by Donald Hunt
The Mibau facility produced four components; the outer steel shell, the guidance gyro system, the liquid oxygen and container, and the warhead casing. The administrators knew Anna was a medical doctor and felt she could be of use in the manufacture of liquid oxygen, which, when added to the alcohol-water mixture, provided the propellant. Anna spent a week learning how the liquid oxygen was produced and stored. Oxygen was taken from the air and run through a condenser coil to cool it down to -183 degrees C. This was done using liquid nitrogen. It was then placed in a holding tank at three atmospheres pressure to be shipped to the underground assembly facility, Dora.
During her first week in the Mibau plant Anna was startled to find out that those in the plant were given a mid-day meal. She had seen hundreds of emaciated men on her way to the bus, but those in the plant looked healthier. Now the reason was obvious. The meal was generally a bowl of vegetable soup with meat, a meal that provided protein, vitamins and calories that others in the camp weren’t getting. She was specifically told not to mention the extra meal to anyone outside the facility. But it was clear to the prisoners that those who worked in the plant were getting an extra benefit.
Roland Montague could not help but notice the new woman. He was working in the French resistance when he and four others were caught in southern France. There were actually 10 men involved in the attempt to blow-up a German ammunition dump south of Paris near Orleans. There was a fire fight and six of his countrymen were killed. Of the four captured, three were sent to Buchenwald. The fourth was shot trying to escape.
Roland was an engineer before the war, trained in metal alloys. He was involved in the assembly of the missile’s gyroscopic guidance system, one of forty prisoners who worked with ten German engineers to assemble and test the system. For months he had been trying to work out a method to sabotage the system, but it had been impossible to do because of the extensive testing. Just before he arrived, a worker who had been suspected of sabotage was hanged.
Roland’s 18 months in Buchenwald had been a better experience than for many other prisoners, all because of his work in the V-2 plant. He was convinced he could survive the war by remaining valuable to the Germans, although he thought daily about ways in which he could possibly alter the guidance system. The only thing that brought a smile to his face was the mental picture of a V-2 aimed at London suddenly turning in mid-flight and heading for Berlin. He often thought that if he could pull it off, it would be worth the risk.
Roland felt fortunate to have been assigned to V-2 production near Buchenwald. The Germans were desperate for some way to neutralize the allied advances. The missile production was up to five per day at Dora. In 18 months, he had seen more than 7,000 men leave for Dora, none of whom ever returned. He believed they were being worked to death and then executed. There was obviously a different policy at Mibau. The plant director had apparently made a decision to get the prisoners trained and keep them alive for more production. This seemed like a sensible thing to do, and all the more since he was at Mibau.
By the third week Anna had adjusted to her routine. She worked 12 hour shifts six days a week. Sunday was a day for showers and washing clothes with the little bit of soap they were given. She had remained well. But several women had come down with dysentery. Anna knew few names but had talked on occasion to the woman who slept directly below her. Erika had been at Buchenwald for almost six years. Initially, she was not a prisoner but an employee. She had begun working as a secretary in administration when the camp opened 1937. She had a secret. Erika’s maternal grandmother was Jewish. Erika was Christian and had been able to conceal her family background for years. But a change in the camp’s leadership in 1941 brought a new commandant. He required a background check for everyone in administration. Erika’s background was discovered. The day this came to light, Erika was arrested and made a prisoner. One day she was free, the next she was not.
One evening after the meal, Anna and Erika began talking. Erika explained why she was there and how it happened. She was interested to know that Anna was Jewish. Although a Christian, Erika was proud of her Jewish heritage. She talked of the first commandant, Karl Otto Koch and his wife Ilse. Anna could lie on her stomach and look down to the bunk below. Erika was easy to talk to and began her story.
“The Buchenwald camp was opened in July 1937. I was working in Weimer and decided to apply for one of the secretarial jobs. I knew there were about 1,000 prisoners and that almost all of them were Communists. I worked for the first commandant, Colonel Koch. He joined the National Socialist Party in 1930 and the SS in 1934.
In 1936, he commanded the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin. That’s where he met his wife, Ilse. He was transferred to Buchenwald when it opened and his wife got involved in running the camp. She was barbaric. She loved to abuse prisoners. Everyone called her the ‘Bitch of Buchenwald’. I know for a fact that she had more than one prisoner killed.”
Anna stopped her. “Killed for what?”
“All I can tell you is what I heard. She looked for men with exotic tattoos. She used their skin for lamp shades, Anna. And Colonel Koch was just as bad in his own way. He liked women. He’d trade extra pay or time off for sex. I resisted him and because of that, I was never promoted or given a raise.”
The woman pursed her mouth, then sighed. “He was so cruel. He beat men…lots of them. He put them on the hanging tree.”
“What is the hanging tree?” Anna asked.
“It’s a large pine pole next to the bunker. They tie the men’s hands behind their backs and hang them by their wrists. Their weight slowly dislocates their shoulders. You could hear them scream even with the windows closed. Over time, more of the prisoners were Jewish. Some were even POW’s.”
“Do you believe both Kochs had people murdered?”
“I’m sure of it,” said Erika. “Ilse was having an affair with one of the camp medical doctors, Dr. Hoven. He murdered some prisoners by injecting them with phenol. It was common knowledge that men with exotic tattoos who were seen by Frau Koch were sent to the hospital…and they were never seen again. Before they left in 1941, two medical personal, one of the doctors and an orderly, were found dead under mysterious circumstances. There were some records though, that showed they were treating Colonel Koch for syphilis.
Well, after he left, the new commandant arrived…and my family secret was uncovered. As for the Kochs, like all SS, they should be arrested and tried for war crimes.”
The women were silent for a while.
“Erika, did you see any well-known people come through the camp?”
“Several. The one who stood out to me was Paul Schneider. He got here in the fall of 1937.”
“Who is Paul Schneider?”
“He was so great. He was a pastor, a member of the Confessing Church. That’s the one started by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And really, it was started to oppose the Nazis. He preached against the policies of the Third Reich and against anti-Semitism. He was constantly being warned about what he was doing. And he was even arrested one time, but was released. Then finally, he started excommunicating church members who violated congregational discipline by supporting the Nazis. He was arrested again. But they released him and told him he had to leave Germany. But he wouldn’t do it. He went right back to his congregation and family. Two months later he was brought here.”
“What happened then?” asked Anna.
“He started speaking out against prisoner abuse. And they put him in solitary. But he wouldn’t be quiet. He preached from his cell window almost every day. God, they beat him for that. He wore this beret. And he wouldn’t take it off to honor Hitler’s birthday. That was April 20th. A lot of the prisoners begged him to stop preaching and to stop speaking out. Then in July he was taken to the infirmary. They murdered him by injection. That part brought everybody down. It was like a cloud over the camp, so much sadness that he was gone. I actually started thinking about l
eaving my job here. But the Kochs left and by then it was too late for me. So here I am, a Christian with a Jewish grandmother. I’ll die here, unless the Allies come.”
The weeks dragged on. Anna began to get a clearer picture of the reality of Buchenwald. It was basically a slave labor camp. Not surprising was the Nazis’ flagrant violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions which forbade nations from using prisoners of war or the incarcerated in a forced work environment. Of the 80,000 men at Buchenwald, at least half were forced to work in multiple armament plants or in the quarry. About 50 percent of the men were Jewish. Ten percent were POW’s. The remaining were communists or criminals. The death rate from starvation, beatings and random selection killings was pushing 1,000 per month. Every week, a thousand men were lined up on the parade grounds and every tenth man was selected for extermination.
The SS officers were sometimes sadistic in the selection process. They ordered the men to number off one to ten and then called out a number. As each man realized who would live and who would die, they’d change the number and laugh.
Anna remained fairly isolated in the women’s barracks, with the exception of an hour on Sunday morning and another on Sunday afternoon. She was surprised that she had so little contact with the SS outside the Mibau factory. The supervision of prisoners was the responsibility of the ‘kapos’ or German criminals. There were hundreds of kapos left in charge of work details and discipline. The kapos reported to the SS and kept strict and sometimes brutal control of the men in the camp.
There were only 11 female guards. All worked in the women’s barracks. Women prisoners generally had more freedom than the men. They were allowed to use a walking path just inside the perimeter of the electrified fence. Anyone on the path was always in sight of the guard towers. But there was one area at the far end of the main camp where the terrain changed a bit, providing a small depression. Four of the barracks were out of sight of the guards. As Anna would soon find out, some unusual activities were taking place there.
Roland Montague had his eye on Anna from the first day he saw her. His work station on the gyroscopes was in the same section of the factory as liquid oxygen production. No conversation was allowed in the workplace, but the lunch break offered the opportunity for speaking. He had learned some German working in the French resistance and had become more fluent since his time in Buchenwald. Roland made it a point to speak to Anna within a month of her arrival. The information he had for her was important for him and could be critical for her. He had discovered that she was a physician and that she was Jewish. One Friday he made his way toward her and sat down next to her during lunch.
“Frau Doctor, my name is Roland Montague.”
Anna looked up, curious at the sudden opportunity to socialize.
“Please listen very carefully. We have little time. There is an extensive underground in this prison camp supporting and protecting almost 900 children, mostly Jewish boys. The youngest is four years old, the oldest is 15. Six hundred of them are in block-66, a large windowless barracks that is unseen by the guard towers. The other children are scattered throughout the camp and are watched over by kapos. The camp elder in charge of block-66 is Julian Richburg. He’s a Czech communist from Prague. His assistant is a Polish man, Beryl Yenzer. The children scattered throughout the camp are hidden and protected.”
Anna’s mouth dropped open. Could this be true? The Nazis went to great length to deceive their victims and others. Once a month, a concert was performed by the camp orchestra, mostly Jewish men who were musicians before their arrests. They were kept in the same barracks and allowed to practice on Sundays. Twice in the past year, the Danish Red Cross had been allowed in the camp. They were allowed to see only what the Nazis wanted them to see. On both occasions the camp orchestra played for them. Could it be that now, the Nazis were the ones being deceived?
The Germans allowed Red Cross care packages into the camp, several hundred each week. These were distributed randomly to prisoners. Anna had already noticed that many of the packages made their way to Block-66. Hundreds of prisoners and many of the kapos were determined that none of the children would die in Buchenwald. Two months previously, one of the Kapos who hated Jews had threatened to expose block-66 to the SS. His frozen body was found two days later by the electrified fence. The SS assumed he was trying to climb it. They didn’t notice his skull had been crushed because he was wearing a wool cap.
The time had passed quickly. Roland needed to tell her one more thing. He wolfed down the soup that remained in his bowl and whispered.
“A number of men in the underground are planning a breakout. Are you interested?”
Friday nights for Anna were the prelude to Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. It had been several years since she had been to Synagogue but she still thought of it, remembering the happier times with her family in Berlin. In those days, she and her best friend Erin would grill the Rabbi with unanswerable questions. Now Anna had little to be happy about. But she tried to focus on the one relief she could hold; Erin was not in a prison camp. Anna smiled to think of that. She imagined Erin to be a concert violinist and married with children.
As Anna lay in her bunk she was struck with the idea. She now had children to look after….900 boys. The excitement grew from the pit of her stomach and seemed to travel to her heart and her head and throughout her arms. She squeezed her hands shut and then opened them. It was a rush she hadn’t felt in years. She had a purpose. Even in this hell hole there was something worth living for, something worth dying for – if it came to that. It took Anna a lengthy hour before she could finally close her eyes and sleep.
There seemed to be no apparent reason for the SS to be in the main camp. Anna had not seen them in such numbers since she was first incarcerated. All of the women were ordered outside and lined-up. There were about ten officers and ten guards with machine guns. The officers were questioning each woman individually. The women, about 100 in all, were in rows of 10. When the interrogations of one row were completed, they were dismissed.
Anna was in the ninth and next to last row. In row seven, one officer began shouting.
“Don’t lie to me!” he yelled, slapping the woman so hard it knocked her to the ground. The woman tried to rise but another guard hit her with the butt of his gun. She screamed as they dragged her away.
Anna watched in silence. It appeared they were taking the woman to the bunker. But they were also headed in the direction of the crematorium. Anna bit her lip and turned her eyes away. She stared straight ahead. The women in line eight were now being questioned. Anna could now clearly hear what was being said. It was about the children. The SS had found out about the children.
Every woman was denying knowledge of any child. Anna was unsure of who actually knew of them. She herself had only learned recently of their existence, and that was because she was a doctor. There was no reason for the other women to have known.
The officers had finished with the eighth line and were moving toward hers. Did they know she knew? Had they discovered that Roland told her? Had they seen him talking to her?
Suddenly a guard stood in front of her.
“Doctor Eichenwald…it is doctor Eichenwald is it not?” Anna’s legs began to weaken.
“Yes. I am a doctor.”
“We have information that you have been told of children hidden in this camp. You have one chance to tell me about this. Where are they and how many are there?”
“I don’t know of any children.”
The officer did not hesitate. He turned his head and barked out an order. “Take her to the bunker!”
Two of the guards took her, one holding each arm. They began walking the 300 yards toward the southern end of the camp. Anna had been told it was a holding place for prisoners before execution.
There was no point in resisting. Rather than being dragged, Anna kept her head up and walked with the men. Once inside, s
he was led to the far end of a hall toward a large steel door. It opened to a concrete block room without windows. As the door was opened a large rat ran out of the room. Anna was pushed inside and the door was slammed behind her. The room was pitch black and she began to scream.
“No! No! Please, no!”
“Anna, Anna.”
It was Erika. She was shaking Anna’s shoulders. “You’re having a dream!”
Anna was drenched in sweat. Her nightmare over, she looked around and tried to get her bearings.
“I’m so sorry I woke you,” she said.
“Dreams here can be very frightening. It’s probably not your last.”
The only reason Anna looked forward to Saturday was the fact that it meant the next day would be Sunday. She was allowed to take walks on Sunday. But she was unaware of block-66. She had not seriously considered the prison break and now with a chance to help these boys she had dismissed the thought all together. She was very focused and found herself excited to see how she could be involved. She also was beginning to like Roland. It had been almost a year since she had experienced any positive feelings toward any man. There had been no man and no interest in anyone since Christian. This hellish time in history had been brought about by vapid, truculent men who had somehow captured control of an entire culture. It was more and more clear that evil men could so easily influence other men to become evil. Anna now believed that most men, maybe all of them, could be swallowed up by their own depravity. Yet even in the midst of this squalor, the toxic atmosphere of a Nazi prison camp, there were men of valor who were choosing to risk their lives for other human beings. Anna smiled thinking of Roland.