Chapter 11: Aussichtslos

I was loaded into the back of the truck that held my mother. She held onto me tightly. We didn't know where we were going, we didn't know if my father was going to kill us. I assumed that if he were going to kill us, he would have wanted to make a spectacle out of it, simply to show how loyal he was to the Gestapo and the Führer. There would be no reward for a quiet execution.

The road was bumpy, and the air was cold. I hadn't had time to grab my coat, I huddled close to my mother, but nothing seemed to help my uncontrollable shaking.

"I'm so sorry," my mother kept whispering into my ear as we clung to each other.

It had all happened so quickly I didn't have time to fully understand what was happening. It was as though I had been struck with lightning, I was in complete shock and denial of the reality I was in. People were dead because of me, I had murdered people I loved and wanted to protect. I sat in the back of that truck, frozen from more than the cold. I had just come face to face with the monster I had no idea I was fighting. As a child, I had tried to take on a beast I had no understanding of, and while trying to break free from the shadow of my father's crimes, I had led him to the very thing he needed.

I didn't know what our exact destination was, but I had a better idea compared to most who were shoved into trucks in the middle of the night and hauled away. There seemed to be so much I wanted to say, and yet words felt impossible.

My mother and I sat in the back of the truck, utterly speechless. She looked dazed and distant, yet she gripped my hand so tightly I thought it would fall off. The ground beneath us was harsh and shook so hard that I had to grip the edge of my seat, so I didn't fall onto the floor of the truck. I had seen people shoved into the same trucks, huddled together like scared animals. I couldn't say I was any different at that moment, except that night it was only my mother and I, alone.

I had seen my father's fury before. He had always had a temper, but what I saw that night was something I never imagined he was ever capable of, not even the night he had killed Mr. Becker. This new rage came from someplace else, someplace so deep, so hidden, I wondered if he was aware he had let it be seen. Mother had always said that she and I were his weakness, and yet when he looked at me at the paper, I did not see weakness, I saw unbridled wrath. The soldiers that stood by him had looked bewildered and confused at what the next course of action should be, but he did not share in their confusion. I saw the wheels turning in his mind. He had a plan, but the surprising part was, I didn't seem to be initially part of that plan. The look he gave me was of disbelief. His well-executed plan, whatever it had initially been, had gotten derailed at the first sight of me. Unfortunately, I ignited something bigger. My presence wasn't a big enough change to completely destroy the outcome he was looking for. I wondered what his plan had been if I hadn't been there that night, he clearly had one. It turned out that my mother and I were no match for his loyalty to his command. I had fooled myself into believing that when it came to me, he would always stand down. That night, however, I watched as my father allowed his own men to put a gun to my back. The delusion I had created to protect myself was shattered. I had nothing left to hide behind, I had no more delusions to hide behind. I sat in the back of that truck being carted away like an animal that had bitten its owner and drawn blood. I could only hope I had bit hard enough to leave a scar.

We must have been on the road for more than three hours before we finally stopped. I heard the shuffling of feet and the movement of a large crowd. One of the soldiers rushed back and opened the flaps at the back of the truck. It was still dark outside, and I couldn't tell by the time of night what time it was. The air was freezing, and I could see clouds of air around the large crowd of people. My mother and I clung to one another for dear life, not saying anything as we were pushed through the crowd. I looked around to see if my father was still with us, but with the chaos of the crowd, I couldn't spot him.

After a few moments of adjustment, I realized we were at a train station. I had only been on a train a few times prior to that moment, but I knew that the cars before us were not passenger cars. I also realized that many of the men and women that stood around us were wearing the stars of David on their coats. We were all huddled together in a chaotic mass surrounded by armed guards that pushed and shoved to remind us to not move or step out of line. Gunshots rang out every few minutes, sometimes in the air, and sometimes into the crowd. The guard that had delivered us to the station's landing seemed to hover protectively near us. He eyed the group and pushed us toward the front, closer to the cattle cars.

My mother looked unnaturally calm, even though her hands shook uncontrollably. One look at her, and you would never have known that she was in a state of complete shock and horror. I'm afraid the same couldn't be said for me. Tears streamed down my face, my jaw quivered, I felt lightheaded and genuinely believed I would fall over with the slightest breeze. My stomach growled, and my head spun, the air was so cold I couldn't stop shaking no matter how tightly my mother held me.

The train whistle rang, and the cattle car doors slid open. People were shoved and thrown into these cars like luggage. My mother and I were one of the first ones inside the large cattle car pushed against a wall. The space quickly became smaller with every passenger, and eventually it grew so crowded that I couldn't move my arms or legs without feeling as though I were on top of someone else. The only comforting part about it was it was warmer in there, despite the slots on the side that allowed cold air to get in. There were so many people that, while we weren't moving, it was almost too warm in that cattle car.

Families whispered amongst themselves, babies cried, and mothers cried while trying to soothe their worried children. Some said prayers out loud for all to hear in hopes of comforting those who could hear them. After an hour or so, the guards slid the cattle car doors closed, and then the train began to move. I didn't know where we were going, and I didn't know how long it would take. I leaned my head against the slotted wall and pretended not to freeze, not to starve, and I fell asleep.

I don't know how much time passed, all I remember was waking in a complete state of confusion. I looked around and saw the mass amount of people shoved together, trying to keep warm. I didn't know what had happened while I had slept, but the environment seemed to have changed. The air was frozen, I still was unable to move and felt sore all over from not being able to stretch my muscles. The ground was filthy, but I tried hard not to think much of what I was sitting in. The air was putrid, it smelled of feces and mold. Women and children cried quietly to themselves, a few people did their best to comfort one another, but as time passed, fewer and fewer people cared about much of anything.

Mothers tried to entertain their children, and every once and a while, you would hear a child giggle. I was thankful for that, it made what was happening a little less awful. The train moved slowly, so slowly, I thought I could probably walk faster than the train was moving. I wondered what the SS hoped to get out of all this pain and suffering, I wondered if it brought them joy. I looked at all the people around me, old, young, mothers, children, husbands, wives. I looked at the sick, the elderly, and even the dying, and I knew it was thanks to my father that these people were here with me. I made a decision at that moment that I would no longer be Beth Schmidt but Beth Becker. I was going to make sure no one knew that I was Arnold Schmidt's daughter. I feared that if people knew who I was, they would kill me out of pure hatred for my father. I would understand if they did kill me. I didn't do anything to prevent any of it, I didn't even try to stop my father. I could have killed him in his sleep, smothered him with a pillow, shot him with his own gun, something to try to stop all this evil. For a small moment, I wondered if there was still time.

I looked over at my mother, who had managed to fall asleep finally. Her face looked worn and aged. She had done her best to protect me from everything that was happening in the world. I knew she never wanted me to lose my child-like admiration for my father. I wondered if she knew how thankful I was to have her looking out for me. I couldn't heal her broken heart, she had loved my father since she was just a girl about my age. She always told me stories about when all the girls wanted to catch my father's eye, except for my mother. She told me my father spent a long time trying to convince her to go get a soda with him. She told me she did everything she could to make him leave her alone, but he seemed to like the chase. Eventually he got her to agree, and she told me it was love at first sip, ever since then she couldn't imagine loving another man. I remembered my father telling me how much he loved my mother. He said she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and how he had known from the first moment they met that he would marry her. I wondered if he ever saw himself turning against her, and betraying his family. This brought tears to my eyes, but I just wiped them away. I refused to cry, crying would do no good, and it would only make me weak. I had to be strong, I knew I was going to have to fight for my life.

The sun rose and fell, and the train kept going. The days and nights passed, and yet time seemed frozen like the air. We huddled as best as we could to stay warm, but the freezing wind blew through the cracks and cut our faces and caused my lips to start bleeding. It felt as though we were going in circles, and as far as I knew at that time, we very well could have been.

I remember being pressed against that wall of that cattle car struggling to breathe, going in and out of consciousness. When we stopped for fuel, the guards threw stale loaves of bread and a few tins of water to be passed around. It was never enough to quench our thirst, or remove the pain in our bellies. After a day or two, people began to die of thirst, starvation, and sickness. The old gentlemen that sat next to me died while he slept. He had opened his eyes briefly, seemed to realize something, and then his eyes rolled back in his head, he slumped sideways and died. I had never seen anything like that before. For a while, I believed he had only fainted, however the lady next to him, who may have been related, I never did ask, checked his pulse and then just leaned tiredly against the wall. Resigned, and numb, she just closed her eyes and began to hum to herself quietly. The old man wasn't the only one to die. Sickness and starvation began to kill people quicker than the Nazi's could.

To this day, as an old woman, I don't know how long we were in that cattle car. I do remember letting my mind finally drift back to thoughts of John. I hoped with all my might that he would be okay. I hoped my father would forget about him, that his rage towards my mother, and I would be enough to distract him from the involvement John had with the Siegfrieds. I hoped John would get away, somehow, escape before anyone realized what he had done. I hoped I would see him again, and yet I also prayed to a God I wasn't sure even existed, that I would never see him again, for his own good.

I will never forget the day the train stopped. It felt as though it were the beginning of the end for us. There was no food or water in the cattle car, and there was no way for anyone to relieve themselves properly. It started to smell so bad I threw up several times, which didn't help the smell of the car. After endless days and nights of the sickening crying of the people around me, and the smell of the dead starting to decay, the train came to an abrupt stop. I felt relief sweep over me, and anyone else who was still alive to notice. They opened the door and yelled at us to get out as fast as we could, but a lot of us could hardly stand after the endless days of sitting. My mother and I held each other's hands and helped each other up off the ground. I didn't dare look down at the ground, I knew it would make me even sicker than I already was. I could hardly bear the sight of soldiers dragging the dead by their arms and tossing them into the back of massive wagons as though they were dead animals.

When I walked down the ramp and onto the ground, I tried to focus on what I was seeing. The sun was so bright that I covered my eyes because they hadn't adjusted to the light yet. After a few moments, I looked around me. I saw large long buildings that sat right next to one another. There were barbed wire walls all around, and the air smelled sour and rotten, like death. A large sign hung over the entrance of the camp the sign said Aussichtslos, in German it means Hopeless. The camp seemed to span miles, and yet it stood in the middle of nothing. The train tracks seemed to come from nowhere. I remember looking at that camp, and only seeing the work my father had put into it. Aussichtslos had been his "special project." That place had been the thing he had was giving his everything for. He had said he fought to be given that command. My father had wanted Aussichtslos more than anything, not only to help build it, but also to run it had been his greatest dream. There I stood, standing in front of my father's crowning glory. All I saw was a wasteland, with innocent people's lives as the simple price he had to pay to command it, and he paid it without hesitation.

The guards separated the men and the women. We all stood in two separate lines. It was chaos. People screamed and tried to cling to one another, but their attempts were only met with violence. My mother and I huddled together, we held onto each other as tightly as we could. We went one by one up to a guard standing at the front of each line. They looked us over, and then they sent us into different lines. They didn't take much time looking us over, they simply looked us up and down and then sent us into another line. When I made it to the front, I was surprised to see a young man I had known in school many years previous. He looked all grown up, and his undying Nazi pride shone through without even saying a word. He looked at my mother and me, and he seemed confused by my presence. I knew he knew who I was, and I knew he knew who my father was, but I hoped with all my might that he didn't say anything. After a long moment of obviously trying to understand why the commander of Aussichtslos' own family was there, he finally told us to go to the far right line. I learned shortly after that that a young man had just saved mine and my mother's life. The other line was the one that was immediately being sent to the gas chamber.

After everyone had been separated into groups, we were then taken into Aussichtslos. There were four large main buildings that looked like barns for cattle, and then there were a few smaller buildings that look like offices. The camp was split so that the men were on one side, and the women were on another. The fences that separated the men and women were heavily guarded and out in the open. There were tall guard posts that overlooked the entire camp, where the men held large guns and kept a watchful eye on the camp and everyone in it. I could feel the eyes of the guards watching me as though I were less than human. Every person I saw looked sick and near death. Not one person looked well fed or taken care of. Death was everywhere I looked, and there was no way to escape the terrible sight that lay before me.

As we were walked through the camp, the people there just stared at us with their hollow sickly eyes. There was hardly anything left of their deteriorating bodies. I wished I could understand why such evil had befallen them. I knew they didn't deserve any of it, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

We were quickly led into one of the buildings near the front of Aussichtslos. When we walked in the room, it turned into a wild frenzy of orders and screams from everyone around me. A woman in a Nazi uniform yelled at me to hand over everything I had. I didn't have anything other than the clothes on my back, but many of the people around me did have some bags that were promptly ripped away from them. The female guard searched my pockets, which held nothing of importance. I was then marched off into yet another line where they sat me down in a chair and began to shave my head. I watched strands of my blond hair slowly fall to the floor as tears silently ran down my cheeks. The woman who was cutting my hair cut the top of my scalp accidentally, but she didn't seem to care much about being careful with a razor. I felt a sharp pain sweep over me, blood dripped down the side of my face, but the woman just pushed me off the chair and moved on to the next young girl. I was then told to undress and step into a closed room where there were showers, I saw a few naked women standing under the cold water. They shivered with cold and uncontrollable fear. I looked back at my mother and saw they were cutting her hair as well. She had a blank expression on her face, and it killed me to see her that way.

Once I was undressed, I was shoved into a small shower, and I stood there and let the freezing water wash over me. I hoped it would help numb all the pain I was experiencing all at once, but it did little to help much of anything. The pure humiliation of standing there naked in front of strangers made me want to shrivel up and die. They were purposely trying to take any self-worth and dignity we still had and crush it.

I was pulled out of the shower and handed my clothes back, and I quickly got dressed. After everyone had been processed, we were taken to another large building. When we walked in, we saw beds stacked on top of one another. There was hardly enough room for two people, but I noticed several of them had up to 4 people in one small sleeping space. It was dark and stuffy, and it was unbearably cold. A young woman walked up to my mother and me and kindly showed us an open space to sleep. She was fragile, looking with dark brown eyes. I could see all her ribs through her shirt, and her eyes looked sunken in. I thanked her, and when I turned and saw where I would be sleeping, I noticed there was no padding on the small space, just some loose hay. The wood looked rotted, and I could tell it would cause many splinters, but I knew enough not to complain.

I helped my mother situate herself into the small space and then lay down next to her. I remember that first night in Aussichtslos as though it were yesterday. I remember lying quietly and listening to sobs from a few of the other women. I heard endless coughing and sneezing. I tried to block out all the sounds, I sought desperately to find just a small glimmer of peace. I quietly sobbed to myself, letting all the emotions I felt sweep over me. I felt like I was going to suffocate under the endless pain, but then I thought of Mr. Becker, which brought a small hint of peace and relief to my mind. I could see his face in my mind, he was looking at me with fear, and he said nothing, he just stared at me. Without a word I knew what I had to do, I would never allow myself to give up, I would never let my father win. I would do whatever it took to get out of that place, I refused to be a name on a list of dead. I was going to live no matter what.