“You know what an uproar there was in the camp when our transport train arrived in December.”
The two girls stop talking for a moment. The September veterans had not only been fellow Czechs, they’d been friends, acquaintances, even family members who, like them, had been deported from Terezín. But nobody was pleased to see the new arrivals in December. The addition of five thousand new prisoners to the camp meant they’d have to share the water that dribbled from the taps; the roll calls would become interminable; and the huts would be absolutely jam-packed.
“When my mother and I went inside our assigned hut to find a bunk, it was total chaos.”
Margit nods. She remembers the arguments, shouts, and fights among women doing battle over a blanket or a filthy pillow.
“In my hut,” Margit explains, “there was a very sick woman who couldn’t stop coughing. Each time she tried to sit down on a straw mattress, its occupant would shove her onto the floor. ‘Idiots!’ the German-appointed woman prisoner who was the barrack supervisor, or Kapo, would yell at them. ‘Do you think you’re healthy? Do you really think it makes any difference whether there’s a sick woman sharing your bed?’”
“The Kapo was right.”
“You’re kidding! After she said that, the Kapo grabbed a stick and started to beat everyone, even the sick woman.”
Dita thinks back to the confusion of shouts, scurrying about, and weeping, and then continues.
“My mother wanted us to leave the hut until things calmed down inside. It was cold outside. A woman said that there wouldn’t be enough bunks even if we were to share, that some women would have to sleep on the dirt floor.”
“So what did you do?” asked Margit.
“Well, we went on freezing to death outside. You know my mother—she doesn’t like to call attention to herself. If a streetcar ran over her one day, she wouldn’t cry out, because she wouldn’t want to be a topic of conversation. But I was about to explode. So I didn’t ask her permission. I took off and ran inside before she could say anything. And I realized something.…”
“What?”
“The top bunks were almost all occupied. They had to be the best ones. In a place like this, you have to pay attention to what the old hands are doing.”
“I’ve noticed that some will let you share their bunk if you pay them something. I saw one woman agree in exchange for a potato.”
“And a potato’s worth a fortune,” Dita replies. “She must have had no idea about exchange rates. You can buy lots of things and many favors for half a potato.”
“Did you have something to exchange?”
“Not a thing. I checked out which veterans still had a bunk to themselves. Where the bunks already had two occupants, those women were sitting on them with their legs dangling over the edge to mark out their territory. Women who had arrived on our train were wandering around begging for a space, top, bottom, or wherever. There were searching for the least-hardened inmates who might allow them to share their mattresses. But such friendly veterans had already agreed to share their beds.”
“That happened to us, too,” says Margit. “Luckily, we eventually came across a neighbor from Terezín who helped me, my mother, and my sister.”
“I didn’t know anyone.”
“Did you finally find an understanding veteran?”
“It was too late for that. There were only the angry ones and the selfish ones left. So do you know what I did?”
“No.”
“I searched for the worst one of the lot.”
“Why?”
“Because I was desperate. I saw a middle-aged veteran with short hair that looked as if it had been bitten off, sitting on her bunk. She had a defiant look on her face, which was split in two by a black scar. You could tell she’d been in jail by the blue tattoo on the back of her hand. A woman approached her, begging for space, and the veteran drove her off with yells, even tried to kick the woman with her dirty feet. Huge, twisted feet they were, too!”
“So what did you do?”
“I cheekily stood right in front of her and said, ‘Hey, you!’”
“You didn’t! I don’t believe it! You’re kidding! You see an old hand who looks like a criminal and, without knowing anything about her, you go up to her and calmly say, ‘Hey, you’?”
“Who said I was calm? I was scared stiff. But with a woman like that, you can’t walk up and say, ‘Good evening, madam, do you think the apricots will ripen on time this year?’ She’d kick you out of there. I had to speak her language if I wanted her to listen to me.”
“And did she?”
“First, she threw me a murderous look. I must have been as white as a sheet, but I tried to hide my fear from her. I told her the Kapo would end up randomly assigning women who didn’t have a bunk. ‘There are still twenty or thirty women outside, and you could end up with any one of them,’ I said. ‘There’s a really fat one who would squash you. And another one whose breath smells more than her feet. And there are others who are old and have bad digestion, and they stink.’”
“Dita, you’re terrible! And what did she say?”
“She gave me a dirty look—though I don’t think she could give you a kind look even if she wanted to. Anyway, she let me continue. ‘I weigh less than forty-five kilos. There’s no one thinner on the whole train. I don’t snore, I wash every day, and I know when to shut up. You won’t find a better bunkmate in all of Birkenau, no matter how hard you look.’”
“And what did she do?”
“She stretched out her head toward me and looked at me like you look at a fly when you don’t know whether to squash it or leave it alone. If my legs hadn’t been shaking so hard, I would have run away.”
“Fine, but what did she do?”
“She said, ‘Of course you’re sharing with me.’”
“You got your way!”
“No, not yet. I said to her, ‘As you can see, I will make a great bunkmate, but I’ll only share your bunk if you help me to get another top bunk for my mother.’ You can’t imagine how angry she became! It was obvious that she wasn’t the least bit impressed that a puny young girl would tell her what to do. But I could see her checking out the other women wandering around the hut with a look of disgust on her face. Do you know what she asked me—totally serious?”
“What?”
“‘Do you wet the bed?’ ‘Absolutely not. Never,’ I replied. ‘Lucky for you,’ she answered in her booming, vodka-damaged voice. Then she turned to the woman on the bunk next to her, who didn’t have a bunkmate.
“‘Hey, Bo?covi?,’ she said, ‘did you know they’ve ordered us to share our pallets?’ The other woman pretended she didn’t: ‘We’ll see about that. I’m not convinced by your arguments.’”