In the morning, Rachel woke with a start, when a ray of sunshine danced across her face. Her entire body was frozen stiff, but out of habit she scrambled to stand upright. Judging by the sun high on the horizon it must be mid-morning already. How could she have missed roll call?
Anxiety settled in her bones, since she was certain she’d have to pay for such a transgression of the rules. Not showing up for roll call was something nobody, except for those already in the clutches of death, would dare to do.
Frantically looking around, she didn’t see SS guards, or any semblance of order in the camp. Just women sitting, crouching, lying. Even outside the smell was debilitating, as women were urinating and defecating wherever they found themselves, too weak or too far gone to bother getting up.
Rachel entertained the idea of doing the same, but somehow found the strength to put her feet into motion and go to the latrines, where she finally dared to remove the ring from her shoe and inspect it. It was a fine golden ring with a tiny diamond, probably an engagement ring stolen by the SS guard from some unfortunate soul – and now it was hers. She thought about the best place to hide it on her body, and finally decided to wear it – on her toe. Tucked beneath her socks and shoes it was the safest hideaway.
On her way back, she passed the kitchen barracks, where a sole woman sat inside, her forehead on the counter.
“Hey, where’s the line for breakfast?” Rachel asked her.
The woman raised her head and stared at her with empty eyes. “No line. No food. No nothing.” Then her head dropped back on the counter.
Rachel looked around in the kitchen. Normally in every camp, the kitchen barracks were spit-spat clean, and not a single tool was out of place, since working in the kitchen was one of the most coveted work details, only given to favored prisoners. None of them wanted to risk losing the job and being sent somewhere else and did their best to please the capos and SS by showing impeccable work ethics and cleanliness.
But this kitchen looked as if had been ransacked. Nothing was in place, and every last morsel of food or portable utensil had been stolen. Rachel shook her head. If one couldn’t even count on the SS to keep order in the camp anymore, what was left of human discipline?
She turned around, just as two young soldiers came inside, hauling a sack of wheat behind them. She stared at them as if she’d seen a mirage, but when she blinked, they were still there, dumping their burden. They stared at her, apparently unsure what to do, then shrugged and left again in a hurry to leave this godawful place.
Rachel opened the sack, dug her hands into the wheat, shoving it into her mouth, choking on the dry mass. She swallowed and swallowed, her mouth dry as sand. Near to suffocation, she frantically glanced around the room, located the faucet and stuck her head beneath. When she opened it, water burst into her mouth, almost drowning her, and then died down to a trickle.
With her face wet and smeared, she returned to the sack of wheat and stuffed as much as she could into her pockets, before shoving more of the mass into her mouth. After two days without any food at all, it was a feast. Other camp inhabitants must have seen the soldiers, too, and approached the kitchen in an angry mass of starving people poised to fight for survival. Rachel quickly assessed the situation and slid out the back door just as the crowd entered the kitchen and an awful fight over the raw wheat broke out.
Continually more and more inmates from other camps arrived in the most precarious conditions and were dumped inside the barbed wire fence, while the camp organization had basically ceased to exist. There was no order, no food distributed, no nothing.
Suddenly she missed the horrible brown liquid called coffee and the equally horrible muddy liquid called soup. At least it had given a semblance of normal life. But this here, this was pure anarchy.
In a last, superhuman effort she walked to the connection between the Women’s camp and the Star camp, where she hoped Mindel would be. All the guards who’d abandoned the Women’s camp seemed to be concentrated here, sitting with nervous expressions outside their watch post, making sure nobody crossed from one compound into the other.
She bided her time, observing the guards for several hours before identifying one that looked to be more compassionate than the others. After dark, when he was alone for a moment, she approached him with cold sweat running down her back.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“What do you want?” he asked with a surprised, but not necessarily angry, face
“My baby sister is in the Star Camp. She’s only five years old. Please, is there a way I could go search for her?”
“Five? Why wasn’t she allowed to stay with you?”
“We got separated when we arrived,” Rachel said softly. “Please, can you help me?”
His face showed that he was struggling, but then he shook his head. “No. I can’t help you. It’s verboten.”
“It wouldn’t be for nothing,” she whispered.
He gave her a suspicious glance, but she noticed the flicker of greed in his eyes. “What do you have?”
“A golden ring.”
“Pah…it’s probably brass.”
“It’s real gold with a small diamond. It was my engagement ring and my fiancé paid three months’ salary for it.” Rachel was trembling inside as she made the story up. “It’s all yours if you let me pass into the Star Camp.” She prayed he’d bite. If she had misjudged him, he might force her to give the ring to him and shoot her to show his gratitude.
“Where is it?”
“Not here. Safely buried.”
The guard eyed her and seemed to consider what to do. “Come
