The End of Days (28 page)

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Authors: Helen Sendyk

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

BOOK: The End of Days
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Page 178
Totally exhausted, we would be marched back to camp to endure more indignities and suffering.
Here in the labor camp of Faulbruck, our spirits were broken. There was no time to think or to grieve over our severed families. The hourly light for life was all-consuming. Those who were able to mechanically carry on were the lucky ones; they could best preserve their lives and sanity.
Fela was one woman who could not bear the recent trauma of having her little daughter torn from her. At night she would relive her tragedy, talking to her child, crying and laughing. Girls sat with her to calm her, but Fela could not be consoled. She would talk to her missing child, fight to keep her from the SS, and cry out in pain when replaying the moment that her baby was taken away. Her agony became our own. We finally realized that Fela had lost her sanity, and for days we kept protecting her from the wicked captors, helping her in her work, dragging her along, trying to calm her at night, and, when necessary, shutting her up by force. Fela's hysterical cries eventually did bring the Germans up one night, and she was taken away, tearing the hair out of her head, screaming the name of her child.
The cold winter frost chilled our weak bodies to the marrow; the slave labor nearly broke us. We endured with only the thought of not being separated from one another, not being sent away. We got up in the morning with our stomachs painfully empty and our bladders painfully full. The one objective was to escape Kiski's whip, his dog, his boots. The winter was endless, and the logs and beams became heavier.
In those dangerous, contemplative moments I could hear Papa telling us at the Seder table that we should try to imagine being slaves in Egypt. Where are you, Papa and Mama? Where are you, Moses and Aaron? When will children solemnly sit around a table remembering what it was like to be Hebrew slaves in Europe?
We were constantly lined up to stand for hours in the cold air, stomping our frozen feet. Like heads of cattle, we would be counted up and marched away, some never to be seen again and some driven back to the loft. In one such assembly a group
 
Page 179
of two hundred fifty prisoners, including Nachcia, Hania, and myself, were counted up. We were marched to the railroad station and again packed into the cattle cars. Our hearts pounded with anticipation in the dark. This time, upon reaching our destination, we were marched through the streets of a big city with spectators all around us. We were led into the yard of a factory with heavy iron gates that locked us in. After a lineup and several hours of counting in the chill of a blustery day, we were finally led into the factory. The warmth of the indoors engulfed us and gave us the illusion of an improved situation. The conditions had changed, but not our status. We, the slave girls, were posted throughout the factory, each one assigned to operate several machines.
Hania's beauty won her a station where the German constable did not constantly watch her, leaving her in the hands of the factory staff. Nachcia and I were shown four weaving machines each to work. I stared blankly at the huge yarn wheels, loops, combs, and spools, frightened by the deafening noise. With difficulty, a tall skinny German in dark overalls showed us how to make the machines run.
That night we prisoners were housed in our new quarters in a building adjacent to the factory grounds, which was surrounded by heavy iron gates. Not that anyone had any notions of running awaywhere would we run to? The factory yard looked strange; the barbarians outside jabbered in a strange dialect and pointed at us during the day. We were in a prison, deprived of our basic human rights, but we were consoled that the environment was not as cold and bare as the murderous labor camp in Faulbruck. The factory's windows did keep the wind out, and the miserable pail was replaced by a real toilet. All two hundred fifty of us women and girls were crowded into the top floor of the factory building, the lower floors housing the spinning facilities. There was a constant cloud of dust rising from the spinning machines to the upper floor, causing additional pollution of the already stagnant air. Chaika's mother was chosen to be the
Judenaälteste
, the Jewish leader of the group. Older and wiser than her teenage daughter, she was more sensitive to the suffering of the inmates.
 
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There were no SS men to guard the prisoners, since we were never out of the perimeter of the factory. The German
Lagerführerin
was a woman. Young, tall, blond, and quite pretty, with a frivolous fondness for luxuries and men, she thoroughly enjoyed her status as queen bee of the little Jewish slaves. She had the national gift for sadism and demanded that we extend our homage to her fat white cat, Mici. With our eyes bulging and stomachs churning with hunger pains, we had to feed Mici her milk and delicacies. Petrified of Fräulein Babin's severe punishments, no one would dare withhold any food from Mici. Always nonchalant, the German camp leader would relegate underlings to beat the girls and withhold their food rations.
In the morning we would be lined up in the yard, while the local population arrived to work. These were mainly women and a few men who were either older or unfit for military service. We desperately eyed their lunch boxes. With the ring of the bell at precisely eight o'clock, the power was turned on and the machines started clanking. The inexperienced prisoners encountered severe difficulties with the machines, which required coordination and much physical strength. Vastly undertrained, we nevertheless caught hell when material ripped or machinery malfunctioned. Every time a machine had to be restarted, we broke out into a fearful sweat. If a machine stood idle, the German mechanic, the
Meister
, would see to the problem, rudely grumbling and insinuating that the prisoners were committing sabotage. The material we produced was called
fallschirmseide
, a thin, strong nylon material used in parachutes.
The factory was divided into sections. Nachcia's
Meister
was an old heavyset German man with a round, bald head. The fingers of both his hands were missing past the first two knuckles. It was said that he lost them there in the factory. He resented anyone who had fingers, and he relished pounding the girls over their fingers. With his half fingers he was able to perform his job of fixing the machines. The
Meisters
were technically not allowed to beat or punish the girls, as we were the exclusive property of the Wehrmacht. The factory personnel
 
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were supposed to bring all complaints against the prisoners to the attention of the camp wardens, The
Meisters
took their wrath out on us nonetheless, fully aware that no one would complain. When beaten for difficulties at our machines, we didn't dare lodge a protest.
With her nearsightedness, Nachcia had trouble threading the machines. She was therefore beaten and yelled at more than most. She stiffened in fear whenever Paluch, or "Fingers," the nickname given her
Meister
, came near her. Too often she was chased around the machine and beaten mercilessly on her fingers.
The
Meister
in my section was nicknamed Bezdupny, "Assless," because he was tall and skinny as a stick and his clothes hung limply on him. He was fiercely intimidating; he had a taut face, protruding cheekbones, and a murderous look in his eyes. Even from far away his piercing gaze made me cringe. He would kick with his bony legs, and he often reported me to the camp police for lack of discipline.
Twice a day the prisoners were allowed to go to the bathroom if they received formal permission from a tall supervisor named Knauer. She was an uneducated small-town factory girl who was suddenly graced by the Nazi regime with the authority to allow or deny bathroom privileges to hundreds of women. She gloried in her power and status. Glancing at her coworkers, so they'd notice her exercise of executive decision making, the petty queen of the bathroom expressed her agreement or disagreement with a stately nod. Denials, of course, enhanced her aura of power and gave her the opportunity to see her underlings squirm in discomfort.
The bathroom was a row of toilets in a poorly lit and foulsmelling room. Yet the opportunity to relieve oneself and to rest a bit from the unrelenting pressures of our work gave us the greatest pleasure we could know. The girls would sprawl or sit on the dirty floor, discussing our shared misery while one girl stood watch.
Most of the German workers were older women or disabled men, and almost all of them were abusive to us Jewish slave girls. One exception was Puckel Knauer, the hunchbacked
 
Page 182
brother of Fräulein Knauer. Perhaps his deformity lent him a measure of sensitivity. He seemed embarrassed by his sister's enjoyment of our degradation.
Among the girls was a pretty, dark-haired fifteen-year-old named Chanale, who looked like a midget among her four giant weaving machines. Every time her machine would stop, the sweat on her brow would dampen her locks of jet black hair, her cheeks would burn, and her dark piercing eyes would grow moist with alarm. She meekly directed her begging eyes to Puckel Knauer at the neighboring machine. Carefully looking around first, Puckel hopped over, skillfully took Chanale's hand, and together they pushed the lever to restart the machine. Chanale's face lit up in a grateful smile, her unspoken words hanging in the air, while Puckel sneaked back to his machine. Chanale shared the incredible news with her friends.
''There is a German who does not hate us!" she revealed to the astonished girls. "He even helped me."
The story spread like wildfire among the prisoners.
Twelve o'clock heralded lunch break. The German workers would reach into their lockers for their lunches. Out came sandwiches and bowls of soup, and stew pots to be warmed on the factory stove. The smell of food made our mouths water and our stomachs growl. Our empty bellies were painfully knotted with hunger spasms. We prisoners were rationed a hot, slimy soup of water and flour. The girls lined up for the precious bit of food, eyes trained on the hand with the ladle. Every drop of that poor liquid was hungrily gulped down, or slowly sipped to make it last. The tiny portion only made us hungrier than if we had had no lunch at all.
Soon it was back to work pushing the heavy bars of the weaving machines, using up all of our strength to keep them noisily clanking away. As the hours dragged on we would sometimes get lost in thought about our families, even though if we were caught slacking off we would be accused of daydreaming and dealt extra blows.
I had waking nightmares about my machine killing me. I worried about Nachcia's suffering my loss. And how would she explain my death to Mama when they finally met again?
 
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Could Mama, who had already lost her son Shlamek, survive the loss of her youngest child? How Mama used to pamper me. Where is Mama now? I asked myself over and over. Is she suffering now too? I remembered Blimcia's wild look when, her baby Aiziu clinging to her, she was sent away to the other side during the selection, suddenly losing contact with her family. Blimcia, our pillar of strength, looked so forlorn, so helpless, so frightened.
What did the Germans do to her? Is she also working in a factory like this or lugging chunks of coal somewhere? How is she able to care for Aiziu? How is her husband Jacob, who said he would not live without her? And what of Papa, Heshek, Vrumek, Sholek, and Goldzia?
My hands mechanically worked as my mind milled my tragedy into verse. Clank, clank, clank! I repeated and memorized, weaving, spinning my pain into parachutes of poetry.
Finally the bell would ring, at exactly six o'clock. The Germans would pack up their belongings and leave, while the prisoners were assembled in the factory yard to be counted and marched into their cells in the adjoining building. There on the top floor we lived, several hundred Jewish women of all ages, descriptions, and backgrounds. Those from wealthy families suffered the most from the hard labor. Their good manners allowed others to push in front of them in the food or toilet line. Those from poor homes were used to hunger and strife. They had the guts and skills to occasionally sneak back into line for an extra bowl of soup. They used loud, coarse voices and foul language to vent their suffering.
Day after day the prisoners were awakened in the early dawn to rush downstairs to the yard for the morning lineup. Counted and recounted, we would be handed some black, sticky brew made from a coffee substitute, its bitter taste like a Passover symbol of our lives. Then we were marched into the factory. Day resembled day. Any changes were dreaded, since they could only mean a worsening of our situation. The winter was almost over when we first saw our new
Lagerführerin
.
"I am Lagerfuhrerin Kaufman," she spit at us, slicing the air with her long whip. We shivered to see the sadistic figure in

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