Katja bent her head; she had no words for the emotions that were running through her.
“Is this your first time on a kibbutz?” Zivia asked.
“I was raised on one.”
“So you must have met lots of survivors, yes?”
“My parents are survivors. But I don’t know their story; they don’t like to talk about it. And most of the others don’t want to discuss what happened either.”
Zivia nodded. “Yes, that is quite common. Do you want to know more, do you want to know what happened to the others?”
“Yes and no. I feel like I should know, but it frightens me,” Katja said. “I have heard bits and pieces of stories on the Kibbutz, but my mother always tried to protect me. She would discourage people from talking about their experiences in front of me.”
“It is frightening, but so that this never happens again, it is important that the young people know and that they tell their children and their children tell their children, and so on and so on. You understand. Only through knowledge can we prevent this from ever happening again . . . and, of course, most importantly we are protected because we have a homeland, we have Israel.”
Katja felt her heart swell with pride, tears came to her eyes. These were her people. This was her legacy.
“Come with me. I have others who will tell you their stories, too.”
Katja turned to Elan. “You want to go? You want to know?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Go then. I’ll stay here with Yitzhak. I’ve already heard all the stories.”
Zivia wrapped her arm in Katja’s and took her outside. They walked across the land until they came upon a man picking apples.
“Anshel, Shalom,” Zivia said.
“Shalom,” he answered. He was sun browned and, except for his honey brown hair, he reminded Katja a little of her father.
“Come down from that ladder. I have someone I want you to meet,” Zivia said.
Anshel climbed down. Although he was probably in his mid thirties his face was deeply lined, giving him the appearance of a much older man.
“This is Katja. Katja this is Anshel.”
“Shalom.”
“Shalom.”
“I know that you are busy, but I’ve brought Katja to see you so that you could tell her what happened when you were in Auschwitz.”
His face that only a moment ago had seemed alight with joy, now turned dark with memories.
“Auschwitz,” he said, his shoulders slumped. Shaking his head, he repeated “Auschwitz.”
Chapter 66
A black rotary phone with large-print numbers sat on an old desk made of wood that had long ago lost its luster. It began to ring. It was the office of Mossad.
“I believe that I have some credible information about Eichmann’s whereabouts.” It was Simon Wiesenthal. “The source is reliable. From what I understand, he is living in Argentina.”
“How do you know this?”
“His son was dating a girl. The boy bragged about his father being the famous Nazi who murdered Jews. It just so happened that the girl was Jewish. She told her father and he came to me. He said that Eichmann is living under the alias Richard Klement and working in a factory in Buenos Aries.”
“Very interesting. Do you have any information about Blau or Mengele?”
“Nothing on either one.”
“We’ll check this all out. Then we’ll take care of it,” the Mossad agent said.
“Good.”
Chapter 67
“So you want to hear my story?” The man did not look at Katja; instead he stared out across the land.
“Only if you want to tell me. I understand if it is too hard for you.”
“Hard for me? Yes, it is hard for me to talk about it. The truth is that my time in Auschwitz is never far from my mind.”
“My parents are survivors, but they have never told me their story. I’ve always assumed it was too hard to talk about.”
“Yes, yes . . .” he said, “Auschwitz.”
Anshel sat still and gazed across the fields. It was afternoon and the brightness of the day had begun to fade. For a long time he said nothing. Katja could smell the faint scent of apples.
“Sit down.” Anshel motioned to the ground as he sat in the shade of an apple tree. Katja and Zivia sat beside him. “So, maybe you have heard of the Angel of Death?”
Katja shook her head. “No.”
“His real name was Dr. Joseph Mengele, but we called him the Angel of Death; he was the most sadistic person I have ever met. I saw him for the first time, when I got out of the boxcar with my mother and my twin sisters Charna and Zusa. My father had been blessed to have passed away in the influenza epidemic a few years earlier. At least he never saw what happened to his family. Alava Shalom, he should rest in peace. After my father died, I at age fourteen had become the man of the house. This was quite a responsibility for a young boy, yes?”
Katja nodded.
Before the war, we lived in small village in Poland. My mother did housekeeping and cared for a wealthy woman who lived a few miles away from our little cottage. This woman lived in a big fancy house. I remember her; she was a nice lady who was very sick and she couldn’t walk. She gave us extra money, clothes, things, you know, especially when she celebrated Christmas. I can’t say anything bad about that woman. A good heart, she had. When my father died, my mother was so brokenhearted that she couldn’t work anymore. In fact, she had a hard time getting out of bed, so I left school and went to work in a factory, a textile factory. My twin sisters were eight years old, beautiful girls.” He sighed. “Oy.”
Katja heard the pain in his sigh and almost wanted to ask him to stop, but he began to speak again. “So, anyway, we didn’t have much, but we managed. It was not a year later that the Nazis invaded Poland. They came and they made us register, they took us from our homes, and then we were sent to a ghetto right in the center of town in the city of Lodz. The ghetto life was rough. The Nazis gave us rations that were not nearly enough to feed us, but I was young and strong so I worked with the black market bringing in food and necessities from the outside. Some of what I brought I sold and the rest my family used to survive. At night, I climbed over the rooftops and was back inside the walls by morning. Because I did this we had a little extra; it made things easier.
“Then the Nazis began to liquidate the ghetto. Little by little, the people were sent away. When our turn came to go, I was afraid to fight back. They told us lies. They said they were relocating us to work camps. I wanted to believe. I thought to myself that we would be of more use to them as workers than we were in the ghetto. Who would ever think that they planned to murder all of us? Who could believe such a thing? ”
He pulled a piece of grass from the ground and studied it for a moment, rolling it in his fingers, and then he continued.
“Like I said, my mother, my sisters, and I were loaded into a boxcar filled with people. The stink was so bad from the excrement, the urine, the vomiting, and the sweat that I could not stop gagging for the entire first day. The car was made of wood slats and only tiny pinpoints of light came through. We had no windows so we could not see anything and we had no idea where we were headed. It was summer and the heat was smothering. For eight days, we rode in that filthy train car. Amongst us were the bodies of those who’d died along the way, and the bodies of those who were dying. There were buckets filled with excrement that splattered as the train jolted along.
“But most of all, I remember the distinct smell of fear. Fear has a smell, you know. If you have never smelled it, you would not understand. But once you have, you will never forget it. The ride was terrible, but when the train rolled to a stop, the anticipation and then the reality of the horror of what came next was even worse. Outside we heard the harsh German guards hollering commands at the people who’d been taken out of the boxcar in front of ours. My mother squeezed my hand. ‘Stay with your sisters Anshel; don’t let them ta
ke the girls away from you.’”
“ ‘You’ll be with us, Mama,’ I said.
“ ‘Perhaps, but if not, you stay with your sisters. Promise me, Anshel . . .’ my mother said. I don’t know what she was expecting, or what she felt instinctively, but her eyes were glowing with tears. More than anything, I wished there were something I could do to stop what was happening to us. I hated to see her in such distress, my poor mother. She had suffered so much when she lost my father.
“But before I could say another word, the rickety wooden door of our boxcar rolled open. ‘Mach schnell; schnell. Schnell,’ one of the guards yelled. ‘Come on you swine; get out of this stinking car. Only a pig could live like this. There were guards with guns everywhere. They prodded us out into the sunlight. After having spent so much time in the dark, it was hard for my eyes to adjust. I was squinting and could barely keep my balance.
“When my eyes finally focused, I saw a big sign in front of me. It said: “Work Makes You Free.” This sign was in German, of course. My mother grabbed my hand and I held the hand of my sister who held the hand of her twin. One of the guards pushed us forward and we were forced into a line of people.
“ ‘Men over here; women over here.’ One of the guards indicted two lines. ‘He is only a boy,’ my mother said, as the guard tried to push me into the other line. ‘Please let him stay with us.’ The guard ignored her, pushing me with the butt of his rifle. ‘Get into the other line, schnell,’ he roared.
“I released my mother’s hand. I was about to go to the other side and then . . . he walked over, Dr. Mengele, wearing a perfectly pressed, crisp white lab coat. Not a wrinkle, in spite of the heat. On his hands he wore clean, white cotton gloves. ‘I’ll take this from here,’ he said to the guard, waving him off with a flick of his hand. What a handsome man. He was tall with thick dark hair, deep penetrating eyes that were a mixture of hazel and green, and such a winning smile. At the time, I didn’t know who he was but I was to learn soon enough. This was the Angel of Death, Dr. Joseph Mengele. Nu?
“So you would think that evil would be ugly, isn’t that right? You would expect a monster. I know Jews don’t believe in the devil, but I have my own thoughts on that. I believe that the devil is real, and he comes in many forms. Rarely is he ugly. Instead, he is handsome and winning, so as to confuse the world. When you look at Mengele, you say to yourself, how could such a good-looking, refined person be a demon? Ahh…but he was, Mengele was a demon of the worst kind; an evil spirit, a dybbuk, who got pleasure from torturing children and invalids. He loved to lord over the weak and helpless, giving them pain, while at the same time pretending to save them. Of all the Nazi criminals, I think maybe he was the worst. Or maybe I just think so because of what he did to my family and me.
“ ‘Twins?’ He said. I can still hear him, his voice was calm and gentle, but his eyes became excited, bright and flashing. ‘Such beautiful twins. You can call me uncle. Uncle Mengele.’”
“Mengele touched my sister Charna’s cheek and she cringed. ‘No need to be afraid of me,’ Mengele said. ‘Here.’ He reached into his pocket and took out two pieces of candy, one for each of my sisters. Then he looked over at me. ‘How inconsiderate of me,’ he said and he took out another piece of candy and gave it to me. I took it, skeptical, but I dared not ask any questions.
‘You three come with me,’ he said, indicating my sisters and me. Then he called over the guard. ‘Send her to the left,’ he said, pointing to my mother. At the time, I didn’t understand, but later I learned that he had just sent my mother to the gas chamber. She died that day.”
Katja put her hand to her throat. “My God,” she whispered.
“Yes, all day long Mengele stood with his white gloves, pointing to the left for this one, to the right for that one. It was he, this Angel of Death, who would decide who should live and who should die.”
Katja thought about her parents. Had they gone through this? Had they met this terrible doctor?
“Mengele separated us, the boys and the girls. My sisters went one way and I went the other. You see, I have this hump in my back, and it attracted him. He loved deformities, so he decided that I was a worthy subject. He would let me live so that he could use me for his experiments. I went to the boys’ special barracks, a place where he kept what he called ‘his children.’ These were his special ones, his favorites. First of all, he loved his twins, but he also liked the deformed, hunchbacks, cripples, dwarfs, you understand?
“Outside the window of the boys’ barracks was a large stone building, and from the top of it foul–smelling, thick, black smoke poured out into the air. I asked one of the other boys about it; he was a twin. I said, ‘What is that building?’ I had never seen such a thing. To me it looked like it was on fire inside. I will never forget the boy’s answer to my question: ‘It’s the crematorium where they burn the bodies of the Jews they murder. When Mengele is done with us, he’ll kill us, too, and that is where they will burn our remains.’ The boy paused, then went on, ‘You see me?’ the boy said. ‘I can’t walk anymore. I used to walk, but one day Mengele did an operation on me, and now my spine is twisted. Soon he will finish me off.’ I had no idea what this all meant. Still, even now, I can remember the icy fear that crept up the back of my neck; it felt like a frozen fingernail scratching ever so slightly; I shivered.
“A few weeks later, I met one of the Sonderkommandos; this was what they called the Jews that were forced to work in the crematorium. He told me that my mother’s body had probably been burned that very first day, perhaps even as I sat looking out the window at the angry red smoke filling the sky.
“Every day I tried to get a glimpse of Carna or Zusa, but I could never see them. Meanwhile, Mengele began to take an interest in me. I had no idea at the time what he had planned, only that he came every day and brought us candy, and asked us to hug him. He seemed so kind, I began to trust him. Then one day, he took me to what he called his operating theater. There he did something to me that I will never forget.” Tears began to form in Anshel’s eyes. “He took a thin tube of glass and inserted it in my (you’ll excuse my being so graphic) penis while I was fully awake. I was crying and begging him to stop, the pain was terrible. Then he broke the glass. I cannot begin to tell you what that felt like. I remember hearing someone scream. It took a few minutes to realize that the sound was coming from my own throat. Next, I felt a needle enter my testicles. It was unbearable. Mengele was smiling. I can still see his face. He was enjoying my suffering.
“After that horrifying experience, I was taken to the hospital. There I was given something to calm me down. I passed out. When I awoke, I had trouble urinating. I’ve had trouble since. And of course, I cannot produce children. That should be the end of my story, no? But it isn’t. My sisters, my dear sisters,” he sighed.
“Do you want to go on?” Zivia asked.
Anshel nodded. “I was still in the hospital when I saw Charna. She was sick, filled with blisters. She was so weak that she could not speak. Charna, happy, cheerful Charna. I couldn’t believe it was her. Charna, who had always been the one to sing and dance. She lay there motionless. That night Zusa snuck into the hospital. I saw her. I was weak, too, but I called out ‘Zusa, it’s me, Anshel.’
She came over with tears in her eyes. ‘He, Mengele, gave Charna a shot that gave her this disease. He is giving it to one twin of each of the sets of twins. He says he is trying to find a cure. All I know is my sister is dying. And now you, too, Anshel.’ She began to cry. I couldn’t believe how thin she’d gotten. We, Mengele’s special children, got better food than anyone in the camp, but I figured that she had stopped eating. I tried to reach up and take her hand, but I was too weak. She leaned down and kissed my forehead. ‘If Charna is going to die, I want to die with her,’ she explained. I tried to protest, but she wouldn’t listen.
“Zusa climbed into the tiny bed beside Charna and she cuddled into her. From where I lay, I remember thinking that was how they must have be
en together when they were in the womb. I did not hear them speak, but I knew that they had a special way of communicating with each other. They had always had it, from the time they were babies. By morning, Zusa was sick. I heard her coughing, hacking. When Mengele saw what she had done, he pulled Zusa out of the bed and threw her on the floor. Then he began kicking her, in the face, in the stomach. Blood was everywhere. I cannot forgive myself for being, too, weak to stand up and kill him. But I couldn’t move. By nightfall, both of my sisters were dead.
“As you can see, I survived, in body, but my spirit is dead. I can never forget what happened and I can never forgive myself for not saving my family. So I live, but I am only half of a person. I will never find happiness in life.”
“I’m so sorry,” Katja said.
He nodded. Tears covered his face. “Yes, but I am here, I am in Israel. And for that reason alone, I am blessed. Besides, compared to so many others, my story is nothing. I met two boys, twins, in the camp. Nice boys. I remember they were so close that they seemed to know what the other was thinking. One day Mengele decided to hook them both up to electric wires. Then he gave one a shock. I saw it because I was cleaning up the operating theater. Mengele often chose one of us to clean the area for him. So, anyway, he shocked the boy so hard that the boy cried out. It was such a high pitched cry. I can still hear it. Then Mengele said to the boy, ‘You choose. Either I will shock you again or I will shock your brother.’ When the boy refused to choose, Mengele shocked them both. Yes, he was that cruel.
“It ended with the boy shocking his brother to death. The pain was so severe that he couldn’t take it again; even though he clearly agonized as he shocked his brother. This was the kind of thing Mengele enjoyed. These two twins, they were only ten years old. The one boy who lived, he would have to live with the knowledge of what he had done for the rest of his life. His conscience would surely haunt him. Mengele made sure that he survived. He wanted to ensure that the boy would never get over being responsible for the death of his beloved brother. So, you see, my story is not so bad. At least I was not forced to cause the death of anyone else, especially anyone I loved. ”
The Promised Land (All My Love, Detrick Series) (All My Love Detrick Book 3) Page 26