Mila 18 - Leon Uris [182]
The courtyard bulged with ten thousand ragged, emaciated children with a sprinkling of nurses who kept up a play of gaiety. Some of the older children who knew where they were going kept it to themselves.
“Jew babies, start moving up the ramps!”
“Well, children, now begins our wonderful picnic in the country.”
“Aunt Susan, when will we come back?”
“Oh, probably later tonight.”
“Keep moving down to the end of the platform to the first car!”
The engine warmed up with a few puffs of steam.
The line of tykes straggled up the ramps. Curses and kicks moved them quicker.
Kutler, in a thick drunk, staggered out to the courtyard and watched the march. He snarled semi-intelligible sounds, screaming to hurry it up. He sighted a dozen small children leaning against a far wall, doubled up from exhaustion and hunger, too weak to drag themselves to their feet. Kutler wove toward them. “Up, you Jew babies!” he shrieked.
Two of the three nurses converged on them, helping them to their feet.
A rachitic girl of three clad in filthy rags toppled to the cobblestones, dropping a torn baby doll which had neither arms nor legs. Her little hand reached for it.
Kutler’s shiny black boot stomped on the doll.
The ragamuffin stared curiously at the tall black-uniformed man hovering over her. “My baby,” she whined weakly, “I want my baby.” Her hand tugged, trying to pry it from under the Nazi’s boot. His Mauser pistol came out of the holster. A pistol shot echoed.
“Let me through! Let me through!” cried Alexander.
A half dozen bulky Jewish militiamen restrained the desperate Brandel before he could get into the selection center. He was dragged screaming and fighting across Stawki Street to the warehouse where Warsinski had the Umschlagplatz detail office.
“I demand to be allowed in the Umschlagplatz!”
Warsinski let Alexander babble, plead, coax, argue. Then he spoke. “Your immunity is running short, Brandel. Take him back to the ghetto.”
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack the train rolled over the countryside.
“Now, children,” Susan Geller said, “I have another surprise. Chocolates!”
“Chocolates!”
She passed the bag of poisoned candy about the car.
“Doesn’t that taste wonderful?”
The train rolled on.
“Let’s all sing together.”
“Onward, onward,
On to Palestine.
Onward, onward
Join the happy throng ...”
“I’m sleepy, Aunt Susan.”
“Well, why don’t you lie down and rest?”
“I’m sleepy too, Tante Susan.”
“Well, all of you take a nap. It must be the excitement and the fresh air.”
One by one they closed their eyes. Susan Geller snuggled between a pair of her babies and held them close to her and slowly swallowed the last square of chocolate.
Shluf mine faygele,
Mach tzu dine aygele
Eye lu lu lu,
Shluf geshmak mine kind,
Shluf un zai-gezund,
Eye lu lu lu.
Sleep my little bird.
Shut your little eyes,
Eye lu lu lu,
Sleep tight my child,
Sleep and be safe,
Eye lu lu lu.
Chapter Twelve
STURMBANNFÜHRER SEIGHOLD STUTZE WAS adept at aping his God, Adolf Hitler, down to the slightest gestures. Thumbs in belt, he limped up and down the courtyard holding the massed assemblage of Jewish Militia. He stopped before a microphone and glared at his captive audience with seductive authority. The board of the Jewish Civil Authority was lined up on his right and a company of his Reinhard Corps on his left.
Throwing a hand above his head, he shrieked in a high pitch which echoed off the stones of the yard. “Fat Jews! You are fat because we have rewarded you too much. Despite our loyalty to you, you continue to permit publication of lies about us! You allow these Communist agitators to exist under your noses! They will be found and destroyed! Because of these lies we have not received a single volunteer for four days for orderly deportation for honest labor in the