When the car was packed, the door was slammed and locked from the outside. Isaac wormed his way near the door, which was made of ill-fitting slats, affording some fresh air. He knew what was coming. The stench by tomorrow would be high. There were no waste facilities or water. Since the war was on and the final solution was ordered, most, if not all, of these people would be dead shortly. He looked about and caught the scent of the daughter standing beside him. Isaac looked down and smiled.
“Where are we going?” she asked innocently.
“To Poland, I believe,” he answered. The girl spoke Yiddish and Isaac answered the same. Her accent identified her as being from the north, perhaps Hamburg.
She frowned, “I have never been to Poland. What is there?” She wore a pretty dress with long sleeves and large brass buttons down the front.
He wished he could make up a fairy story to tell this pretty girl, but his heart was heavy with dread. “Death for most of us. For you? I expect the guards will use you until you are of no further use, then throw you away.” He looked at the fear in her deep brown eyes. “I am sorry.” He looked out the cracks at the passing countryside. Everything looked so normal. Cattle and sheep grazed, men rode tractors, grain waved. The sun shone brightly. He would have rather it had been a dank, gloomy day.
“What is your name,” she asked timidly, a hand on his arm.
He looked at the hand, “Isaac. Isaac Rothberg. And you?”
“Deborah Eisenstein.” She chewed on a lower lip for a minute, then asked, “Are you a good man, Isaac Rothberg?”
He snorted. “I sometimes like to think so, Deborah, but my whole world has been turned upside down, and I don’t know what is good anymore.” He looked down at her. She had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, and he ached for each of those tiny dots.
“Why do you ask?”
She drew in a deep breath and said softly, “I have never known a man. I am nearly a woman and you tell me that I will die soon. Would you please kiss me, Isaac Rothberg?”
His heart ached for this child. His heart ached for himself, who had never known a woman’s kiss beside his mother’s. Slowly he slipped an arm around her slim waist and bent to her mouth. Her lips parted and met his, softly, softly. He inhaled her, his arm squeezed harder and her tiny tongue slipped out and caressed the inside of his lips. They broke away, embarrassed.
She had a smug smile on her face. “Now I have been kissed by a man,” she sighed. “Tell me what to expect, Isaac, so I can prepare myself.”
Isaac whispered what he had seen in the kapo’s barracks, and she nodded. When he was finished, he had tears running down his hollow cheeks.
“Isaac Rothberg, promise me that if we both survive this thing, you will find me.” Little Deborah had a determined look on her face.
“And you me, Deborah Eisenstein.”
She nodded and kissed his cheek. During the next two days, they talked, he about his life before and after Buchenwald, and she of her upbringing and schooling. They both apologized when they had to void their bladders, there being no room, nor privacy. Her mother had brought some bread and a bottle of water, which she shared with him.
On the morning of the third day, the train slowed to a halt. Before the doors opened, he kissed her again and said, “Don’t stay with me. Stand alone. The kapos will take extra delight in humiliating you if they think we are together. Act proud. They will strip you. Don’t show fear, little Deborah. May God be with you and may we meet again.”
“And with you, my Isaac.” Then the door slid back and the shrill whistles of the guards sounded and others screamed at them to get out! Get out!
He jumped down and turned to help her and was clubbed to the ground by an SS guard. “Move! Move!” he screamed, shoving Isaac into a rough line of men. The women were put into another line, and mothers with children into yet a third. He looked back but by this time, she was lost to his sight. He felt a hand shove his waist. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that it was Yuri behind him and behind Yuri was the tall form of Abraham. Being with his friends again he felt a confidence he hadn’t expected.
They were quick-marched through a towering gate inscribed with the words: Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Will Make You Free). Isaac thought this a more appropriate motto than the one at Buchenwald. In a large courtyard, the prisoners were ordered to strip naked and throw their clothing into a high-sided cart. Then they were lined up before several barbers with what looked like sheep shearing clippers. Since Abraham, Yuri and Isaac had been subjected to weekly shearings, they were ordered to the front of the line.
The showers were next. At least they hoped there were showers. Each was handed a towel and every third a scrap of a bar of soap. When a number of them were inside, icy water flowed from the filthy showerheads. Isaac gave a sigh of relief. He quickly soaped and rinsed. Outside, after toweling off, they were issued the black and white striped uniforms. They were asked, “Jew?” and the top bore a 6-pointed star on the sleeve. For Gypsies, a downward pointing triangle. The next stop buzzed with tattoo needles. They were each tattooed with a blue number on the inside of their left forearm.
A quarter loaf of rough bread and a tin mug of watery soup was to be their evening meal. At least it was hot. That night they were herded into a large stone room with no beds or platforms. The floor was slippery with mud. They squatted and huddled the night away, trying to stay warm. This was their welcome to Auschwitz. At least they had been herded to the right line. He understood later, that all those herded to the left were quickly gassed and cremated. The crematoriums burned day and night, the glow lighting the sky. It could be seen for miles.
Chapter 15
The three friends were assigned to a camp known as Buna, a grand building site for the I.G. Farben factory where they produced buna, a synthetic rubber. Since the Nazis owned no rubber plantations in Africa or Asia, and shipping was made increasingly difficult by the growing Allied air superiority in the Pacific, it had become necessary to synthesize rubber.
Isaac soon learned the layout and infrastructure of the camp. The prisoners slept in poor cribs, most times three to four to a pallet. These cribs were no more than a meter high by a meter and a half wide. They were constructed of rough wood boards. Each morning the kapos, former German criminals, disgraced Polish soldiers, or policemen, herded the men outside with beatings and shrill screams. It was always an hour or more before dawn, and it was cold when the men lined up to be counted. As in the Buchenwald camp, any who died during the night would be brought outside and supported by their fellows until the count was completed. Then they were forced to stand or squat until the SS officers arrived sometime after dawn.
By then the men were shivering and hungry. Mornings, they were allowed only a lukewarm cup of a thin gruel. They were then marched to their work site ̶ a road, a building, or a factory. No matter where they worked, the conditions were incredibly dangerous. The chemicals were toxic and the ventilation was poor.
All day Isaac dreamed of his mother’s cooking ̶ a piece of strudel, fragrant with spices; a piece of chicken, crisp and juicy; even a piece of dry Passover matzos. When they could, Yuri, Isaac and Abraham worked together. In warm weather, they tried to work on the road crews, breaking the larger rocks, spreading the gravel and sand, sometimes raking and spreading tar over all. It was dirty and smelly, and they were allowed only one quick shower a week.
The nights were the worst. Three or four men crammed into the filthy crib, each jockeying for an extra inch of space, trying not to breathe the air expelled by his crib mate. All night long, there was coughing, retching, weeping. It was never quiet. Their stomachs growled. The evening meal was a scrap of bread and a couple of sips of water, the same water used to mix cement or mortar. They lost weight until only skin and bones remained.
Winter came and the cold weather was very bad. Deaths escalated. When it was cold, the three sometimes managed to get into the factory labor line. It was marginally warmer, out of the wind, and the buna had to
be cooked to form it into the blocks that were then shipped to various factories where it was made into aircraft parts, flight suit parts, boots, and scores of other wartime goods. However, the air was thick with smoke, cooking chemicals, and the smell of vomit.
One day, as they were marched to the work site, Isaac fell into line beside a Roma fellow near his age. The Roma had the winkle, a patch designating his type, on his chest beneath his number. Isaac had a yellow triangle, while the Roma had a brown one. This was unusual, a Gypsy, in his work section. There had been a larger than usual number of deaths lately. Since they were in the middle of the crew, Isaac took a chance and asked, “Why are you here, Gypsy?”
His neighbor was a couple of inches shorter than Isaac, a little thicker in the chest. He had long, ropy arms. His ears lay close to his head and he smiled with a missing tooth in front. “I am here to work, Jew, like you.”
“But are you not kept in the Zigeunerlager with the families?” They conversed in broken German with a few words of Yiddish. The Gypsy boy was darker than Isaac but his nose was large and hooked. He could have passed for a Jew. “I have heard that all the Roma are to be eliminated.”
“I have heard the same.”
“But that is no surprise. So too are the Jews,” his companion told him.
Isaac nodded, “That is true, but there are many more of us than Gypsies. And we are scattered all throughout the many camps.”
“That is so,” the gypsy agreed. “What is your name, friend?”
“Isaac. And yours?” He hadn’t dared try to make a friend since Lon’s death. They trudged through the dawning day, perhaps a mile from the road project where they would work today.
“Luca. Where are you from, Isaac?”
“Freiburg. It is west, near Dresden. If it is still there.”
“Yes, I know it. I was there perhaps two years ago.” He shook his shaven head, and mumbled, “Nice town.”
They worked beside each other, spreading and raking gravel all morning. At last they were allowed a respite from the work. They lined up and their cups were filled with a thin vegetable soup. Exhausted, they collapsed on the ground, backs against a tree. Isaac introduced Luca to Yuri and Abraham.
“Luca, where were you seized?” asked Abraham.
“Outside Bucharest. My people were trying to get to the coast, hoping to perhaps get a ship to Istanbul or even further east.”
Isaac nodded, “That would have been a good idea. How many are in your band?”
Luca was silent. Then he said softly, “Not as many as when we arrived here. They took my mother and father and little sister away the first day. I do not know what happened to them. My uncle is dying. I think he has the coughing disease. His wife, my auntie, died, and they took her body away. One of the kapos bragged that they are going to kill all of us soon.”
Abraham said, “That is what they say about all of the Jews too.”
Yuri chimed in, “The Nazis are very efficient. If anyone can do it, they can.”
Just then a kapo saw them talking. “What are you doing? What are you talking about?” He carried a bamboo stick about three feet long and flailed it at them. “A Gypsy talking with the Jews? That is verboten! Nein, nein!” He hit all four of them repeatedly. They curled up into balls and presented the kapo with nothing but their arms and backs. Eventually he grew tired and walked away disgustedly. Several feet away, two SS guards laughed.
Isaac shrugged it off. It was just another senseless beating by one who was no better off than they were. The only thing that gave him pleasure was that the Nazis were probably going to kill all the kapos too. Why were they doing this job? He, Yuri, and Abraham were trained men. Why weren’t they quizzed by an SS officer like back in Buchenwald and assigned some meaningful work?
Several days later, they were working on the road when a long, black Mercedes automobile came by. An SS guard stopped it and told the men to quickly smooth out the road so the auto could pass. Just as it neared Isaac and Abraham, they heard a loud hiss, and a rear tire collapsed, causing the car to tilt and stop. The driver alighted and looked at the flat tire. Turning, he asked, “Does anyone here know how to change a tire?”
Isaac immediately said, “Yes, we do,” referring to himself and Abraham.
A guard stepped up to them, his MP-40 machine pistol in his hands across his body. “You two, fix it quickly, or I will find someone else who will! Schnell! Schnell!”
The driver held the door open for the passenger who descended from the plush rear seat. He was an older man who was elegantly dressed in muted striped trousers a long jacket and white shirt and dark blue tie. He walked awkwardly; he seemed to have a stiff right leg. Except for a small moustache, his facial features were undistinguished.
Isaac and Abraham smiled at him and Abraham said, “Would you please have your driver open the trunk so we can get at the tools, sir?”
He seemed startled, as if he didn’t expect such lowly people to speak to him. He motioned to his driver with a finger, and the small man scampered to the rear of the vehicle. “Who are you people?” he asked frowning.
As Isaac searched the trunk for the tire iron, lug wrench and auto jack, Abraham said, “We are merely a road-building crew, though it is a shame that our talents are so wasted here.”
“What do you mean? You are just Jews, aren’t you?” he glanced at the sewn emblem on Abraham’s striped top.
Isaac returned with the tools and began to loosen the lug nuts while Abraham held the other tools.
“Yes sir, we are Jews, but my friends here and I are trained to build and service medical machinery.” He shook his shaven head. “A waste of talent to the Reich, wouldn’t you agree?”
Just then, the SS soldier stepped forward and raised the butt of his rifle to club Abraham. “Quiet, you! No talking to the man like that. I’ll have you shot!”
The gentleman held up a hand. “Enough. Let me talk to him.”
He must have been a man of some importance, for the SS man deferred to him, saying, “Yes, sir. Please forgive me.” This last was said through tight jaws. Isaac could read the hatred in the soldier’s eyes. He hoped Abraham knew what he was doing or he would soon be without another friend.
The man appraised Abraham, “I am the manager of a factory south of here. We produce bombsights for Luftwaffe aircraft. I think I could use some men who are skilled with their hands and their minds.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “How many of you are there with these skills?”
Abraham shrugged, “Oh, not more than three or four of us, sir.” He pointed to Isaac who was nearly finished with the tire. “He is very good, and our comrade Yuri, there,” he pointed. “And I think that young Roma lad. I believe he said he used to repair clocks.” Abraham was making this up as fast as he could, hoping that he wasn’t proven wrong.
The man stared at the road crew full of scarecrows and nodded to himself. “Yes, it would be a waste of good men if this was all you did.” After another moment’s thought, he waved to the SS soldier. “Sergeant, will these men be out here tomorrow on this road?”
The soldier snickered. “Oh, yes, sir. Until they die or break a camp rule.”
Making up his mind, he ordered, “See that these four men are here tomorrow. I will have a vehicle pick them up. I am taking them to our factory to work for me there, hein?” He stepped close to the soldier and Isaac saw him slip something into the soldier’s hand.
The SS guard’s eyes brightened and he snapped a salute, “Oh, yes, mein Herr, they will be here tomorrow morning. Thank you.”
Isaac guessed that it must have been money. He lowered the jack, and Abraham helped carry the flat tire and tools back and place them in the trunk. He closed the lid with a thunk, and a few minutes later the car drove away.
This time the guard came to them and said, “You and your friends are lucky. Stay together and stay out of trouble tonight. Tomorrow you will go with that man.”
Luca frowned and asked, “Me also?”
“Yes. Now get back to work, all of you!”
That night they ate their small pieces of bread and sipped their water. When they were finished, one of the other guards came and summoned them and made them shower in the icy stone shower room.
“Sometimes life hands you an opportunity and you can either take it or ignore it,” Abraham told them. “I took a chance. Are you with me?”
Luca was troubled. “Will I ever see my people again?”
Abraham, the eldest of them, lifted his hands, “That is in the hands of God.”
Chapter 16
The next day a truck picked them up and, after an hour’s drive, brought them to a large wooden and concrete building set in a field. On the roof were painted large red crosses. “Is this a hospital?” asked Yuri.
No one knew the answer.
They were driven around back, as usual. Isaac swore that if he lived through this and someday had a business of his own, he would always allow his workers to enter through the front door.
Soon, they were given instruction in assembling the different bombsights and radio devices used in various Luftwaffe aircraft. The days turned into a routine. Because they were at the factory and not on the road crew, the food was marginally better. They were permitted to sleep in a storeroom with ten other men. Two SS guards prowled the shop floor all day and locked them in at night. They had showers every three days, only because the SS guards and the management couldn’t stand the smell of unwashed prisoners. They took turns emptying the slop bucket each morning.
Long Lost Brother Page 9