as they listened. Amadea had already heard that there was an opera company in the camp, and several musicians who played in the cafe, as many of the inmates had been musicians, singers, and actors before they were sent away. Despite the hardships, they tried to keep one another's spirits up, but the real terror for all of them was being deported elsewhere. The other camps were said to be much worse, and more people died there. Theresienstadt was the model camp that the Nazis wanted to use as their showpiece, to demonstrate to the world that although they wanted the Jews removed from society and isolated, they could still treat them humanely. The open sores on people's legs, the chilblains and the dysentery, the wan faces, the random beatings, and the people dying from conditions there said something very different. A sign above the camp at the entrance said WORK MAKES FREE. Death was the final freedom here.
Amadea lay in bed and said her prayers as she listened to the sound of the harmonica, and much as in the convent, they woke the inmates at five the next morning. There were lines for hot water and thin gruel, but they took so long that most people went to work on empty stomachs. Amadea went back to the processing center where she had been the day before for her job assignment. And once again, she stood on line for hours. But they told her that if she left, she would be punished, and the guard who said it to her shoved his gun into her neck, which was a clear indication that he meant it. He stood there for a long moment, looking her over, and then moved on to the next one. She heard noises outside shortly after that, and saw three guards beating a young man with clubs, as an old man in line behind her whispered.
“Smoking,” he said softly, shaking his head. It was a crime punishable by severe beatings, although to the inmates even finding a cigarette butt was considered a rare treat. One they had to keep carefully concealed, like stolen food.
When Amadea finally reached the officer who was dispensing job assignments, he looked like he'd had a long day. He stopped for a moment and looked up at Amadea, nodded, and reached for a sheaf of papers. There were several officers lined up at desks next to him, and official stamps and seals being put on everything. She had been given camp identification papers the day before, and she handed them to him, trying to look calmer than she felt. No matter how much she was willing to sacrifice for the God she served, standing in front of a Nazi soldier in a work camp was a frightening ordeal.
“What can you do?” he asked tersely, making it clear he didn't care. He was trying to weed out doctors and nurses and dentists and people with construction and carpentry skills, who would be of use to them. They needed engineers, stonemasons, cooks and lab technicians, and thousands of people to serve as slaves.
“I can work in the garden, cook, and sew. I can do a little nursing, although I'm not trained,” but she had helped frequently with the elderly, sick nuns, at the convent in Cologne. “I'm probably best in the garden,” she added, although her mother had taught her some of her needlework skills, but the nuns she had worked with said she could make almost anything grow.
“You'd make someone a good wife,” he joked, glancing at her again. “If you weren't a Jew.” She was better looking than most of the inmates he saw, and she looked healthy and strong. Although she was thin, she was a tall girl.
“I'm a nun,” Amadea said quietly. As soon as she said it, he looked up again, and then glanced at her papers, which said that her mother had been a Jew. He saw too then that her name was French.
“What order are you?” he asked suspiciously, as she wondered if there were other nuns there, and from what orders.
“I'm a Carmelite.” She smiled, and he saw the same inner light that others noticed about her. Rosa had seen it too the night before, even here.
“There's no time for that nonsense here.” She could see that he looked unnerved as he wrote something on her papers. “Fine.” He looked up at her with a scowl. “You can work in the garden. If you steal any of it, you'll be shot,” he said bluntly. “Be there at four in the morning tomorrow. You work till seven.” It was a fifteen-hour day, but she didn't care. There were others being sent to other rooms, other buildings, other barracks, and she wondered if some of them were getting tattoos, but he seemed to have forgotten hers. She had the distinct impression that her being a nun had unnerved him. Perhaps even Nazis had a conscience, though given what she had seen so far, it seemed unlikely in the extreme.
She stood on line for food that afternoon, and was given one black rotting potato and a crust of bread. The woman just in front of her had been given a carrot. The soup had run out hours before. But she was grateful for what she got. She ate around the rotten part of the potato, and quickly gnawed on the bread. She thought about it on the way back to her room, and reproached herself for gluttony and devouring it so fast, but she was starving. They all were.
When she got back to her barracks, Rosa was already there, lying on her mattress. Her cough was worse. It was freezing that day.
“How was it? Did you get a number?”
Amadea shook her head. “I think they forgot. I think I made him nervous when I told him I was a nun.” She grinned mischievously and looked like a young girl again. They all looked so serious and so old. “You should see one of the doctors for that cough,” Amadea said, looking worried. She tucked her feet under the mattress then, they were freezing in the wooden clogs, and she was bare-legged in her riding pants, which felt paper thin in the freezing air. She'd been wearing the same filthy trousers for over a week. She had meant to go to the laundry that afternoon and see if she could trade for some clean clothes, but there hadn't been time.
“The doctors can't do anything,” Rosa said. “They have no medicine.” She shrugged and then looked around. She had a conspiratorial look as she glanced at Amadea. “Look,” she whispered, and pulled something out of her pocket. Amadea realized it was a sliver of an apple that looked as though a thousand people had stepped on it and probably had.
“Where did you get that?” Amadea whispered, loath to take it from her, but her mouth watered when she saw it. There were no more than two bites there, or one good one.
“A guard gave it to me,” she said, breaking it in half, and slipping it to Amadea. She already knew that stealing food was punishable by death. Rosa quickly put her half in her mouth and closed her eyes. Like two children sharing a single piece of candy, Amadea did the same.
They said nothing for a few minutes, and then a number of the other residents came into the room. They looked exhausted. They glanced at the two women and said nothing.
None of the men she'd encountered outside working on the construction crews had bothered Amadea in the short time she'd been there, but standing on line all afternoon, she had heard stories from the other women, several of whom had been raped. The Nazis thought the Jews were the lowest of the low, and the scum of the human race, but it didn't stop them from raping them whenever they wanted. The other women had warned her to be careful. She was too noticeable and too beautiful, and she looked as blue-eyed and blond as they did. They told her to stay dirty and smell as bad as she could, and stay away from them, it was their only protection, and even that didn't always work, if the guards got drunk enough, which they often did, particularly at night. They were young and wanted women, and there were a lot of them in the camp. Even the old guards couldn't be trusted.
Amadea tried to get to sleep early that night, so she would be ready for work the next day. But it was hard sleeping with so many people around her. It even distracted her at times when she tried to say silent prayers. She tried to stick to her routine of the convent, as much as possible, just as she had while she was hiding at the
She made her way to where they had told her the gardens would be. There were about a hundred people reporting for work when she got there, mostly girls and some young boys, and a few older women. The night air was freezing, and the ground icy. It was hard to imagine what they would do there, as the guards handed them shovels. They were supposed to be planting potatoes. Thousands of them. It was backbreaking work. They worked eight hours straight until noon, their hands frozen and blistered as they pawed at the ground with the shovels, and the guards walked among them poking them with their guns. They let them stop for half an hour for some bread and soup. And as always, the soup was thin and the bread stale, but the portions were a little more plentiful. After that, they went back to work for another seven hours. As they left the gardens that night, they were searched. Stealing from the gardens was punishable by either beatings or death, depending on the guard's mood and how resistant they were. They searched Amadea's clothes, patted her down, and had her open her mouth. And as the guard searching her patted her, he grabbed her breast, and Amadea said nothing. She looked straight ahead. She
