Chasing Colours

23. Reformation Camp

(Edith)

I was startled awake in cold sweat as the tram came to an abrupt halt. I quickly scanned my surrounding in the hope of finding an alternate reality. My eyes fell on Arno who was heaving deep breaths as he focused his eyes to the tram door waiting for it to open.

There was no time for any thoughts otherwise when the tram door was pulled open and the blinding light seeped inside. All that was heard was the noise of rustling outside and the screaming of the SS officers topping the rustling while hauling the people inside the tram to vacate.

I tried to stand steady on my feet, my fingers involuntarily searching for Arno's trying to get as close to him as possible. We were pushed in a queue onto the platform. None of us spoke. We stood like a herd of cattle waiting to be moved.

We were standing in one of the many railway station platforms in the Germany-Poland border. The sky outside was dark with light snow falling from it. There were crowds of people as far as eyes could see. The irony of the situation when nobody spoke but just the noise from walking feet and breaths could be ear-splitting. Through the noise, I could hear SS officers screaming at us to move faster as we dragged our feet in fear, to the freight trains that would take us further on the road.

As my gaze fell on the other side of the platform, I noticed the same deafening crowd yet somehow much calmer. The other side was for the citizens. There was no screaming or whipping there, but dressed men hurrying perhaps to their homes and mothers holding their children's hands making sure they didn't take a glance to the unwanted prisoners on the other side.

A slash of whip landed on the lady in front me yelling at her to hurry. Arno's fingers tightened around mine. I kept walking as fast as my feet would take me without turning back. There were more than a hundred people being pushed into each of the train coaches. Before we knew it, we were yet again stuck in blinding darkness of the train coach.

I was shoved against Arno's chest as more and more people were scrunched into the suffocating darkness and with that, the door of the coach was banged shut. The light inside dissolved no sooner than we had seen it. There was just silence other than the howling of the breaths and occasional mewling of sobs.

I felt Arno's head slowly transcending upon mine. I lightly put my head on his chest listening to his thumping heartbeats. Then, we waited for hours to pass by.

------x------x------

The pain was rising up my legs from standing at a stretch while my body shivered from the cold air that seamlessly seeped inside.

People inside were growing more and more impatient. There had been an old man who had banged against the tin walls of the train to let him out for he couldn't breathe. He was quietened by the people around him only to go unconscious soon after. Children would start crying only to be shushed frantically by their mothers. With each sound, people would grow wearier of their situation.

I could hear murmurs all around me; questions, complaints, exclamations, desperations, all emotions too confusing to fathom.

How long had it been? Hours? Days?

My attention would flicker from people around me to Ingrid back home to Arno in front of me. Neither of us said a word to each other but our thoughts rumbled within us.

What were these camps that were were being taken to? How did they reform the 'unwanted'? Would these resettlement camps be like the ghettos? Maybe worse or would they be better?

Breaking the silence and my own trail of thoughts, the train came to an abrupt halt making us lurch forward with the little of space available to us.