Unspeakable Prayers: WW II to Present Day (Thaddeus Murfee Series of Legal Thrillers)

by John Ellsworth

  Word went out. By supper the next day everyone knew about the new plan. Already the leaders in Lodzi's barracks, including Lodzi himself, were selecting other participants to man the plan and execute it in Camp 1 simultaneous to its execution in Camp 2. In fact, it was agreed the camps would work together, in order to bring the most pressure to bear on the German military machine when the plan was executed.

  The plan involved a revolt. In Camp 2 this was made more possible by the presence of a weapons store. The plan required making a key to the warehouse door and stealing weapons. Two days later, the key was made in the automotive shop, and entrance into the weapons store could be made at any time the inmates of Camp 2 decided to make it happen.

  Communicating Camp 2's plan and timing to Camp 1 was difficult because they were separated by a kilometer and because it would be very rare—if it ever happened—where a Jew would move between camps—back and forth—for any reason. However, workers from both camps went to Schlauch to clean off the blood of the murder victims. The Schlauch extended to the border of Camp 1, and there Lodzi's people came in contact with the Schlauch workers from Camp 2. They successfully combined into one plan by communicating even in the presence of the SS guards and Ukrainian overseers. It involved talking among themselves in loud voices that were meant for the workers of the adjoining camp to hear. Plans, dates and times were exchanged in this fashion, even though, to the Nazis and Ukrainians, it sounded like birthday celebrations were being planned on certain dates at certain times. It seemed a certain Jewish holiday would be celebrated by everyone on one day, beginning at one time. The SS men knew nothing about Jewish holidays and would have been astonished to learn the upcoming celebration was counterfeit, the accommodations under discussion were really about the escape.

  It was simple. They had decided to blow up both camps.

  Lodzi returned to the barracks at night with a smile in his heart. This was the first time he had felt hopeful since the doors on his cattle boxcar had banged open and he had stepped onto the platform of Camp 1. He squinted at the fringe of light around the door of their barracks. The double vision had largely cleared up with the healing of the bone above his eye. There was just enough diplopia to remind him but not enough to frighten him, not any longer.

  Not everyone was told about the plan. The utmost care had to be taken, as there were spies among the inmates, Jews who had cooperated with the SS in exchange for scraps of meat and occasional tobacco. Unfriendly ears were cheap to buy and the market was plentiful. So Lodzi and his fellow revolutionaries passed word of the plan only among their trusted sixteen workers, half of who were dentists in Lodzi's building.

  The plan required everyone go to work on revolution day as normal. There could be absolutely no change in their routine or in how they comported themselves or how their faces looked. Each man received his role in the plan over the next ten days. Each man would be required to be located at a specific place when the execution of the plan erupted. There would be two gunshots coming from Camp 2 to signal the revolution was underway.

  Several men were assigned to set the gas chambers on fire. Two—including Lodzi—were assigned to set the dental building and Barracks One and Four on fire. Others, the stronger men, were assigned the task of killing SS guards and Ukrainians and laying hold of their automatic weapons and side arms. Embellishments were made. Lodzi targeted SS Captain Janich Heiss for himself. Almost as much as he wanted escape, he wanted that Satan dead. Several nights in a row he dreamed of plunging the man's bayonet deep into the murderer's chest. How he would love to watch as the blood ran over the black SS uniform. How they all would cheer as the killer crumpled to his knees and tried to remove the blade from his heart. They would burn his body with kerosene. They would dance on his charred bones!

  But the dreams always ended. Still, each day Lodzi arose with a new resolve bent on fashioning the personal destruction of Heiss. For one, Lodzi couldn't erase from his mind how the captain had regaled himself and others with the story of the ladder bearers driven into the pits themselves and shot one-by-one, murdered as he chuckled and backs were slapped in great merriment.

  Then there were the hundreds of random gunshots Lodzi had witnessed from the barrel of the captain's Luger. Usually for no reason the man would kill Jews in disgust and order them thrown into the pit without a second thought. Images of the gun barrel placed against the infant's head and its brain matter scattering underfoot on the train platform as the mother cradled the dead infant and kissed the dead face while weeping never-ending tears.

  The man was without a soul and so the only thing perplexing Lodzi was how the soulless were to be tormented for eternity in hell. It was problematic; a question for the rabbis, and Lodzi pushed it from his mind. He knew there would be eternal retribution for the sins; he just didn't know the theology. Nor did he care, since he no longer believed in God. The Nazis had killed off even his belief in God, and he hated them most of all for the unfathomable loss. He knew it was gone, his belief, and he knew he would never regain the belief, not after what he had witnessed. For no loving God could have allowed Treblinka to happen. It was beyond Lodzi's ability to conceive how such a thing might happen in the world. So he surrendered the belief, angrily and permanently. He promised himself he would never again give it a second thought. Even if he survived there would be no outpouring of thanksgiving. There was nothing and no one left to thank except his fellow inmates. If it was to happen, it was up to them and no one or nothing else. And so it was with Lodzi, as he awoke on the morning of the plan, cold and aching from the damp ground that surrendered its permafrost into his spine overnight.

  He stood and stamped his feet and blew warm lung air on his hands. It was time to leave this place forever. A pang of hope shot through his chest, which he immediately extinguished with the grim reminder to himself no one had ever escaped the Nazi war machine before. There had been no survivors of Treblinka. Hope was very dim.

  The escape plan assigned to the dentists was to gather up as much gold as possible. This assignment came from Lodzi’s co-conspirators. Wherever they escaped to, gold would always be a quick currency for food, shelter, and even passage out of Europe.

  Months went by. Dates were set and then changed again and again as some unforeseen event intervened. Trains arrived unexpectedly and new prisoners had to be processed; or guards changed routines and previous plans were made useless; or others in the inner circle were murdered and newcomers had to be found to replace them. Coupled with the nearly impossible communications between the camps, Lodzi with his confidants were feeling like they would randomly be selected to die before they would get the chance to die by attempting escape. The latter method was the preferred method, they joked among themselves, even though the joke was heavily laden with truth.

  So they waited while spring came and went and then summer.

  Finally they received a date from Camp 1: the revolution was set for 2 August, 4:30 in the afternoon. Anticipation and frayed nerves became commonplace. Everyone walked on eggshells, praying (those who still prayed) some unforeseen event wouldn't destroy the plan yet again. Even those refusing to pray, like Lodzi, now uttered prayers more from habit than faith. It could be bad luck not to pray and no one wanted such a calamity on his shoulders.

  The morning of 2 August dawned and the air sparkled with bright sunshine. Dragonflies and butterflies flitted in and out of the camp, and Lodzi was reminded soon he would taste their priceless freedom to fly from there, too. That is, if all went well. He had never imagined in his wildest dreams he would be jealous of bugs, but he was. And the birds that still sang without reason; no reason was needed, just the joy in song.

  He knew in his early life he had once had that joy, that careless love for life, and he knew he would never know it again. Another mark for the Nazis. But he didn't dwell on his loss. Hundreds of thousands of others had been far less lucky than he. It would be a sin to mourn for his loss in the face of genocide.

  He resolved he would
never speak of these things, these personal feelings. He believed himself insignificant in the frame of the big picture. And like so many other survivors, he believed himself unworthy. He was ashamed he had once boldly claimed to be a dentist. He was ashamed he had ignored the shouts of his wife when she was being driven to the showers to die. He was ashamed he hated God and yet that same God now allowed him to live. And how could it be God who allowed him to continue, if there was no God? Then what was it permitting him to continue to draw breath when other’s lungs were filled with rot? What was it?

  Despite their fears, they were all happy the time had come. They went off to work with light hearts, though they told each other not to show it on the face or in the voice. A normal day's fuel for the large gas chambers was about sixty liters of petrol. Which meant they would prepare thirty cans for a reserve. Instead, they prepared sixty cans and the guards failed to notice. Their barracks leader, who worked in the camp as a butcher, turned to the Camp Deputy, Karl Spetzinger, for permission to sharpen his knives, because they were to receive a dead horse and the knives were dull. Spetzinger agreed, and Kalman the butcher sharpened his knives and the pliers to cut the barbed wire.

  Everything was ready. They were excited and also their fear was heightened at the last possible moment they would be kicked aside for some slight against some SS man and summarily shot. So they made every effort not to draw attention to themselves and to speak agreeably and respond immediately to all orders.

  At noon the bugle blew and Lodzi with his fellows broke off for the noonday cup of soup. The soup usually consisted largely of beets, but this day included potatoes as well. It would have to last them. Then they heard from Camp 2 all was ready and they would be free in three hours.

  The inmates had seen to the ovens. There would still be people at work, so no one would be locked up in the barracks and unable to come help. Samuel Lodin, the master at the ovens, began the plan by complaining the fires needed attention, the flame wasn't hot enough to burn away all flesh. In fact a fetid smoke was hanging over the camp and the smell of burned flesh was clinging sickeningly to every skin surface, and entering every nose and mouth.

  Then the head cook, Reinman, needed more water in the kitchen. The guards allowed him to choose three helpers and send them to haul a wagonload of water. The three actually were soldiers who would be ready at the appointed minute to slit the throats of the Ukrainian kitchen guards and lay hold of their weapons.

  No one asked for seconds of soup. They softly chanted to one another, "Ha-yom, ha-yom!" Hebrew for, "The Day, the Day!"

  They avoided speaking to one another, so no one would notice anything.

  At 3:30 they heard two gunshots from the direction of Camp 2. That was the sign that the revolt was underway. Moments later the kitchen staff burst free of the kitchen and automatic weapons fire began, the armed SS and Ukrainian guards being the first to go down as other workers then seized their weapons and the group's size swelled. Now there were eight armed inmates, now sixteen. Everyone ran for the north side of the camp, toward the barbed wire being clipped away with the five pliers hidden away over the last six months. Then the wire parted.

  Lodzi, running with his dentist group, made the opening just as the second group from the fields dashed through it, and then, in ten giant steps, he was free! Everyone was running for the nearby forest, so he followed. They ran about three kilometers and found themselves in a small clearing. Everyone was amazed; no Nazi pursuit was heard or seen. Nothing.

  The truth of the matter was, the German camp guards and workers were taken one hundred percent by surprise.

  Now, two-thirds of their number lay dead or dying. Others were preparing pursuit but orders were crossing those orders, stating the Jews still remaining were first to be taken to the showers. Pandemonium erupted, and in the confusion over six hundred Jews from eastern Poland, arriving overnight, found themselves running for freedom through the same hole in the fence the workers had cut.

  Now the woods were full and there were sounds and voices everywhere. Many were running, while some, severely beaten, had to be helped along. Husbands called out for wives; mothers called out for children. Some would be caught up to in the next hour and shot in the woods by the first Germans to pursue. The smart ones, the survivors, managed to put aside all attachments and just run.

  Lodzi crossed the clearing others were circling so as to remain unseen. Then he watched as the peasants and shepherds spotted him and his followers and suddenly ran away out of fear. Gunshots had been heard, but gunshots were common. Executions went on all day and most nights and so the two gunshots from Camp 2 were nothing. But now, with the freed inmates swarming across their fields, the local peasants scattered like grouse before the pointers.

  Not so far behind, Lodzi could hear the unmistakable sound of German automatic weapons fire, and he found himself praying the bullets were being fired by Jews who had seized the weapons. Just then, he didn't even realize he was praying as he ran away. When he finally did, hearing his prayer being uttered by his own mouth aloud, he almost laughed. Here he was, a non-believer, still having a go at it. But it was no place to stop. Who knew, maybe—he didn't finish the thought. He ran and jumped irrigation ditches until he could run no further then walked twenty meters before running again.

  The feeling of freedom was indescribable. The sunlight filtered through the pine needles, turning black to golden, and he saw smoke up ahead, presumably from the chimneys of peasants as the women prepared the evening meal for the men returning from the fields. A little further on and he came to a road with a film of dust rising from its surface and hanging in the air. He prayed—again—it wasn't German vehicles somehow managing to get ahead of them and waiting toward the village. He loped across the road with two other dentists, put his head down, and charged ahead. This was no time to fear what might happen. Only progress would be countenanced as he ordered his feet and legs to keep moving.

  Soon he was weak with hunger. He knew he needed something more to eat than beets and potatoes. His pocket burgeoned with gold crowns and fillings, and with his two friends they began plotting how they might stop and buy food. The idea of food brought tears to the eyes of Israel Salmon, the small dentist from Warsaw.

  "I think we should try, so we at least eat before we are found."

  Lodzi looked at the other comrade. "You?"

  Mishavel Gudenow looked him straight in the eyes and never hesitated. "Agreed. Next farm we walk calmly up to the door of the main farmhouse and ask to purchase milk and cheese."

  "And eggs," said Lodzi.

  "And white bread," said Israel, though the notion of white bread was more than anyone could possibly hope for. White bread was the same to the men as cake. It would be savored and eaten as dessert.

  They moved off then, three abreast, through the woods.

  The shadows were lengthening by six o'clock. The woods had grown more dense and the sounds of others like them crashing along had grown faint. Horror of horrors, they wondered if maybe they had gone full circle and were about to come back to the camp.

  "No," said Lodzi. Touching the side of his head, he added, "I have a good compass here. We've made our way north all afternoon."

  Relieved looks were exchanged and the threesome pushed ahead.

  They then ran another three kilometers, and found themselves in dense brush. Immediately they noticed they were surrounded by a group of about twenty people, who had also escaped. They counted noses and decided to divide up into four groups of five men each. They then separated by about 150 meters. Suddenly it was very quiet and still.

  Within five minutes they heard German being spoken and saw Ukrainians and Germans make their way into the clearing. The first group of men emerged into the clearing, started to run back to the forest, but they were shot before they could get away.

  The Germans then ran into the forest and encountered the second group of men, and machine gun fire again erupted. While bullets whined and ricocheted through the tr
ees, Lodzi and his group ran the opposite direction and split up into smaller groups and separated.

  They spent two weeks hiding in the woods in this fashion. Every night they would find a farmhouse, knock on the door, and the people inside would give them hot food, without asking any questions.

  After two weeks, Lodzi decided the freedom fighters were not in that area and there was little hope of rescue, and so he told his comrades he was leaving for Warsaw. He told them he wanted to go alone, it was time for them to split up. It was a moment of great sorrow. They put their heads together and cried for several minutes for they had become family over the last year.

  Lodzi crept three kilometers through the woods until he came to a farm where the peasant owner was found. He approached the man with his hands upraised, showing he was neither armed nor meant to cause any harm. The peasant asked how he might help. Lodzi explained his situation and the peasant told him the nearest railway station was Kosti about seven kilometers from there. The peasant warned him to be extremely careful and explained the train cars would be bristling with police inspectors. He told Lodzi to follow him inside the house.

  Lodzi was asked to remove his shoes at the door, and he looked down and saw they were caked in mud streaked with blood. He did as asked and the peasant took him to the sink where he allowed him to shave his beard and then the peasant's wife cut his hair very short.

  They then brought him hot water for the tub and he bathed for the first time in over fourteen months. The wife killed a chicken and cooked it and for the first time in a year Lodzi tasted fresh food hot from the stove, at a table, complete with utensils and napkins.