The Children’s Train

In Berlin, the burned synagogue was now a temporary camp and fenced with barbed wire to keep the Jewish people in, until they could be sent to other, more established camps. It was an unholy insult to be imprisoned on the grounds of their place of worship, but for Sylvia, who had to look across the street at her old apartment and the butcher shop where she’d been so happy with her family, it was unbearably cruel. She and Baby Lilly were camped out in front of the burned synagogue, with no shelter but a crude makeshift tent, as they waited to be transported out of Berlin.

It was a cool September night, and Lilly shivered violently. Sylvia picked her up and held her inside her shirt, allowing the warmth of her body to surround the trembling baby who had a fever. She noticed a red rash on Baby Lilly’s arms and face. She opened Lilly’s mouth. Her baby’s tongue was bright red.

Sylvia gasped. She ran up to the Nazi officers. “My baby is very sick. She has a fever and a rash.”

A fat officer, with jowls that rippled when he spoke, laughed.

“I’m afraid she’s going to die,” Sylvia said. “I think she has scarlet fever.”

“That will be one less Jew to transport,” the officer said. “Don’t come near us with your infected child.”

Sylvia walked away crying and repeating a prayer between sobs: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”