The Great Altruist Read Free Page A

that Kamila’s hilarity was just a ruse; she was no happier than anyone else.
     
                After a few hours, and after picking up a few other passengers who bribed their way aboard, the truck arrived on the outskirts of Berlin. Russian tanks and soldiers monitored the streets as Jadzia and Kamila stumbled across the rubble on their way into the city. Jadzia didn’t know what she would see in Berlin, but she stood by her belief that anything was better than returning to the barracks of Ravensbrück. Despite the palpable hopelessness in the air, there were signs that people were living or, at the very least, surviving. People in search of food were everywhere: desperate men carved meat from a dead horse, women waited in lines while Russian soldiers used German military daggers to cut bread into rations. Those not in search of food climbed over mountains of rubble as buildings around them burned to the ground. Along the main roads, hundreds of wounded German soldiers lied in the gutter or on improvised cots while nurses struggled to help. From the sound of Russian fighter planes roaring overhead and the Soviet tanks crunching glass and garbage beneath their treads, Jadzia and Kamila were surrounded by chaos.
     
                “Where will we even go?” Jadzia wondered aloud.
     
                Kamila approached a woman walking down the street with her child. “Do you know where we can find our family?” Her German was broken, but the woman seemed to understand and pointed them down a long road where throngs of people were gathered.
     

     
                In the bell tower of a church high above the destruction, the tiny woman stood on the ledge and placed her hands on her naked hips. She watched Jadzia and Kamila stumble across the littered streets and down an alley to the camp for displaced persons. As the two girls walked around a corner, the woman flew high into the sky and descended on the rooftop overlooking the camp. She folded her arms under her breasts and studied the girls continually. She never took her eyes off of Jadzia.
     

     
                When they arrived at the camp for displaced persons, Jadzia grew anxious at the thought of finding her family. There seemed to be no order as people scrambled to and fro in search of food rations and whatever clothing was available. Children kept busy by playing with whatever they could fashion into a toy, but the soldiers tried desperately to organize the people in whatever way they could, some by religion, others by language, most by ethnicity. Jadzia and Kamila stood by as soldiers supplied the other refugees with food from their own rations. The chaos was overwhelming to witness for Jadzia.
     
                “Maybe we shouldn’t have come to Berlin,” Jadzia whispered.
     
                Kamila shook her head. “No, we’re in the right place.”
     
                A young soldier, armed only with a pencil, approached the two girls and smiled. “Where are you from?” he asked.
     
                “We’ve come from Ravensbrück,” Jadzia said. “I’m looking for my family.”
     
                “I can’t help you with that now,” he said. “You will need to find them here or in the other camps. We can make sure you have food, clothing, and shelter, if you’d like.”
     
                “Thank you,” they said.
     
                The soldier pointed them in the direction of another soldier down the road and ran to greet the next group of people arriving. The girls waited behind scores of other refugees for several hours before receiving their meager ration of food, a bar of used soap, and accommodations in a bombed-out church a few blocks away.
     
                Inside the church, dozens of people huddled together for warmth or fashioned partitions by hanging wet clothing. Most of the refugees kept to themselves or gossiped