‘Just a walk,’ Volkenrath tells them. Cibi can read nothing in her expression.
‘How far?’ Cibi asks, confident Volkenrath will answer her.
‘If I knew I would tell you,’ comes the reply.
‘Are we free? Are you letting us go?’ Cibi persists.
Volkenrath smirks. ‘That is not what’s going on. You will be escorted to another camp.’ She claps her hands once, twice. ‘And you should thank us – we’re taking you away from all this bombing.’
‘Do we have a choice? I would rather stay here where we have a roof over our heads and take my chances with the bombs,’ another voice cries.
Volkenrath snaps to attention. ‘You do not have a choice. I didn’t have to come here and tell you anything.’ With that she storms out.
Once again, the girls dress in every single item of clothing they own, and then they drape their blankets around their shoulders. Once they are gathered outside, under a new shower of snow, they are told to start marching.
They pass through the gates Cibi and Livi first entered three years earlier. Now, they march out together, the three of them. The sisters turn their heads to read the letters emblazoned above, ARBEIT MACHT FREI.
‘Does this mean we are free?’ Livi asks.
‘Not yet .?.?. Not yet,’ Cibi answers.
Magda looks at her sisters. They are so thin, weakened by the years of struggle. How will they possibly survive this weather?
CHAPTER 23
Death March
January 1945
C
ibi, Magda and Livi stumble, trip and catch themselves time and again as they plough the deep snow, arm in arm. They can no longer feel their fingers, their faces. The bombing draws closer. Surrounded by thousands of girls and women, all departing Auschwitz, the sisters head into the unknown.
‘Stay on your feet,’ hisses Cibi. Gunshots echo in the air as those who can no longer keep pace, those who have collapsed into the snow as though it were a bed, are dispatched with a bullet. ‘If one of us goes down, we all go. Remember that,’ she adds. They won’t let go of each other, and they won’t fall, they each decide.
Livi turns round to survey the multitudes of women joining the throng.
‘Look, Cibi, it’s the women from Birkenau,’ says Livi. Hundreds of women have been added to the queues streaming away from Auschwitz.
Cibi feels like lying down and dying right there on the ground, despite her advice to her sisters. They are mere specks in this vast landscape of women marching towards yet another hellish unknown. Is God watching us, she wonders? Of course he isn’t. Cibi eyes the guards who keep pace alongside the women, shouting ‘Schnell!’ and lashing out with the butts of their rifles, their icy fists.
‘Remember the promise!’ urges Magda, rousing Cibi from her despair. Her sister has not endured the beatings, the starvation, the degradation she and Livi have endured. Magda is still hopeful, so Cibi inhales a stream of icy air and releases a fog of breath.
‘We stay together no matter what,’ she responds.
‘We are strongest when we are together,’ adds Livi. The young girl’s cheeks are hollow, but they are pink. Cibi is glad, she looks alive.
They walk on. There are no breaks. No food or water, but when the officers move away to hammer at some poor girl who lacks the strength to carry on, they scoop up handfuls of snow to melt on their tongues.
‘Remember how we used to make chocolate snow?’ Magda asks, after a long period of silence.
For Cibi, the image of her mother stirring a steaming pan at the stove, amid the companionship of her family, feels like a scene from a story she read a long time ago. But she drags herself into the conversation, for the sake of her sisters.
‘It would be too hot, and we’d go outside .?.?.’ begins Cibi.
‘。？.?. and add snow to it!’ Livi is staring into the sky. Icy flakes land on her face. Her hand closes around the little knife, deep in her pocket.
‘Frozen chocolate, you used to call it,’ Magda says. ‘If only we had some cocoa and a bit of sugar, we could make some now.’
‘The sugar won’t dissolve without boiling water, though,’ notes Livi, wisely. ‘We need more than hot water and sugar and chocolate.’ She turns her face away from the skies and stares at her boots. ‘We need Mumma.’
Cibi draws Livi close. This is why she has to keep going. She can’t let them give up now. ‘She’s with us, Livi,’ Cibi says. ‘And Grandfather. They’re walking with us right now. We just can’t see them.’