The Train To Forever

The pain was blinding. Or maybe I couldn't see because the night was just that dark. Either way, I could see nothing when I opened my eyes. There was only darkness, pain, moaning, crying and loud rumbling that surrounded me. The darkness and noise engulfed me and I closed my eyes again as the pain swept me back into the endless black abyss.

When I struggled back to conciousness again, the pain was still there. The darkness was also still there - brief flashes of light but still dark enough to keep me from knowing where I was. I searched my memory but found nothing to let me know how I got here or even where "here" might be.

The moaning and crying still surrounded me, but quieter than before. Some of the moans were mine, but most were not. I tried to raise my hand to my pounding head and found I was unable to move. I was surrounded by ... was it bodies? They pressed around me - soft and mostly warm and damp. We were pressed so tightly I couldn't even raise my hand to wipe the sweat from my face. Was it sweat or was I bleeding? Where the hell was I?

I became aware of smoke drifting in and out of the room. It battled with the nasty odor of unwashed, crowded bodies crammed together.

I became aware that the floor beneath me was swaying and jerking. I shifted slightly and managed to move one foot and almost slipped on a puddle that ran between my feet. The smell of urine wafted upward and I realized the stench was that not only of fear, but of sweat, urine and other human waste.

I jerked at the realization and would have fallen if there had been room. I was steadied by the tightening of a slender arm around my shoulders and a hand crept quickly upward and gently stroked my face.

"Oh, oh, oh ... you are awake?" The voice trembled but was still as familiar to me as my own heartbeat. "I was afraid you would not wake up. I feared that they had killed you, my love. They hit you so hard... And then they just threw you in here."

"Where is here, Hanna? I have no memory of what happened or where we are? Are the children here? Are they ok?" My voice was raspy, almost unrecognizable and I realized that my throat was dry and scratchy. How long had we been here?

"The children are here. They had been helping me hold you up so you do not get trampled. But they became so very tired. I think they are all sleeping now." She laughed softly, bitterly. "I'm not sure how. Exhausted, I guess."

"Hanna. Help me. I need to know where we are. I do not remember anything since ..." I paused, trying to think back to something I could remember clearly. Everything was jumbled; the memories disjointed, only bits and pieces - our wedding, the birth of one of our children, meals we had shared together, family gatherings with friends, prayers and worship services. More memories - a feeling of fear, running. The shattering of a door, strangers crowding into our home, yelling, boots, guns, the screams of my wife and children. And then nothing. Nothing until the pain of awakening in the darkness surrounded by the swaying mass of people.

And then I put it all together - the swaying, the smoke, the rumbling under our feet. We were on a train.

Hanna spoke through soft sobs. "It's a train, Abram. They have treated us like animals. No - worse than animals; shoving us into this train with no place to sit, no water." Her voice became even lower. "No privey room. And the train doesn't stop. It just goes on and on and on." Her voice began to rise and took on a shrill edge.

I felt shifting on my other side and realized one of the children was waking.

"Hanna. Calm, my love. You must be calm and quiet. We must talk before the children awaken."

Her breathing slowed and I felt her head tip to rest against my shoulder. She sighed, her breathing becoming steadier.

"Are any of you hurt? And who else is here?" I kept my voice low and tried to convey a calm I didn't feel. I hoped she would not feel how hard my heart was pounding.

"Only you. Only you were hurt. Joshua tried to run to you, but I grabbed him and held him back or they would have beaten him, too. But the children are all here. Anya is holding the baby to keep him from being crushed. The rest from the people from the ghetto are here too. Except the ones who they killed. And the ones that have died here. There are at least a dozen that I know are dead -mostly the old ones, but some of the little children too. I listened to them scream as they were trampled and crushed. And they're still in here - standing where they were when they quit breathing or kicked to edge of the boxcar so people don't trip on them."

I could hear her hysteria returning and could do nothing. My hands were pressed too tightly at my side to hold her. All I could do was whisper to her, and later to the children, and assure them that everything would be alright. I led my family in prayer and again reassured them that things would be better once we reached the resettlement camp. We had been promised, after all.

The train swayed on; the heat became hotter, the stench became worse... much worse. My daughter cried as the pee flowed down her legs and Hanna did her best to comfort her. Everyone around us was hungry but suffered more from thirst. What water had been brought was long gone and tempers began to rise with the heat. Our baby cried constantly, along with two or three more. People screamed and cursed, telling us to make them stop. But there was no stopping any of it - the train, the heat, the stench, the crying or moaning. Nothing stopped except time. It no longer had any meaning.

But the train showed no signs of stopping. It rumbled and rocked through the long endless day and into the night. Everyone inside rocked too. There was no choice. And then it slowed, jolted a couple of times and jerked to a stop.

After so many hours of rocking in the train, it felt strange for the floor to no longer be moving under our feet. People shifted in their small spaces and whispered to each other, wondering what was happening. We could hear men yelling and dogs barking outside of the train and see bright lights through the spaces between the boards of the walls. The door to the train car was eventually thrown open and cool air rushed in. People shoved toward the fresh night air and then tried to retreat at the harsh gutteral curses of the men and the lunging and snarls of the huge dogs outside the door.

"Stay together!" I told Hanna and the children. "Whatever happens, my loves, stay together."

We hung back but were eventually herded from the car like cattle and I stumbled as everything around me spun and shifted. Apparently the blow to my head was worse than I thought. Seeing the eyes of a frowning officer on me, I forced myself upright and walked on. An ornate sign hung above the gate proclaiming "Arbeit Macht Frei" - German for "work makes one free". We had heard whispers of this place but most refused to believe something so horrible could actually exist. But even if it was not as bad as the rumored tales, I realized my family was probably fixing to be separated, starved, beaten and worked to death. We were entering, not a relocation camp, but the dreaded Auschwitz.

As we entered the camp, the frowning officer motioned Joshua to stop.

"How old are you, boy?" he looked my son up and down, waiting for an answer.

"I'm 16, sir, 17 next month."

The soldier stepped forward and felt the muscles of his arm and motioned the boy to the left. He looked at me and frowned. He remembered the stumbling and noticed the blood streaking my battered face.

"You, take your family... there. You will get deloused and have a shower. You all stink." He motioned us to the right.

"Sir. Sir. Where are you sending my son? Please, sir."

"Oh - he is being sent to a different camp. There is no reason to worry."

The smile did not reach his eyes and did little to reassure me. But the rest of my family was waiting and I turned and walked toward the showers. I remember little of the demeaning and humiliating experiences that we were forced to endure before being herded, naked and embarrassed, into the showers.

I looked around at the room full of people I hardly recognized without their clothes and hair. Levi, the old shop keeper, his head hanging in shame at his nudity. A young mother trying to cover her nakedness and still keep her child close. My beloved Hanna, Anya and the baby, huddled next to me, crying. Another mother taking a minute to nurse her newborn. Others - some that I knew well and others only slightly - mostly women, young children, old folks or, like me, those who were injured or ill. And all the sudden I knew. I bent and kissed my daughter, my baby son and my wife as gas, not the promised shower, began to fill the room.

*************************************

The pain was blinding. There was only darkness, pain, moaning and crying. I closed my eyes again as the pain swept me back into the endless blackness of unconciousness.

Later, when I struggled back to wakefulness again, the pain was still there. The darkness was also still there as well. I searched my memory but found nothing to let me know how I got here or even where "here" might be, even though it felt like I had been here before.

I became aware of the floor beneath me swaying and jerking, the noise and the smoke that drifted through the room. A train. I was on a train. Had I been here before?

"Oh, my love... you are awake?" My wife's voice brought it all back to me - the memory of what had happened The camp, the shower, watching my family struggle to breathe and finally die. I realized I had lived through this before, several times. And now I was going to be forced to watch it happen again and again and again.

I was on a neverending train ride ... a train ride to hell.

I began to scream...