Page 86 of Cilka's Journey

“Bad driver, bad attitude.”

“You’d better learn to get along with him, or he can make your life hard.”

This again, thinks Cilka. But she can’t stifle a laugh. He is far from the most intimidating figure she has met.

Pavel looks puzzled.

“Let’s just say, I’ve seen worse,” Cilka says. She looks around at the efforts being made to comfort and treat these three men injured just doing their job, a job with no proper safety measures. She has seen injuries like this too many times. The prisoners are here for their productivity, as part of a quota, and they are expendable and replaceable.

“But thanks for the warning, Pavel. I’ll keep my distance from him.”

“Cilka, can you give me a hand over here?”

Pavel watches as Cilka goes over to Mikhail, cleaning and rebandaging his head wound as Yelena continues the examination of his lower legs. Cilka glances occasionally at the doctor, reading her expression as serious.

Yelena says quietly to the nurse assisting her, “Find me an operating room, we need to get him there straightaway.”

“What’s going on? How bad is it?” Mikhail gasps, his hand reaching out for Cilka, grabbing her forearm, panic rising as he tries to lift his head to see his legs.

“I’m sorry,” Yelena says gently. “I can’t save your right leg; your left is not as bad, and we should be able to keep it.”

“What do you mean, keep one and not the other? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, we need to amputate your right leg below the knee, it is too badly crushed.”

“No, no, you can’t chop off my leg! I won’t let you.”

“If I don’t, you will die,” Yelena says, keeping her voice steady. “The leg is dead. There is no blood flow into the lower part; if we don’t amputate it, it will poison you and you will die. Do you understand?”

“But, how will I… Cilka Klein, don’t let them chop off my leg, please,” Mikhail pleads.

Removing his grip from her arm, Cilka holds his hand and brings her face close to his.

“Mikhail, if the doctor says she has to amputate your leg, then she has to. We will help you deal with this, help you recover. I’m sorry I could not do more.”

“The leg was crushed on impact, Cilka, there’s nothing more you could have done,” Yelena says. “I’m going to go and get ready. Cilka, will you prepare the patient and I’ll see you in the operating room.”

That evening Cilka doesn’t go to the mess for dinner. Exhausted, she drops onto her bed, and is instantly asleep.

Men and women in white coats waltz around her, laughing, some hold amputated limbs, tossing them to each other. Small children dressed in blue-and-white pajamas wander aimlessly between them, their hands outstretched. What do they want? Food, attention, love?

A door opens, sun streams in. A man enters, a rainbow halo surrounding him. He is dressed in a suit of immaculate white, doctor’scoat unbuttoned, a stethoscope around his neck. He holds his arms out. The adults lower their heads in respect, the children run toward him, excited.

“Papa, Papa,” they cry out.

Cilka wakes from her nightmare, but the memory that it awakens is just as horrifying.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1943

“Papa, Papa,” they cry out. Boys and girls run to the man who has stepped from his car. He is smiling warmly at them, his hands extended and full of candy. To the children he is a beloved father. Some call him uncle.

Cilka has heard the stories. Every adult at Auschwitz-Birkenau has heard the stories of what becomes of the children when they leave here, in his car.

Cilka watches from a distance, examining the slightly built man with not a hair out of place: his dark green tunic, without a crease or wrinkle, partially covers the white coat that indicates his rank of doctor; his clean-shaven face; his brilliant white teeth revealed by his big smile; his gleaming eyes; his SS cap tilted to one side.

The Angel of Death, that is what they call him. Twice, prior to being sent to Block 25 and given a layer of protection, she’d had to parade in front of him. She had barely dared to sneak a look at him, whistling a tune as he flicked his hand to the left or the right. Both times she had escaped selection.

The children clamber around him. “Pick me, pick me,” they squeal.