She lived. She ached. And she was hungry.
Her hand was throbbing in rhythm with her heartbeat and the bumpy ride in the truck only added to the agony. When the truck stopped at the gates of Bergen-Belsen, she at once welcomed and feared getting off the truck.
Upon arrival they were inspected and most of the women were assigned to the barracks, but Rachel and two others were hauled to the infirmary in the Star camp. It was ironic, because she’d been wanting to come here all this time to look for Mindel, and when she finally reached her goal, she was in no condition to walk around and ask about her sister.
“Here you go,” a kind Jewish doctor, who’d removed the dead skin and bandaged Rachel’s hand, said. “I’ll let you stay for three days, but I’m afraid then you’ll have to return to the Women’s camp. Make the most of your stay here and recoup your strength.”
Then she was gone and Rachel drifted back into her state of half-consciousness, not knowing whether the whimpering and moaning came from her own mouth or someone else’s.
During normal times, she would have considered this infirmary atrocious: unhygienic, dirty and crowded. But compared to the conditions in the main camp, it was paradise. Probably the best thing was that not even the SS guards peeked inside to harass the inmates; they were probably afraid of catching a disease.
The next day she questioned anyone who entered the hospital about Mindel, but nobody had seen or heard of her. As the nurse made the rounds in the afternoon, she asked her, too. “Please, I’m looking for my sister Mindel Epstein. She’s four…no, five…and I believe she’s here in the Star camp.” It occurred to her that Mindel had just recently had her fifth birthday, and her heart broke for the poor mite, who surely hadn’t been able to celebrate.
The nurse wrinkled her forehead and slowly said, “I believe…there was a cute little girl called Mindel. Brown hair, always carrying a ragged doll and with a slightly older boy in tow, probably her brother.”
Rachel’s heart beat fast with excitement. “That could be her. Where can I find her?”
The nurse’s expression became sad. “I haven’t seen her around in quite a while. You see, so many people die here, and the children especially don’t last for long.”
“I must find her.” Rachel jumped up from the bed, only to groan at the intense pain in her cracked ribs.
The nurse pressed her back onto the bunk. “You will go nowhere in your condition.” But as she noticed Rachel’s desperately pleading eyes, she relented with a sigh. “I will put out the word to ask around, but you must stay in bed. You won’t be of any use to your sister when you’re dead.”
Rachel relaxed and nodded. It was a sliver of hope—but no more.
She took the nurse’s advice and slept as much as possible, giving her battered and exhausted body time to recover. Sleep was also a respite from the pain in her hand, since painkillers were a luxury not wasted on the inmates.
On the third day, the nurse brought the encouraging news that a woman knew of a girl called Mindel and would try to locate her. But before the stranger could return, the SS doctor paraded through the infirmary and declared Rachel well enough to return to work.
Less than five minutes later, she was escorted to the Women’s camp past the barbed wire fence separating the two compounds. Rachel almost howled with desperation. She didn’t even have the time to let the friendly nurse know, and could only hope that someone had given Mindel the message that Rachel was still alive and looking for her.
15
One of the perks that came with living in the orphans' barracks was the absence of roll calls. Since the SS hated the disturbance the ever-fidgeting children brought to the roll calls, they had exempted Mother Brinkman and her group from the daily counting. In fact, it didn’t matter to them whether the children were alive or not. They couldn’t be used for work and the probability of one of them trying to escape was zero.
Every morning when Mindel watched the other inmates lining up in the courtyard, while her little group was allowed to stay by their hut, she felt a rush of relief surging through her veins. If for nothing else, not having to stand still for hours each day had been worth being taken under Mother Brinkmann’s wing. Much to her relief, even Laszlo had come around and had reluctantly admitted it hadn’t been such a bad move to come here.
The children were sitting outside to soak up the rare sunshine during this otherwise dark and cold month of November, when hundreds of people marched toward the camp, passing their barracks outside the barbed wire fence.
Mindel distantly remembered that was how she’d come here such a long time ago, walking – or mostly being carried by Rachel – from the train station to the main gate. Curious, the children approached the fence to get a closer look at the newcomers. But the moment Mindel caught a glimpse into the face of the most miserable human being she’d ever seen, she shrieked and jumped backward, straight into another child who began cursing at her. “Hey, watch where you’re going, idiot!”
Mindel did not answer, so severe was the shock from what she’d seen. Nobody in the camp had fat on their bones or looked remotely healthy, but these... creatures…couldn’t be humans. She dared a second glimpse at the ever-growing mass of bodies marching past.
“Are these men or women?” she asked Laszlo, who usually had an answer for everything.
“Dunno. Look like aliens to me.”
“What is an alien?”
“A creature that lives on another planet. They’re not people like us.”
“What is a planet?”
“Stop asking stupid questions,” Laszlo scolded her and she decided it was better not to pester him anymore. She still loved him,
