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21
8thFebruary 1943
Jadzia had been interred at thevernichtungslagertwo kilometres outside of Lublin for the past four weeks.It might as well have been four years.It seemed longer than a lifetime.At first, she’d hoped they would realise their mistake, that she wasn’t a criminal or a prisoner of war or a Jew, but a normal Polish Catholic girl who shouldn’t be there.She’d done nothing wrong, she told them.Why was she here?It was a mistake.
Over and over, the response was—where are your papers?
When she said a guard had torn them to shreds, they’d laughed and moved on to the next person, clipboard in hand ready to take down the prisoner’s details.She’d wanted to scream in frustration.It wasn’t fair.They could call her mother and speak to her—please could someone call her mother?But her request had resulted in a swift blow to the side of her head with a baton, and she’d soon learned to keep silent.
She’d long since given up paying attention to pangs of hunger or dehydration.Listening to her physical senses would only get her in trouble.Instead, she had to pay attention to what was going on around her in the world outside her own pain, suffering and inner torment.Pay attention and do what she was told or die.
At four a.m., she was already awake.Her body had adjusted to the new schedule within a few days of arriving at Majdanek, and she woke minutes before the guards arrived.As the barracks doors burst open, Jadzia was already climbing to her feet.
Her body screamed a silent objection, pain shot through her legs as her almost-frozen feet hit the cold concrete floor.She ignored the pain with a grimace and was already smoothing her hair back from her face the best she could.
She still had her clothes.They hadn’t processed her or Hanna yet.The rest of the prisoners in the camp wore only a thin cotton sheath and shivered about their labour for the duration of the short, cold days spent toiling outdoors.
Any of the women and girls who failed to leap from their beds were beaten with clubs by the female SS guards until they were on their feet.Sometimes the beatings lasted longer, depending on the moods of the women in charge.
“Hanna,” whispered Jadzia.“Get up.”
Hanna groaned and rolled over.“Just a few more minutes, Mama.”
“It’s Jadzia, not your mother, and you have to get up or the guards will deal with you.”
Hanna’s hazel eyes blinked open and she quickly slipped off the short, hard mat that served as a bed on a bunk made of wire and metal pipes.
“Oh, I was having such a nice dream,” she complained.
“Hush.”Jadzia didn’t want to see her friend suffer the wrath of Braunstein, the guard currently tormenting a girl at the other end of the bunkhouse for hiding a piece of bread beneath her pillow, and who was known for her cruelty.
Jadzia reached up to tap the woman asleep on the bunk above her own but found the woman’s arm was cold.She was dead.Jadzia shrank back, recoiling in horror.
“What is it?”Hanna whispered, eyes wide.
“I think she’s dead.”
“We have to carry her out for roll call.”
Jadzia knew it was true.She wanted to cry.But if she and Hanna left the woman’s body where it was, they’d be the ones blamed and they might be beaten, whipped or worse.She’d seen enough in the past four weeks to know that it was better to carry the cold, dead corpse out to the yard than leave it behind.
She gave a quick nod.They’d have to move fast.
Hanna reached for the woman’s feet and Jadzia took her under the arms.Between the two of them, they dragged her from the bed to the ground with a sickening thud.Then they half carried, half pulled her through the rows of bunk beds as they followed the other women and girls outside to the cold, grey yard.Drifts of snow clung to tussocks of grass, the eaves of the buildings and filled the hollows.Puddles sparkled with shards of ice.
The women lined up in front of the guards and shouted a response when their name was called.Jadzia and Hanna set the dead woman on the ground beside them.She was dragged away after her name was called and thrown into the back of a nearby wagon on top of a growing pile of corpses.
The rest were dressed in the striped prison uniforms.Only the middle-aged woman from their barracks wore civilian clothing and had long, brown hair that’d fallen from her bun in wisps.
Braunstein eyed the group as she paced up and down in front of them, her baton dangling from one hand as she went.Her SS uniform was impeccable, her countenance pleasing.She smiled as she walked, and there was a dimple in one of her plump white cheeks.
If Jadzia saw her in the street out of uniform, she’d assume the woman was kind and sweet.But the truth couldn’t be more divorced from the guard’s appearance.She looked for opportunities to torture the prisoners and often joined in with other guards to kill them for sport, laughing and joking as death came in the most degrading ways.
A shiver ran down Jadzia’s spine as she recalled some of the things she’d witnessed since arriving in the camp.But she couldn’t think about it.Remembering would drive her crazy.Instead, she pushed the thoughts out of her mind and focused on the task at hand—to work all day in the damp cold and not draw any attention to herself.
At six a.m., they were all marched from the camp to a field nearby and given shovels.They were told to dig a long trench.Jadzia did what she was told without complaint.If she worked hard and didn’t make a fuss, she’d found that the guards left her alone.
The ground was frozen, and her shovel bounced off the soil the first few times she attempted it.But she put her weight behind it and used her foot to push down on the blade, and it entered the ground a few centimetres.The work was backbreaking and slow.How long could the older women in the group manage?
