Page 40

THIRTY-NINE

ELLA

For two hours, I’ve stood in this short row, scolding myself for speaking out against Francine.

I know better. I’ve seen what she’s capable of and how she turns people over to the SS.

My outburst punished not just me, but the others still standing here, waiting.

My legs tremble and my body has never felt so heavy.

I don’t know how much longer I can keep standing.

Francine might have made us stand here anyway, but kapos pass by us as if we’re invisible.

Everyone else has been sent elsewhere.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper again to the women beside me.

They know they’re still standing here because of me.

“I wish I had the courage to say what you did,” one murmurs.

“Me too,” another follows.

It wasn’t courage. It was desperation, anger, and grief.

For years, my purpose has been clear—find Luka, help him, hold on to him.

Now, I fear I’m too late.

And without that purpose, I’m left with a single choice—grasp for false hope or let go.

A young kapo steps in front of us, her eyes narrowing in on me.

Where is Francine? I’m not sure I should be grateful she’s gone.

“Straighten up,” the kapo snaps.

“Move.”

We follow her toward the main gates where the train station waits beyond.

Are we being transported?

To another camp? Or to the other side of Auschwitz—Birkenau—the place no one returns from?

What if Luka was sent there?

What if he’s still here, sick in an infirmary, and I’m leaving him behind?

Could he still be alive?

We walk between the barracks, toward the metal gates.

A guard adjusts his rifle, angling it at us while speaking in private with the kapo.

If they won’t say where we’re going, it means we already know.

The guard presses his fingers to his bottom lip, zipping out a whistle.

With a rigid wave, he calls more guards.

They arrive at once, saluting Heil Hitler .

The wind pushes against my weak body.

The autumn chill nips at my face.

I can’t leave the last place.

This is the last place I saw Luka.

If I have any chance of finding him, it won’t be outside these gates.

The guards and kapo corral us through, forcing me to leave my heart behind me.

We reach a wide empty road, fields stretching endlessly on either side.

There’s nothing to block the wind, as if nature itself is shoving us back toward Auschwitz.

Dirt and rubble whip through the air, blinding me.

My clothes billow like a worn flag, fabric pulling away from my skeletal body—leaving me naked.

My legs falter again and again.

I’ve nearly tripped twice, but I keep moving.

A woman behind me stumbles and falls.

If I turn back to check on her, I’ll be punished.

“Get up, you cow!” a guard shouts, charging toward her.

She cries out, pleading for help.

Pop. Pop.

Two shots.

I flinch, clutching the few belongings pressed against my chest. I don’t shut my eyes.

I keep them wide open, letting the wind sting, forcing myself to look—to witness another end.

The first bullet was enough.

The second was out of hatred.

Does guilt drown them in their sleep?

Do they think about who they have killed?

How could they not?

The road stretches on, watchtowers appearing like ghosts in a patch of fog.

A train rumbles past, the pressure deafening as it shakes the ground.

We stumble out of line as the guards grip their caps and forge ahead.

The train is endless, red and black cattle cars rattling along the tracks.

When it finally passes, a wail lingers in the air, haunting and hollow.

Through the fog, a wide shallow building looms ahead.

The arched opening over the railroad tracks and a wooden sign confirms we’ve arrived.

Birkenau.

My metal bowl slips from my grip and clunks against the ground.

My fingers are frozen.

I didn’t realize I’d lost my hold.

It rolls to the side, and I scurry to pick it up.

We don’t stop walking, no one does.

“What is this?” a guard shouts, charging toward me like a bull with sharp eyes and plumes coming from his nostrils.

I stand frozen within his stare, clutching the bowl back into my belongings.

“Your hands aren’t broken, are they?”

I tilt my head to the side, unsure whether I should speak.

He snatches the bowl and hurls it toward the barbed-wire fence.

“Go get it.”

I force my legs to move, my steps careful as I near the fence.

The buzz of electricity hums through the wires and spikes up my spine.

I grab my bowl and race back.

The guard waits with his arms crossed.

“Next time, I’ll throw it over the fence,” he says, his voice playful.

“Let’s see how you get it then.”

I say nothing, and I clutch my things and keep moving.

Through the gates of Birkenau, beyond the tracks, is a platform where people are falling out of cattle cars as if mistreated farm-animals.

Finally, a vast landscape of barracks appear—rows upon rows of dark wooden structures.

More prisoners. More guards.

We walk the perimeter, past a few brick barracks then along a line made up of mostly women and children, weaving around a nearby building.

Their eyes lock onto mine and mine to them, wondering what the difference between our lines are.

A child wails.

A gunshot fires.

I jump. I always jump.

A mother collapses over her child, wailing, pleading.

A second gunshot.

They’re together now.

“This is your barrack, check in with your block-elder for assignments,” a guard shouts.

A kapo waves us forward.

I follow the others toward the wooden barrack, unable to stop myself from looking over at the dead mother and daughter once more, this time finding another daughter, a young girl, staring at the other two with wide eyes full of shock and terror.

I cup my hand around my mouth as bile rises in my stomach.

I step inside, between the walls of what looks like an animal pen with bunk beds.

Another gunshot shatters the air.

Silence follows as the door slams behind us.

The odor of human waste mixed with filth and rotting wood are reminiscent of the barrack I came from.

But it’s worse here.

It’s harder to breathe.

Women walk between the tiers of bunks, hunched forward, unsteady on their feet, their jaws hanging low.

Is this what I look like, too?

The barrack stretches on endlessly, wooden bunks stacked high.

Not one is empty.

I gasp for air as my head becomes heavy, then I reach for a wooden post to keep myself upright.

A faint cry pulls my gaze.

A girl—maybe thirteen or fourteen, clutching her blanket as dirt riddled tears streak down her cheeks.

Her fingers tremble as she strokes her fingers over the fabric’s folds.

Then, softly, she sings.

The words are foreign, but I know the melody.

Hebrew, I believe. I don’t understand, but I listen.

With another step toward her, she stops singing, her lips straighten across her mouth, and she stares back at me, unblinking.

“Are you all right?” I ask her.

She shakes her head in slow movements, side to side.

I don’t know how to help her.

I’m afraid to ask her if her mom is here because she might not be.

She might have been sent to the showers.

I don’t know who they keep and who they kill.

“Excuse me,” a woman says, brushing by me with a metal bowl and water sloshing around.

She kneels in front of the young girl and tips the bowl against her lips.

My heart pounds and my breath stutters as I reach toward the woman.

“Tatiana?” I ask hesitantly, knowing how unlikely it is that I would find her again, and here.

My chest tightens as she turns toward me.

Her jaw falls open. It’s her.

She’s here, in this barrack.

“Ella?” she cries. She gently hands the little girl the bowl of water as she continues to feed herself, then pulls herself up along a wooden beam before wrapping her arms around my neck.

“You’re here.”

I nod my head, having a hard time forcing sound through my tightening throat.

“I don’t know what’s happening. I thought they were sending me to die.” My words fumble together.

She leans away briefly and stares at me for a long second.

“If you can work, they’ll keep you alive, usually,” she says.

My throat clenches. “And if someone is sick or unable to work as they had been?” I already know the answer.

I don’t need her to tell me.

Her gaze falls between us, and she takes my hands within hers.

“They send those people to the showers, Ella.”

“Right,” I say, the word floating on a short breath.

“Like Luka. His voice broke one night. Then—there was a distressing cry of pain, a sound I can’t forget. That was it—I never heard him again. I think the SS got rid of him. I didn’t want to leave the other section because I was holding on to a bit of hope that maybe he was in an infirmary, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I tried. I don’t know where he is, and I’m dying inside. I’m not sure I can do this any longer,” I say, my voice croaking into a quiet cry.

“Oh, dear,” she says, pulling me in for another embrace.

“I’m so sorry. I know how hard you worked to find him. Everything you’ve done has been because of him.”

“None of it mattered,” I whimper.

“You didn’t want him to be suffering. I know this,” Tatiana says.

“I want to help him, save him, whatever I can to?—”

“Ella…” Tatiana interrupts me and shakes her head as her lips unfurl into a grimace.

“I—I don’t know how to tell you this…”

The veins in my head pulsate as I stretch my gape wider, staring at her, urging the seconds between her breaths to go faster.

“What, what is it?”

Tatiana pulls in a trembling breath.

“The other women here—I overheard them talking about the male singer, the young one with the beautiful eyes. They said the SS sent him to one of the shower rooms. I tried to ask them if they might know anything more, but they stopped talking and shook their heads. I don’t know if?—”

The room tilts to the side as nausea rushes up my throat.

I reach back for the bunk but miss and my body falls heavily to the ground, my cheek hitting the wooden plank floor. I feel nothing…