by Anna Schmidt
As the others began moving back toward their respective barracks, Josef stood up. He kissed her but did not move away. “I know that you believe that if we make it out they will make Anja pay the price.”
Beth breathed a sigh of relief. Finally he understood.
“That’s why we have to take her with us,” he added as he kissed her again and then ran for his barracks to beat the curfew.
Now that Josef had the plan in mind, he realized that he had only scratched the surface of what it would take for him to execute it. So many details. How to get Beth and Anja and himself together at the same time to make their move. He would need wire cutters for the fencing. And the best time to go would be after dark. What about food and water and medical supplies in case of an emergency? In case one of them was shot or fell or was cut by the barbed wire and developed an infection?
With every new thought, his spirits plummeted. But each night after he sat with Beth, holding her hand as they closed their eyes and waited together for guidance from within, he felt a little more certain that God was indeed leading him to consider a plan for escape.
He was thinking about all of this one stifling late-July day when he had been sent to work the garden instead of his regular job. He had considered the shovel he used to dig potatoes as a possible substitute for wire cutters. The handle was already loose, and if he could secure the blade beneath his clothing somehow and bury the wooden handle in the garden, perhaps he could hack at the wire with the blade of the shovel. But that brought to mind the noise that metal on metal would make. He was beginning to feel a kind of desperation that was almost like a fever.
Suddenly the Kapo grabbed Josef’s shovel and examined it. “You have ruined this,” he shouted, waving the tool in Josef’s face as he pulled the handle free. “Take it to the carpenter now,” he ordered, thrusting the two pieces at Josef.
Josef knew better than to question the man. “Schnell!” the Kapo ordered.
Josef stepped into the shop where he saw Leon Feldhendler, a former mill owner and rabbi’s son, sanding a board. “Doktor,” he said politely as he relieved Josef of the broken tool and passed it to another man. He indicated that Josef should sit.
“Rumor has it that you are planning to try and take your wife and perhaps the Danish woman and attempt an escape.”
Josef did not reply but kept his eyes on the man repairing the shovel.
“I am asking that you not do this thing,” Leon continued. His tone was conversational, nonthreatening, and polite.
Josef glanced at him.
“I cannot yet say why I must ask this of you,” Leon continued. “But you are an intelligent man, and I believe that if you consider my words carefully, you will understand.”
“I know the dangers,” Josef said.
“No doubt. You are not the first to consider such an idea,” Leon said, and then he grasped Josef by the shoulders. “You will not be the last. I am asking you to trust me when I tell you that the time is not yet right for such a plan.”
Josef shrugged him off and stood. The other carpenter was just completing the attachment of the shovel blade to the handle. “I appreciate the advice. I have to get back to work.”
This time Leon placed his hand lightly on Josef’s forearm. “The only plan that can work, Josef, is one that gives every prisoner the same opportunity.”
Josef’s froze. “That’s insanity—there are nearly five hundred prisoners here.” And as he said the words, he knew that even so this might be their only chance. If Leon’s plan included everyone, then Beth would have to agree to go along with it. “How can I help?”
Leon glanced at the other carpenter, who nodded. “We will be in touch,” Leon said as he walked with Josef to the door. “And Doktor? No one—not even your wife—can know.”
“I understand.”
Outside Josef felt as if he’d been looking at things through blinders. Never once had he considered the idea that they all come together to form some grand escape plan. This was the “family” that Beth always alluded to when she spoke of her Quaker faith—the importance of everyone looking out for everyone else, of always taking time to consider what was best for the greater good instead of the individual.
The Kapo was waiting for him and gave him a slap on the side of his head. “Get back to work,” he ordered, and Josef shied away from the guard’s raised hand, playing his part in the show they were staging for the guards watching them from high atop the main tower.
CHAPTER 21
The small group of men continued to meet in secret through August and into September, and with each meeting Josef grew more and more impatient. He wanted action. He wanted results. The time for talking and ruminating had passed. If they took much longer to come up with a plan, cold weather would set in, and then they would be trapped—not that they weren’t trapped now. But the leaders counseled patience, and because Josef had no choice, he waited.
In late September a transport arrived as usual, and as usual Josef was told to put on the railway uniform and stand by the tracks. But this transport was different. Among the people on this train filled with Jews from Minsk was a group of Russian prisoners of war. They still wore remnants of their uniforms, and they moved with the pride and confidence of soldiers. When the cattle cars were unloaded, the small group of POWs was pulled aside. Later Josef heard that they had been assigned to hard labor in the new Lager IV area where the camp was being expanded to include a munitions operation.
One night when he was called to a meeting with Leon and the small band that the former mill owner had assembled to plan the escape, Josef was surprised to see one of the Russians.
“Josef Buch, this is Sasha Pechersky,” Leon said. “He and his men will be helping us.”
Josef was immediately suspicious, but when he learned that Sasha and the other POWs were not only Russian but also Jewish, he understood why they would join forces with Leon. That night they discussed plans for the actual escape. Someone wanted to build a tunnel, but Sasha pointed out the time it would take not only to dig deep enough to go below the explosives in the minefields but also to move hundreds of people through the tunnel before it was discovered.
Someone else thought that mobilizing the young boys who served as servants to the Nazis and had access to their quarters to kill them while they slept. But that plan was also rejected for several reasons—the boys were not strong enough to overpower a well-fed man, and the act would need to happen in the mornings when the boys were sent to the quarters, meaning the escape would have to happen in daylight, hours from the protection that night time would give them once they reached the woods.
“Whatever we do, we must act soon,” Leon said. “The transports have slowed, and I have learned that they are already beginning to dismantle some of the facilities in Lager III. No doubt they plan to convert or close this camp by the end of the year, and we all know what that means.”
“They don’t call it a death camp for nothing,” one of the men muttered.
“Besides we need to act before the weather turns,” another pointed out.
“So,” Leon said with a heavy sigh. “All we need is a plan.”
The group continued to meet whenever they could as the days passed. Early in October a transport arrived carrying Polish Jews—they were dressed in rags, looked as if they had not eaten in days, and carried very few possessions. It was more evidence that the round-up of Jews was reaching its zenith. Then two of the Kapos came to Sasha, telling him their suspicions that an escape was in the works. The leaders had a choice—include the two Kapos in the plan, or they would expose them. “We have privileges and can move prisoners like you from place to place without suspicion,” one of them reminded him.
The two men were included in the next meeting of the conspirators. Sasha unveiled the plan. “During phase one,” he explained, “we prepare— those with access to warehouses and sorting rooms will gather knives, axes, and other small weapons and deliver them here to our command post. Meanwhil
e we will take up our positions. This phase must be completed by four o’clock.”
They all knew that in the late afternoon the Nazis were free to leave their posts for a coffee break or to take care of personal business such as picking up a new pair of boots at the shoemaker or trying on a new uniform at the tailor’s. No one would think twice about not seeing a particular officer during this time.
“Each of the sixteen Nazi officers will be eliminated during this hour before roll call.”
The assignments were given—the boys were to act as messengers, luring each Nazi stationed in Lager I to either the tailor or cobbler shops at an assigned time. An officer was to be executed every few minutes. In Lager II the SS men would be drawn into some ruse to come to the warehouse where the sorted goods from the transports were stored.
Meanwhile the phone lines would be cut and the generator that controlled the camp’s state-of-the-art lighting system would be disabled. More guns and ammunition would be stolen and given to the leaders of the conspiracy.
Finally when the call for roll call sounded and all prisoners gathered in the main yard to be counted, the Kapos would march them toward the main gate because there were no mine fields between the gate and the forest beyond. The Ukrainian guards took their orders from the SS officers, but with all SS officers dead, the Kapos would simply say that they were under orders to move the prisoners through the gate. Once the gates were open, the prisoners would be told to run, and by the time the guards realized what was happening, it would be too late.
“We go on the thirteenth,” Sasha announced, and Josef felt for the first time since arriving in the camp that freedom was within reach.
Ever since Josef had first spoken to Beth about trying to escape, she had worried that he might become desperate enough to do something foolish. But he had said nothing more about the idea. At the same time, however, she had noticed a tension that she could not explain whenever they were together. One night she told him about the rumor making the rounds that the camp was to be closed.
“You know what that means, Josef—they will kill us all.”
“We will not die here, Liebchen. I promise you that.”
“You cannot know that.”
He turned to her then, taking hold of her face with both hands. “I know you have had cause to doubt me in the past, Beth, but please do not doubt me now. I need to know that you trust me and that when the time comes…”
“I trust you,” she said. “Never doubt that, Josef, whatever happens. It’s just that in this place we have no power.”
“We have power, Beth. You have taught me that. If we will only be still and wait. Is that not what you have taught me?”
“Yes, but…”
“Be still and wait,” he repeated as he kissed her and then walked quickly back to his barracks. “Soon,” he called over his shoulder. “Very soon.”
It sounded like a promise, but she had no idea what he meant, and she worried that he was once again planning something—something that would get them or others killed.
She confided her fears to Anja. But her friend was surprisingly unconcerned.
“Perhaps he is only trying to reassure you,” she said.
“No, this is something different.”
Anja shrugged and turned back to her work.
Later that day Beth saw Anja set aside two pocket watches from the latest shipment of prisoner belongings that they were sorting. As she slipped them into the pocket of her apron, she looked up and saw Beth watching her. Her eyes begged Beth not to question the action.
Of course Beth was well aware that many if not most of the women took things from time to time. They used the items to barter with the Kapos for extra food or other special favors. But she had never seen Anja take anything.
“It’s not for me,” Anja assured her later when the two of them were sitting together, eating their bread.
“It is stealing,” Beth reminded her. “Whatever the reason you give yourself.”
Anja glanced around to be sure she was not overhead. “Beth, we both know that the owners of those watches are dead—murdered by our jailers. Do you not think that if they were alive they would willingly hand over anything we might need to be free of such oppression?”
“I suppose—if it were for the greater good, but…”
“Those watches are for the greater good,” Anja said. “In the end they will help everyone here, and that is all I will say on the matter. If you cannot condone my actions I understand, but let my punishment be the loss of your friendship.”
Beth squeezed Anja’s hand. “I would never desert you.”
“Then trust me,” Anja whispered as a guard passed close to them and frowned.
“Get back to work,” he ordered.
Beth had grown immune to the feelings that had kept her awake nights when she’d first started going through the personal property of people she knew were already dead. Now she did her work as the other women did—almost as if they were working an assembly line in a factory. Every night as she and Josef sat together in silence, she stared at the orange glow of the crematorium fires and prayed for forgiveness.
Trust me, Anja had said before the guard passed by. The words echoed in Beth’s brain as she continued to sort through mounds of clothing, cutting open linings and hems of garments where the doomed prisoners had hidden jewelry and gold and paper money. First Josef and now Anja. Something was going on, and she intended to find out what it was.
Spirits were high as the leadership gathered for their final meeting that evening. Leon had arrived with the news that SS officer Hans Wagner had left that day on vacation. Wagner was the single officer that the group feared the most—he was intelligent and suspicious and made a habit of showing up unannounced in the most unexpected places. He was also a large man and incredibly fit. Killing him would take strength and perhaps more than the homemade knives they had at their disposal.
Josef had made an excuse to leave Beth early so that he could make the meeting at nine. They had an hour before lights out to finalize their plans. Anja had given him the pocket watches that she’d collected over the last several days. He would distribute these to the others so they could synchronize their actions. Timing was the key to success.
But on the following day a car arrived with several SS officers from a nearby labor camp. Josef was working in the garden—harvesting potatoes and the last of the other vegetables, storing small potatoes in a special pocket that he had sewn into the leg of his trousers for them to eat once they escaped.
At first Josef and the others feared that their plan had been discovered. Then they heard the new arrivals and their Sobibor comrades laughing. Later they heard singing coming from the open windows of the SS quarters. Still the addition of several new Nazis had to be taken into consideration. Word spread quickly among the rebels, and the plan to act that day was scrapped.
That night as he sat with Beth and heard the drunken and bawdy laughter and slamming of car doors as the visiting SS men left the camp, Josef faced for the first time the dangers of what they were about to do. So many unpredictable details. What if the officer scheduled to be lured to the warehouse by the promise of a new leather coat refused to come? What if the man with the appointment to try on new boots arrived early while his comrade was being killed? What if…
“Josef?”
He turned his attention to his wife—this woman that he had come to love more than life itself. If he could just get her out of here…
“Tell me the plan,” she said quietly.
“The plan?”
“I have seen you talking with the Russian and with Leon Feldhendler. Tell me what is going on.”
He could not lie to her. “I have asked that you trust me,” he reminded her.
“I do trust you. But I want you to also trust me—and I want to help.”
“The danger is…”
“Anja is helping you, isn’t she?”
Just then Sasha walked past them, his arm ar
ound a woman named Luka. The other women in the barracks had teased Luka—who was only eighteen—about her romance with the tall, handsome Russian. But Josef knew that Luka was acting as a decoy, giving Sasha and Leon and the other leaders opportunities for passing information right under the noses of the Ukrainian guards patrolling the alley between the fences that separated them from the garrison where the SS quarters were.
“Tomorrow,” Sasha murmured as he passed, and then he laughed and pulled Luka closer to his side.
Adrenaline pumped through Josef’s veins. He turned to Beth and grasped her hands. “Tomorrow when you dress for work, wear an extra sweater—a jacket if you can do so without drawing suspicion,” he told her. “And your heaviest shoes.”
“What’s happening?”
“Please don’t ask me anything more, Beth. Just…be ready.”
The following morning as Beth prepared for roll call and the day’s work, she noticed that Anja had also put on extra clothing. “Chilly today,” Anja said, loud enough for the others to hear. “Best take your sweaters and jackets just in case the evening roll call is a long one.”
The others nodded. They saw nothing odd in what Anja was advising. Too many times they had all stood for hours in a downpour or ninety-degree heat. It was always best to be prepared.
But the autumn day was warm and sunny and so routine that Beth began to think that perhaps something had gone wrong. The only difference was the sound of the Kapo’s shrill whistle that signaled the evening roll call fifteen minutes early. As usual the woman in the sorting room stopped what they were doing and moved quickly to the assembly area. Beth was aware only of the absence of SS officers and a murmur spreading through the gathering like a brush fire.
“Revolt…escape…”
Rabbi Weiss stepped out of the men’s barracks. He was wearing the prayer shawl that he wore every night when he gathered the others to say the prayer of mourning for those killed that day. He stood in the middle of the yard, swaying back and forth as he murmured to himself.