I Have Lived a Thousand Years

Laura has lost her will to live. She staggers along as the inmates get “into marching formation” (107). Seemingly “unable to grasp the mechanics of survival,” she wants to stay behind with the inmates who cannot walk (107). Bitton-Jackson shakes her mother and tells her to walk. She pulls and drags her, “a puppet on a string” (107). An SS officer on a motorcycle surveys the marching inmates, pulling out women deemed too weak to work. The officer asks Bitton-Jackson’s mother if she can work. She does not respond, and he reaches out an arm to grab her. Bitton-Jackson whispers to her mother to answer yes, “for God’s sake!” (108). Her mother tells the SS officer she will work, if she must. He pauses then moves on.

When the inmates reach the camp, they are given slips of paper with numbers on them. They stand in long lines to have their numbers tattooed on their arms. During Zählappell, it begins pouring rain. The inmates tip their heads back to take in the “[w]et, cold, wonderful raindrops!” (109). Watching the water drench her mother, Bitton-Jackson thinks, “How beautiful she is” (109). She says she is no longer “anonymous”: Her new “name” is A-17360 (109).

The inmates are taken to cell blocks. Bitton-Jackson wonders if Celia, Hindi, and Suri are still in the camp and if they will meet again. Their blocks are “huge, elongated, brick buildings” with “endless rows of bunk beds” four tiers high (110). The place is suffused with a “dank, dark dread” (110). The beds are wooden planks that form even squares, with 12 women per square. Bitton-Jackson and Laura get into their bunk. Bitton-Jackson hears a loud crack and notices a cracked plank in the bed above them. The other women on their square move aside, but Laura stays where she is, “indifferent” (110). Bitton-Jackson is terrified the plank will collapse on her mother. When she asks the women above them to move, they laugh and ignore her. They are focused on the food distribution underway. Bitton-Jackson asks for help from the Blockälteste, who is furious at being interrupted (111). She slaps Bitton-Jackson, calls her “a stupid little dog,” and orders her to return to her place (111). Bitton-Jackson obeys, hoping the adults know more than she does.

She raises her mother into a sitting position and helps her eat. With a “sudden loud bang,” the bunk “comes crashing down,” pinning Bitton-Jackson to the bed (112). She manages to free herself and sees her mother is also pinned in an awkward position. The other women are too hysterical to respond to Bitton-Jackson’s frantic pleas to move so she can free her mother. Mrs. Grünwald and her daughter Ilse, neighbors from home, help Bitton-Jackson free her mother, who is limp and lifeless. Their doctor from home, Juliska Tauber, pricks Laura in several places. She is unresponsive. Dr. Tauber says Laura’s spinal column is likely broken, and Bitton-Jackson must prepare herself for her mother’s death. Bitton-Jackson thinks, “I will not live” if her mother dies (113).

Bitton-Jackson watches over her mother through the night. She is alive but unresponsive. In the morning, the Blockälteste says Laura must be taken to the Revier, the infirmary where sick inmates can stay for up to a month. Bitton-Jackson is not permitted to visit her mother, but she receives updates from Dr. Tauber. Eventually, Bitton-Jackson learns where her mother is located inside the building. She loosens a knot in the wall to create a small hole through which they can communicate. Her mother is slowly getting better.

One morning, an SS guard discovers Bitton-Jackson and marches her back to the command barrack. She fears she will be executed, but she is instead punished. She is ordered “to kneel” on the gravel in front of the command barrack for 24 hours without food or drink” (116). She faces the fence that overlooks “a road flanked on the far end by barbed wire” (116). Beyond the fence are “endless rows of cell blocks identical to the ones” in her camp (116). It is her first realization of Auschwitz’s scope. The road is endlessly busy. SS guards march prisoners in striped uniforms. They move as if “animated by a magnet pulling them in one direction” (117). A marching column of new arrivals—men, women, and children—wearing civilian clothing appears. They move like “people moved by a force within” (117). A small boy drops his toy clown, and it remains on the roadside long after the dust from the column of civilians has settled.

Bitton-Jackson reflects on the “lifetime” that has passed since she arrived and wonders what became of the children from her transport. She wonders where the marching civilians are going. From her kneeling position, she sees smoke rising in the distance. Older inmates have told her their camp is next to the crematorium and that “the smoke smarting our eyes, our throats, our lungs is the smoke of burning bodies” (118). She wonders if it is true. As the sun beats down “with relentless fury,” she begs God for mercy (118).

Bitton-Jackson learns from Dr. Tauber that the SS have scheduled a selection for the following morning. All patients who have been in the Revier for three weeks or longer and are not yet ready to work will be sent to the gas chamber. Her mother cannot stand unsupported for longer than a few minutes. If Bitton-Jackson wants to save her, she must get her out immediately. If she is caught taking her mother out, she will be sent to the gas chamber.

Bitton-Jackson asks Mrs. Grünwald if she will help, adding, “I’m asking you to risk your life” (119). Without hesitating, Mrs. Grünwald agrees to help. Ilse also volunteers. Needing one more person, Bitton-Jackson asks Yitu Singer, her rabbi’s daughter, who agrees. At dawn, the four women walk to the infirmary. Inmates are not allowed to walk unattended. They pray silently, “God help us” (120). At the infirmary, four nurses spirit Laura out, and the four women alternate carrying her back. They make it to the block undetected, “Thank God” (120). They prop Laura up for Zählappell long enough to get through the SS guards’ count. They cannot allow the Blockälteste to see that Laura is still ill. Harboring an invalid is considered sabotage. They hide Laura in the bunk, but Bitton-Jackson wonders how they will maintain the ruse. Suddenly, a commotion breaks out as news of another selection spreads through the block. At dawn, the SS will select women for work in German factories. Bitton-Jackson wonders how her mother can possibly pass selection. She has smuggled her out of the infirmary to save her from the gas chamber, and now, “Oh my God. What have I done?” (121).