Long Lost Brother

by Don Kafrissen

  Suddenly, the door flew open, and a short, blonde woman strode in. She wore a black uniform and wide leather belt above a knee-length skirt. On her hip was a pistol, a Walther PPK semi-automatic.

  “Ilsa Koch,” whispered Yuri. “Hurry, we must go. Don’t look at her.”

  But Isaac couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. Her bright blue eyes sparkled as she conferred with the doctor. He showed her the clipboard, and she nodded. Without waiting, she drew the pistol from its holster and, walking down the line, shot each man in the head. The report was loud in the small room and Isaac jerked upright.

  She turned about quickly and strode up to him, “What are you looking at, Jew?”

  Jamming the pistol back into her holster, she stood for a minute, then slapped him hard on the cheek. “Do you want what they got? They are vermin. Gypsies. No better than Jews.”

  Isaac just hung his head, saying nothing. What could he say? Nothing would change. Perhaps he could kill her, but then the guards would probably kill him before he could make a move. No, he couldn’t kill her, but he would remember her. When they returned to their warehouse, Isaac would draw a picture of the Witch of Buchenwald, the doctor and even the two guards. It was his way of remembering. Someday, he vowed, he would even the score. Should he live, he would have purpose in his life. He would tell Abraham and Lon about this when they returned.

  His day was not over yet. He and Yuri pushed the empty cart back to the truck. After consulting the papers, they loaded the cart again. They pushed it through a double doorway and down a corridor. All the walls were painted the pale green, and the lights overhead were enclosed in wire coverings. It was a stark building and smelled of chemicals and the metallic smell of fresh blood.

  The next ward was at the end and had a guard on the door. They showed the guard the papers. After glancing at them, he nodded and stood aside. Inside the brightly lit room were two padded tables with men strapped to them. Between them was a small table with a machine on it. At first Isaac wondered what the machine was, then recognized it as the one Dr. Schwartz had been working on. It was the “heart resuscitator”. A doctor had just removed his hand from the face of a young man, a Jew from the markings on his shirt, now tossed carelessly on a nearby stool. The doctor checked the man’s pulse and shook his head at a female nurse who stood across from him. The doctor threw a switch on the side of the machine’s main panel and a deep humming could be heard. He held the padded screens in heavily rubber-gloved hands and placed them on the man’s hairless chest. When he nodded again, the nurse stepped back a pace. He pressed a button on one of the pads and the man’s body jumped, back arched. The doctor let the button go and the body relaxed and lay flat. The nurse felt for a pulse. She shook her head.

  The doctor again placed the screens and thumbed the button. Again the man’s body arched. The skin under the screens reddened and the doctor released the button. This time the nurse felt for the pulse and lifted her hands, palms up, as if to say, maybe yes, maybe no.

  The doctor put the screens down, removed his gloves and felt for himself. He was unsure also. “Once more,” he decided.

  And once again he equipped himself and thumbed the switch. This time he kept the switch on. The body arched for a longer time. The skin blistered and began to smoke. This time when he stopped, the young man gave out a strangled cough and opened his eyes.

  Isaac was ecstatic. Dr. Schwartz’ machine worked. He couldn’t wait to inform him. The man was breathing rapidly now. He had been smothered and was dead and now he was alive again. The nurse swiftly injected him with a pale fluid and in another minute he was slumped back on the table, dead. This time they did not try to revive him. Instead they went to the other table. The doctor made careful notes in a notebook, reading a meter of the resuscitator.

  As they were leaving the medical rooms, Isaac and Yuri passed into a back room that contained storage shelves and many boxes. Isaac peeked into several of the boxes. They contained human hair. He stepped back quickly, and the back of his head hit a piece of some colored material clipped to a wire strung between two shelves. He looked and it was a piece of some roughly cut material with bright, ornate drawings or outlines on it. There were several pieces on the line and he could make out the translucence of the material. Some were quite beautiful and artistically done.

  “What are you looking at, Isaac?” Yuri asked.

  As Isaac reached up a hand to feel the supple material, Yuri slapped his hand away. He hissed, “Do not touch. Don’t you know what that is?”

  “No,” replied Isaac, not taking his eyes off a particular painting of a nude woman.

  Yuri gulped and looked around furtively, “It is human skin. Those pictures are tattoos. The Witch kills the men and then cuts the tattoos off. She flays them. I have even heard that sometimes she cuts them off while the men are still alive.” Yuri was trembling.

  Isaac jerked his hand back. “What does she do with them?”

  Yuri pulled him toward the door. “I heard a doctor say that she makes lampshades and book covers and other things with them.” He shuddered, “Thanks be to God we are Jews and have no tattoos.”

  Chapter 13

  They rode back to their warehouse in silence. After returning, Isaac went directly to Dr. Schwartz’ office.

  He knocked and, through the glass, Dr. Schwartz waved him in. “Yes, Isaac?”

  “Sir, as you know, I rode up to the main camp with Yuri today. We went to the medical building.”

  Annoyed, the doctor waved a hand as if to hurry him, “Yes, yes, what is it?”

  Isaac blurted out, “Doctor, do you know how they are testing your Resuscitator?”

  The doctor frowned, “Well, I suppose they are using it on soldiers and civilians who are suffering from heart failure while in hospital or in a medical ward.” He paused. “Why? Are they not?”

  “No, sir, they are smothering people ̶ men, until they are dead, then attempting to bring them back. And after they do, they kill them. All this while they are taking notes and timing them!” He was near shouting now, leaning forward on the desk.

  The doctor stood rigidly. “What are you saying? How can you know this?” He could not, would not believe that his lifesaving machine would be put to such use.

  Isaac was near tears now. Softly he said, “I was there, sir. I was in the room putting supplies on a shelf. I saw them kill a young man after they used your machine to revive him.” He wiped the sleeve of his coat over his face. “That building is a charnel house. They are killing people there, burning them, injecting them with poison. I saw a woman shoot men in their heads after the doctors injected them with poison.” Isaac crumpled to his knees. “Please, sir, do not send me there again! Please!”

  Dr. Schwartz came around the desk and helped Isaac to his feet, seating him in a chair. “I will send someone else to help Yuri. It looks like we have slow two or three days for repair work. You will help Abraham in the warehouse. I will send Lon with Yuri tomorrow.”

  Isaac grabbed the doctor’s hands, “Thank you, sir! Thank you.”

  After roll call and feeding that night, Isaac described to Lon and Abraham what he and Yuri had seen. “Lon, the doctor will send you tomorrow with Yuri. You must steel your heart against these madmen. Do just what Yuri does. No more, yes?”

  Lon just nodded dumbly.

  The next day, they waved their friends goodbye. Abraham tried to reassure Isaac, “The lads will be all right. Lon listened to you, and Yuri ̶ well, he is a strong young fellow. He has been there a number of times. He will watch after our friend Lon.”

  Later that day, as they anxiously awaited for the truck to come back, the doctor informed them that he was going up to the main camp to see if he could confirm what Isaac had seen. He appeared outraged, as if this had been building in him since early morning.

  He was gone in his auto by the time the truck returned. The driver backed it in and then hurried away. When they pulled the canvas back, only Yuri sat huddled on the floor.r />
  Abraham reached in and dragged him to his feet. “Where is Lon, Yuri?” he asked shaking the gaunt man.

  Yuri just shook his shaven head. “Gone. Dead.”

  They helped him down and saw a great welt on the side of his head. He was also limping. “What happened?” asked Abraham, dragging the poor man inside. They sat him in a chair and Isaac hurried to get him some water.

  He thrust a mug into Yuri’s hand and Abraham urged him to drink. “Now, tell us.”

  “Our last stop was the barracks of the kapos, the prisoner guards. We carried two boxes each and a guard led us to their small infirmary. We had to walk the length of the sleeping quarters. Many of the guards were there with women, most of whom were naked. One guard was beating a woman with a whip, like you would beat a horse.” He gulped the water, and then sighed. “Some of the women had their hands tied and one was tied hands and feet to a bed while two men, um, I do not know the proper words, performed sex on her. Other guards watched and laughed.”

  Abraham nodded. He knew that some of the guards kept women prisoners as prostitutes for their own pleasure. “So, what happened with Lon? Did he see too?”

  Yuri nodded. “He dropped the boxes and screamed a name, then ran at the kapos. He leaped on one ripping his face with his nails. Other guards pulled him off and beat him and kicked him.”

  “You couldn’t stop him?” asked Isaac. After what he’d seen, he could understand Lon’s disgust. But why then? If they’d gone to the medical building, that must have been even worse.

  Yuri shook his head, ashamed. “It was too fast. I tried to grab his sleeve. All the while he was screaming a girl’s name. I managed to drag him away, and before he died he said that the girl on the bed was his sister. Then the men started beating me.”

  Isaac and Abraham were stunned. They didn’t know that their comrade even had a sister. “How did you get away?”

  “The guard was an SS. He shoved the kapos away and made me carry the boxes to their infirmary. When we walked through, Lon was gone.” He began crying, his face in his hands, body shaking.

  Isaac sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come, brother, it is time to lock up and go to muster.” They helped him to his feet and, unsteadily, they walked to the door, turning off the lights as they went.

  Chapter 14

  When their guard marched them around the corner the next morning, there were two black sedans parked out front. They walked inside Building 43, and an SS officer dressed in a black leather top coat, was screaming at Dr. Schwartz in his office. They could hear him the length of the room and through the door. The doctor stood rigidly against the wall, his usually neatly combed hair askew, blood on his face. The officer hit him once, twice with the riding crop he carried. The officer nodded, spun on his heel and yanked the door open.

  He stalked through the room, glaring at the three prisoners who kept their gaze fixed on the floor. Two other SS men fell in behind the officer who exited the building. The door slammed shut.

  When the cars started, the three rushed to the doctor’s office. Isaac grabbed a hand towel and moistened it, hurrying behind. Abraham gingerly helped the doctor to his padded chair. Isaac handed him the damp towel.

  “Mein Gott, Dr. Schwartz, why did that man beat you?” Abraham was attempting to straighten the rumpled suit coat. The doctor hadn’t even had time to slip into his white lab coat.

  The doctor dabbed at his face, a small smile touching the corners of his prim mouth. “I went to check on your story, Isaac. You see, I didn’t believe you. I didn’t want to believe you. They took me into a room and made me watch while they used my machine.” He was breathing hard now. “First they made me watch while they smothered a man. Made me check his pulse. He was no longer alive.” He looked up at the three, eyes roaming from one to the other. “He was a young man, not a soldier or an old man with a bad heart.”

  “Then?” asked Abraham.

  “Then they used my machine on him. I had to show them that it was not necessary to continue to apply the power. Just a quick jolt is sufficient.” He patted near the blood on his face. Isaac took the towel and wiped it away.

  His eyes glowed for a moment, “It works. My machine brought him back from the dead. I wanted to help him up, to share with him the extraordinary magic in my machine, but before I could, the nurse injected him and he died again. I tried to revive him with my machine again and again, but this time he was truly dead.”

  “But why was the SS officer here?” interrupted Abraham.

  The doctor looked lost. “He said that the machine belonged to the Reich and I have nothing more to do with it. He also said that a new person will be in charge of this facility tomorrow, and I must go.”

  Isaac, Abraham and Yuri looked at each other. “And what of us, Herr Doctor. Do we stay or do we go?” asked Abraham.

  The doctor looked down at his feet. “The major said that you would have to go also. They will come for you in the morning.” He looked up, obviously distressed. “I am sorry.”

  They left him to his misery. “So what do you think will happen to us?” Isaac didn’t realize how much he had come to rely on his daily routine, his three friends.

  Abraham muttered, “It will be as God wills.” He looked at each of them and smiled, “You didn’t really think we were all going to get out of this alive, did you?”

  Yuri said quietly, “A few days ago, I heard some guards talking. They said that the orders had come down for the final solution many months ago. They have been shipping prisoners to Auschwitz, a large camp in Poland. They said that the Jews and Gypsies there were either worked to death, or gassed and cremated. Soviet and Polish prisoners of war too.” He sighed, “Do you know that they have already shipped out more than 10,000 prisoners? Do you think that is where we will be sent?”

  Abraham said, “We could run away, you know.”

  Isaac snorted, “Run? To where? Do you think we could ‘blend in’?”

  “No, I suppose not,” Abraham replied.

  Isaac went to a drawer in his worktable and removed the pictures of the faces he’d drawn. There were six in all. He laid them out and studied them, memorizing each line, eyebrow, nose and mouth, each head shape and hairline. Finally he was sure he could duplicate them. They turned and left.

  That night, they went to muster and cribs. The Nazis may have shipped over 10,000 prisoners out but the cribs were as crowded as ever, and this was one of the remote barracks. The barracks captain had been a brutish German criminal named Otto. One day he had disappeared and now they had Axel who identified himself as a Communist. Isaac didn’t know much about Communists, something about dividing everything equally among all men. Except Axel, of course. He wanted more – more room for himself, better clothing, more food.

  In the morning they were mustered again, the dead brought out and Axel called to the front. A piece of paper was thrust into his hand, and he walked up and down the rows of men, tapping one on the shoulder here, and another on the chest there. Finally he came to the end of the list, a sick look on his face.

  An SS guard named Herman, Isaac remembered, told all those selected to step to the front and form up as a separate group. They did, with Axel at the fore. The others were dismissed and sent to their workstations, some to the munitions plant, others to the aeroplane wing factory, and still others to the road building crew.

  Isaac, Yuri, and Abraham were part of the crew formed up in front. After an hour of standing in long rows, the SS guards moved them to the rail siding where twenty or so boxcars waited. Also on the siding were many more people, civilians, many in the blue work clothes but some in civilian clothes. The civilians had bags and bundles with them, some women with small children.

  Abraham muttered, “Politicals? Or maybe more Jews?”

  Yuri shrugged and melted into the crowd. In a few minutes he returned and drew them aside, “Some are Jews from the northern cities and some are good Germans accused of hiding Jews.”

  Abraham snick
ered, “Not too good for them, eh?” All about them stood masses of prisoners, toothpick-thin, some sick and coughing. Nearby a man slipped to the ground.

  A guard came up and ordered two men to pick him up and carry him to the side. When he did, another guard released a huge Alsatian tan and black dog. The dog ran to the man and with one bite tore his throat out. The animal literally ripped the man’s arms from the gaunt body. Next the midsection gave up its viscera. Most of the people turned away, but the guards hooted and urged the dog on.

  Isaac, Abraham and Yuri moved away into the crowd, stopping before a Jewish family. The father had a long beard and a black hat. The mother, a matronly soul, had a colorful kerchief knotted under her chin. A daughter of about fourteen years was just beginning to attain womanhood. She had round, rosy cheeks and beautiful white teeth, while the son, perhaps a year younger, had the flowing dark ear locks of a good yeshiva student. This boy was meant to study the Torah and the Bible. They were a good orthodox Jewish family.

  Isaac speculated that the mother and father would be killed as soon as the train reached its destination. The lovely daughter would become a whore for the SS barracks or perhaps be used for medical experiments of one sort or another. The son, perhaps, would live, perhaps not. It depended on the makeup of the work gangs and the mood of the selectors on the platform.

  Eventually a whistle was heard, and some of the guards threw open the sliding doors. Everyone was ordered into the cars. Isaac, Yuri and Abraham managed to get into the cars early and helped pull men and women up and inside. The families were tossing suitcases and bundles in first before climbing in themselves. Isaac didn’t have the heart to tell them not to bother. Everything would be taken from them. As he helped the matronly mother in, she gave him a grunt of thanks. The daughter held out a smooth, soft hand, and he was gentle as he pulled her inside.