Free What World is Left by Monique Polak Page A

with one of the Nazi guards. “Please, I beg of you. You have three of my workers. Talented, hardworking men from my studio. Their names are...” The Nazi grabbed Adler by his collar and threw him onto the train. “If you’re so eager to be reunited with your comrades,” he snarled, “go join them now.”
    Adler didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye to his wife and children.
    And though it is a terrible thought, I knew we benefited from what happened to Adler. The Council of Elders promoted Father to chief of the studio, and because of that, we’d been able to move to our quarters on Jagergasse.
    When Father was first offered the new position, he told us he had tried to decline. “Look what happened to Adler!” Father had told Dr. Epstein, the head of the Council of Elders.
    But Epstein shook his head. “Van Raalte,” he said in a tired voice, “don’t you see? You haven’t any choice.”
    All this is one more bitter truth about life in Theresienstadt: One person’s agony often meanssomeone else’s gain. And though I am sorry to see others suffer, another part of me—a bigger part— is relieved it isn’t me. I know it’s awful, but that’s how it is.
    Some other family, perhaps even the Adlers, had lived in our room on Jagergasse before us. They left the rickety plywood table behind. But I didn’t want to think about them, or where they might be now. No, I was just glad I was out of the barracks, away from the other women’s moans and shouting in the middle of the night.
    â€œBut your uncle is an architect,” I say to Hannelore while we are scrubbing our cauldrons. Today, with so much tension in the air, Frau Davidels forgets to chide us for talking, even when a Nazi officer drops into the diet kitchen and sniffs at the contents of one of the cauldrons. “Isn’t your uncle on the prominent list?”
    Hannelore sniffles. “Uncle Fritz’s health has been so poor, what with his asthma and arthritis, that lately he hasn’t been strong enough to work.”
    So, Hannelore’s uncle has been removed from the list of prominent prisoners. I don’t say what I am thinking: Everyone whose name is on the list can protect up to four family members. Does that mean Hannelore and her mother are no longer protected? My throat tightens and for a moment, I have trouble breathing. Hannelore has become my closest friend, closer than any friend I’ve ever had, and I can’t imagine a day in Theresienstadt without her.
    We have made plans for after the war. We’ll correspond and visit each other during school holidays. When we have children, they will be close friends. If one day, I have a son, and Hannelore has a daughter, they’ll fall in love and marry. What a wedding it will be!
    Hannelore laughs when I tell her this. Then she wags her finger in the air. “If there is an after the war,” Hannelore says.
    And now, I wonder, if indeed there will be an after the war for Hannelore and her mother, and for me and my family. If names can be taken off the protected list, what guarantee is there that Father’s name will remain on it?
    By Tuesday evening, the mood changes. I’d seen it happen before, always the night before a transport. “For all we know,” Countess Bratovska tells Mother and me when we are lining up for soup, “those people leaving tomorrow are going to a better place, one that’s less crowded and where they’ll have better dinners than this miserable soup.”
    â€œThere’s not even a scrap of meat in it tonight,” says a man standing closer to the front of the line.
    â€œLet’s hope for those poor souls on tomorrow’s train that you’re right,” Mother whispers to the countess.
    A woman wearing a skirt made of rags that have been sewn together elbows the countess. “With a thousandfewer people in the camp