“Well, go on. Take it. I saw how you were looking at it,” he went on to explain. “I didn’t need you walking me back to the sickbay. I made my way back from the battlefield with a shrapnel-shattered knee all by myself.” He grinned. So, he’d been to the front then… It was a painful memory, I could tell. “I just thought you might be hungry.”
Tentatively, I took the Thermos from him and opened it.
“Wait a second.” Dahler quickly extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the neck of it. “It’s not contagious but…”
He didn’t finish. He wished it to be clean when I drank from it. For some inexplicable reason, that simple gesture touched me profoundly.
“Thank you, Herr Rottenführer.” I barely heard myself as I whispered it.
The Thermos was warm to the touch and the broth itself was pure heavenly manna as I swallowed the first few hungry mouthfuls. How good it was! My taste buds exploded from the richness of it. I gulped it greedily and couldn’t stop myself even as I tipped it more and more and a frantic realization hit that he’d have nothing left for himself. With an inhuman effort, I tore the Thermos off my lips and licked them to get the last bits of it from the corners of my mouth. I would be licking them for days now, stealing the phantom-like remnants of it from my lips.
“Thank you,” I breathed out again. What a present he gave me! My lips curled into a grateful smile of their own will. I looked at him almost tenderly.
Dahler shook the Thermos in his hand slightly, splashing the contents inside. “You haven’t finished it,” he remarked in surprise.
“If I did, there wouldn’t be anything left for you. I tried to drink only half. I’m sorry if I drank more than that—”
“What nonsense!” He laughed and coughed and laughed again. “It’s all for you. I’ll get myself another portion in the canteen. Do you think they don’t feed us here?”
My cheeks were burning from the broth, from infinite gratitude, and from the shame – what terrible things I thought were on his mind when he only wished to feed me. I closed my eyes – I couldn’t quite face him now – and gulped down whatever was left in the Thermos. He accepted it back, still pale but visibly pleased.
I tried to think of the words to say to him. I had to come up with something better than a miserable, “thank you.”
“How can I…” I began and lowered my eyes. It was much more difficult than I thought. I didn’t want to offend him or anger him and I had such little idea of what could offend him – my silence or my words. “If I can do something for you… in return…”
He interrupted me at once with a resolute shake of his head. “I don’t need anything from you. I gave it to you because you were hungry not because…” He made an annoyed gesture with his hand. “Are you taking the food that you’re finding in the Kanada? Are you eating enough?”
I was taking it, it’s just that I was giving most of it away.
“Yes, Herr Rottenführer.”
He looked at me sternly. He must have suspected that I was lying.
“Franz,” he suddenly said quietly.
I looked up at him.
“My name is Franz,” he repeated again, coughed into his hand and opened the door outside. “Go back to the barracks. You’re dressed much too lightly. We can afford only one sick person at a time.”
“Thank you, Herr Rottenführer,” I repeated once again, a veritable broken record.
He regarded me with a warm smile. “Already forgotten my name?”
I had just opened my mouth, realized that I could not bring myself to utter it even with the best will in the world and ran past him before he could stop me.
7
Helena
In a leather suitcase, with multiple foreign stamps on it – the owner must have been quite a traveler in his time before he took this last trip to the place from which there was no return – I found a newspaper. Throwing a thief’s look around, I quickly scanned the headlines. It was in German, the new official language of my former country. It had ceased to be a proud and independent Czechoslovakia, much like we had ceased to be its citizens. The Nazis’ knife sliced it in half, into Slovakia and Reich Protectorate respectively, so that the Germans could now “protect” themselves from us, the alien elements. We had to be exterminated to ensure the survival of their superior nation – the official line with which they justified the mass genocide.
From my superficial perusal, nothing good came out. The war was going well for the Germans; production was booming all over Protectorate; the Hitlerjugend boys and the SS smiled out from black-and-white photos next to their counterparts from the Hlinka Guard. One couldn’t even tell them apart from each other any longer, the hateful, uniformed, jackbooted mass. Disappointed, I threw it into the box, the contents of which were to be later taken outside to be burned by one of the Sonderkommando men, Dayen.
I’d never learned whether Dayen was his first name or his last. Dark-haired, painfully thin, with thick glasses and a soft-spoken manner, he never touched whatever goods were possible to procure in the Kanada’s riches for they were not kosher. All-day long, he stood outside the warehouse and poked the burning pile, muttering softly under his breath. One time, when I carried out yet another box overflowing with diplomas, birth certificates, photographs, Talmuds, and military decorations that their owners would never again proudly display to others, I caught the familiar words of the Kaddish. Some people said he used to be a rabbi in Poland.
Block orderlies brought in the cauldrons with turnip soup. On Maria’s signal, we lined up to receive our midday rations. After everyone settled down on the ground to consume them, I gave mine to Olga, a Czech girl who had just arrived with the new transport from the Protectorate and was miraculously spared the fate of her counterparts, most of whom met their end in a gas bunker and later, in a ravine behind it, within hours of their arrival.
As I was observing the Kapos instructing the new inmates brought to our detail earlier that morning, Rottenführer Dahler stopped by the section to which I was assigned that day and straightened out, seemingly proud of himself. His pneumonia was all but gone.
“I delegated your concerns about the lack of manpower to my superiors and they granted permission to allow these able-bodied women to live,” he announced. “You were right about gassing each transport upon arrival. It is counterproductive. We need workers for the war effort, not corpses.”
I cringed inwardly at his words but forced myself to smile nevertheless. After all, he did, in some respect, help these women escape death. For that, I was grateful to him. “I’m glad your superiors saw reason, Herr Rottenführer.”
My words produced the desired effect. He grinned broadly. “You know, if you have any ideas as to… how production can be improved, you can always speak to me. I’m certain that if the ideas are good and implementable, Herr Kommandant will agree to them.”
I examined the new workers as they were being directed to their respective workstations by the Kapos. The Kapos were in their element and particularly in the presence of the SS men.
“This is Auschwitz,” they announced, full of self-importance and cruel disdain, as they observed the trembling mass of bodies neatly lined up in front of them. “They’ve sent you here to croak. Anyone who opens his mouth without permission or doesn’t keep things in order will leave through the chimney all the sooner.”
“Anyone caught stealing, will be sent to the punishment block where you’ll make an acquaintance with Political Department leader Grabner’s standing cell and later, the Black Wall.”
“Anyone caught shirking duty, using the latrine longer than permitted included, will be getting it across the back and prohibited from using the latrine for the rest of the shift.” Maria, our women’s section Kapo, had a particular aversion for women who used their ‘time of the month’ excuse to visit the latrine more often than the others. Very few of us still suffered from the monthly ordeal; the stress, malnourishment, and bromide or some other chemical added to
the food – or at least such was the rumor – had long ago seen to that. Still, she thought it to be her duty to remind the new women under her charge that they’d better forget any special privileges that came with being a woman. Women didn’t exist here, according to her. Only useful workers did and useless eaters. “I strongly recommend you not to soil yourselves, or you will find yourselves in the outdoor details before you know it, where our delicate noses won’t have to put up with your stench.”
Next to me, Rottenführer Dahler cleared his throat. I looked up at him, my hand with the silk shirt, still bearing some unfortunate man’s initials on its cuffs and the breast pocket, hovering above the sorting table, unsure. Wrong pile? I blinked at him, suddenly alarmed.
“Do you,” he started again, turning his back completely on the Kapos, “have any such suggestions? I have to go to the Kommandantur with the report to Rapportführer Palitzsch later today. I could delegate them, to him, for his consideration.”
I stood, undecided, between the SS man with his own agenda and the women, all so young and helpless and terrified beyond all measure. If he had already saved them from the gas, whatever his reasons for it were, perhaps, it wouldn’t hurt to ask him for something else?
It was a strange moment. The Kapos did the talking and he was still patiently waiting.
“Well…” I began and suddenly lost my resolve.
“Go on, I’m listening,” he encouraged me, with a quick smile.
“Since there will be more of us living in the same barracks and since you, the officers, that is, work within such close proximity of us, I think it would be beneficial for everyone, to install showers, so we can use them after work, Herr Rottenführer. Overcrowded barracks always produce epidemics of lice and we all know that they carry all sorts of diseases…” I left my thought unfinished, hoping that he would make all the necessary conclusions himself. In our barracks, a rusted faucet provided us with just as rusted water, but it did virtually nothing to keep us clean between the weekly showers. Our skin was covered with a thin film of filth for six days out of seven, our clothes stunk with sweat and it was impossible to breathe at night even in the non-heated barracks. “And if we could get some new dresses perhaps, not these… They’re much too rough without any undershirts, like sandpaper—” I quickly remembered myself and dropped my hand that had moved to my tender breasts without my realizing it. We all suffered from painful nipples that all but bled from these uniforms but I didn’t imagine it was an appropriate remark to make to an SS man.
I quickly apologized. Dahler only shook his head just as quickly – oh no, don’t be sorry, please – reddening to the roots of his hair. Just as embarrassed as he was, I apologized again, cursed myself inwardly and began digging into some suit I’d pulled out of the pile just to occupy my hands with something. Since my arrival here, I had long forgotten I was a woman and now, I suddenly remembered it and remembered that I had breasts and that he was a man standing next to me and that he was alone with me just a couple of weeks ago in that barrack and he had told me his name. My hands were trembling.
“You really oughtn’t to apologize for anything,” he spoke again after a pause. His voice was, too, unsteady. “I didn’t realize… I’ll try to talk to my superiors.”
“Thank you, Herr Rottenführer.”
Heavy golden coins began falling onto the sorting table from the torn seam on the shoulder pad. I put away the small scissors that we were allowed to keep for that specific purpose and began collecting them into my palm.
Suddenly, after throwing a quick glance around, he picked up two of the coins out of my palm and dropped them into my pocket.
“Buy yourself something,” he whispered to me before adding in a louder voice, clearly meant for the rest of the inmates’ and the Kapos’ ears, “well, go on. Put it where it belongs. You don’t need to count these coins, that’s Weber’s responsibility. Loitering on the job…”
I felt his hand, with which he’d nudged me, ever so slightly, toward the box with valuables, in the small of my back, long after he was gone.
One coin, I decided to keep. For the second one, I bought myself two triangles of cheese, a piece of sausage, and a poppy-seed cake, from the Sonderkommando men, who gladly traded with us whenever they arrived with the new truck to drop more suitcases at our feet. A piece of that sausage, I also handed to Olga, the new girl, in addition to my soup.
“Aren’t you going to eat it?” She regarded me in amazement. “And where did you get the sausage?” She sank her teeth into it at once, devouring it in a few mouthfuls.
I didn’t reply anything to her, just went further along the warehouse wall and sat down separately from everyone to munch on a piece of cheese. Turnip soup, made with rotting potato peels, only caused dysentery and if there was any chance of avoiding eating it, I preferred to stay away from it. The cheese was the goods, first-grade stuff, still fresh and impossibly aromatic. Yet, it tasted oddly in my mouth, purchased with the SS man’s money stolen from my fellow countrymen. I wondered if my father would have eaten it. No, he wouldn’t have. Not a chance. He would starve himself to death slowly, much like Dayen was doing, repeating endless Kaddish hour after hour for each person who went up in smoke and whose memories were going up in smoke, as blackening photographs curled and disintegrated in their death throes in his fire pit. My father was a good person. Me, not so much, judging by the looks of it. I regarded what was left of the cheese triangle in my hand, put it into my mouth and licked my fingers off.
Chapter Eight
Germany, 1947
For some time after Helena stopped talking, only the sound of Dr. Hoffman’s mechanical pencil on paper could be heard in the perfect, eerie silence. As he raised his gaze to the couple in front of him, he saw that Dahler was still perfectly unmoved and oddly, given the circumstances, serene. A faint blush now appeared on Helena’s pale cheeks. Her gaze was absent, lost somewhere in time and space. Outside, a car’s horn blared, shrill and impatient. Helena’s shoulders jerked. Slowly, she roved her gaze around the courtroom, as though taking in unfamiliar surroundings. At last, her eyes focused on her tightly clasped hands. She blinked a few times and frowned as she regarded her nails. It appeared she was surprised to find them neatly manicured and painted.
With difficulty, she began arranging words into sentences once again. “In summer, we were transferred…”
She paused once again, tragically lost in the cobweb of memories she clearly wished to be no part of, yet, Dr. Hoffman admired her will to continue, the stubborn determination still alive in her dark, haunted eyes. This was how it must have been for her in Auschwitz, he thought to himself. She willed herself to go on after seeing others perish; how unfortunate it was that she now blamed herself for that strong will of hers.
The survivor’s guilt was written all over her face when it betrayed any emotion at all. He wished to sit alone with her at least for one miserable hour. He wished to tell her that she had nothing to blame herself for. The SS was the guilty party here, not her. There was nothing wrong with taking Dahler’s money. There was nothing wrong with eating the food it had purchased. People gnawed on pieces of flesh they’d carve out of a recently deceased inmate’s thighs at night; he had come across such cases during his two years of interviewing the survivors here in Germany. Starvation and thirst, bloated stomachs ravaged by hunger pangs, the agonizing obsession with food, drove even the men of the highest morals and noblest professions to madness. Who could really blame a young woman for accepting life-saving rations out of the enemy’s hands?
“… transferred to Birkenau.” Helena’s voice found its strength again. The pallid sunlight illuminated her face. Her hair formed a dark halo around it. “This is where I first met Andrej,” she finished softly.
Novák’s head shot up at the mention of his name. First name. His eyes, so harsh and bright with anger before, were suddenly full of some unspoken emotion. He pulled forward, as though willing Helena to look at him directly for the first tim
e but she was reaching for her husband’s hand instead. Dahler readily took her palm into his and covered it protectively with his other hand. Novák’s eyes grew dark and impenetrable again. He lowered his gaze. Dr. Hoffman’s pencil hovered over the fresh page, unsure.
“Is that so, Herr Novák?” the Chairman inquired of the Slovak.
“Yes, that is correct,” Novák confirmed. He, too, seemed to be reluctant to talk of that summer. “As a matter of fact, I was the one who was building the future Kanada 2 barracks, before I was selected for the crematorium Sonderkommando, that is. It was in August of 1942. A part of the Kanada 1 Kommando was transferred into the barracks, which were already finished. Helena was among them.”
“Weren’t male and female inmates strictly separated in Birkenau?” Lieutenant Carter regarded the Slovak quizzically.
“Ordinarily, they were. There was a men’s camp and a women’s camp; men’s Kommandos and women’s Kommandos,” Novák explained and went on to clarify. “Since our Sonderkommando had special privileges and access to the Kanada work detail, to which we brought the clothing from the gassing facilities, we often had a chance to exchange a few words with the women who sorted them. Sometimes we traded food and other items. Of course, that was when no SS was around. Men worked in the Kanada too, only in separate warehouses.”
“And this is how you met Frau Dahler?” the Chairman asked.
“No. Yes. No… I first met her— I beg your pardon, I first saw her, when Herr Dahler was beating her in front of the gas bunker. I was on duty that day, which meant that I was to escort the new arrivals into the two extermination centers – they didn’t suspect what those were, of course – and instruct them on what to do next. The SS that escorted the new arrivals would assure them that they were only going into the showers but it was us who were with those people until the very end.”
The Girl in the Striped Dress: A completely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 page-turner, based on a true story Page 7