Brenda Marie Webb - A Thousand Days in Auschwitz

A Thousand Days In Auschwitz

Brenda Marie Webb

Published by The Writer's Webb, 2022.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

A THOUSAND DAYS IN AUSCHWITZ

First edition. September 12, 2022.

Copyright 2022 Brenda Marie Webb.

ISBN: 978-1733227933

Written by Brenda Marie Webb.

A Thousand Days In Auschwitz

This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2022 Brenda Marie Webb

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

First print edition 2022

Cover designed by Jenny Q at Historical Fiction Book Covers

ISBN 978-1-7332279-2-6

Published by The Writers Webb

2634 4 Mile Rd

#44284

Racine, WI 53404

www.brendamariewebb.com

For My Grandparents

Hoping Im still making you both proud.

Courtesy of USHMM

Courtesy of Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial and Museum

A Thousand Days In Auschwitz is a work of historical fiction, and most of the characters, apart from some well-known historical figures, are the product of the authors imagination. The setting of Auschwitz is authentic and depicted as accurately as possible.

Ive taken some liberties with history to fit the story. The first Auschwitz trial took place in Krakw, Poland in November and December of 1947. The dates of the second Auschwitz trial were December 20, 1963August 10, 1965, in Frankfurt, Germany.

To learn more about the Auschwitz trials, read The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963-1965: Genocide, History, and the Limits of the Law, written by Devin O. Pendas.

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

Anne Frank

Mattie hung up the phone and stared off into the distance, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes and spilling down his cheeks. He shook his head, trying to make sense of the phone call. Perl had had a baby, his baby , while in Ravensbrck concentration camp, the child had survived, and he had just talked to her.

Shaking all over, he removed his wallet from his pocket and took out the crumpled, creased letter he had carried with him for the past sixty-two years. The tears fell from his eyes as he read the letter, knowing each word by heart.

Dear Herr Kaczlowicz: On June 20, 1943, your wife reported sick and was placed in the medical building under a doctors care. She was given the best medical treatment, but despite all the efforts that were undertaken, the illness could not be overcome, and she succumbed to heart failure. I extend to you our condolences. Your wife did not express any last wishes.

Mattie shuffled into the bathroom on feet that always hurt and got a glass of water, but he poured it out without taking a drink. He didnt know what to do or think. He looked at the mirror, and instead of seeing a stooped, gray-haired old man, a tall, black-haired young man, full of optimism and life, looked back at him.

Scenes from another time, decades earlier in Poland, when his legs were strong and straight, flashed before him. It was before the brutal beatings and torture he endured in the concentration camp had left him bent and scarred. He absently rubbed his left thigh where a guard had beat him with a whip, the lashes so deep his bone had been visible. He tried to remember what offense he had committed to earn that beating, but he couldnt. There had been so many beatings for insignificant infractions that they ran together.

He tried to lift his arm to brush off the strand of hair that had fallen on his forehead and winced when pain shot from his shoulder to his hand. My shoulder, he thought, I know exactly when they hurt my shoulder. More than fifty years later, it still hurts when I move it.

He sat on the edge of the bathtub, reliving the worst day of his life. It was 1942, and he had just said good-bye to Perl at the train station. His heart was broken, not knowing where she was going or when he would see her again. She was the love of his life, and he didnt know how he would go on, but somehow he managed, holding on to the hope that they would be together again someday.

That was the same day he said good-bye to his older sister, Irena, who had given up school to take care of her brothers and father when their mother died unexpectedly from influenza in 1933. Irena was fifteen years old when she became the mother of fourteen-year-old Mattie and three-year-old Samuel.

He never imagined that a mere two weeks after saying good-bye to the love of his life, his life would be changed again, this time with his deportation out of the Plonsk ghetto.

PART ONE

Mattie watched the train until he couldnt see it anymore before turning blindly around and stumbling through the deep snow to his now-empty apartment. He averted his eyes as he stepped over his dead and dying Plonsk neighbors. Gunshots and screams of pain filled the air, and he covered his ears to the surrounding confusion.

He was grief-stricken and didnt know how he would continue. He was all alone in a world that he didnt understand anymore. Earlier that year, in February, hed watched his ten-year-old brother, Samuel, executed by the Nazis for smuggling food into the ghetto. They had deported his father and his wifes mother from the ghetto two months ago to a work camp. And now, hed just said good-bye to his wife, Perl, and his sister, Irena.

What else can you take from me? he shouted to God as he made his way home. I should have hidden them! I needed to protect them! He berated himself for not insisting they hide.

The streets of the ghetto, once teeming with people, were now frighteningly desolate. Only a few men wandered listlessly around, searching for any scraps of food that may have been overlooked.

Mattie reached his apartment at the far end of the ghetto and went inside, expecting to see Perl smiling at him from the kitchen as she prepared soup for lunch. Instead, there was silence. He walked through the empty apartment and saw bits of Perl everywhere. Her tattered sweater was slung over one of the two remaining wooden chairs in the kitchen, and her hair ribbons were lying on the floor.