by Donald Hunt
The lieutenant stepped into her apartment followed by his aide, a sergeant. He looked around as he spoke.
“We have reason to believe you were involved with a Jewish woman going by the name of Heidi Brendler.”
“I know Heidi Brendler. I did not know she was Jewish. What makes you think she is Jewish?”
The Lieutenant did not answer the question. “How did you meet her?”
“She was introduced to me by my brother. She worked at the hospital. We attended services together at the Lutheran Church.”
“And what of your brother?”
“He is dead, killed in a bombing raid.” The lieutenant then tried to trap Sarah.
“Did she mention that she is in the resistance?”
Sarah did not hesitate. “No!”
“And you have no knowledge of the underground?”
“Of course not.”
“We will search the apartment.”
While the apartment was ransacked, Sarah sat in the front room. She and Heidi had spent many happy hours there. The lieutenant asked to see the attic. The ordeal lasted two hours. Finally, the men left, annoyed that they did not find anything to link Sarah to the Jewish woman or the resistance. For the Gestapo, people were guilty until proven innocent.
Sarah closed the door. She sat down and allowed the trembling to overtake her. Silently, she thanked God for Werner and Maria Schmidt.
* * *
Anna drifted off to sleep. She was wrapped in the blanket, quieted by the silence and isolation of the basement cell. But the loud ‘click of the steel door being unbolted jarred her awake. Heavy army boots pounded the concrete floor in the distance. Anna sat up. What would bring a visitor this late?
The soldier came into view. It was Gerhard Muller. He stopped in front of her cell door but said nothing. He simply stood and stared at Anna. She did the same, standing still beside her cot. Then she dropped the blanket to the floor. Muller placed the key in the lock and opened the cell door.
“What do you want?”
Her heart was beginning to pound in her chest. Muller showed no emotion.
He walked through the door and the lock snapped shut with a click. Muller left the key in the lock on the outside. Anna began to back-up.
“You will be caught!” she cried. “You will be punished!”
Muller had no comeback. Instead, he continued walking toward her. Even in her panic, Anna had noticed the key left in the lock. She knew she must try to get to the door. She also knew there was no way out of the basement. But she might be able to lock Muller in the cell.
As he approached, Anna quickly shoved him with all of her strength. She hoped to catch him off guard. But he grabbed her forearm and slung her back up against the wall. The force of it stunned her. He grabbed both of her wrists as she tried to fight him, finally breaking her right hand free. She closed her fist, aimed at his neck and punched him in throat.
Muller was momentarily stunned and gasped for air. Anna pushed him again and lunged. He spun her around and simultaneously swung his right fist catching her on her left temple. The blow knocked her to the ground. He then grabbed her and threw her onto the cot. As Anna began to regain her senses, Muller hand-cuffed her wrists around the metal frame of her cot. Anna stared up at him. She knew he could easily kill her.
“You can,” she whispered. “But if you do kill me, it will cost you your life.”
“Oh,” he sneered. “And do you really think the Nazis care about a Jewish whore? Muller reached to his belt. It had two leather attachments, one for his nightstick, and one holding a 12 inch bayonet.
Anna remained very still.
“That’s better,” he said, his breath beginning to become shallow.
Anna could smell his foul breath. It reeked of alcohol. She closed her eyes tightly and whispered, “God help me! God help me!”
Sergeant Leibbrant had remained in his office late to finish typing the report of Anna’s interrogation. He did it with triplicate carbon copies. He closed and locked the door, then descended the stairs to the first floor. He glanced in the office of the night guard whom he knew to be Muller. Leibbrant, an old-school soldier, had seen action in WWI. This would be his last assignment before retiring from the military. He had attained the rank of master-sergeant and took pride in his work. It bothered him that the office was empty. Muller should have been there. Leibbrant walked around the corner to the door to the basement cell block. It was open. This was odd, he thought. It was always locked at night.
Leibbrant descended the stairs and entered the basement corridor. As he reached the last cell he knew immediately what was happening. He unlocked the cell door and drew his nightstick.
Muller, straddling Anna, was holding her shoulders as he sneered at her.
Sergeant Leibbrant, one hand on either end of his nightstick, brought it over Muller’s head and pulled back, cutting off the corporal’s airway. Muller began to gasp, flailing his arms wildly as Leibbrant pulled him off of Anna. Muller grabbed the nightstick trying to get air as the sergeant drug him back toward the cell door and then into the corridor. Muller was beginning to lose consciousness. The sergeant pulled him down the corridor and into a cell. He released the nightstick and Muller began coughing and gasping. He confiscated Muller’s knife and nightstick from his belt and locked the door.
Leibbrant quickly walked back to Anna’s cell and removed the handcuffs. He left for a few moments, and then returned with a basin of warm water and a wash cloth. He left again and returned with a cup of hot tea. Then he knelt beside her.
“Are you hurt?”
Anna bathed her head with the cloth and shook her head.
Leibbrant stood up. He pursed his lips in silence. Then he walked to the door. Locking the cell, he turned to Anna. “Not all Germans are Nazis. But all Jews are human beings.”
Roland Leibbrant had been troubled by the Nazi Reich from the beginning. He was a professional, the consummate soldier. He had joined the military at 22 years of age and had survived the trench warfare of WWI. During the build-up leading to the invasion of Poland, he remained skeptical of Hitler’s motives and methods. He followed the orders of his superiors, but never agreed with the Jewish pogrom.
He called in a replacement for Muller and stayed until after 10:00 p.m. to write a report on the incident. Captain Lang arrived at the prison each morning at 8:30 and Leibbrant was in the habit of getting there half an hour before him. It was especially important to brief the Captain about what had happened since one of his staff had been arrested. The briefing took about 20 minutes, then the two men descended to the basement to confront the corporal and explain the military court martial procedure. As they opened the steel door to the cell block, they were greeted by the grotesque figure of Muller. He had hanged himself with his belt from a metal beam in the ceiling. His face was deep purple, almost black, his body already becoming stiff. Both men looked at him for only a moment.
“Get him down and out of here,” said Lang. “His war is over and ours will soon follow.”
Master sergeant Leibbrant would not discuss the matter further. When he returned to his office he considered once again the paradox of a regime that had made it a crime to rape a Jewish woman and yet instilled a policy that would send that same woman to a concentration camp with the stated intention of working her to death.
By 1945 the vast majority of Jews in Germany and throughout Europe had escaped, been placed in work camps, or were sent to a death camp. About one third of those who died in the gas chambers were women and children. The only Jews left were the few who were successfully in hiding. That number was small, probably less than a hundred in the entire country. Captain Lang had received a SS communication about Anna signed by Himmler. He continued to puzzle about her significance. He would never know.
The instructions were very specific. She would be picked up and transpo
rted under guard to the Buchenwald work camp in the Thuringia Providence near Weimar. Weimar was the historical home of Germany’s most renowned literary figure, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Anna was kept in the Leipzig prison until the day after Corporal Muller’s suicide. An SS driver and two guards then took her on the 100-kilometer drive to Buchenwald. She was allowed to take her coat and shoes, nothing more. She was unaware of her destination, but relieved when she realized the destination was not far from Leipzig. They drove her toward the city of Weimar then turned northwest for ten kilometers. They drove through the dense forest then came into an enormous clearing. Anna stared out the window at the conglomeration of buildings that seemed to sprawl out of nowhere. The road led to what seemed to be a central area of the clearing with a two-story structure with a large iron gate in the center of the lower floor. The central structure was painted a dark brown. Anna read the white letters painted each a foot high above the gate:
B U CHENWAL D
Jedem das Seine
Anna understood the meaning of the words in-laid below the name of the camp. “Everyone gets what he deserves!”
United States Senator Barkley observing some of the dead of Buchenwald
Chapter20
An Execution and a Miracle
The Buchenwald concentration camp was established in 1937. It was designed for detaining political prisoners, most of who were, at that time, Communists. Initially, there were only about 1,000 inmates, but the camp was expanded several times to accommodate the thousands of workers needed for the nearby armament factories. All the work provided by the prisoners was forced labor and a critical benefit in the war effort.
German Equipment Works (Deutsche-Austustungs-Werk) or DAW was an enterprise owned and operated by the SS. Prisoners worked in these plants as well as in multiple other armament facilities, the camp work-shop and the quarry. The cornerstone of DAW was the Mabiu Factory which made components for the V-2 Rocket.
By the time Anna arrived, the camp was stretched to almost 100,000 prisoners. They were stacked into quarters four times the capacity for which they were designed. Buchenwald was a sprawling facility that swept across several hundred acres. The main camp was in the northern segment and housed the prisoners in about 180 barracks. Some of the barracks had indoor plumbing and adequate heat. But most were little more than shelters with latrines. The area was surrounded by a 10-foot electrified barbed wire fence and multiple guard towers built into the fenced structure. Each tower was staffed with three military personnel, .50 caliber machine guns, and powerful search lights.
The southern section housed the SS guards and administrative personnel. Central to this section was an enormous parade ground surrounded by 18 barracks built in a semicircle. These were positioned as spokes on a wheel with the parade grounds as the center. Each barrack held 100 guards. The second story of the main gate house was the principle administration area. To the right of the administration section was the ‘bunker’ or camp jail. Cell # 1 in the bunker was the ‘death cell.’ Here, prisoners were held before execution. Not far from the bunker was a separate building housing the crematorium. Most of the work camps in Germany built the crematorium outside the camp and out of sight. But Buchenwald was different. It housed the crematorium in plain sight, serving as a constant reminder that death was always close at hand. In the basement of the crematorium was an execution chamber where men (and occasionally women) were hung from large steel hooks mounted on the walls. There was also another method for killing. A scale and height measure backed up to the wall in one corner. Behind the wall was a small room that hid the executioner. A small hole was placed in the wall and was positioned so a prisoner having his height and weight measured could be shot in the back of the head or neck. This portion of the wall was painted black so the hole went unnoticed.
Upon her arrival, Anna was taken to a holding room where she sat for two hours before being joined by three other women, each in their 30s. They were then transferred to the main camp. The first building inside the electrified fence was a small one-story structure. As they entered they were instructed to strip. Each woman was shaved, including their heads and pubic areas. They were then led into another room built with a creosote shower. They were sprayed with disinfectant, then given a uniform of striped shirts and pants. Once dressed, the women were brought to yet another room where they received a numbered tattoo on the inside of the left forearm. Anna was B-76083.
The camp was experiencing a typhus epidemic, a fact Anna discovered almost immediately. Typhus is carried by an infectious agent transmitted to the body through lice. Anna actually appreciated the effort to disinfect new prisoners.
Anna was now one of approximately 100 women at Buchenwald. The women were kept in a single dorm separated from the male prisoners by a six-foot fence. The dorm included two large rooms with multiple wooden bunks stacked three rows high. The center section held showers and toilets. The dorm also had a small kitchen and mess room. Meals were given twice a day and the women worked in 12 hour shifts that began at 6:00 a.m.
Two of the women with Anna were assigned to the camp brothel and the other was designated as cook. Anna was assigned to work in the Mibau V-2 Rocket facility. For the first time, she was grateful for the Nuremburg laws of 1935, especially the first law which protected German blood. Although it stripped her of her citizenship, it also prohibited her from engaging in sexual intercourse with non-Jews.
There was one central heater in each sleeping area. The building was not insulated and the high each day could reach the mid-60s. But night was another story. Temperatures dropped dramatically after the sun went down and each woman was given only one blanket. Some more fortunate souls had been allowed to keep their coats. But women who arrived in the warmer months didn’t get to keep theirs. Anna noted that about half the women were significantly malnourished. She was also aware of their behavior. Most stayed to themselves and used either their first names or gave none at all.
Meals were eaten quickly. Breakfast was nothing more than a bowl of watery porridge with little taste. It was not unusual to find worms in the porridge, but given their hunger, most of the women ate them without much notice. The evening meal was typically a piece of bread and a serving of turnips or another vegetable. Given her background, Anna was aware that there was almost no protein in the diet. She knew that within a few weeks, the bodies of these women, hers included, would begin to break down their own protein, thus producing the wasted, emaciated look. Lack of vitamins would lead to mouth and tongue ulcerations. Scurvy was rare in the 20th century but common in Buchenwald. Women who became too weak to work were removed for ‘rehabilitation’. Hollow eyed, they would be taken to the death room in the basement of the crematorium, hanged and cremated.
The two women who arrived with Anna and were sent to the brothel were soon noticeably pregnant. In malnourished mothers, babies are usually born prematurely. In Buchenwald it was no different – with the exception of the fact that the newborns were immediately thrown into the incinerator, alive.
As the women became more malnourished, most stopped ovulating. Anna wondered how long she could last in Buchenwald. The information from the BBC indicated the war could be over in a matter of months. Unless she became ill, she held on to the hope that she had a chance.
The day after her arrival at the camp, Anna was sent to an orientation for her work in V-2 Rocket production. The V-2 was a sophisticated weapon. It was being built from a proto-type developed by Wernher von Braun and Walter Riedel in 1936. A ballistic missile with a range of about 150 miles, it was powered by a liquid fuel engine. The fuel was a mixture of liquid oxygen, ethanol and water. The war-head was 2,000 pounds of Amatol, a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate.
The factory was located three miles from the main camp. It was a sprawling complex surrounded by an elaborate 12-foot fence. Approximately 800 prisoners were transported to the facility daily in 20 buses. Anot
her 160 German workers were employed as supervisors and engineers. There were 100 SS guards in the plant during the day work shift. The night shift was somewhat smaller, around 50 guards.
The morning after her orientation, Anna boarded a bus with two other women and 80 men. The ride to the facility was a short one, only five minutes once they exited the main camp gate. Anne felt strange riding in the bus. She stared out into the open country feeling somewhat outside her body.
The facility she was headed toward on that morning was one of several that were being used to make components for the V-2, a rocket that had taken several years to develop. The principal developer, von Braun, received a doctorate in physics from the University of Berlin in 1934. By then, he had joined the Rocket Society, Verein fur Raumschiffarht. Von Braun was interested in sub-orbital flight, but funding was only available for military rockets. He developed a team of 80 engineers to design and test rockets. Eventually a production facility was built at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast.
The proto-type that was developed and test fired was called the A-4. The ‘rocket’ was in fact, an un-manned ballistic missile 46 feet in length with an engine thrust of 56,000 pounds and a payload of 2,200 pounds. It reached a height of 50 to 60 miles with a velocity of 3,500 mph. Since it traveled greater than the speed of sound there was no warning, no sound, only the sonic boom just before impact. It was first used in combat in September 1944, 14 months after Hitler had ordered it into production. After the first successful firing in combat, von Braun remarked to a colleague, “The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet.”
The allies became aware of the V-2 in 1943 when a test fired missile landed at Blize, Poland, and was recovered by the Polish resistance. They shared the technical details with British intelligence. Eventually a massive bombing campaign was launched against the Peenemunde facility. This slowed the V-2 production and prevented the Germans from using it during the Allied invasion of Europe. Hitler believed the rocket could give him a ‘vengeance weapon’ that would possibly lead to an early armistice. Hurriedly, a massive underground production facility was constructed named Dora, near Nordhausen in central Germany. This complex weapon with thousands of component parts cost about the same as a four-engine bomber but was much less effective. Never- the-less, Hitler was determined to use as many as could be produced.