The memory of herself cuddling with Rachel to keep warm under the threadbare blanket brought tears into her eyes and she took out Paula, kissed her dirty face, and cried as silently as she could because she didn’t want to hear the adults curse her for waking them up.
A small hand reached for her and she started. It was too dark to see who it was, but when she heard a familiar voice whisper, “Don’t cry. I’ll stay with you,” she relaxed.
“Thanks.” She smiled through her tears and eagerly nodded despite the fact that he could not see her and moved back to allow Laszlo to climb onto her bunk.
He brought a blanket with him, covered them both with it and they huddled together. She instantly felt warmer, clutching onto his arm with one hand.
“I will protect you,” he said.
“Won’t you get in trouble with your mother?” Mindel knew that the Star camp was separated into men’s huts and women’s huts, but families could see each other during the day. Usually girls stayed with their mothers and boys with their fathers, but if they didn’t have one, they were allowed to stay with their mother or another female relative in the women’s barracks.
His arm around her shoulder tensed and she was scared she’d said something wrong and made him angry at her. The prospect of alienating her best friend made her shudder.
“My mother died a while ago,” he whispered with a restrained voice before he gave a deep sigh. “No one pays any attention to me. The other people in my bunk will be happy to have more space.”
“This is such a horrible place,” Mindel murmured.
“It is. But we can fight better than they do and stay alive. You know, it won’t be long before the Allies will come and rescue us.”
Mindel had never heard talk about the Allies before, but if they were friends of Laszlo and planned to rescue them from this awful place, she would consider them her friends too.
After a while, his breathing evened out and she snuggled even tighter against his warm body, soaking up the protection he offered. Rachel used to hold her just like this while they slept, and even though she missed her sister like crazy, she felt reassuringly safe in Laszlo’s arms. Plus, he’d told her, his allies were coming to rescue them.
She lay there trying to figure out why the SS guards, both men and women, were so cruel to everyone. Searching her conscience, she couldn’t find any misdeed to draw their ire, and yet they constantly snarled at her and even threatened to hit her with their horrible whips.
There were no answers and she finally fell asleep full of worries. When the nightmares and tears came, as they inevitably did each night, Laszlo was there to soothe her fears with promises to watch over her and keep her safe.
Mindel believed him. Laszlo seemed so grown-up; he’d brought a blanket with him, had made her part of his gang, and had shown her how to organize food. A proud smile appeared on her lips as she remembered how she’d outwitted the kitchen woman. Just a tiny nagging voice insisted it was stealing and stealing wasn’t right.
She ignored the voice, because having an aching, growling tummy was even worse. Drifting back to sleep, she dreamt about Rachel and how she’d find her with Laszlo’s help.
6
Another trainload of newcomers had arrived the night before and the already full camp was bursting at the seams. Rachel stood in line for roll call, musing about her failed efforts to find Mindel. Her little sister definitely wasn’t in the Women’s camp and none of her plans to get into the infirmary in the Star camp had worked. The limited communication across the barbed wire fence hadn’t produced any results either.
She was close to despair. Her legs aching from standing still for hours, she quietly shifted her weight from one leg to the other and moved her toes in her dilapidated shoes to get the blood flowing again.
In fact, she wondered whether her body even had blood left to circulate, since the rations were so minuscule, her stomach was painfully rebelling against its emptiness at all times – even keeping her from sleeping at night.
One hour went by, and then another, and everyone still stood outside, waiting. There seemed to be a problem with the lists counting the newcomers and the horrible blond guard began her count again, generously cracking her whip at anyone not showing the perfect “Aryan posture”: legs straight, shoulders squared, eyes ahead. If it weren’t so awful, it would be funny to watch the women sagging as soon as the vicious guard had passed.
Lost in her musings, she didn’t notice how one of the guards entered her row, came to a standstill in front of her and yelled, “You, over there!”
Rachel flinched, taking two seconds to realize he’d meant her. Before he could crack his whip at her, she hurried to nod and scurry over to a group of waiting women. As soon as the roll call ended, her group was herded toward the exit gates, where a truck was waiting for them.
She inwardly cursed, frantically searching for a way out, but there was none. She had to climb onto that damn truck whether she wanted to or not, and minutes later the vehicle sped out of the gates, loaded with miserable women.
As the despised Bergen-Belsen camp disappeared in the distance, her heart sank. She’d never find her little sister again. Since she’d run out of tears many weeks ago, she leaned against the railing and squeezed her eyes shut, conjuring up the image of her baby sister. Mindel was as good as dead and it was all her fault. She should have grabbed her hand tighter, shouldn’t have allowed the guards to separate them, should have…her shoulders trembled as she hung on to her morose thoughts.
As in every transport before, the Nazis
