by Ellen Keith
“You’re right.”
Like horses with blinders, we fixated on the goal of survival, but so much of it came down to luck. I pictured myself shivering on the bunk at Ravensbrück, trying to make it through the cool, sodden nights. But then the music returned. I recalled how I’d spent that time imagining my fingers around the bow of my violin, how I’d transported myself back to the auditorium in Amsterdam, where I used to practice until my fingers blistered. I turned to Ernst, whose cheeks were blotchy and wet. “What do you love more than anything?”
“Her.”
“Besides her.”
“What do you mean?”
“What else makes you happy?”
“Mathematics, I suppose. I used to teach.”
“Good, then fill your days with mathematics. Create complicated equations and solve them. Think of formulae and geometry and algebra.”
Someone knocked on the door. Time was up. We put on the rest of our clothes, and I whispered Theo’s name to Ernst, begging him to spread the word of my search. Ernst paused as he left, and kissed my cheek. “Thank you.”
When he was gone, I sank down against the wall. Seven more to go.
EVEN though many of the men were too weak to take control, what they managed was enough to leave me raw down below, a burning that grew worse each time as I felt myself swell and dry up, until this became an unbearable pain. While they had their way with me, I lay there like a corpse and stared at the ceiling, willing myself to vanish, to find some escape. Once, I made the mistake of looking toward the door, where I noticed an eye pressed up to a wide peephole. Those filthy moffen were spying on us, probably getting aroused by my suffering.
By the end of that first week, I could barely move. I counted each visitor, calculating the amount of time I had left before I could trudge back to the sleeping quarters. The final prisoner entered the room without a hint of excitement, and as soon as he moved to touch me, I could tell he didn’t fancy women. A pink triangle, a handsome man of around twenty with girlish features.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
He led me to the bed, undid the clasp of my brassiere. “I have no choice.”
“But you paid for your visit. Isn’t it meant as a reward?”
“Not for me.” He stripped, exposing a criss-cross of lash marks across his back, deep rope burns on his wrists.
“Oh God.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me, not me.” He avoided my gaze. “They’ve carted some of the others off to the infirmary.”
“The infirmary?”
“They think they can cure us. We’ve heard rumours of castrations, injections.” He didn’t flinch as he said this, but took out his penis and rolled it in his palm, studying the plants as he tried to get hard. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do.”
I hadn’t thought there was anything as awful as being a Jew in a camp. Never before had I met someone of his type, although I’d always had my suspicions about our neighbourhood cobbler in Amsterdam. But like the cobbler, this boy had a friendly face and seemed perfectly normal. His brow furrowed in concentration. What was he thinking about, or whom?
The moment he tried to enter me, he lost his erection and began to panic. But I had no idea how to arouse a man who had no interest in me at all. I couldn’t take him in my mouth. I tried to stroke some reaction out of him, and when he closed his eyes, this worked for a moment, but then he grew soft again.
We heard a loud rap and saw that beady eye at the glass.
“Hurry up in there!”
I didn’t budge. The moffen didn’t care if other men didn’t go through with it, so why now? The boy grabbed himself, furiously rubbed up and down. He bit his lip in frustration. “Help me, please.”
I pictured an infirmary block, a set of surgical knives on an operating table. With sudden strength, I pulled him overtop of me, with his back facing the door. “Just pretend. I’ll hide you.”
His shoulders hunched inward as I raised a bent leg to conceal his groin. He thrusted faster, faking a groan, and reached out to brace himself against me. But by mistake, he yanked my hair and I dropped my leg in surprise.
The door swung open, and an SS officer came in, a beefy man with a baby face. “What are you doing?”
We froze. My limbs trembled under the boy’s weight. When he said nothing, I spoke up. “He’s almost finished.”
“Both of you stand up.” As we separated ourselves, the officer sneered at me before diverting his attention to the boy’s shrivelled penis.
“Please,” the boy said, “give me another chance.”
“After trying to trick me?” He grabbed the naked boy by the elbow before turning to me. “You insolent bitch. You only have one purpose here; don’t forget that.”
As he pulled the boy out of the room, the boy glanced at me over his shoulder, but I looked down at a spot in the centre of the floorboards, terrified of what punishment lay ahead.
FOR several days, I heard nothing of the incident and continued my work as normal. On the third evening, I was about to wash up after my last client when the brothel supervisor appeared. “You’re not done. One of the officers says you have some dues to pay.”
I swallowed. “What do you mean?”
She passed me fresh linen to put on the bed before leaving the koberzimmer. I sat in the corner on the floor, knees pressed to my chest, fighting to breathe.
The door opened and he strutted in, that same ruddy-faced officer. “We meet again.” He pulled off his leather overcoat, draped it over the back of a chair and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops as he leaned back to examine me. “I don’t think I ever introduced myself. SS-Kommandoführer Hoffmann. Bruno, if you must. And your name?”
I said nothing but stood in front of him, trying to steady my breath.
“Marijke, plucked from the streets of Amsterdam for civil disobedience. A Jew-lover from the resistance.” He tugged at his belt buckle. “You’re far too pretty to be here, my dear.”
He approached with a sickening grin, forcing me back until I was up against the bed. His tunic and shirt came off, and his bratwurst fingers fumbled with the buttons of my blouse. As soon as he had two loose, he reached underneath, his fingernails scraping my skin as he pawed my breasts. A bulge appeared in his trousers. He nodded and I began to undress, but not fast enough for his liking. Stitches in my blouse split with his impatience.
Dropping his trousers to his ankles, he flipped me onto my knees and splayed my legs before forcing himself inside me with a searing burn. I prayed for him to finish quickly, to leave the room and forget all about me, to never look at me again. But he took his time. With every stroke, I wanted to cry out, but refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead, I tried to focus on what life would be like after the war ended. Once Germany lost, a nation wiped out like a sandcastle beneath a crashing wave. How it would feel to cycle through the market again, the calls of the fishmonger at my back. Theo and I would have beautiful, healthy children. He would ride alongside me on a carrier bike, twin girls sitting up front in the box, while I took our infant son on mine, and we would stop along the IJ to watch the freight ships docking.
The slimy mof smirked and stroked my cheek when he came. He pulled out, wiped himself on the mattress cover, his eyes never leaving me as he dressed. I pointed my body to the wall, but he came over, looming above me. He grabbed my nipple between two fingers, pinching hard. “You did good, girl. A positive report.”
A sudden rush of saliva filled my mouth, and the moment the door closed behind him, I stumbled over to the sink and heaved.
Chapter Five
KARL
JULY 9, 1943
BUCHENWALD
BUCHENWALD WAS TOO FULL OF MEN. IN BERLIN, Karl hadn’t minded. He could sit at the office all day, phoning men, in meetings with men, and then he would leave work and head to the beer halls, where alluring numbers in short skirts and frilly tops waited. The few women stationed at Buchenwald looked like Clydesdale horses
.
Shortly after his arrival, Karl attended a cocktail party in Brandt’s villa. The brass band performed, and waiters roamed through the house with trays of drinks. He asked for straight whisky and sipped it in the corner while studying the other officers. Most had paunches or shiny bald patches. Their wives must have noticed that he was one of the youngest, because they kept looking in his direction, huddling like a gaggle of geese, until a plump lady wearing an emerald brooch approached. “You must be the new Schutzhaftlagerführer.”
“Karl.”
She grabbed him by the arm and led him over to the others. They threw out their names one by one, which he promptly forgot, though he tried to make note of their respective husbands.
“How lovely to have you join us,” the plump one said. “Why don’t I give you a tour of the villa?”
Another swooped in. “Ursula, I believe your husband was looking for you. I’ll show our new recruit the highlights.”
“No, I just spoke with him.”
“Actually, ladies,” Karl said, “that’s very kind, but the Kommandant already gave me the tour.”
A third woman stepped forward, this one wearing a ridiculous amount of rouge. “Even better. Why not join us in the sitting room for a drink? We’d love to hear more about you.”
“Yes,” Ursula added. “You have to tell us what brought you to the camp. The Führer should be clamouring to have you as one of the faces of his party. And where is your wife? A man like you can’t be single, can he?”
His thoughts drifted to Else, four years earlier. Lovely Else, tall and graceful, lounging on his daybed in her beret and fur coat. Her shattered expression when he’d broken off the engagement. “It’s your parents,” he told her as she wept into his new uniform. “It’s not that I don’t love you.” She didn’t beg him to reconsider. Last he’d heard, she’d joined the cabaret, while her parents had fled to America, though he doubted they would get any more sympathy for their Bolshevik delusions there.
A voice snapped him back to Buchenwald. “Don’t be such a meddler, Ursula.”
“I just thought we could introduce him to some of the eligible ladies around here.”
“Eligible ladies?” The one with the gaudy cheeks snorted. “The camp guards?”
“Well,” Karl said, “it’s been a pleasure, but I can’t stay here all night.” He broke out of their circle and headed for the porch. Outside, he took a deep breath of fresh air and loosened his top button. All the schmoozing, the decrepit condition of the prisoners, it felt overwhelming. As he took a seat on the settee and looked up at the sky, the hinges of the porch door squeaked. He stiffened.
“Relax, Müller. The flock has moved on.” Brandt chuckled and came over to join him. They sat listening to the crickets chirping in the woods that separated the villas from the rest of camp. There was no sign of the stars between the gathering clouds.
“Beautiful out here, isn’t it?” Brandt said.
“Certainly a nicer view than my place in Berlin.”
“You’re a reasonable man, Müller, and I like that, but you’ve never set foot in a camp before. It’s unusual for someone of your experience to be granted a post like this.”
“I understand, sir.”
“The Führer has scores of able-bodied men out there in combat, but the engine of our economy runs here in these camps. Our brains, Müller, our strict adherence to discipline. Camp life takes some getting used to, you know, not to mention a certain fortitude. Think of Buchenwald like a factory. Things can run smoothly only if every single person does their job efficiently and without hesitation.”
“Well, you can count on me for that.”
“Good.” Brandt stroked his chin. “Now, come on in and have a cigar with us.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll join you in a minute.”
The Kommandant went back inside but Karl sat there a mo-ment longer, staring at the murky sky and reminiscing about Else.
A few days later, Karl was checking inventory in the depot that contained the inmates’ personal belongings when he heard female voices outside.
“Did I tell you about that guard last night?”
A young woman with a Dutch accent replied. “I don’t want to hear about it right now.” She paused and sighed. “How about this instead? I spy with my little eye, something that is grey.”
He moved to the window. A dozen women had filed past with a guard, but a few of them dawdled at the end of the line, some of them linking arms. They wore blouses and pleated skirts, so he assumed they belonged to the SS officers’ brothel. A long-nosed girl spoke up.
“You spy? What are you talking about?”
“It’s a game; you have to guess what I’m looking at.” The Dutch girl had a small chest and stood taller than the others. Her curly hair was the colour of apple cider, and she wore it pulled back from her pretty face. “Just guess!” She spoke in a singsong voice, but something harder coated her words, a lacquer of determination.
“A game, really?”
The Dutch girl tugged at her companion’s sleeve. “Come on; it will make things better.”
“I don’t know. Everything here is grey. That wheelbarrow?”
“Keep guessing.”
Their conversation faded as they walked farther away, but he watched for another minute, curious about that girl and what had brought her to the camp.
IN the evening, he paid a visit to the SS brothel. All day, he’d questioned how he’d ended up at Buchenwald. His young age and lack of military training had set him up for desk jobs crunching statistics on economic productivity, but his superiors had conspired a different fate. Despite what he’d told the Kommandant, Karl suspected his father had played a part in getting him the promotion, probably reeling in a few favours from his prominent network. If it hadn’t been for his age and declining health, his father might have fought for such a position himself. As a fellow veteran, Wilhelm Müller spoke of the Führer like a comrade, a man who understood him.
Every spring since the war, Karl’s father would retreat into a stupor for the month of April, during the anniversary of some battle. His skin gave off the smell of alcohol as he locked himself in his study long into the nights. As a child, if Karl got in the way or used the wrong tone, his father would strike him. Once, he’d thrown a chair across the room. Karl’s mother would comfort Karl after his father calmed down. She assured him that his father loved him but that the war had damaged him in ways they couldn’t see. Still, Karl always went to bed wondering what he’d done wrong, forging plans for ways to please his father.
Every summer, his family spent time at their lake house. As a boy, Karl would pack his suitcase two weeks ahead of time, dreaming of the adventures that awaited. His father, however, could never relax on those holidays; he always had a newspaper or a book in his hand, as if he were wary of what idle hours might do to his brain. He enforced his regime of militant regulation with fervour: from the age of nine, Karl had to perform forty-five minutes of calisthenics each morning to earn breakfast. Afterwards, he was permitted to play for two hours, but then he had to read or study until it was time to swim lengths along the shore. Sometimes, his father made him lug stacks of bricks back and forth until his arms ached. “Being weak or sickly is not a condition,” his father argued, “but rather a sign of indolence and a lack of character.” When Karl passed afternoons in the forest, collecting plant specimens for identification, his father scoffed in disapproval. “Stop carrying around those flowers. You look like some kind of fairy.”
Karl had first heard of Adolf Hitler at age thirteen. His father returned home from a late business dinner to say that he’d seen a commotion outside a local beer hall. And while the failed putsch got Hitler thrown in jail, his father never forgot that name. So when Hitler returned to the scene years later, promising a revived Germany, a restoration of glory, the Müller family had been among the first to place their trust in him. They’d seen cities growing crowded from overpopulation and worried about the threat to
their properties, which were hard enough to maintain under the crippling inflation. The National Socialists vowed to protect their land, to create Lebensraum for the German people, living space for the population to expand and prosper. They would take back what had been swindled by the Jews, the Treaty of Versailles. They would pull Germans from the sinkhole of humiliating defeat and economic weakness. The Reich would be great again, powerful among nations. A fresh start for everyone. And if all this happened, Karl hoped his father might also soften, return to how he’d been before the war, capable of warmth and affection.
The year Hitler became chancellor, Karl had turned twenty-three. His father had a very specific vision for what kind of man he should become: a patriot, robust, educated, cultured and fearless. So instead of pursuing his interest in biology, Karl had followed his father’s path by studying economics. At university, he trained in track and field and discovered a talent for javelin. With Hitler boasting about placing the Third Reich on the world stage, Karl’s father eyed the upcoming Olympics in Berlin. He pushed Karl to train harder, but the other athletes were younger and stronger. The day before the qualifiers, Karl pulled his shoulder. Unwilling to accept his resignation, Karl’s father called him a pansy, a weakling, and took him to another doctor for a second opinion. The injury was as real as Wilhelm’s disappointment.
A decade later and Karl had regained his father’s confidence. When he joined the SS, his father had hosted a celebratory party at their lakeside estate. And after he got word of his new job at Buchenwald, his father had sat him down with a cigar and told him how pleased he was that Karl was active in the cleanse and in the advancement of the Third Reich. He would bring honour to the family name. The idea of a cleanse sounded so clinical that Karl almost forgot they were talking about actual people. He still found himself grappling with the party’s views on race and the Final Solution, but the visit with his father had left him with such a feeling of pride and responsibility that he pushed these doubts away. The promotion had excited him, a chance to witness the heart of the Führer’s labour force in operation.