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The four of them hurried down the stairs and out across the snow in the direction of the sanatorium.It soon loomed over them, rows of windows glowering like so many eyes.The fence was close by and they ran the last few metres.Tata helped Danuta over, but just as he was about to boost Nacha over the fence, a guard rushed at them, gun raised.
“Halt, or I’ll shoot!”he cried.
His grey overcoat reached almost to his feet and his grey helmet matched his grey eyes.He sported a small, square black moustache.Nacha’s heart fell.It was over.There was no escaping now.
The dejected group marched along with the others from their neighbourhood in the direction of the train station and out through the ghetto gates.Nacha glanced over her shoulder for one last look at the place where they’d lived for months.She had no affection for it, only a fear of leaving.
They gathered with the growing crowd on the platform.It began to snow again, and flakes accumulated on Nacha’s eyelashes.She didn’t bother to brush them off.What did it matter?She could freeze to death at the station waiting to board the train and it would be a sweet relief compared to what she knew lay ahead for her and her family.
It wasn’t for herself that the tears came, but the idea of being separated from her father and brother, and what would almost certainly become of them.The grief of knowing the loss that was ahead overwhelmed her for a few moments and she wept silently but openly in the falling snow.
When the time came, they were herded together onto an empty carriage with large sliding doors on both sides.The far side was locked, but the near side wide open, and the Jews from the ghetto scrambled up into the cavernous space.
“Quick, stay together and get to a window,” Tata instructed.
So the three of them hustled to the back left side of the carriage and pressed themselves against the wall beneath a small rectangular window crosshatched with barbed wire.It wasn’t long before the carriage was full to overflowing.
The doors slid shut and they found themselves in the dark.The train chugged away from the station and travelled for ten minutes or so.Several children began to cry, their parents doing their best to comfort them in their own fear.Adults cried as well, some shouted for help, and still others banged open palms against the walls.
When the train pulled to a halt, Nacha stood on tiptoe to look out the window.
Behind her, Tata whispered, “Can you see anything?”
“Just another platform.There are more guards, some Gestapo, a small station house.”
The train sat idle for a long time.There were shouts outside, but the doors to their car remained shut.
Tata grunted.“I wish I knew where they were taking us.Most probably it will be Treblinka, but it might be Majdanek, where Jadzia went.”
Nacha shivered at the thought.The few things Danuta had managed to tell them before the roundup began had chilled her to her core.And now they were being driven to the same fate as Jadzia with no chance of the same salvation.
“Waltrina!”she whispered.
She spied her through the crowd on the platform in the distance.Waltrina, Jadzia and Jan.All three of them were there.They were scanning the crowds of Jews—looking at every face.Looking for them.
They were too far away—they wouldn’t hear even if she called to them.They were surrounded by Gestapo.The last thing they needed was for her to give them away by yelling their names across the tracks.Waltrina turned to a guard nearest her and spoke to him.She pointed along the platform, and he nodded.
“Where?”Behind her, Tata leaned forward, desperately looking for them.
“She, Jadzia and Jan are there,” Nacha said, pointing.She reached both hands up through the barbed wire that covered the window to wave, but they weren’t looking in her direction.“They’re here to find us.”
Nathan sighed.“It will do no good.Don’t get your hopes up, Nacha.They can’t save us now.It’s too late.”
Tata rested a hand on Nathan’s shoulder.“He’s right, Nacha.They can do nothing.”
Nacha’s eyes pricked with tears as she watched Jan veer off from his mother and sister and jog away along another platform, searching for them.Searching for her.She knew it deep in her heart.He was looking for her.She wanted to scream, to cry, to call out his name.But it would only mean death for him if he came to her.
On the platform, guards beat a family of Jews.One guard lifted his gun and shot each of them in the back of the head one by one.People screamed and cried.In the carriage, someone fainted, and those around him trampled on his still form as it lay on the floor of the train.Waltrina and Jadzia made their way towards their carriage.Perhaps they would see her if they looked up soon.
“Mother!Mother!Water, please!”Nacha shouted suddenly.
Jadzia jolted at the sound of her voice and spun about until her eyes met Nacha’s through the opening.Nacha’s hands waved through the wire, her fingers reaching for her friend.Jadzia’s hands clenched at her sides, but otherwise she didn’t move, her gaze firmly fixed on Nacha’s.She mouthed something, but Nacha couldn’t understand what it was.
Waltrina came up beside Jadzia and scanned the carriage, searching the window, but the train began to move and Nacha knew she hadn’t seen her.A great sob wracked her body.Tata held on to her as the train jolted, then pulled back, jolted forward again.
“There was nothing they could do for us,” he repeated.
“I know,” she sobbed.“But I wanted so badly for Waltrina to see me, and Jan…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.It hung in the air between them, unspoken.
