Ben nodded. He was still thinking about Zelda. Rumkowski is here. So we’ll all have our revenge. But I still don’t have my son or my girl. Revenge is not nearly as sweet as holding someone you love.
“What’s wrong? You don’t seem happy about this,” Jake said.
“I hate him. And I’m glad that he’ll finally pay for all he’s done to his fellow Jews. It’s just that, for a moment, I thought that you might be talking about my Zelda being here. And as much as I’m glad she’s not here, I sure would rather see her than Rumkowski. My love for her is stronger than my hate for him. I don’t even know if she’s alive.”
“I know.”
Ben nodded. Then he added, “All right, then. You might as well tell me the plan. What are we going to do to Rumkowski?”
“Good. So you’re in?”
“I’m in,” Ben said, remembering the threat he’d made to Rumkowski the day that Zelda was sent away.
CHAPTER 25
A few nights later, right after roll call, Jake, Ben, and six other sonderkommandos, who had also been in the Lodz ghetto, gathered outside one of the blocks to make plans. They all quickly introduced themselves to Ben.
“I’m Matthew.”
“Samuel.”
“Paul.”
“Lev.”
“Ruben”
“Ethan”
“Jozef.”
“Salmen.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you. I’m Ben Rabinowitz.”
They all nodded.
“Now, down to business. We don’t have much time before the whistle will sound and we have to be in bed. So let’s get going with the plans,” Jake said.
“We have to lure him into the crematorium,” Jozef said, nodding at Jake, then he continued. “Then we should all be waiting there for him.”
“But how? What would make him come with us? I’m sure he knows that all of us hate him,” Lev answered.
“Are we sure he knows that?” Ben said. “He knows I hate him because I told him. I promised him that one day I would have revenge for what he did to my girl, Zelda, and her children. But is there anyone here among us who never had any contact with him?”
“I have never had direct contact with him.” Ruben bit his lip. “I just remember that speech he gave about the children and what a son of a bitch he was to everyone in the ghetto.”
“I never knew him personally either, although I’m sure he was responsible for my wife, God rest her soul, and me being sent here.” Salmen shook his head.
“So how about this?” Ben said. “Let’s say one of you two fellows, that he never met, start to befriend him now.”
“I’ll do it,” Lev said.
“Good.”
“So what do I do? Tell me exactly.” Lev leaned against the building and listened intently.
“All right. Here’s what you do. Make sure you get behind him in the food line tomorrow. Then casually start talking to him. Take it real slow. If you take your time, he’ll never suspect that you have a motive. Don’t tell him you know who he is. Tell him you were in the Warsaw ghetto, not Lodz. Get him to talk about himself. Listen to him. In other words, do whatever it takes to make him trust you. Then once he does, tell him that you stole some valuable things from prisoners on transports. You tell him that you hid these things in the crematorium. Ask him if he can help you fence the stuff. He has connections. I’m sure he’ll have an idea of what to do to sell things. Then once you tap into his greed you tell him he has to come to the crematorium to meet you on a Sunday evening because that’s when the crematorium is shut down. “
“You think he’ll come?” Lev bit his lip. His right eye twitched. He reached up to rub his eye, and Ben saw that he had a slight tremor in his left hand.
“Yes, I believe it will work, but only if you come across as sincere. You have to make him trust you,” Ben said. “Now since I work in the kitchen, I’ll do my best to steal some extra food. I’ll give it to you, Lev, so you can share it with him. By sharing food with him, it will make him believe that you really consider him a good friend. In his mind, he will see the two of you building a bond. Not that you could ever really trust him, but it will never come to that.”
“Extra food? You’re going to give him extra food.” Lev licked his lips. “All of us are starving. There isn’t a man here who couldn’t use some extra food. I hate to give it to that bastard.”
“Yes, we could all use extra food. There’s no doubt about that, but if we want revenge on Rumkowski, we’re going to have to use the food as a lure,” Ben said.
“I’d rather eat it,” Samuel said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m starving to death. Who the hell cares about Rumkowski?”
“I care. He took the love of my life away from me. I hate him. I want to see him pay for what he did, not only to my Zelda and her children, but to all those children he sent away from the Lodz ghetto.” Ben spit the words out.
“You’re right,” Samuel said with conviction. “ Even though I sure would like the extra food, it's worth the sacrifice. Rumkowski deserves to suffer. He hurt all of us. He hurt every Jew in the Lodz ghetto.”
“So, Lev, will you do it?” Jake asked.
“Yes, I’ll do it. I’ll start tomorrow morning. It might take a few weeks for me to build his trust.”
“We have time.” Ben nodded. “Maybe. If they don’t kill us all first.”
The prisoners all laughed at Ben’s attempt at a joke. But the roots of the laughter were embedded in deep pain.
The next day, Ben saw Rumkowski for the first time since he’d left Lodz. The sight of the old man made his blood boil. Lev fell into line two men behind Rumkowski and easily started a conversation with the two others and Rumkowski. After they’d gotten their food, Lev followed Rumkowski and sat beside him, continuing the conversation.
Well done, Ben thought. And although he was happy to see his plan progressing, as far as Rumkowski was concerned, he still felt a dagger in his heart when he thought about the man who had told him his name was Caleb Ornstein. Up until now, Ben had not mentioned Caleb to Jake. He decided the next time he and Jake were alone, he would tell Jake everything, including what had happened with Ornstein. Then he would ask Jake to find out if anyone new had heard of Caleb Ornstein, and if they knew what had happened to him.
After the card game on Sunday, Ben walked Jake back to his block and told him how Ornstein had pushed him into the train car and said he’d been intimate with Zelda.
“I don’t know him,” Jake said.
“He’s a tall, handsome fella.”
“I’ll see if I can find out any information about him. He may not be here.”
“I don’t attend roll call because of my job, so I can’t say I’ve ever seen him there. And I haven’t seen him at meals either,” Ben said.
“You want revenge,” Jake said. It was more of a statement than a question.
“I want revenge, yes. I burn with the hatred I feel for him. The need to see him pay for what he did aches in my heart and in my belly. But I also want to know what happened between him and Zelda. I want to know if Zelda was his lover during the time that she and I were together. I want to know why he felt the need to tell me what he told me. I need answers.”
“It might not be the best thing for you to hear what he has to say. What if he tells you that your girl was cheating on you. How is that going to make you feel?”
“At least I’ll know.”
“I’m not sure you want to know everything. I’ve found that sometimes it’s better not to know the truth. Especially now. What good will it really do you, Ben? Just between you and I, I wonder if this revenge on Rumkowski isn’t going to be a hollow victory. Sometimes, I find, revenge hurts the revenge seeker more than it hurts the one who is supposed to be paying. But if it’s what you want, I’ll do what I can to find out if Ornstein is here,” Jake said.
“Yes, please find out what you can.”
CHAPTER 26
The following week, Jake told Ben that he coul
dn’t find anyone who knew what happened to Caleb Ornstein. Several of the men he spoke to, who had been in the Lodz ghetto, remembered him. But no one knew what had happened to him.
Ben just nodded with disappointment. Then he gave Jake a chunk of stale bread. “This is for Lev to share with Rumkowski.”
“Good. Try and get more if you can.”
“I will. I’ll do what I can,” Ben said, then he asked, “So what’s going on with the plan for Rumkowski?”
“I talked to Lev. We’ve set a date three Sundays from today.”
“Three Sundays,” Ben said, salivating and wishing he could take just one bite of the bread before they gave it to Rumkowski.
“Yes. The Nazis are running out of fuel to run the crematorium. They’ve been closing early on Sunday.” Jake shook his head; his voice was angry and bitter. “So we’ll all meet inside the crematorium at six in the evening. Then if all goes as planned, Lev will bring him in.”
“And then what?”
“And then we lay into him. We make him pay for everything we’ve lost.”
“We’re not going to kill him, are we?”
“No, just show him a little muscle. Get out some of our aggression,” Jake said. “That’s what everyone wants to do. So I’m in.”
“I have to tell you the truth. I hate violence. But I am so damn angry, Jake. And this bastard deserves it.”
CHAPTER 27
The following day, one of the prisoners, who was working in the kitchen, was caught stealing food. The guard saw the prisoner stuff five pieces of potato peel into his pants.
“Direkthilfe? What’s this?” the guard said as he pulled the peelings out of the man’s pants. “You Jews are so disgusting. You’re such filthy pigs. Who, but a dirty swine, would put food in their pants and then eat it?” the guard said in mock anger. He was toying with the prisoner.
“I’m sorry. I was starving. Please have mercy on me.”
“Mercy? Mercy? When you take advantage of the German people by stealing food? The German people who work hard and pay good money for your keep? We have to pay to feed you, and this is how you show your gratitude. Not only are you subhuman rats, but you're unappreciative.”
The prisoner was trembling. Urine ran down his leg forming a puddle on the ground.
“And look at that. You have the audacity to pee in the kitchen?” The guard took his rifle and shot the prisoner in the head at close range. Blood and brains sprayed across the kitchen, some of it landing in the miserable excuse for soup that would be the men’s dinner. No one said a word, but Ben thought he heard someone gag. Then the Nazi pointed at Ben and another prisoner. “You two swine, clean up this mess.”
Quickly, Ben and the other man dragged the body out to the pile of bodies and laid it on top. Neither of them said a word, but both of them looked into each other’s terrified eyes.
That night as Ben lay in bed, he shivered as he thought about the food he’d stolen to lure Rumkowski. He could have been caught and shot, and his brains could have ended up on the floor of the kitchen. He’d been so driven by his hatred for Rumkowski that he’d been blinded by rage. What a despicable man Rumkowski was. But was revenge worth dying for? Still, how could Rumkowski have taken children from the arms of their mothers to save his own worthless life? Ben took a deep breath, then he thought about Zelda and how much he missed her. He thought about her two children. Would those two little ones ever have an opportunity to grow up, or were they already dead? The very idea that those two vibrant children might have been taken out of this world made him feel nauseated. And what about Moishe and Lila? Where were they? He still believed Lila had bribed Rumkowski somehow, in order for him to look the other way when she escaped with Moishe. It had hurt him to think that his beautiful wife had lain naked under the old, disgusting Rumkowski and probably Ornstein too. At the time he was angry with Lila. Hurt, so hurt. But looking back now, he was glad that Lila was strong willed, and that she had the courage to do whatever needed to be done in order to save their son. Moishe: he prayed that Moishe was still alive. His own precious son.
CHAPTER 28
August 27, 1944
When Ben entered the kitchen to go to work that morning, he looked at the calendar. It was August 27. His mind was on the ambush on Rumkowski that was to take place that night. All his life, violence had made him feel sick to his stomach. He’d never started a fight. Every fistfight he’d been forced into, he’d lost miserably. Now he was going to go and beat up on a man who was unsuspecting and defenseless. There was no doubt in his mind that Rumkowski deserved it. Even so, the more he thought about it, the more the idea was unsettling for Ben. Although he’d seen plenty of blood since he’d been transported to Auschwitz, and even before in the ghetto, the sight of it still sickened him.
That evening after Ben finished work, he walked quickly toward the crematorium, hiding from the watchful eyes of the guards as he made his way.
The others were already there waiting for him when he arrived. It was dark, damp, and eerie in the stone room where so many bodies of innocent people had been burned like trash. There were ashes still on the floor. Ben wondered whom they belonged to—someone’s father, someone’s mother, someone’s lover, or someone’s child. He shivered when he thought of the children. Every person who died here in Auschwitz had a past; they had a family; they had a story to tell.
Ben had been at Auschwitz for a while now, and he had long since gotten used to the smell in the camp, but being inside the crematorium, the odor was more powerful, stronger than it was in the rest of the camp. He felt himself gag.
The men all waited in silence for Rumkowski. Each of them lost in their own thoughts, consumed with their own memories. In the stillness, Ben felt that he could almost hear the voices of those who had been sent here and murdered because of Rumkowski. Was Zelda one of them? He shivered slightly as he heard the voices of Lev and Rumkowski outside. They were about to enter the building. It was about to begin, and as much as Ben believed Rumkowski deserved to be punished, he wished he could run away from all that was about to happen.
And then Lev and Rumkowski were inside. From that moment on, everything was very unreal for Ben, like a nightmare.
The prisoners, who had been waiting, came out of the shadows all at once.
“What’s going on here?” Rumkowski asked, his voice controlled, but there was an undercurrent of fear and panic.
“Do you remember me? I’m Joseph Bitterbaum.”
“How about me, Rumkowski? I'm Samuel Greenberg.”
Rumkowski turned and tried to run away, but Lev grabbed him and pulled him back. Two more of the prisoners held him as Rumkowski fought to get away.
Then each stated their name.
“Ben Rabinowitz. Remember Lila Rabinowitz? Or how about Zelda Lipman? She was my girl. She had two children. Solomon Lipman and Sarah Lipman, whom she sent out of the ghetto in the middle of the night. They were just babies, but she had to send them all alone to protect them from the fate you had planned for them. How could you do it, Rumkowski? How could you allow the Nazis to take all the children who were under ten on transports?”
“It wasn’t my fault.” Rumkowski was like a wildebeest cornered by lions. His nostrils flared with the sense of danger. His voice was no longer confident. He began to plead for mercy, the mercy he’d denied so many others. “The Nazis forced me to do it. I was only trying to keep as many Jews alive as I could. They demanded that I send them ten thousand people. I only sent the children and the elderly because they couldn’t work. I was trying to do the best for our people. I believed that if the Jews could work, they would be useful to the Nazis, and at least some of us would have a chance.”
“So you sent them babies. Children under ten? And old people whose lives you felt were worthless? Were they murdered, Rumkowski? Were they all murdered?” Ben asked, trembling. He walked over to Rumkowski and began shaking him hard.
“Yes, probably,” Rumkowski said, hanging his head.
; “How can a man take children away from their mothers and send them to a camp where he knows they’ll be murdered. How?” Lev asked. “You sent my two young sons. You did that to me. You sent my children to be killed. What kind of a monster are you? And you sent my wife. A good woman. A pious woman, who lived only to help others. You had her killed. Her blood is on your hands.” Lev was breathing hard. “And you know what? When I went to befriend you, you didn’t even recognize me. You didn’t even remember, that’s how little their lives mattered to you. You son of a bitch.”
“Rumkowski, you killed my poor, old mother. She didn’t have a mean bone in her old body. She was always doing things for everyone else. If somebody was sick in our shul, she was the first person to bring them food. Someone needed help with a sick child, she went to their aid. And just like that, Rumkowski, you wrote her name on a piece of paper that sent her to die. You should be ashamed,” Ruben said.
The men each told their stories while Rumkowski struggled to get away. He tried to fight, to kick, to pull his arms free. But Jake was strong, and although Lev, Ruben, and Samuel held on to Rumkowski too, Jake was strong and could have easily restrained the old man by himself.
“Take off your clothes,” Jake said to the other prisoners. “If we are going to do this, there’s going to be blood. And if there’s blood on your uniform, the Nazis will know you were involved.”
The prisoners took off their uniforms and stood naked surrounding Rumkowski.
“Oh no, please, have pity,” Rumkowski said. He was on his knees now. “Don’t do this. I beg you.”
“Get him,” Jake said. “Now.”
Then the naked prisoners fell upon Rumkowski like a pack of wild dogs. They beat him with their fists, with tree limbs, and with rocks. They kicked him in the stomach, in the chest, in the face, and in the head. Lev smashed his skull over and over with a rock. They were consumed by hatred and rage, like wild demons whose hunger for revenge would not be assuaged. Ben hated Rumkowski, but he couldn’t hit him. He ran outside and vomited.
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