Shattered Crystals, Mia Amalia Kanner [cat reading book txt] 📗

“The rabbi held up the Sefer Torah for all to see.”

If I had not stepped forward and volunteered to work for the Red Cross nurse, I would not have survived the winter at Nexon. Until I began to go with Frau Meder on her rounds, I was unaware of how depressed and demoralized I had become in just two weeks in the camp.

From the day Sal and I were brought there, I suffered from the cold. I was plagued by constant diarrhea, my discomfort increased by the lack of toilets and inadequate washing facilities. I might have endured it better, but the enforced idleness focussed all my attention on every discomfort. Lining up at the outdoor pump with its single stream of ice cold water, lining up in the barracks for meals once in the morning and once in the afternoon, trips to the pit—that was all the women did, day after day. At least, I had reason to venture outside the barracks for a few minutes a day when I joined Sal every afternoon for a brief walk. But none of the women stepped outside to seek respite of even a few minutes from the crushing boredom. It was no wonder that we brooded.

Accompanying Frau Meder brought an end to my self-absorption. I now spent very little time in the barracks. As soon as I received my drink and piece of bread in the morning, I put on my coat, wrapped my scarf around my head and joined Frau Meder on her rounds of the barracks. The barracks stretched before us in endless rows. There were more than one hundred, and they were packed with six thousand prisoners. Most were foreign Jews who had sought refuge in France.

I carried her supply of bandages, camphor and disinfectant and handed her what she needed to treat wounds and sores. I stood by, ready to follow her instructions, sometimes holding patients or helping them sit up. Often she did no more than wash their faces and soothe them with her soft voice. She had very few medicines, and there was little else she could do for the sick. But she carried on her visits, at least to show them she cared.

As a representative of the Red Cross, Frau Meder resided in the building that housed the camp’s official staff. She had her own room and a private bath. As her helper, it was also my job to clean her quarters. Every day, I washed the sink and the toilet bowl, dusted her desk and night-stand, and swept her floor. Then I made her bed, a bed with a quilt, a pillow and sheets, precious items from a world I no longer inhabited. I felt I would never again have linens of my own. I took the greatest care with the sheets, handling them as though they were precious diamonds. That is what they were to me.

Although I cleaned for Frau Meder, she never demeaned me. She talked to me as her equal and expressed an interest in my work with the OSE and my life before the war. She listened with sympathy when I told her how much I worried about Lea.

At the end of each day, Frau Meder presented me with the used grounds of her ersatz coffee. I took the priceless gift to my barracks in time to line up for the afternoon meal. When the soup pot was empty, and the stove became available, I boiled water in a small container and poured it on the used grounds. Then looking neither right nor left, I carried the brew with great care along the barracks aisle and took it outside, where Sal was waiting to share it with me.

Frau Meder was about my age but unmarried. I learned that she came from Switzerland. She was not Jewish, but was not in the least anti-Semitic. She had the greatest concern and compassion for her Jewish patients and made it clear to me that she found Nazism and anti-Semitism despicable.

She confirmed what Sal suspected, that Nexon was a transit camp, a temporary site where Jews were brought before being sent to their permanent prison. Where we were to be sent, or when, she could not say. She did not know.

When I asked her once why she had given up the comfort of Zurich to work at Nexon, she said simply, “One must have an open hand for all who have less than we do.”

Even with her help, people died every day. Rebbetzin Kremer, assigned to my barracks, was in charge of taharah, the preparing of the dead for burial according to Jewish law. She and her husband were very frum. When she used the water pump to wash herself, her husband made a tent out of a blanket to shield her from view, so she could adhere to the laws of modesty.

Rabbi Kremer held a regular minyan in his barracks. He was forced to discourage attendance, fearing that large crowds would draw attention and bring retribution to the participants. Instead, he urged the men to daven alone. “If you pray to Hashem, He will hear you. He does not require a minyan to hear you,” he said. “The important thing is to recite the prayers every day.”

The Rebbetzin’s work became more and more difficult. “It is too much for one person,” she said to me one day. “Please, Frau Kanner,” she pleaded. “Please come and help me.”

The next day, when Frau Meder’s rounds were finished, I walked to the section of the camp set aside for burial of the dead. Rebbetzin Kremer worked in a small hut, washing and preparing the bodies according to halachah.The Rebbetzin explained the procedure, and I lifted the hand of the corpse to clean the nails and wash between the fingers. I had never touched or even seen a dead person before. Touching the limb, I felt dizzy. I rushed outside and vomited in back of the hut. I returned, worked for an hour, all the while biting my lip, swallowing dank air, my mouth becoming more and more dry, until I could no longer fight my nausea and had to rush outside again.

Two days later, I returned to the morgue. Minutes after I began my task, I felt nauseated and was forced once more to rush out of the building.

When I was able to go back inside, I said, “Rebbetzin Kremer, I cannot do it. I am not strong enough.”

“But, my dear, it is a mitzvah.”

“I know, I know,” I moaned. “I want to help. I am a religious woman, but this I cannot do.”

She gazed at me with sorrow. I spoke with difficulty. “Don’t you see, Rebbetzin? Every time I work with you, I get sick. It is not good for you, it is not good for me, and it is not good for the holy dead. I will try to find someone else to help you. Maybe I’ll find someone when I go on my rounds with Frau Meder.” Sadly, I never did.

Outside Barracks 77 on a cold evening in February, 1943 Sal told me he had seen Simon Herbst that afternoon. “He was surrounded by four Nazis. They were taking him to the section reserved for special prisoners. When I saw him, I ran to the edge of the restricted area, but by the time I reached it, they were pushing Simon through the doorway of a building there. I don’t think he saw me.” Sal shook his head and said, “I can’t imagine why he was picked up.”

“Simon has been trading on the black market,” I said. “Gita told me when it became too hard to keep the secret to herself. He’s been at it since the fall of Paris. That’s the reason they lived so well.”

“I thought he got his money out before the Nazis took over,” Sal said.

“Oh, Sal, you’re so naive and trusting when it concerns friends. If he weren’t involved, would you have had meat for dinner at Gita’s table? And how do you suppose he always managed petrol for his car?”

One week later, I saw Gita being led toward the dreaded special compound, little four-year-old Anni clinging to her hand. Ignoring the Nazi guard, I ran over to her, disregarding the dangers of entering a restricted area or of associating with the wife of a black marketeer.

Gita was in the last stages of pregnancy. Her walk was heavy, but she held her head high. She squeezed my hand and said, “They are letting me visit Simon.”

“No farther,” the Nazi said.

I stopped and watched Gita and Anni until they disappeared into the forbidden barracks. I stood in that spot until they came out half an hour later.

“Simon knows who betrayed him,” Gita said. “But what difference does it make now?”

“He still has friends, Gita,” I said. “Otherwise it would not have been possible for you to come here.”

Gita’s teeth were chattering. “Simon’s face is all bruised. They’ve been beating him. Why do they have to hurt him like that?”

I could think of no answer. Instead, I asked, “How much longer before the baby is due?”

“Three weeks,” Gita said. “It moves around all the time. Simon felt the baby kicking, and it made him smile. As soon as Anni saw him laugh, she said ‘Papa, come home.’ Simon shook his head, and we all started to cry. Then the guard came. There was so little time.”

We had come to the fork in the path beyond which I knew I could not go.

“Mia, what am I going to do?” Gita cried. “I’ll never see him again!”

“Take care of yourself, Gita dearest,” I said. “I love you.”

The homemade calender Hennie kept in the barracks indicated we had reached the end of February, and still we remained in the transit camp. Then suddenly, in mid-March, rumors spread that the camp would be cleared out. Frau Meder said she had heard nothing of it, but as winter ended, the announcement came that all prisoners would be transported north two days later.

Some of the inmates were glad to be going. They said Nexon was a stinking hell-hole and any other place would be better. Others did not want to leave because they were certain that any change would be for the worse. Saddest were those who no longer cared what happened to them.

“It is the worst news possible,” Sal said. “I will not go north.”

“Everyone has to go,” I said.

“I’ll go and see the camp commandant. He is a Frenchman. That’s better