Authors: Joan M. Wolf
"What do they want?" I whispered to a year-six girl standing next to me.
"I don't know," she whispered back, her eyes wide.
"Undress. Now!" the female Nazi finally screamed in Czech. She stepped over to grab each of us by the arm, pulling us out of our huddled group and into a crooked single-file line in front of the blackboard. I felt my face grow warm.
"Undress!" the woman repeated, reaching over and ripping down one boy's pants. Immediately, the rest of us began to undress, afraid of what would happen if we didn't.
I threw off my blouse and skirt, trying to keep my eyes on a poster hanging on the opposite wall and ignore the shame I felt as I stripped to my underwear. Not even Jaro had seen me undressed before. I dropped my clothes in a pile at my feet and stood waiting.
After everyone was undressed, the woman who had given the order grabbed each of us again and divided us up into four lines. The four men with the stethoscopes stopped talking, and each took a position at the head of a line. The woman pointed to the lines, indicating that we were to travel from one to the next.
The doctor in the first line asked me my name.
"Milada Kralicek," I answered quietly. He nodded, running his finger down his clipboard and making a note with his pen. Then he checked my mouth, nose, and eyes, using the same kind of instruments my own doctor used. He listened to my heart with his stethoscope and made me cough and do jumping jacks. He ran his finger up and down my back, then bent over his clipboard and scribbled some more with his pen. I relaxed a little as he continued. This was just a doctor's exam after all.
But in the second line the exam changed. Even though the doctor had a stethoscope and wore a white coat, he seemed interested only in my hair. Guiding me toward the wall, he placed me in front of posters, each showing a different hair color. Next he picked up a long narrow board that had small bundles of blond hair attached to it. Carefully, he took each of my braids and laid it flat against the different hair bundles, then wrote notes on his clipboard. I had a sudden urge to take the pair of scissors on the table near him and cut off all of my hair. I didn't like the way the doctor touched it.
In the next line the doctor stood near a table that had strange metal instruments on it. One of them reminded me of the silver salad tongs Mama used on special occasions, but unlike Mama's, these came to a very small point at each end. The man carefully placed each of the points on either side of my nose, pressed slightly, then wrote something down on his clipboard. He seemed to be measuring my nose. How was the size of my nose part of a doctor's exam?
Next, he took another instrument that looked like a pair of knitting needles connected by a piece of metal. He put one pole on either side of my forehead.
"Perfect!" he said in Czech, and scribbled more notes. The female Nazi stood watching that line. She smiled at the man and then at me. I turned my eyes downward, not sure what I had done to please these people, but knowing I didn't like it.
In the last line the doctor stood in front of two posters covered with pictures of eyes. He was short, bald, and fat, and he smiled at me when it was my turn. I looked away, avoiding his gaze. In his hand he held something that looked like a ruler, but it had small glass eyes in different colors glued to it. Taking my chin in one hand, he placed the ruler near my cheek with his other hand and moved it beneath my eyes until he seemed to find a matching color. Making clicking noises with his tongue, he smiled again, this time to himself, and wrote some notes on his clipboard. With a wave he dismissed me, and the female Nazi directed me back to my clothes.
I dressed quickly and was led downstairs and back into the gym. Everything looked the same. The Nazis still patrolled. The women and the other children still sat on their blankets, waiting. I could barely keep from running back to the blanket where Mama and Babichka sat playing with Anechka.
"Milada!" Terezie grabbed me in a hug, and Anechka reached out a small hand to touch my face as I collapsed on our blanket. My whole body shook uncontrollably. Terezie was called back to her blanket by her mama, and Babichka put her arm around me, letting me rest my head against her shoulder. Mama stroked my hair.
"Mama," I said.
"Yes, Milada?"
"There were doctors there. They listened to my heart and looked in my mouth, but then they looked at my hair and my eyes and measured my nose. Did they do that here, too?"
"No, Milada," she answered.
I looked closely at her. "I didn't like the way they touched my hair, Mama. All the children there had blond hair."
A look passed between Mama and Babichka. "Perhaps they were examining the children to make sure you are healthy for a work camp," Babichka said.
"But..." It was difficult to ask the question I needed to. "We're not going back home, are we?" I felt a lump in my throat.
"I don't know, Milada. I don't know," Babichka answered, looking away from me and my question.
***
We stayed in the gym the rest of that day and night and into a third day. Tension grew high. The hay that had at first smelled sweet and inviting was now pungent, having absorbed the sour smell of our worry and fear. Everyone was growing angry and impatient.
"I want to see my husband!" Mrs. Janecek yelled at her neighbor. "I want to see my sons. Waiting, waiting. I am tired of this waiting!"
I was tired of counting things, tired of talking to friends, tired of pretending we would still have Terezie's birthday party. Every part of me was tired. I had been in the same clothes for three days with hardly anything to eat. Mama had snapped at me because I had not come quickly enough when she called me away from Terezie. And even Anechka was getting fussy. I didn't think I could stand another day of waiting in the gym.
Finally, as the sun was crawling down the windows, the Nazis started shouting orders.
Everyone stood, gathering the few things they had. Mama pulled me up, taking Anechka's blanket. "We are going now, Milada."
I felt a rush of relief. I just wanted to leave, to be able to move around, to see Papa and Jaro, maybe even to sleep in my own bed again. I stood eagerly, feeling almost cheerful suddenly. I helped Mama to fold the blanket and Babichka to brush bits of hay from her dress. Perhaps we were at the end of this nightmare.
One of the guards yelled another command in German, and Mama stopped, frozen, her face tightening.
"What did he say, Mama? What did he say?" I asked, frustrated that I could never understand the Nazis' words.
"He said we are all going to the work camp to see our husbands, but the children will go separately, in a more comfortable bus." She bit her lower lip, and I felt my stomach tighten. I didn't care about riding in comfort. I would stay with Mama and Babichka and Anechka. I grabbed Mama's hand and squeezed. Around us mothers pulled children toward them, and everyone stood, waiting again, like a giant cuckoo clock that had stopped in mid chime.
Then a Nazi grabbed a little girl away from her mother.
"No! No! My baby!" her mother screamed, and the spell was broken. Everyone began running and screaming, the cuckoo clock erupting back into chaotic motion.
Mothers grasped their children while Nazis tried to pull them away. Everything was blurry movement and roaring noise until a gunshot, loud and pure and pointed, rang out through the gym. We all dropped to the ground in immediate silence.
The Nazi who had fired the gun spoke slowly and loudly, making it clear we had no choice. Every guard had his gun drawn and ready.
Babichka squeezed me hard, touching the place on my shirt where she had pinned her garnet star, and kissed my forehead.
Then Mama pulled me to her. "I love you, Milada."
"I love you, Mama." As she grasped my hand, I felt a soldier take hold of me around the waist, pulling me away from her. "No!" I screamed. But my feet were lifted from the ground, and this time it was my hand, not Papa's, that was being stretched and stretched, until I could no longer touch Mama's.
I continued reaching for her even as the soldier carried me out the door of the gym, into the late-afternoon sun, and onto a waiting bus.
I stood at the front of the bus on wobbly knees, feeling dizzy and sick to my stomach. The bus was entirely empty except for two Nazi women, the driver, and one other girl from Lidice, who sat staring at me from a seat at the back. It was Ruzha.
I stayed where I was, unable to move. Where were all the other Lidice children? Again I wished I knew German, so I could explain that there had been a mistake. They had said in the gym that all the children would ride the bus, but there were only two of us. Where were Terezie and Zelenka and Hana? What was happening to Mama and Babichka and Anechka?
One of the Nazi women walked up the aisle toward me and led me to a seat near the front, where I fell into the comfort of crushed velvet. I was glad she had not taken me to sit near Ruzha. There had already been one mistake. Sitting with Ruzha would just be another.
The bus pulled away from the curb, and I sat staring out the window, driving away from everyone I had ever known. My whole world was changing, and I was filled with dread about the new one unfolding before me.
We drove for hours across the countryside of Czechoslovakia. Ruzha stayed in her seat at the back of the bus, and I stayed in mine near the front, watching the land outside pass by the windows. Thoughts of Mama and Babichka and Anechka and Jaro and Papa swirled in my mind. I knew they would come for me. I just had to wait and follow directions. I could hear Papa's voice reminding me.
Sit up straight and do as you're told, Milada.
I usually heard those words from him on important occasions: my first day of school, my first communion, when my uncles came to visit.
Do as you are told.
His words reassured me now that if I behaved and listened, I would be taken back home and this would all be nothing more than a bad dream.
I looked out the window, watching the scenery change. I had never been farther away from my vil
lage than Prague. In Lidice everything was flat and open and wide. If you stood on the highest hill near our village, you could see for miles across the fields. But as we drove, the trees and bushes grew thicker. Mountains, blue and hazy and mysterious, appeared in front of us. They stood proudly, like sentinels guarding the countryside.
As the sun began to set, a large sign reading "Polen" appeared ahead. A long gate blocked the road, and armed Nazi soldiers patrolled in front of it. There were small buildings on either side of the road, with a guard standing in each. We had reached the border of Czechoslovakia.
The bus slowed, and a guard came out of one of the buildings. He gave directions to the soldiers, and they unlocked the gate and rolled it back from the road so we could pass. The guard smiled and waved us through. The bus driver and the female Nazi sitting near me returned his wave and we drove by, picking up speed once again.
We were in Poland.
I had looked back at Ruzha a few times, but each time, she had been pressed against the window, watching the scenery pass. The one time our eyes had met, we had both quickly looked away, neither of us really wanting to talk to the other.
One of the Nazi women offered me fresh bread and something sweet and hot to drink. My stomach cried out for the food, and I gulped it down as darkness settled in.
Eventually, the bus turned off the main road and traveled down a lonely stretch of gravel highway, passing a small sign that read "Puschkau." The road was bumpy, with many holes and ruts. In the twilight the mountains had become nothing more than hulking, formless black shapes in the distance.
Finally, we pulled into a small paved parking area and stopped. Although it was dark, lights framed a small church and a building close to the parking area. The buildings stood alone, absent of trees or plants of any kind. A thin razor-wire fence glinted in the light, surrounding the church, then disappearing behind the longer building. For the first time since leaving the gymnasium, I felt hope. Perhaps this was the work camp where I would meet up with the other children.
I turned in my seat to see Ruzha still pressed against her window. Then I heard a sound and turned back to my own window to find that a second bus had stopped next to ours.
My heart jumped as I saw girls, most of them about my age, getting off the bus. I scanned their faces, looking for Terezie or Zelenka or Hana. But I recognized no one.
One of the Nazi women spoke in German, motioning with an arm for us to follow as she got off the bus. Ruzha walked past me, looking straight ahead. I followed them out onto the black pavement of the parking area. My legs felt sore and stiff from sitting for so long.
The girls from the other bus stood there, talking quietly. I counted twelve in all, and even in the poor light I could see they all had blond hair. I looked at Ruzha, noticing, as if for the first time, that she too had light-colored hair. I played with a strand of my own hair absently. Was it a coincidence?
The girls from the other bus spoke to each other in a language I didn't understand. It was not Czech, and it didn't sound German. Perhaps they were from Poland.
Some of the girls had pale faces and puffy eyes that scanned and searched this strange place we'd been brought to. None of us made eye contact with anyone else, but when I accidentally caught a glance from one of the girls, I couldn't help but stare. Her eyes were the prettiest blue I had ever seen. I smiled briefly, and she smiled back.
Two different Nazi women appeared from the door of the building and led us all into a large entry room. The floor was brightly polished, with clean white tiles glaring up at us. The walls, too, smelled clean and fresh, giving off the faint scent of new paint. On one wall was a shadowy hint that a large cross had once hung there. I thought of Babichka with her rosary in her fingers.
One of the Nazis motioned for us to follow and led us into a long, narrow sleeping room. There were fourteen cots arranged in two rows with an aisle running down the middle of the room. Moving briskly, the guard showed us each to a cot, then ex
ited abruptly, leaving us to stand awkwardly in our new surroundings.