Page 51

FIFTY

LUKA

January 1945

It’s the middle of winter, early morning, but sunlight is seeping in through the few clouded windows.

Using every ounce of strength I push my head off my folded arms to glance around the barrack, finding everyone still in their bunks or scattered along the ground.

There wasn’t a gong ring to wake us or the common shouts of roll call.

Those of us who had become used to waking up on our own before five in the morning lost the ability to fight our bodies demanding more sleep and rest. The sound of the gong is all we had to go by.

Surely, we didn’t all sleep through it.

I place my hand on Etan’s shoulder and shake him gently, hoping not to startle him.

He was sent to live in this barrack a few weeks ago when people were being separated due to a viral illness sweeping through the buildings.

I made room for him on the bunk I share with several others.

Aside from Franc, the pianist, on the other side of Auschwitz, Etan is the only other good friend I’ve come to trust here.

In a situation like the one we’re in, you might assume that we could all rely on each other in some way or another, but we’re forced to protect ourselves, and only ourselves.

Any visible sight of camaraderie is a crime fit for punishment.

Etan and I spend our entire days together, which have made it easier to communicate without drawing attention.

I can read the look on his face and he reads mine.

I know he lost his father and brother upon arriving here, and the woman he was supposed to marry was taken away the night before his deportation to Auschwitz.

He has no way of finding her.

I’ve shared my similar woes, except for Ella being here in the same prison camp—that was my burden to carry alone.

Now, I don’t know how I can carry on any longer…

It’s been almost an entire year since Ella took the risk in delivering me the honey.

The images from that day have been branded into my mind as I was forced to watch and listen to her brutal punishment from the other side of the barbed wire separating us.

Her lifeless body was dragged away, taking what remained of my heart and my hope with it…

“What’s happening?” Etan asks, lifting his head so quickly he bumps it on the bunk above ours.

“There was no gong or roll call this morning. Everyone is still asleep or in their bunk. I’m not sure why…”

He pulls himself closer to the edge of the wooden bunk and peers out down the row of others.

“Something isn’t right.”

Nothing has been right for longer than I can recall.

The sound of boots crunching in the snow is followed by a stale whistle working against the cold sounds in the nearby distance outside the barrack.

“Hear that?” I ask him.

He twists his head to face the door at the end of our row and the whistle sounds again.

My pulse speeds up as I shake the remaining haze out of my eyes and heaviness from my head.

The door flies open, an officer standing in the opening, a silhouette with the glare of the sun swallowing him whole.

“Everyone out. Now! Gehen! You won’t be returning,” he shouts, stomping his boot onto the wooden floor then crashing his baton against the door.

Snow squalls into a narrow tornado behind him just as the cold air bites at our exposed skin.

The officer hits the door three more times, each time with more vehemence than the last. “Gehen!”

All at once, everyone throws their bodies out from between the tiers of bunks and shoves their feet into clogs or boots.

Etan and I are among the few fortunate people with boots.

I received them with my uniform upon being assigned to perform for the SS.

He was in a similar situation before ending up as a performer at one of the gas chambers.

Some of the physical laborers have acquired boots, too, but for the most part, the wooden clogs are the standard, and impractical, especially with the frequent snowstorms in the winters.

I grab my blanket, bowl and spoon, not knowing what it means to know we won’t be returning.

Is this finally the end for me?

Everyone from the barrack is shoved into an unmoving line within seconds following the order, heel to toe as we shuffle forward toward the door.

The SS have never failed at their attempts to bring us elements of surprise to disorient us.

Once outside, within the freezing temperatures, we’re diverted into a few different directions, but led through gates most of us have never passed through before in a direction no one is familiar with.

There are plenty of guards manning the line of prisoners along the way as we move closer to the tree line ahead.

Before making it to the trees, two men fall, one bringing the man in front of him down, too.

All three of them are subsequently shot without warning then kicked and rolled away from the moving line.

I jerk my eyes away.

I will never become used to seeing a man lying dead on the ground.

The sight of blood-splattered snow turns my heart into stone.

My last memory of Mother was the same, blood blooming away from her head into branches that grew other branches, endlessness until her blood ran dry.

We could all be walking to a mass grave just to get us all out…

Etan and I overheard guards speaking about the Soviets’ location growing closer.

This must be their solution to evade what’s coming for them, using us as their shields, most likely.

Our line merges with others, creating an endless thread of weary men dragging their feet through the slushy snow without an end in sight.

I’ve wrapped my blanket around the upper half of my body, using the top as a hood to shield the windblown snow plowing against us.

“Keep moving!” the guards shout, as if we need the constant reminder.

The longer we walk, the less I believe we’re walking towards anything more than a grave.

But without Ella, without the knowledge that she’s alive—I don’t know how to continue like this.

I don’t think I can…

Snow is stuck to my eyebrows and eyelashes despite my attempt to block out the elements.

The freezing wind burns my throat with every breath, an addition to the pain I live with daily from damaging an injury over and over, ensuring my vocal cords will never heal.

I should be dead from infection.

I don’t know what has kept me alive.

I may never know.

Our trek takes an uphill turn alongside a rocky cliff where another line of prisoners in blue and white striped uniforms are walking in the same direction.

The other group all have scarves and must be groups from the women’s barracks.

I can wonder all I want, hope or not hope Ella is among them, but the intelligence I used to believe I had would tell me otherwise after what I watched her endure.

Everything she did from the moment she stepped into my life was a risk to help me —always just to help me in whatever way she could.

Her life’s purpose had to be something more than offering me longevity…

but maybe that’s all she was ever destined to achieve.

And now she’s gone…so will I be.

A gunshot echoes between the trees, and I spot a fallen body from the line of women.

How many of them have been killed throughout this day-long march?

Too many from the line of men have been left behind in the snow after giving up or falling.

What am I fighting for?

I need to know.

Etan stumbles a step ahead of me, his boot catching on a patch of icy terrain.

I catch him just before he loses his balance, shaking as I strain to hold him upright until he catches a solid footing.

“Thank you,” he utters through a shaky breath.

The line slows as another incline becomes an obstacle, even for the guards who slip with each step.

A German argument ensues from ahead at a gathering of tall pines where the ground is partially thawed beneath the long thick branches covered with a dusting of snow.

“Do you know what they’re saying?” Etan utters over his shoulder.

I listen for another moment.

“They’re arguing over what direction to take.”

“No, please, no,” I hear from around the bend of trees.

It’s one of us crying out, followed by a grunt and the thud of a rifle thrashing into something.

Etan glances back at me with terror flashing through his heavy eyes.

We watch the guards as they shove others at the top of the hill with the butts of their rifles, forcing them to move faster.

Is this it? The end?

Etan moves another few steps forward then stops as my toes reach his heels.

“What is it?” I ask him.

I look around him and down, finding the edge of the cliff to our right crumbling into fragments and falling into silence as the distance swallows any noise.

There’s nowhere else to move with the tree trunks rooting from mounds of snow on our left.

“Move along,” I hiss to the men in front of us.

“The ground is giving out.”

Where the guards aren’t actively pushing us off the cliff, the cliff is taking us down itself.

Instinct forces the man in front of Etan to turn toward us rather than do as I said.

A louder crack rumbles beneath us and the man finally jolts forward into the line of others.

Etan takes a step forward, too, just as the weight of the world becomes too much for the one spot we’re standing on.

His hand shoots out, grasping for a low hanging branch above us, but it’s too late.

His face contorts with horror, his jaw drops as if he’s about to scream, but there’s no sound.

The ground beneath us growls as it crumbles into dust, and we’re pulled down the side of the cliff among jagged pieces of falling earth.

Shrapnel of snow and rocks rain down around me as I fight against the force of gravity.

Desperately, I reach for something to grab hold of, my fingers grasping at nothing but air.

But there’s nothing—just the ice-cold air I’ve been a victim to since I arrived here.

The world blurs into streaks and sounds fade into a hollow silence.

Images flash through my mind—my family and wonderful childhood full of warmth and love, the fruition of my dream to entertain a crowd with my voice, and Ella.

Ella is where my life came together and when I was whole, complete—perhaps that’s why this is the end.

She was what I was always looking for and I found her.

She found me. And now if she’s gone, I will be gone, too.

The world tilts and spins, leaving me weightless.

The blur of colors fade to black, the cold, pain, and torment of what has been devours me into a void.