Free A Company of Heroes by Marcus Brotherton Page B

investigate. Being caught would have meant certain death. The women hid in a ditch. Toni and Marie were armed. They ambushed and killed the Russian officer. Toni felt avenged, to a degree, for the killing of her husband, brother, and father by the Soviets, but knew she now had blood on her own hands. She was convinced the Russians were looking for her—and she was right. She needed to hide, even more than before.
    Despite her extra precautions, she was more than ever motivated to help the resistance and help free her country. A strict ten o’clock curfew was imposed all over Warsaw. It was 1942, just before the start of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and one night Toni was still outside five minutes after ten o’clock. She was caught by the Nazis for violating curfew. Toni was arrested, thrown on a truck with other prisoners, then herded onto a cattle train and sent to Auschwitz. The rumors of what was really happening at Auschwitz were just coming out in 1942. Being sent there was basically the same as a death sentence.
    In Auschwitz, a prisoner was sent either to this line or that line: those marked for immediate extermination and those to be registered as prisoners. Some three million people eventually died in the camp. People often talk about how Hitler targeted the Jews—and that’s correct—yet he also targeted many other groups. Hitler didn’t just kill Jews. Anyone who got in the way of the Nazis was imprisoned. They usually ended up in the ovens. The Nazis considered Polish people Untermenschen , meaning subhuman, or less than human. Included in this group were Jews, Gypsies, Slavic people, and anyone else who was not an Aryan according to Nazi race terminology.
    It was fortunate that Toni had blond hair and blue eyes, and that she spoke German fluently. (She had been raised by a German nanny who taught her the language.) Her captors found her both useful and attractive, so they didn’t kill her. Still, conditions in Auschwitz were horrible. Everywhere around her was death and dying. She knew she had to get out. Toni could think of only one plan—it was a long shot and risky, but she decided to take it. From prewar times, Toni’s family was acquainted with an influential German countess. Toni was able to smuggle a letter out to her, telling the countess her family’s story and begging for help. The countess received the letter, was able to pull some strings from the outside, and had Toni transferred to another Nazi labor camp, this one still severe, but less murderous than Auschwitz. The countess was more powerful than Toni realized. On the first night inside her new prison cell, Toni heard a familiar voice in the next room. She couldn’t believe it. It was Toni’s mother, along with baby Richard. The little family was reunited in the new prison camp.
    The next three and a half years passed slowly and harshly. Toni remained in the prison camp with her aging mother and young son, sometimes hearing the Allied bombing of nearby railroads. Toni was not used as a translator this time; she worked at hard labor with a pick and shovel. Her specific job was to carry buckets of railroad ties and help repair the bombed railways. It was slave labor, but every night she was able to see all the family she had left in the world.
    The grandmother, named Irene Puchalski, continued to act in her profession as a doctor, and constantly took care of people in the prison camp, giving away her provisions. Toward the end of the war, Irene grew sick with dysentery. She had helped other people, but in the end she could not help herself. The grandmother died in the camp. Toni had now lost her father, brother, husband, and mother. It was just her and her young son. Toni herself was sick, thin. One picture survived of her during that time. She has sunken, drawn cheekbones. Her eyes convey hopelessness. There wasn’t much time—or hope—left for her.

Gordy Carson’s Story
    Hold that thought, and let me tell you about my