Good luck homing pigeon

Chapter seventeen: Don't answer when death comes knocking. (5th May 1943)

Sorry for the wait-the song above is Minnie the Moocher, sang by a much older Cab Calloway in 'the blues brothers'. If you're into Jazz musicals, I serious recommend checking this one out. Enjoy...

The months tended to pass painfully slow whilst you were in Birkenau. For most, it was because every day was spent doing the same, gruelling work, eating the same, awful, minimal food, and suffering the same, cruel brutalities the soldiers inflicted upon all of us. And after hours, standing in the mud and rain, morning and night for roll calls, how were we all expected to be able to count month after month of being in this place? It was easy. I didn't count them. Once a week at The Flock meetings, Janek would dutifully update us on the exact dates it was in the present. So in a way, I guess I did have some way of keeping track of time. But it must be understood that remembering certain dates between all these time-gaps is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

After the first delivery there came about eighteen more. One, every week, on Saturday evenings. There I carried 'laundry' about every week, sneaking into the tin shed where Angelo would be waiting to empty out the contents from his sack into mine. We'd do that as quickly as possible, for there would be more time for us to stand and kiss the night away, in the tight-knit seclusion of the tin-shed. It wasn't something I could call, nor would it constitute as a love affair. In race, wealth, and beliefs we were nothing but equals. But nevertheless, if we were caught doing whatever it was we're doing, it wouldn't be just our lives at risk. If they found us guilty of smuggling food between the camps. The Flock, our missions, everything could go up in flames. Even without a name to call what we had between us, Angelo and I thrived in the time we had together. Holding one another, stroking, and kissing. Tongues lashing, touches frenzied, passion ensuing with every single second. He was the one thing that kept me from losing what was left of my humanity. Well-not just him, really. Antonia, Alina, Sandrine, The Flock, every person I knew here who made me, me. But being with him, kissing  him! Could there be any more words to describe such a feeling?

Thanks to the deliveries themselves, I think that at least some of the people here were getting slowly better. We started the trial basis on our barrack first; for about three days, everybody got just a little extra alongside their soup. Potatoes, split peas, and celery. Oh, how I missed the cool, tangy crunch of the celery. It was barely much more than what we got already, but for some it made a difference. Some of the thinnest, older prisoners here, those who hung on by breaking threads were beginning to improve, just the slightest. Though still thin, still grey-skinned, and still bald-headed, there was just something in their eyes that made them look not as glassy or vacant. It was as if...as if a glimmer of life had been breathed back into them. And once they had it, they weren't prepared to let it go.

I think the extra ingredients were helping Antonia, Alina and Sandrine too-for they needed it. Mama was well settled in Belson by now, so there was no way I could've sent any of that extra food to her. And Briana, well...she had enough for herself and Dmitri. And she'd made it perfectly clear to me that she didn't need my help. So the people who were left, I would do all in my power to save them. Not a risk I wouldn't have taken, not a question I wouldn't have asked. Antonia has looked after me, ever since mama left. Now it was my turn.

And so when we were pulled out suddenly from our work huts and lined up, side by side in the courtyards, I had an inkling that this had to be my chance. It was another transport selection, but for where? It wasn't as if the guards would've told us anything without lying. The block leader seemed to know just as little about it as we did. And all around, inmates looked startled and even frightened. Where were they planning to send the selected? The gas chambers? That extermination camp, Treblinka? Somebody here had to know where. But who?

"Those trucks," Sandrine whispered to me, pointing to some small, black writing on one of the cattle trucks pulled up opposite our work hut. "I think that's in Polish. Wherever it might be going, I dare say it shan't be going far."