Someone Named Eva Read Online Free Page B

the corner, adding to the feeling of desolation in the room.
    Two men with white coats and stethoscopes stood on the opposite side of the room. They held clipboards and were laughing and talking in German, ignoring what was happening at the front of the room. A woman in a uniform stood on one side of the blackboard, staring blankly into the open room.
    The two men in white coats from the gym had also arrived, and were standing with the other men, talking quietly. I had not seen them wearing stethoscopes in the gym. Perhaps they were doctors.
    They all seemed very bored, as if what they were doing was a normal part of every day. One doctor smoked a cigarette casually. Another yawned, looked over at us, then turned back and continued laughing with the others. None of them even seemed to care that we had been taken from our homes and couldn't understand their language or intentions.
    "What do they want?" I whispered to a year-six girl standing next to me.
    "I don't know," she whispered back, her eyes wide.
    "Undress. Now!" the female Nazi finally screamed in Czech. She stepped over to grab each of us by the arm, pulling us out of our huddled group and into a crooked single-file line in front of the blackboard. I felt my face grow warm.
    "Undress!" the woman repeated, reaching over and ripping down one boy's pants. Immediately, the rest of us began to undress, afraid of what would happen if we didn't.
    I threw off my blouse and skirt, trying to keep my eyes on a poster hanging on the opposite wall and ignore the shame I felt as I stripped to my underwear. Not even Jaro had seen me undressed before. I dropped my clothes in a pile at my feet and stood waiting.
    After everyone was undressed, the woman who had given the order grabbed each of us again and divided us up into four lines. The four men with the stethoscopes stopped talking, and each took a position at the head of a line. The woman pointed to the lines, indicating that we were to travel from one to the next.
    The doctor in the first line asked me my name.
    "Milada Kralicek," I answered quietly. He nodded, running his finger down his clipboard and making a note with his pen. Then he checked my mouth, nose, and eyes, using the same kind of instruments my own doctor used. He listened to my heart with his stethoscope and made me cough and do jumping jacks. He ran his finger up and down my back, then bent over his clipboard and scribbled some more with his pen. I relaxed a little as he continued. This was just a doctor's exam after all.
    But in the second line the exam changed. Even though the doctor had a stethoscope and wore a white coat, he seemed interested only in my hair. Guiding me toward the wall, he placed me in front of posters, each showing a different hair color. Next he picked up a long narrow board that had small bundles of blond hair attached to it. Carefully, he took each of my braids and laid it flat against the different hair bundles, then wrote notes on his clipboard. I had a sudden urge to take the pair of scissors on the table near him and cut off all of my hair. I didn't like the way the doctor touched it.
    In the next line the doctor stood near a table that had strange metal instruments on it. One of them reminded me of the silver salad tongs Mama used on special occasions, but unlike Mama's, these came to a very small point at each end. The man carefully placed each of the points on either side of my nose, pressed slightly, then wrote something down on his clipboard. He seemed to be measuring my nose. How was the size of my nose part of a doctor's exam?
    Next, he took another instrument that looked like a pair of knitting needles connected by a piece of metal. He put one pole on either side of my forehead.
    "Perfect!" he said in Czech, and scribbled more notes. The female Nazi stood watching that line. She smiled at the man and then at me. I turned my eyes downward, not sure what I had done to please these people, but knowing I didn't like it.
    In the