Missha first saw the pile of ashes on Wednesday. It was a small mound, so carefully collected in a pile that it must have been swept together by Alex. It was his job, after all, not Missha’s. Missha loaded the bodies onto the pyre and pushed it into the crematoria oven. Fire dismantled the bone into ash, and Alex swept the ashes into piles, mingling grey reminders of Treblinka’s prisoners.


Missha envied Alex’s job. Ashes were nameless, faceless; the fire had purged the souls. Ashes didn’t remind him of anything. But Alex had been a Kapo longer, so he picked his job. Still, Missha had been a Kapo long enough so that he hadn’t really mingled with the other Jews and prisoners. He didn’t want to add any new names to memory. It had been bad enough that first week when he’d had to burn Jebin, the five-year-old from his village. He’d grown up with Jebin. He’d bounced that boy on his knee when the child was small. Now he burned him.

It was the children whom Missha hated the most. The little bodies came to him and he was expected to burn them. It didn’t matter that they were dead. They had been children before they died. Still, it was his job. So Missha burned the little ones–the infants, the toddlers.


Today, among the bodies that Benajmin and Ramie had brought, Missha had found two corpses twisted together-a mother holding a child. Even in death the mother’s hands refused to let go. It was the damnest thing he’d ever seen. He must not have been alone in this morbid fascination because both corpses still had their hair. The other Kapos should have shaved them both. Still, Missha shrugged and put them onto the pyre.


It was an awkward load, and it forced Missha to juggle bodies like puzzle pieces, trying to find another one to fit around those two. He had strict orders to burn the corpses most efficiently, and he knew what happened when orders weren’t followed. He just didn’t want it to happen to him.

Alex came in and watched Missha. Just watched him. Missha struggled with the bodies and then cast the pyre into the oven.


“You could help,” Missha grumbled, already scanned for the next load of corpses.


“Not my job. I sweep.”


“Some job,” Missha grumbled. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He could smell the leftover perspiration from weeks without a shower. Still, he didn’t castigate his luck. He knew what it meant to be selected for a “shower.”

For a moment Missha watched the bodies as the flames began to consume their newest meal. Missha wanted to turn away from the child, but he couldn’t as the fire burned brighter, hotter. Then a scream echoed from inside the crematoria walls. Wordless, shrill. Missha stumbled backward as the child struggled, trying to break free of his mother’s arms. Dear God, he had survived the gassing! It wasn’t possible. Missha began falling.


Alex caught him. “What’s wrong with you! Did the fire burn you?” He leaned so close to Missha’s face that the Jew could smell rancid breath. Alex’s thick eyebrows furrowed together into a single bushy line.


“No! It didn’t burn me!” Missha looked back at the fire and found the bodies thinning to ash in the same position as he’d placed them. “Did you not hear that? The screams?”


“I heard nothing, you stupid Jew,” Alex sneered and quickly began sweeping the ashes.”What? Has your Jehovah given you the gift of hearing voices as you burn your people?”


Missha stood straight up. “You’ve burned them, too.” He turned and adjusted the pyre and suddenly more ash fell from the pyre onto the floor. Missha jumped away from the ash, remembering the scream he’d heard only a moment ago.  “You’ve burned them, too.”


“But they aren’t my people, Missha. I never said I was a Jew.” He moved the broom to the scattered ashes and swept them into the pile. “And now I sweep.”


“Yes, I burn the dead, and you sweep them. I know which of us does the work.”


“You complain so much, Missha. What? You want to sweep and I load?” Alex patronized.


“Yes, I want to sweep while you load.”


Alex squinted at him and walked around the bodies. He looked at the pile of ashes on the floor and then looked back at Missha. The frown he’d been wearing slowly turned to a devious grin. “Good, you sweep. I’ll load.”

Missha cringed under the other man's caustic gaze. Alex’s tone seemed filled with mirthless humor. “You’ll switch jobs with me?”


Alex nodded.


Missha stood up. “Ah, but you’ll turn me in for insolence, eh?”


Alex shook his head. “No, I’m tired of sweeping. You sweep, Missha. I’ll load the bodies.” He handed Missha the broom and dustpan. “Start with that pile and see that it doesn’t grow.”


Missha took them both and then quickly swept the pile of ash onto the dustpan and dumped it into the metal can close by as Alex began sorting though the dead and adding human kindling to the flame. As Missha looked down at his hands, he saw the skin was covered with grey. He wiped his hands on his pants, but the ash simply smeared.


* * *


Two weeks into the job, Missha heard the screams again. Alex had just loaded another child and left the room to get more bodies.


Mama!


Missha turned toward the crematoria and saw yet another corpse struggling to get out of the oven. He saw the little one, a four-year-old girl, crying as her skin blackened. Her nose had burned away. Still she slid toward the furnace door toward him. Little hands. Melted flesh.


Mama!


The child was at the oven door, about to crawl out when Missha took the broom and prodded the child deeper into the flame. He continued poking until the body grew still. Why had the gas failed again?


“You fool!” Alex yelled. He dropped the body he’d been carrying and grabbed the broom from Missha’s hand.

Missha looked at the wooden stick as it fell, smouldering to the floor in pieces. “The child–”


“Was burning, you imbecile.”


“The screams!” Missha said, staring at the floor where new ash had fallen. “Did you not hear the screams?”


“I heard nothing. Nothing except the sound of fire burning this broom. The dead have no voice.” Alex looked at the useless broom and smashed it against the floor. “How will you sweep now, you foolish Jew? Will you ask the Germans for another?”


Missha looked at the ash on the floor and then at the broom. He bent over and hastily retrieved it. “I will use it as it is.”


“Fool!” Alex hissed and kicked a small pile of ashes onto Missha’s face. “Do not think the others will simply ignore your stupidity. They will tell and you will be the one in the fire!”


Missha fell backwards and swatted furiously at his cheeks.  “Get it off of me! Get it off!”



Alex jerked the pyre out of the oven, raining more burning ash upon Missha. “Get it off yourself, Missha. Soon you will be ash instead of flesh.”


Missha kept swatting at his face. His fingernails gouged the skin. He could feel them–the dead children, touching him. Daddy!
A voice slithered in his head. Play with me. A little girl’s whisper.


Ash blinded him as he turned and looked. More hands touched his hair. Arms encircled him. The ash. The ash. The ash.

Missha screamed.


“Shut up!” Alex yelled and backhanded him.


Missha scratched at his eyes, clawing at the ash. Pain. It didn’t matter. He had to get the ash off.


Daddy! Is that you?


Childish giggles.


Missha screamed louder.


Alex pummeled his face as the SS guard walked in, his pistol drawn. “Get away!” he yelled at Alex.


Alex jumped backwards as the guard leveled his pistol and fired. A circle of blood dotted Missha’s forehead. He screamed louder.


“Shut up!” the guard shouted and fired again. A second blossom appeared, and Missha slumped over.


The guard smiled. “Burn him.” Then he turned and walked out the door.


Alex lifted Missha’s body onto the pyre. Glassy eyes stared vacuously at Alex. “You wanted my job, Jew,” Alex said, crossing Missha’s arms over his chest. “And I gave it to you. Perhaps I should have told you not to touch the ashes. They can’t touch you until you sweep the ash.”


From the corner of his eye, Alex saw the children. There were so many of them that the room held no space for the living and Alex felt them watching him. Daddy? one whispered. Why do you burn us?


He’s not our daddy! Another whispered. He never plays with us.


“Shut up!” Alex hissed. “I am not a Jew!”


You lie! Missha’s head jerked up.


Alex shoved it back down and then rammed the pyre into the oven.

“Shut up! I am no Jew. No Jew and the dead have no voice.”



(c) 2009 Maria Rachel Hooley. All rights reserved