A Sparrow in Terezin Read online

  Kája’s gloved hands shook, for the realization of what they were trying to do had become overwhelming. If they were caught without the proper identification on their person, the penalty would be severe. She tried not to think on it, even as they continued their weave through the crowd. She was grateful for the thickness of her auburn hair; the chignon at her nape kept the chill of the wind from sneaking down the full length of her neck. To greet that, too, would have only added to her trembling.

  She lowered her head against the wind and followed with quickened steps behind Hannah’s husband, Jakob. He cut a path for them, walking along at a steady pace. Not so quick, though, that anyone would notice. He looked up now and then and would check over his shoulder, watching the army as it moved in. He’d even paused more than once and whispered that they were to stand still for a few moments and offer a Nazi salute to the caravan of motorcars as they roared by. There they’d stood in a fog, the three of them caught up in the mire of their own minds, arms extended in cold salute to the Nazis as a mass of people lined the streets.

  Jakob walked along now with clear purpose and strong steps to match. The train depot was miles away and he was clearly intent upon them reaching it, in spite of the German forces nipping at their heels.

  “Jakob?” Hannah whispered and rushed up to his side. “Can we not hire a car? The walk to the depot is too far and with the snow . . .” She coughed lightly, trying to catch her breath as he continued walking. She shivered and drew her shoulders in closer to him. “Please.”

  He shook his head, keeping his eyes focused on the city streets out in front of them.

  “A car would never make it through this. The streets are clogged with the military. And they’re checking every vehicle. We’ve got a better chance on foot.”

  “We’ll never make it.”

  “We must. Your parents will be waiting at the depot”—he paused, stealing a glance back at Kája—“to meet us for the train.”

  Kája watched as Hannah reached out with a gloved hand and tugged at the sleeve of his coat. It was a latent plea, but enough that he halted and stared back at her.

  “The walk is too far and—”

  “I swore to your father that I’d see his daughters safely to the depot. I’ll not falter in keeping my word. Blast the snow and the crowds. Blast Hitler’s army even; we’re going.”

  The crowd near them pulsed as a hail of snowballs tore through the air and dusted the front of a tank with tiny dots of snow. The flurry of aggression startled Kája and she blinked back at the sight of it. It was like a sneeze against the charge of an angry rhinoceros. How could they think the snow would do anything but anger the beast? The convoy was undeterred and the action served only to agitate the crowd further. Several women cried out. Young men pelted the passing army with snow as several soldiers began to break form and move toward them.

  Kája’s first instinct was to step back, which she did, and almost turned her ankle off the side of the icy curb. She righted herself and clutched the small traveling bag she carried closer to her chest, looking at the nervous activity that continued to press in around them. While the German citizens saluted a welcome to their countrymen, the Czech people were becoming increasingly unhinged. Rush to the depot or not, the three of them couldn’t stand still when at any moment the marching soldiers could be poised to suppress the crowd with any means necessary.

  “Here! Hannah,” Kája said, and tugged her sister back by the elbow. “Over here.”

  Jakob followed until they were tucked in the small alley between a butcher’s shop and an old apothecary with ancient-looking floor to ceiling windows. The shades were pulled down tight and the front door, made of old polished wood and delicately etched glass, looked as though it had been hastily boarded up from the inside. A Closed sign had been taped up in the window, though one side had come loose and the paper curled back out of view. It was a world boarded up against the coming storm.

  Loud pops erupted in the distance—several of them in rapid succession, at which their little group froze in unison and exchanged glances. Jakob was tall, enough so that he could survey the horizon of the crowd over their heads. He squinted past the activity in the street, his attention drawn to the sight of something far off. Concern marred his brow.

  “Jakob.” Hannah leaned into his side, nails digging into the sleeve of his coat. “What was that?”

  Kája answered before she could stop herself. “Gunfire?”

  He shook his head.

  “No. The tanks. Or a backfiring engine, I’m sure.”

  Hannah’s eyebrows raised, accentuating doe eyes. They appeared misty. From fear, perhaps? Kája slid a hand into hers and squeezed her palm.

  Hannah erupted into nervous tears.

  “Jakob—this is madness! Don’t you see? We cannot make it!”

  “Do I need to tell you again what is happening here?” He lowered his head so the brim of his hat tipped her forehead. “Or can you look around and see for yourself?”

  “But if we wait, surely we can—”

  “Wait for what?” He shook his head. “We have no time. If you and your sister wish to get out of here, we must go—now. The visas I have may not even get us out today, but certainly not tomorrow. It is rumored that the chancellor himself is coming; security will be like we’ve never seen before. No one will get out then. You can pass for members of my family only so long before someone gives us all away. The daughters of one of Prague’s well-known physicians would be spotted easily. The Nazis won’t allow you to slip through their fingertips. They’re grasping for you.”

  “But if the chancellor comes, then surely he will bring order with him. I have heard that the worst the Nazis will do is make us all register. And shop at certain times of day. We’ll wear the stars on our clothing as they ask. What is so bad in that?”

  “Hannah.” Kája shook her head. “I don’t think they ask for anything.”

  It was foolish to think the Nazis were merely an enemy.

  Kája knew better. She thought of the Jewish shops that had been burned all over Europe the previous November. About windows smashed in the streets and Jews who, as a result of the Kristallnacht programs, had gone missing in the night, never to be heard from again.

  Were those missing men, women, and children registered too?

  “No, Kája. Listen. We are Christians, you and I, from our mother’s family. Surely they’ll see that in us. We have documentation and can prove our ancestry. And our parents mean no harm to the Third Reich. They are quiet people.” Hannah waved her gloved hand out over the crowd. “They’re not like those who would challenge the Germans. They cannot be the tiniest threat.”

  “There is no challenge in a handful of snow and that is all these people have. And though you may be Christians, the Nazis would consider you half Jewish because of your father’s heritage,” Jakob whispered, though the harshness of his words cut into the air with a force of fog. “They will register you and your sister, yes. Along with your father. They will dictate when you shop for any scraps of food that are left behind. You will wear your star and because of that they will spot you easily. Then eventually they will take you away from me, my Hannah, and kill you.”

  Like her sister, Kája was stunned to silence.

  The two women stared back, frozen, even as the passing convoy caused an eerie tremor to shake the ground beneath their feet and the crowd moved along in a dazed ebb and flow around them.

  “Kill us?” Kája breathed out the question, sure she’d been mistaken in hearing the words of prediction come out of her brother-in-law’s mouth. “Why? What have we done to them?”

  “Yes. How do you know this?” Hannah’s voice was a shaky mumble at best.

  “It doesn’t matter how,” he whispered. “It is the truth of it that is important, the truth of what will come.”

  “It matters to me.” Kája took a step toward him. “After the changes in legislation, Father told me that it would be best if we left for a while. J
ust for the ease of things. So our studies would not be disrupted. He expected that we’d be gone a few months at most. When he suggested . . . I never thought . . . I never wanted to leave Prague like this. Not with our friends and neighbors in such danger. And Father’s own sister. Our cousins. How could he think of leaving them all here?”

  Jakob’s forehead creased with what she judged as regret. “We cannot help them now. We must help ourselves.”

  “Then we’re not just going to stay with family in Palestine, are we? You believe we’ll be gone longer than a few months. That war really is coming.”

  When Jakob didn’t answer, Kája exchanged glances with her sister.

  Hannah swallowed hard.

  Kája didn’t need sunlight to see the truth; knowing shades had already drifted across her sister’s face.

  “We’re never coming home, are we?”

  Hannah’s face shifted as if she were finally giving up trying to hide something, with the blast of engines and the cadence of soldiers’ footfalls tromping in the street behind them. War was no longer coming—it was here. Staring them in the face. It was bleeding evil, trickling in the streets like vessels carrying death to the heart of Prague. Pushing them away from the only life they’d ever known.

  “You knew?” Kája dared look back at her sister now and exhaled in a frozen cloud of pent-up breath. “Both of you, and you said nothing to me?”

  Hannah looked positively sick; the color in her cheeks had sunken to an even more vacant shade of gray than before. She looked away, peering down at her snow-dirtied spectator heels, then bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes on an embattled nod.

  Kája stepped back, as if she’d been smacked across the face.

  She wasn’t a child. In fact, at twenty-one, she was anything but. She’d heard the same reports. Had listened as her father read newspaper articles about what was happening to the Jews once the Nazis had annexed the Sudetenland the year before. Shops had been raided—though there was always proper justification cited. Businesses had been burned. Jews had gone missing. And no one asked questions. No one stood out against the Nazis who marched before them now, for fear that their family would be next. Some terrified souls had even done the worst—committed suicide as a means to self-select out of the impending terror they were certain the Nazis would bring.

  All of this Kája hadn’t been shielded from. But never had it crossed her mind that their flight would mean they’d never come back. Not when Prague was wounded. Not when so many would be left behind.

  Jakob stepped forward, compassion in the softness of his eyes, and addressed her directly.

  “Kája, we meant only to shield you until we’d boarded the train. Your sister knew if we spoke of it, you’d not leave with us today. Your father knew this as well. He made us swear to only tell you after we’d all gone.”

  “I cannot,” she mouthed, even as her head began emphatic shaking on its own. “We can’t leave like this. Our friends . . . What about our aunt? And cousins? They’re still at home. Just two blocks away from our front door. They haven’t any idea we’re leaving them.”

  “We must.” Hannah’s voice cut in with a harsh whisper. “Jakob is right. I shouldn’t have stopped us, but I was scared and unprepared for all this. It sounded easier last night when we talked of the route to the depot. But this? It feels like we’re staring at the edge of hell somehow.”

  Kája gazed out at the scores of people beyond the alley. The marching continued, the eerie sound creeping up under her skin in a chill that pricked goose bumps down the length of her spine.

  “Kája, I should have told you. We should have. But Father made us promise to get out, no matter what. And that is why we must go. Jakob has a plan.” Hannah looked up at her husband, her face wet and now streaked with half-frozen tears. “Haven’t you?”

  He reached up with a finger exposed from the cut-out tips of his gloves and dusted it across Hannah’s cheek. “Yes. We’ll go to the depot and we’ll board a train. No matter what, I swear it. And then we’ll worry about tomorrow, yes?”

  Hannah gave a nod with seemingly renewed strength. She dropped her hands from Kája’s shoulders but continued the steady stare.

  “Kája? Are you ready?”

  Kája nodded along with her sister, though it was the last thing she wanted to do.

  Worry about tomorrow? How could she? Kája’s heart felt like it was bleeding along with her beloved city. Here. Today. Where they hid in the alley and any hope had frozen in the snow at their feet. War meant everything. It could steal away today as well as tomorrow. It could take their beautiful city, and the souls in it, to hell and back without batting an eyelash.

  Kája breathed out a prayer for them as they left the shelter of the alley and cut into the biting wind yet again. She trailed behind Jakob, murmuring soft words, not really knowing what to say to God but trying nonetheless.

  Was he there? Did he see?

  God . . . is any of this really happening?

  The snow fell around them. Engines continued to roar. And they moved through the streets, pace quickened but not so much that anyone would notice a pair of Jews without their telling stars, heading for the train depot and the prayer of a life beyond.

  It wasn’t until she spotted her father on the platform that Kája felt like she could finally breathe again.

  She saw him and their mother, he short in stature but so noble in presence, with his gold-rimmed glasses and steady shoulders weaving his way through the crowd. Her mother was walking behind quite closely, eyeing the crowd with a certain air of numbness painted over her features. Her father’s eyes lit up when he spotted them; her mother’s misted with relief in connecting to the sight of her daughters appearing through the cloud of steam.

  Jakob shook his head slightly, stopping her father’s advance toward them. His eyes darted over his left shoulder and then back again. Kája followed their path and noticed that a group of soldiers, armed and with icy cold voices, were arbitrarily ordering passersby to surrender their visas for inspection. They looked rough and unfeeling. Their faces were void. Their eyes looked without soul as they detained person after random person.

  Kája shivered and pulled her coat in closer round her neck.

  Jakob tilted his chin toward a small alcove behind a row of metal stairs. It was shrouded in darkness and the group, following her brother-in-law’s silent instruction, immediately edged toward it. The moment her parents joined them in the alcove, Kája dropped her bag to the ground and fell into the warmth of her father’s arms.

  She cried, having no idea when bravery had left and tears took its place until she was sobbing against the scratchy wool star on the front of his coat. Her mother, always sweet and apologetic for pain of which she had no responsibility, ran the gentlest graze of a hand down the side of Kája’s head. She smiled, a forced, mostly flat turn of the lips, and with the elegance Kája had always seen in her, valiantly fought back tears of her own.

  “There, there. My young Kája,” her father soothed, speaking her childhood pet name as if it were honey on his tongue. “We are all here. This is good. You see? God is watching out for us.”

  “My girls. Hannah. Kateřina.” Izabel Makovský whispered the words and pulled prayer hands up to her lips. They were trembling, much like Kája’s had been out in the streets. “And, Jakob. How can we thank you for bringing our girls here safely?”

  He pulled an arm around Hannah’s shoulders and inclined his head in a quick nod.

  “No thanks is required,” he offered, then pulled Hannah in closer. “But I confess that I prayed with every step. And we have still to board a train out from here. And another after that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kája whispered, suddenly noticing how overcome with emotion everyone was, and began wiping at the front of her father’s coat. She stepped back, dabbing at the wetness under her eyes. “I hadn’t expected any of this. Not to cry now, when we’re all here. I’m just so glad to see you.” Kája reached for her mothe
r’s hand and she grasped it, gratefully squeezing her fingers. “Both of you.”

  “My dear Kateřina, how does one ever expect”—her mother paused, eyes checking the soldiers on the platform, her bottom lip trembling ever so slightly—“something like this?”

  “I don’t know, Matka. Prague is no longer our own, is it?”

  Her mother looked refined, as always, in the brave nod she returned.

  This woman of stature in Prague’s social circles wore her breeding well, even as she stood in the dim, cobwebbed corner of the train station. She wore a dark mink coat, with gloves the color of a robin’s egg and a black hat with ostrich feathers that tipped down over her right eye. Pearl studs peeked out from her ears. Though frosted with gray at the temples, her hair was the deep auburn of her daughters’. It, too, was pulled back, lovely and proper-like with rows of silky waves, just as she’d always worn it. She was a picture of perfection in the midst of their crumbling reality.

  Kája guessed that her mother had dressed up for the journey, even worn her best clothes. But why? Finery for what was ahead didn’t make sense. She looked at her parents, barely listening to what was being said as her father whispered with Jakob, noticing only the etched image of them standing there in the darkness of the momentary hideaway. They looked steady, beautiful even, against the invading soberness of Nazi green all around.

  The vision of her parents felt like home somehow, no matter where they were.

  “There is a train car, the one second to the last of the line that has no soldiers checking over the visas. Do you see it?” her father asked Jakob, even as he stole glances over his shoulder.

  “Yes.” Jakob nodded.

  Kája peered over her father’s shoulder and noticed that it was indeed true. There was a single entrance at a single car with steps somehow unimpeded by Nazi uniforms. There was no way to be sure the same would be found inside but, despite the risk, the path to the train appeared clear for the moment.