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

to the coast an hour away, skirting a small French village before sunrise.

Sal was in a group of cement carriers. A worker placed a hundred-pound sack of cement on his back. It took him and the other men of his detail five minutes to reach the cement mixer. They put down their sacks and returned to the starting place for another load. Mid-day there was a lunch break—a cup of soup. Then the men went back to their labor. Aside from the meal break work only stopped during air raids. When Allied planes came, the Germans rushed to a rock shelter, but the Jews were forced to remain in the open to endure the bombing. Work ended at sundown; Jewish men were forced to labor seven days a week. After the hour’s walk back to camp, the men lay in the cold barracks, too exhausted to feel hunger.

Of course, there were black marketeers among the inmates, men who somehow managed to get to the village to buy bread and cold meats and mail cards. It was through these men that Sal was able to write to me. With money left over from the wages in Toulouse, Sal also bought food to supplement the midday meal.

I thought that nothing could be worse than what we had endured at Nexon until I heard Sal talk about forced labor in Calais. He survived by living one day at a time, trying to keep calm, and thinking of little other than conserving his strength. Not wasting an ounce of strength was so important that Sal rarely moved, walking measured steps unless he was hauling a cement sack. Whenever panic overrode his manufactured calmness, he reminded himself that he had gotten out of Buchenwald, out of Germany, out of Gurs twice and even out of Nexon, the worst camp of all. He clung to his belief that if he kept calm and avoided trouble, he would survive Calais as well.

Every morning before leaving the camp and again on their return at night, the Jews were counted. One evening, when Sal’s cadre was counted, there were only twenty-seven men. The German soldier in charge called out all the names from his list and noted the names of the missing. In Buchenwald, when a man tried to escape, his entire group was punished, but in Calais the Germans were too desperate for workers to retaliate.

One clear day, waiting for a sack of cement, Sal turned to look at the sea and made out Dover across the Channel. The soldier in charge of the cadre taunted Sal, “I know what you’re looking at. You’re looking at England. You think England is the promised land, but you will never get there. This is the closest you will ever be to England.”

A week or so later, on the road back from the fortification site, Sal saw a man’s legs buckle under him. Two Jews picked him up, placed his arms round their shoulders and dragged him back to the barracks. The next morning he could not stand up. When the twenty-nine Jews returned to the barracks that evening, he was gone.

“Stay healthy at all costs,” a young French Jew told Sal. “If you get sick, you are of no use to the Nazis.”

Remaining well was easier said than done. After hauling cement on his back for a month, Sal felt he could not survive the inhuman demands made on his body much longer. The only way to stay alive was to escape. Walking to and from the fortification site, Sal spoke softly to the men near him. “Those three from our group who got away… I wonder how they did it.” None of them responded. Sal continued to throw out hints. “It would be interesting to know what happens to the men who disappear.”

During an air raid a dark, slight young man lay on the ground next to Sal, muttering, “I’ve got to get away.”

“Me too.”

The young man said, “I have a plan, but I need money.”

Sal said, “I have money.”

“You do?”

“Yes, French francs,” Sal said. “If you take me, I will pay.”

“I’ve seen you,” the man said. “You’re in the barracks next to mine. What’s your name?”

“Sal,” he replied. “And you?”

“They call me The Greek because my parents are from Greece, but I am a born Frenchman.”

Sirens sounded the all-clear. During the next few days, Sal and The Greek met for hurried, furtive conversations. The Greek proposed making their escape by traveling by train and swore he knew the railroad timetables and the train routes to Paris. When Sal asked if he had been a railroad worker, The Greek shrugged without answering. Sal had become so desperate to escape, he decided the young man had all the information required and that the plan would work.

“First we board the local train at the village,” The Greek said. “The war zone begins at the third stop and lasts to the eleventh station. That will be the most dangerous part of our trip. One stop later, at the end of the local run, we change trains. Then we ask to ride with the engineer. The Nazis never check the locomotive berths. But we can’t do this right away. While we’re close to Calais and the Nazi troops, we can’t risk being seen talking to the engineer.”

Sal listened with mounting excitement, as The Greek said, “We go next Wednesday. Have your money with you. Take nothing else.”

“What is there to take? I have only the clothes I’m wearing.”

In those final days, Sal no longer concentrated on the punishment his body was taking but only on his plan and its possible consequences. He sent me a postcard with the message that Gita needed me because he wanted me to get out of Vichy. He figured that the Nazis knew I worked at the Vichy home and might look for him there. I would be safe with Gita. He was also counting on her to give him the money he had promised The Greek.

The Greek counted on friends in Paris to provide him with forged identification papers and planned then to make his way to Spain.

The sun rose a little later every day now. Though they could not work until it was light, the men continued to be awakened at five o’clock. Most of the hour-long march to the fortification site took place in darkness. One the first Wednesday of December, 1943, Sal walked nervously with his cadre. The Greek’s group was in front of his. As soon as Sal saw The Greek drop out of formation, he asked the German soldier for permission to relieve himself. It was routine for a man to head toward the roadside bushes during a march, and the soldier waved him on.

From behind a bush, Sal watched the men in his group pass him. The soldier in charge never looked back. When the last of the prisoners were out of sight, Sal walked warily along the edge of the road. He expected to meet no one, but if he were stopped, he intended to say he was catching up with his group. Sal found The Greek waiting in the spot where he had entered the woods.

Silently, the two men shook hands. Then they tore the six-pointed yellow stars off their coats and buried them under the damp, brown leaves of the forest floor. The village was a mile and a half away. Heads bent down, hands in the pockets of their worn coats, the two fugitives could have passed for local men hurrying to work. In twenty minutes, they reached the village where the black marketeers secured their wares and which Sal had skirted every morning and evening for over a month.

The clerk at the station did not look at The Greek when he purchased two train tickets. The train pulled in five minutes later. The windows of the car they boarded were clouded with soot. A narrow aisle divided the two rows of double seats. Sal sat motionless, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes fixed on the rumpled, gray hair covering the head of the man in front of him.

At the third stop, a German soldier entered the train. “Have your cards ready; control,” he called out. They were in the war zone. The soldier stood over a middle-aged peasant while she rummaged through her handbag; the black cotton scarf that covered her head slid down onto her shoulders. Sal stood up, pretending to check his pockets. The woman found her identification card and showed it to the soldier. He walked on and bent over an elderly man. As the soldier studied the old man’s documents, Sal went past him and slid into the empty seat next to the woman. She edged toward him and the coarse wool of her coat brushed his hand. He sank lower into the seat and saw The Greek pass in back of the soldier as he had done. The German was almost at the end of the car now.

The woman leaned towards Sal and said, “Ah, Henri, it’s very cold this morning.”

The soldier went into the next car.

“Don’t worry,” the woman said to Sal. The train started to move, and Sal returned to his seat.

Now the man sitting across the aisle tapped Sal on the shoulder. Sal’s body jerked involuntarily. The man said, “There is a toilet at each end of the car. When we get to a station, each of you go into one of the toilets. Leave the door slightly open. That way the ‘control’ will assume it is vacant. Stand against the wall facing the window, and he won’t be able to see you.”

Sal saw the woman watching them. “The toilet is dirty this morning,” she said in a loud voice. Sal realized the passengers, evidently all from the area, recognized that two strangers had joined them. They understood.

“They all know,” Sal whispered to The Greek, “and they’re helping us.”

“We are approaching the next stop,” said the man across the aisle.

Sal rose, headed for the toilet, and entered the tiny enclosure. From within, he heard the announcement, “War zone, have your documents ready. Control!” He pressed his body against the wall and waited. Long minutes passed before the train began to move again. When he finally returned to his seat, several new passengers nodded to him.

The routine was repeated seven more times before the train was inland and out of the war zone. When Sal returned to his seat for the final time, the woman who had initially befriended him handed him a small parcel. “You probably didn’t have time to eat before boarding the train,” she said. “I baked this bread myself just yesterday.” Sal accepted it and thanked her for her kindness. The bread was coarse but good.

The train arrived at its last stop. The woman buttoned her coat, tied her black scarf around her head and wished them a safe journey.

They were in a small village, and Sal worried that they would be spotted as strangers before they reached the Catholic church. The church spire was visible above the shops, so they did not have to ask for directions. They knocked at the side door of the church and the priest came.

“We have come from Calais,” Sal said. “We are Jews.”

The priest gave them a brief, disbelieving stare and crossed himself. Then he urged the two men inside, and Sal recounted their train journey. The priest said, “It is very dangerous for you, but it is dangerous for me also. You can stay only one night. It is all I dare do for you, that and share my table with you. Come, I will take you to your room.”

“Imagine,” The Greek said after the priest had left them. “Only one night.”

“The