Scheisshaus Luck: Surviving the Unspeakable in Auschwitz and Dora
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I raised the body up a little, like somebody who was stirring, then let it fall back.
‘‘Oh, let Pressburger alone,’’ I said. ‘‘He didn’t get any sleep last night.’’
The coughing fit of a patient on the next tier distracted Janec.
He took a second ration out of the basket and handed it to me.
‘‘Promise me that you’ll give it to him.’’
‘‘You know that I look after him,’’ I said.
Janec nodded and continued on his rounds.
After I had eaten my fill, I feared what the Pole would do when he discovered my trick, but Janec was in good humor. He had a voucher to soak his biscuit at the camp’s bordello that he had obtained with the contents of a package sent by his family. That’s how he had landed the privileged post of orderly—by paying for it.
Many German and Polish Ha¨ftlinge were able to buy a hell of a lot of favors with the packages they received. I smiled at the irony of PART II | AUSCHWITZ
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the peasant woman who toiled and denied herself so she could send food to her imprisoned husband, which gave him the opportunity to be unfaithful to her.
After Janec left that afternoon I alerted the orderlies that Pressburger was dead. Unceremoniously, they dragged his body out to a nearby shed. The following morning a Ha¨ftling threw his body onto the bed of a truck loaded down with the camp’s dead, and by that evening the only testimony to Pressburger’s existence was smoke and ashes.
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C H A P T E R 1 1
I walked out of the HKB two days after Pressburger’s death by no means the picture of health, but feeling damn good for a Ha¨ftling. I might even have put on a couple of pounds. Since no one in the HKB remembered that my Block had gone up in flames, and the Kommandos had already marched off to the plant, I wound up wandering aimlessly about the camp’s grounds. Except for the Maintenance Kommando, Monowitz was empty. It felt strange to be alone in the camp, but it felt stranger not to have some menial task to perform. I expected at any moment a Kapo or Vorarbeiter to rush up, eager to beat me into the ground since an idle Ha¨ftling was a sin to
‘‘the god with a moustache.’’
I considered how long it would take me to locate Hubert. He had never gotten word to me of his new Block number or Kommando, and I had stopped pestering Janec after the Pole brought up the possibility that my schoolmate was dead. Yes, it was a definite possibility, but one that I wasn’t about to entertain. As far as I was concerned Hubert was sleeping in one of the Blocks, and it was in my best interest to find out which one as quickly as possible.
I went to where my old Block stood to see if the rubble had been 113
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removed. Not only had they cleared the debris, construction on a new barracks was well under way.
The gallows still stood at the edge of the Appelplatz. It was unlike the boches not to cart it away after an execution. Without the rope the wooden structure looked benign and comically unfunc-tional. If only I could wipe away those strangled faces.
Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the green triangle Kapo walk up behind me. ‘‘ Arbeitest du im Lager?’’ (Are you working in the camp?)
With some apprehension, I handed him my release paper from the HKB and explained my situation. By the number on his Kapo armband I knew that he was in charge of the Transportation Kommando.
‘‘You’ll work for me,’’ he said. ‘‘Two of my men were hurt in an accident.’’
What luck, I thought, but I wasn’t so sure after he told me that one of the injured men had lost his foot when the Kipp Lore (tilt lorry) he was pushing rolled back over him.
‘‘Come, I’ll straighten it out with the Schreibstube.’’
Since I preferred never to set eyes on the Arbeitseinsatzfu¨hrer again, I was relieved that the Kapo had me wait at the steps of the administration barracks. It took only a few minutes for him to straighten things out. ‘‘You’re mine for a couple of days, ’til I get some new arrivals from quarantine.’’
The Transportation Kommando was responsible for moving supplies from the rail yard to the warehouses, factory buildings, and construction sites. This was all done with two-wheel carts that six to eight men pulled by a long rope while two or three others kept the load balanced. The Kommando also collected the camp’s dead and shepherded them to Birkenau’s crematoriums some five miles away.
As we lined up in our Kommandos the following morning, the Kapo informed me that I would be working on the Leichenwagen (hearse) with him. I was overjoyed to be able to leave Monowitz for the day. I might get lucky and speak with a Ha¨ftling from the main PART II | AUSCHWITZ
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camp or Birkenau who would have information on the fate of the women from my transport. But when the bed of the truck was half full of dead Muselma¨nner, I began to question my eagerness. I had had my fill of dead bodies in the HKB. Was a day outside the barbed wire worth staring at all those distorted faces? The Kapo must have seen it in my face. ‘‘Look without seeing, boy,’’ he laughed, slapping me on the back.
Making my way along a row of Blocks with a pushcart saddled with two corpses, the Blokowa (female barracks supervisor) of the Puff, the camp’s bordello, waved me over. This green triangle, a buxom, butch blonde, had the habit of hurling obscenities at us from the whorehouse doorway as we marched to work in the mornings. The Puff was located in the middle of the camp. It was a regular barracks encircled by a barbed-wired fence with an SS guard on duty around the clock. Once in a while I would see a woman’s face at one of the windows, but none of them ever came outside.
Every evening, Ha¨ftlinge, mainly Kapos, were lined up at the entrance. Since their time was limited, the guard would always be seen pushing out half-dressed laggards with the butt of his gun.
I had been in the Puff once before, months earlier, not for pleasure but to deliver towels from the camp’s laundry facility. When I approached the Block that Sunday afternoon, I was scared. If I found Stella inside it would have broken me, dooming me for a ride on the back of a truck. With the Blokowa’s quarters at the far end of the barracks, I had to pass a honeycomb of makeshift cubicles with no doors or curtains, and I couldn’t stop myself from peering into each one. I didn’t see Stella, but I did get a quick lesson on how cold and mechanical sex can be. Most of the couples seemed as detached as stray dogs humping on a street corner, except for one happy fellow, who, without missing a stroke, gave me a wave and a big smile as I went by.
Heading back to my Block that day, I realized that if Stella had been in one of those cubicles, it shouldn’t shatter my hopes. It would be ridiculous to be jealous and forlorn if it meant her survival. But as I walked down the hall this time, to retrieve the body 116
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of a young woman who had slashed her wrists, my heart pounded again. When I saw the blonde stubble on the head of the teenage girl on the bed, I let out a silent sigh of relief.
The girl’s naked body was curled up on her side and her arms were drawn against her chest. Her mouth was slightly opened as if she were thinking about something to say. Most of the burlap mattress was black from her blood. Someone had strewn sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood that had pooled around the bed. A slight breeze drew my attention to the window that she had shattered. I didn’t want to imagine the pain she must have endured to slice open her wrists.
Easing her stiffening body prone, I noticed bite marks and hick-eys on her neck and rashes from ringworm under her small breasts.
With her fixed green eyes staring at the ceiling, her pale, near transparent face seemed oddly serene. I kicked a bloody shard of glass under the bed as I began to roll her in a blanket. My hands became sticky with her blood. She had welts on her back and buttocks, no doubt the Blokowa’s signature.
Two women in their early twenties dressed in baggy ‘‘pajamas’’
stood at the entrance of the
cubicle, whispering in French.
‘‘How long have you two been in this Block?’’ I asked.
‘‘We came here from the main camp two weeks ago.’’
‘‘Did you see any other French girls over there?’’
‘‘No. But the day we arrived they sent a bunch of them to work at a camp with a textile mill.’’
I finished wrapping the corpse. With her body covered and the five o’clock shadow on her head, she could have easily been mistaken for a boy.
‘‘She must’ve desperately wanted to die,’’ I mumbled.
The more talkative of the two answered. ‘‘She was praying and preaching constantly to us and our dates. The Blokowa kept beating her bloody, and she still wouldn’t shut up. I guess God finally got pounded out of her. First she tried to hang herself.’’
‘‘Get out my way, you stupid bitches!’’ the Blokowa yelled.
The women scattered.
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‘‘What a bloody mess.’’ The Blokowa was boiling mad. ‘‘I’ll never have another one of those Bibelforscher in here. Lousy fanatic, I should have let her hang.’’
German Bibelforscher (Jehovah’s Witnesses) were turned into purple triangle Ha¨ftlinge because of their singular devotion to Jesus, which left ‘‘the god with a moustache’’ in the cold. Any of them could easily have regained freedom by pledging allegiance to the Nazi Party. As a non-believer, I had difficulty comprehending their beliefs and their dedication, but I admired their resoluteness. With suicide being an affront to her God, how that girl must have agonized before she broke that window.
‘‘Don’t steal the blanket or it will be your ass. The Kra¨tzeblock can use it,’’ the Blokowa growled. ‘‘Not that those crud-infested pricks would care, but blood won’t show in kerosene.’’
‘‘Don’t worry. I’ll return it,’’ I promised.
I didn’t need the blanket, but why expose the girl’s naked body to the catcalls of the onlookers I knew were assembled outside? I had been raised to respect and look after the ‘‘weaker sex.’’ I cradled her body in my arms and headed for the door. None of the women in the cubicles gave even a passing glance as I walked by. The Blokowa stayed on my heels, spitting out obscenities about Jehovah’s Witnesses and other ‘‘Bible nuts.’’
The jackals outside scattered once they saw that I had closed the curtain on their main attraction. I laid the girl’s body on my pushcart. Three corpses were more than enough for one Ha¨ftling to haul, so I took them to the truck. To blend with the rest of the load, I placed the girl on her belly. I was relieved that the Kapo wasn’t around. He would get a good laugh, seeing how protective I was of a whore’s bag of bones.
The Blokowa was in a more pleasant mood when I returned with the blanket. ‘‘You’re a good kid. If you ever feel the urge, I’ll let you tear off a piece without a voucher,’’ she promised.
After our 100-plus load was counted at the gate, we started on our way to the crematoriums. The Kapo was in the cab with the SS
driver, and I bounced around in the back with the corpses. First, we 118
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passed by a Stalag* housing prisoners of the British Commonwealth. Many of them worked at the plant. Then we drove past a camp for female forced laborers. A group of kids waved to me from behind the barbed wire. I waved back. I had almost forgotten that children still existed on this planet.
I was surprised and somewhat confused when the truck veered off the paved road and ground to a halt below a bridge spanning a small river. The driver and Kapo jumped out. I took a deep breath, inhaling the musty smell of the water. It was intoxicating. Gone was the overwhelming, acrid stench of the plant. I almost felt free.
Almost . . .
‘‘Unload that girl!’’ the Kapo barked.
I did as I was told. With her slung over my shoulder, I followed the Kapo and the driver, who had a gunnysack and length of rope squeezed under his arm, down to the river. Where the hell are we going with this girl, I wondered but didn’t dare ask. The driver stopped at the river’s edge and looked around. He pointed at a rope in the water that was tied to a tree. When the Kapo reeled in the rope, pulling out a bulging, muddy gunnysack that had been sub-merged in the reeds, I knew exactly what was going on. I had done something similar as a child to catch crayfish in the Brague River, but I had used a dead cat in a flour sack.
The driver hefted the heavy sack upright, and the Kapo lifted out the bluish white legs of a corpse. The bottom of the gunnysack was squirming with eels. The Kapo shook the man’s body, then dropped it onto the bank. His belly was sliced open and a couple of lucky eels sprang out of the guts and slithered back into the river.
The SS driver swore in Czech, and I realized that he was a Sudeten-deutscher, the ethnic German minority in Czechoslovakia. They had complained about discrimination in 1938, which gave ‘‘the god with a moustache’’ his excuse to invade the country.
* The camp referred to, E715, wasn’t a Stalag but a subcamp of Stalag VIIB, the largest POW camp in Germany. E715 housed British and British Commonwealth soldiers.
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The Kapo yanked the girl off my shoulder. After they stuffed her into the fresh gunnysack, the driver reached in with his bayonet and gave her a cesarean. ‘‘You didn’t have to cut her open. Her hole is stretched out enough,’’ the Kapo chuckled.
‘‘And let the eels catch the clap?’’
The two men howled as they heaved the gunnysack into the water. I turned away, fighting back the urge to throw up. With dinner a long way off, I couldn’t afford to lose my breakfast. As the Kapo and I threw the man’s corpse onto the truck, a question occurred to me. Would I have to drag her body up the trail tomorrow?
The driver was now in such a rush to get to the crematoriums that he didn’t bother to avoid the numerous potholes, and I was certain I was going to find myself face-down in one of them. Was the asshole trying to make up for lost time? Or did he want to ensure that his precious eels were delivered alive and squirming?
Each jolt momentarily animated the corpses, sending arms and legs flailing, sometimes tapping me on the back. A few more bumps, I daydreamed, and the driver will raise the dead and be marched in front of a firing squad for letting his load escape the ovens.
The truck came to jarring halt right outside one of the gates of Birkenau. SS guards screamed at me to move away from the vehicle and not to talk to any of the Ha¨ftlinge. What Ha¨ftlinge, I thought?
There wasn’t a soul about except the guards. I put a wide berth between me and the truck as the Kapo and the driver stayed in the cab, chatting and smoking.
A significant distance past the barbed wire stood two large red brick structures with black plumes streaming from their chimneys.
I had never laid eyes on them before, but I knew exactly what those buildings were. They were why the air reeked of grease burning in a skillet.
As if on cue, members of the Sonderkommando (Special Detail) came out of one the buildings, pushing flatbed handcars. The Sonderkommando was responsible for the disposal of all the dead—
those that were delivered to them like our load and those murdered in the ‘‘showers.’’ I had never seen such a strange and disturbing 120
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group of men. Even though they were walking and breathing, and seemingly well fed, there was no life in them. Their eyes, their faces, had less expression than the corpses that they hauled off the truck. They all moved—no, glided—with shoulders hunched and arms hanging limply at their sides. They worked fast, silently, and without a wasted gesture. It was as if I were watching a ballet of Dante’s Inferno. On how many corpses had they rehearsed this gruesome choreography? Birkenau is German for ‘‘birch groves,’’
and when I first heard the name I imagined a peaceful sanitarium where the truckloads of Muselma¨nner were nursed back to human beings. What wishful thinking!
&n
bsp; On the way back to camp we stopped in the Auschwitz main camp and picked up a load of men’s clothing. There was a shortage of the striped uniforms in our camp, and the SS were supplementing with civilian clothes that had a square piece of striped material stitched on the back. We then made a detour to the Buna plant’s civilian kitchen, where the driver delivered his eels and a bag of unaltered clothes. He came back with a smile and a few packs of Navy Cut, a British brand of cigarettes that an English POW had traded with the cook.
‘‘Gee, they smell delicious,’’ I told the Kapo.
‘‘You’re too young to smoke,’’ he said.
‘‘But not too young to burn.’’
He laughed and handed me one.
Loading the truck the next morning, all I could think about was the Jehovah’s Witness. My sleep had been wracked with images of her naked body shivering as hundreds of eels burrowed through her. Feigning sick had crossed my mind, but I feared the Kapo’s fury more than watching her be poured out of that sack. I could definitely survive seeing another dead body; another beating was a different story.
My stomach was twisted in knots by the time the truck pulled under the bridge. I carried the smallest corpse I could find down to their fishing spot. The SS driver was in a jolly mood, certain that
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and the Kapo extracted her. When I heard her body drop on the bank I couldn’t keep my eyes shut any longer. Her mud-streaked corpse glistened in the sun. The ugly welts on her body had receded in the cold water. She sure had put a spell on me, because by the time I heard him, the Kapo was screaming in my face.
‘‘Hey shithead, get moving!’’
I struggled to carry her up the embankment. I didn’t care that my ‘‘pajamas’’ got dirty and wet. She deserved better than being dragged by her bluish white ankles, but how I wished that the cold water had closed her milky eyes. Not wanting to stare at her ripped-open belly, I laid her on her stomach. I felt guilty, but I couldn’t help admiring her still firm buttocks. Doubtless she had been a virgin until they dragged her kicking and screaming into that whorehouse. As a final act of desecration, an eel slowly slithered out from under her. I stomped on its head with my heel and ground it to gelatin. The SS driver came up the embankment yodeling. A fat catfish had erred into his sack.