I Have Lived a Thousand Years

As the train rattles on, no one speaks of the events in the valley. When they stop, German voices tell them the Red Cross is handing out soup and to hold their tin dishes out their windows one by one. When Bubi’s turn arrives, a burst of gunfire sends him hurling backwards. Machine-gun fire comes from every direction. Girls in the boxcar are hit, one in the back, another in the face. Bitton-Jackson holds onto one thought, “to live,” and covers her head with her dish (170). She believes the Red Cross was a Nazi trap; they will continue shooting until everyone is dead. Yet she must stay alive. Gunfire rips apart the leg of Lilli, a sixteen-year-old girl who Bitton-Jackson idolizes for her singing ability.

The shooting finally stops. Bubi is unconscious but alive. Two of three sisters from Czechoslovakia have been hit. The oldest, Beth, who has a “lame leg,” tends to one. The other has been shot in the back. German soldiers open the boxcar doors and tell the inmates to hide in the woods. Enemy planes are expected to return for another attack. Laura will not leave Bubi. She tells Bitton-Jackson to leave, and suggests she seek shelter under their boxcar.