Gazing at the Stars by Slonim Eva;

Author:Slonim, Eva;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd
Published: 2014-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

Torture

NITRA DETENTION CENTRE, OCTOBER 1944

Marta and I were taken to the detention centre in Nitra. It was really just a large cellar. Around a hundred Jewish prisoners were held there. Along the walls were bare wooden shelves, three tiers high and about a foot wide. That was where we were to sleep.

People at the detention centre didn’t talk much, and families generally kept to themselves. I knew only one: Mr and Mrs Krasnansky, and their son Ivan. They had another son who was only a toddler.

Even though Ivan was two years younger than me, we had been good friends back in Bratislava. When the first anti-­Jewish laws came in and we were no longer allowed to play in the public parks, we would walk into the hills around the city. It was springtime and the fields were covered in poppies. We would eat them and forget our troubles.

Ivan’s father was a brilliant man. He was the architect for Slovakia’s president, Josef Tiso. I once overheard him saying to the other inmates, ‘Any day now I will be given my presidential pardon.’ He gave away his meagre food rations, looking on the rest of us as if we were the condemned.

I would later see him among the crowd at Auschwitz. By that time there was a deep void in his eyes. Ivan would be the only surviving Krasnansky.

*

There was hardly anything to eat at the detention camp. People were always talking about food, and guarded what they got like it was sacred property. Only those deemed fit for work were given any rations. My job was to sort confiscated Jewish goods, but Marta was not given any work. We shared my rations and both grew skinnier.

Torture became a part of my daily routine, my morning ritual, like breakfast or coffee for most people. The sound of boots on concrete was my alarm clock. Every morning at four am, I was taken from my wooden shelf and led by soldiers to Gombárik’s chambers for interrogation. There were others in the detention camp who were also questioned and tortured in this way. Gombárik was obsessed with getting information about the remaining Jews hiding in Slovakia.

‘What is your name?’ he would ask every day.

‘My name is Anca Wohlschlager.’

‘Little girl,’ he would continue, ‘do you want me to send you to be turned into canned meat?’

These days, I wear earplugs to sleep. Nevertheless, every morning at four, I am woken up by the sound of boots on concrete. I jump out of bed, check the door and try to go back to sleep.

*

One morning I was sorting through confiscated goods when a plump, middle-aged woman with blonde hair came and stood next to me. I had not seen her before and was immediately suspicious. It was common for the Gestapo to use Jews to spy on other Jews. They would be offered freedom in return for information.

‘Do you know what this is?’ she asked me, holding up a tallit.

‘I think it’s just a blanket, isn’t it?’ I replied, looking down at my work.

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