still night. Wayne got up in the dark and walked towards the crying child. It only took Wayne a few seconds to reach the source of the cries. The child was being held by her mother, a frail woman in her thirties.
Wayne kneeled down and asked the mother, “Is the child sick?”
The mother, with worriment, responded, “For three days now, Jessica has been with high fever. She’s been shaking and vomiting.” She began to sob. “I don’t know what to do. They’re going to take Jessica away from me; I know it. They’re going to take my daughter from me.”
“Nobody is going to take your daughter. Everything is going to be fine,” Wayne tried to reassure her. He said out loud to the other prisoners, most of who had been awaken by the child’s persistent wails, “Does anyone have any penicillin? Or some water at least?”
None of the other prisoners answered. Wayne, in fact, seemed to be the only person who bothered to try and help the situation. From the dark shadows where she sat, Linda watched what Wayne strove to do. The child’s wails became unbearably louder.
The mother hugged Jessica and stroked the child’s back. Jessica continued her crying.
“Jessica, you are going to be okay.” Wayne said to the child. “All you have is a little fever. You just have to rid it…”
The brilliant searchlight froze on the three of them.
Without Wayne seeing, the mother placed her hand tightly over Jessica’s nose and mouth, suffocating the innocent, beautiful child. Jessica stopped breathing.
An SS guard came to see what the noise was about. He was not happy about having to take the trouble to leave his guard post. He warned, “One more cry out of the child and I will personally take care of it myself.” He headed back to his post.
The searchlight was shifted to a different area.
Wayne looked into Jessica’s face. The child was dead. He put an index finger up to her tiny nose to make sure. He verified the young girl’s condition. Wayne looked into the mother’s eyes. The mother wore such a hollow, blank stare that Wayne knew from his gut feelings that she did. Wayne could not look at the small corpse again. He turned and walked away.
Wayne sat down alone in the darkness and wept.
Linda approached him. “You going to be okay?”
“For God’s sake, she was only a child,” Wayne spoke with tears rolling down his cheeks.
Linda sat down next to him and put her arm around him in a supportive gesture.
Wayne cried, “A poor, defenseless, little girl. What happened? What the hell did she die for?”
Linda had already been incarcerated in the prisoner holding area for four days. She said, “Two days ago another child, an infant, was ill and wouldn’t stop crying. An SS man came for the baby and its mother. And then, a few minutes later, from the other side of the fence, two gun shots were heard.”
“It’s so horrible,” Wayne said. “How can humans be so inhumane to one another?”
“They’re not human. They don’t have normal human feelings. They’re trained to be Nazis, not boy scouts,” Linda said. “I haven’t introduced myself.” She put her hand out. “I’m Linda.”
“Wayne,” he shook her hand. He had stopped weeping and regained some of his composure.
“So, what’s your story, Wayne? Where’d you get picked up?”
The last thing Wayne wanted to do was make small talk with another prisoner.
“I’d rather be by myself right now,” he said sheepishly.
“I think it would make you feel better if you had somebody to talk to,” Linda said compassionately. He didn’t respond.
“Well, if you need an open ear…” she got up to leave.
Wayne rapidly sifted his situation through his mind. This woman might be of help to him, he thought. A feeling of loneliness overcame him, in addition to the feeling of desperation that already accompanied him. Wayne had a feeling as if he was the last sane person left on the planet. “I’m sorry, Linda. Please sit down. I can sure use that open ear,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Linda sat down again close beside Wayne. It was a very cold night. She put her arm around Wayne. “Do you mind?” she asked him.
Her body heat felt good to him too. “No, I never mind when a pretty girl wants to put an arm around me,” he said with a slight chuckle, but it was impossible for him to feel any tinge of elation being in the situation that he was currently in.
Linda asked him once again, “So, where did they pick you up?”
“NYU.”
“NYU?”
“Or the Center of Aryan Studies. Whatever the hell they call it now,” he said.
“What were you doing down there?”
“I’d rather not get into that now,” Wayne said irritably. The lack of sleep was also taking its toll on Wayne’s mood.
“I didn’t mean for you to jump down my throat,” Linda said.
“Sorry about that,” Wayne apologized. “I’ve been through a hell of a lot lately.” He then asked, “Where are you from, Linda?”
She replied, “The ghetto. Need I say more?”
“Where was your ghetto?”
“Does it matter where any of them are? Mine was not too far from here.” Linda had grown up in and had always lived in a ghetto because she was of Polish blood.
“Why did you leave your home?”
“Home?” Linda said. “Is that what you would call that rat hole? The Germans live in homes, not us. Four days ago, I was picked up in a Gestapo raid on the ghetto. The same with most of the other people in here.”
In the Reich, persons with unpure Germanic bloodlines or other subhumans like homosexuals or disabled people were obliged to live in ghettos. The ghettos were bleak and dispiriting sites. The ghettos contained no luxuries or necessities of twentieth-century life. No running water. No plumbing. No electricity. No sanitary conditions. Tuberculosis was wide spread. Some of the ghettos were relatively small, with populations of fewer than 50,000. Others were in themselves the size of small cities, with populations swelled above half a million. No ghettos, however, were located on pre-war native German soil. The Reich Ministry of the Interior decided long ago that such a thing would be undignified for Germany.
Wayne questioned, “Do you know what’s going to happen to us?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Linda said. “The rumor is that the Germans need more slave labor and that’s where we come in. That is probably why they continue to let us live.” She removed a stale piece of bread from her pocket and whispered to Wayne, “I have bread with me. You want to share it?”
“No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Linda bit into the hard bread. “But it ain’t going to last.”
Wayne fell asleep before Linda finished consuming the bread, using her shoulder as a pillow. Linda soon also dozed off as well.
That night, Wayne dreamed of happier times in his life. He dreamed of Camp Summit where he spend his childhood summers. He and his bunkmates went kayaking and got into trouble for tipping over the boats. Those days in Camp Summit were some of the happiest days of Wayne’s life.
Wayne has jolted back to reality as morning set in. At dawn, a loud siren pierced the air, waking up the sleeping inmates of the prisoner holding area.
SS men entered the compound, followed by SS Lieutenant Kramer, who carried a megaphone with him. The SS men went around and kicked or hit with a club any prisoners whom had not yet woken up to their satisfaction, which meant standing in place at attention.
SS Lieutenant Kramer put the megaphone up to his mouth. He said, with his gravelly voice amplified, “All you swine, up! Form two columns. Now.”
The prisoners dutifully followed Kramer’s instructions, helped along by the numerous SS men present. Linda got in line behind Wayne.
