When Lonka came to visit, Bela could see that she too was sick, and becoming weaker. Physically and emotionally, Lonka was losing the will to live. Bela watched her friend gather her strength to encourage her. But as Bela’s condition improved, Lonka’s worsened, and she was brought into the same hospital block, nearly unrecognizable. Bela pleaded with the doctor to put them in the same bed. They held each other all day and night.
After six weeks, Bela felt better. She wrapped her swollen feet in rags and was able to walk. She ate, even appreciating the taste of the soup. She knew she needed to get out and work, or else she’d be gassed. But she also needed to stay close to Lonka and nurse her back to health. Bela decided to start working again at the hospital. She was an “illegal,” and so she was assigned the hardest jobs, like removing mud from the stones between the beds with a knife and emptying the urine and feces buckets.
Meanwhile, Lonka was burning up with typhus. Then she contracted the mumps. And dysentery. Bela was beside herself, doing whatever she could, washing her friend with snow, risking her own life by stealing drinking water, and sneaking medicine from the male camp via the sewage cleaners—one of whom was the brother of a friend.
Then Bela heard that Mengele, the SS physician who conducted inhumane medical experiments on prisoners and was known as the Angel of Death, was coming for a selection. She knew that Lonka, being so ill, would be sent to the gas chambers. Bela carried Lonka out of the revier to her own block, telling people that her friend was merely worn out from all the grueling work. But it was too difficult to hide her typhus and to stand her up for long hours of roll call, so Bela brought Lonka back to the hospital. She deteriorated; her eyes lost their color and sank into her face. She was all bones.
Lonka called Bela over to her bed. “I’m worried I’ll leave you alone, and you will not be able to keep your secret,” she whispered. “You must not reveal that you are Jewish.” Lonka kept Bela by her bed for four hours, talking, crying, mentioning Freedom comrades, her own brother. She hated being so detached, so lonely. She grabbed Bela’s hand. “I have pulled the thread of life until its end, but you must go on and tell our story. See it through. Stay sweet. Look everyone in the eye. Do not lose yourself, and you will survive.”
Lonka whispered good-bye. Her last breath.
Bela could not move. She refused to let go of Lonka’s hand. How would she continue to live in this hell without her dearest friend? Who would she rely on? Talk to?
The only person in the universe who knew where she was, who she was—gone.
Polish women came over, praying, placing holy cards and icons of Jesus between Lonka’s fingers. Bela hated seeing her best friend die as a Christian. All her energy went to biting her tongue.
The kommando that collected dead bodies approached; they usually grabbed corpses abruptly, tossed them onto wooden planks, stomach down, head and feet dangling off the ends. Bela would not let Lonka be taken this way. She asked the doctor for special permission to borrow a stretcher, claiming that Lonka was her relative, and she wanted to take her to the “cemetery”—where they piled corpses before cremation. At first, he refused to “discriminate among the dead” but eventually he relented.
All the Poles who knew Lonka from Pawiak gathered. Bela, shivering, transferred the body from the cot and discreetly lifted the blanket to remove the Jesus cards and icons. Four women carried the stretcher; others sang mournful tunes. In the corpse area, Bela raised the cloth that covered Lonka’s face one more time. She couldn’t stop looking; she couldn’t move. She said a silent Kaddish, the Jewish mourner’s prayer.
Then she remembered Lonka telling her to go on. “In all of the years to come,” Bela would write, “Lonka’s character accompanied me everywhere.”
But in this life, Bela was alone.
*
Now, plucking feathers at Katowice prison, Renia looked at Ilza one last time. “Come with me,” echoed in their ears. She was being summoned. Ilza returned her look, embarrassed, sympathetic.