I Have Lived a Thousand Years

Inmates are shocked to see the swastika flying at half-mast. Rumors fly that Hitler is dead, that the Russians are “rapidly advancing,” that “[t]hings are converging toward an end” (103). The camp is evacuated. A caravan of trucks conveys inmates to the Krakow train station. Bitton-Jackson reflects on the changes she has undergone since her arrival seven-and-a-half weeks earlier. She has seen death and torture, felt close to death herself, eaten worm-infested food, grown thin and covered with sun blisters. At the station, a kapo orders one hundred people per train wagon. The heat overwhelms Laura, but there is no room to sit. As the “heat and stench” increase, it becomes difficult to breathe (104).

They wait on the train for hours, and a kapo orders thirty more passengers per wagon. Polish inmates, “old timers,” tell of incidents when passengers suffocated before arriving at their destination. Laura faints, along with others. The train begins to move during the night. The forward motion “inspires confidence” (105). They travel all day and night. The air becomes cooler, leading Bitton-Jackson to conclude they are moving north. Her mother revives. On morning of the third day, the train stops. “Men in striped uniforms” drag the inmates off the train “like rag dolls” (106).