Malka Adler - The Brothers of Auschwitz

It took all my strength not to step out of the line, not to make any sign. I made an effort to walk slowly like everyone else but inside, my body was jumping, bloomp, bloomp. As I approach them my heart beats like a sledge-hammer. I cough. Want to scratch myself and don’t move my hand. Another small step and the little girl points at me. Aaah. We stop. I hear myself crying like a baby, Mama, Mama. Aaah. The mother approaches the SSman from yesterday, smiles at him. He responds with a smile. She speaks to him in German. She says, the girl wants to give, ja. She speaks long and fast. I understand a bit. I understand she’s a widow, the wife of Officer Michael Schroder, yes. She was alone, waiting for the train to the city, ja. The SSman pinches the little girl’s cheek; the little girl wipes her cheek afterwards. The mother and the SSman laugh, ja. Ja. Ja. Mother gives SSman a package. SSman approaches me. God, God, God. SSman signals to me, open it. I glance at the prisoners. They have huge eyes and ears and they have a large mouth, a black mouth. Four prisoners close in on me. I am paralyzed. SSman raises his rifle. SSman signals the prisoners, back off, immediately. Prisoners take a step back. I hear them breathing fast. I feel as if my hands are on fire. I open the package and can’t believe my eyes. I am holding a sausage sandwich. A whole sandwich with sausage, for me. Two thick pieces of bread, and a fat slice of sausage. Two prisoners jump at me. They have yellow saliva on the chin. SSman fires a single bullet into the air. They halt. I swallow the sandwich all at once and feel as if there is a bone stuck in my throat, I swallow saliva, more saliva, and more, and the sandwich goes down slowly, slowly, hurting my esophagus. I am overjoyed. SSman shouts, march, march.

I stride on, my head turning backwards.

She has blue eyes that are looking at me. She has two light braids. One shorter. Her face is full of brown freckles and she smiles at me, and blushes. It took all I had to hold back a scream. Queen, my queen, beautiful queen. I pinch my leg, my ear too. I have a sharp prickling in my ear. Impossible, I’m dreaming. I’m asleep in the barracks and there’s a movie in my mind. I bite my tongue, it’s hot and it hurts. Another bite and I see the SSman bowing to the two. They nod and say thank you. Mother winks at the SSman. She comes to stand with the girl who has no scarf on her head. Her long hair swells like a gold ball. The SSman laughs, his cheeks reddening. The blue in his eyes glitters.

The file progresses. The wind increases, the cold even more. The trees bend to one side, the prisoners pull their shirts over their ears, it doesn’t help. I glance back. The distance between me and the red coat increases. The prisoner behind me hits me with a sharp elbow. He is tall. I am small. Don’t care. I want to call out to the girl, wave to her, throw my hat off, kick an imaginary, explosive goal between posts, doesn’t matter what posts, even the gate posts of the camp, I want to call to the sun to chase off the wind and clouds and warm the girl’s path to the house, I want to find a field of flowers, make her a huge bunch of flowers, want to run hand in hand with her through the fields, her braids flying from side to side, one shorter, one longer, find a white horse in the meadow, toss her up on the horse, sit behind her, hold her hips, reach the forest, scream, gallop, horse, gallop, laugh wildly, I’m alive, I’m alive, Mama, where am I, Mamaaa.

The Kapo’s screams made me jump. Two days had gone by and it was morning. The Kapo screams, get up, get up, outside, get in line. I don’t get up. Stay with the picture from the dream. I am kicked to my feet. And c-c-c-cold, so cold.

On the path, near the village, there she was again. A girl with braids, her mother beside her. I choked. The little girl pointed to me. Mother approached the regular SSman. They smile and play in German. SSman bends to hear the mother more clearly. The mother catches him by the arm, turns towards the village and shows him a house. He doesn’t see well. She gives him a package, he says, a moment please, gives me the package and walks off with the mother to see better. The girl looks at the mother and the SSman. Eight prisoners jump on me. I hold tightly to the package and feel fingers sticking in my ears, nose, neck, belly, I can’t see a thing, and then came the burst of fire, Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta. Am I dead? No, I was completely alive. In front of me stood SSman with a rifle in his hands and beside me, smeared on the asphalt were three prisoners in pools of blood. I looked down at myself and saw that I was alive. Looked at them – and they were dead.

I got up with the package in my hands. The tall SSman approached at a run, the mother after him. The SSman shooter pointed at us irritably. That is, at me and the newly dead. The SSman shooter walked away shouting, kicking at nothing. The regular SSman glared at me with an evil face. The girl came up, and he immediately signaled to her to halt. He was ashamed in front of the mother. As if saying to her, what can I do, they’re animals. Then he said to me, eat now. Eat. He had a low and hateful voice. And I didn’t want the mother to agree to marry him. I was mainly worried about the girl with the braids.

Inside the damp paper was a cooked carrot. I swallowed it, heard march. March.

They waited for me with food every day or two until the first snows fell. I ate sandwiches, cooked vegetables, fruit, and cake, sometimes they gave me an uncooked potato. I’d hide it in my pocket and wait for the moment they’d send me to fix things for the work manager. I had a tin box there. I would pour steam on the gas and cook a potato for myself. For long weeks they waited for me, the mother and the girl, and there was also the regular SSman who laughed with the mother. He didn’t kill me in the evenings at the camp. He didn’t throw me into another group. The regular SSman guarded me from other prisoners with the rifle and it turned out that a German girl saved my life.

I didn’t stop thinking about her for many years. I wanted to meet her after the war. I wanted to pull stars down from the sky for her. Make her a queen. I wanted, wanted. But I didn’t ask her name. I didn’t know that one day, one more day, I’d walk through the snow and no one would be standing there.

Three months went by. We were willing to die in the gas, body and soul.

The muzzle of a rifle aimed at me. Yes, aimed at the pelvis. The rifle of a sergeant in the armored corps, by the color and design of the cap on the shoulder. The sergeant’s face is sunburned and he sleeps with his back to a pole, a distance of about four-five meters from me. He looks like coffee on the stove. I miss hot chocolate. Sunburn fattens his lips, a broad jaw, impressive, looks like Kirk Douglas without the dimple in his chin. His hair is cut short, short, and the rifle is pointing straight at me, the magazine inside, ugh. I don’t have the energy for a rifle so early in the morning. Because of the rifles in the morning news I want to change my newspaper. I’m tired of reading it with the first coffee.

No rain, just the smell and fat clouds that hadn’t thinned for an hour. The eucalyptus trees stand tall as if on parade.

I take a small step back.

My ass is cold and I’m on my way to Nahariya. Yitzhak would say, what are you worried about, people have to walk around today with a rifle, hard times in Israel, and he’d laugh, say he was sorry, and get up to make a call about work. Dov would say, trust the soldier, he knows what a rifle is, he’s had training, he can sleep with an automatic in his hand, don’t worry and, in the meantime, why didn’t you go in for a drink. A small espresso?