Arbeit Macht Frei

"Mama, where are we going?"
    "Shh, Jakob, we will be there soon. Go back to sleep, mein Liebchen. "
    The boy laid his head against his mother's breast, her heartbeat through the thin poplin making time with the clacking of the train against the tracks. He closed his droopy eyes and drifted off to sleep.
    He woke to the sounds of shouting. People were quickly untangling themselves and filing out the door. Jakob could see very little through the bodies surrounding him, and his mother tightened her grip on his tiny hand. They disembarked with the flood of humanity and walked through a large iron gate. There was writing along the top of the gate, though Jakob did not understand what it meant. Was this some work place? It didn't look like his father's watch shop. But the watch shop was boarded up now; the boy had not seen his father in over a month. Hannah tugged on Jakob's hand as they took their place in the line that wrapped around a cinderblock building. The boy shivered against the morning cold and moved closer into his mother's side.



    Hours passed. Finally Jakob and his mother stood in front of a table. Hannah had pinched her cheeks to make them look rosier and she smiled nervously at the man sitting before them. His looked up, heard the cough that rattled her chest, then glanced down at Jakob. The boy stepped back trying to hide behind his mother's skirt. He didn't like the look the man gave him, the cold blue eyes reminding him of Felix, their kitty, when he was toying with a mouse.
    "Kinder nach links, Frauen auf der rechten Seite."
    Jakob panicked. What did this mean? How could he go to the left, when his mother was going to the right? Hannah whispered urgently, her tears wetting her son's face as she bent over him.
    "Go Jakob. It will be okay. I will find you again on the other side. Follow that man there. See where he's going? Follow him. Stay close. You will be okay. I promise I will find you."
    Jakob started crying. His mother pushed him in the direction of the older man who had already started trudging toward another cinderblock building, his shoulders slumped inside his wool jacket.
    "Please, Jakob!" she urged. "Go now."
    Jakob had always been an obedient child. Confused, he turned and followed the man, and didn't see the look of despair on his mother's face as she watched him go.

    The next few hours aged the boy. Never had he known cruelty. Never had he known separation. The hours turned into days as Jakob searched for his mother. His face was streaked with sweat and tears and dirt, his hair matted and itchy. The clothes he had worn on the day they arrived had been confiscated; he now trembled incessantly in the baggy striped cotton that had taken their place. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he and his mother had been separated. One morning he saw the man he had followed into the internment building and Jakob found his voice.
"Mein Herr, please, do you know where I can find my mother?"
    "Ach, Junge, see there, that is where you mother is."

    Jakob turned to where the man pointed. A monstrous grey building towered against the horizon, dark and foreboding. From its stacks poured thick black smoke that never ceased, its ashes coating the yard like a soft dusting of winter snow. The odor rising from the stacks was the most unusual thing; the slightly sweet scent of burnt meat permeated every corner of the camp.

    "Junge, that is where your mother is."