I knew that David was too young to comprehend most of what was going on in the world but I tried to help him understand as best I could. I wanted him to be prepared for what might happen, I really didn’t mean to scare him. I cherished our walks to the market because he would always tell me of the things he hoped he could learn one day. But that day was different, he fell silent and kept his head down. I hoped that he was just cold and hungry, as we all were during that time, but I was just lying to myself. 

David was the center of my universe; I just wish it could have stayed that way a little longer.

BANG! 

My head shot up to the sight of a German soldier sliding down a wall and blood running down his chest. As much as I wanted the war to be over and the Germans to be gone for good, it pained me to watch a man die, even if he was the enemy. No eleven-year-old child should have to see that happen but, alas, I did. His lifeless face is forever engraved in my memory. 

When I finally pulled my eyes away from that German soldier, I realized that we were being surrounded by a swarm of our friends, our neighbors, people we had seen around, but worst of all, German soldiers. They were poised to drag us away from everything we knew. I was frozen; I tried to run but my legs wouldn’t move. I felt massive hands on my shoulders shoving me into the back of a truck. 

Somewhere in the commotion, I had dropped my mother’s hand. Frantically, I attempted to look for her but we were so packed in that I couldn’t see further than the six people pressed up against me. I longed for her to hug me and tell me that everything was going to be okay. Somewhere deep down though, I knew that everything would not be okay. 

BANG!

Across the square, a German soldier fell. I immediately knew what was happening, but David did not. I saw his little body freeze mid-step and he just stared. I squeezed his hand as tight as I could but my grip was no match for the German soldier that stole my David away from me. I watched while they shoved him into a truck with hundreds of other children, and I watched as he disappeared into the mass of bodies. 

I was so busy wishing that I could hug David one more time and tell him that everything was going to be okay that I didn’t notice that I was also being thrown into a truck.

I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded as fear coursed through my veins. 

I was sandwiched between the window and two huge boys, they barely noticed me struggling to breathe below them. We stayed like that for hours as we bumped along. I knew that wherever we were being shipped off to would be horrible, but I couldn’t wait to get there because I would have given anything to take a deep breath of fresh air. 

We finally screeched to a stop. Outside I could barely make out a sign that read, “Kaiserwald.” I almost hoped that this “Kaiserwald” was a dreaded extermination camp. I wanted everything to be over; I didn’t want to live a life of fear. But I had to survive for my mother because I knew she would survive for me. Her words echoed in my mind over and over again, “I want you to know that I love you and we will always find each other.”

We were dragged out of the truck one by one. The boys’ heads were shaved and the girls’ hair was cut into messy bobs. Our clothes were ripped off and replaced with identical black and white striped jumpsuits. As I followed the line of new arrivals, I caught my reflection in the window of the guardhouse and I barely recognized myself. 

We were sent to run down shacks without dinner and told to sleep. I tried to fall asleep for hours but my mind was running a mile a minute, wondering what would happen in this camp, where my mother could be, and if I would ever see her again. And every time I closed my eyes the images of that German soldier flicked across my mind like a movie. 

I barely noticed the long drive, I was too preoccupied worrying about my David. I was suddenly jerked back to reality by a sudden stop that knocked all of us to the ground. When I looked out the window all I could see was a sign that read, “Ravensbrück.” We had all heard stories about places like this but none of us knew the horrors that would follow. 

A German officer appeared at the back of the trailer and angrily flung the door open. He said something in German that I did not understand, but the women around me started filing toward the gates one by one. I watched as hundreds of my friends were forced to strip, have their hair cut, and their valuables stolen. When it was my turn, I could feel my hands shaking as I pulled my hair out of the tight bun. I was handed a black dress that matched those of all of the other women and barely fit me right. 

It was nighttime by the time we were all inside the compound. I jumped at the sound of the heavy steel gate banging shut. We were given a measly dinner of bread and what couldn’t even really be called soup, more like plain broth. We were sent to sleep. 

Of course, I couldn’t sleep, all I could see was my David’s tiny fear-ridden face pressed against the glass, and his eyes begging for my help. I longed for him to hug me and say, “Goodnight mama,” and I wondered if I would ever hear his sweet voice again. 

I awoke the next morning to a girl shaking me and saying something in French. I had learned a little French in school but could only make out a few words. I understood “wake up,” “breakfast,” and “hurry.” She was practically dragging me out of bed at that point so I put my shoes on in a rush and followed her out the door. I almost had to run to catch up with her but she just kept walking. When I finally reached her, I told her that I only speak a little French and then I tried to introduce myself, although I’m sure the only thing I said correctly was my name. She told me her name was Sara and she said something else that I didn’t get. When I told her I couldn’t understand she tried to explain until I understood; she was eleven years old, the same as me. 

We were at our destination by the time I had understood so now she just told me to eat. We were each handed two slices of plain bread. I was so grateful to have anything to eat that I didn’t even register how dry and old the bread tasted. Between bites, Sara half explained, half acted out things, trying to tell me that she had arrived yesterday, just a few hours before me. 

We finished our breakfast quickly and were sent to another room where we were each given a card with a number on it and told to write our names down. Then one by one we were taken into a tiny room, no bigger than a closet. We couldn’t see what happened behind that door and after each person went in they were hurriedly ushered outside. It was my turn in the room. I was taken in and the card was snatched out of my hand and my arm was strapped to the table. “83921” was then ingrained into my forearm forever. 

I must have finally fallen asleep. I was jolted awake by the ring of a gunshot outside. The woman next to me groaned before sitting up and tugging her shoes on. I pulled my shoes on as well. The woman introduced herself to me as Martha. Just as she was telling me that she got to Ravensbrück just a few hours before me, a burly German soldier knocked so hard on the door that it flung open. We were forced to walk in a single file line to a rundown building where we were fed a couple of slices of stale bread. We were marched to another building, where the number I can never forget, “93475,” was permanently tattooed on my arm. 

I found Sara outside again and together we marched behind a German soldier to a factory. The soldiers were yelling orders in German that none of us understood. We finally started to grasp that we were being put to work. They gave us barely any instruction before they returned to their guard posts; watching over us as we worked. It was taxing to build the tiny electronic system thousands of times that day but I knew that if I stopped working I would be killed immediately, and I had to stay alive to find my mother again. 

We were forced to return to the factory every day before sunrise and we didn’t leave until after sundown. Sara and I kept each other company while we worked. Sometimes I would point to objects and she would tell me the French word for them. Other times she would talk in beautiful French that I struggled to understand, and I would try to respond with what little French I could piece together. I often got frustrated by my inability to communicate but I’d wanted to be a teacher so I figured that if I learned French from Sara, then one day I would get to teach it to someone else. By the fall I was able to hold a small conversation. 

All of us new prisoners were ushered off to a factory with wounds still fresh from the tattoo needle. We were put to work sewing socks for hours. When we were finally allowed to go outside and back to our little shacks it was pitch black outside. Many of the women tripped and fell, getting dirt in their wounds. 

Martha had been an army nurse before she was taken to camp so she treated the wounds the best she could with what little supplies we could find around. I watched in awe. I had wanted to become a nurse, but when my husband left for the war, I had to take over the butcher shop. 

Over time, Martha became known as the camp nurse and everyone went to her with their injuries. She allowed me to watch her work and sometimes she would even let me clean and dress cuts. During the workday, we would distract ourselves by talking about how she would treat different injuries. I was learning faster from Martha than I ever could have from studying books. 

We worked nearly to death every day; we walked home with shaky legs every night and were never given enough to eat. If any one of our fellow prisoners rebelled, refused to work, or wasn’t strong enough to work anymore, we were forced to watch as they were taken into the center of camp and hung. I lived in constant fear that Sara or I would be next because both of us could barely get up in the morning. But we pushed through for each other and our families. We held onto shreds of hope that our families would push through for us too. 

It was starting to get cold outside again and when we woke up it was hard to move our frozen limbs. One morning, Sara wouldn’t get up. I tried everything to get her to at least sit up and look like she was ready for work that day. I could hear the heavy footsteps of the German officer approaching. I was frantically trying to figure out what to do when I heard him knocking on the door next to ours. There was no way for me to position Sara so that the German officer wouldn’t suspect anything, but she wouldn’t move, she just sat there and groaned. I knew exactly what would happen if the officer saw her; she would be the next one to succumb to the horror of the camp center. 

I stepped outside and met the German officer. In broken French, he asked where 83920 was. My heart was pounding so fast and hard that I could hear it, and I was sure that he could hear it too. I had to weigh my options. I could tell the truth and watch Sara die or I could lie and risk both of our lives. Sara was the only thing keeping me alive so I couldn’t let her go without a fight. I couldn’t hear my response over the drone of noise in my head, but I think that I told him that Sara was naked at the moment but was getting dressed and she would be out in a moment. My French wasn’t perfect but he seemed to buy the lie, barking something about how it could never happen again, or else. 

I rushed back inside and fed Sara all the bread and water that I could find in our little room. She finally got up and moved a little bit. I hurriedly helped her dress and I had to half carry her to the factory that day.

Over the next few days, she started to get stronger again, and by the end of the week, we were back to our usual routine. 

My hands ached from the constant repetition of sewing socks for twelve hours every day. We were all in constant pain but we worked through it because we had seen others give up and they were immediately sent away. No one knew where they’d gone, but somewhere deep down we knew exactly what was happening to those women. So we worked until our hands were riddled with cuts and bruises. 

Martha had taught me almost everything she knew about injury care. For hours after we got home, we sat in silence tending to the injuries that had occurred that day at work. None of us ever had the energy to talk, we were all just focused on staying alive and keeping the women around us alive as well. 

After so long, the days were all blurred together and I had no idea what year it was; I couldn’t even remember whether we were amidst our second or third winter at the camp. However, I remember one morning vividly. As usual, Martha and I trudged through the snow to the factory. That day we were stationed at the most dangerous spot in the facility, cutting giant sheets of fabric. We had to position the fabric under a blade and then drop the blade with a lever. Although it doesn’t sound very dangerous, the lever didn’t always stay up correctly and would drop at random times. We just had to hope that it didn’t drop on our hands. 

We had fallen into a rhythm, positioning the fabric and backing away as quickly as possible. We were trying to distract ourselves from the work by talking through how Martha would have cared for different battle injuries when all of the sudden I heard her let out a shrill, pained cry. And then I saw it. The blade had fallen on her wrist as Martha was adjusting the fabric. The white fabric was quickly turning bright red. And I froze. 

I was startled back to life by Martha’s shrill cry of pain. I jumped into action, wrapping my scarf around the cut. Almost instantly the scarf began to soak with blood. I searched my brain for something that would help me stop the bleeding. 

I removed the scarf and tied it as tight as possible around her arm. Eventually, the cut stopped bleeding, but she was so weak from the loss of blood that we had to carry her back to camp that night. When we had her settled in bed, she whispered to me that I would have to cut her hand the rest of the way off otherwise there was no chance of her surviving. I had never seen an amputation; let alone had to perform one. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding as I gathered up any materials that I thought would be helpful. 

When I returned to our room, Martha began to talk me through the process. I thought that I wouldn’t be able to go through with it but then she started telling me how she needed to survive for her daughter. I thought about David and how I would feel if I was Martha. So I swallowed my fear and got to work. It went as well as it could have for someone who had never performed an amputation and only had the few tools we could find around camp. We fashioned a bandage out of scraps of fabric and after a few days, Martha started to heal and was able to help a little bit at the factory. 

Kaiserwald was liberated just after my fourteenth birthday in early 1945; by some miracle, Sara and I had survived. Sara and I stuck together after the war too. First, we went to Gordes, France, where Sara had lived with her mother. As we came to the edge of town, all we could see were piles of rubble. I stopped dead in my tracks when I realized what had happened. It took me a moment to notice that Sara had turned around and started running. She ran almost a kilometer before I finally caught up to her. She couldn’t bear to see the remnants of everything she had once known. I couldn’t even imagine how she was feeling. 

We decided that Sara’s mother wouldn't return to Gordes when it was in that state so we left. I took her home to Poland with me. Most of my town had been bombed as well but my family’s home was one of the few still standing. The war was over and all of the concentration camps had been liberated. I was beginning to lose hope that I would ever see my mother again when there was a knock at the door. 

I opened the door to see my mother and another woman standing there. I paused for a moment; I couldn’t believe that it was actually her. I ran into my mother’s arms. From behind me, I heard Sara squeal and she ran past me into the other woman’s arms.