The Stone Crusher

by Jeremy Dronfield

  “No one, not even the commandant, is as feared as Grabner.”15

  He studied Fritz a moment, then spoke. He said, quite matter‑of‑factly, that he knew prisoner 68629 to be involved in planning a large‑scale escape from the Auschwitz‑Monowitz camp, and that he had been doing so with the collaboration of the German civilian who had identified him. The Gestapo had been watching this civilian; his irregular behavior having caught their attention.

  What did the prisoner have to say about that?

  Any expectations Fritz had had about the line his interrogation would take were confounded. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t deny knowing the civilian, but the stuff about an escape was a total mystery. Were the Gestapo just fishing, or did they have real information? If so, how, and what? “You will give me the names of the prisoners who are involved in this plot,” Grabner said.

  Taking Fritz’s stunned silence for a refusal, Grabner nodded to Taute and Hofer.

  The first blow of Hofer’s cudgel didn’t jolt a confession out of Fritz, and neither did the second or third. Realizing that Fritz would be harder to break than the civilian had been, they pushed him facedown on the table and fastened the straps, pinning him down. The cane rose and flashed down, whistling, lashing him across the buttocks. And again, and again, until his backside was lacerated and on fire with agony. Even in this extremity of fear and pain he 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 208

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  kept count of the lashes, and he’d suffered twenty by the time they unstrapped him. Grabner ordered him again to admit his wrongdoing and give up the identities of the prisoners he was planning to help escape. Again Fritz gave no reply. What could he say? Again he was forced down on the table, again the straps were fastened, again the cane whistled in the air.

  He lost track of how many times he was strapped to the table, but he doggedly kept count of the lashes: sixty agonizing cuts of the cane, sixty weals on his flesh.

  When they unstrapped him and hauled him to his feet, Grabner demanded again: confess, tell me the names.

  At some point, sooner rather than later, it must occur to any person trapped in this nightmare of pain and terror to just say anything to make it stop. Fritz could name several of his friends who were involved in some form of resistance, and would not be human if he didn’t experience the overwhelming temptation to save himself. He could simply give Grabner their names—Stefan and Gustl and Jupp Rausch and the other resisters, his friends and mentors, condemning them to torture and death. Even though Fritz was smart enough to know that it wouldn’t save his life, it would at least bring the torture to an end.

  He said nothing. Grabner nodded at Taute and Hofer and indicated the hooks in the ceiling.

  Fritz’s hands were tied behind his back, so tightly that the circulation was cut off. The long end of the rope was thrown up over a hook, and the two sergeants hauled on it. Fritz’s arms were wrenched upward and backward, and with an indescribable, blinding agony he was dragged off his feet. He hung with his toes a foot above the floor, his bodyweight twisting his shoulders in their sockets, filling his brain with blinding white light. So many times he had seen the poor souls suspended like this from the Goethe Oak. The experience of it was worse than could ever be imagined.

  “Give me the names,” Grabner repeated, again and again. Fritz hung there for nearly an hour, but all that came out of his mouth was inchoate squeaks and drool. “You won’t live through this,” said Grabner’s voice in his ear. “Give up the names.”

  At a nod from Grabner, the rope was let go, and Fritz crashed to the floor.

  Give up the names, he was told, and it would be over. Still he said nothing.

  They dragged him up, hauled again on the rope, and raised him screaming into the air.

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  Three times they raised him off his feet by that infernal hook. By the third hoist, Grabner was losing patience. It was Saturday night, and he was keen to get home. This interrogation was wasting his precious leisure time. Fritz had hung for an hour and a half all told when they let go and he crashed to the floor for the third time. In his pain he was dimly aware of Grabner leaving the room. As he left he ordered the two sergeants to take the prisoner back to the camp. The interrogation would resume later.16

  Gustl Herzog was still up and about when he heard that Fritz was back. He rushed to meet him and found him being carried along by two Viennese friends, Fredl Lustig, who had worked with his father on the Buchenwald haulage col‑

  umn, and Max Matzner, another close friend of Gustav’s, who had narrowly avoided death in the infamous Buchenwald typhus experiments.

  Fritz couldn’t stand; aside from the visible bruises and blood, he was in excruciating pain, his joints wrenched and twisted. Gustl told Lustig and Matzner to take him to the hospital, then went in search of the other resisters.

  The prisoner hospital in Monowitz was extensive. Occupying a group of blocks in the northeast corner of the camp, it had several departments: medi‑

  cal, surgical, infectious diseases, and convalescence. Although an SS doctor was in overall charge, it was staffed mainly by prisoners, and each department had a block senior in charge.17 By concentration camp standards, Monowitz’s hospital was a good one, but like all others it suffered from a starvation of medical resources and was subject to regular selections for the gas chambers.

  Fritz was taken to a room in the general medical block. He was half‑

  paralyzed, his arms useless and senseless, his backside welted and bleeding, and his whole body shot through with pain. A Czech doctor gave him some strong painkillers and massaged his arms.

  After a while, Gustl Herzog came in with Erich Eisler and Stefan Heymann.

  All three regarded Fritz with both pity and fear. When the doctor had gone, they questioned him anxiously about what the Gestapo had wanted with him.

  He told them about Grabner’s accusations and the alleged escape plan. Had he given up any information? Of course not; he didn’t know anything. But had he given Grabner any names—any at all? No, he hadn’t. Despite his pain, his 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 210

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  friends interrogated him over and over: had he named any names at all? No, he insisted; he’d told Grabner nothing.

  Eventually they were satisfied. They were safe—for now. But Stefan and Erich were positive that Grabner wouldn’t let the matter end there. If it hadn’t been a Saturday, he’d have kept up Fritz’s torture until he either confessed or died. It was a marvel that he’d let him come back to camp; presumably the cells in Auschwitz I’s block 11 were jammed to bursting (as they usually were). Tomorrow, or maybe Monday, Grabner would send for Fritz again. The torture would resume, and sooner or later he would crack and start spilling out names. Something must be done to prevent that.

  For the time being, they had Fritz moved to the infectious diseases block, where typhus and dysentery patients were kept; it was in the far corner of the camp, beside the shower block and adjoining the morgue. The SS doc‑

  tor and his medical orderlies rarely went in there for fear of infection. Fritz was put in an isolation room. So long as he didn’t pick up an infection, he’d be safe for the time being. But he couldn’t hide in here forever, and his name would have to be entered in the hospital records. Otherwise, he’d be recorded as missing at morning roll call and a manhunt would be initiated.

  Whichever way they looked at the problem, there was only one solution: Fritz Kleinmann had to die.

  With cooperation from Sepp Luger, the camp senior responsible for the hospital, the death of prisoner 68629 was recorded in the register. No details were required; the register
provided only a single line for each entry, with admission number, prisoner number, name, dates of admission and depar‑

  ture, and reason for departure. In this column there were only three options: Entlassen (discharged); nach Birkenau for those selected for the gas cham‑

  bers; or a stamped black cross denoting the dead. Once Fritz’s death had been entered, Gustl Herzog recorded it in the general prisoner records office where he worked.18

  Between them the conspirators broke the news to Fritz’s many friends.

  Even his father could not be let into the secret—the risk was too great—and so Gustav was given the devastating news that his beloved son had died. After all they had been through together to survive this far, it was utterly heartbreak‑

  ing. Gustav couldn’t bring himself to record it in his diary, which had lain untouched for weeks.

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  While Gustav grieved and Fritz’s friends absorbed this latest in a never‑

  ending train of deaths, there remained the pressing matter of what to do with the living, breathing Fritz. While he began to recover from his injuries, he was kept in isolation in the hospital. Each time an inspection was carried out by the SS doctor or his male nurse, Fritz was helped out of his bed by his old Buchenwald friend Jule Meixner and hidden in the storeroom of the hospital laundry where he worked. All the while Fritz wondered what would become of him now. Watching the dysentery patients drag themselves to the latrine buckets in the outer room and the typhus patients writhing in their sweat‑

  soaked beds in a febrile delirium, he knew he couldn’t stay in this place much longer, injuries or no injuries. Word had come through from the Monowitz Gestapo that Grabner had dropped the investigation because of Fritz’s death.

  It was time to move on.

  Fritz was given the identity of a typhus patient who had just died. He was in no state of mind to recall the poor man’s name—only that he was a Jew from Berlin, a relatively recent arrival whose prisoner number was up in the 112,000s. It was impossible to erase Fritz’s tattoo or give him a new one with the dead man’s number, so they just bandaged his forearm and hoped that no SS demanded to see it. Stefan Heymann spent a lot of time with him, and they grew closer than ever; he advised Fritz on how they would need to proceed and the precautions they would need to take when assigning him to a labor detail.

  It was all one to Fritz; since his interrogation a lassitude had entered his soul and he no longer cared much whether he was discovered or not. The long grinding of grief, starvation, and hopelessness had worn down his resistance at last, and he had entered the mind state that led to becoming a Muselmann. He confessed to Stefan and his other friends that he was considering ending it all as soon as possible—it was so simple to rush the sentry line while on an outside work detail, or to throw himself on the electrified fence in the camp. One gunshot—a single fleeting instant—and the pain and wretchedness would all be over.19

  Stefan had no patience with these thoughts. Couldn’t Fritz imagine what committing suicide would do to his father? Gustav believed right now that his son was dead, but in time—perhaps soon—he would learn the truth and be overjoyed. But if he were to discover that Fritz had been alive all along and had then committed suicide—just imagine the utter devastation he would feel. After all they had survived together, the risks they had taken for each other, their shared endurance—for Fritz to not only cave in to the SS but to allow them to finish 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 212

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  him off, it was too much. “They cannot grind us down like this,” Gustav had said; endurance was all, misery was only for a time, hope and spirit were undying.

  Fritz and Stefan talked it over at length. Stefan promised to do everything he could to keep Fritz safe in the hospital, to prevent his being selected for Birkenau. When he was well enough to go to work, a place would be found in some outside detail where he could remain obscure and unnoticed. Fritz trusted Stefan with his life, but he had grave doubts. People knew his face—including some of the SS. And sooner or later his father must find out. At least seven men in the resistance knew Fritz’s secret; could they all keep it hidden forever from Gustav, who was their friend? Gustav was prominent in the camp now, well‑

  known to the SS and the functionary prisoners, some of whom were hostile. His status made possession of so explosive a secret extremely dangerous for him.

  Moreover, he would find it hard to stay apart from his son and not acknowledge him. The incident with the Blockführer who had battered Fritz for claiming to be Gustav’s son was a painful reminder of that fact. Gustav was conspicuous.

  After three weeks, Fritz was recovered enough to leave the hospital. His friends smuggled him to block 48, where the senior was Chaim Goslawski, a member of the resistance. Like Fritz’s father, Goslawski had been born in this part of the world, in the town of Sosnowiec, and his block was mainly popu‑

  lated by German and Polish prisoners who didn’t know Fritz.

  The next day, Fritz went to work. A position had been found for him in a different section of the locksmith detail where he could pass unnoticed as a warehouseman; one of the kapos, a man named Paul Schmidt, was in on the secret and kept an eye on him. Marching out through the gates each morning and back in the evening, Fritz went through suffocating terror, expecting to be recognized by an SS guard or hostile kapo. He kept in the middle of the group, marching with his eyes fixed forward and his face expressionless while his heart pounded. Nobody noticed him, and as the weeks passed, he began to feel more settled at work. For the time being, his secret was safe.

  One evening Gustav was sitting in the day room of block 7 when he was told that Gustl Herzog was outside, asking to see him.

  Gustav stepped outside and found his old friend in a state of visibly sup‑

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  the building, away from the road. Behind the row of barrack blocks, in the space between it and the next row, stood a row of smaller buildings—two latrines, the Gestapo bunker, and a small bath house. Herzog led Gustav to the bath house, where the prisoner in charge was keeping watch at the door.

  They indicated that Gustav should go inside.

  Wondering, he entered the building, inhaling the familiar smell of musty, soapless damp. In the gloom, he saw the shape of a man standing back in the shadows of the boiler room. The figure came forward, his features resolving in the half light, unbelievably, miraculously, into the face of Fritz. For Gustav, who never abandoned hope, to hold his son in his arms again, to inhale the smell of him, to hear his voice was beyond all hope, beyond everything.20

  After that first reunion, they met whenever they could, always at night in the bath house. The bath supervisor was yet another veteran of the “Buchen‑

  wald school” who’d been with Fritz in the youth block. Now that his grief was gone, Gustav’s mind was invaded by all the cares of fatherhood, redoubled now that Fritz was in so much more danger than he’d ever been in before.

  Gustl Herzog and the others assured him that they were doing all they could for Fritz, but would it be enough?

  In the late fal of 1943, the gravest risk to Fritz’s security was unexpectedly lifted when SS‑Lieutenant Grabner was suddenly removed from his post.

  For a long time, there had been questions in Berlin about Grabner’s con‑

  duct of the Auschwitz Gestapo. Even by SS standards the number of deaths he ordered raised an eyebrow—not so much at the scale of the murder but the disorderly way in which it was done. In the minds of Himmler and his senior officers, the Final Solution—and killing generally—was an industrial business, to
be conducted cleanly, efficiently, and systematically. It wasn’t a game or a personal fetish. However, it was not Grabner’s sadism or taste for murder that brought about his fall; it was his corruption. Like many senior concentra‑

  tion camp officers he had used his position to misappropriate property and enrich himself. He had done so on a colossal scale, stealing the valuables of Jews murdered in Birkenau and sending home whole suitcases crammed with loot. Unfortunately for him, the scale of his corruption drew the attention of 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 214

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  an SS investigation. He was suspended from his post, and on December 1

  was placed under arrest, along with fellow mass‑murderer Gerhard Palitzsch.

  Grabner was permanently replaced, along with some of his accomplices.21 SS‑

  Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz, was one of them.

  Höss’s replacement, Arthur Liebehenschel, took up his post as comman‑

  dant on November 11, 1943, and initiated a shake‑up of the whole Auschwitz complex; staff were replaced, and order and discipline were imposed more firmly on the SS.22

  Amid all this turmoil, there was little chance of one prisoner in Monowitz being taken much notice of by the camp Gestapo. Not only that, on the night of December 7, an accomplice of the dismissed SS officers started a fire in the main Gestapo building, destroying the records of their misdeeds.23 Not long afterward, Fritz Kleinmann quietly came back to life. His entry in the camp reg‑

  ister was reinstated, and the Berlin Jew who had died of typhus was forgotten.

  But although the need for absolute secrecy had passed, Fritz still had to be careful; if he were noticed by any SS guards who had been aware of his death—especially the Gestapo sergeants Taute and Hofer—there would be trouble. But among the thousands in Monowitz, the hundreds of thousands who entered and were transferred back and forth between the Auschwitz camps, and the tens of thousands of dead, who would take notice of one prisoner’s discreet resurrection?