Hirsch blew the final whistle then and there with perfect equanimity, and went to congratulate the forward who had scored the final goal. He shook his hand firmly, and the SS guard greeted him with a smile so full of missing teeth that it looked as if someone had kicked him in the mouth. Fredy headed for the makeshift change rooms, faking an air of impartiality, and then stopped as if to tie one of his shoelaces. He allowed the players to go ahead of him, waiting until one particular player overtook him. Nobody noticed the quick, violent shove that propelled the player into the broom closet. Once inside, he pinned him up against the mop handles.
“What’s the matter?” asked the puzzled player.
“You tell me. Why did you allow that Nazi to score a goal and beat us?”
“Look, Hirsch, I know that corporal. He’s an absolute bastard, a real sadist. His teeth are broken because of all the bottles he opens with his mouth. He’s a brute. No way I was going to trip him and risk my neck.”
Fredy remembers every last word he said in reply, remembers his utter contempt.
“You couldn’t be more wrong. It’s not a game. There were hundreds of people watching, and we’ve let them down. There were dozens of children—what will they think? How are they going to be proud of being Jews if we grovel like worms? It’s your duty to give your all in every game.”
“I think you’re getting carried away—”
Hirsch stuck his face right up to the player’s and noted the look of fear in his eyes, but the man couldn’t retreat any farther in that tiny space.
“Now, listen carefully. I’m going to say this only once. Next time you play against the SS, if you don’t stick out your leg, I’ll cut it off with a handsaw.”
The player, white as a sheet, ducked to one side and scurried off.
Fredy gives a sigh of annoyance as he thinks back on it.
That man was useless. Adults are corrupted. That’s why young people are so important. You can still shape them, improve them.
On August 24, 1943, a trainload of 1,260 children from Białystok arrived in Terezín. More than fifty thousand Jews had been interned in the ghetto of that Polish city and, over that summer, the SS had systematically exterminated almost all the adults.
The Białystok children were lodged in a separate part of Terezín, a few blocks in the western section of the town, enclosed by barbed wire. The SS guards kept a very close eye on them. Strict orders were sent to the Council of Elders by the Hauptsturmführer of Terezín that any contact with this group of children was absolutely forbidden; they were merely passing through, and their final destination was a secret. Permission to have access was limited to fifty-three people, including health personnel. The most severe penalties would be applied to anyone ignoring these orders.
The Nazis hoped that, by prohibiting any contact with the Polish children—both witnesses and victims of the Białystok massacre—they could keep the lowest possible profile for their crimes in a Europe blinded by war.
It was almost dinnertime in Terezín, and the air was starting to cool down. A thoughtful Fredy Hirsch was refereeing a game of soccer involving fifty players. He was actually concentrating harder on the colonnade leading to the street than on the swarm of legs chasing after the ball.
Despite having sent numerous written requests, he had not received permission for the Youth Office to intervene on behalf of the children from Poland. So when he spied the group of health workers returning from the banned section where the Białystok children had been isolated, he handed his whistle over to the nearest boy and rushed off to meet them.
The medical team, their faces reflecting their deep exhaustion, were walking along the sidewalk still wearing their filthy lab coats. Fredy planted himself in their path and asked them what state the children were in, but they simply walked on. They had been ordered to disclose nothing. There was a nurse lagging behind the group, walking slowly by herself as if she was distracted or slightly disoriented. The woman stopped briefly, and Hirsch saw a look of tired outrage in her eyes.
She told him that the children were terrified and that most of them were suffering from acute malnutrition: “When the guards tried to take them to the showers, they became hysterical. They kicked and shouted that they didn’t want to go to the gas chambers. They had to be taken to the showers by force. One of the children, whose wound I was disinfecting, told me that he’d found out just before he boarded the train that they had killed his father, his mother, and his older siblings. He was gripping my arm with all his might and telling me in a voice full of terror that he didn’t want to go to the gas showers.”
The nurse couldn’t help feeling disturbed at the sight of these orphans trembling with fright, being guarded by the very murderers who had killed their parents. She told Fredy they clung to her legs, and faked pain and illness, but what they really needed wasn’t medicine but affection, protection, shelter, and a hug to relieve their fear.
The next day various workmen, kitchen staff, and health workers walked through the control barrier to the western section where the Białystok children were being kept. The bored SS guards kept an eye on the activities of the personnel.
A squad of workmen carried through construction materials to do repairs on one of the buildings. One of them had his face hidden by the board he was carrying on his shoulder. He had the construction worker’s typically straight shoulders and muscular arms, but he was a sports instructor, not a builder. Fredy Hirsch had managed to sneak in.
Once inside, he could move around freely, and he quickly made for the nearest building. He felt a nervous twinge when he saw two SS guards in front of him, but rather than backtracking, he kept on walking even more resolutely toward them. They paid no attention to him as he passed; there were lots of Jewish civilians moving throughout the area working on a range of tasks.
He entered one of the buildings. It had the same layout as all the other buildings in Terezín: an entrance into a hallway with a staircase on either side and, if you kept going straight ahead, access to a large square inner courtyard formed by the four wings of the building. He randomly picked one of the staircases and headed up. He crossed paths with two electricians carrying rolls of cables who greeted him politely. When he reached the first floor, he caught sight of some of the children sitting on bunks, their legs dangling over the edge.
On the landing, he gave a slight nod to a corporal walking past. The SS man continued on his way. Fredy noted uneasily that it was too quiet for a place with so many children. They were too still. Just then, he heard someone behind him calling his name.
“Mr. Hirsch?”
His first thought was that it was an acquaintance from the ghetto, but when he turned around, he saw it was the SS guard he’d just walked past, who was smiling at him in a friendly manner. A gap-toothed smile. Hirsch recognized him as the player from the guards’ soccer team. His smile in return was steady, but a frown immediately started to form on the Nazi’s face, making it look like corrugated cardboard. He’d realized that the gym instructor didn’t belong here. He raised his arm and pointed at the staircase with his finger, indicating that Hirsch should walk in front of him, as a prisoner would. Fredy, adopting a light tone, tried to invent some excuse for being there, but the guard was adamant.
“To the guard post! Now!”
When they took him to the SS Obersturmführer in charge of the guards, Fredy stood to attention in front of him and even clicked his heels together loudly. The officer demanded to see his authorization for being in the precinct. He didn’t have one. The Nazi stuck his face right up to Fredy’s and, in a fury, asked him what the devil he was doing there.
Hirsch, looking straight ahead, seemed unflustered and answered in his usual, polite way:
“I was just trying to carry out my job as coordinator of activities for the resident children of Terezín to the best of my ability, sir.”
“So you aren’t aware that all contact with this contingent of children is forbidden?”
“I am,
sir. But as the person responsible for the Youth Office, I thought I was considered part of the group looking after the children’s well-being.”
Hirsch’s composure reassured the officer and raised doubt in his mind. He told Fredy he would write a report to his superiors regarding the incident, and that Fredy would be informed of the outcome.
“Don’t rule out a court-martial,” he said.
They locked him in the detention area attached to the guard post and told him he’d be released when they had checked out his details for the report. Fredy was undeterred and paced up and down in what could only be described as an empty dog run, irritated because he hadn’t been able to see the children, but otherwise calm. No one was going to organize a court-martial; he was well-regarded by the German administrators of the ghetto. Or so he believed.
Rabbi Murmelstein, a member of the leadership triumvirate of the Jewish Council in the ghetto, was walking along the street on the other side of the enclosure fence. He was unpleasantly surprised to see one of the representatives of the Youth Office locked up inside the enclosure. It was clear that Hirsch had violated the order to stay away from the Białystok children’s precinct, and so now he was under detention as if he were a common criminal. The stern council leader approached the fence and locked eyes with Hirsch.
“Mr. Hirsch,” he said reproachfully, “what are you doing in there?”
“And you, Dr. Murmelstein … what are you doing out there?”
There was neither a court-martial nor any punishment, or so it seemed. But one afternoon, the ghetto Council’s official messenger, Pavel—known as Bones because of his skinny legs, and who was the fastest sprinter in Terezín—interrupted the long-jump training session to inform Fredy that his presence was required that afternoon without fail at the headquarters of the Jewish Administrative Authority in the Magdeburg block.
It was Yakub Edelstein, the chairman of the council himself, who gave Fredy the news: German Command had included his name on the list for the next transport headed for Poland or, to be more precise, for the Auschwitz camp near Oświęcim.
They’d heard dreadful things about Auschwitz: mass murders, slave labor under conditions that caused the workers to die of exhaustion, all sorts of harassment and humiliation, people whom starvation had turned into walking skeletons, typhoid epidemics that no one treated.… But these were just rumors. Nobody had been able to confirm them firsthand. Then again, nobody had returned to give them the lie. Edelstein told Fredy that the SS Command had asked that Fredy identify himself to the camp authorities when he reached Auschwitz, because they were keen for him to continue his work as the leader of the youth groups.
“So I’ll continue to work with the teenagers—nothing will change?”
Edelstein, a man with the kindly, chubby face and horn-rimmed glasses of a schoolteacher, grimaced.
“Things will be tough there, very tough. More than tough, Fredy. Many have gone to Auschwitz, but no one has returned. Even so, we have to keep on fighting.”
Hirsch recalls with absolute precision the chairman’s last words to him that afternoon: “We mustn’t lose hope, Fredy. Don’t let the flame go out.”
That was the last time Fredy saw Yakub Edelstein, standing with his hands behind his back and gazing out of the window, lost in thought. Edelstein surely knew then that it wouldn’t be long before he himself would take the same route to the extermination camp. He had just received the order removing him as chairman of the Jewish Council. As the Jewish leader of Terezín, it was his responsibility to oversee the people inside the ghetto. The SS were not particularly vigilant in controlling the entrances, and there had been internees who had slipped out. Edelstein didn’t report them and covered for them until the shortfall became too obvious, and the SS realized that at least fifty-five prisoners had escaped from the ghetto.
The die was cast for Edelstein, and he was the loser. That was why, when he arrived at the Lager, it wasn’t the Auschwitz–Birkenau family camp he was taken to, but the prison of Auschwitz I. Fredy has never told Miriam, but he knows that inside that prison they practice the cruelest methods of torture known to man.
What has become of Yakub Edelstein? And what will become of us all?
14.
After the children have left and only a few teachers caught up in conversation remain, Dita gathers her library together. It might be the last time she does it, because she has to tell the truth: She’s been marked by Mengele. So, before she takes the books back, she removes the roll of tape from her secret pocket and fixes a rip in the Russian grammar book. She takes out the bottle of gum arabic and glues the edges of the spines of two more books. The book by H. G. Wells has the corner of a page doubled over, and she straightens it. And as her hand passes over the atlas, she smooths—caresses—it, and then all the other books, even the novel with no front cover to which Hirsch objected so forcefully. While she’s at it, Dita fixes a torn page using a narrow strip of tape. Then she carefully puts the books inside the cloth bag from Aunt Dudince, settling them in as if she were a nurse putting newborn babies into their cribs. She walks over to the Blockältester’s cubicle and knocks at the door.
Hirsch is sitting in his chair writing one of his reports or working out the schedule for some volleyball tournament. She asks for permission to speak, and he turns toward her with his calm face and the smile that no one knows how to interpret.
“Go ahead, Edita.”
“You ought to know about this. Dr. Mengele suspects me of something, maybe to do with the library. It happened after the inspection. He stopped me in the Lagerstrasse. He’d somehow realized I was hiding something. He threatened that he was going to keep a close eye on me, and I have the feeling he’s watching me.”
Hirsch gets up from his chair and walks around the cubicle for a few seconds with a look of concentration on his face. Finally, he comes to a halt and, looking straight into Dita’s eyes, says to her,
“Mengele watches everyone.”
“He told me he’d put me on a dissection table and open me up from top to bottom.”
“He likes dissecting people—he gets pleasure from it.” After Fredy has spoken, there’s an uncomfortable silence.
“You’re going to remove me from my position as librarian, aren’t you? I understand it’s for my own good—”
“Do you want to give it up?”
Fredy’s eyes shine. The little lightbulb that he always says glows inside us has just switched on. And Dita’s has turned on, too, because Hirsch’s electricity is contagious.
“Absolutely not!”
Fredy Hirsch nods, as if to say, I knew it.
“Then you’ll stay in your position. Of course it’s a risk, but we’re at war—although there are people here who sometimes forget that. We’re soldiers, Edita. Don’t believe those who say we’re bringing up the rear and then put down their arms. It’s war, and each of us has our own front line. This one is ours, and we must fight to the end.”
“So what about Mengele?”
“A good soldier has to be careful. And we have to be very careful with Mengele. You can never tell exactly what he’s thinking. Sometimes he smiles at you, and it looks as if he really means it, but almost immediately, he becomes serious, and the look he gives you is so cold that it freezes your insides. If Mengele had any solid evidence against you, you’d already be dead. So it would be best if he didn’t see you, hear you, smell you. You have to try to avoid any contact with him. If you see him coming, head in another direction. If he crosses your path, look away discreetly. The best thing that could happen is that he forgets you even exist.”
“I’ll try.”
“Good. Is there anything else?”
“Fredy … thank you!”
“I’m asking you to remain in the front line of fire, risking your life, and you’re thanking me?”
What Dita wants to say is I’m sorry—I regret that I doubted you. But she doesn’t know how.
“Well … I wanted to thank you
for being here.”
Hirsch smiles.
“There’s no need. I’m where I ought to be.”
Dita heads outside. The snow has settled over the camp, and decorated with it, Birkenau somehow seems less terrible, almost sleepy. The cold is intense, but at times that seems preferable to the feverish conversations inside the huts.
She comes across Gabriel, number one recipient of teacher scoldings and punishments. The outrageous ten-year-old redhead is wearing very wide pants that are way too big for him and held up with string, and a grease-spotted shirt that’s just as large. He’s leading a commando group of half a dozen boys his age.
He’s up to no good, Dita thinks to herself.
There’s another group of four- and five-year-olds, all holding hands, trailing along a few meters behind the commando group: old clothes, grubby faces, and innocent eyes sparkling like the newly fallen snow.
Gabriel is one of the idols of the little children in Block 31, thanks to his ability to dream up all sorts of mischief. Just this morning he threw a grasshopper at the head of a very pretentious girl called Marta Kováč, and the whole block was brought to a standstill by her hysterical screams. Even Gabriel stopped dead at her over-the-top reaction, which culminated in the girl planting herself in front of him and, in a fit of rage, slapping him so hard she almost wiped the freckles off his face.
The teacher in charge reached the conclusion that Talmudic justice had been served, and classes continued without further punishment for Gabriel beyond the one that had already been delivered by hand.
The Librarian of Auschwitz Page 15