Eva's Story (18 page)

Mutti and I climbed into the train to the sounds of laughter and singing. The atmosphere was so different from our last train journey.

Amid the hustle and bustle we made a little bed for ourselves with one quilt spread out and the other one on top, cosy in our corner ready for a long ride. In the centre of the truck was an iron stove burning continually to keep us warm and giving us cooking facilities. And there were to be no more foul-smelling buckets in the corner. This time we were told the train would halt at regular intervals.

The engine slowly pulled away from the most dreadful place on earth. From the Front Line we travelled through liberated Poland. During the day everyone sat quietly round the stove, deep in their own thoughts, hardly daring to hope for more than this quiet comradeship and relative safety. As the train rattled through the countryside the future was something to be anxious about. The war was still being fought. Few of us were in a fit state to manage on our own and we wondered what plans the Russians had for us.

Every few hours the train stopped. We all jumped down to relieve ourselves by the track, stretch our legs and breathe in some fresh air. As we gazed around we witnessed the devastation that the German onslaught and Russian counter-offensive had inflicted upon the land. Time and again we saw deserted, burnt-out villages. But as the train slowed to a halt at small, broken-down stations hunched shapes would emerge from what seemed like craters in the ground; they were the surviving villagers, peasant women wrapped in shawls and headscarves, laden with baskets of eggs or potatoes which they wanted to sell. None of us had any money but we held out anything, bits of material, scarves, stockings, socks; anything we offered they seemed glad to have in return. Twice a day when we stopped at a station the Russians gave us soup and bread.

Russian troop trains rolled continuously towards the Front. Whenever we came to a halt near to another stationary train everybody jumped down to mingle with each other and exchange news from the east and west. We wanted to make contact with people who hadn't been prisoners to find out all we could of the progress of the war.

Some Russian soldiers were little more than children, fifteen or sixteen at the most. A few knew German and spoke to us. Where had we come from? What were conditions like up at the Front? The minute we told them we were Jewish they shook our hands and ran back to their carriages. Then they would proudly bring back one of their Jewish mates and would stand smiling as they watched the immense feeling of kinship flowing between us. The Russian Jews all knew some Yiddish and they were thrilled and relieved to find Jews who had survived the Holocaust. They seemed to know all about the concentration camps.

Then again, as we stood beside destroyed platforms, Russian soldiers would pull out photographs from their breastpockets of parents, brothers or children and ask anxiously if we had seen them... somewhere, anywhere.

Some men carried photographs of Stalin which they kissed fervently saying he was our saviour, the one to bring us to victory. All the soldiers – strong, earthy men – were fervent communists. They were gripped with enthusiasm and repeated stories of how their own parents or grandparents had been serfs with nothing to look forward to, having to live in hovels like animals, suppressed by the landowners. But now under Stalin they had equal rights and, more important, enough food in their bellies; they dwelt in decent homes and had hope for the future. I was very impressed with their fervour. Their eager faces gave me immense confidence and I felt certain we would be well protected by men of such conviction.

7 March 1945 US forces cross the Rhine at Reimagen

We travelled south-east for almost three weeks, not knowing our final destination until at last, on 25 March, we came to a standstill at a main station which was still intact. It was Katowice, an important Polish coal-mining town where for the first time in many months we entered a built-up area. We were back in civilization.

We took our belongings off the train in good spirits. I noticed Otto Frank getting off the train and pointed him out to Rootje. She nodded and went to walk beside him as we were taken towards the workmen's billets on the outskirts of town. Straw mattresses had been laid out and the soldiers in charge told us to make ourselves comfortable since it would be our home for several days until orders came through telling them what to do with us. We must have been quite a problem for them but the army seemed to be in control of the situation. Soldiers immediately set up field kitchens in the courtyard for the delicious hot cabbage and potato soup. Lumps of coarse yellow maize bread were available but it tasted so awful to me I hardly ate any. Mutti, whose strength was returning only slowly, kept coaxing me to have at least some of my portion.

‘All those Russian soldiers eat it,' she insisted, ‘and look how strong and tough they are!'

But I wasn't starving any more – and I was becoming choosy.

In the afternoons Mutti, Rootje, Kea and I, with a few more of our friends, ventured into town to enjoy the sensation of walking along streets lined with shops. No window displayed much stock but to us everything seemed the height of luxury. We had no money to buy anything but we revelled in being part of ordinary life. It wasn't only food that we'd been starved of in Birkenau. We were hungry for normality.

One day, to our great delight, we came upon the local cinema showing an old Austrian film. I was so thrilled and excited that I jumped up and down begging Mutti to ask the cashier if she would allow us to go in. Mutti was extremely reluctant but, seeing my face, she went to the startled-looking girl in the box office and explained that we were a group of freed prisoners from Auschwitz longing to see a film. We looked a sorry sight: stubbly hair, sunken eyes, protruding bones and the oddest assortment of dirty clothes hanging on our bodies. She winced at the sight of us, took pity and agreed to give us free entry. And so a bedraggled group of eager refugees lined up to receive their tickets to escape into the grand illusion of the cinema.

The film had already started. It was dark inside as we crept to our seats so no one could stare at such oddities as we must have looked. We sank into the plush seats with our eyes glued to the screen. It was a story about Emperor Franz Josef. I recognized the Schoenbrun Palace and gardens where I'd played as a child. The music of Johann Strauss filled the auditorium and during the next two hours I completely forgot the months of misery and torment that we had all endured. It was a total escape from reality.

When it was over we came out into the darkening street and here I knew we were free at last. The enormity of it staggered me. I was a teenager who had survived the tragedy of Auschwitz and I supposed I would be going back to normal life, back to school with teachers and schoolfriends, doing everyday things which for many years had been forbidden and out of reach to me. I suddenly felt very scared. How would I be able to cope with it all? It was dark by now and I clung tightly to Mutti's hand, still a child. Although we said nothing we both thought of Pappy and Heinz. The possibility that they might not have survived loomed in front of us like an ominous shadow.

We stayed in the billets for several days until we were told one morning to prepare to leave. We were to be taken further east since the Russians had to admit that the war was not progressing satisfactorily and the Germans could possibly recapture Katowice.

31 March 1945

Once more we climbed back into a train which headed deep into the Ukraine. Every so often it ground to a halt. Sometimes it would wait several hours to leave the lines free for troop movements. Occasionally it would halt only ten minutes for the convenience of passengers who would jump down the four feet or so to the track to relieve themselves and clamber up again before the train moved off.

On the afternoon of the third day when the train had already stopped several times, not many took advantage of the latest halt. Mutti got out and was crouching down a few metres from the coach when suddenly the train shuddered and slowly began to move away. Several people were still on the track and were hauled back up. But as Mutti started to run alongside the carriage she simply didn't have the strength to jump back on and she didn't dare take hold of the hands stretched out to help her. As the train accelerated she gave up and stopped running. I watched in horror as her lone figure by the side of the track gradually turned into a tiny black dot in the distance. I was hysterical. Rootje and Kea tried to calm me down and reassure me.

‘She'll catch the next train.'

‘She'll join us at the next stop.'

‘How can she?' I turned on them. ‘She doesn't know where we're going!
We
don't even know where we're going.'

At the next stop the three of us found an officer in charge. He did not understand one word of German so we had to mime Mutti's plight. It was like a charade. We crouched down making noises, then pretended to try to jump on an imaginary train. We were deadly serious about it but we must have looked very funny.

He thought it was so comical he guffawed with laughter, tears streaming down his face. He patted me on the shoulder to indicate that everything would be alright – but it didn't stop me from worrying or from being angry with Mutti. How could she have been so silly as to leave me alone again? This time it was all her fault.

The journey without Mutti continued eastwards with stops and starts for several more days and there was no sign of her anywhere.

Apart from my own personal anxiety, the atmosphere in the train was becoming relaxed and even jovial. Some trucks carried Italian prisoners of war who were overjoyed to be out of the fighting. They were full of jokes and songs and sunny charm. Soon everybody was intermingling. Many men and women, starved of each other's company for so long, flirted with each other and it wasn't long before they were making love in the dark swaying carriages. I was intrigued by the impassioned noises that accompanied the rhythm of the wheels.

All the coupling that was taking place encouraged a man in our carriage to look my way. He tried to creep under my quilt and I didn't like the idea at all. But I understood. He was such a lonely, pathetic figure yearning for love once more and I didn't want to humiliate him by pushing him away. Luckily for me, I had eaten so many hard-boiled eggs that my constitution complained with a terrible sulphurous odour and much to my relief it seemed to put him off.

Eventually we pulled into the city of Czernowitz which had been part of Rumania. The town had once held a large Jewish population protected by the Rumanian government and rumours of our arrival had preceded us. As we left the station, the streets were lined with Jewish people waving, clapping and coming forward to embrace us and offer small gifts of food or clothes. We were very touched to feel such love and support.

We were marched to an empty school where mattresses filled a large hall which was to be our shelter for a few more days. I was beginning to get used to – and even to enjoy – this nomadic life.

After we had settled ourselves, a small sortie of the more energetic of us went off to explore the town. We walked together in companionable groups of threes and fours, gazing into shops and wandering through residential areas.

Once more the need for toilets began to occupy our minds, so Rootje, Kea and I decided to go into a block of flats, knock on any door and explain the situation. As luck would have it the door was opened by a motherly Jewish lady who beamed at us and immediately welcomed us in. True to tradition she insisted we stay to have tea in her home. She sat us around her table and we tucked into home-made cake and sweet tea. Although there was a scarcity of food, her hospitality reminded us of home and made us feel very emotional. We told her of everything we had been through and when we left we hugged and kissed her as if we'd known one another all our lives.

As we went out we noticed a Mezzuzah (the sign of a Jewish household) on her doorpost. From then on we looked for homes that displayed a Mezzuzah. It always worked! Whenever we knocked on the door we were welcomed with such warmth and love that we enjoyed good cooking and home comforts many times over. These people too had suffered hardship but they shared what they could with us as honoured guests. I felt very pleased I was Jewish.

Everyone we spoke to hated the Germans intensely. We were the few who had been rescued from their clutches and everybody rejoiced that the Nazi's ‘Final Solution' had not been final. We felt a great sense of achievement that through all our adversity we had survived.

I was enjoying myself in Czernowitz even without Mutti. I was experiencing a new kind of independence and although I worried about her I fell asleep quite easily on my own.

In the middle of one night the lights in the hall were suddenly switched on and a group of agitated Russian soldiers entered, shouting at us to get up and help. As I woke I saw them emptying sacks of potatoes into huge piles which had to be peeled immediately. The Russians had sent for reinforcements and many soldiers were about to arrive. They would need to be fed during the night before they left for the Front.

‘Not more potato peeling,' grumbled some of the older, grumpier women. ‘We've done enough hard labour,' and they flatly refused to get up.

How very ungracious
, I thought feeling ashamed of their attitude.

Kea and I willingly agreed to help with the soup. We more spirited girls would get it done between us. By now we looked upon everything as an adventure and were glad to feel that we could contribute something to the war effort.

We could smell vodka on the breath of the soldiers who organized the potato peeling. They carried buckets of water in relays and as they did so they sang traditional Russian songs in deep melodious voices. I was enchanted; alive and excited. When the potato pile had disappeared they brought in their balalaikas and started to dance. Down on their knees, around on their hands, acrobatic jumping, it was brilliant dancing full of verve and life performed with amazing athletic ability. I had never seen anything like it before. It was a blazing performance as each soldier tumbled in, one after the other, using different kinds of jumps or steps, twirling, whirling around – every one of them an expert dancer. It would have raised the roof in a theatre. We clapped and cheered them on, completely enthralled by their talent and energy. What men these Russians were!