The Earth Is Singing (21 page)

I stand in line with Mama and Sascha and although a nasty sick feeling has got me in the pit of my stomach I remind myself of Papa’s face and I think:
I will not give up.

We stand for an hour. It is cold, but there is no snow.

A Latvian policeman says that the elderly men and women and the mothers with children are being treated to a special sleigh so that they do not have to walk. These people are to form a separate column.

Mama catches my eye and as if of one mind we push Sascha between ourselves and cover her with our coats. Then we watch as other mothers holding tiny children by the hand and babies in their arms, walk towards the column to wait for their special sleigh.

“May God protect them,” whispers Mama.

The order is given for our column to start moving.

Each crack of the whip pushes us further forward. Sometimes the police use guns instead.

We pass out of
Ludzas iela
and into
Līksnas iela.

On the junction of these two streets is an SS man. He is holding a gun and a wooden club.

“Drop your packages here!” he commands, as we straggle by.

People begin to shed their bags and packets with looks of stunned disbelief.

I drop mine straight away. There seems little point in arguing with an armed member of the SS. Mama drops hers too, with an anguished look at Sascha. We have packed bread and a precious bottle of milk for her in our bags.

A woman who is either brave or stupid runs up to the SS man. She throws herself at his feet.

“Please,” she begs. “I have food for my children with me. Let me keep some of it!”

“You don’t need to worry about food where you are going,” says the SS man with a sneer. He uses the butt of his gun to hit the woman across the cheek. We hear the crack of bone and watch as she staggers back into line, clutching her face.

We are being marched past the old Jewish cemetery.

I remember Omama’s half-joke about how convenient our new lodgings were. A shudder of ice passes up my spine.

The road is slippery. Snow has melted during the night and made the pavements treacherous underfoot. I help Mama stay upright and together we are almost lifting Sascha’s feet off the ground so that she does not fall or worse, get trampled by the column.

When I glance back, the column is so long that I cannot see the end of it. There must be thousands of us here, being whipped and shouted towards who-knows-what.

We are now on the main
Maskavas iela.
The faint light of dawn is starting to appear.

Maybe the SS are panicking about the ordinary people of Rīga who will soon be using this road to go to their shops and offices. Maybe they haven’t allowed enough time to get us all to our destination, for they start to shout at us to go faster. Some people cannot. They fall to the side of the road and lie there, motionless and forgotten. If they are still alive they are finished off with a brief shot to the head.

We stumble on for several more kilometres.

Then I recognize the Rumbula railway station.

Mama and Papa used to bring me here when I was a little girl. We would walk from the station to the nearby forest and have a picnic amidst the trees.

I see this image as if I am looking into somebody else’s past and not my own. How can that fat little girl with the pigtails and chubby red cheeks rolling on a blanket be the same person I am today? Now I can hardly straighten my legs. Every bone in my body hurts. My teeth have become grey and loose from lack of brushing and my hair is starting to fall out from never having enough to eat.

Mama was so pretty. I can see her handing out the fresh rolls and smoked fish that she brought on our picnics. She bends over the food, her dark hair thick and lush and her lips full and red.

I glance sideways at Mama.

She looks like an old woman. She looks older now than Omama.

A terrible fear rips through me.

For the first time I realize that my mother is weak and vulnerable.

She is not a person to the Nazis. She is just another frail, starving Jew, cluttering up land that they want for themselves.

I look down at Sascha, stumbling along on her short pencil-legs between Mama and myself and my heart contracts.

Surely they must be able to spare the children?

I am brought back to the present with a jolt.

I can hear shooting.

This is not the occasional gunshot. No. This is the
ack-ack-ack
of a continual motion.

The harsh sound of dogs barking grows louder as we approach the forest.

I begin to shiver. Panic is rising up in me now and I get an overpowering urge to scream and break free, run in the opposite direction.

But we are surrounded by both SS and Latvian police now, along with their snarling, red-eyed dogs.

Mama begins to pray. I mouth the words with her in silence, trying to focus on them so that I don’t give in to my urge to try and run.

We are whipped and beaten towards a large box at the edge of the forest.

A soldier of the SS yells at us to remove our jewellery and put it along with any valuables into this box.

People obey meekly, like sheep.

The gold and silver flows into the box and onto the ground. I see the soldier pick up the fallen pieces and shove some of them into his pocket. He does this in full view of everybody, with an insolent grin.

What are you Jews going to do about it?

That’s what his expression says.

We are herded on ahead. A Latvian policeman orders us to remove our coats and throw them onto a huge pile which is growing in a pyramid nearby.

Mama removes Sascha’s little coat with shaking hands, fumbling at the buttons.

Sascha begins to wail. Mama shoots me a look of anguish. I crouch down and put my hand over Sascha’s mouth so that Mama can finish the unbuttoning.

“Be a good girl,” I say. “We will be staying with you, don’t worry.”

It is all I can think of to say. I cannot lie and say that everything will be all right.

The sound of guns becomes louder by the second.

We are pushed, shivering, towards another area where we are commanded to remove all our clothes and just keep on our underclothes.

There is no point refusing. We are done for, either way.

A group of young Jewish women take the clothes and sort them into piles. They do not look at us once. They have guns in their backs and no expressions on their thin faces.

There is no longer any deception, any faint hope that things will be all right or that we are going to a work camp.

The shots, the screams, the shivering, the terror.

Here, now, right in front of us.

Mama and I squeeze Sascha’s thin little hands as tightly as we can.

A part of me watches all this from above, detached and furious.

I can hardly believe that my short life is soon to be over in this way.

The cold bites into our bare flesh.

I am pushed on, shivering in my white knickers and vest, clinging to Mama and Sascha, who are also in their thin underclothes.

All around us women, children and old people are screaming, crying and praying. It is a mass of anguished sound, like thousands of trapped and wounded animals all baying for help.

We are forced forwards for a short while longer and then stopped with an abrupt command of “Halt!” from the soldiers.

And then I see it.

The pit.

It is almost full to the brim with bodies. Some of them are still. Others seem to be moving.

My eyes try to adjust to what I am seeing. The clack of the guns is deafening and people are being shoved into the pit so fast that they almost seem to blur.

“Oh my God,” Mama cries, gripping my arm. “Hanna, Hanna. It is the end.”

Tears begin to pour down my face.

In a flash I understand what is happening.

The Jews are being shot in the head where they lie in the pit. Then the next line of Jews is forced to lie, packed like Omama’s Baltic sardines, on top of the dead bodies. These living people are then killed in the same manner.

People are running and jumping down into the pits. It is like they are pleased to get in there, but I know this is not the case. It is just that you cannot disobey the order of the SS and their dogs and guns.

I hold Mama’s hand so tight that I am sure they can never break us up.

“I love you,” I say to my mother.

“Not as much as I love you,” says Mama. “I am proud to have been your mother.”

“Do you forgive me?” I say, panic rising in my heart. I have to know. I can’t go to my death not knowing.

“Nothing to forgive,” says Mama.

We are ripped apart by the guards.

“NO!” I scream. “Mama! Don’t leave me!”

Sascha and Mama run in front of me, down into the pit.

Everything seems to slow down. I see every exaggerated detail of their climb onto the dead bodies. The way that Mama’s knees fail to bend properly and she half-stumbles and lands on her back on top of the corpses. The way that Sascha does a tumbling head-over-heels into the grave, as if she is on a rubber mat in the school gymnasium.

I make to run after them and take my place by their side but I am halted by a gun in my chest.

They have enough people in that row.

And so, standing at the edge of that pit, I am forced to watch my mother and Sascha die.

Two shots. They seem louder than all the rest.

Mama gives one small jerk and then lies still.

But Sascha flies up into the air like a rag doll in white underwear before flopping back down again.

My screams fall on empty ears.

Everybody here is screaming.

I am alone.

“Into the pit!” commands the Latvian policeman standing next to me.

I start to stumble towards the pit, towards the dead bodies of Mama and Sascha.

I lie down on top of their corpses. I can feel the knees, knuckles and noses of the dead, poking into my back. I retch over and over but nothing comes out.

In my head I offer up my final prayers to God. I ask Him to find Papa and send him back to Rīga safely, so that at least one of our family might survive this war.

I ask Him for strength to face my final moments on this earth and I even manage to thank Him for all the good things I used to have in my life.

I lie and wait for my bullet. I squeeze shut my eyes and clench my teeth, ready for the impact.

And then He listens.

God listens.

There is a momentary uproar elsewhere in the forest. It is loud enough to distract the four marksmen who stand with their guns, one on each corner of the death pit.

I half open my eyes.

Their heads are turned for maybe five seconds.

I burrow right underneath the body of my mother. She is still warm.

Then I hold my breath with my mouth full of white cotton drawers. I pray like I have never prayed before.

Don’t see me. Please don’t see me.

More people are driven into the pit and lie down on top of Mama and Sascha.

I am squashed under the weight of the new people. They are all praying and muttering and crying to God. I can smell them – dirty clothes, unwashed bodies and hair, the smell of disease and starvation.

I hold my breath a little. I keep on praying and picturing the face of my papa.

The shooting starts again and the people on top of me jerk upwards and then are still. They grow heavier.

I pray to God that they are the last row of people to be put in this pit.

Blood begins to ooze downwards onto my face and arms but I daren’t move.

The breath is being squeezed out of me by the weight of the bodies above me. Mama is as light as a feather but the people on top of her are squashing us right down.

I start to feel dizzy from lack of air. I use my hand to make a cup around my mouth and I try to breathe in and out in slow, measured breaths.

The noise of the guns has stopped.

There are other noises – engines revving up, men shouting and laughing, dogs barking.

Then a new substance begins to filter down to where I am lying.

It feels like sand. But it has a sharp smell and a burning feel. My face and eyes begin to get sore and blister so I shut my eyes tight and press my face into Mama’s back. I think of when she was pregnant with me. I must have been pressed up against it from the other side, safe inside the womb.

“Mama,” I whisper, tears mixing with the burning substance in my eyes. The tears cool them a little.

A new weight begins to press down on me. I can’t think what it is, but then I strain my ears and think that I can hear the sound of shovels. Something thumps on top of the bodies and tiny lumps of grit and mud work their way down onto my face and body.

I panic.

Earth. They are closing the grave.

I am to be buried alive.

It is very dark.

I have no idea how long I have lain here.

My mouth is full of earth and insects. Soil chokes the back of my throat. It is steeped in the blood of the victims. I can taste the metal tang. I retch over and over. My nose is full of the damp earthiness of the forest mixed with the smell of bodies.

I am running out of oxygen. I feel weak from having no air to breathe and from the relentless weight of the bodies and the earth on top of me.

Disjointed thoughts pass through my head.

I think:

This is what it is like underneath trees, all the time.

I wonder if any of my bones have broken?

Am I really down here? Still alive? Or am I dead?

Later on, as the pressure on my chest increases and I feel weaker:

This is how Omama died.

She was so tiny and thin. She’d have never stood a chance.

Neither would Mama or Sascha. They had lost all their fight.

Then I think:

But I am still here, thinking stuff through. So I must be alive, right?

And if I’m alive, I might be able to work out what to do.

I have no indecision at all now. I know that I have to survive this. Not just to find Papa, but to tell other people what has happened to the Jews of Rīga.