The hard work and that hook had discouraged Jaś.
So for a time we did not talk about the bakery, focusing instead on the sewers.
Meanwhile two innovations were introduced into the camp.
During the first years we had had roll call three times a day. In addition to the other brutal, though primitive, ways of finishing us off, the roll calls with the extended punishment parades were also a quiet way of finishing us off.
Then there was a change in the murder methods... to more civilized ones...by which thousands were killed daily by gas and phenol; the daily number brought in for gassing reached 8,000.
As part of this “cultural” improvement, having abandoned finishing off people with clubs, it was decided that this quiet way of finishing off people by keeping them on punishment parades showed modest results compared to the equally quiet way of finishing off people with gas, and was ludicrous; so in 1942 the midday roll call was abolished.
After that there were two roll calls. On Sundays, as before, there was a single roll call at 10:30 a.m.
Now (in the spring of ’43) the innovation was the abolition of another roll call, the morning one, and the introduction for the häftlings of civilian clothes, of which there were thousands left behind by people who had been gassed.
An inmate working inside the camp within the wire was allowed to wear civilian clothing with a red stripe painted in oil paint across the shoulders and around the waist on the jacket, and up the trouser legs.
No one who worked outside and left the camp enclosure was allowed to wear civilian clothing, except kapos and unterkapos.
In any event, there was a huge difference between now and then.
The lads now slept on beds (bunks). They slept under fluffy blankets, taken from “Canada” and which had belonged to people from Holland who had been gassed. Those who remained in camp, in the morning donned fine woollen civilian clothing, spoilt rather by the bright stripes, and went off to work like office workers, without having to stand for roll call.
The lunch break was not disturbed by any roll call or standing at attention.
There was just the evening roll call, which by now was not stressful. We were not out there long. Even on the day when it was discovered that three of the lads had got away from the hospital there was no punishment parade. They simply conducted a thorough search for the escapees, not wanting these witnesses roaming free.
A great effort was made to improve radically Auschwitz’s dreadful reputation, which had already spread.
An announcement was made that the camp would be changed from a “concentration” camp to an arbeitslager [labor camp]—in any event there were no more beatings.
At least that is how it was for us in the stammlager [main camp].
I compared camp impressions from ’40 and ’41—and found it hard to believe that things had been like that, within the same walls and with some of the same people.
I remembered the winter of ’40–’41 when an SS man, in the presence of more than a dozen of us, had suddenly flown into a rage and killed two inmates and then, seeing our eyes fixed on him, had turned to us and suddenly, as if needing to justify himself, spat out quickly: “Das ist ein Vernichtungslager! [This is a death camp!]”
Now every effort was made to erase any suggestion, even in people’s minds, that things could have been like that...
It would be interesting to see how they could erase memories of the gas chambers and the by-now six crematoria...
There was no change in the attitude towards escapees who had been caught...
Two more were hanged on the parade ground as a deterrent to any would-be imitators.
Then Jaś and I gave each other a look saying: “Alright. Both sides can play at this. We’ll try to get out and let them try to catch us.”
When Jasiek had recovered somewhat from his trial period in the bakery, I asked him whether the “damned hook” on the door could not be opened. Jasiek explained that it probably could be done, since it was held by a screw and nut, with the nut on the inside of the door.
Over the next few days Jasiek, bringing in bread from the bakery on the dray, made imprints in fresh bread of the nut and the key to the padlock on the window in the bakery room where the freshly baked bread was stacked.
Using this imprint, a friend of Jasiek’s, a locksmith at Industriehof I, made a wrench for the nut. My former colleague from the TAP, Warrant Officer 28 [Szczepan Rzeczkowski], made a key to the padlock in the same shop. Both were ready within the day.
Jasiek was discreetly able to check if they fitted.
The key to the padlock had been made just in case, for, as Jasiek said, it was next to impossible to open the window even a little.
But from making these implements, it was still a long way to getting out.
It was barely a small step on the road towards an escape.
First of all, both of us needed to be in the bakery, and as far as I was concerned, I could really only turn up there for a very short time, for it would be immediately apparent that I was not a baker, and the physical job of carrying the flour sacks had already been grabbed and was zealously guarded by fellows pretending to be bakers.
Furthermore, even if I could get into the bakery, I could spend only a short period of time there, for the authorities in the parcel office could not become aware of it, since I had only recently been considered indispensable there and specifically requested.
A unilateral change of kommando made the authorities suspect an escape attempt, especially if it involved a move from such a good kommando as the parcel office, and one could quickly end up in the Penal Company, as had Olek 167 [Aleksander Bugajski].
As I weighed the obstacles to be overcome on the bakery route, I kept thinking of the sewers which, however, also had their complications... and I kept coming back to the bakery.
Finally, Jasiek and I reached a firm conclusion to go out through the bakery. To overcome all the obstacles, get in on the night shift and, as far as I was concerned, for just a single night.
All that remained was... to carry it out!
Saying nothing for the time being even to Jasiek, I went to see 92 [Wacław Weszke], whose friend had taken over as arbeitsdienst [work assignment leader] from Mietek. Through him, saying nothing of the reason for this move, I got Jaś transferred to the bakery by telling him that Jaś was really a baker by trade and that he was doing the rounds of the kommandos for no real reason, which was really beneath an “old number’s” dignity...
The following day Jasiek ran up to me with the news that out of the blue he had received a card for the bakery, that his kapo was upset to lose him and was unhappy, but had reconciled himself to it. I told Jasiek where the card had come from and he went off to the bakery. Within a couple of days he was an “old hand” at baking.
The bakery kapo, a Czech whom Jasiek had impressed with his sense of humor and strength, made him his deputy, an unterkapo, and willingly agreed to take the day shift, while Jasiek with a kommando of inmates did nights.
There were only a few days left until Easter.
We decided to take advantage of Easter when, under the influence of vodka, things were a little more relaxed and the SS, the kapos and all the camp authorities were less vigilant.
There had been a time when Fritzsch [Karl Fritzsch] or Aumeier [Hans Aumeier] would have sent a kapo to the bunker if they had smelled of vodka, but times had changed.
Drinking vodka was still officially forbidden, on pain of the bunker. Yet sex with women was forbidden on pain not only of the bunker but of the Penal Company, but here too things were more relaxed.
Not only the SS men, but häftlings had sex with German women in SS uniforms, who were the “authorities” in the women’s camp and were often recruited from streetwalkers; and inmates returning from work in their columns often exchanged knowing glances with these SS women.
A certain percentage of these liaisons were discovered and a great many inmates, usually kapos or bl
ock chiefs, were in the bunker, and only avoided the Penal Company owing to their status with the authorities.
Block chief 171 [name unknown] was also among those in the bunker for similar offenses.
Now that the camp régime was less strict, inmates began relationships with women.
Couples formed, bringing romantic baggage.
Nor were the SS men innocent in this area. For some months now we had seen a formerly unknown sight: SS men being led out of our bunker on Block 11, without their belts, for a half-hour exercise period twice a day. The SS men had been locked up for having had sex with a woman.
Strictly speaking, for an offense like that, such as sex with a woman who was an “untermensch” [“subhuman”], the SS men faced a much stiffer penalty—a special penal prison for the SS, to which much later Palitzsch himself would be sentenced for many years for a relationship with a Jewish girl, Katti.
But that was later. For the time being, the milder form of punishment in the bunker was applied, or they even walked away scot-free. For here too there was a code of silence, and SS men picking up girls in Rajsko was kept an inside secret. If only because the Commandant himself too had sins on his conscience. “Gold lust” had consumed him. Working very discreetly with Erik in the tannery, he collected gold, precious stones and valuables; had he imposed stiffer penalties on his men, he could have expected revenge on the part of a punished SS man in the form of a denunciation. Therefore, he made an effort to turn a blind eye to his subordinates’ infractions.
However, if a häftling had “gold lust,” it always ended in his death, for after an interrogation in the bunker and a search of the places he had indicated, the SS usually finished off the häftling in order to get rid of a witness to how much gold they had taken from him.
Everyone died, irrespective of their nationality.
In this way two German bastards also died: Block 22 chief [Reinhard Weinhold] and Kapo Walter [Walterscheid].
Second Lieutenant 164 [Edmund Zabawski] wanted to join us “going home,” but he decided against, fearing for his family. He gave us his family’s address in the town of Z [Bochnia]. He wrote discreetly saying that they could expect a visit from a friend of his and he gave us the password agreed with his family, as well as an underground contact in Z [Bochnia].
In the parcel office I transferred from the night to the day shift.
Easter fell on the 25th of April (in ’43).
The weather was sunny and fine. Spring, with the grass shooting up and the buds on the trees turning into leaves and flowers, was when one always wanted the most to be free again.
In the morning of Holy Saturday, the 24th of April, I started complaining of a headache in the parcel office. Who knew that my head never hurt?
In the afternoon, I did not return to work. On the block I also complained of pains in my joints and calves.
The block chief, a rather placid German and always polite towards workers in the parcel office, hearing what I was on purpose loudly telling the orderly about these symptomatic pains, said worriedly: “Du hast Fleckfieber. Gehe schnell nach Krankenbau! [You have typhus. Get off at once to the hospital!].”64 Pretending to be unwilling to go to the hospital, I went off reluctantly.
Near the hospital I sought out Edek 57 [Edward Ciesielski]. I told him that I needed to be in the hospital that same day, preferably in the typhus block, where he worked in the storeroom, but on the condition that he would arrange for me to enter (be admitted) informally and to be discharged a few days later.
Edek did not think long. He never did things by halves.
By the afternoon of Holy Saturday the dispensary had stopped working. Edek, using his own methods, completed all the formalities to admit me by way of the dispensary (on Block 28) to the typhus block and, still taking advantage of the lack of staff on Holy Saturday, took me to the hospital himself.
There, avoiding the usual route (a bath and turning in one’s personal belongings), he led me to a small private room on the ground floor, where I undressed, handing my things over to a friend of Edek’s. He then ushered me into a ground-floor ward run by 172 [Janusz Młynarski].
A bed was found for me and Edek entrusted me to 172 [Janusz Młynarski], who remembered me from my earlier brush with typhus.
He now reckoned that this was a second bout, although I did not look ill at all; he just shook his head and asked neither me nor Edek any indiscreet questions.
I gratefully squeezed Edek’s hand and told him, as he was leaving, that I had to get out in two days’ time.
The bakery did not work on Easter Sunday, but would start up on the following day, Monday.
I calculated that I needed to get out and try to get to work on a start-up day like that, when my arrival (a psychological touch this) would be less obvious and easier to accept by people thinking that some change in the bakery’s staffing had been made over the holiday.
I spent Saturday night in a ward on Block 20 and had a beautiful dream: I dash into some kind of shed where a magnificent horse is standing, and had I not been a cavalry-man and not known the correct terms for horses’ coat colors, I would have said it was as white as milk. I quickly throw a saddle on the horse which is prancing on its tether. Someone hurries in with a saddle blanket. I tell him not to interrupt me; I don’t have time. I tighten the girth with my teeth (a habit of mine from 1919–1920),65 leap into the saddle and ride out of the shed on the magnificent horse. Oh how I longed for that horse...
Easter Sunday. I am still lying on my bed in Block 20.
Edek pops in from time to time to see if I need anything.
By the afternoon I had decided to have a chat with Edek.
Edek had been brought here as a boy and after two years in Auschwitz, he was turning twenty.
He had been picked up with a pistol in his pocket. He thought that they might not release him from Auschwitz and often said to me: “Mr. Tomek, Sir, I’m counting on you...”
So, on Sunday afternoon, I said to him: “Edek, let’s not beat about the bush, I’m getting out. Since you got me into the hospital avoiding the usual formalities and you’re going to throw me out tomorrow—once again fixing it informally so that I won’t have to go through quarantine and, contrary to the rules, not back to my “home” Block 6 from which I came, but to Block 15—whom are they going to nab after I escape? You. Therefore, I suggest you join me.”
Edek considered for barely a minute or two. He didn’t even ask how. He decided that we would go together.
When, shortly afterwards, Jasiek came to the window and told me that I had to get out the next day and be on Block 15, I told him that everything was fine, but that Edek was coming too.
Janek clutched his head, but when he learned that Edek, whom he did not know, was a first-rate chap, his usual cheerful expression returned and he said: “Well, that’s that, then.”
That evening Edek stormed at the block chief that Poles were no longer welcome there, that he was fed up and would go “back to the camp” the next day. The block chief, a German, liked Edek and tried to calm him down saying that he saw no reason why he should abandon a good job as a storeman and that he wouldn’t let him go, for what would be the point of Edek kicking around in some other job when here he did not have a great deal to do and as much food as he wanted? However, Edek would not be persuaded. He continued to maintain that he would not remain, for he was treated badly as a Pole and so on and so on.
The block chief finally lost his temper and told him: “Then go where you want, you idiot!”
Echoes of this reached the ward where I was lying. For several hours orderlies and pflegers from the whole block kept running up to 172 [Janusz Młynarski] asking each other what had come over Edek. He’s giving up such a great job. Since they saw that Edek had been coming to me, they asked me whether he had told me why he was leaving the block. I replied that he was obviously an impetuous young man.
I spent Sunday night in the same bed and again dreamt of horses.
I
dreamt that a cart on which a number of us were sitting was harnessed to a pair of horses, but there were three other horses ahead of them harnessed abreast. The horses were moving briskly. The cart suddenly ran into heavy mud. The horses had trouble making any headway with the cart, but they succeeded in pulling it onto a dry road and then it went quickly on its way.
On the morning of Easter Monday, Edek brought me a zettel (card) transferring me to Block 15. He also had one for himself for Block 15. Our colleague 173 [Władysław Fejkiel] had helped Edek to get these cards filled out.
I got up, put on my clothes which were lying in the small room nearby, and went off with Edek to Block 15.
Here we went to the block schreibstube [office] to report to the block chief, a German. The atmosphere here was festive. The block chief, clearly having had a few vodkas, was energetically playing cards with the kapos.
We stood at attention and reported efficiently and by the book our transfer to this block. The supervisor said in German: “Clearly ‘old numbers.’ What a pleasure to hear them report in,” and beamed. But then he suddenly frowned: “Why have you come to my block?”
“We’re bakers.”
“Bakers, eh? Okay,” said the chief glancing simultaneously at his papers, “does the bakery kapo know about this?”
“Jawohl! We’ve already spoken to the kapo; he’s taking us on.”
We had not seen the bakery kapo at all, but since we had chosen to deceive everyone in authority, we needed to press on.
“Alright, hand over your zettels and go to the room.”
We handed over the cards transferring us from Block 20 to Block 15 and went off to the bakers’ room.
Jasiek was already waiting for us in the room, but he intentionally did not come up to us at once.
We stood before the kapo and told him that we were bakers, that we knew how to operate an automated bakery (which they were about to set up) and that, as bakers, we had been transferred to Block 15 where the block chief knew us (in truth, he had met us only a moment before), that we were “old numbers” and that we would not let his kommando down.
The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery Page 24