Chapter 59 Section fifty-ninth

I plunged into his bony body, nearly knocking him to the ground, and screamed, "Maxim? Maxim? I can't believe it's you!" Then, I realized something, and said anxiously: "Where is Raisa? How is Raisa? Was she sent here with you too? Tell me she's okay, Maxim. Please tell me she's okay?" " Maxim tried his best to push me away from him, keeping me at an arm's length away, anxiously stopping my noise, and looking around uneasily.He turned to his other Romanian companions and whispered, "It's all right. She's not a Nazi spy. This is Anka Passukrata, and her father is Peter Bogdan, the one who was executed this year." The leader of the Romanian resistance organization. Let me talk to her. You go first, find a way to hold the prisoner's head, and I will join you as soon as possible."

Another heated conversation ensued, mingling with various languages.Maxim explained to his companions successively in Romanian, Russian and Polish.Another person translated his words into a fourth language, perhaps Hungarian.Then they began to leave the barracks one after another, casting anxious glances at me as they walked, until they disappeared from my sight.When the last person left, Maxim pulled me to a seat by the window, so that he could always be alert to the movement outside. "Forgive me, Anka, if I'm rude and unfriendly, please forgive me. I didn't mean any harm, you know, but if you get caught here, then you and I, just to make an example of others Will count many more people, and will be dragged under the "black wall" today. Now tell me, boy, how did you sneak into our prison area?"

I tried to explain, but my words were broken and incoherent.I wanted to ask for news about Raisa, my best friend, and of course, my mother, but my eager words only made him confused. I asked again, asking him for an answer.Regarding Raisa's situation, how is she? He said: "Anka, I was expecting you to tell me. Didn't you see her in the women's cell?" He asked me in hope, because he naturally thought that I had escaped from the women's cell, but I could only disappoint him. "We haven't found that far, Maxim. We..." It's something that can't be explained at all, and I doubt he would believe me if I tried.

"We just got here. My mother was sent here, and we came to find her." I asked again, "Maxim... is she here? Do you know?" Maxim took my hand, trying to comfort me in this way, and I realized that what he was about to tell me was bad news.I try to prepare myself. "Anka, I haven't seen your mother since you left Mejdiya. But that doesn't mean she isn't here. It doesn't mean she isn't alive. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands prisoners. But here, too, there is death." He hesitated, as if unwilling to speak further. "Typhus runs terribly here, boy, though that's a merciful relief."

He stopped himself, looked me in the eye, and said, "Death is everywhere, Anka. I'm sorry, but it's not fair to give you hope." I struggled to control my emotions, wanting to know more, and needing to know more. "We've been here for about three months, Anka. We were dragged from our home one night, shortly after your family was taken. There was no honorable reason behind our expulsion, just because We're of Russian blood, and the Nazis thought we'd be dishonest because of the rumors everywhere that the Red Army was winning on the Eastern Front. I don't know why they couldn't kill us right away, once and for all. Anyway, in the end, we were stuffed into I took the cattle car and brought it to Poland."

I nodded to show that I understood what he said. “I was sent to Treblinka at first, but now it’s closed and they smashed it up brick by brick as the Red Army moved in. Raisa and her mother were sent directly to the Swithin. I thought I'd never see either of them again, but I saw Raisa through a fence about a week ago, so all I can tell you is that at least by then she Still alive." My heart jumped when I heard the news. "Oh, Maxim, I'm so relieved. I will find her. I promise you. What about Catherine? Your wife? Raisa's mother, she...?" Maxim's eyes were fixed, and he said in a depressed voice: "Anka, do you still remember that Catherine is crippled because she suffered from polio when she was a child."

I nodded, not paying attention to the matter.Her physical imperfections never prevented her from being a good mother to Raisa. "They don't need cripples here, Anka." Maxim squeezed my hand, and I saw a tear roll down his cheek. "She was sent to the shower on the first day, Anka. Somehow Raisa was sorted out, thank God, but Catherine..." He could no longer restrain himself.He was physically and mentally weak, and he broke down emotionally, and wept bitterly in my arms. I pressed: "Maxim, you said she was sent to the shower? I don't understand what you mean."

Still crying, he took my arm as if to support me. "I really don't know how you came here in such ignorance, boy, but let me make it clear to you now." He looked me straight in the eye: "The Nazis don't need the old and the infirm, Anka. They don't need the sick, or the young and the unskilled. Those who can work, can serve Germany Those who contribute to the war machine of the war machine will be selected to serve as labor. I am lucky, Anka. You know, I am a jeweler, so they singled me out from the crowd to serve them. My skills It's processed jewelry. In war, these savages actually know what 'beauty' is."

Maxim paused, thinking about how to speak next. "As for the rest, Anka...those who have no skill or labor capacity, those who are too old or too young to serve them, are all sent to the shower." "Shower?" I looked at him in confusion, still not understanding what he was saying. Maxim held my arm tightly: "Anka, what is sprayed out of those shower rooms is not water, but poisonous gas. Deadly poisonous gas." I was speechless, and could only shake my head, unwilling and unable to believe what I was hearing. Maxim hugged me into his bony arms, I opened my arms and hugged his frail body, my fingers touched the protruding bones under his translucent skin.

He whispered in my ear, "This is not a labor camp, Anka. This is a death camp."