While we stood waiting, I managed to catch the eye of Herr Ritter, two rows ahead of me, at the far end. I mouthed the only word that I could think of.
Suitcases?
Ritter frowned, unable to read my lips.
I tried again, contorting my face to exaggerate each syllable, then stepped a foot out of line so he could see my body. Stooping, I dropped my arms and picked up two imaginary heavy handles.
At last, Ritter understood.
Suitcases?
I nodded tiny, furious increments.
He winked back: they’re safe.
I tipped my head back and blessed the cloudless sky.
The riddle of what exactly the patrol had found was answered when the seven soldiers marched back past the barracks, the last two dragging the limp body of a male prisoner by his wrists. The man had been caught trying to cut the wire fence with a knife he’d taken from the tool box. The soldiers dumped him in a heap at the front of our formation, under the flagpole.
While the lead soldier conferred with Rausch, the name of today’s elusive hundred and fifteenth comrade passed up and down the ranks like a contagion of sneezes, until it reached me, where it stopped.
Ronen Kesselman!
At the front, a decision had been reached. The count was now complete. The Kapo had been saved, but the escaping Jew must pay the penalty for being caught.
Two soldiers pulled Ronen moaning to his feet – he was alive - pushed him back against the flagpole and tied his wrists above his head so he could not slide down.
The rest of us marched past in single file, to start our working day.
Ronen was scared he couldn’t cope with the new regime, and tried telling me last night. Instead of reassuring him, I told him he’d never see his parents again, that he was on his own, and had to toughen up. He must have decided to escape there and then.
Later that morning, we received a valuable lesson in the Nazi doctrine of Collective Responsibility.The camp was to be punished for Ronen’s transgression in three distinct stages:
Firstly, it was announced over the loud-speakers that prisoners were to have their heads shaved. Each department was given a specific time to report to the bathrooms. Any attempt to delay the process would result in the wasted minutes being added on to the end of the morning shift.
All pampered poodles were shorn. The two genders were treated differently in one respect: the women had all their hair cut off, while us men had one thick, white stripe shaved down the middle, leaving two sides of hair intact, to ridicule us even further.
The second punishment followed the theme of eviction: prisoners would no longer sleep in barracks. The huts outside the camp’s entrance were deemed unfit for military purposes, and soldiers would be moving into our former quarters, after due fumigation. Since Jews could not very well be housed on the open side of the fence, alternative accommodation would be provided. From now on, we were to sleep in the stables, unused since the cable factory had closed. Prisoners with experience of carpentry were selected to cut wood from the forest and begin work immediately on the construction of three-tiered bunk-beds. For mattresses, there was straw.
To the din of the factory’s machines was added the incessant hammering of posts and nails.
The carpenters worked hard. At the end of the shift, twelve bunk-beds had been made. We would be relocating en masse to the stables later in the evening and could draw straws for the available bunks. But not before the introduction of the third stage of punishment: from now on, soup would only be dispensed after roll call.
As we returned to the Appelplatz, I realised that the carpenters had been busy with more than just bunk-beds.
In the middle of the car-park stood a black gallows.
Ronen already dangled limply from the flagpost; he had been out in the August sun all day.
Was that not punishment enough?
A group of SS with bayoneted rifles formed a semi-circle before the gibbets. The rest of the soldiers stood at the side of our rows, machine guns aimed at us. One of them made a phantom lunge, and laughed when we flinched.
Orders were barked more harshly than before, the air thrummed with menace.
'Caps off!' Zgismond suddenly shouted.
We knew not why, but one hundred and fourteen caps came off at once.
'Cover your heads!'
Just as quickly, the caps were back.
Two SS headed towards the flagpole, released Ronen from his chains and carried the condemned on his final journey to the scaffold and up onto the chair.
With his back was to the gallows, his face turned towards his judge, the Chaze, our Protector who was about to condemn one of his own Jews to death.
Burnt by the sun, Ronen’s cheeks now turned pale, but his hands were still.
He shook his head as if emerging from a doze, eyes clearing to take in the hundred prisoners, the dozens of SS guards surrounding him
Three SS assumed the role of executioner as Zgismond looked on.
The Chaze stepped forward to read the verdict, halting after every word.
'In the name of Reichsführer Himmler...Ronen Kesselman...attempted to escape the camp...’
All eyes turned to Ronen.
He appeared composed as he stood in the shadow of the gallows, apart from a steady gnawing of the lower lip.
‘According to the law...Ronen Kesselman...is condemned to death. Let this be a warning and an example to all prisoners.'
Nobody moved.
I closed my eyes and considered what my friends’ last thoughts might be, both of them.
I heard the pounding of my heart.
The dozens of dispossessed souls I’d seen marched through the city on the night of our arrest no longer troubled me. But this man, my old cell-mate, leaning against his gallows, upset me more than I could ever say.
'Where is merciful God?’ somebody whispered behind me. ‘Where is he?’
At a sign from the Chaze, the executioner stepped up to the condemned man.
The SS wanted to blindfold Ronen, but he refused, shaking his head with that bullish belligerence I knew well.
After the longest of moments, the hangman put the rope around his neck.
The SS kicked his chair away.
The trapdoors were sprung, the body fell, and the rope went taut.
My own body jerked to attention, but I kept my eyes open.
I whispered, ‘Good night, cell-mate.’
'Caps off!' Zgismond screamed, his voice quivering. As for the rest of the prisoners, they were weeping.
'Cover your heads!'
A hundred and fourteen prisoners paid their respects.
Ronen swung in a slow circle, his bound hands twisting open and shut as his head jolted and his legs franticly pedalled the air, loosening his trousers. His pale, hairless legs and buttocks glistened in the dusk.
An awful silence descended on the camp as the sun dropped amongst the trees.
When the only thing moving were the ropes, the executioner yanked on Ronen’s legs, and we heard the last cracking of his tendons.
After that, we were ordered to file past and look deeply into his extinguished eyes, the tongue lolling from his open mouth. The soldiers made sure everyone stared him squarely in the face.
Finally, we were given permission to go back to the canteen for supper.
We forced ourselves to eat, for fear of what tomorrow would bring.
7
The death marked me greatly. It is no exaggeration to say I was not the same man afterwards as I had been before. None of us were.
I had only known Ronen for six weeks, we were by no means close. It was the manner of his murder as well as the act for which I grieved. The hanging was no unruly street killing, but official government policy. And the charade with our caps that Oswald Zgismond had been forced to lead us through, to show our respect. It was almost too much.
But to the SS, due process had been followed, or what passed for it in a work camp. ‘According to the
law,’ as the Chaze himself had intoned. I could not believe what Germany had allowed itself to become. The country that had employed me for ten years to instruct its young generation in the doctrines of Humanism and Civil Society. Evidently, I had not done a very good job.
The Chaze could not be blamed for Ronen’s death, nor his edict seen as an act of betrayal. If anything, he deserved my pity. He must have been suffering as much as I was, but could not show it. Camp Moda was investigated because of rumours of leniency, Rausch now watching every day for proof. His initial onslaught of rules and regulations was specifically designed to prompt a situation to test the Chaze’s will, and Ronen was the casualty. Anything less than total ruthlessness would have called his entire camp to account.
After Ronen’s death, days passed without incident. The disagreeable Nickel was rotated away from the clicking room, as if his superiors understood perfectly that his personality was best enjoyed in short doses.
After the implementation of twice daily roll calls, the shaving of heads and being moved to the stables, we were largely left in peace at our work. On occasion, even the rigours of roll call were dispensed with, leaving Zgismond to take a more civilised head-count while we were seated in the canteen. On these days, were not allowed outside at all. We attributed this to a lack of manpower. The garrison’s number had already shrunk by a third. A common assumption was that Rausch’s original heavy-handed blitz was only ever intended to be short-lived. However vital the camp’s contribution to the war effort, there weren’t enough prisoners to warrant so large a detachment. But I heard other rumours as to what the soldiers had been deployed for, rumours I chose – like others before me – to ignore. Out of the SS who remained, we even succeeded in making a few – I hesitate to call them ‘friends’ – acquaintances amongst our new captors, as soldiers started approaching on the sly with shoe requests for their wives or families, in exchange for an extra bread roll or blanket.
In this way, Camp Moda slowly resumed its old ways of graft and craft. I was sure the Chaze had found a way to take a tasty slice of the action for himself. But of course I was no longer privy to what went on at the top. For all the harmony of the new normal, there was no way for the Council of Four to meet.
Only once was I dispatched again to the turquoise tower in daylight hours, on the afternoon of August 16th. A week had passed since the initial visit of Hinrich Lohse – the true architect of the camp’s misfortune and the one man I could and did hold responsible for Ronen’s death - and we were ready to receive him once more. A pair of Adelaide brogues awaited his fitting, and much of the secretive repair-work had been completed to his collection of heels. After making a nuisance of myself by repeatedly asking for news of the Reich Commissar’s return, I was ordered up to Hauptsturmführer Gertenberg’s office to find out in person, like a naughty school-boy sent to the headmaster.
When I got there, the Chaze was almost horizontal on his chair, telephone propped on his enormous belly, hairy ankles crossed on the desk. He motioned for me to step inside, and offered a scoop of Linde ice cream he was eating. I declined. He twirled his finger in the air to suggest the telephone call would be over soon. As I sat opposite and waited, I assumed it was the Chaze’s long-suffering wife on the other end of the line.
‘Absolutely, yes, no question about it.’ He feigned conviction in his tone but mugged otherwise to me, fingers and thumb snapping together like a bird’s beak.
‘The last lot were drunk and lazy, typical Lithuanians. One of them even had the… … what do you call it - the tempurity - to tell me he’d rather be in Russia than out here guarding my shoemakers – I told him it could be arranged… Ha! You did? Excellent, sir, excellent.’
He raised his spoon in a silent toast, and winked before taking a sip.
‘Now, I’m not going to pretend Rausch hasn’t put the wind up them, and that’s probably a good thing. But, all due respect, there’s a fine line between guarding and terrorizing, am I right? We’ve already had to put down one escape attempt… And bear in mind, the first four weeks, we didn’t have one… ’
The Chaze sat up a little in his chair for the reply; I sensed a mild rebuke.
‘That’s… er… a little harsh, if I may say so, Commissar, but, yeah, you might have a point. Anyway, you’ll see the changes for yourself, very soon now. Thank-you for taking my call, Sir… Heil Hitler.’
When he put the receiver down, he saw a drop of ice cream had landed on his dress shirt. Grabbing a handful of fabric, he pulled it up to his face and licked.
‘Jozef Siegler, man of the moment, just talking about you.’
What on earth did Hinrch Lohse think of this uneducated slob, his mangled vocabulary and Silesian street slang, his causal assumptions of intimacy?
The Chaze said, ‘How you holding up?’
‘Me personally?’
‘You, the camp… I’ve been remiss, not done my rounds, I know.’
‘We’re… Morale is… improving, I’d say.’
‘That’s good. You know, I’m sorry about your friend, Roni. You two came here together, I remember that. What happened was unavoidable. Sure you don’t want some ice? Vodka with a hint of vanilla.’
‘They might smell it on my breath.’
‘I’m working on a couple of things, I want you to know that.’
‘Things, sir?’
Glancing at the walls, as if fearful of being monitored, ‘I can’t go into any details right now. But I haven’t forgotten.’ He tapped the side of his swollen red nose.
‘That’s good. Do we have a date for the Commissar’s next appointment?’
‘August 20th.’
I counted on my fingers. ‘That’s a week today.’
‘It’s not a good time, right now. Lot of people looking to be resettled. Organisational nightmare.’
‘Will we be taking in more prisoners now, or has that…?’
‘Has it what?’
‘Have plans changed?’
‘I’d say that’s a little above your position, wouldn’t you, inmate?’
‘Very good, sir.’ I got up to leave. ‘Thank-you for your time.’
‘Relax, I’m joking with you. ‘
‘Yes, sir.’ Again, I tried to smile, but my jaw refused.
The Chaze swung his feet off the desk and leaned forward, using his elbow as a prop. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
‘I believe you know I can, sir.’
‘Rausch has never met Lohse. I’ve been building it up, little by little. How Lohse isn’t ready to come back out here yet, how he’s worried about his hay fever, blablabla. Eyes running, red nose. Very self-conscience about his appearance, a man in his position, always in the papers.’
What was he talking about? Lohse didn’t have hayfever, Joziek Seidel did. I was worried that the Chaze had drunk himself into a stupor and was confusing reality.
‘Rausch is such a little brown-noser, he won’t be able to resist.’
‘Resist what?’
‘He’ll be out there under the flagpole when the old guy’s Tatra pulls up, and the first thing our friend’s going to say is, I see your hay fever has cleared up, sir. Imagine the look on the old guy’s face, first time back here since you know what...’
‘Very good,’ I said. ‘Yes, good plan.’
The Chaze shrugged, stuck out his bottom lip. ‘He screws with me, I screw with him.’
‘Of course. Everybody’s screwed.’
‘Amen.’ He winked again and raised his spoon. ‘I’ll drink to that.’
In the end, we were spared at least one embarrassment: Hinrich Lohse’s second visit on the 23rd was first postponed and later cancelled altogether, without reason. In a rare moment of privacy in the canteen, Julius Ritter pulled me aside and whispered that ‘it wasn’t politic’ for the Commissar to be seen in the area.
I didn’t understand what he meant until the evening of August 25th.
Earlier that day, we learned that Rausch had taken the Chaze out into the fores
t, along with a handpicked unit of soldiers. The prevailing rumour had it that they were going to hunt Jewish partisans. Alone at my workbench, I started to believe that the real quarry was the Chaze himself. The man’s time had finally come.
Could it really be so? A high-ranking member of the SS had to at least be subject to the same ‘law’ that had a claimed a lowly Jew like Ronen Kesselman. Professional soldiers didn’t take men out to the woods and shoot them. But as afternoon turned to dusk, I began to wonder if the darkness was coming for us all.
While the others were playing cards in the stables, I heard vehicles approach on the long drive, and jumped up to take a look. There was the Chaze, being helped out of a Kubelwagon, a little stiff but otherwise intact. I was so relieved that when the lights out order was barked shortly after, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the rolled up sweater I used as a pillow.
The soft chanting of my name awoke me. Straining through the darkness, I made out the untameable curls of Oswald Zgismond kneeling at my side. The Kapo had not slept with us since his selection, and only ventured into the stables these days to inspect our bedding for lice.
‘Come with me,’ he whispered.
‘Where to?’
Zgismond passed me my shoes and said, ‘Come.’
The moon was low, illuminating the Appelplatz like a Kreiglight. From the direction of the canteen, I could hear soldiers laughing and drinking, music playing. Checking my pocket watch, I was amazed to see I’d only slept for twenty minutes. It wasn’t yet midnight.
I followed Zgismond through the shadows, around the back of the factory and behind the Admin Block to a Fire door. He pushed it open. We slipped inside, passed through an empty storeroom and emerged into the famous oak-paneled lobby. The stained glass glowed a spectral moonlit blue.
Zgismond led me up the staircase, into the grand open-plan office, garish green now, and along the silver strip of carpet to the Herr Direktor’s door in the far corner. He paused, knocked, and we heard a grunt from inside bid us enter.
A candlestick flared on the desk, and behind it I made out the broad bulk of the Chaze’s torso, glistening in a white vest, a medallion round his neck, the pendant hidden under the cotton. He pushed forward a sealed bottle of vodka and three glasses.
I Am Juden Page 15