The Girl in the Striped Dress: A completely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 page-turner, based on a true story

by Ellie Midwood

  With utmost relief, I stepped away when he finally released me. Another inmate, a Jewish doctor this time, rubbed my head and pubic area with a solution of calcium chloride. After thoroughly rubbing it all over myself and ignoring my burning eyes, I felt at least somewhat cleansed of the SS doctor’s touch. In spite of myself, my thoughts turned to Dahler again. One thing he never did was force himself on me despite making his feelings more than clear in his note. Not once did he touch me in a disrespectful way. Not once did he make me shudder with revulsion at the mere thought of his touch.

  I looked at my bare body shivering with cold after the shower and was suddenly overcome with such mad longing for his return that it caught my very breath in my throat. I tried swallowing the lump that now lodged itself there but it refused to go away. Hot tears sprung to my eyes again as I was pulling the shirt, still warm and smelling strongly of disinfectant, over my head. I couldn’t remember myself crying so easily here before. Now, it was all I did.

  Róžínka moved to pacify me, muttering her quiet curses on the doctor’s account but it was not him who was on my desperate, anguished mind. I wanted Franz back.

  Franz, Franz, Franz, I repeated his name like a prayer in my head but not a whisper flew off my tightly sealed lips. Róžínka would never forgive me if I admitted this to her.

  16

  Helena

  Appell. Fog rolling in from the north. Coffee, which had lost its steam long before we had a chance to warm our shivering bodies with it. A new SS guard demanding something from Wolff. Wolff rolling his eyes and motioning for Maria to deal with the problem which was clearly not his. Nothing in the Kanada was his problem unless it involved looting the freshly murdered people’s possessions.

  I should have guessed by the malevolent look Maria threw my way that she had something in store for me after her short exchange with the second SS man.

  “You, Scheiße-Jude!” It was a new form of endearment from her. When Unterscharführer Dahler was here, I was just ‘you.’ His absence was noticeable even in such minor details, which weren’t really significant if one would stop and rationally think about it but which cut to the quick nevertheless just by the sheer power of their unnecessary cruelty. Not life-threatening at any rate, yet it stung nonetheless and one couldn’t help but feel it. “Come over here. Faster, will you? Lazy ass!” I broke into a trot. “I have a job for you.”

  I froze at attention diligently. The new SS man gave me an evaluating once-over.

  “Is she clean?” He looked at Maria with suspicion.

  “Jawohl, Herr Rottenführer. They are all treated for lice every fourth week of the month as a preventive measure. Anyone who gets caught scratching is sent away at once. These women are all clean.”

  “Do you understand German?” This time he addressed me directly.

  “Jawohl, Herr Rottenführer.”

  He nodded in satisfaction and motioned for me to follow him. We walked in silence for some time – me, the usual three steps behind him – until he either grew bored with it or decided that he must instruct me, after all, concerning my new duty.

  “Jehovah Witnesses usually work in the officers’ quarters but those fanatical halfwits refuse to touch anything military-related. Religious views or some such. Even the Kommandant can’t set them straight. Well, no matter. The point is, while they clean the living quarters, you’ll need to work on Hauptscharführer Moll’s uniform, boots, belt, and holster.”

  At the mere mention of the dreaded name, my stomach churned in horror. Moll, the sadist; Moll, the torturer; Moll, the terror of the entire Sonderkommando detail, who once beat an inmate to death only because the inmate dared to kick Moll’s Alsatian in the snout and no matter that the dog had been set on that inmate by Moll himself, solely because he was bored that day and wished to see some entertainment.

  The SS man, meanwhile, continued talking in his phlegmatic manner. It’s not like he would have noticed the blood leaving my face at once – he walked too far ahead of me to see the cadaverous tint my skin had taken on straight away. “The uniform needs to be brushed, the boots polished, the belt and the holster oiled. I’ll give you everything you’ll need.”

  By the time we reached Moll’s quarters, I could barely restrain my body from trembling openly. Far too many stories we had heard about him, even in our “safe haven,” Kanada. He was the man who killed just for the thrill of it and I was to oil his belt!

  I breathed with difficulty. The sky itself was no longer a sky above my miserable head, it was a coffin lid, indifferent and closing.

  “Herr Rottenführer—” Such a pitiful whisper against the November wind. I was ready to dig my heels into the ground and beg for the SS man to send me to the quarries for all I cared but not into that serpent’s pit. I would rather turn soil with a shovel all day, or I would rather hurl bricks until I dropped with exhaustion than face that evil incarnate.

  It was no use to call him. He didn’t hear me.

  The SS barracks stood empty and silent, with only a few inmates darting dutifully around it, cleaning equipment and with piles of laundry in hand. Some of them sported the shined boots just like the SS wore – the highest class-distinction amongst the camp’s elite. After the typhus outbreak, the SS were wary of admitting just about anybody into their personal quarters. Only the “old numbers” were deemed worthy of such an honor. Almost none of them wore the striped garb and their faces gleamed with health, too.

  Moll must be at his work detail also; very far away from here, in that field behind the bunkers, I tried persuading myself, taking deep breaths as I set one foot before the other. The air was suddenly gone out of the entirety of Poland and I struggled to find any for my failing lungs as I stepped through the door of his personal quarters. He’s not here. I won’t see him. I’ll just do what is asked of me and leave.

  We reached the end of the long corridor. The SS man knocked on the door and I nearly fainted with terror. Moll was here after all. The last hope had been lost.

  “Herr Hauptscharführer, the Kanada girl is here. Shall I let her in?”

  A lazy “Ja,” sounded from behind the door.

  If the SS man didn’t prod me in the back, I would have never made that step inside. He shoved past me, saluted his superior officer who was seated at his desk and asked for permission to arrange things. Much to my relief, Moll ignored me entirely, consumed with papers littering his desk.

  “Come over here.” That was meant for me. I dashed past Moll’s desk to the other side of the spacious room as fast as I could, head pulled into my shoulders, trying to make myself as small and invisible as possible. The SS man held out the brush for me. “Start with the uniform.” He indicated the jacket and jodhpurs, waiting for my first few uncertain strokes, before growling in exasperation at my incompetence and grabbing my hand, with the brush in it. “Not like that! You’ll never get the lint out of it if you stroke it like a cat. Don’t be gentle with it. Hard, strong strokes, do you understand?” He forced my hand up and down the front of the jacket, pressing it hard into the gray material. “Do it yourself now.”

  I imitated his strokes as best as I could. After I didn’t get bashed on the head, I realized that he found my work satisfactory.

  “Do you know how to polish the boots or shall I show you also?”

  “I know how to polish boots, Herr Rottenführer.”

  “Do you know how to oil the leather?”

  “How hard can it fucking be, oiling the leather?” Moll’s irritated shout made me drop my brush. This time I didn’t escape a clip behind the ear from the SS man, accompanied by the ‘clumsy cow’ whispered under his breath. “I have a report to write and I can’t do it while you two are jawing like you’re at a fucking market! Leave her alone. If she has half a brain, she’ll figure it out. If she doesn’t, tough luck for her. You’ll have to find a new one.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Hauptscharführer.” The SS man clicked his heels and took his leave. I watched him go with envy. He could escape Mo
ll’s wrath but I was a mere slave here and a disposable one at that. I quickly resumed my brushing just to avoid his gaze, just not to think about the entire, ‘you’ll have to find a new one’, veiled threat.

  Moll wasn’t even thirty yet, however, he already had hundreds of lives on his conscience. He had a face that suited him perfectly – round and brutal, a former pig farmer’s one, whom the SS reoriented from slaughtering pigs to slaughtering humans, with astounding ease. His strawberry-blond hair was brushed away from his freckled forehead. Low-hanging brows hid the small, cruel eyes, one of which was said to be artificial. I never looked at him closely enough to find out. Few people did and even less lived to tell the tale.

  That morning, he smoked and issued curses, under his breath, after every other drag on his cigarette. He was in a foul mood that day and cursed before picking up the phone and during the conversation itself. No one could escape his sardonic remarks, neither his orderlies, not the Kommandant himself, whoever it was that he was talking to.

  “Pompous fucking raven. Where am I going to get three hundred new men for the Sonderkommando?” The pencil scratched the paper angrily. In a mocking voice, apparently impersonating Kommandant Höss, “Surely you don’t want any witnesses to remain alive, Hauptscharführer? Surely, you understand the situation. I’m only following the protocol myself.”

  A loud bang on the wooden surface made me jerk involuntarily. Still clasping an empty brandy glass in his paw, he listened to the person on the other end of the line and snorted in disdain. “Like they will go to the gas willingly. Another fucking machine-gun squad that I’ll need to request. Another three hundred to train. Out of them, about one-third will off themselves after they drag their relatives out of the gas chamber by the ankles. Another new group I will have to find and train. And whose problem is it? Herr Kommandant’s? Of course not. Herr Kommandant only follows the protocol, the old sod. And who has to take care of all the dirty business? Hauptscharführer Moll, no doubt. Let’s hang it all on Moll. Moll is tough. Moll will sort them all out fast.” More huffing and fidgeting. Suddenly, “You!” I nearly jumped and swung round to face him, pressing the brush to myself. “How long are you going to mess around with that uniform? It’s clean. Polish the boots now.”

  “Yes, Herr Hauptscharführer.”

  I had already located the polish and the brush in the corner of the closet and pulled them out but halted as soon as I realized that the SS man who had brought me here didn’t set out the boots for me. Nor were they in the closet. My gaze quickly darted to the richly upholstered sofa next to which a coffee table stood. No boots there either.

  Moll was still busy with his paper and phone conversation but the wait was growing interminable. As soon as he sees that I’m not working, it’ll be off with you, Helena. I cleared my throat and made the tiniest step forward. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, Herr Hauptscharführer, but I can’t seem to find the boots…”

  After a quick goodbye and a Heil Hitler, he hung up the phone. The withering gaze that he threw at me made me wish for the earth to open and swallow me right that instant. Reddening to the roots of my hair, I waited for his answer. He seemed to be waiting for me to guess where the boots were. Or he simply enjoyed torturing me with his silence.

  “Are you really that dense?” he finally uttered, punctuating each word.

  Hot tears filled my eyes despite my intention to keep my face impassionate.

  “Come over here.”

  I obeyed, stopping in front of his desk.

  “No, walk over to me and kneel.”

  Stiff with unspeakable terror, I shuffled over to his chair and lowered down to my knees. Before I knew it, a hand grabbed me by my hair, forcing my head down.

  “Still can’t see the fucking boots, you dumb bitch?!”

  He shoved my face into the black leather on his feet. To keep my balance, I instinctively clung to his legs, before he kicked me off like a dog, hitting me painfully in the chest. It took me all my powers not to wince or press my hand to the throbbing flesh.

  “Forgive me, please, Herr Hauptscharführer. I didn’t mean to touch you.” I scrambled to open the tin with the shoe polish and began applying it on the foot he had generously stuck from under the desk, half-twisting in his chair for my convenience.

  Suddenly, he pulled my head up by the hair again, looking at my face closely.

  “You look familiar. Have you been here before?”

  “No, Herr Hauptscharführer.”

  “Where have I seen you then?”

  “I work in the Kanada, Herr Hauptscharführer.”

  “Obviously.” Obviously. Otherwise, my head would have been shaved clean and he would have nothing to hold me by. “Where have I seen you, though?”

  I opened and closed my mouth, too hesitant to speak the truth. I didn’t have to, though, judging by the smirk splitting his face, he remembered the occasion of our only meeting.

  “Ach, you’re that tramp who goes with the Sonderkommando. Your SS supervisor was supposed to give you the cane for that.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Hauptscharführer.”

  He pulled closer. There was something odd in his watered-down, blue eyes – one of them terrifyingly unblinking. “Did he punish you properly?” He licked his lips like a snake.

  I risked another quick glance at him. He sat, pulled forward, his breath suddenly heavy with excitement. He wanted not just an acknowledgment but details.

  “He did, Herr Hauptscharführer. Twenty-five lashes, as you ordered and then some more, on his own initiative. And no food for the entire day.”

  Judging by his wolfish grin, it was just what he had wished to hear. “Are you still sneaking out to see your Sonderkommando boyfriend?”

  “No, Herr Hauptscharführer.”

  “He taught you a good lesson, didn’t he, that young sod? What’s his name?”

  “Unterscharführer Dahler, Herr Hauptscharführer,” I quickly supplied the name. It felt oddly good to utter it, as though a safe word against the evil. “Yes, he did.”

  “That’s right. Dahler. That snotty-nosed sod will go far, mark my words.” He looked like a proud father, despite having hardly seven or eight years on Unterscharführer Dahler. “He has no pity for you lot, as it should be.” He finally released my hair. Somehow, the mention of Dahler’s name had put him in a pleasant disposition. “Why would you go with the Sonderkommando anyway? They’re rotten as they get, the ones who work long enough, that is. Have you seen them? They drag a stiff with one hand and eat with another. They don’t care it’s their own kin they’re burning. Do you really enjoy going with them?”

  I slowly shook my head. The tears were back, only this time from such humiliating assumptions.

  “Why, then? Because they give you food?”

  I nodded, just to escape any further interrogation.

  “You’re ready to do anything for food. A German woman would never humiliate herself in such a way.”

  A German woman is not forced into a concentration camp against her will, I bit back the thought, and even when she is, even when she’s a prostitute or a murderess or a political, she is still a Kapo, a privileged one and still far above us, ‘the Jewish vermin.’

  Moll tapped his foot on the floor. It was a sign for me to resume my duties. He was back to writing, seemingly losing all interest in me. He did, however, throw a pack of cigarettes at me after I finished oiling his belt with its holster. I thanked him quietly and only allowed myself to cry after I was out of there, trailing after the already familiar SS man back to my work detail.

  “Where have you been? What happened? Did someone hurt you?” Róžínka desperately tried to pry the details out of me during the lunch but I only shook my head quietly and wiped the silent tears that wouldn’t stop streaming down my face.

  One thing I knew; I never wanted to go back there. And so, knowing Maria and her sadistic ways, I smiled brightly as soon as she suggested that I return to Moll the following day and proclaimed that I would gla
dly volunteer for such an enjoyable task, for Hauptscharführer Moll treated me so very nice and even gave me some cigarettes and bread for my service. She glared at me and shoved some other girl toward the same SS man who had come here yesterday. That girl never returned from Moll’s quarters. The SS man returned for a new one the following day.

  Maria still got her revenge.

  “Counting days till Herr Kommandoführer’s return, you sow? Don’t bother. He asked for a transfer to the front; must have had enough of you filthy lot.” Having thrown those words at me much like she threw the news about Róžínka’s children at my sister, she walked away, satisfied.

  I looked up at the sky, violet and brimming with snow. The lid had closed for good now. All that was left for me to do was to die.

  The boy resembled an elf from a fairy tale more than anything, with his enormous green eyes and chiseled, almost feminine features. His hair wasn’t shaved either but neatly parted in the middle and smoothed with water. Fifteen or sixteen years of age at best but with the weary gaze of a truly old, exhausted man who had seen far too much for his years. We all knew him. He was Kapo Schwartz’s Pipel – his personal servant of sorts who traded his fresh-faced beauty and innocence for life. The boy himself wasn’t a pansy but the Kapo was and the boy wanted to live and not just survive on turnip soup and sawdust-bread but perhaps make it out of here alive someday and for that, one needed food and a protector. Schwarz looked after him, more or less. It wasn’t a single-case occasion, in the KZ and even the SS guards were buttered up enough by the said Kapos to look the other way.

  “You’re Helena? From Slovakia? This is for you then,” he said quickly, in his high, still-unbroken voice, handing me the parcel and promptly disappearing from our barrack.