Cold April Nights 1/1
Title: Cold April Nights 1/1
Author: Athenewolfe
Rating: R
Summary: A reflection of the life of a young Gypsy witch during the 1930’s and 1940’s in Germany.
Disclaimer: This story is set against the background of German events that lead to and include the Porrajmos (The Devouring, also known as the Gypsy Holocaust). I have tried to be as realistic and historically accurate as possible, while trying to keep the story simple. I have taken some liberties, as often the Gypsies and other prisoners were more segregated than I described. The horror, terror, and depiction of all incarcerated cannot be captured in this short of a fic. Please keep this in mind, as this is not a lighthearted fic and most likely will have a sad or tragic ending.
Author’s Final Note: A huge thank you to both slinkypsychokit and spikeslovebite for the beta. I appreciate it very much; you are both to good to me.
Wordcount: 3,068
Auschwitz
April 1944
It was cold and dark. A light frost coated everything. Maria hesitated in her steps, her feet resisting the path that she knew so well. She was tired and chilled to the bone. Yet she didn’t dare stop. She couldn’t allow herself the rest. The respite, no matter how much it was needed, would only draw attention to herself. Attention, in these camps, could only lead to her death.
She continued walking along the path, her mind drifting as she got closer to her destination. It was time for roll call. Too early for the prisoners to be truly coherent, but sleep was a luxury that none of them really had. One slept because they were exhausted, because their eyes refused to stay open, because they needed the strength to survive, even if it might only be for one more day.
Yet sleep itself had its dangers. You could die from suffocation, from the sheer amount of bodies crammed in a single bed. You were stacked like cordwood. Suffocation, beds collapsing, disease all around; Maria was surprised any of them were still alive. But staying awake was even worse; you needed to be coherent, aware of your surroundings and smart to your words and actions. One false move, one false word and you could be shot. They would kill you for any reason. For walking too slow, for taking too long, for being unproductive, for looking at a guard when he was in a bad mood. There were risks in every move. Yet they were the lucky ones, she thought, they at least, had a chance to survive.
Survival was the key. One would be surprised at how much a human could endure; the pain and suffering that one can live with and keep functioning. The chance of survival was slim; but any chance was better than none.
Maria shuddered at the dark path her thoughts took. She had watched as the trains rolled into Auschwitz. She watched as they separated the families- separated the strong from the weak, and the young from the old. She watched as those deemed unfit to work were led to the ‘showers’. After that, the only people who would see them again would be the workers at the crematorium.
Her thoughts wandered, drifted back in time, when life may have been hard, but there had been love and relative safety. Before the beginnings of another war, before the laws that decreed them unfit to work, stripped them of their citizenship, and deprived them of their humanity. Before the election of Hitler and society’s mad descent into bureaucratic murder.
~*~*~*~
Germany
April 1928
The policeman walked down the hall, nodding to his fellow compatriot. It had been less than a week since the legislation passed that allowed them to officially place all the Gypsies in Germany under surveillance. He felt smug satisfaction at doing his job well; everyone knew that the creatures were a menace to society.
Sitting down at his desk he flipped open his notebook and began to transfer his notes to the files that were neatly stacked.
A young Gypsy girl had been born last week. They had named her something that he couldn’t even pronounce. For the official record, he would call her Maria.
~*~*~*~
Germany
April 1933
Maria watched in amusement as her family danced around her, she could barely contain her laughter at their exaggerated antics and the silly faces they were making. Her eyes sparkled with delight at the wondrous birthday party they had created for her. Celebratory music, traditional dance, and the homemade presents made her feel connected to her tribe and loving family.
Even at her young age, she felt the power floating around her: the magic of the night and of the earth. It was an innate power that she respected and cherished. One day, when she was bigger, she would be taught to harness it. She would be a powerful witch, one who worked with the earth and held an important place in the tribe. The future seemed bright and magical.
~*~*~*~
Germany
April 1938
Maria scrunched up her face as she concentrated on her magical training. Her life was already radically different than she thought it would be. Her tender years should have her protected from the harsher realities of life, but hatred and prejudice had no respect for age. She laughed, a bittersweet sound that sounded more like the cry of a wounded animal then the laughter of a child.
She had listened at her mother’s knee, about the old ways, about how they had lived. Always moving to escape persecution, traveling from location to location, always searching for a place to settle down, or at least a place where there could be safe for a while. Their family had always relied on skill to support them; they were blacksmiths, fortunetellers, and witches, depending on the individual’s talents and the local needs.
Maria’s talent was rooted in the earth, drawing power from the energies and weaving subtle spells to shape the world around them.
Yet this world wasn’t one she recognized from her mother’s tales. It was harsher, harder, and angrier than even she would have expected. Legally barred from working at any trade in the nearby town, her family was restricted to thieving and eking out a meager existence. Her magical skills came in handy as she created spells to help the food grow, and for them to be overlooked and ignored by the general populous. But the world was too overwhelming and her magic was too new to protect her extended family, much less the entire tribe.
She was young, yes, but her innocence had been stripped away years ago. She lost that when they first came for her mother. Using their so-called laws and regulations to take her away and sterilize her. Her mother was eventually allowed to return, but the trauma was deeply etched upon her face. Her sorrow at being violated- her potential children eliminated from existence- had affected her quite deeply. She clung to her close-knit family and seemed to draw support from them. However, she had never seemed to fully recover and even today seemed to be disconnected from the world at large. The stigma of having associated with the non-gypsies caused some in the tribe to shun her, and others avoided her as well as if the association would lead to their own personal tragedies.
Not that anyone was truly free from the dangers that the Nazi party represented. Within the tribal groups there were countless brothers, cousins, fathers, and uncles who went to look for work, or wandered away from camp to never be seen again. One rumor stated that they had been arrested while others that had been ‘relocated’ to work camps. The overall consensus was that if the missing were not dead, then they had been transported far away and might never be heard from again. They would worry about it more, yet there was an overwhelming fear that they would be next.
After all, whom do you complain to when the authorities are behind the murders and kidnappings?
~*~*~*~
Germany
April 1943
Maria ran through the woods; desperation fueling her frantic pace. If she could make it to her grove, she might be safe. Her world was collapsing, her society unraveling. It was only her magics and perhaps luck that had protected her and the remains of her family for this long.
She utilized her magics to provide them glamours here and there, attempts to blend in to the local populace. To look like they belonged, instead of the slightly foreign and exotic look that they were so proud of. She knew that others thought the gypsy look was beautiful, but she desperately wished that she were pale and blonde. Anything to look Aryan, so that she might escape detection, evade capture, and avoid deportation. The glamours were hard to maintain, and the harder she tried, the more she lost control. The magics were running wild. She needed more training, more time. She was afraid that she would not have either.
Mama was gone. There was no one left to train her, no one who knew their ways and what she was supposed to do. She was lost in a sea of transition, but soon it wouldn’t matter. After all; what was responsibility, training, and placement in the tribe; when the tribe was no more? There were only a handful of them left. Her family, her tribe- everything was disappearing before her eyes.
They took Papa. She knew that they were responsible when he didn’t come home. Was he deported, arrested, or just shot? She might never know. The locater spell had no result. Did it mean he was dead? Or just out of range? The camps were so far away.
When the spell failed to display any results, Mama collapsed. She had never recovered from the sterilization to begin with. She had been broken, a shell of her former self. After Papa, she just gave up. She faded away before the family’s eyes. They couldn’t save her. Not with magic and not with love. She died broken-hearted.
Now it was just Maria and a few brothers. A handful of tribe members; everyone else was gone. Their world was gone. Even her name, her real name, was fading from memory. No one called her by her Gypsy name. They might be overhead. Magic could help dull another’s senses, but it wasn’t wise to tempt their luck. They needed to be unnoticed, unremarkable. Assimilation was their only hope for survival, but their culture forbade true immersion. No one had called her anything else but Maria for years. Somehow, the steady eradication of her identity seemed the worse injustice of them all.
She stumbled and tripped. Terror filled her mind; she must move faster, she must make it to the grove. Running, trying to think of a spell, but magic was never quick for her. It took energy, time, and preparation. None of which she had right now.
She felt a violent shove and screamed. She couldn’t be caught, not now. She was falling again and the world went black.
~*~*~*~
Her eyes struggled to open. They felt rough and raw. She wasn’t even sure where she was anymore. Gradually awareness came back to her; she opened her eyes and saw nothing but inky blackness. The memories started to return, harsh and unyielding. She was captured, arrested.
‘Oh, God, I am being deported. Please Goddess, not Auschwitz.’
They weren’t supposed to know. No one was supposed to know and many didn’t. But she was connected to the earth. The rumors were whispered to her on the breeze as the fabric of life and death- of destiny- was mutilated and torn.
Even if she hadn’t known, hadn’t been connected to the earth and to her people, she would have been afraid. They were rumors whispered in town. Although it was easier to believe what they told you: relocation for work camps, for better land, to live separately but peacefully. There were those who suspected the truth; however. No one ever came back, no happy stories, no long detailed letters. Just silence. Cold, chilly silence.
~*~*~*~
She gasped, her lungs burning as her eyes teared. She couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe? Panic consumed her. Her mind was lost in a hailstorm of confusion.
‘Where was she? And oh, God, she still couldn’t breathe!’
Her heart felt like it was going to burst as she struggled to move. She was trapped. She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t feel anything. As she passed out once again, a single thought made things clear. Terror overwhelmed her. She was on the train. She was heading to the camps.
Maria awoke. The air was still oppressive. She couldn’t move, but now she realized that was due to the amount of people shoved into the railroad car. There wasn’t enough air to breathe comfortably. Looking around, she was horrified. She almost wished she hadn’t awakened.
Several children appeared to be dead, suffocated to death in the throng of people. Others stood and stared, in shock and horror of their surroundings. Voices blended into the background, families talking, comforting each other. Believing in the fact, that what awaited them was hope. If they worked hard, they would survive in this new land. She wanted to scream at them, to make them see the truth. But that would be cruel. Better to hope and live until the end, determined to survive. To give up would be their death.
She tried to calculate how long it would be until they arrived; but no one knew. She was tired and sick to her stomach. Closing her eyes, she whispered a prayer to the Gods to help settle her stomach. It was degrading enough to be trapped in this car with no bathroom and only an overflowing bucket for their waste. She would not, could not, allow herself to be sick as well.
She had to stay strong; she had to survive.
~*~*~*~
Maria lost track of time. There was no way to mark the time. No real distinction between day and night; just the sound of the rushing train. Finally she felt the train slow, then stop. The doors opened. It took a moment for the commands to process. Line up neatly. Hold on to your luggage for those who had notice of deportation- one suitcase each with names neatly printed on the side.
She mustered her remaining strength to cast a small glamour spell. They were dividing people into groups. She wanted to appear older, to appear stronger, to appear ordinary. She was afraid of the soldiers’ kind smiles. She knew that evil lurked beneath them, that they were demons of the human variety.
The groups quickly formed, those who could work and those who would be exempt from work. The soldiers nodded at them, encouraged those who felt weak to excuse themselves from work detail. Their false smiles promised that they would be taken care of, assured them not to worry. She didn’t believe it. They rearranged the groupings to their likings; and made notes. A doctor took away some children. Others were asked questions. She tried not to shake.
Declared fit for work, she watched as the other group was told that they were going to go shower. The lecture droned on as they walked. ‘Make sure to tie your shoes together and remember the number on your hook. It is important to keep track of your belongings, as we will not do it for you.’ She heard some mutter about their belongings, and receive reassurances that all properly labeled belongings would be in their lodgings.
She never saw them again, only the thick black smoke of the crematorium.
Auschwitz
April 1944
She continued to work and tried not to think about her hunger, tried not to think about the thirst. Keep working, keep focused, and try to survive another day.
She was always so tired. She was considered to be ancient, by camp standards. She had survived longer then many of her counterparts. There were men who had lived for over a year, but not many women. Almost everyone that she arrived with was already dead. There were so many ways die; she had seen many of them first hand. Watched as people she worked with- people she tried not to care about- passed away. Those who were chosen to work often collapsed with exhaustion and were shot. Others never woke up, taken by disease, suffocated, or perhaps they just gave up the will to fight.
She shuddered as she tried not to think of the punishment cells. Those were particularly bad. She had only experienced the cells once, but that was more then enough. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She was careful not to break any rules, or, if she did, to utilize her magic to escape softly. However, another girl had been caught stealing an extra ration of food and everyone in her work detail had been punished. She had been placed in a cell with three other people. The cell had been so small that even one person couldn’t sit down cross-legged and be comfortable. With four people in the cell you could only stand. Stand and wait for the punishment to end. The pain and exhaustion had been overwhelming, but the cell was better then the suffocation cells.
Three members of the work crew had died during punishment, including the one who had stolen the single piece of bread.
She had hope though. She had heard rumors that the war was ending. If she could survive just a little bit longer she would be safe. She had to trust in rescue.
She would survive, she had to.
Germany
April 1945
Christopher stared at the letter and his hands trembled. It had taken four months to find someone who said they had known Maria. Months of phone calls, trips, and research. Integrating himself into a society he despised, desperate to find out the fates of his family. There had been no word yet on his father, cousins, or brothers; but someone recognized Maria. Her fate would be in this letter. He had but to open it.
He stared at the plain envelope. He had to know.
Christopher,
As you requested, I will write down what I remember about your Maria. I am afraid it is not much. I did not come into contact with the Gypsy section much, and have only a faint recollection of her. If I am not mistaken, she was there for over a year, perhaps a year and a half? However a few months before the camp was liberated, the entire Gypsy quarter was sent to the chambers for extermination. There were no Gypsy survivors that I am aware of.
I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news. Please take comfort in the fact that she survived as long as she did, and that her death was quick.
I myself, lost many family members, including ones who were sent on the death marches ahead of the liberators. I escaped only because I was too ill to leave the camp.
You have my condolences on your loss. I hope your search for other family members proves more fruitful them my own.
Joseph
~Fini
Author: Athenewolfe
Rating: R
Summary: A reflection of the life of a young Gypsy witch during the 1930’s and 1940’s in Germany.
Disclaimer: This story is set against the background of German events that lead to and include the Porrajmos (The Devouring, also known as the Gypsy Holocaust). I have tried to be as realistic and historically accurate as possible, while trying to keep the story simple. I have taken some liberties, as often the Gypsies and other prisoners were more segregated than I described. The horror, terror, and depiction of all incarcerated cannot be captured in this short of a fic. Please keep this in mind, as this is not a lighthearted fic and most likely will have a sad or tragic ending.
Author’s Final Note: A huge thank you to both slinkypsychokit and spikeslovebite for the beta. I appreciate it very much; you are both to good to me.
Wordcount: 3,068
Auschwitz
April 1944
It was cold and dark. A light frost coated everything. Maria hesitated in her steps, her feet resisting the path that she knew so well. She was tired and chilled to the bone. Yet she didn’t dare stop. She couldn’t allow herself the rest. The respite, no matter how much it was needed, would only draw attention to herself. Attention, in these camps, could only lead to her death.
She continued walking along the path, her mind drifting as she got closer to her destination. It was time for roll call. Too early for the prisoners to be truly coherent, but sleep was a luxury that none of them really had. One slept because they were exhausted, because their eyes refused to stay open, because they needed the strength to survive, even if it might only be for one more day.
Yet sleep itself had its dangers. You could die from suffocation, from the sheer amount of bodies crammed in a single bed. You were stacked like cordwood. Suffocation, beds collapsing, disease all around; Maria was surprised any of them were still alive. But staying awake was even worse; you needed to be coherent, aware of your surroundings and smart to your words and actions. One false move, one false word and you could be shot. They would kill you for any reason. For walking too slow, for taking too long, for being unproductive, for looking at a guard when he was in a bad mood. There were risks in every move. Yet they were the lucky ones, she thought, they at least, had a chance to survive.
Survival was the key. One would be surprised at how much a human could endure; the pain and suffering that one can live with and keep functioning. The chance of survival was slim; but any chance was better than none.
Maria shuddered at the dark path her thoughts took. She had watched as the trains rolled into Auschwitz. She watched as they separated the families- separated the strong from the weak, and the young from the old. She watched as those deemed unfit to work were led to the ‘showers’. After that, the only people who would see them again would be the workers at the crematorium.
Her thoughts wandered, drifted back in time, when life may have been hard, but there had been love and relative safety. Before the beginnings of another war, before the laws that decreed them unfit to work, stripped them of their citizenship, and deprived them of their humanity. Before the election of Hitler and society’s mad descent into bureaucratic murder.
~*~*~*~
Germany
April 1928
The policeman walked down the hall, nodding to his fellow compatriot. It had been less than a week since the legislation passed that allowed them to officially place all the Gypsies in Germany under surveillance. He felt smug satisfaction at doing his job well; everyone knew that the creatures were a menace to society.
Sitting down at his desk he flipped open his notebook and began to transfer his notes to the files that were neatly stacked.
A young Gypsy girl had been born last week. They had named her something that he couldn’t even pronounce. For the official record, he would call her Maria.
~*~*~*~
Germany
April 1933
Maria watched in amusement as her family danced around her, she could barely contain her laughter at their exaggerated antics and the silly faces they were making. Her eyes sparkled with delight at the wondrous birthday party they had created for her. Celebratory music, traditional dance, and the homemade presents made her feel connected to her tribe and loving family.
Even at her young age, she felt the power floating around her: the magic of the night and of the earth. It was an innate power that she respected and cherished. One day, when she was bigger, she would be taught to harness it. She would be a powerful witch, one who worked with the earth and held an important place in the tribe. The future seemed bright and magical.
~*~*~*~
Germany
April 1938
Maria scrunched up her face as she concentrated on her magical training. Her life was already radically different than she thought it would be. Her tender years should have her protected from the harsher realities of life, but hatred and prejudice had no respect for age. She laughed, a bittersweet sound that sounded more like the cry of a wounded animal then the laughter of a child.
She had listened at her mother’s knee, about the old ways, about how they had lived. Always moving to escape persecution, traveling from location to location, always searching for a place to settle down, or at least a place where there could be safe for a while. Their family had always relied on skill to support them; they were blacksmiths, fortunetellers, and witches, depending on the individual’s talents and the local needs.
Maria’s talent was rooted in the earth, drawing power from the energies and weaving subtle spells to shape the world around them.
Yet this world wasn’t one she recognized from her mother’s tales. It was harsher, harder, and angrier than even she would have expected. Legally barred from working at any trade in the nearby town, her family was restricted to thieving and eking out a meager existence. Her magical skills came in handy as she created spells to help the food grow, and for them to be overlooked and ignored by the general populous. But the world was too overwhelming and her magic was too new to protect her extended family, much less the entire tribe.
She was young, yes, but her innocence had been stripped away years ago. She lost that when they first came for her mother. Using their so-called laws and regulations to take her away and sterilize her. Her mother was eventually allowed to return, but the trauma was deeply etched upon her face. Her sorrow at being violated- her potential children eliminated from existence- had affected her quite deeply. She clung to her close-knit family and seemed to draw support from them. However, she had never seemed to fully recover and even today seemed to be disconnected from the world at large. The stigma of having associated with the non-gypsies caused some in the tribe to shun her, and others avoided her as well as if the association would lead to their own personal tragedies.
Not that anyone was truly free from the dangers that the Nazi party represented. Within the tribal groups there were countless brothers, cousins, fathers, and uncles who went to look for work, or wandered away from camp to never be seen again. One rumor stated that they had been arrested while others that had been ‘relocated’ to work camps. The overall consensus was that if the missing were not dead, then they had been transported far away and might never be heard from again. They would worry about it more, yet there was an overwhelming fear that they would be next.
After all, whom do you complain to when the authorities are behind the murders and kidnappings?
~*~*~*~
Germany
April 1943
Maria ran through the woods; desperation fueling her frantic pace. If she could make it to her grove, she might be safe. Her world was collapsing, her society unraveling. It was only her magics and perhaps luck that had protected her and the remains of her family for this long.
She utilized her magics to provide them glamours here and there, attempts to blend in to the local populace. To look like they belonged, instead of the slightly foreign and exotic look that they were so proud of. She knew that others thought the gypsy look was beautiful, but she desperately wished that she were pale and blonde. Anything to look Aryan, so that she might escape detection, evade capture, and avoid deportation. The glamours were hard to maintain, and the harder she tried, the more she lost control. The magics were running wild. She needed more training, more time. She was afraid that she would not have either.
Mama was gone. There was no one left to train her, no one who knew their ways and what she was supposed to do. She was lost in a sea of transition, but soon it wouldn’t matter. After all; what was responsibility, training, and placement in the tribe; when the tribe was no more? There were only a handful of them left. Her family, her tribe- everything was disappearing before her eyes.
They took Papa. She knew that they were responsible when he didn’t come home. Was he deported, arrested, or just shot? She might never know. The locater spell had no result. Did it mean he was dead? Or just out of range? The camps were so far away.
When the spell failed to display any results, Mama collapsed. She had never recovered from the sterilization to begin with. She had been broken, a shell of her former self. After Papa, she just gave up. She faded away before the family’s eyes. They couldn’t save her. Not with magic and not with love. She died broken-hearted.
Now it was just Maria and a few brothers. A handful of tribe members; everyone else was gone. Their world was gone. Even her name, her real name, was fading from memory. No one called her by her Gypsy name. They might be overhead. Magic could help dull another’s senses, but it wasn’t wise to tempt their luck. They needed to be unnoticed, unremarkable. Assimilation was their only hope for survival, but their culture forbade true immersion. No one had called her anything else but Maria for years. Somehow, the steady eradication of her identity seemed the worse injustice of them all.
She stumbled and tripped. Terror filled her mind; she must move faster, she must make it to the grove. Running, trying to think of a spell, but magic was never quick for her. It took energy, time, and preparation. None of which she had right now.
She felt a violent shove and screamed. She couldn’t be caught, not now. She was falling again and the world went black.
~*~*~*~
Her eyes struggled to open. They felt rough and raw. She wasn’t even sure where she was anymore. Gradually awareness came back to her; she opened her eyes and saw nothing but inky blackness. The memories started to return, harsh and unyielding. She was captured, arrested.
‘Oh, God, I am being deported. Please Goddess, not Auschwitz.’
They weren’t supposed to know. No one was supposed to know and many didn’t. But she was connected to the earth. The rumors were whispered to her on the breeze as the fabric of life and death- of destiny- was mutilated and torn.
Even if she hadn’t known, hadn’t been connected to the earth and to her people, she would have been afraid. They were rumors whispered in town. Although it was easier to believe what they told you: relocation for work camps, for better land, to live separately but peacefully. There were those who suspected the truth; however. No one ever came back, no happy stories, no long detailed letters. Just silence. Cold, chilly silence.
~*~*~*~
She gasped, her lungs burning as her eyes teared. She couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe? Panic consumed her. Her mind was lost in a hailstorm of confusion.
‘Where was she? And oh, God, she still couldn’t breathe!’
Her heart felt like it was going to burst as she struggled to move. She was trapped. She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t feel anything. As she passed out once again, a single thought made things clear. Terror overwhelmed her. She was on the train. She was heading to the camps.
Maria awoke. The air was still oppressive. She couldn’t move, but now she realized that was due to the amount of people shoved into the railroad car. There wasn’t enough air to breathe comfortably. Looking around, she was horrified. She almost wished she hadn’t awakened.
Several children appeared to be dead, suffocated to death in the throng of people. Others stood and stared, in shock and horror of their surroundings. Voices blended into the background, families talking, comforting each other. Believing in the fact, that what awaited them was hope. If they worked hard, they would survive in this new land. She wanted to scream at them, to make them see the truth. But that would be cruel. Better to hope and live until the end, determined to survive. To give up would be their death.
She tried to calculate how long it would be until they arrived; but no one knew. She was tired and sick to her stomach. Closing her eyes, she whispered a prayer to the Gods to help settle her stomach. It was degrading enough to be trapped in this car with no bathroom and only an overflowing bucket for their waste. She would not, could not, allow herself to be sick as well.
She had to stay strong; she had to survive.
~*~*~*~
Maria lost track of time. There was no way to mark the time. No real distinction between day and night; just the sound of the rushing train. Finally she felt the train slow, then stop. The doors opened. It took a moment for the commands to process. Line up neatly. Hold on to your luggage for those who had notice of deportation- one suitcase each with names neatly printed on the side.
She mustered her remaining strength to cast a small glamour spell. They were dividing people into groups. She wanted to appear older, to appear stronger, to appear ordinary. She was afraid of the soldiers’ kind smiles. She knew that evil lurked beneath them, that they were demons of the human variety.
The groups quickly formed, those who could work and those who would be exempt from work. The soldiers nodded at them, encouraged those who felt weak to excuse themselves from work detail. Their false smiles promised that they would be taken care of, assured them not to worry. She didn’t believe it. They rearranged the groupings to their likings; and made notes. A doctor took away some children. Others were asked questions. She tried not to shake.
Declared fit for work, she watched as the other group was told that they were going to go shower. The lecture droned on as they walked. ‘Make sure to tie your shoes together and remember the number on your hook. It is important to keep track of your belongings, as we will not do it for you.’ She heard some mutter about their belongings, and receive reassurances that all properly labeled belongings would be in their lodgings.
She never saw them again, only the thick black smoke of the crematorium.
Auschwitz
April 1944
She continued to work and tried not to think about her hunger, tried not to think about the thirst. Keep working, keep focused, and try to survive another day.
She was always so tired. She was considered to be ancient, by camp standards. She had survived longer then many of her counterparts. There were men who had lived for over a year, but not many women. Almost everyone that she arrived with was already dead. There were so many ways die; she had seen many of them first hand. Watched as people she worked with- people she tried not to care about- passed away. Those who were chosen to work often collapsed with exhaustion and were shot. Others never woke up, taken by disease, suffocated, or perhaps they just gave up the will to fight.
She shuddered as she tried not to think of the punishment cells. Those were particularly bad. She had only experienced the cells once, but that was more then enough. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She was careful not to break any rules, or, if she did, to utilize her magic to escape softly. However, another girl had been caught stealing an extra ration of food and everyone in her work detail had been punished. She had been placed in a cell with three other people. The cell had been so small that even one person couldn’t sit down cross-legged and be comfortable. With four people in the cell you could only stand. Stand and wait for the punishment to end. The pain and exhaustion had been overwhelming, but the cell was better then the suffocation cells.
Three members of the work crew had died during punishment, including the one who had stolen the single piece of bread.
She had hope though. She had heard rumors that the war was ending. If she could survive just a little bit longer she would be safe. She had to trust in rescue.
She would survive, she had to.
Germany
April 1945
Christopher stared at the letter and his hands trembled. It had taken four months to find someone who said they had known Maria. Months of phone calls, trips, and research. Integrating himself into a society he despised, desperate to find out the fates of his family. There had been no word yet on his father, cousins, or brothers; but someone recognized Maria. Her fate would be in this letter. He had but to open it.
He stared at the plain envelope. He had to know.
Christopher,
As you requested, I will write down what I remember about your Maria. I am afraid it is not much. I did not come into contact with the Gypsy section much, and have only a faint recollection of her. If I am not mistaken, she was there for over a year, perhaps a year and a half? However a few months before the camp was liberated, the entire Gypsy quarter was sent to the chambers for extermination. There were no Gypsy survivors that I am aware of.
I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news. Please take comfort in the fact that she survived as long as she did, and that her death was quick.
I myself, lost many family members, including ones who were sent on the death marches ahead of the liberators. I escaped only because I was too ill to leave the camp.
You have my condolences on your loss. I hope your search for other family members proves more fruitful them my own.
Joseph
~Fini