For the moment, the uniformed man was still sending some people to the right and some to the left, though as of yet no one had actually said which direction was better and which was worse. Actually, no one—not any guard, nor the doctors nor their assistants nor this commander—had said much of anything. They hadn’t explained what going right or left meant, and the simple fact of not knowing gnawed at Jacob.
At first he’d wondered if people were being separated based on height or weight or their last names, but eventually he concluded that the people being sent to the left were those over sixty years of age, along with anyone who seemed sick or walked with a limp or had any other obvious infirmity or defect. Those sent to the right seemed to be younger and healthier and sturdier.
That was it, Jacob decided. They were in a work camp, after all. Those going to the right must be assigned to more physically challenging jobs, while those on the left were undoubtedly assigned to something a little less demanding.
“Name?”
“Uh . . . I’m . . . Lenny . . . er, Leonard,” Jacob stammered, finding it strange to say for the first time aloud. “Leonard Eliezer.”
“He’s my son,” Mr. Eliezer added, a bit too eagerly in Jacob’s view. He feared for the man’s safety, and sure enough, the guards instructed him to shut up and wait his turn, but to Jacob’s relief his new father was not beaten.
Jacob felt protective of this man who had been so kind to him and who had thought so clearly and given him such wise counsel. He hoped the older man would be sent to the left and assigned a lighter workload. Indeed, he hoped he would too. He didn’t want to be separated from the only man he knew at Auschwitz, even if they’d only met a few days earlier.
An assistant to the man in the white lab coat traced down through the names on his clipboard until he found the right name and put a check mark next to it. The young assistant nodded to the doctor, the doctor whispered something to the commander, and the commander said, “Right,” pointing for Jacob to follow the younger prisoners.
Disappointed, Jacob nevertheless did as he was told, though he walked slowly enough to hear the fate of Mr. Eliezer a few moments later. “Left.”
Jacob’s heart sank. He knew he was about to take a serious and possibly fatal risk, but he couldn’t help himself. He quickly glanced back and made eye contact with the old man. Then he smiled and mouthed, “See you soon.”
Mr. Eliezer put his hand on his heart and mouthed back, “Be well.”
And then the old man was marched around the corner of a building, and Jacob could see him no more.
Quickly regaining his focus, Jacob followed those ahead of him through the doors of a three-story redbrick building and into a large room. Jacob got the odd impression he was in a school cafeteria. There were no food or beverages, nor were there any plates or cups or utensils. There were, however, lots of tables.
At the first table, a soldier ordered the prisoners to turn over all valuables and said that anyone holding back any valuables would be beaten. Reluctantly Jacob handed over the wad of francs he’d been keeping in his pocket and was forced to remove and surrender the watch his father had given him for his bar mitzvah.
Jacob proceeded to the second table. There sat a gaunt older woman, probably in her fifties, a prisoner to be sure, flanked by an armed soldier. She was filling out index cards that she took from a large metal filing box.
“Name?”
“Leonard Eliezer.”
“Eye color?”
“Brown.”
“Hair color?”
“Brown.”
“Condition of teeth? Open your mouth.”
Jacob complied.
“Fine. Past illnesses?”
Jacob just stood silently.
“What have you been sick with in the past?”
“Colds, coughs—I don’t know,” Jacob said.
“Measles?”
“No.”
“Mumps?”
“No.”
“Pneumonia?”
“No.”
“Scarlet fever?”
“No.”
“Age?”
“What?”
“What’s your age?” the woman repeated, annoyed. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Date of birth?”
“February 2, 1921.”
The woman looked up at him. “That would make you twenty-two, wouldn’t it?”
Jacob felt his face grow red. “Yes, sorry, twenty-two.”
The woman stared at him for a moment, then went back to her work. “Occupation?”
Jacob drew a blank. What was he supposed to say? Member of the Jewish Resistance? Document forger? Attacker of Nazi trains? He had no idea what his occupation was. He’d never really thought about it. The woman asked again. Suddenly he remembered Mr. Eliezer saying his son was a metalworker, so that’s what Jacob told the woman, though he worried about getting caught in a lie. He’d never worked one day in the metalworking shop owned by his uncle and managed by his father. What if they assigned him to a metalworking shop and he didn’t know what to do? They’d beat him for sure.
The woman next asked about his education, and he said, “None.” With that, she handed him the card and sent him to the next table.
There, a far more attractive woman about his own age took his card and scanned it without looking up. “Name?” she asked.
Jacob paused for a moment, taken aback by seeing someone so beautiful in such a dreadful place. She struck him as a sliver of light in a pitch-black dungeon. She was slender and shapely with lovely auburn hair.
“Name?” the young woman asked again, still not looking up.
“Oh, it’s right there at the top,” Jacob replied, pointing.
She looked up from the card, and Jacob was mesmerized by her large, sad brown eyes. But then, feeling self-conscious, he immediately looked down at his shoes.
“Do you think this is a joke?” she asked, lowering her voice and leaning toward him.
“No, no; I’m just saying that it’s right there on the—”
“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind, Mr. Eliezer,” she said. “That is your name, correct? Leonard Eliezer?”
Jacob glanced quickly at her, nodded, then looked away.
She asked him for more personal data and carefully wrote down his answers. She asked him for his most recent address. She asked him for the names and addresses of family members he would want to write to assure them that he was okay. Fortunately, Jacob remembered most of what Mr. Eliezer had told him and cobbled together enough material to give her. He watched as she wrote on the back of his index card, admiring her penmanship and suddenly wondering what it would be like to hold her hand.
The moment was shattered by a wooden club crashing against the back of his skull. Jacob staggered forward in immense pain. He tried to stabilize himself by grabbing hold of the table, but the table moved with him, and he nearly lost his footing. The young woman yelped and jumped back, and the guard behind him started cursing him and telling him to move along and stop wasting time.
Jacob grabbed the back of his head and felt blood there but did as he was told. As he went, he caught one last glimpse of the young woman. She looked scared but also sad for him. That’s what he told himself, at least, and then he stepped around the corner, following the crowd.
What had he done wrong? Jacob wondered. He had simply admired the woman’s hands. Was that a crime in this place? How could it be? It had to be something else. Maybe he had spoken too slowly or too softly. Maybe that had made it seem he was conspiring with the woman or being too friendly. Whatever it was, it had earned him a severe blow and now an excruciating headache.
In this new room beside yet another table was a scale. Jacob was told to strip down and put all of his clothes, including his underpants, into a large wooden box. Then he was told to stand on the scale to be weighed, after which his height was measured. In this room there were only men. Still, Jacob was embarrass
ed and cold and bleeding, and he feared he might black out at any moment. And then he joined a long line of naked men who were being tattooed.
“Your number is 202502,” a soldier told him while a prisoner tattooed the number into his left forearm with a new wave of searing pain. “You will remember this number. You will memorize it. You will answer when it is called. You have no name any longer. Just a number. Any prisoner who forgets his number or doesn’t respond when his number is called will be shot. Do you understand?”
Jacob did not understand. He had no idea what the man was talking about. He couldn’t believe what was happening. But he nodded and was sent forward to the next table. There, a prisoner shaved all the hair off Jacob’s head until he was completely bald. At the next table, all the hair on his body was shaved off. Then a soldier directed fifty naked men at a time to enter a shower room at the end of the hallway. As always, Jacob did as he was told. What else could he do? Even the slightest hesitation could result in a beating—or death.
The doors shut, and Jacob waited.
33
They waited several minutes.
They stared at the showerheads, waiting for the water, but none came. Jacob tried not to look at anyone or touch anyone, though given the crammed quarters, that was almost impossible. Shivering, his skin covered with goose pimples, his knees knocking with cold and fright, Jacob vigorously rubbed his arms, trying to warm them up. He pressed his legs together over his privates. Then he closed his eyes and waited for the warm water to take away the terrible chill.
Just then the pipes began to creak and groan. He could hear them in the wall and in the ceiling. Jacob opened his eyes and looked up at the showerhead. Instinctively he opened his mouth and waited to drink in the first wave. He was severely dehydrated and aching with thirst. But then a strange and discomfiting thought crossed Jacob’s mind, though from where he did not know.
Don’t drink the water. You’ll get dysentery.
Jacob closed his mouth and cocked his head to one side. What in the world was he thinking? The notion was so odd and yet so clear that he actually turned and looked around to see if someone had spoken the words aloud. But no one was talking or making eye contact with others.
As the pipes kept groaning, he again looked up and opened his mouth. Yet again he was nearly overcome with the thought that he shouldn’t drink the water. He closed his mouth and looked around again. Nearly everyone around him stood with mouths open. Apparently he was the only one who had any misgivings.
Just then water began to flow. But it was not hot. It was not even warm or lukewarm. It was freezing cold, and it was coming at them with the intensity of a fire hose, pummeling their shivering bodies and causing grown men to cry out in pain. Jacob covered his face with his hands, trying in vain to deflect the frigid waters away from his head and chest. He noticed others attempting to drink in every drop and decided he should too, unbidden thoughts notwithstanding. But just before he could open his mouth, the water stopped flowing. The shower was over as quickly as it had begun.
Now the doors behind them were opening. Guards were swinging their batons and forcing the naked men out of the frigid shower room and into another room that was even colder. Each man was handed a pair of underpants, a zebra-striped prison shirt, a matching striped cap, one pair of prison trousers, a pair of socks, and a pair of wooden shoes. They had only seconds to put the clothes on. Then everyone was given a colored triangle to wear on their chests. Most of the men in this cohort received yellow triangles, marking them as Jews. Gypsies were given brown triangles. Those accused of being homosexuals wore pink ones. Those marked as political prisoners wore red ones. Those regarded as antisocial prisoners wore black ones.
Moments after being given their triangles, they were divided into small groups and told which barracks they had been assigned to. Then the doors at the far end of the room were opened, and the guards cursed at them and forced them to march double-time to their barracks. Though he hated where he was, Jacob was actually glad to be running. He needed the exercise. He needed to get his muscles moving again. He needed to get his heart pounding and blood circulating, and the movement was raising his body temperature, and for this he was grateful.
But his gratitude evaporated almost instantly.
Straight ahead Jacob could see the enormous smokestack he’d glimpsed from the train. It was still belching out the thickest, blackest smoke he’d ever seen, and the smell emanating from it was so ghastly he twice vomited on the road, as did several of the others.
Staring at them as they ran were small groups of prisoners. All of them wore the striped camp clothes that Jacob was now wearing. The clothes seemed far too big for them. These prisoners, who had obviously been here for a while, weren’t merely gaunt. They were emaciated, with too little skin stretched over too many bones. They were dead men walking. Living skeletons. These men were being starved to death. That was the only explanation. Some of them were jaundiced. Most simply were gray. Their eyes were sunken and lifeless. Jacob had never seen anything like it, and it unnerved him.
Then they rounded a corner and headed through a muddy field, and Jacob’s eyes went wide. On both sides of the path they were running down were large ditches filled with reddish-brown water. Sticking up from the ditches were hundreds of human heads. These were not skulls. They were heads with eyes and lips and noses and flesh. Some of them seemed freshly beheaded. Others were decomposing. Again Jacob began to vomit, but there was nothing left in his system. These were dry heaves, excruciatingly painful, and they still had a half mile to run.
Eventually they reached a street lined with three-story redbrick buildings on both sides, all surrounded by high fences and more barbed wire, and stopped running. A cruel-looking man wearing a black triangle—“antisocial”—stepped forward and introduced himself as Gerhard Gruder. He was their block senior, he explained in a short speech peppered with vulgar language. Gruder wasted no time in bragging to the new men under his command that he had been arrested for raping and killing five women, though he seemed to relish telling them he had only been convicted of three.
He then told them there was one sin above all others he would not tolerate: laziness. To him, laziness was a capital offense, and he proudly declared he’d already sent nineteen men from his barracks to the gallows that month. In fact, he said, just the previous day he had caught a fifteen-year-old boy sleeping in during morning roll call.
“They hanged him at midnight,” Gruder said. “Tonight, that could be you.”
34
That first day seemed interminable.
But Jacob couldn’t afford the luxury of feeling sorry for himself. He refused to let himself think about Avi or the rest of his family and friends. Not yet. Not now. He knew he had to watch and learn and get every step right the first time, every time. He knew now his very life depended on it. Not the quality of his life, but whether he would live at all to see another day.
At one point, he watched as a camp guard beat an older man to death. The man’s offense? He hadn’t removed his cap and saluted soldiers a full three meters away before he passed them on the street.
Another time Jacob saw Gruder throttle a boy for asking where the toilets were. The same hour, Gruder punched another man in the face for not saying, “Yes, sir,” and “Thank you, sir.”
Those who cried out when they were beaten were beaten harder. Those who walked too slowly were subject to twenty lashes. One man who asked when they might be given some water disappeared from their group and was never heard from again. The list of unwritten rules was slowly but brutally emerging, and Jacob took careful mental notes. No questions. No complaints. No disrespect. No laziness. No second chances. No mercy.
At seven o’clock that night, a gong sounded, and prisoners returned from their jobs all over the camp. Roll call was taken in a nearby courtyard. The process took almost an hour. Every number was called out. Every tattoo on every arm was properly accounted for. Only then were the men told they would be a
llowed to eat dinner.
Jacob breathed a sigh of relief. His mouth began watering. He told himself not to get his hopes up. It wasn’t going to be schnitzel and apple strudel, he knew, but he was desperate to get some calories into him, and he thought he was ready to eat anything.
He was wrong.
Jacob was stunned by what they set in front of him. A chunk of spoiled salami. Two slices of rotten cheese. About three hundred grams of black bread, which for some reason had dust and bits of wood shavings in it. And a cup of brown, putrid, scalding water that Gruder mockingly called coffee. Some of the men pushed the food away in disgust. Jacob was inclined to do so as well, but the thought of all those emaciated men gave him pause. Was this it? Was this all the food he was getting? If so, what choice did he have? If he didn’t eat this, he’d soon waste away, and if he wasted away, he’d soon be dead. And Jacob did not want to die.
He closed his eyes for a moment and made a decision: he would live. He would not give up. Somehow, he would survive this place. He’d escape if possible, but no matter what, he would survive. The Nazis had taken away his name, his clothes, his dignity. But only he could give away his will to fight, and he resolved not to do it. He would eat. He would put aside his pride. He would swallow whatever they set before him. He would steal food when he could. He would find a way to survive, whatever it took.
Feeling good about his decision, knowing Uncle Avi would approve and would have decided the same if he were here, Jacob opened his eyes and reached for the salami. It was gone. So was the bread. His entire dinner was gone, and so were the men of his barracks.
More scared than angry, Jacob jumped up and raced out of the dining hall and into the street. He spotted his comrades turning a corner and broke into a sprint to catch up with them.
The Auschwitz Escape Page 13