Annelies полностью

In a large hall filled with the clatter of typewriters, the Franks wait in one of many long queues. They have, at the moment, lost track of the van Pelses and Pfeffer, but the family is still together. Anne notices that after so long in hiding, their skin has turned as white as bleached flour from lack of sunlight. They have become living ghosts.

“Mother,” Margot suddenly announces, “you’re shivering.”

And so she is. Both Margot and Pim move to comfort her, but Edith takes a step away.

“Please don’t,” is all she can squeeze from her lips as she hugs herself, quaking, eyes boring into nothing. But she does not resist when Pim alone takes her into his embrace, and Anne is struck by a bolt of guilt. To see her mother so far from comfort, untouchable by her daughters. She cannot help but feel that she is responsible. How many times did Mummy try to get close to her, and how many times did Anne shove her away?

•   •   •

Their assignment vouchers are clear. The place where all eight of them are billeted is a barracks with its own barbed-wire enclosure, because all Jewish onderduikers are interred in the camp within the camp: the so-called S-Block. S for Straffe. The Punishment Barracks. Punishment for the crime of having tried to save themselves by going into hiding. Because, of course, in the eyes of the Grossdeutsches Reich, onderduiker Jews are criminal Jews. Criminal Jews are forced to wear red patches on their dungarees and rough wooden clogs instead of shoes. They are assigned to the dirtiest work details. Men have their heads shaved and dig latrines in labor Kommandos, while women are sent to Section XII to salvage depleted batteries, splitting them with a mallet and chisel. The battery tar sticks to Anne’s skin. The carbon bars turn her fingers a muddy red color. Everyone chokes on the chemical dust; the coughing is like an underrhythm to their work. But at least there are people to talk to and jokes to tell. Sand blows everywhere, driven by the moorland winds. It grits her teeth, and the mosquitoes leave welts the size of pennies, but the air is fresh and the sunlight unrationed. It is livable.

Except for Tuesdays.

There is a long, straight road that bisects Kamp Westerbork—the only paved road in the flat mud plain. The Jews call it the Boulevard des Misères, because of the stretch of graveled railbed that runs beside it. Every Saturday a train of boxcars enters the camp, between eight and eleven in the morning, and comes to a steaming halt on the track. And there it sits until Tuesday morning, waiting to be filled with human freight. The metal signs bolted to the side of the boxcars tell the story:

WESTERBORK—AUSCHWITZ

AUSCHWITZ—WESTERBORK

Inside the barbed-wire boundaries of Westerbork, the Jews administer themselves. They police themselves. The Jewish Kommando charged with keeping order is known as the Ordnungsdienst, or more simply as the OD. They are often thuggish and brutal in their duties, these men, but luckily the head OD man for the S-Block has a reputation for decency, so Anne takes this as a good sign. Perhaps God is watching over them still.

Men and women are separated during the night. The Frank women share a three-tier bunk bed, with dirty burlap sacks filled with straw for mattresses. Mummy is still speechless most of the time. Numb, though she cried when a brute with a visored cap and the Magen David on his arm stole her wedding ring. It must have hurt her so much to lose that ring, and to think that it was another Jew who stole it from her!

One night after lights-out, Anne is struck by a nightmare even though she is still awake. Risking the abuse of their barracks elder, she slips out from the bottom bunk and presses her chin to the second tier, where her sister sleeps. A thin glow from the camp lamps seeps through the poorly mended shutters on the windows.

“Margot,” she whispers. She can feel needles of fear heating the back of her neck. It will mean some very bad trouble if she is caught out of her bunk. “Margot, wake up.” Anne prods her.

Margot does not move. She wakes without any kind of a start or surprise, her eyes simply open, reflecting a wet light. “What is it?” she hisses at Anne.

“Margot, I’m afraid Mummy and Pim are going to die,” Anne breathes.

Margot’s eyes widen enough to show that perhaps she, too, has had such a fear herself. “Anne . . .” she whispers.

“Promise me you’ll stay with me, Margot,” Anne begs her. “Promise me that whatever happens to us, you’ll stay with me. I couldn’t stand being alone any longer. I think I would die.”

“I promise,” Margot tells her, reaching out from under the dirty blanket and taking her sister’s hand. “I promise I will always stay with you, Anne. I will always stay with you.”