by Paula Wynne
While the other children huddled close and cried, he had run up and down the barracks pretending he was a pilot coming to save everyone. That was before that day.
With Elza gone and not visiting the commander’s chambers anymore, he did not have to face Ima’s rage. But he now had his own to bear. His aeroplane, in full view of their only window, fuelled his loathing. As much as he tried to lock the aeroplane away deep down with Elza, he could not. The hollow ache in his heart would not stop. No more so than the empty groan of his ravenous belly.
In the distance, Russian artillery whined and whistled. For several minutes the barrack was hushed, peppered with laboured breathing and the occasional cough and splutter. Someone’s teeth chattered as another bout of fever wracked their body. Like everyone else, Johan’s muscles had withered under his unwashed clothes. The outfits the Nazis made them wear had become tattered and torn, and now they all walked around like skeletons in rags.
Johan often fought the hot and cold fevers. The teeth chattering suddenly stopped, and Johan wondered if the person had fainted from hunger.
Sweating despite the chill, he listened to his thundering heartbeat. It still hammered against his ribs every time they were bombed.
Johan heard a soft mumble as Ima chanted prayers under her breath.
Some prisoners still observed all the Jewish commandments, while others only observed the ones they absolutely had to, saying their evening prayers and just trying to survive the rest of the time.
Ima had told him if he was ever in trouble he should say Shema Yisroel, the most important prayer and God would be there and help, but God was not in this place.
Was he even up there?
At that moment, the gravel outside their barrack door crunched under heavy footsteps.
4
It’s strange living with the sound of your heartbeat thrashing in your ears. Claustrophobia has become normal, and every new or different sound makes me jump. It is easier to simply shut out emotions.
Johan was expecting a hefty boot to thump against the flimsy wooden barrack door, but none came.
Resisting the urge to scurry back to his bunk, Johan dropped to his bruised knees. Crouched in a corner, he held his breath, wishing his belly would stop growling in case the Wolf heard it.
Two shadowy silhouettes stood just outside.
The small window, at the end of the long, low barrack they were crammed into, was fitted with frosted glass and chicken wire, but one corner of the frame had been badly made. Johan could see through the small hole into the courtyard, which was either filled with dust or mud, depending on the weather.
Something thumped the wall just above his head. Johan held his breath. Had they seen him spying? He didn’t want to hang from the iron bar above the gate like Mikhal. Most of the children played hopscotch or games the adults had fashioned from whatever they could find, but he and his friend had preferred spying, until Mikhal was caught and hanged. Now Johan had to be very careful, but he couldn’t give it up. He had to know what was going on. Most of the information he couldn’t understand and brought back to Ima, who told the others in their barracks. At least he was doing his duty to keep them a little safer.
After a moment, he held his breath and lifted his head an inch to peer through the window. A few speckles of condensation glistened like tears on the glass. He squinted through them.
Only a foot away, two officers huddled together under a pool of yellow light, trying to capture a dry spot in the icy rain. The Wolf was tall and skinny with horse teeth. The other was shorter and more muscular, his nose large and square like a filthy swine. Johan now called him The Pig, not only because of his snout, but also because he stole their rations.
The Wolf’s voice drifted through Johan’s spy hole, ‘Der Führer has given orders. Everyone must be killed before the Russians arrive, but neatly.’ He sniggered, ‘A pile of bodies filled with bullets cannot be left to be used in propaganda against the Reich.’
Terror filled Johan. Every part of him wanted to rush to Ima and tell her, but his feet were frozen to the ground. He often hid under their bunk when he heard things like this. Things that no one, not even Ima, could stop.
Elza used to hide with me there, but not anymore. Now only rats and lice hide with me in that dark space.
The Wolf, clearly angry, insisted, ‘We cannot wait any longer. We must whip everyone until that verdammt building is finished. Then, it will become a gas chamber so we can clean away all these filthy Jews right here in the ghetto.’
Johan finally let out a squeak of air. Now he realised the true reason why The Wolf had forced prisoners to start a new building near the workshop last month. They had been told it was a new chamber for delousing, and so many had even welcomed it. Everyone hated going too close to the cleansing station they already had, because they were often completely submerged with their clothing in a huge tub of stinging chemicals which killed the lice but also left their skin peeling off.
Johan’s mind ticked over like an aeroplane engine. If he told Ima, she would spread the news and panic would break out. It was no good to waste time panicking: he knew what must be done.
One thought stuck in Johan’s mind: They needed to bomb that building. He had to get a secret message to Herr Kleinman over in the men’s barracks, because he was good at stealing from the Nazi storerooms and then making liquids that burst and bubbled. Herr Kleinman could make a bomb and together they could secretly place it inside the new building. Before the Wolf drives everyone inside and kills them.
The Wolf looked up and growled at the sky. ‘This damned rain is holding things up. It’s almost over. The Russians will break through soon. We need time to finish the chamber.’
Johan’s heart skipped a beat. The wait for the Russians to rescue them seemed to go on forever, split by the pop and crackle of their weapons.
‘Where do we go when the Russians get here?’ asked The Pig.
‘Flee! I have a truck ready. It will get us out in time.’
Rain now pelted down harder, as if God had finally heard them and was firing silver bullets down onto the Nazis. Their boots squelched through the sloshy courtyard, as they headed for the guard hut, only a few feet away from Johan’s window. He shifted back on his haunches, ready to dart back into his bunk with Ima if the door was flung open.
‘Why are we staying?’ The Pig grumbled, ‘Shouldn’t we go like the others?’
‘It is our duty to watch these rats. If we go, they will escape. We cannot let them.’ His voice rose as he spluttered out a rain-soaked ferocity, ‘I will not run like the others. I will stay until the very end. I have a mission to complete.’ The Wolf suddenly poked a finger into The Pig’s chest. ‘As do you! We have to complete the extermination of these Jews while we still can.’
Johan almost stopped breathing. He held himself dead still to hear the next words, but both men stood in silence for a long while.
Johan sat there for so long that the ear, pressed against the tiny hole so it could hear, started twitching as the cold night air bit into the skin around his neck.
5
The future is bleak with despair and hopelessness. It is easier to be left alone to wallow in defeat but spying on the Nazis is important to stay alive. Yet the spying game brings despair that there will never be freedom.
Pulling his threadbare shirt up to his ears, Johan held it there while he chewed on his lips to stop them trembling. At first, that had happened from the hunger, but in the winter, the cold took over.
Eventually, The Pig asked The Wolf, ‘What will you do when the war is finished?’
The Wolf blew smoke into the air above his head. It swirled and disappeared, swallowed by the rain. ‘I will enjoy my wife. Then I will join her cousin, Steffan Sommer. He is a master at hiding, so he will hide me.’
‘How come?’
‘Because Steffan owes me.’
‘Owes you for what??’
‘I should not be talking to you about this.’ The Wo
lf inhaled, long and deep. After a moment, he blew out the smoke. ‘But as the Russians are almost here, what harm does it do to tell you all about Steffan?’
‘My best friend, Wilhelm Sommer, and I were in the Hitler Youth together. His cousin Steffan was there too. A weakling! But as he was Willy’s cousin, I had to put up with him. He was only good for one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Languages!’ The Wolf shook his head. ‘That man can walk amongst foreigners and be speaking with them a month later like he is one of them.’ The Wolf waved his hand, ‘Anyway, we captured a British spy.’
‘How?’ The Pig gasped.
‘He broke his leg parachuting into the forest of Bavaria where we were training. We saw the parachute and went to investigate, but only Steffan could speak to him in English, so we hung back while Steffan did what Willy and I had ordered him to: told the spy he was Danish, and that his parents were secretly with the resistance. It made the stupid idiot bleat like a goat.’
The Pig bellowed smoke-filled laughter.
‘I gave Steffan full marks for that, but I,’ The Wolf jabbed a finger into his own chest, ‘tortured the spy while the cousins looked on. The information I got from him before I killed him gained the three of us Hitler Youth Gold badges,’ he boasted. ‘It was all my doing, and they were just tagging along.’
‘Who was he spying on, this English scheiße?’
‘Ah, now that is the interesting question. It turned out he had been sent to assassinate a German scientist whom the enemy had learned was working on a top-secret weapon.’
The Pig lit another two cigarettes and handed one to The Wolf, who snatched it. ‘Plus, we became famous in high ranking Nazi circles,’ he jabbed his chest again, ‘even though we were very young.’
‘I had heard you jumped into a senior position very quickly,’ The Pig remarked.
‘Exactly! All three of us, but it was all down to me. Willy was fascinated by the secret weapon and was very clever in technical engineering, so he went to work with the famed Kammler.’
‘And what of Steffan?’ asked The Pig.
‘With his languages, he’s now an officer in the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, part of the SS ordered to evacuate our German treasures. Long ago the SS started hiding secrets to protect the Reich’s assets.’
‘What secrets?’ asked The Pig. He stamped his feet, spattering mud up his boots.
Johan’s ears suddenly prickled at The Wolf’s words. ‘Der Führer is looking in the mountains across Europe for the largest cave to hide treasures that the Juden don’t deserve.’
‘How do you know?’
‘As I said, Steffan speaks many languages, so he was sent on lots of secret missions.’
More smoke swirled and melted into the rain between the shadowy figures.
‘Like me, he’s only in his twenties, but he was recruited into an undercover operation a few years ago,’ The Wolf’s voice faded for a moment as gun fire rattled above them.
Johan glanced at long blood-like streaks splattering the distant sky.
Suddenly The Wolf’s voice became clear again, ‘Steffan travelled from the Alps in France, all across Poland, Denmark, Austria and Hungary. He even went as far south as Spain and Italy.’
‘So what’s that got to do with the Reich’s secret treasures?’
‘Aren’t you listening?’ The Wolf snapped. ‘Steffan’s undercover operation sent him to caves and mountains, any place to hide the Reich’s possessions.’ He stubbed out his cigarette under his boot. It fizzed, the red glow like a spot of blood disappearing into the slushy ground.
Another blitz of bombing drowned out his voice for a minute.
The drip, drip, drip of raindrops almost drove Johan mad, as he strained to hear The Wolf talk about Hitler’s secret vaults.
He clenched his fists to stop the urge to throw something at the glass window.
Then, The Wolf’s voice broke through, ‘Now, the SS are hiding everything that was taken from these stinking Jews,’ his thumb pointed back towards the barracks.
Johan gasped and ducked down, his pulse thumping in his dry throat.
The Wolf continued, ‘All their jewels, their art…anything valuable from their homes is being hidden.’
Between artillery bursts, Johan caught The Wolf’s words, ‘We must try to save whatever we can, so the Reich can start over again.’
After a moment, Johan lifted one eye over the broken ledge. The two soldiers were still facing away from him, so he placed his ear back over the hole.
Another thundering explosion rattled the bunks and the stone floor shuddered. Women and girls squealed. Even the rats living under the bunks and in the corners scampered for shelter.
A second later, a bomb exploded above the barrack. Its force blasted through Johan’s spy hole, crumbling stone and dirt, and echoing down the long rectangular barrack.
For a moment the resounding blast whistled in his ears. He poked them and stretched his jaw as wide as he could, then shut it again. A muted whoosh padded his eardrums. Then his ears popped, and he could hear again.
The two officers had taken cover in their doorway, expecting the ancient stone fortress walls to protect them from the Russian bombs. Johan wished they would leave like the other guards had done a few days ago.
The Pig, peeking nervously out at the sky, asked, ‘What if they question you about the camp after the war?’ He shook the rain off his cap.
‘Hah!’ The Wolf shrugged, ‘My conscience is clear. I’m simply doing my duty.’
‘But what if they ask about the oven rooms?’
The Wolf shrugged and turned away to light another cigarette.
After a few moments waiting for an answer The Pig lit his own cigarette and glanced uneasily towards the barracks with the prisoners. He snorted, ‘I hope those filthy Russians don’t steal all your torture techniques!’
The Wolf’s clenched fists moved, as if snapping a twig. ‘They will never know how to truly destroy a spirit!’
An involuntary quake ran through Johan, as it did whenever he thought of Elza and the others who had been broken.
The Wolf had a particular way of attacking the new prisoners’ spirits. First, he would make them starve whilst working them with hard labour such as building, digging or carrying heavy machinery.
If that didn’t wear them out, he would invent some excuse to give them a terrible beating. Then, told they deserved punishment, they were only allowed to sleep for a few hours, and then forced to roll along the ground naked, even in the coldest winter months. Some of them died that way, but for those still alive, they would get a kick in the face or between their legs, both front and back.
At that stage, Ima said their spirits were worn to nothing. If they still didn’t give in, Johan had watched The Wolf’s pack of vicious dogs baring jagged white teeth, whiter than his own, set upon the fallen prisoners, biting their bloodied wounds, and tearing their flesh as they dragged them along the gravel.
The Wolf would not soil Nazi hands cleaning up from what he did, instead Johan and the other children were forced to drag the dead bodies, by their arms or legs, to the gas ovens. The first few times they had had to do it, most of the children screamed and cried. They had been punished by having the dogs set on them. Johan had squeezed his eyes shut and clutched his belly, and then with a clenched jaw and hammering heart, forced himself on weak legs to lift the dead hands and drag them to the oven room. Many times, he had struggled to hide his terror and dizziness, but somehow he had made it each time without being fed to the dogs.
Or being fed poison to die with the rats.
Phantoms of Elza visited him each night, and terrified him so much he had to squeeze his eyes shut until he fell asleep.
Suddenly a fast movement of The Wolf’s hands snapped Johan out of the remembered terrors that now filled such a large part of his mind.
The Wolf snatched the cigarettes out of The Pig’s hand, stuck them in the corner of his mouth and cupp
ed his hand out of the rain to light them.
‘All I have done is for our Heimat, our homeland!’
After handing a glowing cigarette to The Pig, the Wolf said, ‘Anyway, Steffan spent a lot of time in the Alps. I saw Willy recently and he said that Steffan had found a place big and remote enough that the Allies will never find. It will become the Reich’s Alpine Fortress.’
‘Where?’
‘Lake Toplitz.’
6
The Wolf’s spirit is vile. Human life means nothing to him. Torture is what he lives for. He takes great pride in finding new cruel punishments or ways to mock and degrade our people. How does Ima’s God allow such a man to live? Why does her God not punish The Wolf and let him die a horrible death, as our people suffer every day?
At first light, The Wolf ordered Johan and two younger girls, to clear up the blast debris blocking the entrance to that fearful door.
Today, their normal routine of standing in rows, completely still for hours at a time and in all weathers, while lists of orders were read out and prisoners counted, was forgotten. Just as well, because most mornings people he knew would simply crumple to their knees and slump to the ground in starvation, often hitting the ground already dead.
Johan was so tired he could not keep his eyes open. They were grainy and his lids kept closing. He pushed his fists into them to try to relieve them, but it didn’t help.
When they had first arrived, the adults had tried to organise some kind of education for the children, the learning of Judaic texts and Hebrew. The Wolf had found out, though, and he now occupied the children with labour, using them for work that most of them struggled to do.
Luckily, Johan had always been a strong boy and even now, without daily food, he could just about manage to drag the skeletons from wherever they had died over to the oven room. Or, lately, clear up the bombing rubble.
Most of the women walked around with bent spines, shaking their heads in a kind of lasting disbelief. When they murmured to each other, they would wring their hands and rub their upper arms as if that would give them some kind of comfort.