One morning during roll call she made an astounding discovery. One of the kitchen workers stood kitty-corner from her. Mindel opened her eyes wide, not believing what she saw, but there was no doubt. The woman standing there was the same one who peeled the potatoes day after day.
“Did you know that the kitchen workers are prisoners like us?” she asked Clara at the next opportunity.
The slightly older girl laughed. “Of course, they are, or did you expect the SS to do the work themselves?”
Mindel furrowed her brow in concentration. This idea had never occurred to her. “But if the kitchen workers are only prisoners, they can’t punish us. So why are we afraid of them?”
“Because they will report us to the SS.”
Mindel wasn’t convinced. By the time that woman told the SS, she would long have run away. From that day onward, Mindel became bolder in her stealing.
One afternoon, she was waiting outside the kitchen building, biding her time until the worker inside turned her back and Mindel could sneak inside. She’d seen that particular woman before. The woman was old, at least thirty, and had dark hair, a pale skin and high cheekbones. Sometimes she talked to herself in a language Mindel couldn’t understand. It sounded funny, like gibberish, but Ruth had told the other children it was Russian.
Nobody had been able to explain what Russian was and why these people talked so differently, but it didn’t really matter, since Mindel had no intention of ever speaking with that woman.
It was hot outside and the stabbing pain in her stomach made her impatient to go for the peels. Usually Mindel waited until the kitchen worker finished the bag of potatoes and carried them over to the stove. But when the Russian woman turned for a moment to massage her back, Mindel seized the opportunity. On her hands and knees, she crept inside, hiding behind a shelf.
That stupid woman, though, made no attempt to walk over to the other side of the kitchen. When she finally did, Mindel was so desperate to sweep down on the waste basket that she didn’t even wait until the woman had disappeared around the counter.
She reached into the bin with the potato peels, and stuffed a handful into her mouth, before she grabbed more, stuffing them into the pockets of her dress.
“Ty chevo tvorish?” came a harsh voice behind her and Mindel felt her stomach drop.
She spun around to find the Russian woman standing between her and the doorway. Mindel swallowed the peels in her mouth and edged her way to the left. The woman moved with her, looking her over from head to toe. This time she spoke in heavily accented German: “Hey, what are you doing?”
“I…I’m hungry.”
“We all are. That’s no reason to steal.”
Mindel felt the shame burning her ears and nodded. She’d been so proud of her thieving activities, and now this woman was calling her out on it. Defiantly pressing her lips together, she edged backward, trying to reach the door and run, but the woman anticipated her movement and cut her off.
“You’ll get into real trouble when the wrong person catches you,” she said and looked around to make sure no one was watching. “Here.” She reached to a high shelf and pulled down a handful of breadcrumbs. “Take this and go. Don’t ever come back stealing here again.”
Mindel looked at the bread offered, not sure if she was being tricked. In the gang it was the common belief that adults couldn’t be trusted. Not the SS, and not the prisoners. Everyone who wasn’t your mother or father was more than willing to exploit the children and take their possessions for their own benefit.
But hunger won over caution and she reached out to grab the treat. The woman stepped aside and Mindel dashed for the back door. She darted out of the kitchen, running full tilt until she reached the place where Laszlo waited for her.
“Whoa! What happened?” he asked when she reached him, out of breath and shaking like a leaf.
“I got caught.”
“Holy shit! How did you get out?” Laszlo’s eyes darted around, waiting for the guards to appear.
Mindel pulled on his arm. “She didn’t tell anyone. She even gave me breadcrumbs.” Mindel opened her hand to show him the bounty.
“Let’s go and tell the others.”
Behind the row of barracks was an empty space that at one time might have been a meadow, but now consisted merely of dirt. For Mindel and her gang it was heaven on earth, because it was a place mostly away from the prying eyes of the SS guards and other adults. Only the posts in the tall watchtowers could see them, and they were too far away to eavesdrop.
When they arrived at the dirt spot they’d made their headquarters, the other children were already waiting for them.
“What took you so long?” Ruth asked.
“I…” Mindel started to say, but Laszlo elbowed her side and said, “The woman wasn’t peeling potatoes, so we couldn’t get peels, but Mindel managed to scrounge breadcrumbs.”
The children eagerly formed a circle and each of them put what little things they’d been able to scrounge into the middle. Laszlo then divided it into five equal parts and they ate together. It was almost like back home, sitting at the dinner table with her family – just now these four children had become Mindel’s family.
Except for Laszlo and herself, the others still had a parent or older sibling in the camp, but since the adults had to work during day, they were on their own most of the time.
When they’d eaten Fabian suggested, “Let’s play something.”
“Jew and SS,” came the immediate reply. It was the children’s favorite game.
“I’m SS,” Laszlo, Fabian and Ruth said with one voice, leaving Clara and Mindel to be the Jews.
“I hate being the Jew,”
