The Librarian of Auschwitz

by Antonio Iturbe

  “Are you insinuating that you feel sorry for that Russian enemy soldier?” the lieutenant asks maliciously.

  “I feel sorry for both of them, sir. The Russian because he’s been bayoneted, and the soldier because they’ll lock him up for what he’s done. He must have broken his bayonet, sir, since the wall is stone and steel is not as strong. While I was finishing my military service, before the war, we had a sublieutenant who used more swear words than a veteran. On the parade ground, he used to shout at us: ‘When I say “attention,” you have to stare straight in front of you the way a cat does when it’s relieving itself.’ But other than that, he was a very sensible person. One time, at Christmas, he went crazy and bought a cartload of coconuts for the whole company. Ever since that day, I know how fragile bayonets are: Half the company snapped their bayonets, one after another, when they tried to open the coconuts, and the sublieutenant had us locked up for three days.”

  Some of the children are now paying attention while others who were farther away have moved closer so they can hear better. Some of the teachers are still talking, but others are telling them to be quiet. Dita reads on with gentle determination. The sound of the words and Švejk’s wisecracks have gradually silenced the muttering.

  “They arrested our sublieutenant as well, and I was really sorry because he was a good person apart from his fixation with coconuts…”

  Lieutenant Dub glares furiously at the childlike face of the good soldier Švejk and angrily asks him:

  “Do you know me?”

  “Yes, sir, I know you.”

  Lieutenant Dub’s eyes are popping out of his head. He starts to stamp his feet and roar:

  “No, you don’t know me yet.”

  And Švejk answers in his sweet, deliberate way:

  “Yes, I know you, sir. You belong to our battalion.”

  “I’m telling you that you still don’t know me!” the lieutenant yells again, beside himself. “You may know my good side, but when you get to know my bad side you’ll shake with fright: I’m tough and I make people cry. So, do you, or do you not, know me?”

  “Of course I know you, sir.”

  “I’m telling you for the last time that you don’t know me, you ass. Do you have any brothers?”

  “At your service, sir; I have one.”

  At the sight of Švejk’s guileless face and good-natured expression, the lieutenant becomes furious and shouts even louder:

  “So your brother will be an animal just like you; he must be a complete idiot.”

  “Yes, sir, a complete idiot.”

  “And what does your complete idiot of a brother do?”

  “He was a teacher, and when he was called up because of

  the war, they made him a lieutenant.”

  Lieutenant Dub looks daggers at Švejk, who’s watching him with a kindhearted look on his face. Red with rage, Dub yells at him to get lost.

  Some children laugh. From the back of the hut, Miriam Edelstein peeks out through her fingers. Dita continues to read more unexpected events and adventures of that soldier who, by pretending to be a fool, ridicules war, any war. Miriam looks up at her librarian. That small book with its stories has managed to bring the whole hut together.

  When Dita shuts her book, the children stand up and move about again, even running around the hut. Life has been reconnected. Dita caresses the old spine of the book which has been sewn back together with thread, and she feels happy because she knows that Fredy would be proud of her. She has fulfilled the promise she made to him: to keep going and never give up. A veil of sadness nevertheless falls over her. Why did he give up?

  21.

  Mengele walks through the entrance to the family camp accompanied by the sound of Wagner’s Valkyries and a blast of cold. He studies everything that moves around him. He appears to have X-ray eyes. He looks as if he’s searching for something, or someone, but Dita is inside Block 31. She’s safe there … at least for now.

  They say that one of the deeds most celebrated by Rudolf Höss, the former Kommandant of Auschwitz, was the way in which, toward the end of 1943, Mengele put a stop to a serious outbreak of typhus that was already affecting seven thousand women. The fever was out of control because the huts were infested with lice. But Mengele came up with a solution. He ordered an entire hut of six hundred women to be sent to the gas chamber and then had their hut disinfected from top to bottom. Bathtubs with disinfection kits were placed outdoors and all the women from the next hut were ordered to go through disinfection before being sent into the clean hut. Then the hut they had been occupying was disinfected, and this procedure was followed with all the women in the camp. And that was how Mengele succeeded in putting an end to the epidemic.

  High command congratulated the doctor. They even wanted to give him a medal. This was the criterion that governed his behavior: Global results and scientific advancement were fundamental; the human lives abandoned in his wake were unimportant.

  A senior sergeant brings him his twins. The children approach somewhat timidly and greet him in chorus with, “Good day, Uncle Pepi.” He smiles at them, ruffles little Irene’s hair, and they all head off to his quarters in Camp F, which the SS guards refer to as the Zoo when Mengele isn’t around.

  Several pathologists work there under Mengele’s orders. The children have good food, clean sheets, and even toys and treats. But whenever they go inside that place with the doctor, their parents’ hearts seem to stop beating until they return. So far, these children have always returned happy, with a bun in their pocket as a reward, and tales of being measured all over, having their blood tested, and being given the occasional injection, after which the doctor always gives them a candy bar.

  Other children haven’t been so lucky. Mengele has been researching the effects of illness on twins; in the Gypsy camp, he injected various sets of twins with typhus to see how they reacted, and then he killed them so he could carry out autopsies to study the evolution of the organism in each twin.

  But this time, Mengele strokes the heads of his twins and even smiles affectionately at them as he says good-bye.

  “Don’t forget Uncle Pepi!” he tells them, because he has no intention of forgetting them.

  Forgetting is not a choice. Days of funereal routine have gone by in Auschwitz, but Dita can’t forget. Actually, she doesn’t want to forget. Fredy Hirsch suddenly turned off the tap of his life, but a question persistently drips onto her head and bores into her brain: Why?

  She continues to perform her duties as librarian—managing her books at the end of each lesson—but she has withdrawn into herself. She’s pleased to see how Block 31 keeps going despite everything. Nevertheless, perhaps because there are fewer of them, everything seems smaller, more commonplace even, since Hirsch has gone.

  Dita’s assistant today is a very likeable boy who’s even handsome, with a sprinkling of cinnamon-colored freckles over his face. She might have tried to be friendlier toward him on another occasion, as there aren’t too many good-looking boys around, but she barely responds when he tries to start a conversation. Her mind is somewhere else.

  She continues to work over in her head the question of why Hirsch took his own life.

  It’s not like him.

  Given everything he’d put up with and how disciplined he was—his personality was a combination of German and Jewish traits—running away from his responsibilities seems abnormal. Dita shakes her head, and the sway of her hair back and forth duplicates that no—there’s a piece missing from the puzzle. Fredy told her they were soldiers and they had to fight to the end. How is it possible that he would abandon his post? No, it doesn’t fit with Fredy Hirsch’s logic. He was a soldier. He had a mission. It’s true he was more melancholy than usual when she saw him that last afternoon, more fragile, maybe. He probably knew that the transfer bore all the signs of ending badly. But she doesn’t understand why he committed suicide. And Dita can’t bear not being able to understand something. She’s stubborn, as her mother alw
ays tells her. And her mother is right: Dita is one of those people who never leave a jigsaw puzzle unfinished.

  That’s why, when her work is done in Block 31, she goes straight to her barrack. She takes advantage of her mother being on her own with Mrs. Turnovská.

  “Excuse me for interrupting, Mrs. Turnovská, but there’s something I’d like to ask you.”

  “Edita, must you always be so abrupt?” says her mother reproachfully.

  Mrs. Turnovská smiles. She’s delighted when young women consult her about things.

  “Let her be. Talking with young people keeps me young, my dear Liesl.” And she giggles.

  “It’s to do with Fredy Hirsch. You know who he was, right?”

  Mrs. Turnovská gives a slight huffy nod. She finds Dita’s question almost insulting.

  “I’d like to know what they’re saying about his death.”

  “He poisoned himself with those dreadful pills. They say pills cure everything, but I don’t believe it. If the doctor recommends pills for my cold, I never take them. I’ve always preferred to inhale eucalyptus oil vapor.”

  “How right you are; I used to do the same. Have you tried to boil mint leaves?” asks Dita’s mother.

  “Actually, no I haven’t—on their own or mixed with eucalyptus?”

  Dita grunts.

  “I already know about the pills, but I want to know why he did it! What are they saying out there, Mrs. Turnovská?”

  “Oh, my dear, they’re saying so many things! That man’s death has generated a lot of talk.”

  “Edita always said he was a good man,” Dita’s mother responds.

  “Of course. Although being a good person in life isn’t enough. My poor husband, may he rest in peace, was a really good person, but he was also so timid that there was no way we could make a go of the fruit shop. The farmers all fobbed off on him the overripe fruit that no one else would accept.”

  “Fine,” interrupted Dita, on the point of exploding, “but what are they saying about Hirsch?”

  “I’ve heard all sorts of things, child. Some say he was scared of being gassed; others that he was addicted to pills and overdid it. Someone commented that he did it out of sadness when he saw they were going to kill the children. One woman explained to me—as if it was a secret—that they had cast the evil eye on him, because there are Nazis who practice black magic.”

  “I think I know who you’re talking about—”

  “I also heard something beautiful.… Somebody said it was an act of rebellion. He killed himself so that the Nazis couldn’t do it.”

  “And who do you think is right?”

  “I can assure you that each theory sounded right at the time the person was presenting it.”

  Dita nods and says good-bye to the two women. Discovering the truth in Auschwitz is like catching snowflakes with Professor Morgenstern’s butterfly net. Truth is the first casualty of war. But Dita is determined to find it, no matter how deeply buried in the mud it is.

  And that’s why that same night, when her mother has already climbed into her bunk, Dita scurries off to Radio Birkenau’s bunk.

  “Mrs. Turnovská…”

  “What is it, Edita?”

  “There’s something I want to ask you … and I’m sure you have the answer.”

  “That’s possible,” she replies with a hint of vanity. “You can ask me about anything you like. I have no secrets from you.”

  “Can you give me the name of someone in the Resistance I could contact?”

  “But, my dear girl…” Mrs. Turnovská already regrets having said that there are no secrets between them. “That’s not a matter for young girls. It’s very dangerous. Your mother would never speak to me if I led you to the Resistance.”

  “I don’t want to enlist; although now that you mention it, that might not be such a bad idea. But given my age, I’m sure they wouldn’t want me. I just want to ask one of them about Fredy Hirsch. They must know better than anyone what happened to him.”

  “You already know that the last person to see him was the registrar of the quarantine camp, Rosenberg—”

  “I know, but it’s really difficult to get hold of him. If I could talk to someone from this camp … please.”

  Mrs. Turnovská grumbles a little longer.

  “All right, but don’t tell him I sent you. There’s a man from Prague called Alter. He’s assigned to workshop three, and he’s easy to recognize because his head is as smooth as a billiard ball and his enormous nose looks like a potato. But I know nothing.”

  “Thank you. I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything, my dear. You don’t owe anyone anything. In here, we’ve all more than paid our debts.”

  Dita spends the next day in Block 31.

  The following day, classes are somewhat less rowdy, but with the usual feeling of hunger and fear that it might be the last day ever. Once the day is done, she’ll see if she can find that Alter person.

  It’s one of those days when she has to help Miriam Edelstein improvise a handwriting lesson for a group of seven-year-old girls. It’s raining, so this afternoon there are no outdoor games or sports. The children are grumpy because they haven’t been able to play Steal the Bacon or hopscotch, and Dita is disgruntled because it’s been raining for a few days and people have taken shelter in their huts. That’s why she hasn’t been able to find the bald-headed man.

  Miriam Edelstein hides her anguish from the children, but Hirsch’s death has left her feeling abandoned. On top of that, she’s heard nothing more about her husband, Yakub, since Eichmann’s visit to the family camp, when he told her that her husband had been transferred to Germany and that he was perfectly fine.

  But what she doesn’t know is that Eichmann lied. The truth is quite different: Yakub continues to be a prisoner in the horrendous prison in Auschwitz I, just three kilometers from Birkenau. There are cells in that prison that are cement cupboards in which the prisoners can’t even sit down, and they have to sleep standing up; their legs fuse together. The torture is methodical: electric shocks, whippings, injections. One of the tortures the guards find most entertaining is fake executions. They take the prisoners out to the courtyard, blindfold them, cock their rifles, and then, when the prisoners start to shake or lose control of their bodily functions, there’s the sound of a metallic click from the unloaded guns. Then the guards take the prisoners back inside. Executions are, in fact, so frequent that they don’t even clean the wall where the prisoners stand, and a reddish line of hair and brains snakes along the wall marking the average height of the victims.

  Dita makes an effort to help file down the tips of the girls’ spoons on a stone. Those whose spoons are done use them to sharpen the ends of splinters of wood into points. Sometimes the splinters have knots in them and can’t be used; at other times, the point snaps off and the process begins again. After a tiring hour’s work, the girls have splinters with sharp tips. Then Miriam carefully sets fire to some wood shavings in a saucepan, and scorches the ends of the splinters. Each splinter becomes a crude, sooty pencil with which the children can write three or four words. Paper is a scarce commodity, too, and Lichtenstern acquires it, a scrap at a time, by telling the Nazis he has to prepare lists.

  Miriam dictates a few words to the girls, which they painstakingly write down. Dita stands to one side to watch them kneeling on the floor and using the stools as desks. It might all be very basic, but the girls work hard at their handwriting. The librarian picks up one of the pencil-splinters and a piece of paper. She hasn’t drawn for a long time, and her fingers fly over the paper, but the sooty tip wears out very quickly. Miriam Edelstein leans over Dita’s shoulder to have a look. She sees some vertical lines and a circle—that’s all the pencil was good for—but despite that, her eyes open wide in recognition.

  “Prague’s astronomical clock,” she says wistfully.

  “You recognized it.…”

  “I’d recognize it even if it were at the bottom of the se
a. For me, it represents the Prague of clockmakers and artisans.”

  “Everyday life.”

  “Life, yes.”

  Dita feels the deputy director’s hand putting something inside the top of her woolen sock, and then, as if nothing had happened, they go back to correcting the girls’ work. When Dita touches her leg, she notices a small bump. It’s a real lead pencil. It’s the best present she’s been given in years. And it’s because of acts like this that everyone now calls Miriam Edelstein Aunt Miriam.

  Dita spends the rest of the afternoon working busily on her drawing of Prague’s astronomical clock, with its skeleton, its rooster, its zodiac spheres, its patriarchs, and its leaning gargoyles. Several children have discovered that she’s drawing and come over to watch. Not all of them are from Prague, and some of those who were born there don’t even remember their city. Dita patiently explains that a skeleton rings a bell on the hour and then the figures begin to file out of one door and into another.

  When her drawing is done, she carefully folds it and goes over to Arieh, Miriam’s son, who’s holding hands with some other boys and playing a game of semaphores. She puts the piece of paper in his pocket and tells him it’s a present for his mother.

  Since she needs to keep herself occupied with something, she takes time to reglue Freud’s essay, which was out on loan and has returned with some of the spine unstuck. She also runs her hands over the pages, smoothing them down one by one after the hard day they’ve had.

  * * *

  SS First Officer Viktor Pestek is also happy as he brushes and then messes up Renée Neumann’s curls.

  Renée lets him do it. She doesn’t allow him to kiss her or come any closer. But when Viktor begged her to let him brush her hair, she either couldn’t or didn’t know how to refuse him, or maybe she didn’t want to.

  He’s a Nazi, a repressor, a criminal … but he treats her with a respect that’s hard to find among her own companions in the camp. At night, Renée has to sleep with her bowl under her arm or tied to her foot because robberies are frequent. There are women who sell their own bodies, and informers. There are also some very upright, staid, religious people who insult her and call her a slut for giving her mother a piece of fruit that was a present from an SS officer.