I hurried on to the administration building to pick up my package, darkness descending on the camp. A family of rats, big as cats, walked across the road ahead of me, no longer afraid of people. I claimed my bundle at the postal window and glanced at the return address: Lublin Postal Center, Lublin, Poland, written in Papa’s hand. I opened it as I walked back down the hallway, my wooden clogs echoing on the polished floor, and pulled out another spool of red thread.
I never tired of seeing that. He’d sent two more since the first. Had Papa gotten word out to the world? If we were to die before the camp was liberated, at least everyone would know what happened, and the Germans would be punished for what they’d done. His packages had helped Zuzanna with her dysentery, but she’d then caught something else going block to block to doctor other prisoners. Headache, chills, fever. From the rash on her arms alone, we both knew what it was: typhus. Nothing but liberation could help with that.
I passed the desk of Brit Christiansen, a Danish girl I knew, one of many Scandinavian prisoners who worked the front office. She was tall with a short blond bob and a pretty constellation of beige moles scattered down her cheek. I’d never even met a Danish person before the camp and now found they were among my favorite people. Gentle. Trustworthy. Kind.
“I have two things to tell you, and we must be quick,” Brit said in a soft voice. “One is an SS man, high up, came today inquiring about your mother.”
“What? Who?”
“Not sure, but he was very tall.”
Lennart! Here at Ravensbrück? Was Matka here too somewhere?
Brit pulled me closer. “And also, they are hunting Rabbits today.”
Those words gave me gooseflesh all over. “But it’s almost dark. A night selection?”
“Binz is on the warpath. Suhren is coming too. They doubled the liquor ration for the guards.”
“We’ll have to hide,” I said.
Could I get Zuzanna under the block? Or Anise could hide us with the Hungarian Jews again. The typhus ward?
“They know you’ve been hiding under the block, Kasia.”
“We’ll go up to the Annex.”
“They know that too. And there are new buses here.”
Buses. A jolt of fear shot through me. There was no time for hysterics.
I hurried back to the block.
An inky blackness settled in around me, for there was no moon that night. The floodlights above clicked on as I ran the best I could despite my bad leg, pushing women aside on the way to my block.
Just don’t feel anything. If you are to live, you cannot feel.
I knew as I entered the block that word of the hunt preceded me, for girls were crying and holding one another. I pushed through women from every country Hitler had plundered, the room a jumble of different languages: Russian, French, Hungarian, Polish. I found Zuzanna on our bunk, knees to her chest, shaking with chills. She barely lifted her head.
“Have you heard?” I said. I sat next to her on the bunk and stroked her forehead. “They are coming for the Rabbits. You need to get up, my darling.”
Zuzanna opened her eyes and then closed them. “No, Kasia.”
Anise pushed through the crowd, calling my name.
“Get out now, Kasia,” Anise said in her calm way. “They are coming. Binz and Suhren and the woman doctor. The Red Cross already took the Swedish girls, and French girls are being taken next. From the linen shop. I’ll keep the back window open for you.”
“In buses?” I said.
“Yes. Use the number 9284. It’s safe. I could only get one.”
I grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t go, Anise. How do you know it’s not a death transport?”
How many times had we seen them trick women into buses? Some looked like ambulances, with red crosses painted on the sides. We heard them drive around to the little painter’s shack and cut their engines. After that, those prisoners’ clothes would come back to the linen shop, smelling of the sweet, unmistakable odor of gas.
“It’s the Swedish Red Cross, Kasia, the real thing, and you need to hurry.”
“Girls, we have Appell,” said Marzenka, banging a pot with a wooden spoon.
Anise ran out with one last look back.
I pulled Zuzanna by the hand. “We need to—”
“No, Kasia. You go.”
She tried to lie back down on the bunk.
“We need to get under the block,” I said as I pulled her up, held her around the waist, and guided her through the crowd toward the door, her weight light against me, like a dried branch.
Marzenka stood on a dining bench, hoarse from yelling above the din.
“Please. Binz has given me her word no harm will come to any of you.”
That only increased the panic, and many ran for the door, but Binz and her dog appeared there ahead of her Aufseherinnen. Just outside the doorway stood Commandant Suhren and Dr. Oberheuser, she with clipboard in hand. I was close enough to see light snow on the shoulders of Binz’s gray cape. Her dog nipped at Zuzanna’s leg, and we drew back.
“Everyone out here now for Appell,” said Binz. “Disobey orders, and you will be shot.”
Dr. Oberheuser at a block selection? We were trapped with no choice but to comply. No time to get to our hiding place. I pulled up my socks. Would the doctor recognize me?
I supported Zuzanna as we all filed out onto Beauty Road in front of the block and stood at attention in the cool night air, the lights above shining bright. What if we ran? Even if we had good legs to run with, the dogs would finish us. Though it was cold, I felt hot all over. This was it. Why had I not been faster?
Binz and Dr. Oberheuser walked up and down our ranks and checked our numbers. Binz stopped in front of me, crop in hand.
“Roll down your stockings,” she said.
So this was how it was to end.
I rolled down one sock. It revealed my good leg. Binz motioned to Dr. Oberheuser.
The doctor paused.
“Well, Doctor?” Binz said.
I held my breath. The doctor seemed frozen in a dream as she stared at me. Was that hatred or pity? She motioned to my other leg.
“The other one,” Binz said. I rolled my other sock down, over the smooth ridges of indentations where my muscles once were. The doctor must have recognized her handiwork, for she nodded a quick yes to Binz, and they moved on to Zuzanna. Zuzanna looked at me. Be strong, that look said. Next we would go to the wall. Would I be able to be brave like the others and walk down Beauty Road, head held high?
Dr. Oberheuser seemed puzzled by Zuzanna at first, for her scars were not as obvious as others’. Would she let Zuzanna go? Send me to the wall, I prayed. Let my sister live. Let one of us go home to Papa.
The doctor nodded to Binz.
Yes.
Zuzanna took hold of my hand. We’d go to the shooting wall together as we’d always planned, there for each other until the end.
Then something very strange happened.
The lights went out.
Not just the floodlights but also every light in the camp. It was as if the hand of God had come down and drenched us in the kind of velvety black where you can’t see a single thing. Girls called to one another. Suhren, Oberheuser, and Binz barked orders in the darkness. The confused dogs growled. You would not have believed how loud it was in the camp with everyone on Beauty Road, crying and calling out.
“Adelige, sit,” said Binz, her tin training clicker chirping in the darkness.
I grabbed Zuzanna by the waist and pulled her away from the group. Would the lights come back on any second? I felt my way along and brushed Dr. Oberheuser in the darkness. A wave of the terrible perfume she wore washed over us. I stepped on Binz’s foot and felt her arms windmill.
“Verdammtes Arschloch!” she said.