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Abby reached out, pleading, “Ms. Gutman—”
“I would love to think Yoel is alive.” She paused, her eyes filling with tears, her voice hard. “But I do not entertain such frivolous dreams. If the war taught me one thing, it was to be a realist. I know what happened to my cousin. We all knew. You don’t forget something like that. Now, I would be lying if I said there wasn’t even a crumb of hope inside this old bag of bones when I know there is no such thing to be had. I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish what you are saying to be true, that I survived that place, not alone. But clinging to such notions are dangerous.”
“I’m confident in this.”
“Have you asked him?” Ms. Gutman asked.
Abby shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the direction of her questions. When she said nothing, the old woman repeated the question. “Did you ask him if this was his journal?” She inclined her head, waiting for Abby’s response.
“Not directly, but...”
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Ms. Gutman narrowed her eyes at Abby like she could see straight through her. “You go through all this effort to track me down—some old lady you don’t even know—when you could’ve gone straight to him for confirmation. Problem solved.” She raised a brow, the silver arching with a knowing look. “Maybe you’re not as confident as you let on.”
Abby swallowed. What could she tell her? That she couldn’t say anything because her dead grandmother told her not to? That this was all a part of some quest for the truth she didn’t even understand?
Tension coiled in her muscles as she tried to think of a response. Something she could say that made a semblance of sense. No matter how many ways she sliced it, Ms. Gutman was right. She saw right through Abby’s manufactured confidence.
With shaking hands, Abby lifted her coffee cup to her mouth and took a sip of the now-cold brew. The liquid turned bitter in her mouth, and she wished for a fresh cup, needing something to do with her hands and her
thoughts.
Ms. Gutman shifted her gaze back to the journal. “I can tell you one thing. This Yoel—the man who penned this journal—is my cousin. I’m not sure I can say the same for your grandfather.”
“But he has the same name, the same tattoo, the time frame is right, and he has the journal. Anything else is illogical,” Abby snapped.
Ms. Gutman’s eyes widened, but she didn’t bite back. Instead, she straightened in her chair, her silent gaze her armor as she ran her finger over the soft cover of the journal. Abby struggled to contain her frustration. Why would she not even entertain the possibility? It’s the only thing that made sense.
“I have yet to read this so I don’t know what it contains, but I assume my cousin wrote about his job at Auschwitz?”
Abby nodded.
“The Sonderkommando were looked down upon by the other Jews. Maybe it wasn’t fair. After all, they were given the job by the Nazis. They were only following orders. If they hadn’t, they would’ve been killed. But they often had a better place to sleep, better food, almost a reward for their involvement in the extermination of their own people. Some wonder how they did it. Even to this day, researchers can’t fathom how they had the resolve. But most think they lay down and took their duties without a fight. They’d be wrong. Did my cousin mention the revolt?”
“I think so. Not in those words but he spoke of an uprising. One they had planned.”
Anna smiled. “Yes. That’d be it. I worked in the munitions factory. We helped them smuggle explosives into the camps. It was dangerous, but we managed. Then, the day came. The Jews lined up for the selection, and the SS officer in charge went about, separating the healthy Jews from the ones to be killed. When the leader of the revolt, Chaim Neuhof, approached him, he gave the call. They fought with everything they had—hammers, axes, clubs, beating the SS officers. It wasn’t long, though, before the Nazi’s descended on them like a swarm of bees, armed with their machine guns. By the time all was said and done, the Sonderkommando had managed to blow up one of the crematoriums. They burned two SS officer’s alive in the ovens, and they cut the fence in an attempt to flee. But there’s no escaping the Nazis. There never was. They regained control and tracked down the Sonderkommando that escaped. All but two were killed. Several of the women from munitions were executed as well for their role in it. The Germans never spoke of this incident. It was an embarrassment, after all.”
“What if Yoel was one of the ones who escaped?” Abby asked, hope rising in her chest.
“At the time, maybe I would’ve believed that, despite what I had heard. Because I wanted to believe. But now, it is well documented which Sonderkommando escaped, and Yoel was not one of them. His name is among those supporters killed.”
“What if they’re wrong?”
“They’re not.” Anna’s lips trembled with the force of her words.
A swell of desperation rose inside Abby like nothing she’d ever felt before. The dam on her resolve cracked with her helpless to stop it.
“Why? Why are you so insistent he’s dead?” Abby yelled.
“Why are you so insistent he’s not?” Anna slammed her brittle fist down on their table, rattling the plates and attracting the stares of the patrons around them.
Abby flinched at the sound; bile rose to the back of her throat, threatening to gag her. It was too much. It was all too much.
“I think the question we need to ask is how your family got this if your grandfather is not my Yoel?” She held the journal up, shaking it in front of her, her dark eyes piercing Abby almost as much as her questions.
Swallowing, Abby listened to the ominous staccato in her chest as her stomach twisted. She needed air. She needed space to think. Holding a finger up, she murmured, “If you’ll excuse me,” and pushed away from the table.
The metal legs of her chair scraped on the worn linoleum, as she turned and hurried in the direction of the bathroom without waiting for a response.
