Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(114)

‘My glass is empty,’ Cibi says.

‘Someone please give my mother another glass of wine,’ Yossi calls out.

Within the rush to fill glasses, help themselves to more food, and resume conversations, Livi, in the middle, stretches an arm around each of her sisters.

‘Where’s Ziggy? He should be with us,’ Magda says.

‘I’m right here, Magda,’ Ziggy says behind her, leaning between Livi and Magda. ‘If I had a glass in my hand, I would raise it and say, “Cheers to Mischka and to Yitzchak,”’ he says.

‘To Mischka and Yitzchak,’ the sisters say, looking around the room. The six of them made each and every one of the people present today.

Cibi starts to say something and stops.

‘What is it, Cibi?’ Ziggy asks.

Cibi closes her eyes. A thousand memories race through her mind. ‘We kept our promise, didn’t we? To Father, to Mumma and Grandfather.’

Livi takes her sister’s hand. ‘Do you remember the onion, Cibi?’ she says. Cibi nods. ‘To this day, whenever I chop an onion, I think of how you saved my life.’

‘The bunk,’ whispers Magda. ‘Remember the bunk we shared? Every night, however terrible that day had been, I knew that if I could cuddle up close to you both in the dark, I would never be alone.’

‘We saved each other’s lives,’ says Cibi. She raises the sleeve of her left arm and her sisters do the same. Their skin is wrinkled now, but the numbers are as clear as the day they were stabbed into their arms. ‘When they put these numbers into our skin, they sealed our promise. Somehow, they gave us the strength to fight for our lives.’

The sisters are silent as the party mills around their hunched frames. The dead are never far from their thoughts, and now each of them pictures the countless empty rooms around the world that should be filled with laughter, with husbands, sons and daughters, with grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins.

‘We might not be much to look at now,’ says Livi, grinning. ‘But once we were the Meller girls.’





AUTHOR’S NOTE

M

enachem Emil (Mendel) Meller, the sisters’ father, died on 27 October 1929. He is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ko?ice, Slovakia.

Civia ‘Cibi’ Meller was born on 13 October 1922 in Vranov nad Topl’ou, Slovakia. She died on 25 November 2015, in Rehovot, Israel.

Magda Meller was born on 1 January 1924 in Vranov nad Topl’ou, Slovakia. She lives in Holon, Israel.

(Ester) Gizella ‘Livia/Livi’ Meller was born 16 November 1925 in Vranov nad Topl’ou, Slovakia. She lives in Rehovot, Israel.

A fourth daughter, Emilia, was born three months after her father Menachem Meller’s death and died of tuberculosis before her third birthday.

The sisters’ paternal grandparents, Anyka and Emile Meller, lived and died in Vranov nad Topl’ou, Slovakia.

The sisters’ maternal grandmother, Rosalie Strauss, died in 1934 in Vranov nad Topl’ou, Slovakia. She was a midwife, and delivered all of the Meller girls.

The sisters’ maternal grandfather, Yitzchak Strauss, was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 24 October 1944.

The sisters’ mother, Chaya Sara (née Strauss) Meller, was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 24 October 1944.

Cibi’s husband Mischka was born Mordechai Maximilian Lang on 2 April 1908. He died on 30 March 2000 in Kfar Ahim, Israel.

Magda’s husband Yitzko was born Yitzchak Guttman on 1 November 1911. He died on 5 May 1982 in Holon, Israel.

Livi’s husband, Shmuel, known in the family as Ziggy, was born Viteslav Zigfried Shmuel Ravek on 8 April 1925 in Moravia. He died on 14 December 2015 in Rehovot, Israel.

Cibi married Mischka in Bratislava, Slovakia, on 20 April 1947. Their son Karol (Kari) was born on 16 March 1948 in Bratislava. Their second son Joseph (Yossi) was born on 12 August 1951, in Israel.

Magda married Yitzko in 1950 in Israel. Their daughter Chaya was born on 28 May 1951, in Israel. A second daughter, Judith (Ditti), was born on 22 September 1955, in Israel.

Livi married Ziggy on 2 May 1953 in Israel. Their son Oded (Odie) was born on 1 August 1955, in Israel. Their daughter Dorit was born on 12 July 1959, in Israel.

The sisters’ uncle Ivan (Strauss), his wife Helena and children Lily, Gita and David, arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 25 October 1944. There was no selection for the gas chambers that day, or any subsequent day. The war was nearly over. Taken on a death march, Helena, weak and sick, fell and died. Ivan and his children made their way back to Bratislava where they were reunited with the sisters. There he met his second wife Irinka and moved to Israel in 1949. They had three further children.

Dr Kisely was the Christian doctor who saved Magda from deportation by admitting her to hospital. Magda remembers his name clearly.

Before they were taken to Auschwitz, Cibi had been passionate about travelling to Palestine, to be part of the creation of a Jewish homeland. A wealthy local Jewish man who had converted to Christianity acquired a property 30km from Vranov. There he provided Hachshara training for young men and women, teaching them about farming, large-scale cooking and other survival skills that would be essential in a new land, with a climate and terrain very different to Slovakia.

Visik was the same age as Cibi. He had been a friend for many years and was part of a social group of young, idealistic women and men, predominantly Jewish, who met regularly, often in the Meller home, to dream, plot and scheme for a better life. He joined the Hlinka Guards and tried to intimidate and harass Cibi while they walked from the synagogue to the train station in Vranov as they were deported for Auschwitz.