The Last Witness (22 page)

“Jack Fisher.”

“Where do you live?”

Jack gave him the address.

“How old are you?”

“Eight.”

“Do your parents know you’re here?”

“They told me to meet them.”

“I see. So nobody’s at home then?”

Jack didn’t say anything.

“When did they tell you to meet them here?”

Jack mumbled under his breath.

“I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

“I said three years ago.”

“Three years ago? What do you mean?”

Jack didn’t know how to begin.

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

Jack shook his head.

“Somebody must be worried about you.”

“Kitchener used to be called Berlin, didn’t it?”

“Yes but what’s that got to do with anything? It’s not Berlin now. It hasn’t been for a long time.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Must be thirty years.”

“Thirty years?”

“That’s right. It’s been Kitchener for a long time. Since long before you were born.”

Jack was thinking.

“You got a phone number at that house you live in?” the porter said.

Jack said he did. He gave him the number.

“I’m going to call. You stay right here. All right?”

“Do you know when the next train is coming?”

The porter checked his watch. “In twenty minutes but it’s not coming from Berlin I can tell you that.”

“If you don’t mind I’d like to wait. Just to make sure. I’m not bothering anyone, am I?”

“No you’re not bothering anyone but I think somebody must be worried about you and I’m going to straighten that out right now. You stay here.”

The porter left to make the call. There was one more train coming before Jack would have to go home. One more train. Maybe that was the one.

Auschwitz, August 1944

28

Jacob’s Uncle Israel was always dead. He didn’t know what he looked like or how old he was, only that he was dead. It was the only thing Jacob ever knew about him. Shmuel Zelinsky was dead, too, but Jacob didn’t know that when he saw him covered in newspapers in the lane on Bazarowa Street or Basargasse as the Germans called it. But he knew he was dead when he saw his body thrown onto the truck the next day. If he had any doubt what it meant, it became abundantly clear the day he saw a man shot for walking on the sidewalk instead of in the gutter. The man was warned and kept walking defiantly, so they shot him and he crumpled like one of those pillowcases Jacob and Shimek filled with apples when they returned from the Aryan side. Blood poured from a hole in the man’s head as he lay in the gutter where he was supposed to be. But in the boxcar death got even closer.

Jacob was with his mother and father, his Aunt Gerda, and his cousins Zivia and Romek. They had been loaded onto the train at Lodz with countless others. Huddled on the floor next to his mother, Jacob didn’t know how many people were in that car. All of them were Jews and they were packed so tight no one could move.

The stench was terrible, even worse than the sewers had been. Once the doors slid shut and the train started to move, he could smell it right away. Shit. It was everywhere. They had been given one open bucket for everyone in the car, maybe a hundred people, but when the bucket overflowed there was nowhere to go, so they went in their pants, they went on the floor or they went on the person next to them. It didn’t help that the air was thin and hot, and you couldn’t
breathe. Children cried and women moaned and the old collapsed with no place to fall and everyone was scared because they all knew about Chelmno.

After a few hours, an old woman died and then an old man died. “Another one,” someone mumbled. They were sitting in the boxcar with corpses, and the longer the journey the more corpses there were. The smell kept getting worse and worse. At one point the train stopped, the doors opened, and two Germans with rags over their noses appeared. They wanted to get rid of the dead.
“Verfluchte Juden,”
they said. Someone pointed to the bodies and a voice cried out about them being tossed from the train, but one step inside the car was enough. The two Germans turned around and shut the door behind them.

A narrow slit was the only way to see outside, but not for the children. There were only five or six of them – Jacob, Zivia and Romek, and perhaps another three – but it was hard to tell because all the people looked alike after awhile. It was one huge mass of brown and stink and vomit and shit, and no one wanted to move because you might touch one of them even when you were one of them yourself.

It seemed forever in that boxcar. Finally, after two days, maybe three, the train screeched to a halt. There was the sound of dogs barking, loud banging on the doors, and voices screaming
“Heraus! Heraus!”
The doors slid open and a man in striped clothes, little more than a skeleton, jumped into the car.
“Hast du gold? Hast du gold?”
He was asking for gold in Yiddish and someone said he was crazy, but Jacob had gold. He hid the Russian coin Father Kasinski gave him in the heel of his shoe. The
chervonets
. Maybe if he gave this man his gold coin he could get something to eat. He raised his hand and started to holler, but nobody heard him or noticed him.

Two Germans carrying rifles followed the crazy man into the car, grabbed him by the shirt and threw him out, and then they started pushing people through the opening. They ordered
everyone out, but it was a long drop to the platform. An old man on his hands and knees peered over the edge, afraid to move, and was tossed from the train like a sack. He hit the pavement hard and when he was slow to get up the Germans who were already on the platform started kicking him. He told them he had to pee, so they stood him on his feet and rolled his pants down to his ankles, exposing him to everyone, and then they laughed and told him to go ahead. He stood there shaking before the pee trickled down his leg and gathered in a puddle at his feet.

Jacob climbed out of the boxcar with his mother and father, and the first thing that hit him was this crude stench in the air, but it wasn’t like the stench from the boxcar. It was different. He didn’t know what it was. It had been raining and the ground was still wet. There was muck everywhere and strange people in striped clothes standing around aimlessly and dogs sniffing and barking. When everyone was off the train, they were told to stand on the platform.

Jacob was next to his parents, and beside them were his Aunt Gerda, Zivia and Romek. Just then one of the SS started pointing. All the men were ordered into one line and the women and children into another, and it wasn’t long before the women began to scream and the children began to cry. As he was being led away, Jacob’s father reminded him about what he had said in the boxcar, about meeting at the train station in Berlin at Track No. 1. He looked over his shoulder at Jacob as a German shoved him with his rifle. It was a long look – the same look he gave his dead baby son in the sewer. When all the men were taken away, the Germans ordered the women and children to separate and then the bedlam got even worse. A woman with a baby in her arms wouldn’t let go of it. One of the SS tugged on the baby and still she wouldn’t let go, so he hit her across the face with his rifle, grabbed the baby and threw it to the ground. Then the worst thing Jacob had ever seen. Absolutely the worst. The man turned the gun on the baby and
fired. Just like that. The baby exploded. There is no other word for it. The woman started to scream. Hysterically. He pointed his gun at her and fired again.

Everyone saw it and everything went quiet.

Another SS ordered Zivia and Romek to one side – to the left – while Jacob’s Aunt Gerda was ordered to the right. Romek was crying for his mother, and Zivia had her arm around him, saying that things would be all right. Then the SS who was making the selections told Jacob’s mother to go to the right with her sister. He pointed his rifle at Jacob and said to go to the left with his cousins, but Jacob didn’t want to leave his mother. The man raised his rifle and stared at him, and without any warning smashed the butt of his gun on Jacob’s left shoulder. Hard. Square on the bone. Jacob dropped to the ground. His shoulder, his whole arm, felt as if it had been ripped off. The man stood over him and pointed the gun at his head. Jacob looked up at him.

“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.”

It was the first thing that came into his mind.

“Was?”
said the German.

“Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc ete in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

Jacob lowered his head and made the sign of the cross. The German still had his rifle pointed at him.

“Wie heist du?”
the man said.

“Mein name ist Jacub.”

The German lowered his rifle.

“Bist du Katholisch?”

“Ja. Ich bin Katholisch.”
Jacob looked over to his mother and his aunt.
“Und meine Mutter und meine T ante.”

The German touched Jacob’s blonde hair and studied his features. Jacob could feel his eyes examining his face, his nose, his cheeks, his mouth. He could feel his breath on him. The German called another SS over and the two of them talked, and when they were done talking, the one who had hit him motioned for Jacob to go with his mother and his aunt.

To the right.

A few minutes later, everyone in the line on the left – children, old people, women – were led away. Jacob didn’t see any children in his line. He was the only one. Then everything happened very quickly. German women with needles were grabbing people at random and sticking the needles into their arms, and when it was his turn, Jacob pulled back and looked around to see where to run, but there was no place to go. One of the women snatched his arm and jabbed the needle into him. It stung, and when she took it away, it left a number.
A-25073
. Then another woman started to shave their heads. Jacob’s mother had her head shaved and so did his Aunt Gerda, but when they were about to shave Jacob’s head, the SS man, the same one who had hit him, said to stop. He said something to the woman with the needle, and she let Jacob be.

They were marched into a long building and told to take off their clothes. Everything. At first the women hesitated, but then they went ahead and stripped, and soon Jacob was standing naked next to his mother and his aunt and they, too, were naked. The women tried covering themselves up with one hand over their breasts and the other between their legs. Jacob put his hands across his middle. They were led into a large empty room and told they were going to shower, but someone cried out that they were going to be gassed. Jacob thought he was about to die. It wasn’t the first time that day. He thought he would die when the SS pointed the rifle at him
and again when the woman came at him with the needle and now a third time. His mother held him tight, the doors closed, people screamed and for one horrifying moment the terror in that place was so thick and palpable that there wasn’t a single breath. Then the showers turned on. Cheers erupted and the cheers were even louder when the doors opened to let them out.

They were told to put their shoes on, which was good because Jacob had the
chervonets
in his heel. No one knew about it. Not even his mother. They were given baggy striped clothes and led outside, but that strange smell was still in the air. Jacob looked up and saw the black smoke rise into the sky.

29

Jack’s alarm went off at seven. He was uneasy because of the dream. He knew now that it was a dream, but it seemed so real. He was with Christine and it was strange because she was all grown up while he was a little boy and what made it even stranger was that they were at the camp. They were sleeping side by side in the barracks, sharing a bunk up on the third row. It was always the third row. That was their place. The siren went off at four o’clock as it did every morning and then they gathered outside for inspection, but no one else was there. Only the two of them. When it was over, they went back into the barracks to busy themselves. Packing down straw on the bunks and later, peeling potatoes and cleaning bricks. In the middle of the afternoon, they got their meal. Crusty bread with water. The Nazis called it soup. In the dream, Jack the little boy was bored to death.

“I want to play,” he said. “I want to play with the other children.”

“There are no other children,” Christine said. “You are lucky.”

“I want Mama and Papa.”

“They’re gone but don’t worry. You have me.”

“Where did they go?”

“They died in the gas chamber. Everyone is dead. All of them. The only ones left are you and me. We’re lucky. You don’t know how lucky we are.”

“I want …”

“Sha, Jacob. Sha.”

“But …”

“Sha. Sha. Hust.”

“Where are they?”

“
Es vet gornit helfen.”

“I want Mama and Papa.”

Christine held him close.

“Listen to me, Jacob. We are alive you and me. We’re alive! Let’s drink to it.
Le chayim!”

“Le chayim!”
Jack said. He didn’t even realize he had said it, but he heard himself. It was the first thing he said that morning. He was tossing back and forth in his bed and then he rolled over thinking Christine was in the bunk beside him. He reached out for her, but no one was there.

“Christine,” he said out loud.

He got up and washed his face. His body ached from the arthritis and the worst thing was that damn shoulder of his. He was hungry. When he was ready to go, he opened his door and went out to the hall. He wasn’t thinking right and didn’t even close his door. Halfway down the hall, right in front of Trudy’s room, he realized his mistake.

Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them but they are always there
.

That was Trudy’s message for today and where she found all these sayings Jack didn’t know, but she had a different one on her door every day. He turned around and headed back to his room and it was weird because something was pulling him there. Like a magnet. He had never felt that way before, but of course, he left his door open. That was it. He had to shut his door. Make sure it was locked.