One of the encouraging signs was the constant bombings of German cities. Underground in the salt mine, the women weren’t privy to anything going on outside, but during the march to and from the camp, and at night in their freezing barracks, they heard the aircraft flying over their heads.
It invariably was American or British planes. The last Luftwaffe fighter Rachel had seen must have been weeks ago. She didn’t especially like the bombing raids, but so far, all the planes had passed their tiny village and flown on to more populated places. Sometimes at night, she saw the flicker of a burning city on the horizon.
Trudging to the mine for another grueling shift, Rachel heard the air raid siren scream across the landscape and like rabbits in flight, the SS guards took cover, leaving the women in the middle of the road.
For a moment, Rachel considered running away, but discarded the thought again. It was impossible. In her current condition she couldn’t run, only poke along, and even if she found cover in the flat surroundings, she’d be discovered in no time at all. The villagers were hostile to the Jewish prisoners and one glimpse at her skeletal appearance would alert them to the truth and they’d bask in the glory of returning an escaped prisoner to the camp.
Together with several women she was crouched in a ditch when she heard a rattling noise and looked up to see a train making its way through the landscape. Within moments two bombers swooped down from the sky, strafing the train with their deadly load. Explosions burst out and the train abruptly halted, its passengers fleeing like voles evading a hawk.
The planes turned around, flying low and strafing the running passengers. Rachel couldn’t help but cheer for the pilots, hoping they killed as many of them as possible.
After what seemed an endless circling back and forth, the bombers had accomplished their goal and flew back the way they had come. The SS guards emerged from wherever they’d been hiding and unleashed on the women their wrath over the destruction of the train. Everyone suspected of dallying received her fair share of whiplashes or baton blows.
While the air raid had given Rachel and the other exhausted women a small respite, now the marching speed was doubled up and more than one woman was left behind – dead. Rachel somehow gathered the strength to keep up with the column, maybe because she’d seen a silver lining on the horizon in the form of enemy planes.
She hoped and prayed the rumors were true and the end of the war was really impending, albeit she couldn’t muster any sympathy or compassion for the civilians who had died today.
I wish the Allies would kill of all of them! Every last one! The violence of her thoughts shocked her to the core, since that was so out of character for her. Not once in her life had she wished evil on another person, but it seemed the last shred of her humanity had been rubbed away by the penetrating salt and she’d become an evil soul, just like the Nazis themselves.
Too exhausted to come up with a coherent thought, her mind shut down and once again she was reduced to a barely functioning shell. Down in the salt mine, her hands took up the pickaxe all by themselves and she listened only with half an ear to the whispers of the other women.
“The Allies must be close.”
“God, I can’t wait for the time they liberate us.”
“And kill all the Nazis.”
“If the Allies don’t kill them, I swear to God, I’ll strangle the Mouse with my own hands.”
Rachel found herself nodding. The women used nicknames for most of the guards, and the Mouse had received his for his mouse-like face. His behavior, though, was that of a cat, playing cruel games with the prisoners, before killing them for the joy of it.
25
The New Year had come and gone without the children noticing it. Every day in the camp was like the last one: a constant struggle to stay alive. It had been weeks since Laszlo’s death, but Mindel still missed him ever so much.
One morning, Mother Brinkmann told the children, “Today is a very special day. Today is Tu BiShvat, also called Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot, the New Year of the Trees and Plants.”
“There are no trees in the camp,” one of the older boys murmured, seemingly fearing a lesson about Jewish holidays.
“I know,” Mother Brinkmann answered with serenity. “One more reason to celebrate this holiday. Because without plants, we humans cannot exist. Traditionally on Tu BiShvat the table is set with the best fruits nature provides us with.”
“What is a fruit?” asked Rita, a girl of two and a half, who’d been born in the camp.
“Fruits are foods that grow on trees or other plants,” an older girl explained, but Rita only shook her head, since she’d never seen a tree or other plant in her life.
Mother Brinkmann produced two crumpled apples and showed them to the children. “To celebrate Tu BiShvat, everyone will get a piece of apple, and then you’ll know what a fruit is. After, we will take the seeds and plant them near the fence.
“That’ll never work,” Michael, one of the older boys, whispered.
“Even if it does, people will rip out the sprig and eat it,” Sandy whispered back.
“Wherever did she get the apples from? I haven’t seen one since I arrived here,” Katrin asked.
Mindel turned her head to look at Katrin, before her eyes returned to the apples in Mother Brinkmann’s hand. They were yellow and crumpled with a few brown spots, nothing like the plump and shiny red apples she’d eaten on the farm.
Her mind wandered back to happier times, when she and her brothers climbed the old apple tree in the orchard to pick the best ones. Of course, her brothers had always climbed higher than she dared and had teased
