Shattered Crystals - Mia Amalia Kanner (that summer book TXT) 📗

“I did not recognize my image in the mirror.”

We were twenty-three out of five thousand. Such a minuscule number. The French commandant of Nexon sent the twenty-three Jews he had kept back from the Nazis to Gurs, the same camp near the Spanish border where Sal had been interned in the autumn of 1940.

I spent my first days at Gurs lying on a cot, in the manner of the women of Nexon that I had found so difficult to comprehend or accept. After three appalling months of incarceration, I had little strength left. I was weak and emotionally exhausted.

Again, I had trouble sleeping. In my dreams, I found myself standing over a mound of dead bodies with Rebbetzin Kremer buried at the bottom of the naked pile crying, “Help me! It will be a mitzvah.” Distraught, I reached for the Rebbetzin’s hand and vomited. I turned away and found myself sinking into an open cesspool. I woke gagging and weeping until I slumped back into an exhausted sleep during which the shattering nightmare repeated itself.

In the afternoons, Sal came to my barracks and tried to entice me to leave the bed for the cool spring mountain air. “Let me show you the stream,” he begged.

I did not have the strength left to answer and waved my hand listlessly.

“If you don’t feel strong enough to walk, at least step outside and look at the mountains. You’ve always loved the mountains.”

When I finally responded to his coaxing and joined him in a short walk, I asked how long we had been at Gurs.

“Two weeks,” he answered.

I was astounded. “That long?” I asked. “I must stop lying around. It is no good at all. When I’m able to fall asleep, I have dreadful dreams. I wake up more tired than before.”

Two and a half years ago, Sal had walked along the same paths upon which we now strolled. Though the walkways and buildings were familiar to him, there were changes, mean changes that he found he must describe: armed guards patrolled the entrance gates and the camp perimeters, and barbed wire surrounded the camp.

The camp was only half full. We guessed it was because the Vichy government agreed to the Nazi demands and handed over Gur’s Austrian, Polish and German Jewish inmates, along with its ill and aged French Jews. We had seen them at Nexon. They were the women in the cots next to mine in Barracks 77.

The next day as Sal and I walked along the barracks, he told me more about the camp. Two distinct groups made up the population that remained at Gurs in the spring of 1943. Jewish prisoners spared deportation through connections and bribes, good health or just luck, were one group. Among them was a contingent from Mannheim and Karlsruhe. No one knew why these Orthodox Jews had initially been consigned to Gurs rather than one of the camps in the east. Eventually, many were deported there. A few members of the OSE were also in this group.

The second group at Gurs were Spaniards and Gypsies who lived in the camp by choice. They had fled Spain when General Francisco Franco, an ally of Hitler, came to power, and they refused to return to that country while he ruled. Free to leave Gurs during the day, they became the Jews’ link between the camp and the outside world.

The Gypsies operated a small black market, selling bread and fruit to the Jews. French authorities both in and out of the camp were aware of this underground trade but made no attempt to stop it. The Spaniards brought the Jews news of the progress of the war and delivered French Underground mail. The authorities also knew about these activities, but ignored them, as long as they did not interfere with the smooth operation of the camp.

It took Sal less than a week to find the inmate leaders. The official head of the Mannheim group was Dr. Neder. He and the Jews associated with the OSE became inmate leaders. With the approval of the camp’s administration, they took responsibility for such operations as staffing the kitchens and ensuring that the barracks and grounds were kept clean.

After the hardships of Nexon, Sal found the comparative freedom of Gurs rejuvenating. As I became stronger and more alert, I also grasped the difference between the two camps. We were able to walk together in the afternoons without fear. The dreadful pits existed only in my dreams. Gurs had enclosed privies, and the food was at least edible. All I needed was something to do, something to fill the time. Sitting idly, I could not stop thinking about Nexon or the selfless Rebbetzin Kremer or those five thousand Jews marching slowly towards the train.

When I began to chafe at being idle, Sal suggested we see Dr. Neder. We found him outside the kosher kitchen.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Frau Kanner,” he said. “Your husband has spoken so glowingly of you. He told me you were not too well. I hope you are feeling better now.”

“I need something to do, so I won’t be able to think,” I said. “You know I was cook in the OSE homes. Do you think you could get me into one of the kitchens here?”

He thought for a minute and said, “Everybody wants to be in the kitchen. We have all the people we need on the kitchen staffs. Would you be willing to work in the camp laundry?”

I replied without hesitation, “Yes, anything.”

“Good,” he said. “We need a laundry manager.”

“Manager?” I wasn’t looking for such important work. “Do you think I can do it?”

“You can do it,” Sal said.

“Yes,” said Dr. Neder. “I don’t see why not. You take laundry bundles from the inmates in the morning, tag them and hand out receipts. Then you distribute the bundles to the laundry workers and make sure the washing gets done properly. You see to it that the clothes are not mixed up, and return them to their owners.”

“That doesn’t sound too difficult,” I said.

“Good, it’s settled,” he said. “And there is a bonus. It happens there is an extra room in the laundry house. It’s behind the office. You and Sal can live there.”

“I never expected such a privilege, Dr. Neder.”

“It’s yours,” he said cheerfully. “Come, I’ll show you.”

Along the way, Dr. Neder told us how Gurs came to have a laundry. At one time, soap had been rationed at Gurs, a minute amount of precious powder measured out and distributed weekly to each inmate. The inmates fought constantly over the best spots to do the washing in the stream and argued over space on the wash lines. Then the Jews proposed the creation of a camp laundry. They pointed out that by establishing a laundry, all the strife would be eliminated, and along with it, the existing black market in soap.

Camp authorities agreed, and even found a sum of money with which to pay each washerwoman a small cash wage. The women worked outdoors in all seasons, first boiling the hard water in huge vats, then scrubbing the laundry on washboards, rinsing it and hanging it. Part-time work did not exist. Once they joined the laundry force, women worked from sun-up to sundown. Even though they would be paid, few people wanted such hard work, except for the Gypsies