Lena

I kept running, despite the damage the cold snow was doing to my feet. I was numb, numb in my body and my mind. I kept running though. The moon was high in the sky and the stars were all visible. The moon lit a lunar path for me across the wide, open field. It was as if God himself had a spotlight on this specific occasion in my life. A hellscape I couldn’t fathom being real life. I wanted to look behind me, but I couldn’t lose my focus. I had no idea where I was going, all I knew that I was in Poland. I knew that I was sixteen years old, I knew that my name was Lena and that I had lost both of my parents. My identity was meaningless to me now. I belonged to the earth, to the snow, to the moon and the night sky. I was no longer a daughter, a friend, or a potential lover.

I didn’t have a good feeling about the men who had infiltrated Vienna. It was a lugubrious, rainy day when they came. Their boots and their swastikas were shiny despite the mud. I observed them with curiosity as they walked into the café. I caught the eye of one. He was strikingly handsome with a defined jaw line, smooth skin, and green-blue eyes. We stared at each other for a moment, and I felt my skin get hot and my heart start to race. He smiled at me and nodded. I looked down, grabbed my jacket, and left immediately. I felt shame for feeling attracted to a monster, although I knew deep down, he was only a man.

When I got home my mother was frantically cleaning the kitchen with tears welling up in her eyes. She cleaned whenever she was nervous, anxious, or mad. She was a beautiful woman but that day I could see the exhaustion she was wearing. The setting powder or her mauve lipstick could not hide this. She felt me watching her as I stood in the door, this only made her scrub harder. I walked to my room and sat on my bed feeling confused. My heart was still beating fast but I couldn’t tell if it was from the Nazi I had just locked eyes with, or that fact that I knew my life was about to change forever. I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes. I tried to make my breath louder than my heartbeat as I plummeted into a deep sleep.

My father wrote for the local newspaper until the Nazis took his job away. He had been humiliated in front of his peers when he was forced to rip up all his work. His typewriter was taken away. Instead of drinking my father wrote. It was how he coped, until I started to see bottles of wine underneath their bed when changing the sheets. I never said a word. My parents tried to keep the peace until one day our home was invaded. My mother’s jewelry that had been in her family for decades was taken and anything else that was deemed to have monetary value. We were left with the bare minimum, the basics. After they had turned our house upside down and left, my father stood in the hallway looking defeated. He walked over to me and held me. His body was stiff, and his arms held me tightly. I felt tear drops fall onto my cheek. “At least we still have each other” he mumbled.

I awoke to shouting and a hand angrily slamming the table in the kitchen. I was alarmed but still delirious as I tried to listen to what my parents were saying. “We need to leave now Franz!” my mother said in a begging and eager tone. I went to open my door to listen more clearly, and it made a moaning, creaking sound. My parents obviously heard as my father responded to her in a harsh whisper. “Enough for tonight Ana” he said. He passed me in the hall and told me to go back to sleep with out looking at me. How much longer could they pretend that I didn’t know the severity of the situation. When would they consider me to be an adult?

A week passed and tensions grew between my parents and I. Things were getting worse, and restrictions for Jews were mounting. We were all labeled now and treated as swine. Some of us forced to eat grass like animals just to be dehumanized and laughed at by some who we used to consider endearing neighbors. I was sick of it all. I grew uneasy. I began to lose sleep. I wanted to know what our plan was. “My friend Bella told me about Mauthausen” I blurted out at dinner. My mother looked at my father and then at me with pity in her eyes. “We’re leaving for America in three days. I have a cousin who lives in New York City and I’ve been writing to him. He will be able to take us in until this all blows over.” My father continued to look down at his pasty potato soup and didn’t say a word. He was stubborn, even in the face of the devil. He wanted to continue to live the life that he had built for his small family here. This was his home. He had only taken up adventure in the books that he had read, but otherwise had no desire to travel, nonetheless flee. I nodded and continued to eat my soup. I didn’t know how to feel. A part of me was relieved, another part of me intrinsically terrified of what was to come.

The next morning, I awoke early, grabbed a small parcel I had hidden under my pillow for almost two months, and left the house for Bella’s. It was her birthday and the day that I would say goodbye to her. I walked the cobblestone streets feeling excited for her to see her gift, but also anticipating the despair of leaving. We had known each other since we were young girls. At the age of seven we had a secret diary that we started and hid in the nook of a tree in the forest. We would take turns writing to one another and expressing our feelings; writing about our family woes, arguments our parents would have, new crushes on boys and who we would be married to in twenty years. We would write about our dreams for the future, I wanted to be an actress and Bella wanted a family with four children on the countryside. I always signed off with “your best friend, Lena”. When I reached her house, I knocked on the door three times and impatiently waited for her to come to the door. She was expecting me after all. I tried three more knocks. Nothing. I walked to the side of the house and immediately noticed the barren windows. There were no longer pearl white curtains. I pressed my face into the cold, glass window and saw nothing. There was no furniture, no rugs, no trinkets, no Bella. A feeling of sorrow encapsulated my chest, and I didn’t want to think about what I already knew; her family had been taken. I tucked her gift gently inside of the deep pocket in my jacket and proceeded to run home.

I was in a panic, and I wanted to relieve my brain of a thousand thoughts by revealing this to my mother. As I turned the corner, I heard a man yell behind me “stop!”. I stood there frozen, with out turning back to see who it was. I heard loud, metallic like boots approaching me. “Where are you running off to in such a hurry Jew?” he said as his eyes met mine. It was him, the Nazi from the café. I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say, and my heart was beating so fast at this point that I was certain he could see it beneath my blouse. “I’m going home sir” I said. He nodded and said “get going” before moving out of the way. I began to walk forward, and I heard him ask for my name. I turned around and answered him, “Lena.” His blue eyes would not divert from mine. He was clenching his black gloves in his hand, he appeared to be nervous. “Lena”, he said. He smiled at me, and it lingered for a few seconds before the spell had reignited and he abruptly coughed into his arm, turned around and quickly retrieved. I felt my heart sink. Everything was being taken from me.

When I got home my house looked barren as well. The depression sank into my cells, and I began to get used to the feeling. My packed bag was on my bed and everything in my room was stripped. I walked around our home and soon had the epiphany that I was all alone. I ran out into the back yard yelling for my parents. They were nowhere to be seen. I ran back into the house yelling louder now, tears cascading from my eyes. I felt the saltwater hit my lips and I drank it in. Suddenly, my mom ran in through the front door. “Lena be quiet!” she had a stern look on her face. I could tell she was losing her mind. She looked at my face and saw that I had been crying, she came over and embraced me. “We have to leave now; we don’t have time for tears.” I couldn’t hold it back and I began to sob, “Bella is gone mom.” She gripped me tightly and said, “I know love, I know.” I looked up at her with my mouth wide open and rage creeping up from my stomach. I had so many questions. “Grab your bag” she said, as she wiped one single tear from her eye. She turned away and before I could expel my anger into the air through one last comment of “how could you not tell me!”, they barged through the door.

We were one day away from New York City, one day away from an escape. Had they found out about our plan? Did the Nazis want to keep us here only to see us tortured? My father and I were crammed into what felt like a compartment, with other people we didn’t know, who were also wearing the star of David. My mom was put into another train car. She had fought her way inside to stay with us, but they slapped her on the back of the head just as she was entering and dragged her down. My father yelled out, “Stay calm Ana!” I couldn’t watch. I didn’t want to know where she was going. My heart was already beginning to go numb. We drove all day. As the sun started to set people in the truck were starting to speculate where they were taking us. I heard an older man tell his wife that we were bound for Poland. I turned to my father and asked him what he thought. He was tired and withdrawn again. He said, “maybe Lena.” I felt frustrated with him in that moment. I wanted him to be sure for once about what our future was going to look like. I wanted him to reassure me. I wanted him to be strong. I told myself that these were unrealistic expectations.

I continued to try to ease drop on the other conversations in the car. A boy my age suddenly yanked on my coat. “We’re going to run for it as soon as they let us out. Some of us can get away. There are more of us than there are of them. Are you going to run?” My father turned to him and said, “you stupid boy, do not say such foolish things to my daughter.” He was furious. The boy laughed at him and said with glassy, wide eyes, “what do you think will happen in the camp they’re taking us to? I’d rather run like a wolf than be their obedient dog. My father looked at me with a grief-stricken face and whispered, “we are staying together.” I put my head on his shoulder and stared at the shadows in the car that were created by the moon and the profiles of men, women, and children.

I thought about what the boy said. I felt inspired by it. Either way our lives were at risk. But how could I leave my parents behind, my family? I drifted off into a deep sleep as the train wheels lulled me with the sound of their motion against the tracks. I awoke to a screech and my head wobbling against the metal wall as the train came to a halt. Everyone in the car began to grab their loved ones. My father took my hand and gripped it tightly. “Stay by me” he said. I started to feel dizzy and as if I was going to be sick. I asked if we’d get to see mom if we’d be able to wait for her. My father didn’t respond, he only clasped my hand tighter and pretended to be distracted by the commotion. As the door opened, we were shouted at to exit the train. Out of curiosity I tried to find the boy who had said he’d rather be a wolf. I looked behind me and he was staring off into the woods panting heavily and mumbling to himself under his breath. He caught my glance, and his large brown eyes were ferocious with determination. I wanted to believe he was crazy, but time froze. I was observing the weary passengers being clubbed and formed into lines, I observed by father’s fearful face, and I soaked up all the evil that was awaiting me in the camp, behind the barbed wire fence. I grew angrier and angrier. Without contemplation as the waves of people began to be shoveled off the train quicker, I unclasped my hand from my father’s. He looked at me in disbelief. I kissed him on the cheek and told him I’ll be waiting on the other side for him, and to trust me. He yelled “NO, Lena, NO!” He tried to find my fingers in the sea of bodies, but he was pushed forward and forced off the train. I melted in that moment but felt high and yearned for that feeling to stay with me. I turned away to face the boy, he was my catalyst. “When I nod you and I will slip across the tracks into the woods. Don’t look back. Just keep running. They will shoot. Just keep running” he said. I couldn’t break the feeling of adrenaline that was bursting through my veins. I chose to believe in him.

We were plummeted from the train and met by Nazis at gunpoint. They were rushing us into line. All I saw was their guns and I panicked. I looked over at the boy who had just as much panic on his face, he looked behind him and then at me as other people were being shoved into us. As a couple of the guards walked over to the other train car, where my mother was, he nodded. He darted across the tracks, and no one seemed to notice in that moment, so with inexplicable courage I followed. I remember my feet hitting the forest foliage as I began to hear yelling and gun shots. Without a dose of warning, he dropped in front of me, but I had no time to stop. He had been shot and I couldn’t process it. I only ran faster. I ran faster, away from the dead boy who led me astray, faster away from the camp, faster away from my parents. I kept running deeper into the woods as fast as my legs could take me. I was being hunted. The yelling and the gunshots seemed to be further off into the distance when I came reached the open field.

As I cascaded across the field, knowing I was out in the open now, I was praying for the woods to appear once again. I felt senseless and insane, like a rabid animal seeking its prey for relief. I couldn’t think of anything else but how to keep moving and breathing. Far off in the distance I saw a barn. My insides were aching, my body was frozen, and I was starting to lose my stamina, but I would not stop. I ran for my family now; I ran for what I left behind. I finally made it to the dilapidated wooden barn. I gasped as I noticed a house off to the side that was hidden beforehand. I ran into the barn and collapsed into the hay. There was some old machinery I hid behind and I covered myself the best that I could. As I lay there trying to catch my breath, I was astounded by the silent flight of a beautiful white owl that entered the barn. It gracefully flew to a threadbare metal chair in the corner and landed. I sat up in astonishment as the weightless hay fell from my body. I felt for Bella’s gift in my pocket. I took it out and unwrapped it. I held the wooden owl I had made for her birthday up high and compared it to the owl in front of me. They were both glaring at me, with big, tantalizing eyes, one made of beads and the other made of magic. I smiled in disbelief at how the white paint matched the white feathers of the bird in front of me. Before I could let my awestricken mind wander too far the owl flew away and a light crept into the holes and open slates of wood on the barn. I quickly covered myself under the hay as tried to be as still as I could; with out the ebb and flow of my breath. I heard a couple voices getting closer to the barn, speaking a language I couldn’t understand. They must have seen my footprints I thought to myself. A young girl’s voice was present as well and I could tell they were now in the barn. The voices stopped for a moment, and silence crept in. I heard crunching footsteps approach and then felt Bella’s gift leave my hand. I was brushed off by the little girl and she yelled “Tata!” I remained still and did not move. Her father walked over and gasped. He spoke to her with a frantic voice, and she ran away, with my owl still in her hand. He pulled me up and stared at me. I couldn’t help but begin to sob. My whole body was shaking as I felt ashamed and regretful. Was he going to kill me? Was he going to take me back to the camp? That’s where I belonged, I told myself.

He stood there for a while, just watching me cry. I could tell he was hesitant, and he was weary. He walked outside and looked in the direction of where I ran from. He started to run. I thought he was going to find the guards, but as I peaked my head outside of the barn he was walking back alone. He had contorted my tracks. When he returned to the barn, he looked at me and waved for me to follow him inside. As I followed him, I saw his daughter in the window holding the only tangible piece of my past that I had left. I looked behind me before entering the house and saw two eyes aglow in a tree, watching over me.