by Mark Seaman
I endeavoured to be brave for Mama, trying to detach my own thoughts from what had happened and focusing my mind only on her and her grief. It was never easy though as the gruesome reality of daily life in that crucible of death was never more than another child’s or mother’s scream away. As those cries of hopelessness and desperation tore into my brain I was reminded once more of my own sense of heartbreak and loss, and the whole cycle of fear and dread would reinstate itself, with my efforts to be strong for my mother failing yet again. Even so, I would try not to cry openly as Mama re-lived the shocking end to Joseph and Papa’s lives in the nightmares of her restless sleep and as we lay there together on those bare and unforgiving strips of wood.
I did cry of course, many times in the weeks and months ahead but rarely in front her. Somehow my external emotions became the only thing left I could attempt to have any control over and I was determined that the Germans, especially, wouldn’t see me broken no matter how vile or horrific the portrait of inhumanity they paraded before us each day.
During my time in the camp I made a few friends although always attempting not to become too close. We were all acutely aware that each day might be our last and therefore the prospect of any deeper relationship was a luxury that none of us could, or felt able to, afford ourselves. So whilst we formed these loose associations we also made the conscious decision not to say or do anything for each other beyond the immediate, recognising that all of our lives were under daily threat and therefore any favour or promise made to another might never be fulfilled. It could also result in our own death should such a momentary act of benevolence be discovered by our captors. That said, the human spirit at times overrides common sense and sound judgement, making its own decisions based on feelings from the heart rather than the logic of the mind.
Sarah arrived at the camp a short while after me but we developed an immediate affinity with each other and soon struck up a dangerously close association. Of course we knew this was a mistake, understanding only too well we could each lose the other at any time. But in a way because life in the moment was so precious some relationships did become intense very quickly no matter how hard we tried not to let them, apart from those within our own family of course. That said, even here we learnt over time not to hold even those dearest to our hearts too close for fear they might also be taken from us in an instant. You can’t break a heart that is already detached from emotion, or at least that was the theory. The guards also sought to maintain this division between us. They appeared to view it as some form of sport, relishing their ability to break trust and relationships, even between close family units. They would continually spread rumours through their chosen informants about those supposedly hoarding food or extra bedding in the differing barracks, even when the stories were fabricated and untrue as they most often were. This, as with the young woman who had been hung by the other prisoners for supposedly having sex with a guard in return for extra food rations, would in turn set off arguments or fights between us so that eventually there was little or no trust between any of those held captive in the camp. All of this, in achieving its desired result, meant that the prison population remained always distrusting of each other’s motives and actions. It also affirmed the total authority of the German soldiers and guards over us, in spite of the fact we outnumbered them by many thousand. Consequently, this meant if you did form a close friendship or deeper connection with someone outside of your immediate family it could quickly become irrational in nature and obsessive in its make up with you then seeking out this individual for practically any form of contact, be it a brief conversation or some form of physical relationship. Such reliance on even the most fleeting of smiles or touches from another human being rapidly became as precious as a crust of bread or drink of water to those of us who were, quite literally, being starved of all external forms of nourishment, sustenance and human interaction. Sometimes you would hear of individuals having sex behind the barracks or in the squalid conditions of the latrines. More often than not these couples wouldn’t be married as families were separated on arrival at the camp.
Chance encounters as well as dangerously prearranged liaisons took their part in these brief and sordid associations with both men and women risking their lives once they found a way through the barbed wire and electrified fences that kept us apart. Such wretched acts of lust and desperate animal desire would also take place between couples of the same sex on occasion. It wasn’t simply the physical act itself that emboldened individuals to go to such desperate extremes, but more the need to feel vital in some way, to feel the touch of another human body against their own skin. This despite the ever present reality of contacting a venereal disease which became rife inside the camp as increasingly more prisoners risked their lives to attain even the briefest moment of human intimacy. When you are continually forbidden almost any form of bodily contact the instinct to revert to animal basics appears not only acceptable, but even pleasurable as the appalling surroundings in which you exist fade momentarily from your mind, along with the very real threat to your life should you be discovered.
I remember one couple found having sex by the guards being marched out before us in the courtyard and made to stand naked as a German officer screamed abuse in their faces.
“You filthy Jewish pigs, have you no shame in fucking together in full view of others? You know the penalty for such actions.” He waved his luger pistol in their faces before ordering his soldiers to release a number of dogs on to the terrified couple. We were made to stand and watch as they were torn to pieces, their screams eventually fading as they were drowned out in death by the snarling and barking of their highly trained attackers. We knew only too well that the horrific scene being played out in front of us was not only an act of punishment for the poor couple who had been caught but also as a warning to the rest of us as to what would happen if we chose to do the same thing. Once the dogs had finished ripping the bodies apart they were called to heel by their handlers as the officer turned to face us again.
“The rules you must obey here are very straightforward. And the punishment for breaking them is equally straightforward and direct as you can see.”
Even with such appalling evidence lying on the ground before us, there would still be those, in the days and weeks ahead, who would take the same risk for a moment’s intimate release from the horrors of the camp just as this tragic couple had done. They would do so in the full knowledge of their meeting an equally horrific end to their lives if caught. When you have nothing to start with there is little your enemy can threaten you with but death, and for many that eventuality became seen as a form of blessed release rather than a punishment. In a perverse way this became the only victory left available to us in our daily battle with our oppressors, and if this victory was to be achieved in our dying then so be it. After a while it was only the method of execution we feared, not the end itself.
And so, even with the potential of our young lives being ended in an instant Sarah and I chose to risk all by becoming friends. Almost from the start ours developed quickly into a relationship of great depth, trust and growing dependence. The ability to share stories and experiences, at times beyond traditional comprehension was such a relief. Often they would be the very things I might want to speak with my mother about but knew I couldn’t for fear of bringing her own dark thoughts and demons back to the forefront of her mind once more. The two of us loved talking about the things we had done with our parents as youngsters; things again that I feared might upset Mama if I raised them with her.
“I loved sitting by the fire when I was small, and having Mama brush through my hair as it dried.” Sarah smiled in recognition of the simple pleasure this had brought me.
“My mother would do the same, and I would look into the fire as she embraced me. I would imagine I could see angels dancing with their bright orange wings reflected in the flames.”
We shared many childhood tales and secrets
in the time we spent together in the camp, memories that would help us escape briefly from the awful realities of our lives, even if only in our minds and imagination.
I first became aware of Sarah when she appeared one night asking if she could squeeze in beside my mother and I. Another train load of prisoners had been sent to her hut on their arrival and consequently she had been forced out of her sleeping space and more especially the barrack itself. A German soldier had taken an inventory of the new residents ready for the next day’s early morning roll call and with Sarah now apparently removed from that register she had been put outside.
“I have my list for this barrack and you are no longer on it, so you will be outside tonight. It is cold and so you will be dead in the morning. Then the only list you will be on will be the one for the ovens.” Sarah knew he was right and so with nowhere else to go had found herself at our door, or rather the broken slat of wood by the door that she had crawled through in an effort to find shelter. She walked the length of the hut until noticing a small gap between my mother and I the end of our bunk in which she begged to find rest.
“Please can I stay here, at least for tonight?” she pleaded, her thin body shivering in the cold. My mother nodded wearily as Sarah clambered in beside me. The two of us lay together talking in whispers for much of that first night, quickly establishing a common bond with our shared love and loss of family and Jewish faith. She told me she had been in the camp for about three weeks, but that her mother had become sick just a few days after they had arrived and so, as with my father and brother, had been sent to the gas chamber.
She said she had been forced to hold her mother’s clothes while she and others were ordered at gunpoint to strip and ready themselves for the showers.
“We knew what was happening of course, but what could we do? I felt my heart break as I held her clothes against me and mouthed that I loved her. I could see she was crying as they led her away to her death.”
She said the horror of what was unfolding in front of her, watching this pitiful procession of naked women and children walking towards their end was a scene that would stay with her forever.
“I saw a man running towards his wife as she shuffled forward in line with the others. He was calling out her name as the door of the gas chamber swung open like a hungry monster waiting to devour its next obscene meal of human frailty and flesh. One of the guards shouted for him to get back in line, releasing his dog which tore into the man and savaged him badly as it dragged him to the ground screaming. Once the gas chamber was full and the doors had closed the guard took his pistol from its holster and shot the man in the head while the other guards looked on, ignoring his pleas for mercy.”
Sarah told me that she and a few of the others had then been ordered to take the rest of the clothes away for sorting, but that she had managed to tear a little piece from her mother’s dress to remember her by. She took it from her pocket and showed it to me, holding it up as though it were a precious gem. Although it had been the dress she had been given on entering the camp and was not really her mother’s it still meant the world to her.
“It’s all I have left, but when I look at it I can still see her wearing it and the smile on her face when she would speak to me.” Even in the darkness of the hut I could still see the tears in Sarah’s eyes as she struggled with her memories and so sought to change the subject in an effort to lighten her mood. I asked where she was from and commented at how good her English was, albeit a little broken.
She told me she was from Poland and that her father had been a teacher there. The whole family had learnt to speak English as the intention had been for them to move there eventually.
“Once the war began though, it became impossible to move anywhere.” She told me they had been amongst the last to be deported from the ghetto they had been forced to live in as Polish Jews. The German Jews were the first to leave in an effort to cleanse the “Master race” from any further Jewish contact. She said there had been little food and practically no work in the ghetto and that when the Germans came back it was decided to level the area and send all those still living there to the death camps. She told me her father had been amongst those who, because of his good education and being a teacher, had helped with the writing and distribution of leaflets which encouraged others in the ghetto to form underground groups and fight the Germans.
“He knew what would happen if he was caught, but he felt he had to do something to help. When the Germans arrived they arrested some of the men and tortured them to get the names of those who had organised the leaflets and acted in the recruitment of resistance fighters, including my father. My mother and I, along with the other families, were taken to the town square to watch as my father and the other men were lined up against a wall and shot. They were made to face the wall but my father refused and, despite being beaten for his defiance, stared straight ahead at the soldiers as they took aim and shot him along with the others. We all screamed out and wept as our men folk fell to the ground, but I also felt proud of my father for defying the Germans in that way. My mother said, they may have shot him but they hadn’t been able to kill his spirit, which would live on in us forever. I didn’t really understand what she meant at the time but I do now and I take strength and encouragement from my father’s brave actions. I hold onto his memory and try to demonstrate that same spirit of defiance towards the Germans every day.”
As we continued to whisper stories to each other in the darkness of that overcrowded hut I told Sarah about my time in the camp and how my father and Joseph had been gassed on our arrival. I said that I was worried about my mother and feared she was giving up on life a little more each day. “I know she loves me, but it’s as if the life blood has been drained from her since Joseph and Papa where killed.”
I knew if she continued to show weakness then she would be gassed as well, but how could I cajole her into fighting her growing depression, understanding as I did how seemingly pointless life had become for her after losing the men she loved in such an unspeakable way.
“Of course she still has me but we have both witnessed other families being ripped apart since we have been here, so what hope is there for her that we’ll be able to survive together? Or worse, she might have to watch me being taken to the gas chamber if my health fails and then she’d be left on her own?” I felt my body shiver as I looked at Sarah. “How can I reassure Mama against the possibility that her final days might be spent in the knowledge that all her family had met their end in those awful gas chambers, and that our lifeless bodies had been thrown onto hand carts and taken away to the ovens. What crumb of comfort can I offer her in that?”
My mother’s heart had been broken, as had mine, but I was determined not to demonstrate, at least outwardly, any sense of acceptance towards our seemingly inevitable fate, nor to the apparent hopelessness of our situation. I wouldn’t give in to our German captors or to their arrogantly assumed supremacy over us, whereas my poor mother had now all but given up on any hope of a possible route to survival or future outside of the camp. She could no longer see a way out for either of us other than our own deaths met at the hands of the guards or in the gas chamber. Dreadful though that prospect was, in a way, for her at least, it did offer a final release from the daily fight for existence that we had become accustomed to but also for the longed prayed for reunion with my brother and father. “I miss them so much,” she would say, her sadness only furthering my determination not to demonstrate any personal weakness to the Nazis. I had decided the only thing I would reveal to these monsters was my total contempt for both them and their Fuhrer, even if it cost me my life, which eventually it almost certainly would. I knew my mother was worried about me but also recognised she didn’t have the strength or ability to protect me any more, and so felt it my duty to be strong for the both of us. I told Sarah how much I loved Mama and how concerned I was for her.
“I pray for her every day, but what
can I do to make things better for her? I just love her so much and hate to see her like this.”
We both acknowledged our joint revulsion as to the sorry acceptance of daily life in Birkenau by the camp population and were drawn ever closer through the shared similarities of our family’s journey and circumstances.
We often talked about the work we did in the camp, and how we had both been forced to sort through the belongings of those who were to be executed or who had already died. We wept together as we shared our joint sorrow in recalling how we had spent time emptying the suitcases of toys and other personal effects from the small children who had arrived at the camp and whose innocent young lives were almost immediately wiped from the face of the earth in the gas chambers. Sarah spoke movingly of the effect those times had on her.
“When I hold their dolls or other toys it makes me think of my own childhood and how happy I had been when I was smaller. I sometimes watch the guards as they march the little ones to the gas chambers and wonder, if they are parents themselves, how can they do such an evil thing? Do they really have no feelings for such young lives?”
Of course, the Germans would tell us that everybody must work and that, young or old alike, if they cannot carry out the duties allotted to them they become a drain on the limited food supplies and other vital resources of the camp. Also, the demands of these small children on their mothers, who could be better employed working and serving the German war effort, necessitated their extermination. After all, in the eyes of the Nazi guards these precious young bundles of life were nothing more than Jewish scum, human garbage to be destroyed and erased not only from existence but from the world’s memory itself as part of the Fuehrer’s great “final solution”. Such twisted logic might appease their own perverse view of life but it would never assuage or lessen the reward awaiting them when standing before God and the “final solution” he has prepared for them on the day of judgement.