An hour or more passes before once again the door is opened and the girls are ordered outside. Those who pick up their suitcases have them snatched away as they cross the threshold. Cibi hears a guard telling one girl that her suitcase will be there when she returns. They never see them again.
The girls are led into another building, a large space with a kitchen area at the back. They line up and find themselves in front of the six girls who had been taken earlier and who now hand them a small tin plate, a small pile of over-cooked cabbage and a piece of bread the size of their fists. Maybe this was once a dining room, but there are no tables and chairs, so the girls sit on the floor forcing the tasteless food into empty stomachs.
On their return to their barracks, buckets of water, mops and scrubbing brushes greet the girls. They are told they are to scrub the room until it shines. They take turns washing and rewashing the floor, each girl working until they have all scrubbed at least once, watched over by guards.
They spend the rest of the day sitting, standing, crying. Late in the afternoon they are taken back to the dining room and fed a small piece of potato and a slice of bread each.
Back in the barracks, one of the girls reminds them it is Pesach, Passover. But how can they take part in the rituals demanded of them in here? The girl points at a blonde-haired teenager who is sitting alone. ‘Her father is our rabbi. She should know the order of prayer, the rituals.’
All eyes turn to the girl, who nods and clicks open her suitcase to remove the Haggadah. Soon, everyone is gathered around joining her in prayer. A heavy sadness settles on them.
*
The next morning, once more without breakfast, the girls are marched out of the compound, and back to the train station. Once again, whip-carrying Hlinka guards mark their journey.
The train is waiting on the platform, engine fired up and ready to go. But the girls are ordered past the rows of carriages, towards cattle wagons at the back of the train.
‘Get on board!’ the guards yell, over and over. But the girls don’t move. Cibi feels like an animal caught in the headlights of a car. They can’t mean they should climb into a vehicle meant for transporting cows, surely?
‘Cibi, what’s happening?’ Livi cries.
‘I don’t know, but .?.?. but these wagons, they’re for animals.’
But the Hlinka guards are serious. The whips are extended and used to shepherd the girls into the wagons, despite the fact they are so high off the ground. The cursing, yelling, and hitting continues, all attempts at decorum abandoned, and the girls scrabble to climb aboard, reaching out to then help those on the platform to clamber inside.
Cibi pushes Livi up into the arms of a girl who lifts her into the wagon. The stink of cow manure mingles with the very real smell of their fear.
The girls are packed inside, standing room only. Bolts are drawn across the heavy doors and the only light comes from shards of sunlight pouring through the wooden slats of the walls.
Practically everyone is crying now; those nearest the walls are screaming, smashing their fists against the slats, demanding their freedom.
Cibi and Livi have entered a waking nightmare. There is no respite from the close proximity of other bodies, from the wailing, the terrible thirst and gnawing hunger. The train stops many times, sometimes briefly, sometimes for lengthier periods, but the door stays closed. Cibi tears more and more strips from her petticoat to change Livi’s bandages, until only the waistband remains.
Finally, the doors creak open. The sun has slipped below the horizon, but even this half-light makes them squint. Cibi’s heart almost judders to a halt when she spies the uniforms of the Nazis. It’s the SS. She has only ever seen them in Grandfather’s newspaper, but the dark grey jackets, the swastika in the bright red strip on their sleeves – there is no mistaking it. They line the platform, facing the wagons, holding their rifles in one hand and the leads of large, barking dogs in the other.
The girls start to jump down and the dogs strain to snap and snarl at them. Two girls are bitten the moment they land.
‘Faster, faster,’ the Germans scream, striking those they deem too slow with the butts of their rifles.
Cibi and Livi move fast, leaping out of the wagon and standing to one side. They have arrived at what is obviously another compound. There are floodlights illuminating buildings, whole streets beyond the gates. They look at the sign above the wire fencing and read: ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Cibi knows enough German to decipher the meaning. Work sets you free.
But then Cibi and Livi become transfixed by the shaven-headed, hollow-cheeked men who now swarm the train. In blue-and-white striped shirts and trousers, they move like rats fleeing a sinking ship as they clamber into the wagons and begin to throw the girls’ suitcases onto the platform.