Just Like Nature

We were packed like sardines in a tin. The putrid smell of urine clouded my nostrils and my eyes watered at the horrible stench of body odor that surrounded me. My calves ached, but I knew if I sat down I would never have the strength to rise again. My neighbors shared the same predicament. Ever since boarding that crowded box car I had never looked in a mirror, but I had a general idea of my appearance by observing the other passengers aboard.

It was dark inside the train, but it was still possible to see that their pale faces shone like the despairing moon. Their once healthy, rosy cheeks were but a forgotten memory experienced long ago. There were no windows in the box train except for the small cracks in the wood which expressed poor workmanship. After all, this train was meant to be for cattle not people.

I was one of the lucky ones on the train since I had the good fortune to stand next to a particularly large hole in the wood. There were a lot of things I could do with that hole.

I peeked through it and watched the passing countryside which often rekindled my hope. Outside the fields were bare, the corn stalks covered in powdery snow, and the rivers and lakes frozen solid. It was a drab landscape but it was much more pleasant to look at than the poor sight inside the train.

I stuck my tongue out of the hole and a few snowflakes landed on it. Nature’s water. I had to be careful when I did that, lest I should cut my tongue on the rough wood or, even worse, get splinters.

Some courageous early dawn light seeped through the cracks, illuminating the imperfections on our sallow faces. Even with all our mishaps, it still graced us with its presence. The sunlight was the only creature who dared to see us when nobody else would. Nature looked past our history and appearances.

I saw bits of dust rise in the faint sunlight. My nose itched, but I knew if I touched my face I would get sick. My parents would never have wanted that. I missed them a lot, but I never cried. Crying would waste both water and energy. I was strategizing the best way to survive. I felt selfish for doing this. A daughter should cry for the death of her parents. But why didn’t I?

***

Through that same hole, I later watched as a warm glow rose in the east. I knew it was the east because the east was where the sun first shone its heavenly rays on earth.

My late grandmother, or Bubbe as I liked to call her, once told me that thousands of tiny fairies, like fireflies, used their magic to paint the sky. She told me that if the fairies grew extinct, there would be no light and the Moon Queen would rule over the world completely with her dark and mysterious reign.

My Bubbe had also told me stories of the Moon Queen whose whole life was dedicated to making schemes (which were as countless as her subjects, the stars) to make the light fairies disappear so only she would rule. Her wicked plots were always thwarted by the fairies in some humorous manner. Those were the stories my Bubbe told me when I was a little girl.

Even so, I never believed in witches or warlocks or centaurs or mermaids like other girls my age. I never read fairy tales because I thought they were a waste of time. I only listened to my Bubbe’s stories because I liked the way she told them.

At all the exciting parts, her voice rose into a crescendo which made the entire audience absorbed into the story. At the scary parts, she hugged me close as if she’d never let go. At the funny parts, she let out a merry laugh which echoed along the walls of my mansion back home. The thought of my Bubbe’s stories about light fairies and Moon Queen’s made me quietly giggle to myself in the dank, smelly train.

“What are you laughing at?” A small voice whispered. I looked to my right and saw a young boy, about seven years old, holding hands with what seemed like his mother. He looked like the rest of our neighbors except that there was a distinguishable twinkle in his eyes.

“I laughed at a story that my grandmother always told me.”

“Oh, can you tell me? I’d like to laugh,” the boy replied with all the innocence a youth possessed.

“Yona, do not talk to strangers,” whispered the woman I thought was Yona’s mother. She had a thick accent, like the rest of us. She grabbed his shoulders and steered him away from me.

“But Aunt, I want to hear a story,” the boy protested. “She’s not a stranger because she laughed. Bad people don’t laugh.”

Yona’s aunt looked me up and down. Surely a weak girl of sixteen could do no harm, she thought. She stiffly nodded at me and pushed forward her nephew.

She tried to look tough, but I could tell from her face that she was exhausted from hiding and running. We all were. There were many deep wrinkles around her forehead birthed from stress and worry. Her clothes were not fit for an animal. No one would bother to dress a rat in nice clothing, not even a princess rat like me.

Her hurt eyes had lost their spark. She’d silenced herself all her life, but I knew that she longed to speak her mind about the crimes of reality. Yet, she was willing to snuff out her burning thirst for justice if that meant clothing on her back and a bowl of murky soup a day.

Survival was more important than allowing her spirit to live. Being a Jew meant giving up one to keep the other.

Those dull eyes were engraved in my memory forever. They expressed that of a wounded bear who had fought others in self defense. Bets were laid on her and the other dozen pairs of starved hound dogs who were to be her challengers. The canines won more than half of the time.

Yona waddled over to me and squeezed my hand. I never had a brother and never felt the sisterly urge to take care of anybody else but myself before. I looked down at him and he looked up at me curiously.

“Now can you tell me that story so I can laugh, too?” he asked.

I look back at the boy’s aunt for permission and she nods.

“Ok, Yona.” And I began with the words, “Once upon a time…”

***

I stepped off the train for the first time in days. My boots landed in the soft white snow. Crunch. How I was still able to stand, was a miracle. Everyone filed out behind me. There was shouting in all directions, but I continued to follow the flow of people.

All too familiar people wearing a red armband with a white symbol roughly herded us through huge ominous metal gates that screamed the words, “Beware.”

I was tossed into a sea of people and never gave a second thought about where Yona and his aunt had gone. I never even got the chance to say goodbye, but I’m glad I didn’t need to. I was terrible at goodbyes.

We filed into the camps I’d heard stories about back home. The one thing they all had in common: those who entered, never returned.

***

“But you returned, didn’t you Bubbe?”

“Yes Eva dear, I did and now we’re here to honor those who did not.”

I was a WWII survivor. My strength of mind, spirit, a little luck, and divine intervention kept me alive. God kept me alive so I could tell the truths of those times I was imprisoned.

I looked down at my little girl who was holding my hand. She would be my successor who would continue to tell the world the cruel truth.

It was cold outside but her tiny violet mittens warmed both of our hands. Her smile thawed my heart. Her electric red hair stuck out against the snow reminding me of a cardinal. We looked nothing alike. She was my adopted daughter.

“Can I place the wreath with you, Bubbe?” Eva asked.

“Yes, but before we do that can you answer my question?”

“I’ll try.”

“Alright, little one. Do you know why we’re doing this?”

“Bubbe,” Eva says playfully, wrapping her little finger around a strand of my curly greying hair. “That’s easy. To pay respect to everybody who didn’t make it out.”

“Yes, dear.”

I give the girl a small kiss on her right cheek. Photographers and reporters surround the two of us, snapping away with their cameras and scribbling down notes on their cheap notebooks.

Together, we bend down and place an evergreen wreath on a raised gravestone. It was simple but made from an expensive piece of granite. Names were carved into the block. Each one belonged to a person who lived and died at the camp.

The dull eyes I'd seen in the train continued to haunt my dreams. Their minds screamed for justice to reign. I would be the one who would tell the people their stories.

Eva hugs me as I look past her toward Auschwitz. The barbed wire is cut and rusting and the inside of camp is empty. The looming furnaces in the distance emit no smoke or heat. All is still. Even with the camp unoccupied, it is not a beautiful sight and never would be. Only horrible memories and suffering haunt that place.

At the entrance of the camp, the only object worth anything is a barren tree; the only piece of nature miles around. That tree was only a sapling when I entered the camp but, years later, it had grown into a majestic tree.

It was still dormant so I could only imagine its beauty during spring when its flowers blossomed. Maybe soon the world would learn to accept the truth just like nature had long ago to me on a cattle train.