Ashes To Dust Read online

  A choice that could end my life and the lives of my family.

  Without farther consideration, I pop up and reach for the door to show them I’m here and Alix isn’t alone.

  I’m beaten by my parents.

  Chapter Nine: Milo

  One after another, our new prisoners leave their suitcases on the cattle car and walk out to the selection platform. The judenrampe, as we affectionally call it. All of them smell terrible, barely able to stand from lack of nutrition and highly thirsty.

  I stand next to the doctor as we watch the prisoners try to stand in a straight line in front of us. They are having the worst luck and keep falling out of line.

  “Schnell!” Quick! We yell to get them in line quicker.

  “Leave all of your suitcases on the cattle car. Do not take your belongings with you. We need you to stand in a straight line for registration and then we will take you to shower. Again! Leave all your belongings on the cattle car. Please stand in front of us and wait for future directions,” the doctor advises with a satisfying smile.

  He looks over at me with a cocky look on his face. “Find me twins. Also, make sure none of the invalids get through.”

  I nod. “Yes, doctor.”

  He nods at me. The Angel of Death in all of his glory standing in front of the new prisoners with pride.

  “Zwillinge!” Twins!

  “How many arrived?” I asked Markos Mannowitz, a Gestapo officer who has been running the cattle cars from the last Polish town that hasn’t been transported.

  Also, the town where Anya lives. Or lived.

  The thought of seeing her get off the transport, has me wanting to choke from a mixture of emotions. I know that if my father or anyone else finds out I married a Jew, I could be killed.

  Or even worse… Sent to a camp.

  I feel the buttons of my uniform to make sure my uniform is straight in case I see Anya. Like she would be proud of me here. I’m not even proud of myself for rising through the ranks as quickly as I should.

  A couple of the wives of the guards are standing behind us and are watching the selection process. Some of them are here for their own curiosity, but some of them are here for something darker.

  They enjoy it.

  I do not enjoy the selection process. Choosing who lives and who dies is control I have never wanted.

  Then again, I do not enjoy anything about being in the camps. It’s a disgusting and nauseating place to be.

  This is Auschwitz. There’s no room for emotions here.

  All the faces of the prisoners look alike to me. Dirty, sullen faces.

  “Stein, there are four bodies left on the transport,” Mannewitz says with a twitch of his lip.

  I nod my head. There’s nothing I can say to bring them back.

  Even with the dogs barking, the screaming and crying, selection moves pretty quickly regardless of the distractions.

  I make sure I look at each and every face to see if I can find Anya. Is Anya here? If she is, what the hell am I supposed to do? I have no idea what I would do.

  “Men on the left, women and children on the right!” The doctor advises leaning over a trustee.

  A trustee in the camp, is a Jew who can be trusted. It’s cheap labor as we don’t have to pay them anything and they get a little more food. A lot of the times, we give them the left overs of our food as a little more incentive.

  And if that doesn’t work, the constant fear of what could happen if they didn’t follow our instructions, should have been enough motivation.

  I would think, anyway.

  One by one, the new prisoners are assigned their fate. The doctor points his finger to the left and to the right. Those sent to the right, were immediately taken for further registration and those that were sent to the left, were sent to die.

  The doctor smiles assuredly to the new inmates, he tried hard to not spook them. “Stein, make sure you write down their clothing. We need to make sure we have documented everything,” he informs me.

  I stand right next to him with a pad of paper and begin to write what the new prisoners are bringing with them. If one of them has a fur coat, that will be written down and stored for the shipment back to Germany. Everything we collected will be sorted and sent back to Germany for the final decision on what would happen to the item.

  It moves like a well-oiled machine.

  A woman with dark hair and a willowy body stands in front of me clasping the hand of a little boy. I knew Anya has a little brother, but I did not know how old he is. Her dark hair whips around her face and her face is covered in dirt and grime.

  Each gust of wind, has the woman leaning to the left and to the right. Is that Anya?

  Holy hell. Is that my wife?

  I know without a shadow of doubt I couldn’t make a big deal about the woman in front of me. If I draw too much attention to her, she would either be sent to the crematorium or worse. Worse meaning, a pretty girl like this would be used for the officers’ personal pleasure.

  Not my wife.

  I move to close the distance between us, the German Shepherds are barking in the background along with the crying and shouting, I'm hoping this would deafen my conversation. Anything to not draw that much attention to us.

  With the woman in front of me, I realize I am mistaken. She’s not my wife.

  My heart chokes with relief and sadness. A contradiction beyond explanation.

  I know I have to do something before the other soldiers realize I have targeted someone.

  “Earrings, please,” I tell a Jewish woman. The woman looks to be about the age as my wife. I originally stopped her because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t Anya.

  I miss my wife. We only spent a total of one and a half days together before we said our goodbyes. I rub my left ring finger in hopes of feeling closer to the woman who has become similar to a ghost to me.

  The woman in front of me shakes and shivers as she unclasps her earrings. “Please,” she begs.

  “Don’t beg!” I spit.

  She places her earrings in my hands and I point back to the judenrampe.

  “Leave all your belongings on the train! Stand in groups of five! Women on one side and men on the other! Let’s go!”

  Chapter Ten: Anya

  Just like a movie, everything happens so quickly.

  For the past two days, we have been stuffed into a cattle car as if we are in fact, cattle. I can’t for the life of me remember what happened to lead us here. I vaguely remember an officer throwing me into the back of a truck like a sack of potatoes.

  What I don’t remember is how my mother was shot trying to protect Alix.

  All I know is, my new reality is being in a moving train to an undisclosed area. The back of this car, is smelly, cramped and worst of all, I’m sure there are people on here who are dead.

  The transporters don’t care about us back here, they don’t care people are dying and/or sick. They don’t care there is only an over flowing bucket in the middle of the moving train for people to go to the bathroom.

  In front of everyone.

  I lean my head against the car’s wall. It took major plotting and planning to get this spot. I had to wait for someone to go to the bathroom before I scooched back to claim their spot.

  “What the hell?” The woman demanded in Polish.

  Knowing that there could be a fight, I decide to pretend I don’t speak Polish.

  Everything in me is comatose. It doesn’t take much for me to look the older woman in the eye and pretend to not understand anything she is saying. I’m positive I have already entered hell the moment I got stuff into the back of the truck.

  Now, I’m certain.

  “Get up, you know I was sitting there!” She states again.

  Again, I look at her with dead eyes. My eyes have seen too much already and I’m trying to avoid the confrontation that could happen.

  “The young girl doesn’t know Polish!” A man yells from the left of me.

  I wan
t to look at him so badly to thank him for sticking up for me, but I don’t want the woman to know I speak Polish as well. Instead, I look at the woman intently until she backs off.

  I’m guessing the woman realized I am not going to move and understood it was time to leave me alone, because she walked away with her lip curled.

  Chapter Ten: Milo

  Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right.

  One by one, the new prisoners are assigned their fate and I get to watch it happen.

  The doctor loves to separate the groups of people who are still holding their loved one’s hands. He makes a meal out of it. Smirking and acting as if he’s going to let them stay together.

  I know for a fact he relishes the power he has over the Jews and the rest of the invalids. All of the other guards and their wives know how much he loves the control he holds.

  “How many came in with this batch?” I request in case the doctor asks me. I’m not a doctor, but it’s my job to make sure I know the answer to everything before he asks. Plus, it makes me look better to know the answer to everything. I like being one step ahead of him.

  “One hundred on each cart,” Klaus, one of the drivers, answers for me. He’s been with the camp since it opened, and he is bitter as they come. I bet he’s tired, but he has a job to do like the rest of us. “About twenty dead or close to it on each cart. What do you want us to with the rats?”

  I consider the options. Either we move them or make the trustees move them. If the trustees move them, it’s free labor for us. “Leave them on the carts. We will go through their belongings after we sort out the live ones.” With that, I turn on my heels to follow the ones being sent to the actual shower.

  With the stench from the unbathed Jews, I have trained myself to breathe through my mouth as I jot down their new identities.

  Every camp has their own way of registration, and Auschwitz is no different. We pride ourselves in being original and the best at what we do. Hell, other officials have come to take notes.

  “Leave all jewelry on top of your clothes once you are tattooed,” a trustee barks out.

  These trustees are something else, I will tell you. How quick they will turn on their campmates to get another piece of bread. How quick they will rat out anyone who does something remotely wrong for another potato.

  Not even a cooked one, mind you.

  Is it strange how routine everything gets? How strange things become so normal? Every day is spent with the prisoners in the medical ward undergoing some type of experiment.

  Trying to change eye or hair color, height and weight. Injecting the inmates with poisons, changing their body structure… Anything in the name of science.

  It wasn’t until a cold day in November when my world became rocked all over again.

  “Stein! You’re needed on the selection platform!” The doctor exclaims.

  I nod my head, shoveling a handful of blueberries in my mouth. The juicy berries fill my nose and mouth from their succulent freshness.

  “Where are they coming from today?” I ask as casually as possible. I want to know if my wife has been found and if she has told the truth. I would be killed and so would the rest of my family for helping a Jew.

  I couldn’t live with that.

  The doctor shrugs. “Who knows? I’m thinking they have finished shoveling out the rest of the Jews outside of the capitol.”

  My back straightens. My teeth bite harder onto the berries until they vaporize in my mouth.

  “Which town, do you remember?” I’m asking too many questions, I know I am.

  “They’re from Poland. Why does it matter? Go to the selection and find me twins.”

  “10/4!” I shout out behind me after getting on my feet to leave the make-shift hospital.

  No matter what I do, I can’t shake the feeling Anya is going to be on that train. How the hell would that work? Her coming here would be both of our death sentences.

  We would both be killed within minutes of the higher ranked officers finding out I married a Jew. Much more than that, my father will be killed too.

  “Leave you belongings on the car! Do not take your belongings! We will have all of your luggage once you have been showered!” Klaus yells at the new Jews who just arrived.

  They look scared. They look unwashed, and scared.

  Of course, the dogs barking in the background is probably making it worse.

  “Men on one side, women and children on the other! Let’s move!” Mueller demands for the new Jews to follow his directions.

  As a man who is in his early thirties, he has climbed his way to the top in a short amount of time. The man has a punishing look on his face and a scar running down his cheek from combat. He’s also our new commandant for the camp.

  He looks over at me with a slight smirk. “Stein! Welcome to our selection today!”

  I nod but don’t say anything. He is quite theatrical.

  “What is the good doctor looking for today?”

  As if he has to ask?

  “Twins. As always.”

  “I was wondering if he was looking for a new play thing. Perhaps she could be of an interest to him,” he points right at a brunette woman standing by herself.

  The woman hugs herself in hopes of keeping the winter chill out of her bones.

  Never going to happen. This place is cold. Even at one hundred degrees, you will never be warm.

  “Oh, my god!” I mumble to myself.

  Is it really her? Is it really Anya? If she’s here… she must have been the last of the Poles from the village.

  I take a few steps towards her to make sure it is actually her. As I close the distance, the woman looks at me with widened eyes and a cautious look.

  “Anya?” I whisper her name.

  If it is her… I have no idea what I would do or what we could do about being here.

  “Milo,” she murmurs back.

  Chapter Eleven: Anya

  The train slows to a steady pace to stop without jerking the passengers around too much. After the lack of provisions, I doubt that it is their goal.

  My body feels sticky from the lack of bathing. My thighs rub together under my skirt from lack of washing. My hair is making the top of my head itchy and I feel dirty.

  I feel so beyond filthy.

  My teeth feel as if they are covered in moss, no matter how much I try to brush them with my finger, it doesn’t work. They are still gross.

  And the hunger.

  Actually, I don’t even think I’m hungry anymore. I’m so beyond hungry at this point I’m full. My stomach is at full capacity with nothing in it.

  How strange is that?

  My lips are chapped from the lack of water, too.

  “This is my side of the car!” A man yells at a child.

  The child gets off the ground, stands on his two feet and yells back at him. “It’s not my fault they stopped the cart and I fell! I don’t want to be near you! You stink!”

  The adult man scoffs at him. “We all smell bad.”

  The child shakes his head and looks to the crack in the side of the wooden car. We can see little bursts of sunlight through the cracks but that is about it. The outside air doesn’t circulate inside of here, either.

  He then starts to cry a little.

  There’s no use in comforting him or I would. I don’t know where we are going and there is not a thing I could say to make the child feel any better. I don’t know where we are going or if we are staying in Poland. These are key things which none of us know about.

  That’s when the cart stops.

  Stops completely.

  We all jerk a little and the people who didn’t make it, fall in between the spaces from the living.

  I look to the left of me and see a dead woman. Her skin is gray, tightening around her face. Her eyes are snapped open and staring at me. I feel bad that I don’t feel bad about the woman dying on the cart.

  What has happened to my sense of humanity?

&
nbsp; We hear a couple of the door open and then the back of the cattle car is ripped open with a few Nazis standing in front of us. That’s when chaos ensues.

  Everyone is yelling, screaming and there are dogs barking in the background. Each second that passes, is another second we are ripped from the once cramped cattle car to the chaotic unknown.

  Suddenly the former seems more comforting.

  At least on the car, I knew what to expect. Now that we are being hurdled off into the unknown, I’m scared. I’m so scared for what is about to happen to us.

  “Leave your belongings on the car! We will have them waiting for you after you get registered!” An officer barks at us as he pulls us out of the car.

  I don’t have any personal property with me as I was dragged out of my hiding place. The only thing I have that is of any importance is my picture with Milo.

  Now he will surely not be able to find me.

  With all of the emotions swimming through my heart and brain I have no idea what to think. I’m beyond comatose.

  “Men on one side, women and children on the other!” Another officer demands.

  I’m happy I began to take German at a young age to be able to understand him. It made this a little easier to have the ability to understand German.

  Especially since I sincerely doubt, they will be speaking Hebrew or Polish with us.

  We all rush out of the train to stand in the lines. I feel the tension and the terror of each of us filling the air. We are all petrified over what is about to happen. I think the worst part is the not knowing.

  “If you are over sixteen and under forty, step forward and move to the right!” A man yells wearing a different uniform than the one that rushed us off the train.

  I step forward and to the right with a couple of other women. There aren’t many of us that fit that criteria, and the ones that were left, are standing on the on the platform waiting for further instructions.