In the morning she refused to get up and even to have breakfast. With that many children in the barracks she didn’t expect anyone to notice, but sometime in the morning, Mother Brinkmann came looking for them.
“Mindel, are you sick?”
“No. Just tired.” She pressed her face into Paula’s dirty dress.
“Where’s Laszlo?”
Mindel looked up at the woman who had been acting as her surrogate mother, and although Laszlo had impressed on her not to tell anyone, she couldn’t resist the piercing gaze. “I’m not supposed to say.”
Mother Brinkmann’s stare intensified and seemed to look right into Mindel’s soul, reading all her secrets like an open book. “What exactly aren’t you supposed to say?”
Mindel studied her bitten fingernails and whispered, “He snuck out last night to go to Switzerland.”
“He did what?” Mother Brinkmann gave a gasp of dismay, turned and headed for the door to the barracks. “You children are to stay inside until I return. I mean it. Not one of you is to leave this building. Do you understand? Sandy and Michael, you are in charge.” Then she hurried out of the barracks, concern etched on her emaciated face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Where’s she going?”
The questions kept coming until Mindel decided she might as well answer. “Laszlo is trying to sneak onto the transport to Switzerland.”
Her statement was met with shocked silence. Several long seconds later the children began talking all at once; they were still sitting in the hut, speculating about Laszlo’s fortunes, when Mother Brinkmann called to them from outside the barracks.
“Open the door and be quick about it.”
One of the older boys opened the door and everyone stood up and watched curiously as Mother Brinkmann walked in, carrying Laszlo in her arms. At least Mindel believed it was him, because his face and body were completely covered in blood, his eyes swollen shut and an open cut crossing his face. His arm hung in a strange angle from his shoulder and Mindel involuntarily groaned.
“Hurry, children, we must see if we can help him. The SS caught him trying to sneak onto the transport. If I‘d arrived a moment later they would have beaten him to death.”
Mindel stared at her friend in horror as Mother Brinkmann began to assess his injuries. Laszlo’s mangled face was barely recognizable and the new adult teeth he’d been so proud of were missing. She looked away, because it made her stomach hurt. After the first shock she became angry. Why did the SS have to do this? Why did he go there in the first place? Hadn’t she warned him this was too dangerous?
But then she looked at Mother Brinkmann, confident the woman could make everything better. Under her care, Laszlo would soon be all new again, playing with the other children.
“We have to bring him to the infirmary,” Herr Brinkmann said, assisting his wife in undressing the boy and cleaning his wounds. Laszlo didn’t even stir when the wet cloth touched his bruised skin.
Mindel crept forward, “Please don’t. People don’t come back from there.”
Mother Brinkmann glanced at her for a short moment, before she returned to her work. “Mindel, Laszlo is hurt very badly. He might not survive this.”
“Please, don’t let him die.”
“I’ll do my best, child. Now, everyone go, I need to concentrate.”
Mindel moved to her bunk and watched as Mother Brinkmann tended to Laszlo’s injuries. She kept waiting for him to wake up, but his eyes never even fluttered.
For the next week, she watched over him, day and night, refusing to leave his side unless she absolutely had to. She talked to him in the same way she talked to her doll, not minding that he wouldn’t answer. In the depths of her soul she knew he heard and understood her and that was all she needed.
But one day he simply stopped breathing. Mindel looked at him and shook his shoulders. “Stop playing, Laszlo! That’s not funny! Don’t you know that you’ll die when you don’t breathe!”
Alerted by Mindel’s yelling Mother Brinkmann rushed to the bunk, but there was nothing she could do for him. Laszlo had left this world behind. Mindel felt a big hand on her shoulder, trying to yank her away from her best friend. Desperate, she wrapped her arms around Laszlo’s body, willing him to wake up again. He was only pulling her leg; he wasn’t really dead.
He couldn’t be.
But he was. When his body turned cold, she finally acknowledged that her best friend had abandoned her and she was all alone again. Not even Paula was a solace, because she was only a stupid doll… Tears streamed down Mindel’s cheeks and at one point in time she found herself in Mother Brinkmann’s embrace, while Herr Brinkmann carried Laszlo’s corpse outside.
She couldn’t stop crying, didn’t even eat or drink for two days, so deep ran her grief. She missed him so much, missed his arm around her shoulders when they were sleeping, his mischievous glance when coming up with new games – heck, she even missed the way he used to pester her.
24
January 1945
A new shipment of women arrived at the salt mine, bringing with them news of what was happening in the outside world. According to these women who’d been transferred from the camps in occupied Poland, the Red Army was storming across Poland, and the Nazis were struggling to keep the prisoners from being liberated at their hands.
Rumors purported that the Western allies had already crossed into German territory over the Rhine River. Not that anyone could confirm the rumors, but if the nervous behavior of the guards was anything to go by, then Germany really was about to lose the war. And soon.
Rachel found hope again. She’d withstood the harsh treatment for such a long time, she determined to hang on to her life by sheer willpower, counting the days until the Allies –
