Miriam and I helped Papa and our older sisters build a tent on the damp ground out of the sheets and blankets we had brought. We struggled and huffed while the ghetto commandant strode back and forth with his hands on his hips shouting, “Isn’t it nice that I get to see the children of Israel living in tents like in the days of Moses?” He laughed uproariously as if he had told himself the funniest joke on earth.
Our entire family stayed in the same tent. Every time the sky darkened and it began to rain, the commandant barked through a loudspeaker, “Take down the tents! I want them to be built now on the other side.” There was no reason for this except simple cruelty. By the time we took down our tents, crossed the bridge, and set up our shelter again in the mud, we were soaked.
Mama was still very weak from her illness, and living outdoors in the rain and cold just made her worse. At night Miriam and I slept close together, our small bodies giving each other warmth and comfort.
During our stay, the head of each family was taken to the headquarters for interrogation. One day, German guards came for Papa and took him away for questioning. They believed my parents were hiding gold and silver or had concealed valuables at our farm; they wanted to know exactly where. But Papa was a farmer and his only riches were his land and the crops he produced. He told the guards he had no silver except our Shabbat, or Sabbath, candlesticks. Four or five hours later they carried him back to our tent on a stretcher. He was covered with whip marks, oozing blood. They had burned his fingernails and toenails with the flame of candles. It took him many days to recover.
Miriam and I felt helpless. We were still children and expected our parents to take care of us. But there was nothing they could do to make it better for us. And there was nothing we could do for Papa.
Our older sister Edit took charge of the cooking. We had been told to bring two weeks’ worth of food when we came, but Mama had us girls bring everything we could carry—beans, bread, and noodles. As the weeks went by, we rationed our food and ate beans once a day. Sometimes non-Jewish people came to the edge of the ghetto and threw in food and other supplies, but I do not remember if we ever got any of that to eat.
Finally, Mama had realized just how bad things really were for our family. Miriam and I complained about sleeping on the wet ground and about that gnawing ache in our tummies all the time, but Mama could not help us as she used to do. She sat on the ground, shaking her head over and over again. “It’s all my fault,” she said. “We should have gone to Palestine.” Her eyes, sunken by her illness and with dark circles under them from lack of proper sleep, showed that she was haunted by her decision not to flee to Palestine with Uncle Aaron when they had the chance. Now, trapped in the squalor and deprivation of the ghetto, she grew increasingly withdrawn and depressed.
On a morning in May, 1944, German guards told us we were going to a labor camp, which they said was in Hungary. “This is for your own protection. If you work you will live,” they said. “Your families will stay together.” We had heard rumors circulating among the grownups in the ghettos that Jews sent to Germany would be killed. So we thought that if we stayed in Hungary, we would be all right, we would be safe.
The guards told us to leave our belongings, that everything we would need would be at the labor camp. Nevertheless, Mama and our older sisters took a few valuables from our tent. Papa carried his prayer book. Miriam and I put on our matching burgundy dresses.
The guards marched us to the train tracks and herded us into cattle cars, pushing and shoving until one car was packed with eighty or one hundred people. The guards made Papa responsible for our car. Papa was told that if anyone escaped, he would be shot. The doors were slammed shut and sealed with a metal bar that slid into two handles. Barbed wire covered four small windows up high, two on each side. How could anyone escape?
Miriam and I pressed close together. There was no room to sit or lie down, not even for young children like us. Even though I was just a little girl, I could sense that something awful was about to happen. Just seeing our parents so powerless, parents that I had always seen as our protectors no longer able to protect our family, had turned any sense of safety I had completely upside-down.
For days, our train rushed along the tracks, the endless sound of the clacking interrupted only by an occasional hoot of the train’s horn. Not only did we have no place to sit or lie down, we had no food or water, and no bathrooms. I remember being very thirsty, my mouth pasty and dry.
When the train stopped for refueling on the first day, Papa asked the guard for water. The guard demanded five gold watches in exchange. The grownups gathered the watches and handed them over. Then the guard tossed a bucketful of water toward the barbed-wired window. Water splashed in uselessly. I don’t remember anyone getting any. I may have had a drop or two, but that did not begin to quench my thirst. The second day, the train stopped again, and the same thing happened with the water.
At the end of the third day, the cattle car stopped, and Papa, speaking Hungarian, asked a guard for water. Someone answered in German, “Vass? Vass?” What? What? He had not understood Papa.
Then it hit us: We were not in Hungary anymore. We had crossed the border into Poland, now German territory.
A feeling of horror took hold of us. Up until then, there was hope. Everybody, including me, had understood that as long as we stayed in Hungary, there was some chance that we would go to a labor camp to work. Everyone knew by now that Germans and Germany meant death to Jews. Many people started praying. The cattle car filled with the sound of adults barely stifling their crying, children feeding off their exposed despair. Here and there someone attempted to chant the Sh’ma, the Hebrew prayer to God to hear us, to save us.
The train began moving again. Miriam and I were quiet as it gathered speed, going faster and faster. We had gone three days without food or water.
On the fourth day, the train stopped. Papa called out again to the guard for water. No one answered.
We realized we must have arrived at our destination. I stood on tiptoes to look through the window. The sky was dark. We heard lots of German voices yelling orders outside for an hour or two. The doors stayed closed.
Dawn finally came, time for Papa to say his morning prayers. He took out his prayer book and tried to figure out which direction was east, because Jewish people pray to the direction of Israel, which is in the Middle East. I wondered how he could pray at a time like this.
“Papa,” I said, “we don’t know where we are. They have lied to us. We are not at a work camp.”
“Eva, we must pray to God for mercy,” said Papa. “Come to me.” He pulled our family into a corner of the cattle car. Miriam and I squeezed close to him, and our sisters and Mama followed. We listened quietly to our father as he spoke. “Promise me that if any of you survives this terrible war, you will go to Palestine where your uncle Aaron lives and where Jews can live in peace.”
He had never spoken to us girls like this before, with respect, as though we were adults. Miriam and I and our older sisters solemnly agreed.
Papa began his morning prayers.
Outside I could hear German voices yelling orders. Dogs barked at us from every direction. The doors of the cattle car screeched open. SS guards ordered everybody out.
“Schnell! Schnell!” Quick! Quick!