c. 1944: auschwitz
last look
it must have been early in the afternoon when
word came regarding the hundreds upon hun-
dreds of Jews from Malkinia in the forward cars.
All Jews in vans came a note which sophie, too
numb with fright to even clutch her children Jan
and eva close against her breast for consolation,
immediately translated into: all the Jews have
gone to the gas. sophie joined with the convent
girls in prayer. it was while she was praying
that eva began to wail loudly. The children had
been brave during the trip, but now the little
girl’s hunger blossomed into real pain. she
squealed in anguish while sophie tried to rock
and soothe her, but nothing seemed to work;
the child’s screams were for a moment more
terrifying to sophie than the word about the
doomed Jews. But soon they stopped. Oddly,
it was Jan who came to the rescue. he had a
way with his sister and now he took over—at
first shushing her in the words of some private
language they shared, then pressing next to
her with his book. in the pale light he began
reading to her from the story of penrod, about
little boys’ pranks in the leafy elysian small-
town marrow of america; he was able to laugh
and giggle, and his thin soprano singsong cast a
gentle spell, combining with eva’s exhaustion to
lull her to sleep.
