What World is Left (19 page)

One March morning, I notice a purple crocus on my way to the diet kitchen. Bright and hardy-looking, it blooms on the side of the road, between two chipped cobblestones.

When I hear the sounds of a train chug-chugging into the camp, I groan. Please, I think, don't send us any more typhus-infected prisoners!

By the time I report to the diet kitchen, Frau Davidels has already heard the latest news. “This train isn't from the east, Anneke,” she tells me. “It's from Holland.”

“It is?”

Now I see why Opa was eager to see who came from Bergen-Belsen. It has been over a year since any Hollanders arrived in Theresienstadt. Perhaps these new arrivals will have information. Surely they will be able to tell us if the war really is coming to an end. “Can I go, Frau Davidels? Please!”

But when I get to the station, there is no one left except a woman carrying a pail of filthy water. “It was a small transport,” she tells me. “Only about fifty of them. The train came from a town called Delft.”

I haven't heard the word “Delft” in nearly two-and-a-half years. It makes me think of Mother's prized blue and white teapot, which was made in Delft.

“Where are they? At the
Schleuse
?”

The woman shrugs. “Where else? Even if the end of the war is round the corner, it hasn't made the Nazis any less greedy for our things.”

But things have stopped mattering to me. What I really want is to see these people from my country. And hear their stories.

Oom Edouard, Tante Cooi and Izabel are on the transport from Delft. Opa weeps with joy when he finds out. “At least we're all together now,” he tells me. “Being together is the most important thing.”

I am not so sure that is true.

Oom Edouard, Tante Cooi and Izabel are in a state of shock. Surely, they'd have been better off if they could have stayed in Amsterdam. Oom Edouard, a notary with many important connections in the city, was one of the last Jews in Amsterdam to be rounded up.

At least the three newcomers have us to show them around and explain how things work in Theresienstadt.
Izabel is horrified to learn we only have a chance to bathe once every three weeks. “What about your hair? How do you keep it clean?” she asks me, her eyes pooling with tears.

“I don't.” I'm suddenly aware of how stringy my own hair feels and how when I touch it, my fingers get greasy. Hair is just another thing that has stopped mattering to me.

Wait until Izabel finds out about the latrines, I think.

We are sitting on the stoop outside our apartment. Father, Mother, Oom Edouard and Tante Cooi are upstairs, catching up. A little boy with hair so blond it is almost white walks by and waves at Izabel. He can't be more than five. He looks so much like Theo when he was that age, it nearly takes my breath away. I suddenly remember Theo digging for worms behind our house in Broek.

“Can you come play?” the boy asks Izabel.

“I don't feel much like playing,” she answers.

“What about your friend?”

“Neither of us feels like playing.”

The boy shrugs.

Izabel tells me his name is Ronald Waterman. He and his parents were also on the transport from Delft.

The boy is too little to be out alone. “Ronald!” I call after him. “Wait for me! I'm Izabel's cousin—we can play.”

When Ronald turns around, I notice his blue eyes have a touch of purple in them.

“This is a very ugly place. Everything is gray,” Ronald says. “No wonder everybody is so unhappy here.”

“You're right about that,” I tell him. It occurs to me I won't have to work very hard to make conversation with Ronald. The little boy seems always to have something or other to say.

“I've never seen so many sour faces,” Ronald says.

It seems perfectly natural when he reaches for my hand. “You're more friendly than your cousin. If you ask me, she's a bit of a grouch.”

I smile. “She's had a hard day.”

“Me too. But I'm still friendly. Do you know how to skip?”

I haven't skipped in so long that when I do I can't help laughing. The Nazis have taken so much away from me, but they can't take everything.

It occurs to me that this little boy, who reminds me so much of my brother, is doing me good. Please, I think, hoping that God is listening, don't let anything bad happen to Ronald. Don't let him catch typhus. Don't let the Nazis ship him off to the east or hurt him in any way. Let him live to be a man.

And for the first time in many months, I feel a glimmer of hope for myself. If Ronald can live to be a
man, well then, maybe I can live too. Maybe I'll survive this dreadful war. Maybe I'll be able to carry on, to begin a new life once the war is over. Maybe this grayness isn't all there is. Maybe I won't always be surrounded by these ugly ramparts that keep me trapped inside Theresienstadt.

“Soon you'll have to line up for your soup,” I tell Ronald when we stop to catch our breath.

“I like soup,” he tells me. “Especially Mother's
erwtensoep
. Before the war, she sometimes put sausage in it.”

I don't have the heart to tell him about the watery lentil soup he'll have for dinner. “Maybe we can go for a skip again tomorrow,” I say instead.

“No skipping just now. Walk straight and keep your head down,” I whisper. There is a pair of Nazi soldiers walking up ahead.

“Why do I have to keep my head down?” Ronald asks, too loudly.

“Shh.”

But the Nazis are too involved in their own conversation to pay any attention to us. We are close enough to hear what they are saying. “Rahm agrees with Eichmann that the Theresienstadt ghetto and its last inhabitants must be preserved, to show the world we haven't mistreated our prisoners,” one of the
soldiers says. Eichmann's name makes me shiver. He was the one who ordered some of the transports out of Theresienstadt.

“I'm against it,” the second officer says, without bothering to lower his voice. “And there are many who agree with me: We should get rid of every last Jew while we can.” His words make me shiver even more.

I try to steady my nerves by taking a few deep breaths. “Is something wrong, Anneke?” Ronald asks, looking up at me. The Nazis soldiers have disappeared around a corner, but their words still hang in the air. My body feels icy cold.

Ronald wrinkles his nose. “I smell smoke,” he says.

I sniff the air. Ronald is right. Why didn't I notice the cloud of smoke directly over SS headquarters?

We have to pass there on our way to the children's barracks where Ronald is living. Tiny black cinders swirl in the air and one lands in Ronald's eye. He cries out from the pain. “Don't rub it,” I say as I kneel down to inspect the eye. “Rubbing will only make it worse.”

A scrap of charred paper lands on the cobblestone in front of me. I pick it up and hold it to the light. I can make out a few typed numbers and words. “12/3/1901, shoemaker, born in Brno, Czechoslovakia.”

Later that night, I hear Father tell Mother that the Reich Central Security Office has ordered the destruction of every single file and index card in Theresienstadt. The Nazis emptied a water tank in
the central courtyard and burned the documents inside the tank.

There will be no trace left of the Czech shoemaker.

I am too sad for words.

What is an empty freight train doing at the station, its doors wide open? No one has said anything about another transport.

Our mouths drop when we see the latest passengers preparing to take their leave of Theresienstadt. They are all, each and every one of them, Nazis! What can this mean? Where are they going?

Though they have proper suitcases, not rucksacks, and they wear shiny shoes and coats with brass buttons, they have something in common with the thousands whom we've already seen off at the station: an empty terrified look in their eyes. I'm glad it's
their
turn now to be terrified. Let them see what fear feels like!

So it has to be true: The Russians are coming, and the end of the war is near. The Nazis are fleeing back to Germany.

I think I see the soldier who squeezed my breast and beat Father. He is smaller than I remember, and I note with pleasure how his hands shake when he picks up his suitcase from the ground. I would like to shout at him,
to let him know how much I hate him and how I hope he will pay for his sins, but Berta won't let me. “It's best not to provoke them,” she says, lifting her chin toward the rifles hanging over the Nazis' shoulders.

They all leave on the train, except for Commandant Rahm and a handful of his men. When Rahm himself gets on the public address system and announces there will be a meeting at the café that was built during the Embellishment, we don't know what to think. What can he possibly have to say to us now?

A dark-haired boy races up the stairs to our apartment. “The watchmen are no longer in their stations!” he shouts excitedly. “The Russians are coming!”

No watchmen on guard in the tall towers that surround Theresienstadt, surveying our every move?

We could leave—walk out the front gates and begin our new lives right now. But we don't dare to leave. Instead we do as we are told and go to Rahm's meeting.

There are no more than two hundred of us. Frau Davidels says there are several hundred other prisoners still in the camp, lying in their sickbeds, too weak to attend. So this is what has become of the many thousands of prisoners who were sent to Theresienstadt.

Rahm clears his throat. His nose looks red and veiny. I wonder if he's been drinking. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he begins.

There is a twitter in the audience. Someone laughs out loud. Others jab each other's elbows. These are things we'd never have dared do even a few days ago.
In the time I've known Rahm, he has called us many things, but never “ladies and gentlemen.” He dabs at his forehead with a handkerchief that he takes out of his jacket pocket. “I want you to remember one thing,” he says, “just one thing. And that's how lucky you have been. Remember always how the German Fatherland looked after you.”

I turn first to my left, then my right. Everywhere I see thin, pale, broken faces. Someone coughs. Rahm is partly right. Compared to all those who have perished, we are indeed the lucky ones. But Rahm's Fatherland has not done a very good job of looking after us.

A youngish man stands up and jeers. Others sit in silence, astonished by what they've heard.

Without saying another word, Rahm turns his back on us and marches out of the café. His lackeys follow close behind. There is a truck waiting for them outside.

With no more Nazis in the camp, I'm not sure what to do next. It's a strange feeling. I've been following orders for so long I feel a little lost without someone telling me what to do. “Clean that cauldron!” “No talking in the soup line!” “Pass those cardboard boxes, dirty Jews!”

There is no sense reporting to work. On the other hand, we have to eat. And those who are ill require medical attention. So yes, there is much to do.

“Are we still prisoners?” Theo asks Father.

Father hesitates. “Of course not.”

“Then why don't we go home?”

“Everything in its time.”

Mother grabs my hand and kisses my fingers. “Come help me find food,” she says. The diet kitchen is teeming with people who have the same idea. Someone tosses us an onion. I hold it to my chest. A whole yellow onion!

When we pass the Podmokly Kaserne, where the Nazi officers were billeted, I spot a long roll of what seems in the distance to be fabric. Bright yellow fabric, as bright as the sun, lying against the side of the building. “Should we take it?” I ask Mother. “Perhaps it can be used for bandages.”

It is only when we are close enough to touch it that we realize what sort of fabric this is. Yellow stars. Rows and rows of them, with the German word
Jude
—Jew— inscribed beneath each one in heavy black letters. The bolt must weigh nearly as much as me, but even so, I manage to cart it back to our apartment. I'm still hungry, but my strength is coming back.

We hear the tanks before we see them. A low roar, growing steadily louder, then dozens and dozens of dusty tanks, followed by almost as many dusty cars. There are men on horseback, and there are cannons too. “Hurrah! It's Koniev's Fifth Army Guards!” voices call out. “They have come to liberate Theresienstadt!”

I want to be happy, but mostly I feel as if I am in a dream. Or as if I am just beginning to wake up from a terrifying nightmare.

Theo wants to go off with one of his soccer friends, to see the tanks up close. “Bring this to the soldiers,” Mother says, handing him a cup of water. “They'll be thirsty on such a warm day.”

When Theo comes back, his eyes are glowing. “Look what they gave me,” he says breathlessly. Then he shows us what he is hiding behind his back: a German pistol. A Luger, but thank goodness, with no bullets inside.

Mother gasps, but Father laughs. His old throaty laugh, the one that starts in his belly. It is a sound I'd nearly forgotten.

Before the Russians came to Theresienstadt, I sometimes dreamt of what I'd do when I finally got my hands on a Nazi, or any German, for that matter. Aren't they all responsible, after all?

Sometimes my victim was the Nazi officer who'd thrust his sweaty hand inside my nightgown. In my dream, I pulled his hand away, called him a dog and told him to leave me alone. When he tried to hit Father, I tripped the Nazi from behind, and I laughed when he fell to the floor. Or sometimes I stared him in the face and spat at him, watching as my saliva dribbled down his chin.

Sometimes my victim was Commandant Rahm. In my dreams, I planned a special torture all for him. I did to him what he had ordered done to the artists. I sent him to work all day in the quarries, then forced him to do calisthenics until he collapsed. And then I kicked him until he was dead.