“It’s all you will get until tomorrow,” she said. “You had better eat it.”
“It’s not kosher,” I said. At home on the farm, we only had kosher food—food that fulfilled the requirements of Jewish dietary law—that Papa blessed before every meal.
The twins laughed at us, but it was not a kind laugh, more like a boy-are-you-stupid laugh. And they greedily wolfed down the bread that Miriam and I offered them.
“We’re glad to have the extra bread,” they said, “but the two of you are going to have to learn to eat everything if you want to survive. You cannot be fussy, and you cannot worry about whether or not something is kosher.”
After the meal the Hungarian twins and some of the others briefed us. “You are in Birkenau,” they told us. “It is part of Auschwitz, but it’s three kilometers from the main camp. Auschwitz has one gas chamber and one crematorium.”
Miriam said, “I don’t understand.”
I asked, “What is a gas chamber? What is a crematorium?”
“Follow us, and we’ll show you.” The twins led us to the back of the barracks near the door where the barracks supervisor did not notice us. We looked up at the sky. Flames rose from chimneys that towered over Birkenau. Smoke covered the whole camp and fine ash filled the air, making it as dusky as the sky after an explosion of a volcano—it was that thick. Again, we were hit by that terrible smell.
Even though I was afraid to ask, I heard myself saying, “What are they burning so late in the evening?”
“People,” said a girl.
“You don’t burn people!” I said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“The Nazis do. They want to burn all the Jews.”
Somebody else said, “Did you see how the Nazis divided the people arriving on the trains into two groups this morning? They are probably burning one group right now. If the Nazis think you are young and strong enough to work, you are allowed to live. The rest are taken to the gas chambers and gassed to death.”
I thought of Mama who was so weak after her long illness.
I thought of Papa, clutching his prayer book.
I thought of our two older sisters.
Deep down, I knew without being told that they had been pushed into the line that had gone to the gas chamber. Against that feeling, I allowed myself to hope that maybe they were still alive. After all, they were older and smarter than Miriam and me.
“We are children,” I said. “We can’t work, but we’re still alive.”
“For now,” replied a twin. “And it’s only because we’re twins, and they use us in experiments conducted by Dr. Mengele. He’ll be here tomorrow right after roll call.”
In a quavering voice, I asked, “What experiments?”
Lea, a twelve-year-old twin, told us to stop worrying and go to bed.
The children slept in their clothes and shoes, so Miriam and I did, too. We lay in our wooden bunk on a straw mattress in our matching dresses. Although I was tired, I could not sleep. Tossing and turning, I noticed something moving on the floor. “There are mice in here!” The scream came out of me without my thinking about it.
“Quiet!” someone said. “Those are not mice, they are rats. They won’t hurt you if you don’t have any food in your bed. Now go to sleep.” I had seen mice before on our farm, but they were not huge like these rats; these rodents were the size of small cats.
I needed to use the latrine and so did Miriam. In the dark, we put our feet down, slowly, carefully, because of the rats. We kicked our shoes back and forth to scare them away. Then we hurried to the end of the barracks. The latrine was about twelve feet square, with dark wooden walls and a cement floor. Latrines are not like bathrooms today; they have floors with holes in them that you have to perch over. They were even worse than the rest of the barracks. Vomit and human feces that had missed the holes of the latrine were everywhere. The smell was hideous.
We stepped inside and I froze. There on the floor in the filth were the dead bodies of three naked children. I had never seen a dead person before. There they lay, on that hard, cold, stinking floor . . . dead. At precisely that moment, I realized that death could happen to Miriam and me. I silently vowed to do everything in my power to make sure that Miriam and I did not end up dead like those children. We were going to be stronger, smarter, whatever it took not to end up that way.
From that point forward, in my mind, we were always going to walk out of the camp alive. I never permitted fears or doubts to dominate my thoughts. As soon as they entered my mind, I pushed them out forcefully. From the moment I left the latrine, I concentrated all my being on one thing: how to survive one more day in this horrible place.
CHAPTER FOUR
In the morning a whistle shrieked. It was still dark. “Up! Up! Up!” shouted the barracks supervisor, a pflegerin, or nurse, who took care of us. She wore a white coat. “Get ready!” she screeched.
Miriam and I did not know the routine yet. Holding hands we watched the older girls helping little ones prepare for roll call. Outside we lined up in rows of five to be counted. Roll call took half an hour to an hour. Looking back, I do not remember a single child sitting down or crying. Not even the two-year-olds. I think we understood instinctively that our lives depended on cooperation.
After roll call, we went inside to straighten up the barracks. The three dead children Miriam and I had seen at the latrine the night before were no longer on the floor. We learned that when a child died, the other children in the same bunk could not stand lying next to a dead body, so they removed the corpse to the latrine and kept her clothing for themselves.
As for the three dead bodies Miriam and I had seen, adults had put them back into their bunks to be counted. Every day, every child had to be counted, dead or alive. Dr. Mengele knew how many twins he had, and no corpse could be disposed of without following procedure.
That first morning an SS guard waited at the front of the barracks. “Doctor MENGELE is COMING!” she yelled. The supervisors seemed nervous, twitchy with anticipation of the great man. Miriam and I stood at attention, not daring to move or breathe.
Dr. Josef Mengele entered the barracks. He was dressed elegantly in an SS uniform and tall, shiny black riding boots. He wore white gloves and carried a baton. My first thought was how handsome he was, like a movie star. He strode through the barracks, counting twins at every bunk, with an entourage of eight people accompanying him. We later found out that the group included a Dr. Konig, a girl who was the interpreter, and several SS guards and assistants. Mengele was never escorted by fewer than eight in his entourage at these barracks checks.
When Dr. Mengele stopped at the bunks containing the three dead bodies, he flew into a rage. “Why did you let these children die?” he screamed at the nurse and SS guards. “I cannot afford to lose even one child!”
Our nurse and the supervisors trembled.
He continued counting until he came to Miriam and me. He stopped and looked at us. I was petrified. Then he moved on. The other children told us that he had been on the selection platform the day before when we had arrived. He was the one who made the selections of the prisoners with a flick of his baton. To the right meant the gas chamber, to the left, the camp and forced labor.
After Mengele left the barracks, we received our morning food rations. Miriam and I drank the fake coffee, although it tasted awful. Most importantly, it was made from boiled water, and we soon learned that meant it was safe and would not give us dysentery—endless diarrhea.