Free Rena's Promise by Heather Dune Macadam, Rena Kornreich Gelissen

into Block Ten. It is late morning when we are finally given a little of something like tea, a piece of bread, and a pat of margarine, which they slap onto the open palm of our hands. I notice that everyone gobbles their food quickly, too quickly for their shrunken stomachs. Some get in line again, expecting more, but there are no seconds. They are beaten for being so presumptuous. I chew my bread, slowly spreading my margarine as if I were at a proper dinner. My tea tastes strange, but I do not care. I sip it slowly, forcing myself to make it last, telling my body that it is full and this is plenty to eat.
The first day we clean the inside of Block Ten. Moving in a daze, I hold my shirt closed and keep my pants up while dusting, sweeping, washing. We carry out our duties. I am simply grateful to be let out of the block, with all its lice and bugs. There is little else to do but watch and learn. The Germans are disorganized. I notice this immediately, but it means nothingorganized or not, I am at their mercy.
More girl-women march into camp and I spend all afternoon watching them come out of the barracks bald and dressed in uniforms like myself. With so many coming in, I cannot imagine

     

page_67
Page 67
Danka avoiding the transports for long. Standing by the fence watching the line of newcomers, I am torn between praying that I won't see her here and praying that we find each other if this is where she ends up. I wonder if she will recognize me. I wonder if I will recognize her. Each new face is carefully scanned before I dismiss it for not being my sister. Lost in an ever-increasing sea of despair, my heart has one last hope that Danka will hide in Slovakia. My bones tell me she will be here all too soon.
I see my lovely white boots with their red trim on an SS woman across the compound. I want to say something, take them from her and put them on my own feet. Trying to control this impulse to take back what is mine, I start to return to the block. "Line up! Line up!" We move into neat rows of five. The sun sinks in the west as one thousand of us are counted.

A concrete wall divides camp. The men's blocks are on the other side of this wall, but from the second story of the blocks we can see each other through the barbed wire. In the approaching darkness I stand before the upstairs window looking at the same men I had seen the day before. At least they look the same. Each of the blocks in Auschwitz has windows in the front, and from the second floor we can open them and speak to the men on the other side of the wall. They are half-starved, eager to hear news of the outside world and to make friends with us.
I go to the window and spit on my hand. The reflection is dark and obscured, but I stand rubbing the dirt from my face, smearing the tearstains into my skin so they will not know they've made me cry. I rub my scalp as if I had hair to comb. It is a futile but comforting gesture, reminding me of Mama's hand brushing back my hair. I shut out these thoughts quickly; there is only one thing to rememberdon't reminisce. My reflection in the window blinks back her tears. I want to rant and rave but I can only stare at the picture before my eyes. What have they done to us? The silent screams inside my head rip my soul apart. Who is this person star-

     

page_68
Page 68
ing back at me? The men in camp no longer look insane. They look like me.
"Is anyone over there Polish?" a man asks from the other side of the wall.
"I am," I answer.
"Can I help you?" he asks.
"I could use a rope to hold up my pants, and a nail." This is called organizing. Really it is scrounging, but organizing is more appropriate when you consider our circumstances and how dangerous having anything extra is.
"Run downstairs. I'll throw something over." This is my first care package, and with grateful admiration I retrieve a rope with a nail, wrapped tightly around a stone.
I spend the rest of the evening fraying the rope into four pieces. It does not take me