Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(24)

Cibi takes Livi’s hand and quickly they join their detail to begin the walk back to their old camp.

Arriving back in Auschwitz Cibi and Livi head for the Kanada, the building they know to be the sorting room, where, with white kerchiefs tied around their heads, they will rummage through the belongings of newcomers, just as once their own suitcases had been mined for whatever the Nazis deemed valuable.





CHAPTER 11

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Autumn 1942

E

ach morning and evening, as the sisters walk to Auschwitz and then back to Birkenau, Cibi’s fear of the approaching winter months escalates. The sisters gaze forlornly at the forest beyond Birkenau, noting the change of season: green leaves turn red, then yellow, and begin to fall. They reminisce about the wonderful times they spent with their grandfather in Vranov. Following the death of Menachem, Yitzchak had taken it upon himself to educate the sisters on the joys of the forest. They knew how to identify the bracken, and the ferns which snuggled at the base of the trees, which species of fungi was safe to eat, and how to avoid the more attractive but deadly mushrooms that littered the forest floor each autumn.

‘I bet we’d find mushrooms in there,’ Livi says regularly, wistfully. ‘Don’t you remember, Cibi? You, me and Magda, with our baskets full of berries and apples?’

Cibi rarely responds because it is a fantasy, and fantasies are dangerous in this place. But, more than that, she doesn’t want to bring thoughts of Magda into the camp. The image of her sister at home with their mother is the only picture that brings her any real solace.

When the snow begins to fall, the sisters smuggle back a blanket and a couple of coats from the sorting rooms, but they are still cold.

The Kanada is a land of plenty. The sisters’ job is to scrutinise the confiscated items of the new prisoners for secret caches of food, money, jewels – anything of worth. Watched over by the SS, the girls feel along the seams of trousers, the hems of skirts, the collars of coats. When something is discovered, they unpick stitches and retrieve secrets. Cibi has uncovered a ruby, Livi a diamond. Temptation is a reality for all the girls in the sorting rooms, but Cibi won’t risk their lives for a gem, no matter what such a treasure might buy them. But some of the girls do, especially now in winter, as the desperation for food, extra clothing, some kindness, sets in.

After this, they group together similar items of clothing: shirts, coats, trousers and underwear. The rooms are warm, and the work less exhausting than the building site, for which the sisters are grateful.

Returning to Birkenau in the evenings, Cibi occasionally catches sight of a girl burying her stolen wares in the hard earth beneath the snow. The girl will then wait for an opportunity to smuggle the gems, or whatever she has buried, to the rumoured privileged male prisoners who, in turn, will barter with willing SS officers, for food.

Occasionally, Cibi nudges Livi into slipping on an extra pair of socks, or winding a scarf around her neck: small, negligible items that carry little risk, but make all the difference to the unrelenting conditions of their lives. Sometimes, when she can, Cibi takes extra items back to the block for one of the other girls.

Some of the girls exchange undergarments for a bread ration, but neither Cibi nor Livi can bring themselves to ‘sell’ what they smuggle. Occasionally, they find food amongst the belongings – a stale end of bread, a half-rotten cake – and even these they have handed over willingly, apart from a couple of times, when, close to starvation, their hunger had overwhelmed their fear of capture and they stuffed rock-hard, weeks-old dough into their mouths.

‘Livi, Livi, look at this,’ Cibi whispers to her sister who is pairing socks together one day, adding them to the pile in front of her.

Beneath the pile of coats she is sorting through, Cibi’s palm is open.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a franc, a French franc. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?’

Livi looks once more at the coin and into Cibi’s glowing eyes. Her sister hasn’t looked so hopeful in a long time.

‘It’s beautiful, Cibi, truly, but what can you do with it?’

Cibi seems to snap awake, closing her fingers around the coin. She marches across the room, towards Rita, and hands it over. Cibi then returns to her post and carries on rifling through the coats. For a few moments, she was walking the streets of Paris, watching the river Seine sparkling in the moonlight, admiring the couples walking arm in arm, who smiled at her as they ambled on their way.

That evening, Livi lags behind the others as they trudge back to Birkenau. Cibi hasn’t spoken a word to her or to anyone else since she let go of the coin. The snow is falling as the light fades, and the lights in the watchtowers are still a mile away. Rachel, another of their detail, catches up with Cibi, drawing her attention to Livi, who is dropping further and further behind the group. Cibi smiles at Rachel, grateful that she and many of the others have taken on big sisterly duties for the youngest of their group, for Livi.

Initially a little cross that Livi has not tried to keep up, Cibi chides her to hurry up: ‘What’s wrong? Why are you being so slow?’ asks Cibi, when eventually Livi has caught up.

Tears slide down Livi’s face as she points to her feet. ‘My feet are frozen. I don’t think I can walk any more,’ she sobs.

‘Everyone’s feet are frozen. Just try and keep pace with me.’