I Have Lived a Thousand Years

SS officers burst onto Bitton-Jackson’s block and order the women to undress and line up single file for selection. The naked women present themselves to the selection committee for inspection one by one. Those who pass are sent outside and ordered to dress. Those who do not pass are sent back inside. Laura passes, but Bitton-Jackson does not. The SS inspector notices a wound on her lower leg, sustained when she was kicked on the train three months earlier. It has become “a deep hole oozing an awful dark brown liquid and exhuming an atrocious stench” (122). Two SS men confer and decide she cannot work with her wound. She assures them she is “strong” and “a good worker,” but they send her back inside.

Bitton-Jackson is frantic to get to her mother. The other women comfort her. Perhaps they will not be sent to the gas, but Bitton-Jackson continues searching for a way to return to her mother. She is afraid Laura’s illness will be discovered, has already been discovered. She recognizes a girl she worked with at Plaszow, Annie, whose two sisters were sent on the transport. Bitton-Jackson encourages her to sneak out together, but Annie is afraid they will be shot.