise. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Czego chcesz?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t speak Polish,” I said. Was language going to be a barrier here?

“Nie rozumiem. Proszę mówić po polsku!” the nun nearly yelled.

I shook my head, bringing 635798 closer to me.

“Co to jest?” The nun tried to grab 635798. On instinct, I jerked away. With a hard glare on her face, the nun grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. She moved the piece of quilt that slightly covered 635798’s face. Her face instantly softened. “Tutaj czekać!” The nun disappeared.

I sighed. “I don’t understand you.”

A minute later, another nun came to the door. She was also old and her eyes were blue as well. They were darker than the other nun’s. Royal blue.

I received a smile. “You must be Bruno Heilbronner’s son,” she said in flawless German.

“Are you Siostra Katarzyna?” I asked.

She nodded. The door was opened wider and I walked in.

“I apologize for my lack of knowledge of the Polish language,” I said. “The only word I know is siostra.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, Wolfgang,” Siostra Katarzyna said. She guided me to a flight of stairs, ignoring the eyes of about five other nuns. “I was taught German in my childhood. We’ll get by just fine.”

Together we climbed up four creaky flights of steps. I stayed silent, frightened that anything I would say was deemed worthy of sin. We had many stereotypes about nuns and Catholics in general. One of them was they shunned you every chance they got. 635798 and I couldn’t be shunned on our first night here. We love God. We swear.

Siostra Katarzyna opened a door that was hidden in a dark hallway. The room didn’t have much light. In fact, only a lone light bulb hung from the ceiling. Once on, it was so dim that it might as well have been off. I still caught sight of a bed and a nightstand at my right and a kitchen area to my left. The kitchen area had a table, two chairs, a sink, a few cabinets, and an icebox. I looked ahead. A closed door which probably led to a bathroom was there. I wanted to jump for joy. We could finally do our business in a clean environment.

“There’s not much here, but it’ll have to do for now,” Siostra Katarzyna said.

“It’s fine. Thank you so much.” I set 635798 down on the bed, wrapping the quilt tighter around her. I covered her up with the sheets the bed provided.

“Let’s see what’s going on here,” Siostra Katarzyna said, walking over.

635798 jerked at the touch of Siostra Katarzyna’s hand. Her eyes flickered open but she was too weak to keep them that way. Siostra Katarzyna’s hand roamed 635798’s face as she listened to her heaving. 635798 wheezed in between breaths. She shivered underneath the covers.

“We’ll have a lot of healing to do here,” Siostra Katarzyna said, now looking at me. “I’m not quite sure what she has yet, but it’s bad. When did she first get this?”

“Yesterday while we were hiding,” I said.

Siostra Katarzyna raised an eyebrow. “Hiding? From what?”

“Nazis. They knew she went missing so we had to hide within a pile of wood for about three days. We had nothing but a few uniforms and it was very chilly,” I said.

Siostra Katarzyna looked taken aback. “Uniforms? For what?”

“The… the camp.” My eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “Don’t you know about it?”

“Well, we watched a clip that was created,” Siostra Katarzyna said. “Nobody had on uniforms.”

I removed the covers from 635798 and unwrapped the quilt. The gray and blue uniform she had on now was dirty and torn at the collar. Some buttons were missing. When I looked at Siostra Kataryna again, she had a hand over her mouth and her eyebrows were knitted together.

“This isn’t hers,” I said. “Hers was even worse. It was torn at the back because a Kapos pushed her into the barbed-wire fence that’s electrified. It was twice as dirty because of the dirt and mud she was surrounded in.”

“Wait… Electrified?”

I nodded. “So the prisoners wouldn’t sneak out. They could only escape if they dug a ditch to crawl under which is what we did.”

Siostra Katarzyna put a hand over her heart and sat down at the table. I followed, sitting down across from her.

“What did that clip tell you?” I asked quietly. “Because I bet you it’s all lies.”

Siostra Katarzyna shook her head, not looking at me. She stood up and went over to 635798, rearranging the blankets. I was told that the clip was still set up downstairs. I walked to the film room silently, trying not to disturb anybody. When I arrived at my destination, the clip was already rolling. I sat down in the front.

Just as I predicted, it was all lies. The prisoners it showed wore their normal clothes instead of uniforms. No one had numbers tattooed on their arms. Everybody had hair. Well-kept hair I should add. The food was healthy and there was plenty. Barracks consisted of warm beds and men and women weren’t separated. All families seemed together. No one was sick. Children ran around happily, screaming and laughing. Actually, everyone was happy.

Clearly these were all paid actors. Even the scenery had to be fake. The camp was clean.

When I returned to my new hiding place, Siostra Katarzyna looked back at me from 635798’s bed. Her eyes were pleading for my answer to be the one she wanted to hear. I shook my head.

Siostra Katarzyna sighed. “She may have pneumonia. I could be wrong.”

“Do you want to know the truth?” I asked.

“I’ll have to find some medication.”

“Siostra.” I sat on a stool which was placed at 635798’s left, opposite from the nun. “How did you come across such a clip?”

“The Nazis gave it to the church to reassure that nothing horrific was happening to the people being taken away,” Siostra Katarzyna said. She grabbed 635798’s hand as her breathing grew heavier in her sleep. “You may tell me the truth. It was a matter of time before it came out. I was suspicious of that clip anyway.”

I knew she was lying, but I continued my story. I told her what happened to the prisoners when they first arrived at a camp. Women to the left. Men on the right. Elderly, pregnant, and children over there. Fit to work over here. The ones who were fit to work continued through the camp.

There were separate barracks for everything. In the first one prisoners gave up belongings. Suitcases, rings, glasses, and other accessories. Sometimes they gave up their clothes in the same barrack. It depended on the day. The naked prisoners moved along to the next room for their haircuts. Both men and women were shaved to baldness. Their hair was sent away to different companies to make clothing and wigs. After the haircut, they received the uniforms. Blue and gray vertical striped cloth. Sometimes they were dirty, and sometimes they were clean. Some were small while others were large. Either way, you kept what you were given. They moved on to get rid of their names and get numbers tattooed onto their skin instead. Many Jews didn’t want these tattoos since it was against their religion to get one. That didn’t stop the system. It never did.

After getting what they needed, prisoners were put into barracks to sleep. Bunks flooded the floor from left to right, front to back. Three in each column, three people to a bunk. Only one blanket for each set of triplets. Prisoners had to rely on body heat to keep warm in the winter. They used their arms as pillows. Bunks didn’t have bed sheets or anything of the sort. The mattresses were hard, wooden planks.

635798 began to moan. Siostra Katarzyna stood up, waiting for 635798 to awake. When she did, the new surroundings surprised her. Her hands smacked the bed in surprised, rubbing the sheets soon after. Her eyes were racing across the room and when they landed on Siostra Kataryna, she gasped.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay. She’s helping us hide,” I whispered.

635798’s head snapped towards me at the sound of my voice. She flew into my arms, not daring to look at the nun.

Siostra Katarzyna didn’t seem to mind. She scanned 635798 up and down. “She’s so dirty. How about a bath?”

635798 nodded against my neck.

The two of us were led to the bathroom. I helped 635798 undress and set her down in the tub as it filled. She nearly screamed when her skin made contact with the water. I slipped my hand inside.

“It needs to be this hot,” I told her. “You can sweat your sickness out.”

Siostra Katarzyna grabbed 635798 from me and pulled her closer. 635798 was about to resist until the nun ran water down her back. The shit we sat in earlier streamed down to the water, clouding it immediately. Dirt gathered around 635798’s tiny frame as it unattached itself from her body. Siostra Katarzyna rubbed 635798’s back, smearing the mud around, loosening it. 635798 closed her eyes as she leaned herself against the nun.

“She’s so skinny,” the nun said. “Seems malnourished.”

I decided it was time to continue with the truth.

When it came to food and water, there wasn’t much for the prisoners. They received a bowl upon arrival that would be used for both food and bathroom purposes. It wasn’t a large bowl. In fact, it was the size of a miniature dog’s dish. Prisoners were given what Nazis liked to call soup. I liked to call it raw vegetables floating in lukewarm water. As if that wasn’t terrible enough, the prisoners received this on average twice a day. On certain occasions, a stale piece of bread was handed out. The water everyone received was dirty, just like the camp.

“The camp seemed clean in the clip,” Siostra Katarzyna said.

I almost chuckled. “Six and I are proof that that’s wrong.”

Nazis never bothered to make camps look presentable. If they did, that garbage pit 635798 and I sat in earlier wouldn’t have been there. 635798 wouldn’t have had mud climbing up her legs when I first met her. Grass never grew in Auschwitz so the ground was just dirt no matter where one went. The camp flooded with mud on rainy days. Barracks were falling apart and some had mold growing on the inside. The air was most likely polluted from the burnings Nazis constantly started. It was difficult to breathe in some areas of the camp.

“Are these conditions the reason why prisoners are so dirty?” Siostra Katarzyna asked, wiping one of 635798’s arms.

“Somewhat,” I said. “They only get one uniform so they dirty quickly. They also don’t get showers. Teeth brushing and other cleaning opportunities don’t happen either.”

The nun checked 635798’s teeth. Her face scrunched in disgust.

“The prisoners have jobs,” I continued.

Yes. Every prisoner had a job. The variety of jobs was large since every part of Auschwitz had a certain station. Men did most of the labor work. They built barracks, collected items from the prisoners, and put bodies in the crematoriums (Siostra Kataryna froze). Women worked in the kitchens where the so-called food was cooked. Some cooked what was required while others cleaned out the pots. Some women were even nurses but they had to be a Kapos in order to become this. Many jobs were for both men and women. Both tattooed new prisoners. Many were barbers who cut the newcomers’ hair. They loaded people into the gas chambers (Siostra Kataryna raised an eyebrow at me while 635798 twitched). Prisoners even served food to the Nazis. Some were sent to nearby houses owned by Nazis to work basically as slaves. Most were sent to Buna. Here, pointless jobs were done. Some people carried rocks around like Chaya, 635798’s young friend, and others dug holes. Prisoners were lucky if they were promoted to Kapos.

Every man for himself in Auschwitz, and in other camps for that matter. Kapos wore different uniforms sometimes, but it depended on what they did. The ones who wore the same uniform as the regular prisoners gathered people in the gas chambers or were guards in barracks. To differentiate, they wore a white band with a blue Star of David on their arm. The nurses wore white uniforms that resembled an actual nurse’s uniform. They, too, wore the band on their arm. Some Kapos, like Henryk and Yitzchak, wore cheap suits. These Kapos guided prisoners to their work, guarded higher areas of the camp, and were recorders. Recorders were exactly what the word sounded like. They recorded everything that went on in the camp.

“What was this girl’s job?” Siostra Katarzyna asked.

“She worked at the general’s mansion,” I said. “A Kapos brought her there every day.”

“What did she do?”

“Mostly cooked. She was a waitress on the days he had a party. But the general let her make as much food as she wanted for herself. He even let her take breaks.”

Siostra Katarzyna opened her mouth to say something but quickly closed it.

“What’s your question?” I asked.

Her royal blue eyes stared at me. “What are gas chambers and crematoriums? You mentioned them earlier.”

635798 looked back at me, eyes pleading not to say anything.

I did anyway. “Gas chambers can hold up to hundreds of prisoners. While they’re in there, a Nazi drops a fatal gas into it. Everyone dies within fifteen minutes.”

The nun’s eyes widened, and she stopped cleaning 635798.

“And crematoriums are where the ovens are at. The prisoners put the dead bodies in the ovens to burn. That’s why there’s a vile stench throughout the camp.”

Siostra Katarzyna covered her mouth with her hands. 635798’s eyes went back and forth between us.

“Who would think of such a thing?” Siostra Katarzyna exclaimed. “How inhumane.”

“Many inhumane things happen at places like Auschwitz, Siostra,” I said.

“No.”

I nodded. From there, I told her about sickness, mass killings, starvation, and even Arzt Mengele. It was like the night with my sisters all over again.

“Mengele? But your father told me he was a spectacular doctor!” Siostra Katarzyna said.

635798 scoffed.

I shook my head. “That’s only to bring up Mengele’s reputation. See all those scars on Six’s body? The red blotches? They’re from his experiments. She’s had her insides touched. Mengele cut her open without anesthesia to do this. He even paralyzed her at one point. Luckily she healed from that. A lung was damaged and he even purposely twisted her ankle and wrist. Look at her eyes. See the difference? See how the left has some green? That’s because of him. Six’s partially blind now, too.” Then I told her what the so-called doctor has done with twins.

“Lord have mercy on that monster’s soul!” Siostra Katarzyna exclaimed. She was shaking, but I couldn’t tell if it was from shock or anger.

“There are more ways to kill at Auschwitz,” I said.

The nun bit her lip and looked away. She kept quiet, contemplating if she wanted to hear more. She went back to 635798 to keep busy.

“They have hangings,” I said. “Punishment for crimes. They make the other prisoners gather around to watch. Supposed to be a lesson for them. Then there are the rumors.”

Even 635798 looked at me in curiosity.

I grinded my teeth. “They say that sometimes prisoners are strapped in place. Nazis let goats lick them so they are basically tickled to death. The other rumors deal with pregnant women.”

635798 gasped, reminded of her Mutter. I clenched my fists, knowing I had to stop here. Unfortunately, Siostra Kataryna was giving me begging eyes. My eyes went back and forth between the two women in front of me. I quickly said what was on the tip of my tongue.

“Sometimes when a woman is giving birth they hang her upside-down so the baby goes a different way. Other times they tie the woman’s legs together and she dies from the pain of the baby trying to get out.”

635798 choked out a cry. Tears glistened in her eyes and she quickly looked away from both Siostra Kataryna and me. Her Mutter couldn’t have gone through any of that if the rumors really were true. Only women in labor would have to go through the atrocities. 635798 never mentioned what stage her mother was at.

“Oh my. What type of people go through all of this?” Siostra Katarzyna asked, shocked.

“Jews. That one is probably obvious. Gypsies, captured Poles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, physically and mentally handicapped, homosexuals, politicians, and even anti-socials. If any of them are part of the perfect race then they have a free getaway.”

The nun raised an eyebrow at me.

“Blonde hair. Blue eyes.”

Siostra Katarzyna averted her eyes to the quivering woman in the bathtub. “I think that’s enough shock for one day.”

I agreed, stated I was going to wash up after 635798, and started to head out the bathroom. Siostra Katarzyna’s voice stopped me.

“What’s her name?”

I turned around and shrugged.

The nun raised an eyebrow again. “Then what have you been calling her?”

“Look at her arm.”

I left the bathroom.