The Dentist of Auschwitz

by Benjamin Jacobs

  In both Steineck and Gutenbrunn we got our rations regularly. Here, however, even though we received soup morning and night, we got bread sporadically. Since no one could venture beyond the block, stealing was out of the question. Even Mendele, who had nearly always found ways to circumvent the system, had trouble. When the block orderly arrived with vats of soup, we each received two ladles of boiled water with bits of potatoes and an overcooked turnip in it. We had no spoons and had to drink from the bowl.

  The roll call could last hours. One Sunday, just before noon, I heard my name being called. I didn’t recognize who it was. I wondered how anyone would know my name. When I came to the door, I saw a Kapo. I didn’t know why he was looking for me. After confirming that I was Bronek Jakubowicz and from Gutenbrunn, he said there was a girl outside who had asked him if he knew a Bronek Jakubowicz. After he described her briefly, I knew it could only be Zosia.

  He said he had advised her to leave, after promising her that he would find me. I was curious to know how the Kapo had found me. “She told me when and from where you came, and I knew, if you were alive, you could only be here in the Quarantine Block,” he said. He considered his mission completed and left. Our class distinction was such that it would have been too demeaning for him to stay and socialize with an ordinary inmate who had just come to Auschwitz. How Zosia knew where we had been sent I have never learned. Considering the extraordinarily tight security at Auschwitz, which would have discouraged her from coming back, she must have realized that she could not have met me even if she did return. What came back were my memories of our days together at Steineck and Gutenbrunn.

  The Auschwitz veterans looked upon us as greenhorns. They answered all of our questions with questions of their own. When I asked a Kapo’s aide where I could wash some of my clothes, he answered, “Where do you think you are, in a sanitorium?”

  More people kept coming. We saw tattooed numbers upward of 150000. That meant that almost ten thousand people had been brought here since we had come. According to the normal pattern, only 25 percent actually passed into the camp. That meant that in the two weeks since we arrived, more than forty thousand people had been transported to Auschwitz. I wondered about the women’s camp and the fate of Balcia and all the others.

  One day a few civilian Germans, accompanied by SS men, came and looked us over. Our good-worker status, however, was apparently not known to them, and our isolation continued. We heard of Allied forces landing somewhere in Europe. One day late in the afternoon, twelve inmates went past our barracks. Usually inmates inside the camp were escorted by the Kapos, but these men were led by the SS. Their faces exuded fear. One of our room orderlies said that they were being taken to the Strafbunker (penalty bunker). “Few survive a long stay there,” he said. “And if they do, they’re physically and mentally broken for life.” The Strafbunker had no light or toilet. It was barely big enough for one person to stand up in. “They would have been better off to have gone to the electric fence,” the orderly said.

  Another day we heard that there was no further need for inmate workers and we weren’t to go anywhere. This was the worst news we could have been told. Being unneeded meant being dispensable. Passing Dr. Mengele’s selection was just a temporary reprieve, we thought. We already knew that to remain alive we had to keep working. Being idle beyond a certain point was a threat to our lives. I was no longer optimistic that we would ever leave Auschwitz alive. After the years of living on the edge of existence, we were resigned to whatever fate had in store for us, and we didn’t look at our lives in any long-term way.

  One day the Kapo kept us outside in the cold rain for more than an hour. When we finally got back into the block, we were dripping wet. We hung our clothes around the room to dry. When the Kapo noticed, he asked us who had had that idea. Since we all did it simultaneously, no one admitted guilt. Then he ordered us to go outside naked and circle the block. As we passed by him standing at the door, he swung his whip at us. Mendele was hit badly, but even though some lashes on his back drew blood, he didn’t whimper. I thought this teenager’s heart was made of stone. Looking around and seeing the rain dripping off of us, I thought of cattle in a pasture. Here we were treated alike, driven, herded, and even branded like cattle. Later one of the prisoners, Moishe Chernicki, came down with a fever and was taken to the infirmary. No one ever saw or heard from him again.

  We had been in this isolation for more than two weeks. The draconian rations barely kept us alive. When the sun didn’t shine, the camp was draped in the black of the rising smoke. There had not been a shortage of courage before, but now we were at our lowest point ever. Reality seemed twisted and out of shape. At times we stared into space. Some wandered around the barracks in loneliness. Although we had passed Dr. Mengele’s selection, we were destined to flunk life anyway. Suicides, though, were rarely heard of here. Only a few Jewish inmates succumbed in this way. Perhaps our generation’s experiences had endowed us with extra ability to endure. The undaunted believers still prayed every day. It amazed me how they still remembered word-for-word the various prayers of shaharith, minhah, and maarib—the morning, afternoon, and evening liturgies.

  Then a number of civilians came to the block. They were accompanied by Hauptsturmführer Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz. The consensus of our block supervisors indicated that they were from I.G. Farben, a large German pharmaceutical company that already employed prisoners in the nearby Buna camp. At Buna, the I.G. Farben Company was making synthetic rubber. There, we were told, the inmate death rate was very high, and they had a continuous need for replacement workers. We believed that it could only be better than our present situation. We just wanted to get out of here.

  Finally we got orders that we would leave the camp. A little after five the next morning, we were each given leather shoes with wooden soles to replace our clogs. After roll call we were given a generous portion of bread and were lined up. There were eight hundred of us who would be workers and twenty-five other prisoners, including Richard Grimm, who would take charge of us. We did not know where we were going. Except for Grimm, all the others had low prisoner numbers. The lowest I recall seeing was on Klaus Koch, who became our cook. Coincidentally, an SS man by the same name turned out to be his boss. Most of the workers wore green triangles, the color designated for criminals, but there were also political prisoners and even one homosexual bearing a pink triangle patch.

  As we left, Josek and I walked on either side of our father. I looked up and saw the paradoxical Auschwitz sign, “Work makes you free.” By leaving Auschwitz, I felt that we had a new lease on life. A large group of people were being led into the camp. They were gypsies, and I had to think of the contradiction, that they, people who loved so much their free spirit, were also chained in Auschwitz. I remembered when I was just a boy how I loved to listen to the gypsies’ music. They would make the violin cry and laugh at the same time. While still in grammar school I learned to play the mandolin and had a unique experience with a gypsy girl. She was about twelve, my age, and very beautiful. When she came to the back of our house, where I played my mandolin, she stopped and listened for a while. Then she persuaded me to come with her to their camp, which was not far from our house. At first I felt fearful, because I had been warned that they abducted dark-haired children. But I went with her anyway and later visited her a few more times. In time I came to appreciate our differences. I liked the gypsies’ communal, nomadic, exciting lifestyle. By the time they moved away, the gypsy girl and I were in love. About three weeks later she returned and insisted on living with us. It was a dilemma for my parents. Finally, after finding out where her tribe was, Papa bought a railroad ticket for her and sent her back to them.

  We continued marching, seventy Croats and twenty German Waffen SS with us. They were mostly Rottenführer (privates) and Unterscharführer (corporals). Ahead of us walked a statuesque and fearless-looking SS man. He was Hauptscharführer Otto Moll, our future Kommandant. Rumor had it that Moll ha
d played an important role in Auschwitz, where in less than six months he had risen from the rank of sergeant to Hauptscharführer and Kommandant. This meteoric ascension was due to his skill in killing. He had pioneered the dropping of canisters of the poison gas Zyklon B into the phony showers, which he accompanied with his favorite saying, “Laß sie fressen” (Let them eat).

  It was the late summer of 1943, and to have escaped the Quarantine Block at Auschwitz alive was a metaphor for freedom. Our fate, we thought, had changed. We had been close to being pushed off the cliff, and now we had a new lease on life. I felt resentful as we passed people who were still allowed a near-normal life, and wished I was not born a Jew. I struggled in my wooden-soled shoes as we walked. It was noon, the sun was high, and we had just passed by a little town called Ldziny. We were ordered off the road and told to sit on the ground. There was an eerie sensation. The grass felt scorched, dead, as if just after a famine. Anyone lucky to have bread left finished it, and soon we continued our trek to the north, coming by another camp, Günthergrube. A few kilometers farther on, we came to the village of Piast. Not too far from there, visible from the road, was another camp with a strange name, Janina. In Polish this was a popular girl’s name. One kilometer farther, across the road, were two more camps. One was Ostland, which housed Polish and Russian women. The second camp was Lager Nord, which had Russian war prisoners. Next we came to a place called Wesola, which means “happy” in Polish. This seemed to be a camp territory. Five kilometers farther was yet another camp. Most prisoners here worked for I.G. Farben. Finally we came to Fürstengrube, or “Noble Mine.” This was to be our new home. We were only about sixteen kilometers from Auschwitz I.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Fürstengrube

  Above the gate was a sign: “Fürstengrube.” Below it was a German miner’s salute, “Glückauf.” Fürstengrube was a subcamp of Buna, Auschwitz III. On one side the land was dotted with gnarled trees, brush, and partially dried weeds. The camp was rectangular with single-story barracks, which, unlike those in the main camp in Auschwitz, were newly constructed. The windows and doors faced the yard. In the farthest corner, squeezed between two barracks, stood two cement-slab buildings. The entire camp was surrounded by a brick wall and a mesh fence with barbed wire on top. Brick towers stood at the corners of the yard. Our entrance into Fürstengrube was not as tumultuous as our arrivals had been at the three prior camps.

  Inside, the yard was still full of construction debris. We were marched to the center of the yard, arranged in a square, and made to face the Hauptscharführer and his entourage in the middle. The guards had already taken up their positions in the towers and at the gate. A roll call count confirmed that the same number had arrived that had left the main camp. Grimm ordered us to follow the Blockführers to the barracks. Before we left, Grimm reminded us to come back as soon as we were assigned to blocks and bunks.

  Each barracks consisted of one room. Inside, there were five rows of three-level bunks with narrow passages between. On the bunks lay straw-filled pallets, pillows, and burlap blankets. This was home for about 140 of us. As we returned to the yard, the sun was setting. Once we were in place, Moll instructed us. “I am your Lagerführer here. Those who are willing to work hard will be safe.” Then he pointed at the SS men behind him. “Raportführer Anton Lukoschek,” he said, “is my assistant.” Under him, he explained, were Arbeitsdienstführer Schwientny and Blockführer Pfeiffer. Then came SS-Rottenführer Adolph Voigt, who, he said, would be in charge of the KB. Lastly, he pointed at Klaus Koch, who was to be in charge of the kitchen.

  Figure 1. Plan of Auschwitz III, Fürstengrube

  A-D, F, G: Barracks for inmates

  E: First aid and infirmary

  H: Camp offices, camp elder’s quarters, dental station, theater, and penalty room

  J: Practice area for shooting

  K: Reservoir for fighting fires

  L: Showers and washrooms

  M: SS and inmates’ kitchen; at right, the Polish gallows

  N: Quarters for kommandant and his subordinates

  O: SS quarters and railroad tracks

  P: Workshops for inmate workmen: carpenters, handymen, tailors, shoemakers, and barbers

  T: SS guard watch towers

  The broken line between Blocks A and B shows the ill-fated escape tunnel dug by Kapos. To its right, the Jewish inmate gallows.

  Source: Drawn May 11, 1965, by former camp elder Herman Josef. Translation here by Benjamin Jacobs.

  Although Moll was about forty-five, weighed about 120 kilos, and was of only average height, which was odd for an SS man, he carried himself well. With his broad shoulders and muscular body, he looked youthful. His straight blond hair was cut short. In his chiseled face were set a pair of cold blue eyes. Only one of them was real, for he had lost the other fighting in France. When he spoke, only the live eye shifted. There seemed to be no real feeling in the heart beating beneath his bulging chest. All in all, in his tight uniform and knee-high boots, he looked like a Prussian warrior or the perfect Nazi poster boy. Moll announced that Richard Grimm would again be our Lagerältester and then left.

  The Kapos were usually one ruling clique, but that by no means ensured a safety net for them. Even a Lagerältester might find himself out of power, as Kurt Goldberg did in Gutenbrunn. There were Kapo Michael, Kapo August, Kapo Karl, Kapo Hermann, Kapo Wilhelm, Kapo Olschewski, Kapo Jurkowicz, and others. Although they didn’t like to see Grimm, a newcomer, take charge of them, they kept quiet at first. Grimm had a quiet discussion with them, and then he turned to us.

  “Here we will be working in a coal mine called Fürstengrube,” he said. Then he pointed at the Kapos standing behind him. “They will be taking you to and from the mine. Each block will also have a Blockkapo.” Grimm then appointed Goldstein, the former first aid attendant at Steineck, to be our barber. Two more inmates were to repair shoes, two more would work as tailors, and six others would be carpenters in camp. They were to help with the remaining construction of the camp, under Kapo Josef Hermann. Though there were many medical doctors in our ranks, including Seidel from Gutenbrunn, a new doctor named Lubicz, who came with the Kapos, was assigned to the KB. The rest of us were divided into three groups, each of which would work eight-hour shifts in the mine. One shift lasted from 6:00 A.M. until 2:00 P.M., and the third began at 10:00 P.M. and ended at 6:00 A.M. Our only chance for survival seemed to lie in our being valuable to the Third Reich’s war machine.

  Kapo Hermann wore a red triangle without yellow corners, which marked him as a political non-Jewish prisoner. Nathan Green became the Blockkapo in Block 4, to which Papa, Josek, and I were assigned. He was the only Jewish criminal I had seen in Auschwitz and came from nearby Katowice. What crimes he had been convicted of I never learned. Green was tall, trim, and handsome. Like other Kapos, he wore better prison clothes, which distinguished him from common inmates. In this topsy-turvy world, being a criminal was not a stigma. In fact, criminals thrived in Auschwitz, because they did whatever the Nazis ordered them to do. Green’s prison number was around 70000, which meant that he had been in Auschwitz for at least a year and a half. It was demeaning, being ruled by the lowest element of society.

  Nothing ever escaped Green’s shifty gray eyes. He systematically skimmed rations from us, not only for himself but also for his friends. Papa, Josek, and I worked the early shift, leaving camp at five in the morning. That was the most preferred shift, but unfortunately we were rotated weekly. The night shift allowed us little time to rest, because of the day’s barracks activities.

  On the first morning of work, Richard Grimm and Kommandant Moll arrived when it was still dark. “Raus, raus, alle raus, eintreten, schnell!” Grimm bellowed. Nathan Green yelled, “Alle aufstehen!” We were given normal rations again and miners’ overalls and lamps. At five thirty Scharführer Pfeiffer, assisted by Kapo Michael Puka, marched us out of the camp. Kapo Puka, a German criminal, turned out to be cold-blooded and sadistic. As a long-time inmate,
one of the first fifteen thousand, Puka enjoyed a certain status in the camp. Though only 1.7 meters tall, he nevertheless was the most fearsome of all Kapos. He spoke to us only to curse us. His insults he accompanied with grinding teeth. “Scheiss Juden” was his mildest abuse of a Jewish inmate. He was cynical and quick to ridicule.

  About two hundred of us were under Puka’s command. After leaving the camp, we passed a cemetery. The gravestones inside were surrounded by withering weeds. Some stones were toppled and sunken. Two and a half kilometers further on, we came to a hut with a slanted roof. At first it did not look like a mine, but when several men in overalls with lights and lunch boxes in hand came out, we knew we were there.

  In prewar Poland, this was known as the Harceska Mine, and it had been inoperative for over twenty years. Rubber was crucial to the German I.G. Farben Company. In order to manufacture synthetic rubber, coal was needed. When the Germans occupied this area in 1939, they reopened the mine and renamed it Fürstengrube. Günthergrube, not far away, had a similar history. It had been renamed in honor of Günther Falkenhahn, the I.G. Farben director there.

  The first thirty men, including Josek, Papa, and me, descended into the mine on a hand-operated elevator. We could smell the odor of coal. I knew that miners worked hard and always faced danger. I respected the danger and did not know what to expect. None of us had ever seen or ever been inside a mine. When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, a thick coal fume greeted us. The air lacked oxygen and was full of coal dust. We could hardly see ahead of us. Before long our eyes adjusted, and we saw a long tunnel with a rail track and carts in the middle. One foreman took my father and me, and another led the rest of the group down the track. We followed our foreman into a cave. There lay coal lumps weighing from a few grams to fourteen kilos. Some were still lodged in the cave walls. “This cave was just blasted yesterday,” said the foreman, as he handed us shovels and buckets. Our job was to fill the buckets and load the coal onto the carts.