The Girls of Room 28

by Hannelore Brenner

  March 6, 1944, was my boyfriend Harry’s thirteenth birthday. I made a little heart out of the clay of Auschwitz for him and inscribed it: “To Harry on his birthday from Eva, March 6, 1944.” The next day—it was T. G. Masaryk’s birthday—there was a lockdown, and no one was allowed to leave our block. Those from the September transport had to move to a neighboring camp. Someone called over the fence, “Fredy je otráveny,” which in Czech means both to be in a bad mood and to be poisoned. I can still recall my father trying to comfort me with the first version. But we soon learned the terrible truth.

  Fredy Hirsch had taken his life. When he saw that resistance was pointless, he swallowed poison. The next day, March 8, 1944, the entire September transport, except for those with infectious illnesses, were gassed, including four girls from our room—Pavla Seiner, Olilie Löwy, Zdenka Löwy, and Ruth Popper. My father died on April 13. Only our December transport was still left in the Family Camp. People talked quite openly about how we were to be gassed six months after our arrival.

  Eva Weiss, the girls’ counselor, had also arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau with Transport Dr on December 15. Her orders had come as a shock to her—she was the only one in her family to be transported. And so she had to set out by herself, “on the most mysterious of all journeys,” as she says when she begins to describe her experiences. “It was a trauma.” To this day Eva has tears in her eyes when she remembers the day she had to say goodbye.

  A great deal has been said and written about that trip in cattle cars, and it’s all true. It was horrible. Locked up for three days without food, without water, barely enough air to breathe. I’ll never forget the moment of our arrival, it was deepest winter, the ground covered with snow. It was like a sudden storm sweeping over all our senses: blinding spotlights aimed directly at our eyes, which had grown used to darkness after three days in the cattle cars; shouts and—this was the worst part—the barking of savage, fierce dogs. We could barely see and couldn’t understand what was happening. All I wanted was— water! Despite all the threats I clung to my little backpack, which contained my most cherished things—above all my photo album. In the forced march to one of the buildings I managed to scoop up a little snow and put it in my mouth—what a wonderful relief that was.

  They crammed us into an empty block, where a few girls were sitting behind a table. They were wearing striped uniforms, and their heads were shaved. We didn’t know where we were. Then some of the girls—they spoke mainly Polish and Slovak—came over to us and demanded our valuables. They said that we wouldn’t be needing them anymore. It was like a dream, and I gave them my watch. I don’t know when or how, but my precious backpack vanished at some point. The girls at the table registered us one after the other and tattooed a number on our arms. Mine was 73673. I told myself that this number wasn’t the worst possible number.

  Then we were led to the so-called sauna; we had to undress and leave our clothes behind. We were searched in every possible spot for any valuables, and then we had to stand under the shower, which poured out ice-cold water. Since I didn’t have my mother with me and was feeling feverish, I joined up with my friend Eva Schlachet, whose mother was with her. I was sick, and they were both very kind to me. Time passed, and I can see myself in a blue coat and with shoes that felt very strange, walking along a path between barbed wire fences. Because I had a fever, I have only a vague recollection of it all. Then I ended up on a bunk beside Zuzanna Růžičková—who is now a famous musician in Prague. She and her mother looked after me. I must have contracted dysentery from that snow I ate. I fainted at the first roll call.

  We were housed in separate blocks—men, women, and children. Our camp was called B II b in Birkenau. I don’t remember much, except that I felt terribly abandoned without my mother. Slowly I recovered and began to take part in the “activities.”

  A few days later Fredy Hirsch came and took me with him to Block 31—the so-called children’s block. I was greeted very warmly. I knew most of the counselors from Theresienstadt, and many of the children as well, some of whom were from Room 28. I remember being so happy to see Poppinka [Ruth Popper] and Pavla Seiner and Olilie again. They had been in the camp since September, and some, like Eva Landa, had arrived on my transport. I remember Eva very well, because she was an anchor in my group, very pretty and full of energy. I know there were other girls as well, but I don’t recall their names.

  I was a substitute mother to many of the orphans, a substitute mother under extreme conditions. It was my job to play with them and give them lessons—without books or any other materials. The important thing was to make them forget where they were and what was happening around them. We played word games, sang, danced, even memorized parts for plays and skits, which the children then put on. One of these was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and another was Robinson Crusoe. There were lots of optimistic songs, always with a happy end. Sometimes the SS men would come by and watch us; some of them, or so it seemed to me, turned sentimental. Maybe they were thinking of their own children.

  All the older children, and, I think, many of the younger ones, understood only too well what was happening around us. There was no way not to see the chimneys with flames shooting out at the top. The smoke permeated the air. “No one leaves here except up through the chimney”—how often we heard that statement!

  The neighboring camps were used as transit camps. We could see across the fence. One day we discovered a friend from the Zionist movement. It was Dov Revesz, a Hungarian. He was too exhausted to call back to us. The next day the camp was empty.

  We heard Russian prisoners nearby for a few days, singing their beautiful, melancholy songs. At times we even chimed in. Sometimes we sang Czech and Hebrew songs. But soon the Russian soldiers were no longer there.

  We celebrated Jewish holidays and even solemnly observed the Sabbath. When someone had a birthday, we threw a little party. We didn’t have much to eat, but we saved up something from our tiny rations—a little slice of our bread, which seemed as though it had been made from sawdust, a bit of margarine, and, when we had it, a smidgen of turnip marmalade. Those were the ingredients for our “birthday cake.” I recall that I once decorated a couple of them to look like dominos.

  Directly across from our block was the hospital where Dr. Mengele conducted his experiments with twins. And there were twins among us as well whom he was interested in. When Mengele showed up, the cry passed from barracks to barracks like a jungle telegram, “Twins to thirty-two,” and then all the twins had to report to him. I remember the Salus twins from Brno, who both had one blue eye and one brown eye. That shout of “Twins to thirty-two!” was almost something of a joke. We had no idea about his awful experiments. And I suppose we simply didn’t want to believe the rumors about them.

  In February there were rumors that the entire September transport would be sent to a labor camp—to “Heydebreck,” as the SS put it. The rumor came from the Auschwitz underground movement, whose members were mainly Communists. Although it all looked quite hopeless, Fredy Hirsch and some of his counselors—I remember one of them, Hugo Lengsfeld—discussed plans for an uprising. I seem to recall that someone had smuggled a hand grenade and some matches into the camp. We were told what to do if worse came to worst.

  Early in March, the SS gave each of us a postcard. We were told that we could write to our relatives on the outside. We were allowed only thirty words, and we had to date them about one or two weeks ahead. I think the date was March 26. Of course we all tried to guess what this was about. It was quite unusual. We tried to use the thirty words to say where we were and what was happening to us. We had to write our messages in code and hope that they would be understood. For example, we used the name of someone who was dead and wrote that we had met him. Or we wrote that we had met Mavet—which is Hebrew for “death.” All the cards arrived. But by the time they did, most of the people who had written them were already dead.

  March 7, 1944, will always remain in my memory. The day began w
ith a lockdown, a sure sign that something was about to happen. All the people from the September transport, and also some children of my group, had to move to the neighboring camp. There was a lot of shouting. I can still recall that I was in Fredy’s room, but I no longer recall what we spoke about. I didn’t know that all of them were to be gassed. He knew; that’s for certain. But he didn’t say a word.

  Our rebellion never took place. And Fredy, our leader and inspiration, took poison, fell into a coma, and was carried out. The camp was very quiet afterward—as though after a defeat.

  The news that spread through the camp the next day was horrifying: the entire September transport had gone to the gas chambers. They died with many of them singing the Czech national anthem or “Hatikvah” or the “Internationale.” We knew the same fate awaited us at the end of June, six months after our arrival.

  We had lost a good many counselors, but we kept up our work, mourning for all those we missed. Fredy Hirsch’s position was taken over by Seppl Lichtenstein, who was also connected with the underground. We had to get used to the idea that we didn’t have long to live. We made jokes about it, and even laughed—because that was the only way we could bear it.

  We went on singing and playing just as before. We had a little space outside where we could do sports, jump around, and dance. Off to one side we could see the chimneys, the embers of their flames against the sky, and sometimes terrible screams would reach us—at one point children were simply tossed into the fire. On the other side we could see barbed wire and the railroad tracks beyond, where trains arrived day and night. By then it was primarily Jews from Hungary. Most of them went directly into the gas chambers.

  It was around noon on May 11, 1944, when news of more transports to the East exploded like a bomb in Theresienstadt. On the streets, in the barracks and Homes, the dreaded word haunted every conversation: “transport.” It was said to be for seventy-five hundred people. Who would be included this time? And the guessing began all over again as to who would receive that ominous slip of paper. Some said it would be mainly old people and TB patients, while others said that it would affect men of working age.

  Fredy Hirsch. There is no way today to find out for certain whether Fredy Hirsch committed suicide or if, in order to prevent an uprising, camp doctors intentionally gave him an overdose of the sedatives that he had asked for. There are several contradictory versions. One thing, however, is certain: Fredy Hirsch faced a hopeless situation. He was aware that no uprising could save the lives of the children under his care.

  Only a few could lull themselves into a sense of relative security: the so-called Mischlinge (children of mixed marriages), those who had been awarded important medals during the war, their families, and those who had been designated as “prominent.”7 Rumor had it that the municipal orchestra, the community guards, and the fire department were also protected—they were still needed. But all the others?

  The transport orders had already been prepared. “At 7 A.M. on May 13th,” Otto Pollak wrote, “Joška arrives with the bad news that Hermann, Trude, and Lea are on the transport. Helga arrives with Lea at the office unannounced. At the sight of that beaming, smiling childish face and at the thought of such an innocent creature departing for who knows what, I start to cry. I go out on the veranda. Helga, with tears rolling down her cheeks, follows and says in real pain: ‘I feel as if my little sister will be leaving.’ ”

  Seventy-five hundred people got ready for transport. In Room 28 it was Erika Stránská, Alice Sittig, Ruth Schächter (Zajíček), Miriam Rosenzweig, and Hanka Wertheimer who packed their suitcases and bags. “My mother told me that we had to leave. She was very sick at the time,” Hanka recalls. “She had always hoped that Jakob Edelstein, the chief Jewish elder, would help keep her off the transports. She knew him personally, from Brno, through her membership in the Zionist organization Blue-White. But he had long since left the ghetto. On May 15 we all boarded Transport Dz—my mother, my grandmother, my great-aunt, and me. My friend Miriam from Room 28 was on it, too.”

  The many goodbyes began. “You know, after the war: Olbramovice 1,” Handa said while she hugged her friend. And Hanka replied as she had so many times: “After the war I’ll wait for you under the Old Bell Tower on the Old City Ring.” Nothing could shake her faith: the war would soon be over, they would all see each other again in Prague, and one day they would emigrate to Eretz Yisrael. Others were less confident. It was hardest to say goodbye to Zajíček, who was being deported along with her brother Alexander.

  Tears. Hugs. Words of comfort—imparting brave or forlorn serenity in the face of an inescapable fate. And some final gift for a comrade— a slice of bread, a piece of gingerbread from a recent package, a warm sweater. Those “departing” needed to know that they were all still bound together.

  It was almost impossible to sleep. Everyone was depressed, even Marianne Deutsch, although she had an unusual reason. She felt almost a little envious that she “ wasn’t allowed to go,” that she could not get away from Theresienstadt, which she detested, from the involuntary community of Room 28, where she did not feel at all at home. Wherever they were going, it couldn’t be worse than here, she thought. “I was naïve, a child,” she would say later. “I didn’t know what those transports to the East really meant.”

  Handa, by contrast, was filled with deep forebodings, as a poem in her notebook reveals:

  I walk down the stairs

  Alone, lost in my thoughts

  Outside peace and quiet reign

  The quiet of the night

  That I so love

  The moon rises

  Shining through the fog

  Stands there, alone

  Like an eye that’s weeping

  The cross on the church

  Shimmers silver

  Here and there a ray of light

  Pierces a window

  I keep on walking

  Down the stairs

  The moon emerges from the fog

  Adorned with a wreath of tears

  Every puddle sparkles like a star

  I keep on walking

  Lost in my thoughts

  I watch as the wind

  Brushes through the trees

  As the town sleeps

  As everything sleeps

  I keep on walking

  Lost in my thoughts.

  The light behind the windows

  Has gone out

  My eye is lost in the fog

  Of the beauty that surrounds me

  My thoughts

  Twist and turn inside my head

  And my head burns

  Like white-hot iron

  Handa Pollak, from her notebook, Všechno, 1944

  The suitcases and the backpacks were packed. On May 14, Otto Pollak noted: “Said our early morning goodbyes to Hermann, See Strasse 16, and to Trude and Lea. They are all calm and resigned. At ten o’clock last night Hermann and I agreed upon a code for our letters.”

  “We watched people moving down the street, dragging their bags and suitcases, their transport numbers hung around their necks, and we were terribly afraid,” Judith Schwarzbart recalls. “No one knew where they were going. No one knew what the Germans had in mind. No one knew if we would ever see one another again. And the people passing below us there, they were afraid, too.”

  Among them were Mimi Sander and her mother, Frau Porges. “Unforgettable sight,” Otto Pollak wrote in his diary that same day. “Hugo in the little wagon. Mother Porges bracing herself at the rear. Mimi, composed and holding her head up high, linking arms with her stooping mother. Gustav is pulling the wagon. Hugo’s steering shaft breaks. Let’s hope it’s not a bad omen.”

  Miriam and Hanka also made their way to the Hamburg Barracks. Everything was in an uproar. In one part of the building people were assembling to be transported out; in another part were new arrivals from other transports. Suddenly amid the throng Hanka spotted Eva Ginz, a friend and former classmate from the Jewish School in Pr
ague and the sister of Petr Ginz. “I can still see her there before me,” Hanka recalls. “I’m standing under the porch and we wave to each other from a distance. I’m leaving Theresienstadt and Eva is just arriving.” It was a reunion and a goodbye all in one. Neither knew what lay before her.

  May 15. “Hermann, Trude, and Lea left in a cattle car at two o’clock.” The total number was twenty-five hundred people; this was the first group. The lists for the second were already prepared. Another mass of people moved toward the assembly point in the Hamburg Barracks, where both L 2 and the train tracks ran along the rear facade. Countless trains, loaded with thousands of human beings, had been rolling in the direction of Auschwitz. These transport hubs for transports were referred to as “sluices.”

  In reality, the entire ghetto had become a sluice. “An endless stream of hundreds of thousands of lives poured in,” Jindřich Flusser has written, “slowing down for a moment as the water level rose, seemingly calm, until it reached the brink of the sluice. This space had the capacity for up to 35,000 naked human lives. They were herded here from Prague and Vitkovice, from Hamburg and Vienna. The water level kept rising— until the sluice was emptied. Men and women and children were washed by the thousands, even tens of thousands, out of this dusty basin and borne eastward on a river of death.”8

  Flaška, Helga, and many of the other girls had volunteered to lend a hand. Wearing white headscarves and red armbands, they sneaked into the Hamburg Barracks to do the one thing within their power: to give comfort to their families and friends.

  The transport list for the third group was posted. Judith’s brother Gideon was on the list. “It all went very quickly. Suddenly he was assigned to his group. We didn’t even see each other. We couldn’t say goodbye to him.”

  At the last moment, camp commandant Karl Rahm unexpectedly intervened in the transport procedures and crossed out the names of a few young people on the list. Why? The answer was soon apparent: They were needed as walk-ons for the great hoax. But by now the elderly and the frail had no chance.