Stolen Memories

Irene could not stop staring at the large envelope she held in her trembling hands. She had to find the courage to open it. She needed to know what was inside. Yet, she was terrified of the old memories she worked so hard to push into the deepest corners of her consciousness. They would bring back the demons, and she was too old to fight them again.

It started two weeks ago with a phone call.

“Miss Irena Lieberman?”

Those three words had the power of a hurricane, and Irene almost fainted. When was the last time she was called by that name? Eons ago, in a different place, a different reality.

“Yes,” she said, her voice barely audible.

“I’m so glad we’ve finally found you! It took a very long time.” The man spoke with a heavy accent. “Our bank’s former president, Herr Günter Straussler, was a good friend of your father’s. Herr Straussler spent decades looking for you and, on his deathbed, made his children promise that they would continue with the search. You see, your parents left something in our vault with instructions that it should be delivered to you on your 16th Birthday. We’ve been trying to find you ever since. Would you mind if we sent a courier who could confirm your identity and deliver the package directly into your hands?”

The package was delivered less than half an hour ago. It was a large envelope with a Swiss bank logo. Although, it could be Pandora's Box in disguise, and Irene was paralyzed by fear. Yet, she had to know. She grabbed a knife and, in one desperate move, cut the envelope open. It contained only three items that fell to the table: a small black book and two bundles of hundred-dollar bills. The banknotes were neatly held by two brownish straps, each with a printed number, $10,000. It was twenty-thousand US dollars.

Irene ignored the money and opened the book with deference worthy of a royal psalter. It wasn’t a book but a leather-bound diary. It contained an elegant, old-fashioned writing and several black-and-white photos that somebody inserted into black corners neatly glued to the pages.

Irene started reading – the language of these yellow pages almost forgotten, “Kraków, November 27, 1939. My Dearest Irciu…” She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by emotions. Only one person on Earth called her by that name—the beautiful handwriting belonged to her mother.

"In a few days, we'll celebrate your 5th Birthday! Only this year’s celebrations will be less festive because of this silly war. That’s why your father and I have decided to prepare a surprise for you and send it to Switzerland with our good friend, Mr. Straussler. He is leaving in five days, and I have so much to share with you before he goes. I must hurry.

All foreigners were ordered to leave Poland by the end of this year. Günter says we should go too, considering what’s happening with the Jews in Germany. But I think it’s rubbish and I’ve told Günter to stop trying to scare me. Germans are so cultured and so refined! And we are not your simple everyday Jews. We are one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in Kraków. Plus, I love our beautiful, big house, although I hate it when it’s empty, and it will be after everyone leaves.”

Irene stopped reading. She had no memories of that house. There was that stunning fairy tale room that she sometimes saw in her dreams, but she never knew if it was real or just that—something from a book with fairy tales.

At least Mama didn’t have to worry for long about living in an empty house. They were all moved to the ghetto, put in a cramped room with a different family occupying each corner. Irene remembered that place, maybe because that was where the unspeakable happened—her sophisticated, aristocratic grandmother slapped her for the first time when Irene refused to eat rutabaga, calling it disgusting.

Irene stayed in the ghetto for only a month. When the Germans started building that horrible wall shaped like Jewish tombstones, her father arranged their escape. It was only Irene, Mama, and Grandmother. For some reason, Dad and Grandpa had to stay behind. Irene never knew why, and she never saw them again.

They were taken to a small village and stayed with a family of Polish peasants. That place was a good memory. Irene remembered running with other kids through the open fields and picking wild berries in the woods. She felt safe, and she was happy there. Until the day the Gestapo came to pick them up. Irene shook the memory away and returned to the black notebook.

"Do you remember our vacations in Saint-Tropez? It was most exciting. Can you imagine that I was introduced to Coco Chanel? I love the French Riviera, and I swear that you were the most beautiful little girl on the beach. Everyone said you looked like Shirley Temple!"

The girl in the old photograph was a stranger. Irene could not believe it was her. Although that curly blond hair probably saved her from the gas. When they arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dr. Mengele must have found her potentially useful, and she survived the selection. Together with Mama, she was sent to the left. Left meant living, at least for several weeks. Grandma went to the right.

Irene ended up in a children’s barracks in the most notorious concentration camp. This was where the Nazis sent two-hundred and thirty thousand kids to the gas chambers. Irene was one of about one hundred and sixty who survived. They were Dr. Mengele’s lab rats.

She learned early on, when the doctor came to the barracks, she had to become invisible. She hid underneath the lowest of the wooden bunks, where she could only see the SS-men's shining boots. Although sometimes they would get her anyway, and Dr. Mengele would put something horrible into her eyes. He tried to change their color from brown into the desirable blue. He would also give her shots that made her sick for days. She was barely conscious, her small body covered with lesions, oozing pus. The Nazis were giving their little lab rats injections with bacteria.

Yet, she survived. Other children were not so lucky. Many didn’t come back from the lab. Dr. Mengele would give them a phenol shot, take their bodies to the autopsy, preserve some organs, and send the leftovers to the crematorium. However, Irene lived. She lived on a tiny piece of a wooden bunk covered with a thin layer of broken straw, sharing a blanket with several other kids. The blanket was stiff from dirt and crawling with insects. Sometimes a child next to her died overnight, and that was good because she could get that child's bread ration before the block officer found the body.

Irene wasn’t human anymore. She developed an animal instinct, and her entire being was reduced to two feelings, hunger and fear. She was always one minute away from dying of starvation, and if not for Mama, she probably would have.

The demons were back, tearing her soul apart. She turned the page.

“On December 3, 1950, we will open this little notebook, and we'll have the best of times reading it together. You can spend the money any way you want, but I hope you will buy your first car. I can see you, young and beautiful, inside that new Jaguar 100, although by the time you turn sixteen, they'll probably come up with something even more stunning. And then, the two of us will go to Paris on a shopping spree. I always go in early winter, although this year it may not be possible. Well, I will have to suffer wearing last year's fashions, but I feel horribly neglected.”

Mama’s hair was shaved in Auschwitz. She was painfully thin and always covered with bruises. But mama spoke perfect German and got a decent job inside the camp, which gave her access to extra food from time to time. Mama never kept it for herself. After dark, she would crawl to the children's barracks, risking being spotted by the watchmen and shot. And yet she crawled to bring a piece of bread, a potato, and sometimes an apple to her little girl.

December 3, 1944, would be Irene's 10th Birthday and Mama promised to bring something special. She said it would be a surprise, but Irene knew it had to be food. Mama would not disappoint—not on Irene’s Birthday.

Irene waited and waited, but Mama didn’t come. Finally, she could not wait anymore and decided to go to Mama’s barracks instead. Irene was small and fast—no one would see her in the dark.

She made it in no time and slowly opened the door.

“Was ist los?” somebody yelled in German. What’s going on?

It was Frau Ilse, the horrifying kapo of Mama’s barracks. Irene went weak at the knees. That’s why Mom couldn’t leave—Frau Ilse wouldn’t let her. But now, Irene was going to be punished for coming here. She gave Frau Ilse a frightened look, pleading with her eyes to be forgiven.

Frau Ilse did not strike her. Instead, an evil smile slowly grew on her face.

“You are Ada’s child, right? Came to see your mommy? Go ahead, she’s over there.” Frau Ilse pointed toward the barrack’s side, pushed Irene in that direction, and slammed the door.

There was a pile of bodies over there. Naked. Discarded like trash. Was her Mama really there? No, it had to be a mistake! Mama couldn't be dead! Irene took a step, then another, but she was too scared to get closer. The bodies were moving. Giant concentration camp rats were having a feast before this human trash would be picked up and sent to the crematorium.

Irene turned around and ran back to the children’s barracks. She didn’t care about being seen.

She was later told that Mama crossed the path with Irma Grese—"the Hyena of Auschwitz", one of the cruelest SS-women in the camp. Grese enjoyed torturing prisoners, especially the females who maintained some of their beauty. And despite the horrors of the camp, Irene’s mother was still pretty. On Irene’s Birthday, Irma Grese beat her Mama with a plaited whip and then shot her in the head.

In about seven weeks, the camp was liberated by the Russians. Irene was taken by a good-hearted Christian family from a nearby village. Years later, she was found by a distant uncle from Baltimore and moved to the United States. She changed her name, got married, and changed her name again. She spent years trying to forget the horrors of the camp.

As quickly as her old body would allow it, Irene got up from the chair, grabbed the bundles with money, threw them into the kitchen sink, and set the pile of the old banknotes on fire. She watched twenty thousand dollars burn to ashes, then pushed the black flakes into the garbage disposal until nothing was left.

Irene went back to her chair. She stared at the photograph showing a striking young woman in an elegant suite with wide-legged trousers and wearing a jazz-age quirky hat. The woman held a hand of a pretty little girl that looked a little bit like Shirley Temple.

Irene lowered her head and reverently kissed the photograph. She gently closed the black notebook and hugged it to her chest, warm tears falling down her cheeks.