The angel of auschwitz, p.11
The Angel of Auschwitz, page 11
They replaced the board and returned to the infirmary before any guard passed.
Gisella crouched near the cot of a woman with severe frostbite. The woman’s toes were blackened at the tips. Pain flickered across her face with each breath. Gisella poured a single drop of morphine onto a scrap of bread and pressed it gently to the woman’s lips.
The woman swallowed it. A shudder passed through her, then a faint release.
Hannah hid the remaining medicine beneath a hollowed bread crust. They would divide it carefully in the coming days.
Gisella’s body felt close to collapse again but she managed to remain upright on the low stool she was sitting on.
Before dawn, a cough from the far corner caught her attention. She moved toward it, recognizing the sound. The girl with pneumonia lay curled up, her breath shallow as her chest rose unevenly. Gisella sat beside her and lifted the girl’s hand. It was cold. Too cold.
The girl’s eyes fluttered open once. Then her breath slipped away. Quietly. Gently. Like a thread loosening.
Her hand stilled in Gisella’s palm.
Gisella sat motionless. Her face remained steady. Only her breath changed, tightening in her chest.
She gently lowered the girl’s hand onto the blanket and smoothed the hair back from the still forehead. No words. No tears.
After several minutes, Gisella stood and walked to the far end of the ward, near the crates where supplies were kept. She leaned against the wall. And there, unseen, she let her breath break.
A sharp inhale. Another.
Her shoulders trembled once, then again. No sound escaped her. Only the tightening and loosening of breath, the shudder of a body that had been holding too much for too long.
She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth until the tremor passed.
When she stepped outside later, frost coated the ground in a thin glitter. The fence glowed faintly in the moonlight. She walked toward it, each step slow, her body weighed down with fatigue.
Aron was already there standing close to the wire, his face pale in the cold light. He said nothing when she approached. His eyes moved over her clenched jaw, the way she held her ribs.
He understood.
A guard in the distance shouted at another group. Aron stepped back slightly, careful to maintain distance.
“You are not well,” he whispered.
“I will manage. I’ve lost one girl tonight, I can’t lose more.”
Aron’s eyes lowered. When he looked back at her, something gentle flickered in them. A recognition of shared burden. “You’ll keep going?”
“There is no other choice.”
Guilt tightened her chest and she focused her gaze on the ground. The closeness between them frightened her. She thought of her husband’s face, the warmth of their home, her children’s voices. She would never see them again. The knowledge struck her with sudden force, a hollowing that made her breath catch.
Gisella lifted her head and met Aron’s eyes fully. The guilt softened, then settled back into the place it lived. She would continue to carry it with her, but she did not turn away from him.
16
Cluj lay beneath a soft veil of spring mist, the kind that turned the early morning light into something pale and gentle. The university hospital sat at the crest of a small rise, its stone walls clean and angular against the lingering grey. In the gardens, trimmed hedges formed a pattern of narrow paths where students drifted in white coats, their voices low, their books pressed to their chests as though guarding precious secrets.
Gisella crossed the courtyard with steady steps. Her hair was pinned tightly at the back of her head, though a loose strand always escaped near her ear. She tucked it carefully behind her as she walked. The weight of her notebooks tugged at her arm, but she did not mind. They were filled with her own cramped handwriting, lines of notes from lectures that had left her both exhausted and invigorated.
As she approached the hospital entrance, two male students stepped aside with polite smiles. Their eyes flicked over her coat. One raised an eyebrow with an expression that hovered between admiration and disbelief.
“Doctor Perl,” he said, his tone carried the faintest suggestion of doubt. “Or soon to be.”
She inclined her head. “Soon, I hope.”
The second student smirked. “Such ambition.”
Ambition. The word lingered in the air as she passed them.
Inside the corridor, sunlight filtered through tall windows, casting precise squares of light on the polished floor. Students hurried between wards, carrying books and folded gowns. The scent of disinfectant mingled with ink and the faint smell of paper.
Gisella found her place in the lecture hall. She sat near the front, her posture straight. Professor Barta entered, chalk in hand before he had even reached the board. His beard was flecked with grey, and he cleared his throat with an exaggerated seriousness. Without preamble, he began sketching the outline of a chest cavity on the board. Chalk dust rose in a thin cloud.
“Remember this structure,” he said sharply. “You will need it. Or you will kill someone.”
The class mumbled in agreement.
As he continued, Gisella leaned forward, taking notes in quick strokes. She barely looked at the paper. The shapes formed naturally under her hand, lines becoming understanding before the thought had even crossed her mind. She felt the familiar thrill of comprehension, the quiet fire of possibility.
Near the end of the lecture, a paper slid quietly onto her desk. She blinked and turned. Ephraim Krausz sat one row behind her, looking at the board rather than at her. His expression was calm, serious. His dark hair curled slightly at his collar, never quite obeying the comb. He had the stillness of someone who was listening fully.
Gisella glanced down at the paper. He had drawn a small correction to an anatomical detail the professor had glossed over too quickly. His handwriting was neat, almost elegant. She looked back at him. He lifted his eyebrows slightly, as though asking whether she found the correction useful.
She nodded once.
He turned his attention back to the board.
After the lecture, students filed out quickly, talking over one another. Gisella gathered her books and stepped into the hallway. Ephraim caught up to her near the stairwell.
“You write faster than anyone I’ve ever seen,” he said.
She allowed herself a faint smile. “If I stop, the professor changes direction before I understand the last point.”
“You understand,” he said. “I can tell.”
She felt a quiet warmth at the recognition.
They walked through the corridor together. He kept his pace slow, matching hers without seeming to think of it.
“Are you on call this afternoon,” he asked.
“No. I have anatomy lab.”
“I am assigned to the same group.”
A tentative pause hung between them, like the first touch of light against a window at dawn.
“Then I will see you there,” she said.
He nodded once and stepped aside to let a nurse carry a tray of instruments past them.
The lab smelled of formalin and old wood. Students gathered around the tables in white coats. Gisella stood at her station, organising her apparatus. Ephraim arrived a moment later, rolling up his sleeves. They worked side by side, hands steady, eyes focused.
She noticed he rarely spoke. When he did, it was about the task at hand. When he asked her opinion, he waited for the answer with genuine interest. Respectful. Serious.
At one point, he held a scalpel toward her. “Your hand is more precise,” he said simply.
Gisella took the instrument and began the incision. Her fingers did not tremble. She felt his gaze, steady and thoughtful, following the line she traced.
The hours passed quietly.
After class, they walked together through the hospital gardens. The afternoon sun warmed the stone path, though a faint chill still lingered in the air. Students moved around them in pairs or small groups, their voices low and earnest. A gardener trimmed a hedge nearby, the snip of his shears rhythmically marking time.
Ephraim kept his hands clasped behind his back. His coat brushed lightly against hers whenever they walked too closely.
“You plan to specialise?” he said.
“Yes. Obstetrics.”
“Good,” he said with a simple nod.
She waited for the patronising advice she often heard from others. “You will change your mind.” “It is too difficult. Too demanding.” “You will marry and you’ll have to stop working.” But he did not say any of those things.
He said, “You will be excellent.” Sunlight caught the side of his face, softening the usual intensity of his expression.
“You speak as though you are certain,” Gisella said.
“I watch you work,” he replied.
For a while, they walked in a comfortable silence that was filled with unspoken understanding. When they reached the end of the path, he slowed, turning toward her slightly. “Would you study with me this evening? I have difficulty with a chapter in the obstetrics text.”
“I would like that,” she said.
Ephraim’s eyes warmed, just slightly. Then he nodded and walked away, his footsteps quiet along the stones.
That night, they sat across from one another in one of the empty classrooms. A single lamp illuminated the table between them, casting soft shadows across their books. They read in silence at first, turning pages at different rhythms. Occasionally Ephraim pointed to a diagram and Gisella leaned closer to see. Their shoulders nearly touched.
He made a small note in the margin of his book, then hesitated. “Do you think,” he said slowly, “that we are reading these cases too abstractly? These women. These children. We speak of them as if they are diagrams.”
She looked up at him. “Because we are only students.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
Gisella studied the line of his jaw, the thoughtful crease in his brow. “You have a tendency to see the person in the problem.”
“And you see the solution,” he replied.
A warm feeling rose in her chest.
They studied until the hall outside grew quiet.
When they finally stood, their books closed at the same moment letting out a soft, synchronous sound.
Outside, the air smelled faintly of rain. Gisella lifted her face to the breeze. She felt alive. Certain. She walked beside Ephraim toward the small boarding house where she rented a room. When they reached the front steps, they paused.
“Tomorrow?” he said.
“Yes.”
He left then, walking into the soft light of the street lamps. She watched him until he disappeared around the corner.
That night, she dreamed of chalk dust floating in sunlight. And of footsteps echoing faintly in a cold corridor far in her future. A shadow in the present brushed lightly against her memory, then receded again.
She slept.
Gisella sat near the front of the lecture hall, Ephraim beside her as had become their way. His presence brought a quiet steadiness to the room and she felt the familiar calmness of focus settle over her as the professor began to speak.
After class, they made their way outside to the courtyard. A light breeze moved the leaves of the hedges. Ephraim asked her a question about the lecture, but his tone held an undercurrent she had not heard before.
“Gisella,” he said, slowing his pace. “Would you walk with me a moment?”
“Yes,” she said.
They moved away from the other students, down a narrow path lined with early spring flowers. The hospital rose beside them, its stone walls cool in the morning shade.
Ephraim stopped near a bench. He rested his hand lightly on the back of it. His expression was quiet, yet firm. His eyes held hers with a seriousness that made her heart settle into a slow, certain rhythm.
“I have been thinking,” he said slowly. “About work. About the years ahead. About the practice I hope to build.”
Ephraim seemed nervous so Gisella gave him a smile to encourage him to continue.
He cleared his throat. “Every plan I imagine seems incomplete unless you are part of it.”
She inhaled softly.
He stepped closer to her with conviction, as though he had weighed every word, every breath. “I respect you,” he said. “Your mind. Your determination. Your skill. I admire you more than I can express. I want to work beside you. And I want to build a life with you.”
The words entered her like light through a window.
He lowered his gaze briefly, then lifted it again. “I am asking if you would marry me?”
No flourish or rehearsal. Only sincerity.
A faint wind brushed the back of her neck. The path around them felt suspended in stillness.
Gisella thought of all the nights spent studying beneath the yellow glow of lamp light. Of the shared glances across dissecting tables. Of the way he listened, truly listened, when she spoke. Of the rare smile he allowed himself when something amused him. Of the certainty she felt whenever they walked together through the hospital grounds.
“Yes,” she said.
Just that. Nothing more.
He closed his eyes for a moment, a breath passing through him like a softened chord.
When he opened them again, there was a warmth in his gaze she had never seen before.
They walked back toward the hospital in silence, a new closeness existing between them.
Gisella and Ephraim’s wedding took place in a small room lit by candles. Friends gathered quietly. Her dress was simple. His suit was well-worn at the cuffs. There was no extravagance, no ceremony beyond the joining of hands and the soft murmur of blessings. When they looked at one another, the entire room felt suspended in a kind of held breath.
Later that night, in their small rented room above a bakery, they sat across from each other at a wooden table, sharing a cup of tea and the first silence of their marriage. Outside, the street was quiet. The smell of warm bread drifted upward, mingling with the lamp light.
“Tomorrow, we begin,” Ephraim said.
“Tomorrow,” she echoed.
They returned to Máramarossziget soon after and the village welcomed them with a mixture of curiosity and pride. They opened a joint medical practice in a modest building near the centre of town. It smelled of fresh plaster and new purpose. Ephraim hammered the brass plate onto the wall with his own hands as Gisella watched him from the doorway, her heart full of a sense of home.
Patients came in a steady flow: women with fevers, infants with swollen gums, and men with injuries from the fields. Some arrived shyly, uncertain of the young married doctors. But trust was soon gained and they returned.
At night, Gisella and Ephraim sat at their kitchen table reviewing cases, sketching improvements to their practice, discussing the ethics of care, the importance of listening, the small victories that came from easing a patient’s suffering.
There were mornings when she woke to the sound of his pen scratching against paper as he wrote notes for the day ahead. She loved that sound. It meant purpose. It meant life moving forward.
There were evenings when he arrived home late, boots damp from walking through the rain to visit a patient on the edge of the village. She would hand him a towel, and he would press his cold fingers against her wrist with a faint smile.
Their laughter was quiet. Their joys were modest and real.
She remembered the morning he told her he wanted children. Not with a grand declaration, but with a gentle comment as they ate breakfast.
“I think the house is ready for more life,” he said, passing her the bread.
Her heart warmed at the simplicity of it.
She became pregnant soon after. Ephraim’s face when she told him held such tenderness that she had looked away briefly, feeling the intensity of it settle inside her.
Their first child was born in the same room where they had studied and planned and dreamed. Ephraim held the baby against his chest, his expression unguarded for once. She rested beside them, exhausted, radiant.
Those years seemed to glow from within with something steady and warm, like a candle protected cupped in hands.
Her memories shimmered with that light.
Yet faintly, just faintly, something cold threaded through it.
A distant sound. Boots on frozen ground. The rough scent of disinfectant in Block Ten. A glimmer of a barred window. The present pushing against memory like a cold hand trailing over warm skin.
Gisella blinked once and the cold receded.
She stood once more beside Ephraim in the hospital gardens of Cluj, their white coats brushing lightly. She felt the warmth of his hand near hers as they walked, their steps rhythmically aligned.
The sun lowered over the university buildings, turning the stone a soft gold. Students drifted around them, laughter rising gently into the evening air. The scent of early blossoms carried on the wind.
They stopped at the gate leading out to the street. Ephraim reached into his pocket and pulled out his gloves. He held one open for her as she slipped her hand inside. His gesture was small. Tender. An expression of the closeness that needed no words.
“Shall we walk home?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
They stepped into the golden dusk, side by side, their shadows stretching long across the cobblestones. The world around them was full of possibility, bright and unbroken. The light rested on their shoulders like a promise.
They walked forward together, unaware of the darkness that would one day take him from her, unaware of the distance memory would one day have to travel to find this moment again.
But the warmth of it remained inside her.
A quiet, luminous thread she carried even in the coldest places. A reason to keep breathing. A reason to endure. A reason to fight.
17
A faint smell of disinfectant lingered in the corridor of the surgical block, but it was unable to mask the deeper scent of illness. Gisella reached the door of the experimental ward and paused. A guard stood beside it, his expression blank beneath the brim of his hat. He opened the door without speaking and she stepped inside.
