The Dentist of Auschwitz

by Benjamin Jacobs

  The cave was barely big enough for both of us to fit into. The only light we had came from our lamps. We began working, on our knees with our heads bent. The smell of coal caused us to get dizzy. At midday a couple of inmates brought down buckets of soup—the usual turnip and water and, if we were lucky, a potato. Then we saw Josek again. He told us that he and two others moved the filled carts to the end of the mine, where a locomotive pulled them further. By then we were all weary and tired, and as black as chimney sweeps. Coal dust had settled in our mouths and noses and had covered our skin. Kapos Puka and Pfeiffer were waiting as we came up at two o’clock. “One, two, three,” Puka yelled, demanding that we march back to camp. When we neared the camp, he created a real charade: “Mützen ab! Mützen auf!” (Caps on! Caps off!), he shouted. That day, in order to ingratiate himself with Pfeiffer, he beat up an inmate without reason or provocation.

  Soup once a day, a little bread, and coffee twice a day was not enough nourishment to prevent the further deterioration of our health. Zosia, Stasia, and all those kind souls who had helped us in the past were far away, so hard times continued. After a week or two our arms hurt from lifting the heavy shovels. Lugging the coal lumps by hand to the carts was even more difficult, and our hands were now calloused and cracked. The coal dust gradually baked into our skins, and the fat-free soap we used could not wash it off. My eyelids looked as if they were coated with mascara. Papa and Josek didn’t look any better. It won’t be long before all of us are black Mussulmen, I thought.

  Most Schachtmeisters (foremen) here were Poles. But there were also some Germans and Volksdeutsche. Most started out as reasonable and decent people, but in time they adopted the Kapo tactics and resorted to abuse and beating. We soon discovered that Hauptscharführer Moll regarded the physical punishment of inmates as his privilege. He disliked being upstaged by others. One day when Moll learned that an inmate had been beaten and disabled from work by a foreman, he ordered the foremen to stop punishing inmates and instead to report inmates’ offenses to the camp. One day an inmate gave his foreman a letter to mail, as he had done many times before. This time, however, the foreman reported it to Kapo Puka. Puka in turn told Pfeiffer about it, and Pfeiffer then ordered the prisoner punished upon his return to the camp. From then on, no one dared to send out a letter.

  At the beginning of December 1943 the first snow fell. Winter was coming. Our difficulties increased as the cold took its toll. At least one inmate per day was unable to make it back from work on his own. One day Papa was fortunate to be given an extra portion of bread. He kept it all day long to share with his sons in the evening. That was a day of reprieve for us: we got our first extra food since leaving Gutenbrunn.

  At the end of a day’s work I could hardly straighten my hands. My knuckles were bruised and oozed blood. In the meantime, our camp kept growing. Two more medical doctors were added to the KB, and Dr. Seidel finally got his old job back.

  Josef Hermann’s Sonderkommandos built two more barracks and an addition to the KB and also sectioned off space in Barracks 7 as an inmate penal room. Hermann, the architect, always kept his distance from the rest of the Jewish inmates. Yet he did not act like the ordinary Kapos did, often not wearing his Kapo armband. Another individual, Willy Engel, the Lagerschreiber, slowly gained importance in camp. He kept the camp’s records and handled the SS men’s mail. Hermann was from Núremberg, and Willy from Prague. Wily had come to Fürstengrube with his identical twin brother a month before. Sometimes it was hard to tell them apart. Wily had a degree in accounting from Prague University, where Viky, his brother, had been a chemistry student. Willy was clear-headed and reasonable, and Viky was a bit cynical. I got to know them both and liked them. Because all mail came to the office, where Willy worked, he monitored matters concerning us. Like most camp functionaries, he received “Kapo rations” and so could help his brother, who worked in my shift in the mine.

  Figure 2. Plan of Inmate Infirmary at Fürstengrube

  1: Common hall, with three-tier bunks

  2: Living quarters for Dr. Lubicz and his assistants

  3: Office

  4: Room for patients with infectious diseases

  5: Room for the seriously ill

  6: Food storage

  7: Living quarters for block elder and nurses

  8-9: Operating rooms

  10: Washing and toilet facilities

  11: Stove for heating water

  Josef Jorkowski, a Pole, was the block elder. Caring for the ill were also Jablonski, a Polish Jew from Wroclaw, and Teintuch, from Lodz. The dental station was run by inmate #141129, Bronek Jakubowicz.

  Source: 1975 drawing from Tadeusz Iwasko, Hefte von Auschwitz 16 (Auschwitz: Verlag Staatliches Auschwitz-Museum, 1978): 41. Translation here by Benjamin Jacobs.

  It is important to mention that an inmate could not make a complaint about a Kapo, regardless of what the Kapo did. Thus the dishonest Kapos went on cheating their charges with impunity. They had cigarettes, vodka, and real leather shoes. Some had separate rooms with furniture—even real beds. Blockkapo Michael Eschmann’s room was the best example. The walls, alternately, were painted blue, strawberry red, canary yellow, and kelly green. The ceiling was purple, and the floor was a high-gloss pink. The room looked so perverse that I have never forgotten its appearance.

  Srulek Lipshitz, a Jewish inmate who knew about electronics sometimes repaired radios for the SS and on those occasions heard BBC newscasts. Unlike the gossip that we heard otherwise, his bits of news were valuable. He reported that the Allies were on the assault. Everything he told us made us feel as if the arms of the Allied forces were reaching out to us. But there was also fear that the Nazis’ enmity toward us was so virulent that the Allies’ advance might hasten our deaths. We had real doubts that the Nazis would ever let us go. One day Srulek overheard two SS men discussing a Jewish woman who had shot a guard before going into the gas chamber. We later heard about it from other inmates as well.

  We were in a constant state of hunger. Sometimes I closed my eyes just to invite a vision of food. My strength was slipping. There was not much flesh or muscle left on my body. Each day I feared the next. Papa and Josek had also deteriorated. My father had once weighed ninety-one kilos, and now he was just half that. How long could we hold on? Hope seemed to be drifting away.

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Dentist of Auschwitz

  I usually waited until just before curfew before going to wash up. Then I didn’t have to jockey to find a spout. One evening as I undressed, Richard Grimm came in, purely by chance. In Gutenbrunn we had been close: I was the dentist, and he had seen me every day. But it was different here. I was just an ordinary mine worker, and he was the Lagerältester.

  When I turned around to face him, he looked at me in a strange way. “I meant to find you,” he said. “The Hauptscharführer wants to install a dental station here.” He continued, worried, “Look at you. You look like a Mussulman. You are in no shape to be a dentist.”

  I knew he was right. By then there were many dentists in Fürstengrube who were better trained than I. “Richard,” I pleaded with him as he kept scrutinizing me, “if he gives me a chance, I assure you I can do it.” He made no promises, but after giving me a long and hopeful look, he said he would try.

  The December cold was most apparent in the mornings during roll call. One day, just as the tally of our group was completed and the number of the sick was read to Moll, Grimm yelled, “Gutenbrunn dentist! Report to the Hauptscharführer immediately!”

  My heart began pounding. Could it be? I asked myself as I ran toward them with a vigor I did not know I still possessed. I stopped two meters in front of them as I was required to do, and then I staggered and almost fell. “Herr Hauptscharführer, Häftling 141129 meldet sich gehorsamst zu ihrem Befehl.” (Lieutenant, prisoner 141129 obediently reports to your order.)

  I was frightened. It was the first time I had seen Moll up close. He sized me up with his one cold, critical eye. Moll ne
ver addressed inmates in the first person. “Bleiben Sie stehen,” he said. I stepped to one side of him, uncomfortable, with all the inmates staring at me. It took twenty minutes for the Kommandos to leave. Then Richard Grimm spoke. “This man was our dentist in Gutenbrunn, as I had mentioned to you, Herr Hauptscharführer.” I followed what he said very closely, and I observed Moll’s reaction, for in his response lay my hopes.

  “Let me see your hands,” the Kommandant said. I stretched out my arms, palms up. “My God! How can you be a dentist with these lacerated hands? Look, Grimm! Let him stay in camp until his hands heal,” Moll said. I stared in disbelief as Moll’s one eye stared back at me. I would not forget the human, almost tender way in which he spoke. Just when I was nearly ready to give up, this Nazi came to my rescue.

  Grimm walked Moll to the gate, and when he returned, he said that Moll had ordered a dental station built in Block 7, the office barracks near the camp entrance. He wanted me to let him know when it was ready. Moll had also ordered that extra rations be given to me. This had far-reaching consequences for my father and brother. From that day on, I could share my extras with them. I began to recover quickly, as did my hands.

  Any idle inmate in camp drew the Kapos’ attention and their ire. In spite of what the Kommandant had ordered, they had little tolerance for an inmate not at work. I remembered the camp code: Working is the best recipe for not dying. I was unwilling to jeopardize my chances, so I volunteered to work in the first aid room, as I had done in Gutenbrunn. The KB had sixty beds.

  The first time I met Oberkapo Josef Hermann was when he started building the dental station. He also built a workbench for me and seats in the waiting room. The Sanitätsdienstgefreiter, called SDG, was a low-ranked Waffen SS man with minimal first aid training. He supervised the KB and the dental station. His rank was Unterscharführer, and his name was Adolf Voigt. He was ambivalent about his duties. He came to the first aid room, looked around, and left.

  Even the worst, most menial job in camp could make the difference between life and death. Because of that, many prisoners were anxious to take any camp job, even if it meant helping the Nazis. Fortunately the camp dentist did not have the same dilemma.

  Josef Hermann had the dental station ready in a few days. I was given an elite camp suit, a sweater, and a pair of real leather shoes, which distinguished me from the Kommando inmates. I also continued to receive kitchen privileges. I stopped being the dumb inmate and no longer needed to fear the Kapos or the foremen. Even Kapo Puka showed me new respect. Although the station was ready, I had no equipment. Moll wasn’t someone I dared to ask for equipment. I asked Grimm, and he told me that it would be coming the next day. About two thirty in the afternoon Moll rode into camp on his motorcycle with an ambulance following. He ordered the driver, an SS man, to help me unload the truck. I could not believe what I saw. Not only did they bring the most up-to-date dental equipment, instruments, and supplies, but also a complete dental laboratory.

  When my brother returned from the mine, he came to help me set up an electric adjustable chair, complete with drill and overhead light. Some of the instruments looked brand-new. Among the supplies were a few ampoules of novocaine, and even textbooks and dental manuals and a patient appointment book with the name Dr. Wadzimiez Kamienski. Immediately I plunged into reading the manuals. As Grimm later told me, Moll had gone to nearby Sosnowiec and confiscated the equipment from a Polish dentist.

  The next day during the roll call, Grimm announced the new dental station. “But you can’t skip work to see the dentist,” he said.

  My function was only to extract teeth. Since I did not have enough novocaine, I economized, using one two-cc ampoule for two or more extractions. I also filled the cavities with silicone or phosphate cement. The inmates’ main problem was bleeding gums, a result of vitamin deficiency and the complete absence of toothbrushes and dentifrice. Dabbing the gums with iodine only offered temporary relief.

  Adjoining the dental station was the camp office, where Willy Engel worked. To the other side was a penal room, separated from the dental station by a thin plywood wall. I could hear shrieks when inmates were brutalized. A few days later Willy said a hanging was about to happen in Fürstengrube. I had not expected to witness any more hangings. Though hanging wasn’t new to me, seeing it happen never ceased to be a numbing experience. I knew that the SS had many other ways to kill us in Auschwitz.

  It was the end of December 1943, and it had become clear that the Nazis were losing the war. We expected a change in their treatment of us. One day, as the men on the day shift began to return, instead of being freed to go about their business, they were marched to the part of the camp where the gallows stood. Then a loud horn ordered all the rest of us to come out. Soon several inmates were brought into the yard. They looked baffled, almost indifferent. “Inmate [number] is guilty of sabotage to the Third Reich and is to die on the gallows,” the Gestapo announced. No specific act of sabotage was voiced, for these were the verdicts routinely read before all executions. Killing people for undefined charges seemed to be the most cynical of all their heinous acts.

  As the chairs were pulled from under the condemned, the men tried to gasp for air before they choked. Their tongues hung out to the side of their faces. Their eyes were open but not focused. It was the first hanging in Fürstengrube, but we feared that more would come. Following orders, the inmates began to circle the gallows. Dr. Lubicz, Dr. Seidel, Felix, one of the first aid helpers, and I were ordered to remove the bodies and take them to the Leichenzimmer (morgue). The faces were swollen, but the bodies were still warm. We had to fight feelings of revulsion as we carried them in a funerallike procession. That night I thought I heard their voices. Had they come back to life?

  Since the dental station was near the camp entrance, when SDG Voigt came through the gate, he inspected it first. “Herr Unterscharführer, Häftling 141129 obediently reports to your orders” was how he was expected to be greeted. “Weiter machen,” he usually replied. If Voigt still believed in the thousand-year Reich, he didn’t seem to show it. He was here, playing his part, I thought, because he preferred this to fighting. He didn’t seem to like the formality. It was my duty, however, to act out my part also. He allowed me to set up a bunk in the laboratory and sleep there. I no longer had to line up and attend the daily roll calls.

  But gradually Voigt’s indifference became obvious to Moll, and he was replaced by Unterscharführer Günther Hinze. While Voigt took his assignment lightly, Hinze was driven by an uncommon zeal for the job. He was a psychopath and a appalling Jew-hater. Hinze was about twenty-three years old. He had reddish straight hair and was severely cross-eyed. A large scar was visible from his hairline down to his left temple. He had an arrogance that I immediately perceived.

  When he came into the dental station for the first time, he eyed me coldly. This distorted his face even more. As I continued my laboratory work, he tilted his head and began to criticize everything I was doing. When I said something, he picked my words apart and contradicted me. When he finally left, I was worried. Willy Engel told me that Hinze had been severely wounded in the head on the eastern front. After recovering from surgery, he was allocated a new function, as the SDG at Fürstengrube. The next day Hinze came to inspect the dental station. Since I knew he would pick on me for neatness, I had everything in place. After he opened the door, he cocked his head and looked at me. Then he drew his white glove across the top of the door frame, looked at it, and said, “It’s filthy.” It was clear to me that he had just found an excuse to punish me. He ordered me to step onto a chair with my heels over the edge. He then made me do deep knee bends up and down while counting. Occasionally he made me stop at a most painful point, during which he maligned and slandered everything Jewish.

  “You know why the Jews are punished?” he asked. “Because they are the cause of the war.” I did not say anything. There was no point in my disputing him. I let him throw his trash, hoping that eventually it would end. After h
alf an hour, as he saw that I was getting exhausted, he left. He was my worst nightmare. When I got up in the morning, I knew what to expect. Sometimes I wished he would come and just get it over with. This became such a daily routine that I thought of hiding from him. One day after I had already gone through one of those sessions in the morning, Hinze returned in the afternoon and made me do it all over. He sat near me, clapping rhythmically. After a while I was so exhausted that I only heard his thudding voice ordering me: “Up, down.” When I slowed down and said that I couldn’t do any more, he countered: “You have it too good here. I can’t stand the smell of a Jew.” Then he left. I slumped in the chair, depleted of all my strength.

  One day, late in the afternoon, an ambulance arrived, and an SS officer came to the station. I had no idea who he was. “Are you the dentist?” he asked.

  “Yes, Herr Hauptscharführer,” I answered.

  He looked around the room first, without a comment. I thought he approved of what he saw. “I am Dr. König. I will be coming here to see the Mannschaft [team],” he said pompously. Then he ordered me to prepare weekly reports. He said that he had informed the SS that he would be coming to Fürstengrube on Tuesdays, between four and six. Before he left, he asked me if anything was needed in the station. “Vitamin C and novocaine in any form, Herr Hauptscharführer,” I answered him.

  On weekdays, when most inmates were out at work, I worked in the KB. On one such day, a chauffeur-driven black Mercedes drove up, and four high-ranking SS officers came in. One of them looked familiar. Their emblems showed they were all medical people. Dr. Lubicz reported the usual: the number of sick in the KB and “all is well.” Commenting to one another, they next passed Dr. Seidel, Felix, Boris, and me, as we all stood at attention. After they entered the sick ward and saw the hospitalized prisoners, one asked Dr. Lubicz what was wrong with them. At one point I heard Dr. Lubicz address one man as Dr. Mengele. In that instant I remembered having seen him on the unforgettable morning of our selection. His cool manner and his nonchalant air were unmistakable. Dr. Lubicz told me he knew him from the main camp, where he had once worked. Dr. Mengele, however, acted as if he had never seen him before. Lubicz also knew two of the other three: Dr. Fischer and Dr. Schwartz. As they passed by the bedridden inmates, Mengele asked Lubicz why each was there. Lubicz gave him a brief description of each patient and his illness and also gave an opinion on how soon the inmate could return to work. Mengele, however, made his own conclusions and ordered that the numbers of inmates he chose be recorded. In the end, of the sixty that were in the hospital at the time, twenty-two were on the list. These would be picked up and taken to Auschwitz II, Birkenau. Lubicz tried to save some of them, but his plea did not matter. The verdict for all those on the list was final. Those selected knew what awaited them. One of them said, “I know where I am going,” and he twirled his finger up in the air. On the following day they were taken to a certain death. This was the beginning of selections in the camp. From then on, the doctors came to Fürstengrube every week. Mengele often had other doctors with him, most often Fischer, who later came on his own and eventually replaced Mengele. They came only to destroy lives. A German doctor’s Hippocratic oath was hypocrisy.