Caught Between Heaven And Hell

Falling - Maria

There was a kapo above my head. Screaming for me to get up. Kapos were prisoners like us that actually kept us in line in exchange for privileges from the guards. There was bashing on the wall and no light. I had slept for about four hours. The roll call had taken at least Seven hours. Seven hours of standing. The pain of the work was still heavy on my shoulders and I was exhausted from the tiring work. Plus my knees were still sore, standing for that long didn’t do any help. It was like adding alcohol to a cut. And felt like I had been running up steep hills all day. 
I quickly got up as they continued to shout to move, make your beds. All we had to sleep on was basically a pile of old hay. There had been five people on the same slab of hay and one blanket for every bed. All of my brothers and sisters that were with me. I covered the kids with it as much I could and I slept with no warmth at all. It was freezing and all I had to cover me were I thin clothes I wore. No ounce of heat passed though the room, in the pit of winter.
The night was shocking. When one person needed to turn, we all did. When some one coughed, it woke the light sleepers. There were about five hundred “Beds,” by my count, in the cabin and extremely crowded. What a horrible way to sleep. Not to mention the ice wind. Not even all the bodies made it warm. It was like lying on a piece of ice.
So we made the haystack, covered it with the sheet and left it looking tidy. Then followed the skinnier people, who I knew had been here a while. They walked out onto the huge dirt slab, covered in snow. The place where I was beaten. This was called roll call. We lined in strait lines of ten and the bodies of the recently diseased were put in lines too. The dead-weights that had died of disease, beatings or starvation just during the night. The numbers were so big, though. The guards say that they died of ‘natural’ causes. There was more people there then yesterday who probably arrived in the night.
The guards checked our numbers and marked us all off. Including the dead and those fainting as it happened. I heard a loud noise that was much further away. I could see it because I was closer to the front. Old, wrinkly people were marching into a black building, meters away. Then came some others, I saw little children and then horror struck through me as I saw…my own Mama. Marching into the black building. She was carrying my youngest sister, Mica. They did not have the work clothes. They were wearing what I had seen them wearing last. I took a deep, but silent gulp. I probably realized what was going to happen to them over there, but I couldn’t comprehend it.
Then I noticed that walking behind my mother, was my grandparents too. They were trailing along. The guard bashing them to move faster. I couldn’t see Papa. But I didn’t understand, why are we not there? Why are we not wearing what we wore yesterday? Why is my mama, my baby sister and my grandparents in a different place?
The guard slammed the door shut when they all went inside. I could hear nothing now. I heard very faint noise before, but now there was dead silence. I was scared for them. I moved my eyes and looked strait ahead as the guard who was walking past, analyzed me. I didn’t move a muscle. Then they finished, once they had finished our line. It was breakfast and we walked in the direction of the building, but no where  near it. The others diverted to go to the kitchen. 
I casually sneaked away and hid behind the buildings, sneaking over to the black building. Making sure no guards were looking. My intention was to see my family.
I quickly looked back. The kids had followed the food line. There was a guard coming. I hid between a gap in the wall opposite the building. The guard was climbing a ladder to the top of the building. He put on a gas mask and pulled a large cylinder from a frozen container. The steam pierced the air. And I smelt it, the horrible gas smell and covered my mouth with my shirt. He opened the cylinder and I heard a metal door slam loudly from inside.
I was so close to it I could hear every word in  a muffled tone. The people inside were talking loudly. Then there was the rust sound of the opening of a hatch from above. There was a moment of silence and then what seemed to be a sound of release of a tight lid. I heard nothing but the beginning of horrible screams and banging on the walls. Loud screams which horrified me. Screams of pain. Screams of searing agony, amplified. Babies crying. Then it begun to fade. I heard people fall. Bodies dropping to the ground.
I knew that they were dying. I knew that they were falling because of death. I didn’t know what the guard had put in there, but I knew it was the reason for it. I knew that my Mama, my baby sister, my grandma and my grandpa had just died. They had just been killed for being what I am. Of the Jewish religion. And I wasn’t sure of much, but that was when I knew that I would not survive.

I hadn’t got the stale toast again. I think I may have eaten it today, but I quickly got in the queue to work. Because I hadn’t got any food at all, I was one of the first to get in line. That meant a good tool. According to a lady that is in our barrack. We went to the work area and begun to work on making things.
I didn’t speak. I just received the order, ‘You! Come with me!’ I ran as quickly as I possibly could. Falling with every step. He took me and a few other children my age. We were made to walk from the camp to a small farm house about three miles away. It was huge. Painted white, a massive veranda. I saw a bike and some other leisure things close by. But they shoved us in the house. There stood a guard. He was dressed just like all the others, only had a symbol on his suit, meaning that he was higher in the ranks then just a Guard that deals with us regularly, moving and such. I would imagine he would be a shooter guard.
The guard shoved us until were no more then about three inches away from the man.
‘As you requested.’ The guard that had brought us, spat. ‘Some young, new ones. Just shipped here. Not so old and warn out.’
‘Thank you.’ The shooter guard smiled, grimly. ‘They will do nicely, caring for my property.’ Then the other guard left and we were set to work. After he had set the orders, he started to threaten us, which I was becoming immune to.
‘And if you touch anything in this household that is not involved in your work, you won’t live to even see the camp again!’ He screamed. We stood back in automatic fear at his intimidating voice. A boy run down the stairs, he reached the bottom and then snarled at us in disgust, then another four followed, two were girls. Two boys. The girls danced down the stairs, wearing beautiful satin dresses and their hair curled and up in ties. And the boys in usual attire, overalls and the usual German style. Then I realized. The girl with dark hair on the left looked extremely familiar. She looked like someone very strange and distant to me, now. She had long, dark eyelashes and sparkling brown eyes. Her skin was as pale as me. Her lips were the same texture. Same tone. She was with out a doubt, my identical twin. She looked exactly like I did.
She ran past me and pursed her lips in pity, perhaps. Then went outside. She turned and faced me, looking me in the eyes. My eyes had followed her. She starred at me for a moment until I was startled by a scream. Turning my head around.
‘Look here!’ The guard snarled. I quickly aliened my eyes to look at him. He walked closer to me ‘You even look at them again, you will be gone so fast you won’t even be able to blink.’
I took the warning and did my work. Not shaking the feeling that she looked uncannily similar for a German girl. But when I got back, there was bad news waiting for me.
Another prisoner told me that they had taken all my sisters and brothers. I hadn’t at all seen Papa. I had no one. No family. Not even friends…
Who knows where they went. Maybe to the same fate as Mama…


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