Chapter 19 Section 19

Sometimes a person's dreams become a reality of his waking experience.Such is my dream.For countless hours I lost myself in the joys of the past, bouncing in the foam on the Black Sea, young and carefree, with Mama and Nikolay and, of course, dear Papa. But, just as all good things come to an end, so do our vacations, time to go home.I recreated the journey home at that time in my dream, and the scene of getting on the train was vivid. The station, the steam rush, and the sharp sound of the wheels rubbing against the rails all made me excited.Dreams and reality mingle, and suddenly the doors slamming on the train in far-off Constanta are now the doors slamming on this train traveling through the war-torn bucharest.

It took me a few seconds to clear the remnants of the memory from my mind, and at the same time, I saw my mother's face facing me, smiling and saying something, but I still couldn't hear her words. Suddenly I felt someone grabbing my shoulders and shaking me. I sat up suddenly, threw away everything in my head that had nothing to do with reality, and realized that the person who pushed me was Nikolai, who was anxiously waking me up. "Wake up, Anka! Wake up! We're getting out of the car!" We quickly joined the crowd and flocked to the station hall, fearing we would miss important instructions and be stranded in Bucharest.

Uniformed officers barked orders in German, Romanian, and other languages ​​I couldn't make out.We were instructed to stand in a line on one side of the hall, seemingly divided into different teams by nationality or language.Those who were slow to react were subjected to violence. The Nazi officers had no patience with the children, the old and the infirm. I was shocked to see them beat the slow ones with the drag of their rifles. Luckily Mom covered Nikolai with her coat, I was relieved and remembered Haim's suggestion again, so I looked down and took Mom's arm with one hand while dragging our suitcase with the other.

We joined a group of fellow Romanians who stood and waited, watching anxiously as the crowd was divided.The Gestapo officers were getting more and more annoyed at those who hadn't taken their positions, yelling in German as if raising the volume could break the language barrier, while the civilians who were ordered just looked confused, and I and They can't understand anything. There was a "bang" gunshot in the hall.After hearing only one scream, the whole station fell silent immediately, and everyone's attention was focused on a Gestapo in the center of the hall. A man was lying prostrate at his feet, and a fist still in his hand. Smoke pistol.

The man's body fell down and lay on the ground, with a pool of blood forming around his head.Witnessing that scene made my legs go weak and my stomach start to churn.A sobbing woman breaks free from the civilians holding her and falls on top of the man, yelling hysterically at the officer who fired.I couldn't make out what language she was speaking, but someone behind me whispered that she was a Magyar from Hungary. Bewildered, I turned to my mother, surprised to see her face the other way, comforting Nikolai softly under her coat, shielding him from the horrific scene in front of him.

"Turn around, Anka," I heard my mother say. "Don't let them catch you staring. Just stand still and it'll be over soon." With Mum and Nikolai both safely by my side, my thoughts go back to Haim, his wife Golda and their adorable baby Ilo, who and Nikolai have just become best friends.I scanned the hall for their presence, noticing for the first time that there were no Jews here. Before I could get my thoughts back, there was another commotion where the man had died, and I watched in horror as two Iron Guard officers grabbed the man's feet and roughly dragged the body away, leaving it on the ground. A filthy trail of blood.

The chaos and noise in the station hall were replaced by vigilant order and gloomy silence. Only the hysterical crying of the woman broke this atmosphere.As for the rest of us, we just stood by and watched, not knowing what else to expect.Not knowing what we should have done with that lost life. Fear hangs over us like a dense fog with tangible substance.