In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer

by Irene Gut Opdyke

  But it was not a bird. It was not a bird. It was not a bird.

  When the long march of prisoners had filed down the road out of town, we crept from our hiding place. Already, trucks had cleared the street of corpses; flies buzzed and hovered over the stains congealing on the cobblestones. Like frightened children lost in a forest, we scurried from one shadow to another, startling at every sound, our hearts pounding with fear and dismay. We did not need to say to one another, We must see where the Nazis are taking those people. We simply followed, as soon as we dared.

  And yet, before we had reached the outskirts of town, we began to hear shooting. We flattened ourselves against the wall of a garage, and with each crackling wave of gunfire, we flinched as though we were being shot ourselves. The shooting continued for a long time—a very long time—and when it finally was over, we left, again without speaking, for the bus station. We walked like dead women, our souls crushed.

  We did not speak of what we had seen. At the time, to speak of it seemed worse than sacrilege: We had witnessed a thing so terrible that it acquired a dreadful holiness. It was a miracle of evil. It was not possible to say with words what we had witnessed, and so we kept it safely guarded until the time when we could bring it out, and show it to others, and say, “Behold. This is the worst thing man can do.”

  Only a Girl

  Now it was August. The German offensive line had pushed east, and the city of Stalingrad was under steady attack. By the middle of the month, we were in Ternopol, where the new factory was churning out truckloads of ammunition every week. The complex was called Harres-Krafa Park, or HKP, and it took up nearly three city blocks. A four-story hotel had been converted into suites for the officers; on the first floor were a dining hall, a smaller private dining room, a service kitchen, and a recreation room. Another building had been renovated into suites for the secretaries, and across the compound was a large barracks for the soldiers who worked in the factory. Next to that were the main kitchen and mess hall, in their own building; to the right was a machine repair shop, and on the left was a one-story building that housed the laundry and mending shop. Taking up one side of the complex was the factory itself, and around the entire facility ran a fence, with guardhouses at regular intervals. Janina and I shared a small room beside the service kitchen in the main building.

  As before, my duties were primarily in the dining hall and kitchen, and Janina's were in the officers’ and secretaries’ bedroom suites. Meals were prepared in the large kitchen across the compound, and large pots and platters were brought to the service kitchen in the officers’ dining hall. From that smaller kitchen I served the officers’ meals, and it was there that I cleaned up afterward. There were at least thirty-five people at each meal, and often more, so the preparation and cleanup kept Schulz and me busy most of the day. I also helped Janina when I could spare some time. But even with all that work, Schulz gave me an additional job within the first week of our arrival: He put me in charge of the laundry facility, where I would oversee the washing and mending of the officers’ and secretaries’ clothes.

  Like the factory, the laundry used Jewish workers from the local Arbeitslager, the work camp. The Jews were trucked in daily and were counted before being sent to their work. On the first day that I entered the laundry room, I met my staff of twelve men and women.

  They were wary of me at first, assuming that I was German, but I did my best to reassure them. They had all once been individuals of means. One had been a successful businessman, one a medical student, one a lawyer. One woman had been a dressmaker, and one had been a nurse. For the most part, they were German Jews who had been deported to the east. Some had families in the Ternopol ghetto, but seldom had a chance to see them. Life in the Arbeitslager was a misery.

  “Sometimes Sturmbannführer Rokita forces us to stand outside the barracks for hours after a full day of work,” Ida Haller told me.

  “If anyone moves or makes a noise, they're beaten, or sometimes shot,” added her husband, Lazar.

  A woman my own age named Fanka Silberman was working the handle of the wringer, squeezing the water from a sheet. “But at least we are better off here than in the ghetto. We are the strong ones, the ones who can work. As long as Rokita does not single us out for punishment.”

  “Who is this Rokita?” I asked them.

  Herschl Morris glanced nervously at the door. “He is the Sturmbannführer—the battalion commander of the SS here. I think he has nothing but ice where his heart should be.”

  I, too, could not help glancing at the door. Their words gave me a chill. “I'll bring you food when I can. I can hide it in laundry baskets.” I looked at them all, pale and emaciated from years now of hunger. “I'll look after you.”

  Moses Steiner, a stooped and gloomy man, made a small shrug. “You're only a young girl. What can you do?”

  “Hush, Steiner,” Ida hissed.

  I put my hand on the man's arm and waited for him to look at me. Reluctantly, he raised his head to meet my gaze. “Trust me,” I said. “I will look after you.”

  I left the laundry room with a smile, hoping that I had given them courage. But the moment I closed the door behind me, I felt drained. Steiner was right. I was only a girl, alone among the enemy. What could I do?

  That night at dinner I brought a platter heaped with sauerbraten to the major's table, and found him deep in conversation with an SS officer I had not seen before. He turned his head to look at me as I approached, and I felt a knock of surprise: He was one of the most handsome men I had ever seen, with gleaming blond hair and eyes the color of the sky. He looked about thirty years old.

  “Good evening, Fräulein Gut,” Major Rügemer said politely. He blew his nose before reaching for the silver serving fork. “Do you know Sturmbannführer Rokita?”

  My throat squeezed shut for a moment. I set the platter down carefully. “Good—good evening, sir,” I stammered, careful not to look at Rokita. I focused instead on the swastika armband around his left sleeve, and then noticed the silver death's-head ring on his hand. I trembled in spite of myself.

  “What a pretty girl, Major,” Rokita said. “And what an old dog you are.”

  Major Rügemer flushed. “Don't be absurd, Rokita.”

  I stood there, feeling like a prize mare, hot with embarrassment. Coming upon the cruel SS chief unexpectedly had rattled me.

  “Fräulein Gut, I don't bite,” Rokita teased.

  I glanced at him, appalled. Was he flirting with me? Did he think I was blushing because I wanted him to like me?

  “Excuse me, Herr Major. I have other tables.”

  “Of course, of course, Fräulein Gut. Thank you.”

  I walked stiffly away under the manic gaze of Hitler's picture, and retreated to the service kitchen, where Schulz was busy opening bottles of wine. I had seen the head of the SS, and I had no doubt that what Herschl Morris said was true: Rokita had a heart of ice. Those blue eyes were cold, without life, and the ring on his hand was like a mirror of his soul. To be under his command must be as dangerous as living below a snowfield: One false move, and the ice would come down and crush you. He was a powerful enemy. He was my enemy, and I would try to thwart him.

  “Herr Schulz,” I began, “do you suppose I can get extra help? It is so much work to handle the meals and the laundry, and also help Janina with the rooms.”

  Schulz wiped his hands on his big apron and sniffed the neck of a wine bottle. “Let me talk to the major, Irene. Perhaps he can give you some women from the factory.”

  “What a good thought,” I said, as though surprised. “Why don't I get some recommendations from the laundry workers? They might know some reliable people.”

  “I'll speak to the major.”

  I loaded a tray with dishes of potatoes, gave Schulz a smile, and hoisted the tray to my hip. It was a start.

  And so two days later, I was given ten more workers, all friends or relatives of the people in the laundry room. I took eight of the new people, a
ll women, to the secretaries’ building, where my sister was cleaning.

  “This is Janina. She is in charge of you and she will help you,” I said. “Find something to do. Look busy all the time. You are better off here than in the factory or the Arbeitslager or the ghetto. You will be able to stay here all day, every day, if you manage it right. And we'll feed you.”

  “We thought it was something terrible when our names were called,” one woman said. “We were so frightened.”

  Janina took the woman's hand. “Don't be. Irene is my big sister. She will look out for you.”

  I sent Janina a grateful smile, and hurried back to the kitchen to begin training my two new helpers from the camp, Roman and Sozia.

  Steiner was right: I was only a girl. Nobody paid much attention to me. While I served dinners in the evenings, I came and went among the officers and I was an invisible servant, a pair of hands bringing and removing plates. The officers talked as if I were not there: I did not count. I was only a girl.

  But I listened to the officers discuss the progress at the front. I listened to the secretaries gossip about Berlin. I listened especially when Rokita dined with Major Rügemer, which was quite often, and if he thought I lingered because I had a crush on him, so much the better.

  “How do you manage such efficiency, Rokita?” the major asked one evening.

  Rokita's cupid's-bow mouth curved in a sneer. “Training, Major. I have trained the Jews well. No one is lazy, I can promise you that. I am very good at discipline.”

  “But not to the point that they cannot work, I assume?” Rügemer asked, spreading butter on a hot roll. “This factory is important to the war effort. I don't want my workers abused.”

  “Don't worry. But if on Thursday you discover that some workers have been replaced, it is because they were…lazy. You will be better off without them.”

  In the morning, I reported the conversation to the workers in the laundry. “Expect trouble tomorrow,” I said. “A raid or something. Spread the word if you can.”

  And in this way, I made my weakness my advantage. If I happened to overhear plans for a raid on the ghetto, it never showed on my face. If I passed a table when a disciplinary action was being scheduled for the Arbeitslager, no one suspected I cared. And when Rokita came to dine, I was always polite to him, and let him flatter himself that I lingered by his table because I was awed by his beauty and his power.

  After all, I was only a girl.

  Stealing from Rokita

  Perhaps three times a week, Rokita came to dine with Major Rügemer. Frequently, he was on the road, “cleaning up” the ghettos around that part of the Ukraine, as he put it. Ultimately, Rokita's job was to make the Ukraine judenrein, Jew-free. The Jews who could work were exploited to the end of their usefulness. Then they were rounded up and sent away—we did not know where. The “excess” population of the ghetto was removed—and were not heard from ever again.

  Whatever I overheard from Rokita, I passed along to my friends in the laundry room. Lazar Haller, who had become their spokesman, decided how best to communicate with the ghetto. There were spy networks among the Jews, that was obvious. In spite of brutal security, reports and messages did pass between the Arbeitslager and the ghetto; some of the prisoners in the Arbeitslager were allowed to visit family in the ghetto. When we knew of a planned Aktion, some people escaped to live in the forests, or hid before the raid.

  But this was only possible if we knew ahead of time. Rokita did not mention all of his plans to Major Rügemer, and I was not able to hover nearby all the time. Sometimes there were Aktions of which we had no warning, and I knew, when I went to the laundry room and saw the tears on my friends’ faces, that Rokita had struck again in the night.

  One sunny September morning after breakfast, I entered the laundry room to find Ida Haller crying inconsolably in her husband's arms. The others were at work, their faces pale. I looked from one to another, and then my stomach rolled over.

  “Where is Fanka?” I asked.

  Clara Bauer's hands were shaking as she tried to thread a needle. “She had a pass to visit her parents last night. She did not return—we think, we are afraid—”

  “There may have been a raid,” Abram Klinger broke in.

  I backed up, step by step, blindly searching for something to brace myself against. I bumped into the door frame, and then spun around and stumbled out into the sunshine again. Soldiers were loading crates onto a truck in the center of the compound, laughing and joking with one another as they hoisted the ammunition. Atop the flagpole, the Nazi flag flapped and curled in a lazy breeze. From an open kitchen window came a clatter of pots and pans, and then Schulz's voice raised in a song.

  I pressed my fists against my chin for a moment, trying to control my racing thoughts. I had to find Fanka Silber-man—if she was still alive. Across the compound, the windowpanes of the factory reflected the autumn sunshine. I hurried across the hard-packed earth and went into the factory offices.

  “I must see Major Rügemer right away,” I said to his secretary.

  She looked at me coldly. “What is it about?”

  I fought hard to remain calm. “I must see Major Rügemer right away,” I repeated.

  The door to his office was open, and I heard the major's chair scrape backward. “Fräulein Gut? You may come in.”

  His secretary sniffed and went back to her work as I hurried into the major's office.

  “Herr Major, one of my workers was mending some dresses for the secretaries and took them with her to the ghetto to use a special machine at the tailor's shop. She did not come back.”

  Rügemer yanked off his glasses and scowled at the papers on his desk. I could see his jaw working as he clenched his teeth. “Rokita,” he muttered.

  “Let me go to the ghetto to look for her and bring the secretaries’ dresses back,” I pleaded, coming around to his chair.

  He continued scowling at his desk, motionless for a moment. Then he pulled open a drawer and took out a pass. Before he shut it again, I saw that the drawer contained a whole stack of passes, all signed with both his name and Rokita's.

  “Here,” Rügemer said, writing my name on the pass. “Don't be gone long. You have work to do.”

  I blurted out my thanks and ran back to the laundry room. “Ida, tell me how to find the Silbermans’ house,” I said, pulling cleaned and ironed dresses willy-nilly from their hangers and stuffing them into a laundry basket. I memorized the directions she gave me, then hurried out again, leaving the laundry workers staring in surprise.

  It was a long walk to the ghetto. I was stopped twice and asked for my pass, and each time, I explained that I was on orders from Major Rügemer. At last, I arrived at the gatehouse guarding the entrance to the ghetto. Two more soldiers examined my pass.

  “I am Major Rügemer's housekeeper,” I said in an imperious tone. “The dressmaker is here and was supposed to finish these dresses. She has several others with her and the major is very anxious that he have the factory's dressmaker back.”

  “Bitte schön, Fräulein, go ahead,” one of them said as he opened the gate.

  I stepped through, and entered the ghetto. The streets were deserted. From time to time, I caught a glimpse of movement behind a curtain or a shade, and I thought I heard a door close somewhere, but otherwise the place was silent, and my footsteps echoed off the walls of the buildings. I could hear my own blood. The rough wicker of the basket bit into my fingers as I gripped it. I stepped over a book lying face up on the sidewalk where it had been dropped. The Hebrew characters swam together in my vision.

  The door of the Silbermans’ house was not locked. I pushed it open slowly, and stepped inside. The house was dark, the windows shuttered.

  “Fanka? Fanka, please be here. It's Irene.”

  There was no answer.

  I walked slowly to the staircase, and peered up into the gloom. I prayed she had found time to hide. “Fanka?” I took a step up.

  A hand grabbed my
ankle, and I let out a hoarse cry, staring down wildly.

  Fanka had hidden in a closet under the stairs. She crouched in the opening, one arm stuck up through the spindles of the staircase. I dropped the basket and took her hand, pulling her upright. Her eyes were huge with panic.

  “Fanka, Fanka, it's me.”

  “Irene. Irene, my family. My family is gone! I hid in the basement when I heard the trucks, but my parents—” She began to wail, and I hurried down the step and around to where she stood, and wrapped my arms around her.

  “Hush. Hush, Fanka. No noise,” I whispered against her ear.

  She clung to me, crying silently, and we stood there in the empty house, crying together. But we could not allow ourselves that solace for long. I pulled away from her and took her by the arms.

  “I want to die,” she said brokenly. “I will stay here and I will die. I should not have hidden. I should have stayed with them.”

  “Fanka, listen to me. You must not say that. You must live for them. Come with me.”

  I picked up the basket again and piled the tumbled dresses in it, then pulled Fanka with me out of the house. She followed without a word.

  “Walk behind me,” I told her. I shoved the basket into her arms. “Do this for your family, Fanka. You must live.”

  At the gate, Fanka stood with downcast eyes as the guards examined the basket. I spoke roughly to her, as though to an inferior.

  “Hurry up. Don't dawdle.”

  Her head bowed even more, and for a moment I thought she might break down. But I strode through the gate without a backward glance, praying that she would follow me and keep up her part.

  After a block, I looked back. Fanka was behind me, tears rolling down her face. “Just keep walking,” I said in a low voice. “Please, Fanka. Just keep walking.”

  We reached Harres-Krafa Park, and again showed my permit to the guards, and in a few minutes I was leading Fanka back to the laundry room. When I opened the door, all eyes turned toward me, and then Ida and Clara both cried out, rushing forward to take Fanka in their arms. I backed out and shut the door.