Wayne sat down alone in the darkness and wept.
Linda approached him. “You going to be okay?”
“For God’s sake, she was only a child,” Wayne spoke with tears rolling down his cheeks.
Linda sat down next to him and put her arm around him in a supportive gesture.
Wayne cried, “A poor, defenseless, little girl. What happened? What the hell did she die for?”
Linda had already been incarcerated in the prisoner holding area for four days. She said, “Two days ago another child, an infant, was ill and wouldn’t stop crying. An SS man came for the baby and its mother. And then, a few minutes later, from the other side of the fence, two gun shots were heard.”
“It’s so horrible,” Wayne said. “How can humans be so inhumane to one another?”
“They’re not human. They don’t have normal human feelings. They’re trained to be Nazis, not boy scouts,” Linda said. “I haven’t introduced myself.” She put her hand out. “I’m Linda.”
“Wayne,” he shook her hand. He had stopped weeping and regained some of his composure.
“So, what’s your story, Wayne? Where’d you get picked up?”
The last thing Wayne wanted to do was make small talk with another prisoner.
“I’d rather be by myself right now,” he said sheepishly.
“I think it would make you feel better if you had somebody to talk to,” Linda said compassionately. He didn’t respond.
“Well, if you need an open ear…” she got up to leave.
Wayne rapidly sifted his situation through his mind. This woman might be of help to him, he thought. A feeling of loneliness overcame him, in addition to the feeling of desperation that already accompanied him. Wayne had a feeling as if he was the last sane person left on the planet. “I’m sorry, Linda. Please sit down. I can sure use that open ear,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Linda sat down again close beside Wayne. It was a very cold night. She put her arm around Wayne. “Do you mind?” she asked him.
Her body heat felt good to him too. “No, I never mind when a pretty girl wants to put an arm around me,” he said with a slight chuckle, but it was impossible for him to feel any tinge of elation being in the situation that he was currently in.
Linda asked him once again, “So, where did they pick you up?”
“NYU.”
“NYU?”
“Or the Center of Aryan Studies. Whatever the hell they call it now,” he said.
“What were you doing down there?”
“I’d rather not get into that now,” Wayne said irritably. The lack of sleep was also taking its toll on Wayne’s mood.
“I didn’t mean for you to jump down my throat,” Linda said.
“Sorry about that,” Wayne apologized. “I’ve been through a hell of a lot lately.” He then asked, “Where are you from, Linda?”
She replied, “The ghetto. Need I say more?”
“Where was your ghetto?”
“Does it matter where any of them are? Mine was not too far from here.” Linda had grown up in and had always lived in a ghetto because she was of Polish blood.
“Why did you leave your home?”
“Home?” Linda said. “Is that what you would call that rat hole? The Germans live in homes, not us. Four days ago, I was picked up in a Gestapo raid on the ghetto. The same with most of the other people in here.”
In the Reich, persons with unpure Germanic bloodlines or other subhumans like homosexuals or disabled people were obliged to live in ghettos. The ghettos were bleak and dispiriting sites. The ghettos contained no luxuries or necessities of twentieth-century life. No running water. No plumbing. No electricity. No sanitary conditions. Tuberculosis was wide spread. Some of the ghettos were relatively small, with populations of fewer than 50,000. Others were in themselves the size of small cities, with populations swelled above half a million. No ghettos, however, were located on pre-war native German soil. The Reich Ministry of the Interior decided long ago that such a thing would be undignified for Germany.
Wayne questioned, “Do you know what’s going to happen to us?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Linda said. “The rumor is that the Germans need more slave labor and that’s where we come in. That is probably why they continue to let us live.” She removed a stale piece of bread from her pocket and whispered to Wayne, “I have bread with me. You want to share it?”
“No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Linda bit into the hard bread. “But it ain’t going to last.”
Wayne fell asleep before Linda finished consuming the bread, using her shoulder as a pillow. Linda soon also dozed off as well.
That night, Wayne dreamed of happier times in his life. He dreamed of Camp Summit where he spend his childhood summers. He and his bunkmates went kayaking and got into trouble for tipping over the boats. Those days in Camp Summit were some of the happiest days of Wayne’s life.
Wayne has jolted back to reality as morning set in. At dawn, a loud siren pierced the air, waking up the sleeping inmates of the prisoner holding area.
SS men entered the compound, followed by SS Lieutenant Kramer, who carried a megaphone with him. The SS men went around and kicked or hit with a club any prisoners whom had not yet woken up to their satisfaction, which meant standing in place at attention.
SS Lieutenant Kramer put the megaphone up to his mouth. He said, with his gravelly voice amplified, “All you swine, up! Form two columns. Now.”
The prisoners dutifully followed Kramer’s instructions, helped along by the numerous SS men present. Linda got in line behind Wayne.
“Swine, march out!” Kramer ordered the prisoners.
The men, women, and children that made up the prisoner population walked in measured steps out of the holding area. They were led about half a kilometer by SS men to a train station and given the command to halt in front of an old German passenger train.
The train doors were opened and Wayne could see that it was already crowded. Those people appeared to Wayne to be much like the people he had spent the night with in the prisoner holding area; they wore the same blank and sad defeated look on their faces.
SS men directed the prisoners into the train cars in no apparent order, but did keep them moving as rapidly as they could. When a woman, as she was about to step up onto the train, slipped, an SS man picked her up and shoved her into the train compartment.
The musty, old train had been gutted of any seats or railings. The windows had been blackened. The Gestapo made sure the prisoners received no amenities at all, including breathing space. The prisoners had been packed on the train like sardines in a can. The train doors were closed and locked and the train began to move.
Wayne and Linda sat on the floor next to each other. Everyone was strangely quiet, even the children. Jessica’s mother, who was present in the same compartment as Wayne, sat there, with her knees pulled up to her chest, staring blankly into space. After about half an hour into their journey, something must have snapped in her head.
Suddenly, she cried out, “My baby! Where is my baby! Jessica! Please someone help me find my baby…”
The persons in the woman’s train compartment originally tried to ignore her, as people usually do on the streets when they happen upon a drunkard mumbling to himself. The prisoners looked the other way.
The woman’s frantic cries became louder and louder, turning into screams. “SOMEONE’S TAKEN MY BABY, SOMEONE’S TAKEN MY BABY! DEAR GOD, WHERE IS MY BABY? PLEASE SOMEONE, HELP ME FIND…”