I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson Page B

under the barracks, and in moments we are back on the job. Shivering miserably, we fail to comprehend. We have committed sabotage. Sabotage witnessed by Commandant Goetz and his staff!
    At the evening Zählappell the dreaded news is announced. At dawn, we will be decimated, the punishment for sabotage.
    We have heard of decimation. Our fellow inmates fromPoland mention the word frequently enough. In earlier years, the entire camp, or a barrack, or a commando, would be decimated for every minor infraction. The inmates of the guilty unit would be lined up at dawn, face a firing squad, and every tenth by an SS officer’s count would be shot. No one ever knew where the count would start and who the tenth would be until the moment the shot rang out. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and . . . ten .... Shoot! Sometimes they would start counting in the middle of the row. Sometimes at one end, then switch directions. You never knew if you would be tenth. Not until the last moment.
    Now it is our turn. Our commando would be lined up at dawn and ... It cannot be true!
    “It’s true all right,” said Felicia. “You’ve committed sabotage. SABOTAGE! For sabotage they usually shoot the entire commando. You got off easy. Only decimation.”
    Decimation, my God. I may be the tenth. Or Mommy. My God, what if Mommy?!
    I am unable to swallow even a spoonful of the evening soup. For the past several days I have not eaten more than a spoonful or two. The diarrhea has depleted my appetite. I have been constantly thirsty. Now I cannot swallow at all. Mommy keeps pleading, “Eat. You won’t be able to go on if you don’t eat.”
    Go on? We are to be decimated at dawn. One of us will surely turn out to be the tenth. . . . Go on? Where? If Mommy dies, I die. Oh, God, let me be tenth!
    I weep hysterically. When I have to go to the latrine, I insist that Mommy come along with me, and when she has to go, I insist on going with her, so that we should be togetherevery moment of the night. Every moment left to us. We spend the night holding each other in the bed or walking to the latrine. The diarrhea epidemic is still going strong.
    This is a new experience in terror. I am terrified of dying. I am apprehensive of the sensation of the bullet penetrating my body. Of my blood flowing. I keep seeing my bullet-ridden body in the dust, my blood coloring red the gray dust of the square. . . . Yet I am even more terrified of seeing my mother shot. The thought of her falling into a red pool of blood convulses my insides. I have a steady pounding in my temples. A sense of strangulation in my throat, my chest. A slow pain creeping upward from my bowels.
    There is a soft murmur from the bed above. The girls from Guta are reciting the Psalms. The chant of the doomed. They have a small prayer book from somewhere, and have managed to hide it. They say evening prayers daily. Sometimes they loan the prayer book to Mommy and she also says the prayers.
    Mommy whispers to them, “Please, say it a little louder. So we can follow along.”
    The murmur is louder now. Mommy and I are able to repeat the verses in Hebrew after them. The pounding in my temples subsides.
    In a pause between passages I can hear muffled sobs. Almost all our barrack belongs to the Planierung commando and is involved in the sabotage. Soon we realize that the entire barrack is awake. One by one, all the girls join in reciting the Psalms. The sobbing grows silent.
    Furtively I keep glancing at the window. It is still dark. Thank God.
    The first feeble shafts of dawn begin filtering into thebarrack. The reading stops abruptly. A hush stifles even our breathing.
    “Read on,” someone calls. “Read on until they come for us.” And the two little skinny sisters from Guta read on while the light turns brighter, and brighter. The chill morning breeze sends shivers through the bunk beds. The reading of Psalms emanates through chattering teeth.
    It is bright morning now, and no