Collation

They shaved my head. Took my belongings. I brought the pocket watch my dad gave me. They took that too. They even took my clothes. They gave us numbers like we were some kind of cattle they were herding. They took my sister’s life, my little sister. They took my mother, she wasn’t even given a chance. They took my father, I found that out through some cousins. They took my dignity, my pride, my love. But they didn’t take my will.

The word nāśā in Hebrew means "forgiveness or pardon of sin." Growing up, we were told to forgive when somebody does us wrong. But I think only God can forgive and forget sins. And I’m not God. There are several people on this earth that I will never forgive. Most of them I’ve met in the camp. Even my mother, my strictly Orthodox mother, I don’t think she could have forgiven these people. What they have taken will never be replaced.

It’s been one hundred and eighty-six days in the camp. I will never forgive anyone here. Day fifty-two was when my sister was taken. She made it longer than anyone would have gambled. I learned that they usually take all of the handicapped prisoners and kill them immediately. Abigail only had some learning disabilities. She was set back in school a few years but she looked perfectly normal. Her mind just couldn’t comprehend everything very well. I don’t think she realized that this was an extermination camp, not a vacation.

Abigail and I were assigned to digging trenches with a hundred other women. Day after day, we dug with tools that could hardly be recognized as such. I often used a small handheld rake, but it only had one prong left. Abigail had one with two prongs left. We would dig for hours each day and barely make a dent in the ground. On day forty, my sister was getting so weak she could hardly stand. After feeding her my rations for a few days, she seemed to gain some strength back. Until one day, on day fifty-two, she collapsed. When she could not stand on her own anymore, guards dragged her away. If I had followed, resisted, or fought back, I would have been shot immediately. So I watched. As they drug my sister to her end, I watched. I don’t know how they did it. Whether it was the chamber, shooting, or burning, I don’t want to know. I do know that I would love to see it happen to them.

The winter is bitter. There is a blanket of snow that lays atop a line of corpses. The trenches we had been digging are used for mass graves. Every time we finish one, bodies are thrown into them. They line up prisoners in front of them and make them kneel. That way, when they shoot them, they fall right into the trench. My group has dug six trenches in the eighty-six days we have been here. I hate that we're helping them. We are making their executions easier. But I know if I refuse, my body will end up in the hole with the others.

I am determined to get out of here, determined to live for my sister, mother, and father. The rations are small. A day consists of a small cup of soup, bread, coffee, a tablespoon of margarine, sometimes even a minuscule piece of sausage. They figured out they could kill us without doing any work. Starving people to death is much cheaper and convenient.

“Alta, you must eat,” a woman named Lea says.

We are standing by the barracks with our morning rations in hand. I can't eat anything. I’m starving, but I can’t eat. When my dad was teaching me piano, growing up, he always said there was a wall you would hit. When you hit the wall, it was hard to get over it. You wouldn't get any worse, but you wouldn’t get any better either. The wall would stop you from making progress. It wasn’t until you put your heart into it that you could get over it. I think I have hit a wall. I want to fight, want to get out, but my strength is gone. I can’t get over the wall.

Day two hundred was when we received good news. Probably the best news any of us have ever heard. Lea received a letter in the mail from a friend in America. In her letter, there were three words hidden. Liberation is coming. We decided to celebrate.

My eyes scan the bunk in front of me. All of the women and young girls look at me with wide eyes. Our spread lay in front of us. We have saved rations, collected winter berries, stolen canned beans, and even managed to steal a bottle of liquor from the soldier's barracks. Tonight, we feast. It has been months of surviving. For some, it’s been years. Not living, but surviving. Tonight though, we feast; because freedom is coming.

“Liberation is coming.” I raise the bottle of liquor in the air. 

Their eyes flicker between the bottle and me. They know our time is coming to an end here. All they have to do is survive another few days, maybe a few weeks. There may not be any families to go back to, any bed to go curl up in, or home to settle back in. But freedom is coming. And that’s all we are craving.

That night, we ate, drank, shared dreams and fantasies of freedom, laughed, and slept. None of us had a better sleep than that night. Because even though the next day was a workday, we knew we would be free soon. So that night, we feasted.

A few weeks later, US troops came, just like Lea’s letter said. Lea didn’t get to see it though. One morning, she went to her work assignment and never came back. They calculated that millions of innocent people were killed in the past four years. Everyone that I love is a number in that. Liberation has come, but in some ways, I'm still under bondage. There is no escaping the torture that still comes from nightmares and flashbacks and the number inked on my arm. But I am free. The sun shines, the wind blows, I eat until I’m full, I sleep alone in bed. And on my kitchen table lies the letter that Lea received when we were still in camp. It is one thing that we were able to save. It sits on my table. One sentence underlined.

Liberation is coming.