The truck pulled into the Krakow railway station, and the guards ordered us out. We had never seen them before; the three of them were very young and treated us well, although they seemed to have had orders to guard us very closely. We tried to find out where they were taking us, but they were not forthcoming. They led us through the station to a track with a sign over it that read “Nach Berlin.” Was it possible? Berlin!
The other travelers stared at us, three armed SS guarding nine Jews in striped suits. I felt like an exotic animal on the way to the circus. Our guards took us into a waiting train, also marked “Berlin.” It was a Pullman car, with separate compartments joined by a long, narrow corridor. Standing in the corridor were German women with children—Volksdeutsche, apparently, who were afraid of being caught by the Russians in their next big thrust to the west—and a lot of German soldiers, some wounded, others probably on leave from the Russian front. There was a feeling of evacuation, of crowds on the move, but not of panic. To make way for us our guards pushed slowly through the mass of people, who whispered and pointed at us. Every compartment we passed was jammed, with not even standing room left. In the middle of a car our guards stopped at a compartment that was empty—reserved for us, it seemed. They let us in and stationed themselves at the door.
What a farce! In this train, for a change, the Germans were packed in like sardines, while nine Jewish prisoners rode in comfort in a private compartment! We took out our bread and margarine, but were careful to eat only part of it, not knowing how long it would have to last. Through the window we saw a mob of frantic people trying to force their way in. Some were screaming at the conductors because they had tickets for the trip but couldn’t get on the train.
Just outside our compartment was a colonel of the Wehrmacht sitting on his trunk. His leg was all bandaged, and the bandage was soaked with blood. Prominent on his chest was the Iron Cross, which was awarded only for exceptional bravery. He politely asked our guards to let him into our compartment so that he could lie down, but they told him they had orders to keep us separated from everyone else. The colonel tried to reason with them, but they insisted they could make no exceptions. He grew more and more angry, and finally burst into a tirade against the SS, literally foaming at the mouth, screaming that here he was, a colonel of the Wehrmacht who had shed his blood for the Fatherland, having to defer to a bunch of lazy cowards who were using the damned Jews as an excuse not to fight. At first our guards didn’t answer him; one of them tried to explain again that they were just following orders, but the colonel would have none of it. Now the other Germans on the train entered the fray, one woman screaming that her children were worn out and the dirty Jews were keeping them from their sleep.
All this was making me nervous. If it continued, some higher-up in the Gestapo or the SS might come and take our compartment away from us. Fortunately, just then the train started to pull out of the station. We were surprised to see anybody, even a colonel, daring to rebuke the SS in public. Either the legendary German discipline was breaking down, or the SS was losing its power to terrorize. The whole scene was very funny, but of course we didn’t dare laugh or even crack a smile.
The train rolled northward, making frequent stops, and at every station crowds of people were frantically trying to board it. Soon we arrived at the German frontier, where frontier inspectors came on board to check everyone’s papers. They too were surprised to see us all alone in the compartment, and had a prolonged discussion about it with our guards. Finally the train pulled out again, and there we were—inside Germany. Where on earth could they be taking us? Our professor was from Berlin, so perhaps we were going to a big concentration camp in Oranienburg, which was not far from Berlin. We all felt more hopeful than we had permitted ourselves to be in a long time, although it was still hard to believe that the SS would ever let us survive, unless the war ended so suddenly that they had no chance to kill us first.
We passed Breslau, a major German city, and were still heading north, toward Berlin. We had now been on the train for several hours, and some of us had to go to the toilet—a major undertaking. We had to go singly, always with a guard accompanying us. When my turn came, I realized that I had almost forgotten that there was such a thing as a normal toilet, with a seat. What a fantastic luxury!
Night fell, and the guards warned us against any attempt to escape—unnecessarily, for what would we do in the middle of Germany with nothing but our striped prison suits? We lay down on the benches to get some sleep. There was plenty of room for us all to stretch out comfortably, which gave the colonel another fit when he saw us do it.
When we woke up in the morning, we saw signs saying that Berlin was only a hundred kilometers away. We were deep inside Germany. It was the first time in my life that I had been outside Poland, and the villages and farms looked cleaner and more prosperous than those I had known. Soon we were approaching the suburbs of Berlin. I felt joy in my heart at the sight of the great tracts of rubble caused by the pounding the outskirts of the city had been getting from the Allied bombers.
We pulled into the Berlin station a little before noon. Our guards waited until all the passengers left the train before ordering us out. The station was very busy and crowded, and as we walked through it with our SS escort we attracted a lot more attention. They led us downstairs to the subway. We were once again anxious to know where they were taking us, but they refused to give us any clues. One thing was obvious; neither of them knew the city, because they had to keep stopping people to ask for directions. We arrived at the subway platform eventually, and waited for our train. It arrived and the doors opened, disgorging a crowd of passengers. The guards waited until everyone else had boarded the train, then let us in. Apparently they had never ridden the subway before, because after the nine of us were inside the car the doors suddenly closed in front of their noses, and they were left standing outside as the train pulled out. They ran after it along the platform, but it was too late. For a few seconds we could see them running alongside us in dismay, helplessly waving their arms.
The other passengers didn’t know what had happened; all they saw was nine people they assumed to be criminals, and no one guarding them. Most of them fled to the ends of the car, getting as far away from us as possible, leaving us standing alone in the middle. We too were shocked and confused by this bizarre turn of events. To those few who hadn’t run away, we tried to explain what had happened, in order to have witnesses that we hadn’t attempted to escape.
When the train pulled into the next station, we decided to stay on it. We found we were on a line that circled Berlin, and the train would soon return to the stop where we had lost our guards; we could only hope that they would be smart enough to wait for us at the station where we had become separated. In the meantime, as new passengers kept getting in at the stations along the way, we kept repeating our explanation to anyone who would listen. It was like a scene from a comedy skit, but we were too scared to see the humor of it. After half an hour or so, we had come back to the station where we had lost our guards. There was no sign of them. Our safest course, we decided, was to stay in the car. Arno was especially helpful, since he spoke perfect German and was able to explain the situation to each new batch of passengers that entered the car. We kept circling Berlin; when we returned to our original station for the second or third time, there were our three hapless guards waiting on the platform. They were simple country boys who had become so unnerved at losing us that they had jumped on the next train. They had been following us as we circled around Berlin, until someone advised them to go back to the station where we became separated and wait for us there. We were all very happy to see one another, and I practically had to restrain myself from embracing them.
This time we all got on the train together, and after a few stops we got off and into another railway station, where after about a half-hour wait we boarded a train marked “Nach Hamburg.” This one wasn’t full, and our separate compartment caused no commotion. Once again we
were traveling through the German countryside, the North German plain. It was very flat and not as densely populated as the area south of Berlin. We still had no idea where they were taking us.
When it was almost evening, the train pulled into a small railway station, where, to our surprise and disappointment, we saw a sign “To Ravensbrück.” We had hoped that perhaps they were taking us someplace other than another concentration camp. Ravensbrück, we knew, was the largest women’s concentration camp in Germany; we hadn’t known there were any men there.
Our guards led us out of the train and marched us toward the huge barbed wire enclosure, which had dozens of guard towers. We walked past several separate sections of the camp, and finally stopped in front of a small one that had only seven or eight buildings. Our guards showed their papers to the SS guards at the gate, who let us in. They separated the female “mathematician” from the rest of us and took her away, apparently to the women’s camp. Inside we were met by an SS officer accompanied by a German Lagerälteste wearing the green triangle that meant he was a criminal. He was a large man who looked a little like Lionel Barrymore. Our guards turned our papers over to the officer, saluted, and left. At the sight of our yellow triangles the Lagerälteste exclaimed, “Juden! What are you doing here? I thought there were no more Jews left!” Stark tried to tell him about our mathematics commando, which only irritated him. “What kind of shit is this?” he yelled. “We’ll soon take care of you!”
Ravensbrück
We went through the reception routine (shower, search, and so forth) and were given our new prisoner numbers. This time Sam and I didn’t have to worry about hiding our money; we had none left. Compared with the camps in Poland, the latrine was clean, which made me very happy. Everywhere we went we created a sensation among the other prisoners, who couldn’t believe that the SS were bringing Jews back to concentration camps inside Germany. They asked us many questions, and when we told them that we were a special mathematics commando, most were surprised and skeptical. The barracks we were assigned to were similar to the ones in Poland, but not nearly so crowded.
Our Stubenälteste, Karl, was very curious about the details of our mathematical work. We told him that it was top secret, and that we had received strict orders not to discuss it with anyone. Karl, a blue-eyed blond, was very quick and alert, a street-smart Berliner, and he wasn’t about to buy our story. He and the other prisoners in key positions seemed to treat the inmates decently, and the atmosphere in Ravensbrück was not as tense as in the other camps.
After having known only camps where prisoners were almost entirely Jewish (except for our short stay in Majdanek), it felt strange to be surrounded by Gentiles. Here the outlook for surviving the war was much more hopeful; there was no pervasive feeling that all prisoners would be killed before the end of the war. I still had a piece of bread left from our trip, and I ate it with the soup they dished out for dinner. It was a little thicker than the soup in Płaszów and had a few pieces of potato and turnip in it. After supper I lay down on my new bunk, thinking of Fred, Felek, and Hanka. I hoped they were all still alive and well.
My neighbor in the tier of bunks was a French prisoner of war whose name I don’t recall, a very nice and friendly man who was delighted that I spoke a little French. He was an electrician, and worked most of the time doing repairs in the adjoining huge women’s concentration camp. I was glad to have someone to practice my French on, and soon was able to understand him. He told me some interesting things about the women’s camp. It held about forty thousand women, and it was nightmarish. The SS female guards were exceptionally cruel, and tens of thousands of the women prisoners from all over Europe—many of them sent there after the Warsaw uprising of 1944—were dying from the continual beatings, not to mention the hunger. On top of that, German doctors were using the prisoners to conduct medical experiments. One of the barracks was called the “rabbit block,” where hundreds of women were being injected with various chemicals, subjected to surgical operations, and generally treated as if they were rabbits. Ravensbrück also had a gas chamber where the sick and weak were gassed and then burned in ovens.
The prisoners who held positions of power, the Blockälteste and the Kapos, were mostly Polish women, who had developed a highly organized system of extortion and bribery. Food and many other things were obtainable in exchange for gold and precious stones. In Ravensbrück too the prisoners received smaller rations of bread and margarine than they were supposed to, because the Kapos and Blockälteste were holding some of it back to sell. They had become utterly dehumanized; many of them had become lesbians, and whenever a new transport of prisoners arrived in the camp, they would select the prettiest among them and force them to become their lovers. Others, who had remained “straight,” were always on the lookout for the chance for some quick sex with the male prisoners who were occasionally brought in from the male camp to do specialized jobs. For this privilege they paid off the SS guards with gold and jewelry that they extorted from the newly arrived prisoners. The Frenchman’s graphic account of the brutality of these women made a deep impression on me. I had somehow expected women to be less savage than men.
I was tired after our long trip, and despite our confusion and uncertainty I fell sound asleep that night and didn’t wake up until morning, when we each got our piece of bread and bit of marmalade, and went out for the Appel. It was cold, but fortunately the count didn’t take long. After the various work commandos left, only the eight of us remained standing. The Lagerälteste asked the SS officer in charge what to do with us, but apparently didn’t get any help from him. Frustrated, he came back and after some hesitation told us to go to the yard behind his barracks and chop wood. We were very disappointed; something must have gone wrong. Again we had been sent as a group to a new camp, where they had received no instructions as to what to do with us.
The eight of us spent the day chopping wood with no supervision. Just before the evening Appel the Lagerälteste came back, accused us of laziness, and cursed us out. But he was clearly as confused as we were, and didn’t know what to make of us.
This went on for about a week. To keep us busy we were given various work assignments within the camp, such as cleaning the latrine, chopping wood, and unloading supplies. The other prisoners didn’t bother us, and we became friendly with a few of them. The population of the camp consisted of a motley mixture of French and Russian prisoners of war, Gypsies, German political prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, and Bibelforschers (Jehovah’s Witnesses and conscientious objectors). Bibelforschers wore lavender triangles and were wonderful, decent people. They were very idealistic, very serene, and even though some of the guards and the Kapos treated them with contempt, they never replied, defended themselves, or complained in any way. I deeply admired these people for their courage and moral strength.
Some of the political prisoners were also exceptional human beings. They too were singled out by the SS guards for harsh treatment. I got to know one of them. His name was Willie, and he was one of the bravest men I have ever met. He was of medium build, with piercing, intelligent eyes and a ready smile. Willie always seemed to have a cold and kept blowing his nose all the time. He had been active in the German Communist party and had been in and out of concentration camps ever since Hitler had come to power, when Willie was still a teenager. He was very outspoken in his scorn for the Nazis, and when a guard hit a prisoner in his presence he would protest loudly, sometimes even placing himself between the guard and his victim. He would often get beaten up himself, but that never discouraged him. I was fascinated by Willie’s bravery and his willingness to absorb punishment, even risking his life sometimes for complete strangers. Such extraordinary courage was in stark contrast to the behavior of the rest of the prisoners.
Since Ravensbrück was my fourth concentration camp, I had observed certain behavioral patterns in prisoners, and in my mind I had divided them into four basic categories. A small number were simply brutal by nature; many of these became
Kapos or Stubenälteste. A fairly large number of the others were people of low character. Within days of their arrival in the camps they would start stealing, begging, pushing themselves in front of the others, with total indifference to everyone else. The third group consisted of people who were honest and wouldn’t hurt anybody, but never went out of their way to help others. Their attitude was “Don’t bother me, and I won’t bother you.”
Finally, there was a rather small number of people like Richie or Bencio, always kind to others, trying to be helpful as far as they could, never taking advantage of other prisoners. They were the moral elite, and always behaved in a way that showed their “class” no matter how terrible the circumstances; something within them refused to become dehumanized and demoralized. In the brutal atmosphere of concentration camps, there could be no pretense, no concealing one’s true nature; it was there for anyone to see.
I felt sorry for the Gypsies, who were there simply because they had been born Gypsies, and for no other reason. They were not being exterminated en masse like the Jews, but they had all been herded into camps, where they were at the mercy of the SS, who often made fun of them.
I Shall Live Page 24