Page 86 - Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

overwhelming, a powerful stew of human perspiration
and fear and the smell of children being sick. As the
train clacketed along the tracks, Hannah thought how
lucky she was to be near a pocket of fresh air. Most of
the others were not so fortunate.
For the longest time, no one spoke. But after an hour,
the silence was too depressing and voices volunteered
what comfort they could.
"I can see a little bit," a man near the door said.
"We are passing a town. Now I see peasants in the
field."
Spontaneously several voices cried out, "Help! Help
us!"
"Any reaction?" Yitzchak asked.
"Yes. They ran their fingers across their throats."
"The bastards. Do they care nothing?" a woman asked.
Shmuel answered, "Did they ever?"
A man with a deep, rough voice spoke. "I hear there
was another shtetl taken to a railroad station some-
where in Russia."
"Why resettle Russian Jews? Russia is not big enough
for all?" •
"Big enough so a story could get lost there. So tell
us, where in Russia?" Gitl said.
"Who knows where?" the man called out. "What
does the where matter? The shtetl is no longer there
anyway. But wherever it was, the villagers were made
to lie down in trenches, like herring, head to foot. And
then, Lord God, they were slaughtered as they lay there,
by soldiers with machine guns. Lime was put on top of
them when they were still warm and the next ones were

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