Read The End of Days Online

Authors: Helen Sendyk

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical, #History, #Holocaust, #test

The End of Days (27 page)

 
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Chrzanow, he began work in a light bulb factory. His pay was meager and the work hard, but he was bothered little by these inconveniences. He was too worried about his family. He hounded agencies like the Red Cross for any news from Poland, but nothing other than military news of the raging war came through.
 
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Chapter 16
In the hellish chaos of that cold winter day, the eighteenth of February, 1943, when the town of Chrzanow became
Judenrein
, Nachcia and I clung to each other, filled with horror. She shielded me with her body. The Nazis constantly kept selecting, tearing apart the last remnants of families. We stood in the marketplace until nightfall, frozen with pain and fear. Then we were marched to the railroad station, the same station from which my cousin Gucia and I went to spend our vacation in Bielsko with my brothers. It wasn't until we were packed into cattle cars that we suddenly found our cousin Hania Bromberger. Hanja did not know where the rest of her family was either.
It was pitch dark in the bare boxcar, with nothing but the
 
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warmth of our closely packed bodies to keep us from freezing. We had only the clothes on our backs. We were mostly young women, girls, and children pretending to be older. The train clanked heavily on the rails, jolting to a stop every so often. All we could hear through the bolted doors were German yells of ''
Schnell! Schnell!
" before the train proceeded again. We did not know where we were being taken. The uncertainty, coupled with the hunger and thirst, added to our misery.
Hours passed before we were finally unloaded and marched into a big building surrounded by high walls. With dawn we found out that we were in a transit camp in Sosnowiec. We were roughly herded into a yard where thousands of women stood in rows while another round of selections began. The German SS, with their bayonets extended, marched back and forth among the prisoners. The higher-ranking German butchers strolled with broad smiles on their icy faces. With a stroke of their whip they selected: "Right. Left. Right. Right. Left." We shivering cattle only knew which line to follow, not what each line meant for our chances of survival.
Nachcia kept me behind her back in the second row to protect me from the vicious German eyes. She quickly pulled me along when she was sent right or left. Cousin Hania also stayed as close as possible to us. Several contingents were being sent back to the building, while the German in charge once more scanned the rest of us. He leaned over behind Nachcia's back and, pointing to me, ordered me out of the row and over to the left. Nachcia had just opened her mouth to protest or beg when the Nazi drowned her out by yelling, "March!" Nachcia was marched into the building with many other women, and soon she was upstairs with most of the others. She desperately pushed her way to the window and spotted me still standing in the yard in a smaller row of women. She became hysterical, wanting to run down and be with her little sister, but the doors were locked.
After I was pulled out from behind my sister's back, I immediately lost track of Nachcia. My heart pounded as I stood in the row alone, trapped and helpless. What am I going to do
 
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without Nachcia? I wondered in desperation, as I scanned the yard and building for a glimpse of her or Hanja.
Suddenly, I caught sight of Nachcia's face in the window a second before it disappeared. Knowing where my sister was, I knew I must get up to her. I spontaneously darted over to a line of people being led into the building. Like an arrow I shot into the building, running up steps, weaving through the crowd. I finally found Nachcia and we flew into each other's arms. Nachcia was stunned, holding on to me with all her might.
There were two more days of selections to tear at the nerves of us frightened girls. Food was given to us only once, some black coffee and a slice of bread. We had no sleep at all, for the selections lasted day and night. In the middle of the fourth night we were finally marched away from the camp, Hanja, Nachcia, and I still somehow together. Under heavy German guard, with a sea of bayonets shining in the pale moonlight, we were marched to the railroad station.
The suffocating cattle cars did not reveal the light of day. Hours dragged by with the clacking, screeching steel wheels. We had no fresh air, light, food, water, or sanitary facilities. In a heavy rain in the pitch dark we reached a stop near a camp called Gogolin. Emotionally drained and physically exhausted, we were marched under constant prodding with the "
Schnell! Schnell!
" of the bestial Germans in our ears. From the railroad station we marched to a camp of barracks surrounded by barbed wire. We were led into a barracks that held several rows of three-tier cots. The cots seemed like heaven after our long, exhausting ordeal, and we dropped into a dead sleep.
We were roused at dawn by our barbarous captors. During the night our clothes, bodies, and hair had been invaded by large white lice; our faces and bodies had been bitten while we were too exhausted to feel anything. Stunned and unable to fight this terrible plague, we were given no time to think. "
Raus, raus! Schnell, schnell!
" was the order barked over and over again as we were assembled in the freezing yard for hours of further selection. By evening we were let back into the barracks after being given some black coffee and a slice of limy bread, our nourishment for the day. Now we had time to think
 
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about the pestilence. We found out that this was a transit camp where thousands of victims passed daily, so contagion was easily spread. There was a doctor, a Dutch Jew, who was assigned to the camp. When he came into the barracks we pleaded with him for help. The only advice the doctor offered his scared, heartbroken charges was a gesture showing us how to squeeze the lice between our fingernails. Killing the lice was as useless as it was difficult and disgusting. The creatures were nestled in the seams of our garments, and in the hair of our heads, armpits, and privates.
Nachcia, who had always combed, washed, and braided my long hair, now cried bitterly at the necessary cropping it with rough and crooked chops. On Sunday the Germans allowed the "dirty Jews" to delouse themselves. Water was boiled in a big tub and we threw our clothes in. We sat in our underwear while our dresses were boiling and drying. Unfortunately, my dress was all wool, and it shrank to an unbearably small size. It ripped when I tried to squeeze my body into it.
By Tuesday we were set to be shipped out. We stood at attention for another selection, with a fat German counting us. Stopping exactly at Nachcia, he said, "Sixty, enough!" He separated the column between the two of us, Hania and Nachcia on one side and me on the other. We began crying and begging the cruel German please not to tear us apart. Motionless, unmoved, he stood there smiling broadly, enjoying our misery. When our tears and his game ended, he finally let me join my sister and cousin. Once again we were marched away to the railroad station, to leave the louse-ridden transit camp of Gogolin.
Sprawled again on the dirty, cold floor of the cattle cars, we suffered silently, while the train slowly dragged along. Occasionally someone would unbolt the doors and slide a pail of water across to us. Like animals, we drank thirstily. Anything, any destination would have been better than the endless ride in the cattle cars.
Shivering in the winter air, we were again unloaded and marched away. In the predawn hours we traveled a hard, snow-covered road to a camp that wasn't much more than a
 
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large, empty warehouse. There were big lofts with bare walls and wooden floors; large glassless windows let the homing wind in. We were led a short distance away to a railway line, where wooden boards that were to be assembled into three-tier cots were unloaded. It would be our responsibility to assemble the cots without the aid of nails, hammers, or any tools. Under the constant German whip we quickly unloaded the chunky wooden boards, and with our bare, frozen hands, we dragged the rough wood from the trains to the upstairs hall, assembling the cots as best we could. It wasn't until the next day that we could finally rest on the strawless bare planks of the cots.
Five o'clock in the morning we were woken by shouts of "
Raus, Du Judenschwein!
" accompanied by the barking of German shepherd dogs. We were rushed to the yard downstairs, to a row of icy faucets. Under the constant guard of a pack of fierce dogs and a tall young German in shining high boots who held a whip, we were made to strip and wash. That accomplished, we were marched to our respective work groups. There was a group that hauled coal from the trains and loaded it onto smaller wagons; the girls were then harnessed to the wagons to draw and later unload the coal. There were also groups pumping water and dragging it in iron barrels to the camp. Other work details shoveled snow, heaping it into big mountains.
Nachcia and I were marched to another warehouse, a tall round building with a narrow winding staircase. Our task was to bring old building materials up from the ground floor to the top floor. These included long heavy logs and beams full of large rusty nails, and rusted sections of railroad tracks. In the freezing cold, the girls were stationed up and down the steps to pass the material up from hand to hand. The stairs were narrow and winding, making it impossible for the long planks to go up without twisting and turning them from side to side. The frozen steel stuck to our skin, and the rusty nails ripped our hands and arms open as we pushed and lifted. Lagerführer Kiski and his hound kept running up and down to press our pace with whips and commands to his dog to "get the lazy Jews."
 
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From predawn to past dusk we worked, hauling and pushing the heavy, dirty logs and rusty beams. Our hands were bleeding, our backs were breaking and we were terrified of the dog's teeth and the Nazi's whip. In the freezing cold, we were marched back to camp, where we lined up for hours for some warm soup in a rusty metal bowl. The soup was a concoction of hot water with beets and vegetable peels. Dinner was hastily eaten while standing outside, and we were then sent to the warehouse for the night and allowed to lie down on the bare, hard wood of the three-tier cots while the wind whistled through the open windows.
We were a group of strangers from different cities, of all ages, newly separated from husbands, children, parents, and siblings. Our only crime and common denominator was our being Jewish. We several hundred women were provided with only a single pail for bathroom facilities. The pail would soon overflow, causing us to wallow in filth, to sleep with fetid odors, and to scream at each other.
And so our nights too were filled with agony and strife. In the beginning of the night I would force myself to stay awake, so I could be among the first ones to use the urinal pail. I would then exhaustedly fall asleep until the cold wind chilled my frail body. Waking up, I would again need a toilet. I would sleepily go to the pail, which was overflowing by then, to face the terrible choice of urinating and being yelled at or holding it in to bursting.
In the morning the girls who had hall duty for the day carried the overflowing pail out, leaving a trail of stinking waste. They were also the ones to clean up the mess in the hall. There was no time for getting acquainted, as no talking was permitted in the assigned work details. Each frightened person simply tried to obey and to stay out of the way of the guards. In the hall at night the lights would go out before we had a chance to get into our cots. There was little communication except among the few relatives who succeeded in staying together. Nachcia, always protective of me, would give me the bottom cot, taking the one above me and giving the top to Hania. She knew the bottom would be easiest for me, since I
 
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needed the pail so much. She regretted that she could not help me in my backbreaking work. The labor camp was hardest on those who had always been protected and spared from hard physical labor.
While most of the girls stayed out of the way of the German SS men, there were those who wanted to be noticed. Of course, the Germans picked their capos from the ambitious, aggressive ones who were capable of sadistically abusing the other prisoners, taking out their own rage on their helpless victims.
One such girl was Chaika. Naive enough to think that helping the Germans would assure her own betterment, she believed that the vicious German Kiski actually liked her. Arrogantly sure of herself, she did all she could to curry favor with the Germans. Chaika was responsible for lining up the prisoners in the morning, marching with them to work, and speeding up production. Chaika gained certain freedoms for herself, marching where she wanted and not performing any labor. She ran up and down the stairs to reinforce Kiski's supervision, making sure the logs moved rapidly between the swollen hands of the prisoners. Trying to please Kiski, she urged and prodded with her own cruel methods, relentlessly demanding unreasonable efforts. Having known Chaika in their hometown, certain girls particularly abhorred her. Feeling their resentment, Chaika would single out those girls for mistreatment. She did not hesitate to squeal to the vicious German about those who tried to rest a minute in his absence.
Chaika once brought Kiski up and pointed her finger at a girl named Ruzia, whom she accused of disobeying her and slacking off. Kiski felled Ruzia with one hideous blow, throwing her head against the rails. As the vulnerable girl lay there, the German pounded her with his heavy boots, leaving her bleeding and virtually unconscious. With Chaika's help Ruzia was made to stand up and resume her work. Several girls who tried to interfere received their share of blows from the ferocious German.
Our quota was produced daily and increased periodically, and meeting it extracted from us the last ounce of our strength.

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