C h ap ter 11- Break fast e

Hadassah woke up to sunshine in her face. It took a minute to realize where she was. She was in her grandfather ben Canaan's house and in a real bed! The first real bed since she was ten. The sun gave the room a golden hue and Hadassah changed into the clothes that her grandmother had left her. They had belonged to Aunt Jordana and were a little big, but they would work until Hadassah could find some new clothes.

Hadassah pulled down the left sleeve of her Russian-style blouse. So far Sarah and Barak hadn't seen her tattoo and she wasn't about to bare her arm so they could see it. Her father had been furious enough when he had seen it. The tightening of his jaw and the pain in his blue eyes as he ran his fingers over the numbers was enough to convince her that he was angry.

Hadassah walked down the stairs, feeling slightly winded and asthmatic. That was another thing she wasn't about to reveal to her grandparents. The bus driver hadn't been able to say anything the day before and as long as she didn't have an asthma attack in front of them the subject didn't need to be brought up. Her grandmother and grandfather were standing there.

"We were going to let you sleep, Hadassah," Barak said as Sarah hugged her tightly.

"I don't mind. I'm used to waking up early. At least this isn't a death camp. They woke us up at four every morning," Hadassah commented dryly.

"I can imagine, but you aren't a prisoner now, Hadassah. You are my Ari's child. Sleep in a little," Sarah said, stroking Hadassah's short hair.

"I'll try, Grandmother," Hadassah said as her grandmother led her to the dining room. After saying a prayer in Hebrew it was time to eat.

"So, Hadassah, you can help your grandmother with cooking and cleaning. Then afterwards you can help me with farm chores," Barak said as Hadassah ate a cheese blintz.

"Sounds all right. I can cook a little and know how to clean. But you may have to show me how to farm. I don't know how to do that," Hadassah said nervously.

"There's nothing to it. You are my son's daughter. You look like a quick learner," Barak said gruffly.

"That's true. It didn't take me long to learn how to fix watches, radios, and motors," Hadassah said, taking a sip of her tea. She tried not to make a face, even though it tasted better than the wine she had the day before.

"You can fix all those things, Hadassah?" Barak asked, amused.

"Yes. I learned radios and motors in the last year of the war and my other grandfather was a watchmaker when he wasn't a rabbi on Saturday. I sat on his workbench often before Hitler invaded Holland and he couldn't work any more. A Jewish watchmaker is an easy target," Hadassah said bitterly.

"You are safe here, Hadassah. No Nazi will ever hurt you again," Sarah said, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. It took her a second to realize that it was the arm that had the tattoo on it. She hoped the sleeve stayed down. She wasn't in any mood to explain it to anybody right now.

It was late afternoon when Ari and Kitty arrived at the farm. The sound of a dog barking got Ari's attention. Judging by Kitty's smile she heard it too. Ari stopped the car and opened the door as his father came out of the barn.

Ari helped Kitty out of her side of the car. "Ari! Ari! My boy," Barak hugged his son tightly. Ari smiled as he saw Hadassah step out of the barn, wearing Jordana's clothes and, judging from the hay in her hair, she had been doing barn chores.

"Papa, this is Mrs. Fremont," Ari introduced Kitty to his father.

"Shalom, Mr. ben Canaan," Kitty said with a smile.

"Welcome to our farm, Mrs. Fremont. I'll go tell your mother," Barak said, running to the house. "Mama! Mama!"

Ari smiled and turned to Hadassah. "Hadassah," Ari said, taking his daughter in his arms.

"Papa, I was hoping you'd be here today," Hadassah said, burying her face in his chest.

"Good prediction, Kichel," Ari said, stroking her hair gently as he kissed the top of her head. Hadassah looked up at Kitty, confusion in her dark blue eyes.

"Hello, Kitty. I thought you would visit Karen first," Hadassah said, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Your father invited me. I needed to ask you some questions. Your father told me that you'd answer them," Kitty said with a smile.

"It depends on the question," Hadassah said.

"It's about your tattoo. How did you get it?" Kitty asked. Hadassah's face blanched and she closed her eyes painfully.

"Hadassah, I told her that you would answer her. Don't make me out to be a liar," Ari warned, resting his hand on the back of her head.

"So you want me to paint you a picture? I saw terrible hatred in the concentration camps. It was terrible and I was only ten and powerless to stop it," Hadassah said, biting her lower lip, her eyes like liquid glass.

"I'll never ask again. I promise. Just tell me," Kitty said.

"I was arrested two weeks after D-day; June 20th 1944. We were sent to Westerbork in Drenthe, Holland. Things were bad there, but it wasn't a death camp. There were no gas chambers. Me and my family were political and religious criminals who didn't show up for deportation when ordered. I had to wear shoes that were too tight and red patches on my clothes. Also I was given the worst jobs in the camp. In September me and my family were among the last Jews to leave Holland for Poland. 10,000 of us were aboard those cattle cars. A lot of us got sick and threw up on each other. We didn't even have toilets so we had no place to use the lavatory. It was snowing when we arrived at Auschwitz. The first thing the Nazis did was regulations and separated the men from the women and children under a certain age and marched the women and children to Auschwitz-Birkenau. I held my mother's hand up to the point where they separated us. It wasn't until after the war ended that I found out about the gas chambers from the Red Cross. I was then marched into a room and Polish prisoners- kapos-we called them- stole personal effects. Wedding rings, glasses, and even Stars of David. I even saw them pulling the fillings from people's mouths. Then they had me sit down and a woman put the number on my arm. All I could think of was that it hurt. It looked like an electric razor and buzzed," Hadassah said, her voice trembling slightly.

Ari stroked her face and hair gently. Hadassah was openly crying mow. "That's what I wanted to know. I'm sorry, Hadassah. I didn't realize- you have been through something a child should never have to see. Much less live through," Kitty said, her eyes filling with tears.

"I wish I didn't have to remember. My memories hurt too much. Kitty, why did I live and everyone else didn't?" Hadassah asked.

"I don't know, Hadassah. I don't know why some live and others don't. Hitler was playing God with all your lives. He got his punishment for the victims he hurt," Kitty said.

"It's over now, Hadassah," Ari said, holding her tightly to his chest.

"I know, but it's taken me a long time to put my life back to what it was before it happened. In some ways I don't think I can. I've seen too much and I don't think the Eternal wants me to forget everything. It was awful, but I found my faith in the prisons of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Germany while I was starved and ill. Job was sick too and Yeshua's clothes were stolen from Him as mine was," Hadassah said with a wan smile.

"Well, from what you described I might be able to remove the tattoo," Kitty said, smiling back.

"What tattoo?" Barak's voice came sharply into the conversation.

Ari noticed Hadassah's face turn chalky-pale in that instant. It confirmed that Hadassah hadn't told his father or mother everything about her past.

"Ari!" his mother ran to him and hugged him tightly.

"Mama," Ari said, feeling as if he was five years old instead of 36 years old and with a fourteen-year-old daughter.

Sarah cupped his face gently and looked at him with love in her eyes. "You are too thin, Ari," his mother complained.

"I've always been thin, Mama. The food should be for Hadassah," Ari said, smiling at his daughter. She gave him a small smile as she put her arms behind her back. Maybe she was trying to hide her tattoo. Ari had gotten the impression that she had never even wanted him to see it. It was only because her sleeve had slipped down some and Kitty had mentioned it that Ari had seen it.

"What tattoo, Ari?" Barak said firmly, bring the painful topic back.

Ari saw the pained look on Hadassah's young face. Hadassah was too young, but she had seen more than he had wanted her to. Kitty was right on that score. At that moment she looked like a little old lady. The camps had taken her childhood from her and forced her to grow up before her time.

"Hadassah, we have to tell them," Ari said, cupping his daughter's thin face gently.

"I wish I didn't have to," Hadassah said, sounding like the scared four-year-old he remembered so well after a thunder storm. She would cry for him and he would put her to sleep over stories involving mice eating challah bread.

"I know. Mama, Papa, Hadassah has been through terrible time. She...she was in the death camps at the end of the war," Ari said, stroking his daughter's hair as he hugged her to his chest.

"We knew that already. She has mentioned that she was a prisoner of the Germans. Was there more?" Barak asked gruffly as Hadassah nodded her head against her father's chest. Sarah's eyes filled with tears.

"I didn't want one more person to know. It was degrading. If someone humiliated you and used you as a guinea pig for illnesses would you talk about it? I contracted scabies just because the doctors wanted to see what it would do to a normally healthy person. I also contracted typhus, but a doctor didn't inject me with the illness. That was passed by lice and fleas," Hadassah asked in a broken voice.

"She's right, Barak. We've heard the stories from the people coming into the country. There was that girl that came into Gan Dafna who confessed that she had stood, for hours, naked in front of a room full of men," Sarah said forlornly.

"She wasn't the first. Standing for hours naked was one of the first things the Nazis did to make us feel more like animals. It was terrible," Hadassah said.

"Is that how you got your tattoo?" Kitty asked, pushing the sleeve off Hadassah's forearm. The blue ink showed harshly, nearly sickening Ari. He heard his mother gasp. He looked at her. Sarah and Barak were looking at Hadassah's arm.

"No. It was given to us and then our clothes were stolen. We didn't get them back. We were given blue-striped clothes with the tattooed identification number on the front and a yellow cloth star. The color on the front showed what kind of prisoner you were. There were Jews, Gypsys, Prostitutes, and homosexuals. We all either got a different tattoo or color on the front of our prison clothes. I got both. I had the star and the tattoo," Hadassah said.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Barak asked.

"I had the yellow star, which is given to all Jews, but my tattoo has racial differences in it too. If you were Greek, you had a G when they put the number on your arm. I was Jewish, so I had a J. I was known as prisoner J389-1872. I was told to give them my name and they would give me a number. Then I was ordered to forget what my mother and father ever called me. From that moment on Hadassah ben Canaan didn't exist. Too bad we couldn't have a different color or tattoo for Christians. I would have stuck out since I am one," Hadassah said with a lukewarm smile.

"I don't doubt that, Hadassah. I saw how some of the Jews onboard The Exodus treated you differently when they saw how you pray. They didn't get mad when you crossed yourself, though," Kitty said.

"No. Another reason is that some of us among the Jews are accepting of Christians these days since some Christians came to our aide during the war by hiding us and suffering with us in the camps.. Granted, there are some bad people who claim to love Yeshua, but are willing to murder Jews. But if the Eternal were here like He was thousands of years ago those that were murdering us would still break His windows. They would have turned on Him because He was born a Jew. Also Yeshua can fight His own battles. He didn't need Nazi ministers to do it for Him," Hadassah said, half-joking, at first, as she buttoned the sleeve of her blouse and concealing the tattoo.

"I think I can remove your tattoo though. How does two or three days sound?" Kitty asked.

"Sounds all right. I wish it were tonight, but you do the best you can. I've had it for four years. What's another two or three days?" Hadassah relented after a moment of hesitation.

"I called Dr. Liebermann. H'e going to tell Jordana that you're here, Ari," Barak said. Much to Hadassah's relief.