Long Lost Brother

by Don Kafrissen

  Isaac and the others knew that would not happen, and they were apprehensive about their treatment over the next few days.

  That night, Abraham whispered to the others, “We must take care of Goff tomorrow. I know of a drug we can place in his coffee to make him appear intoxicated. We will dress him in my clothes, and I will hide here. You will have to take him with you tomorrow night and hold him up until the count is over. Steal another set of clothes from one of the dead and bring them to me.” Abraham’s plan was all they had.

  During the following day, Goff beat them each repeatedly with a bamboo stick for the least reason, screaming, “Die, Jude, die!”

  Abraham managed to pour some powdered belladonna into Goff’s coffee when Goff was beating Isaac. Isaac screamed back at him to draw his attention away from the others. At a thumbs up from Lon, Isaac dropped to the floor and curled into a fetal position. Goff gave him a final blow before walking away.

  “Get back to work, you swine!” he yelled over his shoulder, grabbing his cup of coffee and retreating to Dr. Schwartz’s office.

  Lon helped Isaac to his feet. “Are you all right?”

  Isaac straightened stiffly, “Ya, he hits like my old Bubby.” He pulled his sleeves back and examined his arms. “Ach, a few bruises is all.” He smiled at Lon and nodded at Abraham. They went back to the warehouse shelves and continued preparing the next day’s shipments, while Isaac finished servicing a large centrifuge. The day slowly came to an end, and soon they were required to go out to muster.

  Uneasily, Abraham approached the office door, peering cautiously through the glass panel. Goff sat, head down on the desk, the empty coffee cup beside his hand.

  Lon and Abraham slipped up beside him and peered into the office. “Quick,” said Abraham, “before the guard comes for us. We must meet him out in the yard in the dark.”

  They crowded into the small office and stripped Goff of his clothes. Abraham did the same and they dressed Goff in the faded blue trousers and loose top, yellow six-pointed star on the breast. “It is good that he has close-cropped hair. He almost looks like one of us.” Lon and Isaac helped him to his feet. Goff was almost unconscious and barely staggered between them.

  Behind them, Abraham extinguished the light and, dressed in Goff’s clothes, slipped behind the desk and went to sleep. Lon and Isaac stood outside the door in the dark, waiting for their escort. A few minutes later, a truck pulled up and Yuri jumped out. Aware of their plan, he helped support Goff.

  A guard came around a corner, tweeted his whistle, and gestured them to come toward the muster in the courtyard. They complied, walking Goff, still drugged, with them. They took their place in line. Fortunately, this night the muster and count was fairly quick. They were escorted to the barracks and retrieved their bowls and cups, leaving Goff on the bottom crib. He was still barely conscious.

  While they shuffled forward, Yuri asked, “What are we going to do with him? The drug will wear off sometime tonight. What if he wakes up and goes to the guards?”

  Isaac whispered, “Who is going to believe him? He is a prisoner, like us.”

  Lon hissed, “But suppose they do?”

  They got their meager rations and ate, sitting with their backs against the wall. “I will take care of him,” said Isaac coldly. “I have done it before.”

  When they returned to their crib, Goff was stirring, his legs twitching. He was attempting to push himself up. Isaac slipped in beside him and clamped a hand over his mouth, pinching his nose. Goff struggled feebly. Isaac gripped him tightly, his other arm around his throat. From above, Lon and Yuri looked down, their faces grim.

  Goff stopped struggling. Isaac felt his wrist for a pulse. None. He was dead. Isaac shoved him away, as far from him as he could. Without looking at his comrades, he lay his head down and went to sleep, a slight smile on his face, his first in a long time.

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, they were mustered as usual. As the men lined up and the guards began their count, Herman and another guard entered the barracks. Only one gunshot was heard this morning. Herman came to the door and held up three fingers. The nearest guard selected three prisoners who looked strong enough to drag the bodies out. A few minutes later, out they came. Isaac risked a glance, as they were nearby in the second to last row. Goff was over one prisoner’s shoulders. No one bothered to look at the face. In an hour, he would be gone. Some of the prisoners said that the bodies were taken up to the main camp at Buchenwald and cremated. Goff’s body was without his shirt, and another body had no trousers. Isaac was wearing two tops and Yuri, the slimmest of the group, wore two pair of trousers.

  When they were escorted back to the gray building with number 43 painted on it, Lon turned on the lights. It was still dark outside. Lon also had stuffed a crust of bread in his pocket for the starving Abraham.

  He was still asleep in the back office and Isaac nudged him with his shoe. Abraham woke with a start, “What? Is it time?”

  Lon chuckled, “Ya, it is time for you to get to work.” He held out the crust. “I brought you breakfast in bed, Mein Herr.”

  Abraham greedily gobbled it and thanked his comrades. “Is it done?”

  Yuri and Lon nodded. “He will be a pile of ashes in a few hours,” said Yuri, shivering. He shucked the extra trousers, and Isaac gave Abraham the extra shirt.

  “What do we tell our good Doktor Schwartz?” asked Abraham sitting on a corner of the desk.

  Isaac rubbed his chin in thought, then replied, “We, of course, know nothing. I will say that a military man came to the door and Goff went with him.” He held his hands away from his sides, “That is all we know. Let’s not get fancy. Yuri was away on the truck, you two were packing shelves and only I saw him leave.”

  Abraham slipped into his prisoner clothes and bundled Goff’s into a ball. He led them out into the packing area and shoved them into a box. After taping the top closed, he carefully printed a seven-digit number on the top. “There, that will go to the SS Barracks at the Messerschmitt factory north of Buchenwald. They won’t know what it is, and they will throw it away. I burned all of his identification last night. By tonight, the world will have forgotten that despicable gonif.”

  Isaac snorted, “Would that we could do the same with all these Nazis.” He turned and spat on the floor. “Well, I suppose we must get to work. There won’t be any extra food today.” He turned to the others, “How are you holding up?”

  Yuri shrugged, “When I am out on the trucks, I can sometime grab a scrap of food in a hospital, or once in a while a guard will give me something.”

  Abraham and Lon shrugged. “I suppose I have lost ten or fifteen kilos,” said Isaac, tightening the cord holding his trousers up.

  Lon said, “Me also, though perhaps not as much as the big fellow here. I have aches in my bones, and my hands are not as strong as they once were.” He smiled grimly, “My friends, we are still here and many of our family and friends are not, may God damn all Nazis.”

  A horn tooted at the rear door, and Abraham, Yuri and Lon quickly shuffled in that direction. Isaac walked slowly to his worktable. Last night he had killed a man. He examined his feelings and realized he felt no more sorrow than if he’d killed a mouse in a trap. Men like Goff had killed his father and grandfather, raped and probably killed his mother and sister. His brother, Herschel, was probably dead by now, too. He just did not care. If the Nazis stayed in power, all Jews, Rom, intellectuals, and anyone else who disagreed with them would be dead. He knew even his days were numbered.

  It was 1943. Hitler had been in power for ten years. Ten years. He could hardly believe that somebody hadn’t killed the little bastard yet. He found it ironic that in promoting his “Master Race” of Aryan supermen, Hitler looked more like the stereotypical Jew than the blond hair, blue-eyed giants he favored.

  * * *

  This was their life for almost two years. No matter what the doctor was able to bring to supplement their diets, the prisoners all lost
weight, strength, and focus. Isaac had weighed nearly 160 pounds when he was caught. Now he knew he was down to only 123 pounds. The three asked him to go to the doctor to see if he couldn’t obtain more food.

  “Dr. Schwartz, may I speak with you please?” he asked one day when the doctor had returned with only an apple.

  “Why, yes, of course, Isaac. Is there a problem?”

  “Sir, we are starving. Look at us. Lon and Abraham are having difficulty carrying the orders to the trucks. Yuri cannot even climb into the trucks anymore. He must have help. Like the other men in the factories, we are literally being worked to death. I am sorry, Doctor, but what is happening? Yuri will not even talk about what he sees at the medical facilities in Buchenwald.” Isaac just stood, swaying on his feet.

  The doctor put a hand on his bony shoulder. “Isaac, tomorrow we have a shipment of medications going to the main hospital in Buchenwald. I would like you to go with that shipment, to assist Yuri. See for yourself and tell me what you observe. Approximately three months ago I sent them my invention for testing. If successful, it will be sent on to military hospitals and will likely revive the dead.”

  Isaac frowned, “What do you mean, doctor?” Isaac had known that Dr. Schwartz frequently retreated to a laboratory behind his office to work on “his invention,” Isaac never knew what it was or that he was having it tested.

  “My invention, young man. I have measured the electrical impulses that drive the contractions in a man’s heart. I often wondered if these impulses could be stimulated, especially if they stopped. Just before the war, I was in contact with a Dr. Ian Donald at Oxford University in England. He was working on the same project. Of course, once the war started, we could not continue our discussions, so I continued on my own.” He sat on the corner of Isaac’s worktable.

  “What do you call this device, Doctor?” Isaac found this very interesting; though bringing back the dead seemed a little far-fetched.

  The doctor was overjoyed to find someone interested in his device. “I call it a Heart Resuscitator. The power pack charges from a wall outlet and two pads complete the circuit through the heart by placing them against the ribcage on that side of the body. At first, I used sharp probes but the electric charge burned the skin. Now I have used a metal mesh to spread the current. I think it will work, but I am not sure. The Reich has sent me here, and I no longer have access to hospitalized patients. Goff would have supervised the tests up at the hospital for me.” He hung his head and sighed, “I have not been able, to this day, to discover who took him or where he was sent. Therefore, Isaac, if they allow you, please ask about my device.”

  “Of course, Doctor, but please, sir, please try to get us some additional food. Otherwise, I am afraid we will be making mistakes and experiencing physical problems that will only escalate. That will not be good for us, nor you.”

  “I understand. I will do my best, young man, for you and our fellow workers.”

  Chapter 12

  The next morning, Isaac and Yuri helped each other into the back of the truck after the four of them loaded a number of boxes and several repaired pieces of operating room equipment. They assumed that the supplies were going to the SS hospital or other military installations.

  The ride took more than two hours. The truck had to pull over twice for military convoys containing tanks, armored vehicles, and lines of trucks and petroleum support vehicles. Isaac wasn’t sure whether they were advancing or retreating. He knew that the local factories were turning out enormous amounts of munitions, aircraft engines, wing sections and other supplies to support the war. The Nazi war machine had stormed into France, Belgium, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe. If Isaac and Yuri hadn’t been so concerned with their personal survival, they’d have been depressed for the rest of the world. They had seen the brutality of the Reich first hand. Already, besides the Jews, the Nazis had been enslaving the Romani, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholic priests, homosexuals, Poles, Romanians, and anyone who didn’t rigidly adhere to the Nazi doctrine.

  Eventually their truck came to the massive front gates of Buchenwald. The camps sat on what used to be wooded slopes of the Ettersberg, and area of rugged hills and low mountains in the east- central part of Germany. The guards checked the driver’s papers, then the inmates in the rear.

  One snorted, “Juden. Haven’t we enough of them?”

  The other replied, “Soon there will be none of them. About time, too.”

  Isaac and Yuri sat absolutely still, faces blank, in the shadows in the rear of the canvas-covered truck. Beyond the retreating guards, the sky was a bright blue, birds sang in the trees, and the sun warmed their faces.

  The truck wound its way down stone-paved streets until it stopped before a gray stone building. The sign on the wall said SS Infirmary. The driver yelled at a man standing near the door. He motioned the truck to the rear. After the truck backed up to a low loading dock, Isaac and Yuri jumped out. Yuri clutched a handful of papers, glanced at the top sheet and indicated which boxes and equipment to unload. Isaac handed the heavy boxes up to Yuri who stacked them in front of the roll-up door. Then he banged his fist against it and waited. A minute later the door was opened by a gaunt figure dressed in vertically striped black and white clothing.

  Yuri shook his hand and introduced the man as Doctor Mendelson. “He is the doctor for the guards in this camp.”

  Isaac was surprised that the Germans would allow a mere Jew to treat them. After taking the supplies into the doctor’s office, Yuri whispered to Isaac, “He was one of the best doctors in Dresden. The guards know this and help him survive.”

  “But where do the rest of the supplies go?” asked Isaac.

  Yuri shuddered, “To the north end of the camp.” He drew Isaac close. “This will be the worst part of the trip. You must not show any emotion, or they will kill us both.”

  “Why? What happens there?”

  When Yuri didn’t answer right away, Isaac asked more forcefully, “Yuri, you must tell me so I will be prepared.” He was gripping the older boy’s arm tightly.

  Yuri could only whisper, “Medical experiments.”

  “Experiments? Like what?”

  Yuri looked around fearfully; ready to remain silent if anyone was near. “Poisonings, diseases, castrations. They even test Dr. Schwartz’ invention by strangling prisoners, then try to bring them back to life by shocking their hearts.”

  “Mein Gott,” muttered Isaac.

  The truck resumed its route, threading its way amongst rough wooden buildings. Toward the east was a glow in the sky, and a foul smell pervaded the air. They passed a crew of men clad in striped uniforms repairing the road. A guard armed with a heavy truncheon supervised them, a large Alsatian dog by his side.

  Surrounding the camp was a many-stranded barbed wire fence almost twenty feet high. Every so often there was a watchtower and Isaac noted several guards in each one. A mounted machine gun pointed toward the inner camp. In the no-man’s land beside the fence strode black-clad soldiers with MP-40 sub-machine guns across their chests. The SS flashes gleamed on the collars.

  Isaac peered out the back of the truck. The sign over the gate read, “Jedem das seine” (To each his own). That was an odd inscription, he thought. He nudged Yuri and pointed. Yuri just shrugged. He’d seen it many times and still didn’t understand it. Perhaps in Old German there was a different meaning.

  They passed through another gate, this one more closely guarded by the black clad SS troops. Yuri whispered, “This is the medical area. It is best if you do not see too much here. The commandant’s wife presides in this facility. It is not for nothing that she is called the Witch of Buchenwald. If we are fortunate, she will not be here today.” He was uneasy and kept shifting in his seat, rustling the papers in his hands.

  The truck circled the low, wooden building and backed in behind. The driver and guard, a beefy Berliner named Helmut, signaled them to get out and looked at Yuri’s papers. He nodded curtly and they be
gan to unload boxes from the list. Yuri told Isaac to get a handcart, and they loaded it with the boxes and a butane bottle with tubing and a torch tip.

  When they wheeled the cart into a laboratory, a nurse wearing a facemask motioned for them to leave the bottle and accessories on the floor near a table. A naked young man strapped to the table looked pleadingly at them. Yuri just hung his head and shoved the gaping Isaac toward the door they had just entered. After they exited, Isaac turned back and peered through the crack.

  The nurse connected the tubing and the torch and, after loosening the knob on top, lit it with a cigarette lighter. When she had the size of flame she desired, she held it near the young man’s leg. He screamed as it blistered his flesh. The smell was of charred meat, and Isaac almost threw up. Holding his hand over his mouth, he watched, eyes huge. Yuri tugged on his sleeve.

  “Come,” he hissed. “We must go. If they catch us here, we will be killed.”

  “Wait, wait. Just one more minute. Why are they burning him?” Isaac could see that the nurse had blistered and even charred one whole side of his leg. Fortunately the man had passed out from the pain. The nurse put down the torch, now out, and applied some sticky solution to the burned area.

  Again Yuri tugged on his arm. “The driver comes. Now!”

  Reluctantly, Isaac walked with him back to the rear of the truck. What sort of hideous experiments were they performing here? They put two more small boxes labeled with a skull and crossbones on the cart and moved through another door.

  More men were seated on a long bench against a pale green wall. Two sub-machine gun armed guards stood before them. A man in a lab coat, a doctor, Isaac supposed, came and took the two newest boxes from the top of the cart. Using a scalpel, he opened one and removed two vials filled with a clear liquid. As Yuri and Isaac stacked the remaining boxes on shelves to the right, the doctor filled a syringe. He held it to the light and squeezed the plunger, removing the air bubbles. Swiftly, he injected all the men in their right arms, not pausing to swab the arms or wipe the needle. Then he stood back and clicked a stopwatch. With clipboard in hand, he gazed at the men, several whom had begun twitching. He noted this on the paper. Next, one man fell to the floor, mouth frothing, then another and another. Isaac watched, horrified, until Yuri pinched him. They continued slowly stocking the shelves, taking their time. By this time, approximately two minutes had passed and all but one of the men were lying on the floor, most twitching.