The Darkest Canyon

by Roberta Kagan

  “Your mother shaved your head?”

  “Yes, it’s customary.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, I think you are quite beautiful, even without your long hair.”

  “Oh,” she said, blushing and looking away from him, “thank you.”

  “Now I’ve embarrassed you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just . . .”

  “No, it’s all right. I am flattered.”

  Jan smiled.

  CHAPTER 65

  The following Monday, Jan’s parents left for their vacation. A guard delivered Rebecca to Jan’s home immediately after breakfast, as he had done each day since Rebecca was assigned to work for Rapportführer Ziegler.

  Once Jan was sure that the guard was gone and he and Rebecca were alone, he led Rebecca to the bathroom where he handed her a clean, fluffy towel and a bar of soap. “Here, enjoy your bath.”

  “But my housework?” she said.

  He smiled. “If we do it together it will take half the time. And I will help you.”

  “Oh no, you must not,” she said.

  “Of course I will. I insist.”

  She looked at the kindness in his eyes and wanted to cry. How could such a good man be the son of a Nazi SS officer? As she filled the tub with hot water and the steam filled the bathroom, she remembered something her father-in-law, the brilliant rebbe, once told her. “You cannot ever blame a man for the sins of his father, Rebecca.”

  Now she understood what that meant.

  Her body relaxed in the warm water. For several minutes, she just lay there, luxuriating in the pure pleasure of it. Then she scrubbed herself from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.

  After Rebecca’s bath, Jan offered her cheese sandwiches for lunch. And for the first time they ate together. He’d never dared to sit down at the table and eat with her before. If his parents had caught him, he knew they would send Rebecca to another work detail, or worse.

  “Don’t think me forward, but I should have tried to find you a clean uniform. I am sure it was uncomfortable to put those dirty clothes back on after your bath. It was thoughtless of me.”

  “You are anything but thoughtless” she said. “You are so kind . . .”

  He held up his hands in mock protest of the compliment.

  “Jan”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want you to think I ungrateful, but I am afraid that if I wear a clean uniform it might raise suspicions.”

  “Don’t worry. I will tell the guard who brings you each day that I secured a clean uniform for you because you are preparing my food, and I didn’t take well to the dirty uniform while I was eating. Would that be all right?”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. “Thank you.” A single tear fell from her eye and made it’s way down her cheek.

  Jan glanced at Rebecca. She is truly lovely, both inside and out. I don’t know what else I can do for her. How else I can help her. But there must be a way. I can’t stand what my father is doing, not only to Jews but to all those poor, defenseless people in that terrible camp. It’s murder. There is no other word for it. It’s just plain and simple . . . murder. And I can’t imagine this beautiful, delicate flower of a girl suffering such a hideous fate. But how can I help her? How?

  “Have I done something wrong?” she asked.

  “No, why do you ask?”

  “You’re staring at me.”

  “My apologies. I just . . . well . . . I just. I don’t know.”

  She looked down at the floor. He saw what he thought was fear pass over her delicate features. “Are you having regrets about allowing me to bathe in your home? Because, I promise you, I will never tell a soul.”

  “I am not sorry for any kindness I have shown you. I only wish I could do more. But I don’t know what I can do to make things better for you. I feel so helpless,” he said. Then it was as if God tapped him on the shoulder, and he remembered something that had happened before the war. Something with the power to change everything.

  CHAPTER 66

  In the Woods, Somewhere in Poland,

  “Is he dead?”

  “He looks dead.”

  Eli felt something hard and even colder than the ground poking at his ribs. Somewhere in the distance he heard someone speaking, but his head was too clogged to understand their words. His eyes felt frozen shut, and he found it difficult to open them. But once he did, the world around him came into terrifying focus.

  “He’s alive. He’ll be worth a fine reward. Runaway Jew, I’ll bet.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  A tall mountain of a man stood over him. Next to the man was the boy who had cut his hand. The boy whom he had bandaged. Am I dreaming? I am so clouded that I can’t tell what is real and what is not?

  “I’m sorry,” the boy said. “I’m sorry, mister. I didn’t mean for this to happen. My father asked me who helped me bandage this cut. I didn’t know that—”

  “Shut your mouth,” the huge man said, hitting the boy across the back of the head. “You don’t have to explain anything to him. He’s a Jew.”

  “But he helped me, Father.”

  “Shut up. If I didn’t need you to show me where he was, I would have left you at home with your mother. You’re a baby, not a man.”

  Eli pulled himself up to a sitting position. The boy’s arm was rebandaged. It looked better, but the boy was crying.

  “Get on your feet,” the tall man said. “Let’s go.”

  The man shoved the boy forward, then he walked behind Eli, keeping his gun pointed directly at Eli’s head. They walked for several minutes, and during that time Eli could hear the boy whimpering. He feels guilty. He didn’t mean it, but he knows he caused my arrest. Poor child. I can see what happened. He made the mistake of telling his parents that a man in the woods was kind enough to help him. When they came back here to find me sleeping, they figured I was probably a runaway. If I have a chance to speak to the child, I will tell him that I forgive him. I think I heard the father mention something about a reward. He must be turning me over to the Nazis. I don’t fear death anymore. I’ve come to terms with it. But I do dread being tortured. Hashem, stay with me and please give me the strength to endure whatever comes next.

  They arrived at a small, run-down farmhouse. A woman was watching through the window. She opened the door.

  “The Gestapo is on the way,” she said.

  “Mother, what will they do to him?” the boy asked, his voice filled with terror.

  “Did I say to keep your mouth shut, boy? Did I tell you that you were not to speak anymore?” The father slapped the boy across the face, sending him flying across the room where he hit the wall with a thud.

  “Son,” Eli said, “it was not your fault. Whatever happened, you didn’t do it on purpose. I forgive you.”

  “Brave bastard, aren’t you? Well, let’s see how brave you are when the Nazis come for you,” the father said, hitting Eli across the shoulders with his gun butt.

  Eli fell to the ground. He didn’t try to stand up. The boy was looking at him, his eyes filled with fear and regret. Eli mouthed, “It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean it. I forgive you . . .”

  The mother put her arm around the child and took him into another room, while the huge man waited for the Gestapo, with his gun trained on Eli.

  CHAPTER 67

  The Gestapo took Eli to the Nazi headquarters, where he was thrown into a cell for a few hours. Then two guards pulled him out and beat him severely until he passed out. When he regained consciousness, he found himself on a train, stuffed into a boxcar with other people all around him. It was a good thing in a way because the car was so full, the crowd was holding him upright. Had there been less people he might have been trampled. The ride was not long, but it was perilous. Children screamed, women cried, and the smell of feces, vomit, and urine permeated the air. There was no food or water. His right eye was swollen shut, and his head and body ached from the beating.<
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  Finally, the train rolled to a stop. The doors opened, and Eli was carried out by the force of the crowd. The women and men were separated into lines. Then followed by guards with guns and attack dogs, the prisoners were forced to move forward.

  “We are going to our deaths,” said an old man, with white hair and a map of wrinkles covering his face.

  Eli saw a small boy holding tight to his father’s hand. His eyes were filled with terror. “I would have sent my son away to live with his mother. She left me and went to France with some man. But she died a year ago. So you see, he has no one but me.” The man offered this strange testimony to no one in particular.

  “Your ex-wife is probably better off dead. Look at the women over there. So many of our women. Poor things. And you want to know what is going to happen to them? They will die too. The children too. Everyone . . .” a tall slender man said in Yiddish. “You know what’s up at the front of the line? Gas. A gas chamber. They are going to gas us all to death. We are in the death line.”

  “How do you know this?” another man asked.

  “I know.”

  Eli began to pray. He prayed for them all, as he followed in line. A gas chamber where we will all be killed; can this be true? Hashem? Hashem? Can this be true? I don’t understand. Help me, please, to know your will and to know what you want me to do.

  The line continued to move forward. Then one of the guard's dogs began to chase a squirrel. The guard ran after the dog. “Come back here. Come back here now, Kara,” he yelled.

  Another guard asked, “Is she your dog?”

  “Yes, she is mine, and that squirrel is rabid, I think.”

  “Well, go on and shoot it before it bites your dog and you have to shoot her too.”

  For just a few seconds, the guards were completely distracted by the dog and the squirrel. During those very precious moments God answered Eli’s prayer. A man in a striped uniform with a yellow Star of David on his arm grabbed Eli’s hand and pulled him out of the line. He held on to Eli’s hand as the two of them ran through the camp. The man led him to the barracks. Once they were inside, the man, out of breath from running, turned to Eli and said, “Eli Kaetzel. Don’t you recognize me?”

  “I am sorry, I don’t.” Eli was bent over at the waist, trying to catch his breath. “Do I know you?”

  “Of course you know me. I was a member of the shul where your father was the rebbe. My name is Joseph Goldstein. I remember you. You used to come to shul with Yossef, the chubby boy. I can’t remember his last name.”

  “Yes, Yossi. Of course. He was my best friend.”

  “Your father was a good man. A very good man. And even though the last time I saw you, you were still very young, you always showed a lot of promise. You were the apple of your father’s eye. His son!”

  Eli smiled. “My father was a good man. I miss him all the time.” Then Eli looked down at the floor, which was covered in dirt and sawdust. “You saved my life today, didn’t you?” he said.

  “Yes, that line you were in was headed for the gas chamber. It was lucky that guard’s dog ran off. He loves that dog. Treats it like a queen. He once told us that it’s named after a Valkyrie. I have often wondered how a man can have such compassion and love for an animal and yet shoot a child or a woman without showing any emotion at all. You see, Eli, this is not a work camp. This is a death camp. Those of us who are alive are only alive because we are part of the killing machine.”

  Eli stared at him in disbelief. Am I in hell? he thought. “Killing machine?”

  “Yes, transports come in every day, and they are sent right to the gas chambers. Those of us who are alive either shovel bodies into the ovens, or we sort through the belongings and put them in piles for the Nazis. All the positions are full right now; no one on your transport was needed. So they were sending all of you to the gas.”

  “One of the men in line told us that we were going to be gassed. I found it hard to believe.”

  “He was right. It’s true, Eli.”

  “But when they find me here, with you in the barracks, and I have no job, won’t they just take me to the gas?” Eli asked.

  “They would have. But the man who slept in that bunk over there died this afternoon. I’ve hidden his body. When you go to roll call, you’ll use his number. Then tonight under the cover of darkness, you and I will drag his body over to the pile of dead bodies waiting to be burned. No one will be the wiser. You will take his identity and live. You will sleep in his bunk from now on.”

  Eli nodded, but inside he felt sick. All those men he’d been in line with would be dead in a few hours. That little boy he’d seen holding his father’s hand, was just a child. His life had not yet begun, and soon he would be dead too.

  “Where am I?” Eli asked. “What is this place called?”

  “Treblinka,” Joseph said.

  Eli didn’t speak. Instead, he went to his bunk and lay down. Did Joseph Goldstein do me a favor? Or would I be better off dead than living here in this hell, where human life is worth nothing?

  Eli closed his eyes and prayed to Hashem for guidance. Then in his mind, he heard his father’s voice. Where there is life, there is hope. It is your turn to lead our people, my son. In this place. In this man-made hell, you will grow to become the leader you were always meant to be. The opportunity will present itself for you to serve our people and you will not fail. The time is near. God has an important purpose for you. You will soon see it very clearly. Mark my words, Eli Kaetzel.

  CHAPTER 68

  Auschwitz

  Jan went to his father’s closet and took out one of his father’s clean and crisply pressed SS uniforms. He put it on. It was no surprise that it fit him perfectly. From the time he was very young, everyone had always said he looked exactly like his father. They’d marvel at what an attractive boy he was. So tall and well built just like his father. What they didn’t know was that he looked like the man, but that was where the similarities ended. Jan was nothing like the sadistic SS officer who, when Jan was just a boy, had fooled him into thinking he was the kindest and bravest man alive. It wasn’t until Jan grew up and saw the way his father treated people whom he considered inferior that Jan knew his father’s true nature. The rift between them started small, but the more Jan learned about his father, the more he found him despicable. However, strangely enough, even though he hated what his father stood for, there were times when childhood memories of days out on the lake fishing, or playing soccer, could almost bring him to tears. Can you love and hate someone at the same time? He often wondered.

  Jan hated this uniform and all that it stood for. He lived outside of Auschwitz. He smelled the burning bodies and brushed the ash from the crematorium that fell on his shoulders. They were murdering people in there, and he knew it. His father’s excuse was that the Jews and the Gypsies were subhuman, and in order to cleanse Europe, they must be destroyed. “We are only doing what must be done,” his father said in a gentle tone when Jan asked him how he could be involved in such despicable things.

  But Jan didn’t believe him. The idea that his father could murder made him sick. “Subhuman, Father? I went to school with Jews. They were the same as the rest of us.”

  “You don’t know them the way I do. You were too young to remember what happened, because of them, during the Great War. When you are older, you will understand why we had to do what we did. The Third Reich will be remembered for all the good we did for the world.”

  Jan knew his father was talking about the Reich cleansing Europe of undesirables. And he was sure that his father believed all the nonsense he spewed. But he was still young, and he found that arguing with his father did him no good. So he tried to ignore what went on at Auschwitz.

  However, it is much easier to ignore horror when one does not see it with their own eyes.

  As a boy, Jan had never been allowed into the camp. Then one afternoon, when Jan returned from fighting in the war, he went through the gates of Auschwitz in search of
his father. And it was then that the reality hit him. He saw the walking corpses and the piles of dead bodies. He saw the uniformed prisoners shoveling the dead into the ovens, their vacant eyes staring at him. Jan looked around him at what the Nazi Party was doing, and he knew for certain that he’d gone to war for nothing. This was a cause he would never support. And for this, he’d lost his leg.

  Jan combed his dark hair back with a little of his father’s hair grease. He looked in the mirror and assessed his appearance. Even with his cane he was an intimidating sight. He knew that in order to achieve the goal he was setting out to accomplish, he must appear authentic. Jan looked at the SS emblem on his lapel, the death head on his hat. All of it was frightening. And he knew that in order to get what he wanted today, he had to be frightening.

  Satisfied, he took the keys to his father’s car and drove off. He’d never done anything like this before, and it was difficult for him to play the role of the SS officer. He’d seen his father interact with many farmers. It was important that they found him powerful and intimidating if he was going to succeed. And he was quite certain that if he didn’t succeed, Rebecca would end up dead. So he mustered all his inner strength and drove ten miles to the little farm he remembered. He’d been to this farm with his father many years before he’d gone off to fight.

  CHAPTER 69

  Jan slept late the following day. Rebecca heard him getting up at around noon, so she prepared his lunch. He came out of his room stretching.

  “Where is your plate?” he asked.

  “I . . .” Rebecca didn’t know what to say. “My plate?”