The Shadowboxer

by Behn, Noel;

  “All doctors, dentists and veterinarians move to the left.”

  Screaming was heard. The prisoners in striped overcoats were pulling a woman from a forward car by her feet. She clutched an infant close to her. Other striped prisoners moved around in a wall. The screaming stopped.

  “All electricians, carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, masons, move to the left.”

  Spangler moved across the ramp and took his place in the new line.

  Nine more categories were shouted through the megaphone. SS officers strolled up and down, picking people almost casually to go to the left.

  Two more categories were called. The megaphone was laid aside. The line to the left was counted.

  Spangler focused his attention at the head of the ramp. Two officers were conferring over a clipboard. The one with the riding crop stepped back and motioned over his shoulder. Then Spangler realized that the second officer was a brawny prisoner, whose striped uniform had been cut in a replica of the SS tunic and breeches. The face was too distant to be distinguished. The bright-yellow scarf at his neck and the SS boots were distinct.

  The yellow-scarfed prisoner waved as he stepped forward. Other prisoners with SS cut uniforms followed him onto the ramp. Spangler counted eight in all. Jackboots clicking, the men strutted down the corridor between the two lines. As they neared, Spangler could see that all were massive and powerful. Their wrists were wrapped in white tape. Their huge faces bore scars and bruises. Most of them had broken noses.

  The man directly behind the leader drew Spangler’s attention. His hair was silver-blue and cut close to the square skull. The nose was wide. The deep-set eyes were crowded by thick bushy brows. The jaw was tight and slightly protruding. He stood a hulking six-foot-five, not as large as the leader, but bigger then the rest. He strode with fists clenched. Rings glistened on the fingers of both his hands. Spangler knew it was Friedrich Tolan.

  The yellow-scarfed group split in half. One contingent began inspecting the line to the left; the other, including Tolan, examined the line to the right.

  “Eyes straight ahead,” a voice barked in Spangler’s ear.

  Spangler shot his glance forward, but not before glimpsing the yellow scarf.

  “Occupation?”

  “Mechanic.” Spangler answered.

  “Mechanic, sir. You say ‘sir’ to us,” the voice snapped.

  “Mechanic, sir.”

  Spangler’s arm was felt, then his stomach and upper legs. “Step out.”

  Spangler moved to the side.

  “Strip to the waist.”

  Spangler did as he was told.

  “Drop your trousers and underwear.”

  Spangler obeyed the order. He stood naked as the man moved around him and studied his body. It was the leader of the yellow-scarves.

  “No operations? Hernias? Things like that?”

  “No, sir.”

  A chalk mark was made on his forehead and chest.

  “Dress,” the man ordered as he walked on.

  Farther up the line, other prisoners were dressing or undressing for the yellow-scarves. Spangler could see that the inspection over on the right was somewhat different. Tolan had ordered a young woman to the side. When she hesitated he slapped her across the face. The woman slowly took off her clothes. Tolan studied the body, felt it and then made a chalk mark on the breast and the forehead. He pointed, and the terrified girl hurried across to the left line. Other girls were standing naked farther on while yellow-scarves inspected them.

  An order was shouted. Spangler’s line began to move forward.

  41

  The column of new arrivals marched up the ramp, turned and continued along a frozen mud path through the opened barbed-wire gate and into the compound. They entered a large wooden building where six SS guards and two SS Totenkopf officers waited. The prisoners were arranged into five lines.

  “Wer kann Deutsch?” shouted one of the officers.

  Spangler could not admit that he spoke German. He must pretend to learn it slowly.

  “Wer kann Deutsch?” demanded the second officer.

  Three prisoners hesitantly raised their hands. The trio was moved forward and told to act as interpreters.

  “They will keep at two-arms’-length distance from one another,” the senior Totenkopf officer snapped at the interpreters.

  The order was translated and followed. Spangler did not have to be told, he could anticipate the procedure, he had been through it before—in the early days.

  The prisoners undressed and rolled their clothing into neat bundles and laid them at their feet. They tied their shoes together and deposited them in a designated corner.

  Spangler could see that the Dachau system was being utilized. The dehumanization began on the train trip, now it would be continued and improved upon. The room was bitter cold. Frost covered the floor planks. The SS would let them wait, Spangler told himself, let the freezing sink in, let the humiliation and fear grow.

  The naked men were ordered to stand at attention. The SS officers left. They returned two hours later. The naked new arrivals were orderd out into the subzero morning. Five times they were forced to run around the assembly field. Again they were ordered to attention. Finally they were led into a building adjacent to the one they had just left.

  The prisoners moved along the supply counter. Spangler was issued a threadbare striped suit jacket, a striped pair of cotton trousers, a striped collarless shirt and a pair of torn shoes. His “underwear” had been made from a Jewish prayer shawl and was loosely sewn. His stockings were little more than strips of dark woolen cloth.

  Spangler’s squad of twenty was the second group into the shower room. No soap was provided. The water was tepid and remained on only two minutes. Spangler returned to the cold room and began drying himself with his striped uniform. He looked up. Tolan was staring at him from the door. Spangler went on drying himself. When he glanced over again Tolan was gone.

  When all the new arrivals had finished their bath, teams of prisoners moved through the ranks spraying them with a delousing powder. The order was given to dress.

  The jacket was tight, the trousers too loose. Spangler was given a piece of cord for a belt. He slid on the ragged stockings. One somehow held to his foot, the other would not. Luckily the shoes were almost his size.

  He followed the slow-moving line around the room to the first table. The top was covered by stacks of neatly piled colored cloth diamonds. He knew from the past that red diamonds designated political prisoners; pink, homosexuals; green, criminals; yellow, Jews.

  “Name!” demanded the prisoner behind the diamonds.

  “Knebel, Emil, sir,” Spangler answered.

  “Knebel, E.,” the prisoner shouted down to the next table.

  “Juden. One fifteen dash three two seven,” a second prisoner looking at the sheet called back.

  The first prisoner marked the number on a piece of paper and handed it to Spangler. Next he picked up four yellow cloth diamonds. “You will sew them on your uniform like this,” he said, laying one diamond over the other to form a Star of David. “One on the leg, one over the heart.”

  Spangler moved slowly forward to the next section. A finger was pointed. He sat on the stool and rolled up his sleeve.

  “Name,” called the prisoner seated behind the low counter.

  “Knebel, Emil, sir,” said Spangler, as a truncheon came down on the back of his skull. He fell to the floor. It took a moment for his head to clear. He sensed that an SS or a Kapo was standing behind him. He knew that if he looked he would be hit again. He was also aware that a new arrival would do just that—look to see who had hit him. Spangler glanced up to catch a view of his attacker. The truncheon came down on the side of his face.

  “Onto the stool,” the prisoner behind the counter ordered. Spangler slowly did what he was told. “Your name is One fifteen dash three two seven, do you understand? You have no name except that. Now we will try again. Name?”

  “
One fifteen dash three two seven, sir,” Spangler said quickly.

  “Left arm.”

  Spangler lowered his forearm across the counter. The prisoner on the other side gripped his wrist, pressed it tight onto the surface, pushed up the sleeve and raised the hot tattooing needle.

  “Not this one, he has chalk, can’t you see it,” an SS officer said, stepping up beside Spangler and pulling him off the stool. “Over there with the others,” the officer snapped.

  Spangler joined four more new arrivals standing in the corner. They too had not been numbered. Spangler studied them. All were obviously in good physical condition.

  It took the barbers an hour and a half to process the majority of the new prisoners. Only Spangler and the nine other men in the corner remained. Now they were ordered forward to the stools. Their beards were shaved. On orders from the SS officer their hair was not cut.

  The new arrivals were then divided into three groups. Spangler and the nine other untattooed, unshorn prisoners joined twenty-five processed bald prisoners, merged into a double column and marched from the building.

  The sun was bright and the sky a clear, cold blue. Ice-crusted ground, building and fences twinkled in the morning light. Spangler was impressed. Almost everything here at Birkenau was precisely the same as at Birkenau in Westerly: the ramp they had just re-crossed, the triple spread of rails that lay behind, the two crematoria they had passed to their left, the compounds beyond the interior fencing to the right with their endless rows of gray wooden barracks, the guard towers looming everywhere in the distance.

  Spangler noticed only three variations from the Westerly reproduction. First, the barbed-wire fences here were one to two feet lower than those in England. Second, the lighting was different: there were more bulbs strung along the interior compound fences than had been allowed for at G. P. G. Third was the terrain: in England the earth was hard-packed; here in Poland everything rested on frozen mud.

  The column marched deeper into the maze of Birkenau’s compounds. Spangler became more relaxed. Gone was the pain in his shoulder, the tension, the intermittent fever that plagued him on the “outside.” Gone, too, was the lingering headache that had followed him from England. He walked strongly and without a limp. His hands were steady, his countless other ailments had vanished. He knew it was February 26, but it didn’t matter. Spangler took a deep breath. He had never felt better. He was where he belonged. He had come home.

  42

  Spangler and the other new arrivals stood in a single line along the north end of the roll-call field, in Compound II-D. Behind them were the stone kitchen buildings. Ahead lay a double row of brown wooden buildings, sixteen on each side. No SS guards were to be seen, only Kapos wearing the green triangles of convicted criminals. Kapos ordered them to stand to attention, and so they stood rigid in the cold and watching as the sun rose to its zenith and descended into dusk. No food was offered them. No relief given from the rigid posture. Strings of light bulbs along the interior perimeter fences glowed on. Darkness brought the smell of food. Darkness brought even sharper winds.

  Chanting and the tramping of feet became audible. Spangler glanced out of the corner of his eye. He could see the adjoining compounds filling with the dark forms of prisoners.

  The chanting and tramping continued interminably. He heard shouts directly to his rear.

  Column after column of prisoners began trudging into the roll-call area, facing the line of new arrivals. Kapos’ shouts and truncheon blows accompanied every movement. Soon more than five thousand weary, haggard prisoners stood marking time in place and chanting.

  Orders were shouted. Marching stopped. Prisoners froze to attention. An SS officer and two SS guards walked briskly down the corridor separating the new arrivals from the mass of returning laborers. The officer raised a clipboard. Rolls were called. Work Kommando Kapos stepped smartly forward and shouted out the number of the newly dead. Corpses were dragged out and laid before the first line of prisoners. The officer strolled casually past the row of bodies. The order was given to remove them.

  A second ritual began. The work Kommando Kapos reported the sick and injured. Prisoners struggled out of the ranks and formed a sagging line. The officer studied them from a distance. His finger began pointing. Some moved out and formed a column that quickly marched off. The majority dejectedly returned to their former positions and stood to attention again.

  Spangler heard a movement to his right. All that could be seen there was the vague outline of large men huddled in the shadows.

  The officer turned abruptly and faced the line of new arrivals.

  “I am SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Klempf,” barked the captain. “It is my duty to welcome you here—and so I do. It is your honor to be allowed here—and so you are. It is your honor to serve us—and so you shall. Here you will serve. Here you will work. Work cures all ills. Past and future no longer exist. The present is work. You exist only to work.”

  Captain Klempf spoke in German. No interpreters had been provided for the new arrivals. Very few could understand. It had not been expected that they would.

  Klempf took to pacing back and forth. “Yes,” he finally said, “here you will quickly learn that work and strength are the only virtues. Work and strength are progress. The Reich respects achievement. The Reich respects work and strength. It is rewarded. Yes, here and now, before you, we will demonstrate how well it is rewarded.”

  Klempf spun on his heel. “Read the list!”

  An SS corporal raised his clipboard. Ten numbers were shouted. Spangler and the other nine untattooed, unshorn new arrivals were moved out between the two contingents of facing prisoners.

  “At Birkenau there is no better position than that of cook. Yes, a cook leads a good life. A cook is of great importance.” Klempf grinned at Spangler and his companions. “You few have been given a rare opportunity. These are the present cooks,” he said, moving aside. “If you want their jobs, take them!”

  Six massive prisoners led by a red-faced giant of a man charged out of the ranks to the left and started for Spangler and the other nine. Tolan and five more cooks approached them from the right.

  Spangler was the first to be hit. He rolled with the blow, feinted and drove his fist into the neck of the leader. The giant let out a screech, clutched his throat and dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. The attackers stopped in disbelief and watched their comrade pitch face forward and writhe on the frozen earth.

  At a shout from Tolan the cooks resumed their attack. One by one the new arrivals were bludgeoned into submission. Soon only Spangler and two others remained fighting.

  Spangler knew that he must not win, that he must not be the last to fall, that he should submit now. Something kept him from it.

  The cooks split into two groups and began to stalk. Suddenly they stopped. The wounded cook had risen unsteadily to his feet, clutching his neck. He pointed at Spangler. All the cooks started after him. He sidestepped, and two flew past. He caught the third full in the face with his knee.

  Spangler decided to take his beating. When Tolan and three more cooks swarmed on him from behind he let them take him.

  All eyes were on Spangler as he was dragged forward by Tolan and another cook to the felled giant, who lifted his club and brought it unsteadily down. Spangler knew he shouldn’t move, but he couldn’t resist. He tugged to his right, pulling Tolan under the plummeting wood. It caught him on the bridge of the nose. Spangler ducked, shot up an arm, knocked away the giant’s hand and drove another fist into the swollen neck.

  Four cooks held Spangler in position. Three more tried to raise the giant. When they couldn’t, Tolan was lifted to his feet. Spangler was pulled forward. Tolan gripped the club and raised his arm. When it came down Spangler made sure he was underneath it.

  Twelve motionless men lay sprawled on the blood-splattered ground. Klempf strolled casually through them and faced the ranks of stunned new arrivals.

  “A Czech Jew once wrote a story,” he sai
d, with a faint smile. “In this story a man awakes one morning to find that he has been changed into a large bug. The story goes on to prove that if you put the mind of a man into the body of a bug, it will soon become the mind of a bug. The Czech Jew only had a theory; we have the means! Birkenau will soon turn you into bugs. But not individual bugs—you will be communal bugs! There is no more individuality; your ten fallen comrades are the last attempt at that. Now, you are part of a community. If one of you commits a crime, all will suffer. If one is good, all will be rewarded. And that is how it shall be—from this moment forward.”

  Spangler felt the tugging. He tried to open his eyes and couldn’t. He knew vaguely that he was being dragged over the frozen mud. He was certain time was lapsing. He had the sensation of being lifted and carried. He felt a distant jolt as he was dropped on a hard surface and rolled over and over. Again he drifted. Sensations returned intermittently. He felt a chill. A stench was evident. So was a noise. He fought to open his eyes. Finally he did. Dimly he realized that he was on an upper shelf of a tiered bunk. Two other men were asleep beside him. Both were snoring. Both stank. The barracks was not heated. One thin blanket covered him and his bedfellows. Spangler tried to raise up. His effort stirred the man next to him. A somnambulistic arm engulfed him. He sank back with a far-off vision of tier after tier of bunks jammed with sleeping refuse. Cold and noise grew faint. Spangler fell back into unconsciousness.

  43

  Water dripped on Spangler’s forehead. He opened his eyes and looked up into the grinning toothless face. The wide square head was covered with scars and bruises. One eye was permanently closed. The ears were cauliflowered tight to the skull. There was no neck, only massive shoulders set directly under the large battered jaw.

  “Come,” the Kapo uttered in low guttural German.

  “I don’t understand your language,” Spangler answered in Hungarian. “We want you, come,” the Kapo repeated, this time in pidgin Hungarian.