"Shut up," another supplicant shouted back at Lodzi. "Shut the hell up or I will come over while you're sleeping and shut you up myself!"
With that, Lodzi rolled over on his side and pressed his hands against his ears, shutting out the sounds of prayer. “Kaddish,” he thought angrily, “for what use is it?”
At five a.m., the bugle sounded and all fell into line at the kitchen window for coffee and bread. Kaddish was forgotten and there was no longer a lesser group among the larger. Now they were just all Jews crying to God to survive another day. Even Lodzi prayed, in spite of his speech last night. He still prayed to the God he had disavowed. One needed all possible help, and who knew? Maybe God had already taken pity on him and the other survivors and he just didn't know it. He wouldn't know it, he realized, until he was either dying or escaping. But even that ambiguity didn't bother him. He had to use his eyes and ears and hands and back, now, to please his captors. Only by pleasing them would he live another day. He drank down his coffee, treasured his bread a small bite at a time, and concentrated on what he would do if the worst happened. He made his plans for the day, such as they were.
After breakfast he found himself standing outside the gas chamber, a remainder of crust in his hands, a light drizzle of rain mixed with snow wetting his eyelashes and mingling there with the tears running down his face. He realized, with his fellows, their lot for that day and the next day and the next would always be the same. Cut the hair, bear away the bodies, Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
With him under the dripping eave were two men from his village, Andrus and Markus, both of whom were muscular men probably ten years older than Lodzi, angry looks stamped across their faces which belied the tears also streaming down their cheeks. They agreed they had fallen from the earth into the pit of hell, but they also decided they needed a plan. It was the first time Lodzi had considered a plan other than surviving the day. Andrus, the reddish-blond ape of a man who could usually be found on the other end of Lodzi's ladder, said they would all have to steal zlotys from the clothing of the new load of Jews and the ones after. They would need money. For what? Lodzi demanded to know. For escape, they told him. We are going to escape from hell. A tiny shaft of light penetrated into his brain. A shaft of hope. Escape? Was there really a possibility or was it just idle talk before the day's horrors began in earnest?
"But be very careful speaking of these things," Andrus warned. "After you left the barracks this morning, Shemel Lieberman was executed. On the spot."
"For what?" asked Lodzi—as if a reason were needed.
"For leading Kaddish last night. Someone reported him."
"I know who that was," said Lodzi.
Both men looked at him. It was a serious thing, accusing a Jew of collaborating.
Lodzi shook his head. "It is Avil Vernich. He sleeps beside me. Sometimes when I wake up he has been taken outside the barracks in the middle of the night. He then returns."
"He's meeting with Heiss, then," said Markus.
"Exactly. Tell the man nothing."
"He should be stopped," warned Andrus. "How are we to escape if there's a traitor among us?"
Lodzi nodded his head and looked at Markus. Markus nodded, too. It was a serious matter, this accusation, but ignoring the problem would get them killed that much faster. It was decided they would wait for the right opportunity then confront the man. They would have a trial in the barracks. If found guilty, they would hang him from the rafters. The three men agreed on the plan and shook hands.
It was all forgotten ten minutes later when they were ordered to immediately begin loading the wheelbarrows with sand and cover over a new layer of corpses. As Lodzi ran for the tools, Hauptsturmführer Heiss beat him with a long whip used elsewhere in Poland to drive stubborn oxen from the fields to the barns. Now it was used on him, and in five minutes his shirt was shredded in long strips and he was bleeding from the shoulders up the back of his neck and across his face where the long lashes had blistered and torn his skin. Facial wounds! These meant his time had come round at last. He would be shot any minute and his heart was pounding as he loaded another load of sand into his wheelbarrow and ran with it to the ditch where he dumped it on the bodies below. He did this ten times and then a halt was called and several men around him, out of the thirty working his shift, were told to undress and go into the pit. Those so selected obeyed without delay and, once they were in the pit, were ordered to bend over and wait. As they obeyed, waiting, four officers unholstered their Lugers and began shooting down into the pit, laughing and nudging each other as they watched the catastrophe unfold below their feet. Voices cried out and arms lifted in supplication, as the nude Jews were shot through the tops of their heads and left in a multitude of twisted positions atop and around one another. Meanwhile, Lodzi flew from sand pile to ditch, loading and unloading, certain his time to die would come at any moment. As he went he scooped mud and caked it on his face to cover his wounds. If they were noticed he would be shot with the rest. Any mud would do and he applied it heavily to his face and arms.
Fifteen minutes later, only ten workers were left out of thirty who had begun that morning. One by one they were still being told to park their barrows and undress. Lodzi looked away as the shots continued until there were only four workers left.
"Don't worry," Heiss told him. "You're a good worker. I won't shoot you today."
With that, Lodzi ran faster and faster between mound and ditch, his wheelbarrow falling to the side and spilling its sand several times in his haste. Unusually calm and patient, Heiss looked on and when the spills occurred only whipped Lodzi as he reloaded the sand into the wheelbarrow. Lodzi smiled and thanked his guard and his God for the whipping, eternally grateful that he wasn't being ordered to take a place in the ditch.
Mindlessly the workers transferred the sand from mound to ditch until the last sign of the carnage had been covered up. Lodzi would later estimate they had buried in excess of one thousand Jews that morning, many of them men with whom he had arrived by boxcar.
At noon they heard the bugle and fell into the lunch line. He was allowed to change out of his shredded shirt and put on a new one, which was wool, too tight, and tortured his bloodied back and shoulders with every move he made.
Noses were counted. Markus was among the missing and Lodzi and Andrus merely presumed he was one of those told to undress and report to the pit.
Fifteen minutes later, the gates to the camp parted and seven dump trucks arrived from Treblinka, filled to the side rails with sand for the ditches. Lodzi and Andrus watched as one by one the trucks crawled along the ditches and dumped their small mountains of sand. The men knew what lay in store for them that afternoon, if they weren't singled out and shot in the meantime.
Heiss ordered him to stop what he was doing and help retrieve the new corpses from chamber number seven. He ran for the chamber, blows raining down from the guards along the path as he went, and finally arrived at the chamber, again bleeding on the shoulders and back from new wounds, the wool cloth like sandpaper abrading the open sores.
The mound of bodies inside chamber seven was a full one story high. He grabbed a bloody ladder leaning against the wall and reached up to grasp a blackened hand. The color was normal: the gas turned the bodies black. He pulled the hand and the corpse refused to join him. He located the other hand and pulled again. Again, it wouldn't budge. Now his eyes had adjusted to the dimly lit chamber and he could see that other corpses were holding down his selection. So he released its hand, under a hail of whippings from the Ukrainians stationed inside the chamber, and finally pulled with all his strength, dislodging an uppermost corpse and dragging it onto his ladder. He got the corpse fitted atop the ladder, facedown. He lifted one end of the ladder and began trotting with it back along the path to the ditches. Halfway there, another worker stepped out and blocked his run.
"I am a dentist," he shouted at Lodzi. "I must examine your corpse for gold teeth. Turn it over, immediately!"
Lodzi lifted the corpse with his hands around its chest and found that its head was caught between the rungs of the ladder. He put one foot on either side of the ladder to hold it down, and lifted again. This time he heard and felt the neck break, but still the head was stuck. Now there was a line of litters waiting as he blocked the path and several guards came to see about the work stoppage. Whips were crackling and tearing new wounds across his lower back as he bent to his work, and their snares wrapped around his arms and wrists, tearing his grip loose from the corpse and delaying things even more.
"Pull the body by the feet," the dentist said. "That will relieve the pressure on the head."
Lodzi did as suggested and finally, with great thanks released to the mute God above, Lodzi felt the head come free. He flipped the body over beneath a rain of blows from rifle butts and whips. Now the dentist pried open the mouth and peered inside. With his pliers he pulled several teeth, tossed them into an enamel pan, and told him to resume his run with his corpse.
Lodzi noticed the dentist had tossed some of the teeth into a bloody pan with other teeth, which also contained an inch of water. A brief interlude in the whipping enabled him to swoop up the pan and drink the bloody water down, reassuring his parched tongue and mouth that there was still liquid in the world. Once again the whips fell over his back and he handed the pan back to the astonished dentist.
"Move! Move!" Heiss cried. He lifted his rifle and plunged the heavy wood stock against Lodzi's thick nose. Blood flew in all directions, some of it even managing to spatter the front of the captain's black SS tunic, enraging him even more. Again the gun butt found his face and cracked the bony part of his eye socket just beneath the brow. Now a throbbing headache took root and he blinked several times to ward off the faint he felt coming on. Should he faint, he would immediately be shot and added to the next ladder in line. While he swayed unsteadily, he managed to lift the end of the ladder again and make off with his corpse.
This time he managed to make it to the ditches, where six men stood ankle deep in blood and gore, stacking the corpses side-by-side like sardines in a tin. As each man aligned several more and returned to the other end of the ditch for the new arrivals, they would randomly be shot in the arms and legs and forced to continue working until they fell, where they were finished off. Without a word, the remaining workers would lift the body of their fallen comrade and place him alongside those victims from the gas chambers. And so it continued the rest of the afternoon until the six p.m. bugle blast.
At the kitchen line, he cut in beside Andrus and poked his friend in the back.
"My eye. Push the bone back."
Andrus stepped back and gave him a look. "The bone on top is sticking out. I will push it back inside, but if you scream they will come shoot you."
"Please. Push it inside."
Andrus shrugged and placed the heel of his hand against the offending bone. With a quick snap of his wrist he fit it back in place.
Lodzi stood and didn't flinch. He stared dumbly ahead. Andrus reached and wiped a smear of blood from Lodzi's forehead.
"Any ideas?" Lodzi asked, as if he had just swatted away a gnat.
Andrus had nearly fainted from what he had done and seen. Nevertheless he managed to collect himself.
"Yes. Let's talk under the eave."
It was snowing again and the path was re-freezing with night coming on. The two men huddled beneath the eave of their barracks and watched the snowflakes sifting through the searchlights of the camp. From atop the forty foot pine posts, the light fixtures beamed their stark white light into the night from all four corners of the camp and along the length of the huge square, where the barbed wire awaited the foolhardy.
Guards watched with great enthusiasm from the towers. Rarely did a bona fide escape attempt take place at night. Usually it would be some misfit who had finally lost his mind and run directly into the barbed wire. The tin cans fastened inside the rolls of barbed wire would clatter and clank so the searchlights would immediately swing across and fix them in their stabbing glare. Thus any new escapee was quickly located from the towers and shot entangled in the wires. By morning there would always be a corpse or two or three caught up in the embrace of the wire, usually shot in the head but sometimes only shot through the chest and still breathing. When the sun would finally rise the guards would shoot each corpse, looking down at them from the towers, taking careful aim for a headshot, the coup de grâce just in case life hadn't been fully extinguished during the night. Most often the corpses were then just left in place to decompose and stink up the camp with their decay—a warning to all who would try such tricks.
Lodzi and Andrus watched the searchlights play along the tunnels of barbed wire. They sipped their coffee and savored their bread crusts. Andrus coughed several times, hacking and hocking. Lodzi seemed not to notice and continued chewing his bread delicacy, oblivious to the mucous discharge issuing from his friend. His head hurt and he was crying from the unrelenting pain above his eye. He didn't want to cry, it was just a reaction.
"What do we know?" Lodzi said at long last. He spoke in a whisper, in the Yiddish dialect common to their region of Poland. They would be doubly sure that the SS guards wouldn't understand what was being said, should they overhear.
"We know that we are in hell," said Andrus. A slight trickle of blood appeared in the corners of his mouth. The men ignored such things. The lungs bled internally from all the floggings received during the day; blood meant nothing except that you were still alive to bleed. The dead didn't bleed. So it was a good thing, a reassurance that reality was what it seemed. Yes, you were alive; you weren't dead and dreaming some absurd dream.
"How do we leave here? What's your idea?"
Andrus looked to his right and left. A sharp intake of breath as he prepared to address the only subject that meant anything to him or Lodzi at that point.
They talked then, never looking directly at each other so as to not draw attention, always talking out of the corners of their mouths. They spoke only in their local dialect and said only what they hoped would happen in the escape. Deep down they both knew escape was impossible; still they spoke of it because that's what hopeless men do. They dance even on their own graves if other men are watching.
* * *
It was after eleven o'clock that night when they heard the chains on the outside of the doors of Barracks One being unlocked and dragged out of the door handles. Usually this happened at five-thirty in the morning. To have it happen in the middle of the night was a very dangerous precedent. Lodzi rolled over to his side so he could keep one eye on the door. After another minute, it opened and captain Heiss came striding inside and threw on the lights. He played his flashlight on the sleeping faces toward the rear of the barracks and it stopped when it reached Lodzi.
"You there!"
Lodzi stirred where he slept in the dirt and opened his eyes full wide. His expression said, "Are you speaking to me?" He propped himself up on his right elbow.
"Yes! Come outside with me this minute!"
Lodzi pushed up and hurried to the door and stepped tremulously outside into the snow. He had no coat—they never had coats—and he was immediately freezing. In the dark off to the side was the captain. Lodzi's heart skipped when he realized the captain had his Luger drawn and pointed at Lodzi's head. At the same moment he realized—in a sane moment in an insane dream—that his vision was double in the injured eye. Two searchlights pierced the gloom at the far end of the camp. Two searchlights when, he knew, there was in truth only one.
"I saw you with the dirt this afternoon. I know you tried to hide your wound. That is the same as lying to your superiors. Come with me!"
"Where are we going?"
"How dare you ask!"
The SS man jammed the muzzle of his gun into Lodzi's ear.
"March, we are going to the pits."
Even though it was pitch black outside, Lodzi knew the way to the pits by heart. They went around to the front
of the barracks, passed between two more barracks, and came out on an icy path that led downhill to the mass graves. Lodzi took the lead, with the German walking behind him and to the side, the muzzle of his pistol still pressed into Lodzi's ear. They passed two trash barrels, both flaming from the discarded clothes inside. For a moment they could see the path ahead, then the darkness overcame it again.
When they arrived at the pits, the German ordered him to remove all clothing. Lodzi unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it to the ground. He then removed his trousers and shoes. He was wearing no underwear; they never had underwear. Now he was completely nude and the temperature was -30°C. He knew he was going to die and he knew there was nothing he could say to save himself.
"Jump in!" The captain ordered.
Instead of jumping, Lodzi sat down hard on the frozen ground, and slid down into the mass grave on his back. When he reached the bottom, he was facing away from his captor. He turned just in time to see the flash of the gun. He heard the bullet whiz by his ear and ricochet off the sand at his back. He came forward on his knees and put his head down on the sand as he had seen the other prisoners do when they were shot. There simply was nothing else for him to do, and he did not want to die on his back, where his genitals would be exposed to the people who came to bury him in the morning. He heard the gun roar again and this time felt a bullet graze his shoulder and bite into the sand at his side. He raised his head and looked straight at the German, hoping this time he wouldn't miss and it would be over with. With loss of all bowel control from his fear, his excrement shot down the side of his leg and pooled in the sand beneath him. At the same time he urinated, wetting his thigh, and feeling what he knew would be the last warmth he would ever feel. As he kept his face raised for the German, he realized he did not know where the man was. And he knew if that were true, then the German did not know where he was either. Quietly, like a cat, he moved on his knees to his right. He was certain he had not been heard. At that exact moment, the gun roared again, and the captain called to him "Are you dead? If you are dead, do not bother to answer."
Unspeakable Prayers: WW II to Present Day (Thaddeus Murfee Series of Legal Thrillers) Page 3