Children of the Magnificent Earth

by Martha Kent

   "To Potulice," the Master had threatened. In Potulice we had arrived. My
mother's eyes darted from gate to fences. Men in uniform walked toward us,
the country wagon open to any harm they intended. We children huddled
against each other.
   "Are they all yours?" a man in uniform asked. His hand tossed his words
in our direction.
   "They're all mine," my mother said, her face set. She would not be made a
fool of . . .
   Since that spring of 1947 I have mentally stopped at the gate of Potulice
many times and listened to our ages, the laughter, and the exchange of words
between my mother and the guards . . . I stopped at the gate of Potulice to
probe beyond the facts of our past existence. It wasn't facts I wanted to
cull from the past. I searched for a way of looking. How did the eye see
when it saw with preciousness? Quite possibly it wasn't a mechanism of the
eye. Quite possibly the inclination was in every cell of my being, in how
the cells conducted the business of living. They did it with preciousness
because it was good for my organism. I hadn't chosen the word. I had no
words for what the cells were up to. The tissues knew how to live and grow
up behind barbed-wire fences. I just followed along . . .
   Preciousness was a manner of being in very hard places . . . It was the
way of bonds and connectedness. I would step through the gate of Potulice to
find the sense of preciousness and see where it would lead me in captivity
and in freedom.
                                                    . . .

   In the eating room the bread line pressed forward with the crunch of grit
under our clogs.
   The barracks Elder passed out slices of bread. She looked at each face.
We looked at her moves. A slice and a glance. A piece fell from a girl's
hand onto the table. The girl snatched it. Her shoes tapped fast wooden
taps. Everybody took what was given.
   "Don't crowd," the Elder called into the shuffling. We pulled back a step
and made ourselves small in big prison clothes.
   Inside my tin cup the barley coffee reflected like puddles of water. I
knew about reflections. My eye floated in ripples on the black water. It
looked steady when I held the tin between both hands. I took a step. The eye
swung wildly from edge to edge. Then it stopped in the middle of the tin. I
blinked. The eye looked back. I knew something in Potulice.
   "'Du'--You," somebody nudged.
   I reached for my bread.
   "Where's your 'Mutti'?" the Elder asked.
   "Potulice," I answered.
   "Lucky Girl," the Elder said.
   True. I was lucky. 'Mutti' was in the next barracks. I could touch her
wall. Other girls had said their mothers were lost, dead, or under a wagon.
The Elder was in charge of our barracks. A prisoner like all others, she
looked after us. If not, I'd have to make do alone, as Mother made do.
   I held my tin of coffe and looked for a seat. Tables and benches filled
up. Hands held tin cups. Lips slurped black coffee. Everywhere sunshine lit
up thick dust.

Back to Main Page of the Conference on Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe