To Be Heard

Content Warning: This story is set during the Holocaust through the eyes of a fictional character. This story will contain themes of violence and death, and depictions of Nazi occupation in Poland, as well as anti-Semitic themes (which I do not support). Extensive research has been done to ensure this text is as historically accurate as possible. Any relation to real people is purely coincidental. Viewer discretion is advised. 

There are two days in my childhood that time will never take: the day I got my camera and the day it almost cost me my life.

On my seventh birthday, after months of begging, my father bought me a beautiful 1938 SIDA camera in gun-metal gray that ran on specialized 33-millimeter film. Upon ripping off the paper wrapping, I squealed and hugged it to my chest, the cool metal pressing nicely against my skin. 

“Now, don’t you go using all the film all at once, Wanda,” cautioned my father. “That type is specialized just for that model, so it’s not easy to replace.”

Tapping the little camera, my mother smiled and offered, “Capture the photos that come with stories.”

I agreed, despite not understanding her advice at that moment, and spent the following months snapping photo after photo. 

A European green woodpecker— “It flew up on that branch, see? It was so close, mama! You could see all of its colors!”

A lone white lily— “I’ve never seen one on its own before! Isn’t it pretty, daddy?”

A star-filled sky— “How many do you think there are?”

Amidst my photographic adventures, I frequented the library two blocks from my home, run by Miss Ferenz, a widowed woman with tired hazel eyes who enjoyed staring into the sky. Several days per week, I skipped up the old stone steps and met her at the front desk, camera in hand. 

“May I use the darkroom, Miss Ferenz?” I’d ask each day.

“I still don’t understand why you ask,” she would answer with a smile.

All of the library’s books were confined to one wall of shelves at the entrance. Past that, the shelves were bare, covered in dust, devoid of any knowledge they may have once held. 

“Where are the rest of the books?” I once questioned on another trip to the darkroom.

Miss Ferenz’s eyes widened slightly behind her glasses, holding my gaze for a long moment, contemplating an answer.

“Another day,” she replied shortly, averting her eyes back to whatever she worked on behind her desk. I ceased to ask any further questions. 

———

Being the youngest on my block, I was barred from participating in games deemed “too difficult” and conversations deemed “too grown-up.” Therefore, I did what any eight-year-old would do: learn to eavesdrop.

“Did you hear,” began a blonde-haired boy one summer evening, “about those camps the soldiers are working on?”

“Shush! Don’t let the adults hear you talking about that!” A brunette girl hissed to him.

“But he’s right!” Argued another, shorter boy, who kept his voice to a whisper I strained to hear.

“I never said he was wrong,” the girl bit back, “I just don’t want anybody getting scolded.”

I kept stock-still on my front steps, fearing my presence would send the conversation crumbling to the pavement and I’d lose the “grown-up” knowledge I was receiving. This conversation, shared away from the adults in the darkness, was sacred— I didn’t even dare to breathe.

“Have you heard, though?” The blonde boy prompted again, his voice having dropped to a whisper.

“Certainly,” replied the brunette girl. “We all knew it was a joke when they told us they were simply work camps, now, didn’t we? Nobody was going to fall for that.”

The shorter boy shrugged and replied matter-of-factly, “Plenty of people fell for it. Why do you think it hasn’t stopped?”

“That,” added the blonde boy, “and the fact people don’t want to end up in those camps themselves. Those soldiers—“

“Nazis,” the girl corrected.

“Those Nazis don’t take kindly to those who defy them. They say you could end up stuck in those camps…or worse,” warned the boy, whom I had never witnessed take anything seriously in his life.

“How do they kill ‘em?” Questioned the short boy.

As the blonde opened his mouth, the brunette cried out in surprise, her hand popping up to point at me. 

“How long have you been there?!” The girl demanded.

“A bit,” I admitted sheepishly.

“How much did you hear?” The blonde added, to which I fell to silence.

The trio exchanged worried looks and spoke in nearly silent tones for several agonizing moments. They were contemplating what to do with me, weighing the options of what may happen with an eight-year-old sharing some of their knowledge.

“You didn’t hear it from us, got it, kid?” The brunette finally ordered, turning back to me with what seemed to be anger in her eyes. When I nodded, she breathed a sigh, turned her back to me, and promptly vanished into her home along with the two boys.

Whilst reflecting on that exchange years later, I realized my fault. It wasn’t anger in her eyes frightening my young self. It was fear. 

———

“Mama, what happens in the camps?” 

I dared the question at dinner some nights after my exchange with the older kids. My mother froze with her fork halfway to her mouth and slowly turned to look at me.

“Why do you ask?” She questioned, setting her fork on the table.

“Do they hurt people there?” I pressed.

“Wanda,” sighed my mother, “they’re work camps. They’re so people can have an easier time finding jobs to make money. Who told you people were hurt there?”

“Word on the street,” I lied.

“Regardless,” my father interjected, “it’s not our problem.”

“But people say—,” I started, only to be promptly cut off by my father.

“People are making up stories. Don’t worry about it,” he growled.

I shut my mouth.

———

“Agata!” I called the following evening, catching the brunette's attention as she was climbing her steps to return inside. Her eyes met mine for a brief moment before flicking away.

“You better not have snitched, kid,” Agata warned.

“No, no, I didn’t!” I assured her. “I have a question!”

Agata considered me for a moment, one hand on her home’s doorknob. 

“What about?” She questioned.

“The Nazis,” I answered.

Agata came down from her steps and beckoned me to the middle of the street. I jumped up from my own and hurried over. She knelt to meet me at eye level, for she was twice my height.

“What do you want to know?” She asked in a hushed voice.

“What do they do to the people in the camps?” I asked, matching her tone.

Her eyes scanned the quiet street, then returned to me.

“I’m only telling you this because I trust you won’t snitch, all right, kid?” When I nodded, she continued with an answer.

“Well, the word on the street is that there are two camps: one is a labor camp, and one is a death camp. At the death camp, they haul people in on trains, make them strip naked, and gas them.”

“Gas them?” I gasped.

“Yeah, lock them in little rooms and fill them with poisonous gas, or so I’ve heard. You’d need to ask a Nazi, and they’re not going to tell.”

“Why do they do it?”

Agata stared at me for a long moment— how sick I was of silence! Then, with a heavy sigh, she muttered an answer:

“Because they can.”

———

Two nights later, after dinner, I posed the question about the activities in the camps again, only to be met with the same story as before. The tone of my mother’s voice and the sternness of my father’s gaze should have warned me to shut up, yet I ignored this fact.

“Well, I heard people get gassed in the camps,” I blurted.

“Where did you hear that?!” My father barked, suddenly appearing in the living room from the kitchen.

“Word on the street,” I lied again. “Is it true?”

“Honey, those are just stories. Besides, it’s none of our business,” my mother explained sternly.

“Why is it none of our business?” I pressed on, my voice rising. “Shouldn’t we be helping people if they’re in trouble?” 

“Nobody is in trouble, Wanda,” my mother exasperated.

“Then why do the Nazis kill people who defy them?!” 

“Enough!” My father roared, “Wanda, I’ll break that damn camera and get you a doll instead if you keep this up!”

“No!” I cried, clutching my camera to my chest, my little arms wrapped around it like ropes.

“Then quit talking about Nazis and camps and killing! It’s none of our business, got it?” My father commanded, eyes full of a rage I’d never seen before.

“Got it,” I muttered begrudgingly.

I did not sleep that night; rather, my camera and I concocted a simple plan: if I wanted to be heard, I would have to prove it.

The following morning, my father must have believed I had already left, for I caught the end of a conversation I likely should never have heard.

“Thank God we’re not Jewish.”

———

“Darkroom?” 

“What do you know about the camps?”

Miss Ferenz’s expression became a mix of perplexity and curiosity. Her gaze snapped up to meet mine.

“Is it true that the Nazis hurt and kill people in the camps?” I asked.

Miss Ferenz hesitated. My heart raged. 

“Is it?” I pressed, fighting to keep my voice from rising to a shout.

Miss Ferenz held up her index finger, rose from her seat, and disappeared down the corridor for several minutes. When she returned, she did so with a cardboard box overflowing with more books than she had on the shelves. She plopped the box down on her desk.

“Here,” she explained, “you cannot check these out nor reveal I still have them, but you may read every word until sunset.” 

“What’s wrong with them? I questioned, pulling a book off the top of the pile.

“Do you remember when you asked me why the shelves were empty?” Miss Ferenz asked, which I confirmed with a nod.

“What the Nazis dislike, they eliminate, using the remains as an example to others to display the consequences of not conforming to their beliefs. Fire,” she explained, “is a ruthless destroyer, and its ashes are the remains of what once was and what will never be again.”

From sunrise to sunset, I did not have to worry about losing my camera. I was not restricted to what my parents refused to talk about. Some books spoke of a country across the ocean, dubbed the United States of America, where Miss Ferenz had a pen pal. Several more talked about Poland prior to 1942, much of which I never would have learned until I was older. Each sunset, the books were shoved back into their box and carried back down the corridor— I was unable to follow —and I would lay awake, too restless to sleep, in my bedroom with my camera, tormented by a plan I had yet to carry out. 

Don’t you want to be heard? I’d silently scold myself. You need proof to be heard! 

At the break of dawn on August 27, 1942, before my parents had even begun to awaken, I pulled on my shoes, snatched up my rain jacket, and set off with my camera on a mission we’d delayed far too long.

———

It took little time for the familiar sights of Wolka Okraglik to give way to disorienting greenery— no path was alike, yet no two looked remotely different. Each turn had me running into trees whose leaves blotted out the sky but did little to shield me from the fat teardrops of water that threatened to destroy my camera and, with it, my only chance at being taken seriously, at being right, at being heard. I hadn’t a clue of where I was going, nor the time, nor what my parents may be doing. I wasn’t even sure if I would make it back at all.

Large roots booby-trapped my paths, sending me stumbling through rocks and mud and low-hanging branches that scratched at my skin. Other branches tore at my clothing like mad animals, claws digging relentlessly into the fabric. I swatted at bugs that buzzed by my ears. I wondered if I was truly chasing a fantasy.

Crack.

The birds were silent.

My foot rose, revealing what I’d stepped on— a porcelain doll with curly brown hair, bright blue eyes, and an off-white dress…all stained with blood. 

Blood?

Ahead of the doll lay a brown teddy bear with its arm torn off. Blood was splattered on its face.

Blood.

I dared a step forward. I dared another, another, another, until I was standing in front of a massacre of dolls and bears and action figures, all covered in varying amounts of blood. From the color alone, most of it was fresh. My stomach twisted with nausea. My eyes widened in horror. My shaking hands brought my camera up to my eyes in a dreamlike state.

Click. Click. Click.

A train horn shot through the air, snapping my brain back into action. My camera locked in a death grip in my small hands, I took off through the forest, ripping through branches and roots and soaking leaves. Thunder shook the ground. I wrapped my camera in my rain jacket as the sky opened up and rain poured down in buckets. The wind screamed in my ears. The rain soaked me without remorse. My small body pleaded for rest, but I didn’t stop running until I came crashing into the library again, screaming to get into the darkroom.

It occurred to me years later that, in looking for life, I had been a step away from losing my own.

———

My camera and I watched Miss Ferenz bring the little negatives closer to her face, then further away again, then close again, saying nothing. My hair dripped with rainwater, each drop vanishing into the floor like a ghost. I toyed with the band-aids littering my arms and legs and scraped at the mud still on my face. In the agonizing silence, Miss Ferenz slowly turned to face me, and I beamed with pride. 

She heard me.

She gently placed two of the negatives into my free hand, sliding the third one into her pocket. I followed her out of the darkroom, through the lobby, and through the rainy streets of Wolka Okraglik to a small, square-like building just big enough for three. Inside, Miss Ferenz extracted the third negative from her pocket and slipped it gently into a white envelope. She licked along the seal flap, pressed it closed carefully, and took her time writing an address in black ink. She blew on it softly to allow it to dry. She slid it through the mail slot.

“Who are you mailing it to?” I finally asked.

Miss Ferenz turned to me, her face lit up with something like a smile.

“A friend.”

———

The young reporter is practically shaking with excitement.

“Now, you were eight years old at the time. Did you really not realize how close you were to Treblinka II at that moment?” He asks, shoving his microphone further into my face, which I politely remind him to stop doing. 

“No, I really didn’t know,” I confirm yet again, “and I hate to wonder what may have happened if I had stayed for another second.”

“Incredible, truly incredible! Your photo is one of a kind! Is it what le you to your career as a photojournalist now, Ms. Brzezinski?” The reporter continues, his words quickening.

“Most likely, though I’d always loved photography before that, it may have just cemented it,” I reply with a shrug.

“You are hailed as a hero for your photo, do you know that?”

“A hero?” I can’t help but chuckle at the label. “I’m no hero. I just wanted to be heard.”