He leaves them to go in search of Baretski and information about what the next day will bring. The officer is nowhere to be found. Lale trudges back to his block, where he finds the Hungarian men anxious and worried. He tells them what he knows, but it’s of little comfort.
•
In the night, SS officers enter every block in the women’s camp and paint a bright red slash down the back of each girl’s coat. Once again, the women are marked for whatever fate awaits them. Gita, Dana, Cilka and Ivana take comfort in all of them being marked alike. Whatever happens tomorrow will happen to all of them – together they will live or die.
•
Some time during the night Lale finally falls asleep. He is woken by a great commotion. It takes a few moments for the noises to penetrate his groggy brain. Memories of the night the Romani were taken flood back. What is this new horror? The sound of rifle shots jolts him fully awake. Putting on his shoes and wrapping a blanket around his shoulders, he cautiously goes outside. Thousands of women prisoners are being corralled into rows. There is obvious confusion, as if neither guards nor prisoners know quite what is expected. The SS pay Lale no attention as he walks quickly up and down the rows of women who bunch together from the cold and in fear of what is to come. Snow continues to fall. Running is impossible. Lale watches as a dog snaps at the legs of one of the women and brings her to the ground. A friend reaches down to help her to her feet, but the SS officer holding the dog draws his pistol and shoots the fallen woman.
Lale hurries on, looking down the rows, searching, desperate. Finally he sees her. Gita and her friends are being pushed towards the main gates, clinging to each other, but he can’t see Cilka among them, or anywhere in the sea of faces. He focuses back on Gita. She has her head down, and Lale can tell by the movement of her shoulders that she is sobbing. At last she is crying, but I can’t comfort her. Dana spots him. She pulls Gita towards the outside of their row and points Lale out to her. Gita finally looks up and sees him. Their eyes meet, hers wet, pleading, his full of sorrow. Focused on Gita, Lale doesn’t see the SS officer. He is unable to move out the way of the rifle that swings at him, connecting with his face and sending him to his knees. Gita and Dana both scream and try to force their way back through the column of women. To no avail. They are swept up in the tide of moving bodies. Lale struggles to his feet, blood streaming down his face from a large gash above his right eye. Frantic now, he plunges into the moving crowd, searching each row of distraught women. As he gets near the gates he sees her again – within arm’s length. A guard steps in front of him and pushes the muzzle of his rifle into Lale’s chest.
‘Gita!’ he screams.
Lale’s world is spinning. He looks up at the sky, which seems only to be getting darker as the morning breaks. Above the noise of screaming guards and barking dogs he hears her.
‘Furman. My name is Gita Furman!’
Sinking to his knees in front of the unmoving guard, he shouts, ‘I love you.’
Nothing comes back. Lale remains on his knees. The guard moves away. The cries of the women have stopped. The dogs cease barking.
The gates of Birkenau are shut.
Lale kneels in the snow, which continues to fall heavily. Blood from the wound in his forehead covers his face. He’s locked in, alone. He’s failed. An officer comes over to him. ‘You’ll freeze to death. Come on, go back to your block.’
He reaches a hand down and pulls Lale to his feet. An act of kindness from the enemy at the eleventh hour.
•
Cannon fire and explosions wake Lale the next morning. He rushes outside with the Hungarians to be greeted by panicked SS, and a chaos of prisoners and captors on the move, seemingly oblivious to each other.
The main gates are wide open.
Hundreds of prisoners walk through, unchallenged. Dazed, weak from malnourishment, some stumble around and then choose to return to their block to escape the cold. Lale walks out the gates he has been through hundreds of times before on the way to Auschwitz. A train is standing nearby, belching smoke into the sky, ready to leave. Guards and dogs begin rounding up men and pushing them towards the train. Lale gets caught up in the scrum and finds himself scrambling on board. The gates of his wagon are slammed closed. He pushes his way to the side and peers out. Hundreds of prisoners still wander around aimlessly. As the train pulls away, he sees SS open fire on those who remain.
He stands, staring through the slats of the wagon, through the snow falling heavily, mercilessly, as Birkenau disappears.
Chapter 25
Gita and her friends are on the march with thousands of other women from Birkenau and Auschwitz, trudging along a narrow track through ankle-deep snow. As carefully as they can, Gita and Dana search the rows, all too aware that any straggling is dealt with by a bullet. They ask a hundred times, ‘Have you seen Cilka? Have you seen Ivana?’ The answer is always the same. The women try to support each other by linking arms. At seemingly random times they are halted and told to take a rest. Despite the cold they sit in the snow, anything to give their feet some relief. Many remain there when the order to move on comes, dead or dying, unable to take another step.
Day becomes night, and still they march. Their numbers dwindle, which only makes it harder to escape the watchful eye of the SS. During the night, Dana drops to her knees. She can go on no longer. Gita stops with her and for a while they are unseen, screened by other women. Dana keeps telling Gita to go on, to leave her. Gita protests. She would rather die here with her friend, in a field somewhere in Poland. Four young girls offer to help carry Dana. Dana will not hear of it. She tells them to take Gita and go. As an SS officer advances on them, the four girls pull Gita to her feet and drag her with them. Gita looks back at the officer, who has stopped beside Dana but moves on without drawing his pistol. No shot rings out. Clearly he thinks she is already dead. The girls continue to drag Gita. They will not let her go as she attempts to break free and get back to Dana.
Through the dark the women stumble on, the sound of random shots barely even registering now. No longer do they turn around to see who has fallen.
As day breaks, they are brought to a halt in a field by a train track. An engine and several cattle wagons stand waiting. They brought me here. Now they will take me away, thinks Gita.
She has learned that the four girls she is now travelling with are Polish and not Jewish. Polish girls taken from their families for reasons they do not know. They come from four different towns and hadn’t known each other before Birkenau.
Across the field stands a lone house. Behind it a dense wood spreads out. SS bark out orders as the train engine is stoked with coal. The Polish girls turn to Gita. One of them says, ‘We’re going to make a run for that house. If we get shot then we will die here, but we’re not going any further. Do you want to come with us?’
Gita stands up.