Death in Twilight

by Jason Fields

  One by one, the carriages were emptied. Most of the passengers could walk, albeit stiffly. Others, alive and dead, were carried out by their fellow Jews. On orders from the commandant, the dead were thrown into a waiting ditch. Those alive but unable to walk were shot. The ambulatory were again made to throw the bodies into the ditch.

  Aaron’s car was the third to be unloaded. Even those who couldn’t walk did. People lent one another a shoulder, an arm or a hand. The dead, however dear they had been in life, could not be helped.

  For a moment, Aaron wasn’t sure how he was going to leave the train, on his feet or back. A youngish woman who had come aboard to clear the dead slipped him her hand to clutch. Whatever deprivation she had lived through since the invasion, she had a reserve of strength Aaron felt flow through him. As they strode together, Aaron stood taller and took more weight on his own feet.

  At last, the ten cars of the train held no one else. Hoses were turned on them to flush out the excrement that had covered the floors in noisome mud. One soldier playfully squirted a Jew, adding a deeper cold to his misery.

  The guards formed the Jews up into squares of sixty-four, dividing men and women into separate columns. Temporary reunions were broken up. Sons were taken from mothers, daughters from fathers. The shrieks of both parents and children filled the night until a gunshot silenced them. An example having been made, the Nazi soldiers marched the survivors into the compound. Everyone was given “soup” made out of warmish water and God alone knew what else, and then were marched further, into barracks.

  The barracks contained nothing more than floor-to-ceiling rows of bunks comprised of rough wooden slats, like the walls of the cattle cars. The beds were stacked so tightly they resembled nothing more than bookshelves. To husband resources, the builders — slave laborers — had used as few boards as possible, making the gap between them dangerous for a man who rolled onto his side.

  As each new trainload of workers arrived, the barracks filled beyond capacity. Men were forced to share shelf space with two or more companions. There were few blankets, so in the winter the warmth was much appreciated, if not the company.

  The overcrowding wasn’t a permanent condition. Over the days, bunks emptied as those who had been using them died from starvation, exhaustion or other forms of cruelty. Each train’s arrival began the process anew.

  On Aaron’s first night at the camp, he found himself a place with three other men who had lived there for weeks or months. They were in no better shape than he was himself, perhaps worse. Looking at them, the word that popped into Aaron’s mind was “wraith.” Their clothes were so tattered that even in the darkness, he was able to make out skin stretched thin over ribs, and limbs that looked more like bare bones.

  Aaron begged their pardon as he joined them, explaining that their bunk seemed the least crowded of the accommodations available. There was grumbling, but no energy for a fight. The man nearest the wall edged closer to it and the others closed ranks behind him. Rags that appeared to be made from a mixture of old sweaters and coats were the only covering available. The men Aaron had found were even gracious enough to share with him. He added his own coat to the pile and found his eyes welling up at the small, unnecessary kindness the men had offered.

  Only lovers and small children with secrets should have their mouths as close to another person’s ear as Aaron’s was to his bedmate. The uncomfortable intimacy allowed Aaron to talk in a whisper barely above silence.

  “Thank you,” was where Aaron began.

  He could feel the man nod in return.

  “Where are we?” Aaron asked.

  He could feel the breath of the man’s answer.

  “Kronberg Labor Camp.”

  “Are we near Miasto?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How bad is it here?”

  “Bad.”

  “The food?”

  “Food?” The man’s chuckle was a wheeze. “Please, now, be quiet. There are only a few hours of the night left. We must sleep.”

  “What’s your name?” Aaron asked.

  “Kaczynski.”

  “That’s not Jewish,” Aaron half asked, half said.

  “No. Sleep.”

  That was all Aaron could get. It wasn’t long before his own exhaustion made the splintered boards feel like a featherbed. He slept.

  Dawn had not come, but that made no difference to the sounds and sights that woke Aaron. Men were shouting, dogs growled. A horn sounded somewhere. Before Aaron’s eyes had opened to more than slits, his friend from the night before was trying to edge him out of the bunk.

  “We have ten minutes to present ourselves,” Kaczynski said. “Move it.”

  The ten minutes included the time needed to use the latrines and wash as well as they could in near-frozen water. There were a lot of men who had to go, and it didn’t take Aaron very long to realize that not everyone was going to make it through in time. As he was new, he was stronger than those who had lived on the camp’s rations for any length of time. With regret, he took advantage of that fact and found himself facing the open latrine before many others.

  Men stood and squatted in full view of each other and also of two amused guards, who laughed as one man shat blood.

  “Not much longer for him,” said the Nazi who stood to Aaron’s right. He spoke in a Polish so perfect he could only be a Pole, despite his SS uniform.

  The other man answered in the same language.

  “I’ll bet you a reichsmark he doesn’t even make it back to the barracks tonight.”

  “I’ll take that bet. I think there’s a little more life in him.” The guard leaned down toward the trench. “Isn’t that right, my little Jew? In fact, you better make it home tonight, otherwise I’ll kill you!”

  Both guards laughed hard.

  The man with the bloody diarrhea slipped and fell into his own shit.

  The guards laughed harder.

  Aaron said nothing, but he leaned over and took the man’s flailing, shit-stained hand and pulled him up.

  The shitter tried to thank him, weakly. Aaron said nothing, didn’t glance at him, and moved on to the frigid water where he tried, inadequately, to wash his hands.

  Aaron moved toward the front door of the barracks as he saw others doing. The ten minutes were apparently up. Guards started to file in and club anyone who wasn’t moving fast enough.

  “Schnell!” they shouted, sweeping their arms side to side, showing no concern for where the truncheons fell. Some who were hit cried out, others didn’t bother, either knowing there was no mercy or because they didn’t have the energy to waste.

  The inmates were marched to the spacious central parade ground of the camp. The camp itself, Aaron could now see, was a rectangular structure that seemed made entirely of raw timber and barbed wire, with floodlights mounted all around. There were occasional towers with spotlights and men with machine guns at the gates and at numerous other spots along the wall. Guards roamed the grounds with dogs that were clearly better fed than the prisoners.

  Men who knew better than Aaron lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, eventually making ranks ten wide and deep. He picked a place next to Kaczynski, who Aaron had decided to make a friend.

  When he looked over to say something to the other man, though, Kaczynski gave him a warning look that bottled the words deep in Aaron’s chest.

  They stood there, all the men, all the women, even the children who had spilled out of the barracks and into this open space. They observed silence. The cold became ever more intense. The sun refused to rise.

  Aaron could see knees buckling, people who were beginning to crumple in on themselves. It wasn’t a question of who would fall, but rather who would fall first.

  Finally, someone did.

  The man may or may not have been dead when he fell, but he certainly was by the time the guards had finished beating and kicking him, shouting for him to get back in line. An officer came by, made the pronouncement of death and pulled two p
risoners out of line in order to carry the body to an open pit that must have been dug for the purpose. The man wasn’t big enough to fill the hole, but Aaron was sure the hole would be filled by the end of the day.

  At the first glimmer of sun on the dull horizon, the guards moved men and women into new lines to receive their breakfast. Aaron’s line was long, but the rules seemed a little more relaxed than on the parade ground. People spoke quietly to each other while they waited.

  “Does that happen all the time?” Aaron asked Kaczynski, referring to the casual beating and death of the unknown man.

  “All the time. The only way to avoid being beaten is to avoid being noticed,” Kaczynski said. “And, truthfully, that’s hardly a guarantee. The secret of the camp is that you’re not here to work, you’re here to die. If they can get something out of us first, that’s fine. But it’s not necessary.”

  “But what’s a Pole like you doing here? Did they make a mistake?”

  “Not at all. Actually, I’m not the only Pole in here. You can tell by looking at the little patches on people’s clothing. Yellow means Jew. Red,” he pointed to his lapel, “means temporary resident.”

  Kaczynski grunted a laugh.

  “In fact, all I have to do is make it another week. If I do, I get to go home.”

  “But how did you get here?”

  “Me? I’ve made my living as a small-time thief since I was a boy. Nothing big, but a burglary here, a burglary there. I made the mistake of thinking it would be business as usual after the Germans came. Still, that isn’t why I’m here,” Kaczynski said, laughing again. This time he choked on it. It was a while before the hacking stopped, and when it did, there was blood on the ground.

  During their conversation, the two had moved to the front of the line where they were given a cup of “coffee” and a slice of brown bread.

  “You might want to save your bread for later,” Kaczynski said. “There’s no lunch and the days are long.”

  There was little time to suck down the dirty water — which was all Aaron could imagine the “coffee” to be. Chewing would have to be done on the run.

  The one hundred men of Aaron’s barracks were arranged in two lines and ordered to select heavy shovels or hammers from a stack. Once they were equipped, the march began. Guards kept pace, leading them out of the gates of the camp and onto a path that had been cleared of snow.

  There was no talking on the march to the worksite. After the first kilometer or so, no one would have been able to talk, anyway. The tools’ wooden shafts bore down on the men’s shoulders, adding to their exhaustion. The guards weren’t happy to be on this walk either, and from the looks on their partially covered faces, they were becoming more dangerous the farther the detachment went.

  A man stumbled in front of Aaron. The column stumbled with him. There was no way to get around him. Without thinking, Aaron grabbed him off the ground and swung the man’s shovel over his own shoulder. By the time the guard came to the spot where the hiccup had been, all he saw was a steady stream of shuffling men. Still, the SS private noticed that Aaron was carrying two shovels and had a comment to make.

  “We’ll see how you feel about your kindness later in the day.” The guard smiled. It wasn’t a smile Aaron wanted to see again.

  It could have been two hours — or possibly just one — when the column finally arrived at a fenced-in area filled with partially cut stones and broken up rocks. A guard unlocked the gate to the quarry and everyone else filed in behind him.

  Men took up various positions, immediately beginning to dig and crush. There was no pause between the march and the start of work.

  Aaron found, like everyone else, that his coat quickly became an encumbrance. He removed it and let his work with the hammer keep him warm. He smashed rocks in the name of the German war effort and when the pile was large enough, he borrowed a shovel to load them onto a wheelbarrow that another slave then pushed somewhere else. Aaron didn’t know where. He didn’t give a shit, either.

  Aaron had no idea why he was breaking rocks, or why someone else was carting them. Perhaps it was simply a way of working men to death quickly. Aaron shook his head. No, it didn’t seem nearly efficient enough, and the world knew the German devotion to efficiency. At a natural pause, Aaron stuck his hammer in a pile of rocks that were waiting for the wheelbarrow and turned to Kaczynski to ask what they were doing.

  “I think the stones are for roads,” the man said, his face red, his wheeze pronounced.

  “Ah,” Aaron said, idly wondering where the roads would go and what unfortunate people the Germans planned to visit at their ends.

  The day passed, rocks were broken and men died. Some died for the guards’ amusement, others because they’d reached the end of their strength. As the sun was going down, one died because of a watch.

  He was a youngish man, but he looked worn to a nub. He made the mistake of looking up from his digging. The guard above was wearing a watch that the prisoner’s mother had given him as a birthday present a few years before.

  It wasn’t the smart thing to do, but perhaps the young man’s smarts had gone with his old life. He called out to the guard.

  “You’re wearing my watch!” he shouted.

  “Could be,” the guard said, amused. “I have so many watches nowadays.”

  All personal items were taken from prisoners as they entered the labor camp, though Aaron and his trainload had already given up theirs at the prison in Miasto.

  “Is that what it was? Just theft? Not part of your great ‘war effort?’ Just good, honest theft?” The prisoner’s voice rose in both pitch and volume.

  “So, what do you need it for, anyway?” the guard asked. “We tell you when to get up, when to eat, when to march, when to work, when to walk home, when to sleep.

  “And frankly, it’s so much easier for me to keep it all straight now that I have this nice watch. Swiss, isn’t it?”

  The prisoner’s curses were as creative as they were pointless.

  He kicked the ground at his feet, scattering small bits of granite and other stones only a geologist could identify.

  “How about these pebbles that we’re making, that we’re dying to make for you?” asked the Jew. “Do they go anywhere? Are you even building roads, like you say? Or is that just another lie? You steal from us, you kill us, and it’s for nothing at all?”

  Several of the other guards had gathered. The more angry the man got, the more they laughed, poking each other in the ribs and making little comments that led to great guffaws. The other prisoners continued to work as if nothing was happening, or at least did their best to give that appearance. Everyone understood that there were no excuses for stopping work.

  Now there were no more words, just an inhuman screech. A face that had recently seen no color except from frostbite was now full red with rage. The slave reached up to grab the guard, pulling the man down into the pit beside him.

  In seconds, the guard was bloody.

  Seconds later, the prisoner was dead, blood pouring from where the back of his head had been. A small cloud of smoke wafted from the Luger of another guard standing just a few meters away.

  This time, Aaron was on the detail that took the body outside the quarry’s fence, dropping it into a deep depression that was already half filled.

  Soon, but not soon enough, it was time for the survivors to head back to Kronberg. Despite their exhaustion, the prisoners walked with a will. Even the promise of a cup of something called soup and a cold bed was enough to motivate them after a day playing at quarrymen. Looking at the faces and skeletal bodies that made up his column, it was hard for Aaron to imagine them as fit for any job other than invalid.

  Aaron could only assume that he looked no better, but a day of hard labor had shown him that his injuries weren’t quite as bad as he’d first supposed. While his chest still felt as if it were in a vice, he had to acknowledge that there was no way he could have lifted a hammer, let alone swung it, if his ribs were tru
ly broken. He was also getting the sight back in his left eye, which had swollen shut thanks to Clausewitz.

  Sticking a hand into a pocket for warmth, he discovered yet another reason for unreasonable optimism: he had forgotten to eat his slice of bread during the day, meaning that he now faced the happy prospect of bread to lap up his soup.

  Yes, things were looking up.

  At the front of the line, a man stumbled and was pushed off to the side without comment. It mattered to nobody if he was alive or dead. The cold would finish him if nothing else did.

  Two steps ahead of Aaron, a man lunged out of line and went to the prisoner who had fallen. Aaron was touched by the sentiment. The brave soul would surely be beaten for his act of kindness.

  If that was what it was.

  As the apparent hero leaned over the maybe corpse, he pulled and struggled, finally coming away with the fallen man’s coat. The guards were on the scavenger seconds after and he was beaten bloody.

  But he kept the coat.

  Numbed feet and minds were finally roused by the sight of harsh floodlights ahead. The camp was near and the men’s steps quickened to a shuffle. Aaron could see that his wasn’t the only group returning. There were other squads of men and also women. God alone knew where they had been or what they had done with their day.

  Inside the grounds, everyone was forced into lines again. Vats of something steamed under the lights. Jewish trustees were stirring the “broth” and serving out the mugs. Aaron found Kaczynski in the line, which was only possible because his position in it was behind Aaron. If Aaron had tried to cut ahead in the line, there was no doubt in his mind that he would have sparked a riot, no matter how tired everyone was.

  “How did you enjoy your first day?” Kaczynski asked tiredly.

  “I’m lucky it wasn’t my last,” Aaron said.

  “I say that to myself every day.”

  “There’s no way to survive this place, is there?” Aaron asked. “The man who owned the watch was right, wasn’t he? They couldn’t give a shit whether we work. We’re just here to die.”