Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust

by Ronald Watkins

  For some time the HolzfellerKommando had worked the forest cutting wood for the crematorium. Now it was increased five-fold and a large stockpile grew into a mountain as large as the snow-covered pile of shoes beside the Canada.

  It took nearly a week to get it right. A clever Serbian Jew had designed it for SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Glauss. When it was ready for testing the Czech Jews who built it were stripped naked under close guard. They were lined up kneeling beside the trenches they had dug. Four Rumanian SS guards, reeking of ouzo, worked their way down each trench with a small caliber, specially designed rifle, and put one slug into the base of each skull.

  The increased HimmelKommando under Schlage stretched the newly dead out over the makeshift metal grill and packed them with wood and pitch. Perhaps a quarter of the two hundred Czech Jews were not yet dead. The bullet must enter the brain precisely to kill on impact.

  Schlage lit the fires personally. As he moved along the improvised grillwork a thousand tiny blue and red flames began slowly licking the bodies. Soon they were burning bright in a fierce yellow fire. Stokers threw fresh wood on and poked with sticks to keep the bodies open to flame. The fat sizzled in a disgusting way and soon was dripping into the trenches. Before the bodies were half consumed the fat was running into the common pit.

  There several unfortunate prisoners had to crawl down into the pit and dip out buckets of scalding human tallow. All of them slipped into the boiling mess and received serious burns on the feet. The sides of the pit became slippery from the fat and two of the men fell completely into it. They died there, unable to get out. Wolff and Schlage allowed no one to help and enjoyed their struggles immensely.

  The buckets of boiling fat were poured back over the bodies which crackled and burned fiercely. Before the bodies were entirely consumed, Wolff pulled two naked teenage girls, fourteen years of age or so, from the Himmel Weg and brought them to the horror to witness it. He made them face the inferno and watch it on their knees. They were aghast and numbed from the vision. Tears streaked their cheeks and ashes caked their faces. He shouted over and over that this was their fate. They began sobbing uncontrollably. Then he shot them several times in the back and had them thrown onto the fire.

  In a few hours all two hundred Czech Jews were reduced to ashes. When the fires died down water was thrown into the trenches to cool the ashes enough to pull them out, Greek Jews for some reason always performed this duty. Bits of arms and legs were not entirely consumed. They were tossed into a separate fire Schlage kept going for that purpose. Beginning with these new crematoriums the ashes were dumped into the black stream. Some days the ashes clogged the stream at the bridge and a Kommando worked with poles to clear the blockage.

  These measures made it possible for body disposal to keep pace with the accelerated rate of killing in the shower. Whenever the Kommandant related his account of these measures there was a great deal of pride in this kind of talk and many compliments. Berlin was pleased, yes, very pleased. The Kommandant would preen at the praise and strut even more about the KZ.

  But there were times when Herr Kommandant Hoffmann was distant and a look of despair rested on him. Surely, Peter thought, he knows the war is lost and will soon end. The Kommandant’s visits to his mistress, whom he maintained in a small hut inside the KZ, were less frequent. He must know what is in store for him, Peter thought.

  But the despair passed and the Kommandant would redouble his efforts and drive them to new records. Each evening, promptly at six, he joined his lovely wife and children for a generous dinner and his collection of classical records. Once each week the officers still joined them for dinner, the camp string quartet entertained frequently with a new selection they had perfected for the Kommandant's enjoyment, and the discussions of the Master Race continued.

  Inside the enlisted brothel drunkenness had taken over from lasciviousness and Zelda complained to everyone that no one wanted to use her girls anymore. In his new purity of thought to rescue Eva, he too stopped going. The day would soon come when a free and grateful Eva would welcome him into her bed. He wished to be worthy of her and regretted his earlier conduct with the whores.

  Peter felt now a great pity for the prisoners. The inferno of the new crematoriums had been the most ghastly scene he had ever witnessed. Many who had done their bidding for years in the KZ and who bought favored positions were now sent to the shower. Some of the veteran guards were bothered by this since they had worked daily with these prisoners. But Max grinned about it as the shocked senior prisoners who believed they would be spared were taken away and replaced by new arrivals with, as Max put it: “no memories.” The history of the KZ was being erased. “I wonder if anyone’s remembering the meticulous records kept at Gestapo HQ in Berlin?” Max said with amusement.

  Now the occasional act of defiance exhilarated Peter. He saw in it that these victims retained a measure of dignity and humanity. Whatever these people had become, whatever they were -- and there were many as sadistic as the guards who were his brothers -- they were what the oppressors had made them. Material now froze routinely at the shower door and refused to enter. Even as Peter clubbed them into submission he praised them for this bit of disobedience.

  During that winter there was an act of aggression against the guards. It was by a woman, and occurred the week after the inferno when a group of French Jews was in the Disrobing Block.

  They were a clever group and not fooled by the lies nor very intimidated by the brutality. One of the young women, a dancer Peter was later told, noticed SS-Obersturmfuhrer Dietrich eyeing her. Unlike the Ukrainian guard who masturbated as he watched the disrobing, Dietrich only enjoyed viewing the naked women knowing they were all to die in a few minutes. This one knew what was in store for her.

  The dancer performed a slow strip, encouraging Dietrich to come closer. When she was nearly naked and flaunting her small dancer's breasts for him he moved within arm's reach. She pulled out his pistol and shot him dead. She killed another guard, the dimwitted, sadistic Selitian who had murdered the baby, and managed to shoot another fleeing guard in the foot.

  Peter was back towards the exit and made it out with the rest of the guards. They sealed the doors as the arrivals searched for another way out. An SS-Untersturmfuhrer arrived and ordered the power cut to the windowless Block, then had two machine guns mounted at the entrance. When the door was thrown open the guards let them have it. They sprayed the inside until no one was standing, then moved in with pistols to finish everyone off. Peter found the dancer who had started it all with the empty gun still in her hand. Half her head had been blown off by a machine gun bullet.

  Herr Kommandant Hoffmann placed the body spread naked on a wooden plank for two days and commanded that every guard walk by and see what could happen if they got too close or stopped paying attention. It took a full day to repair the inside of the Disrobing Block so that new material was not unduly suspicious.

  A few days after Peter realized that he could not get Eva out he told her he wanted to help and was prepared to risk everything for her. Could she or perhaps the old Jew, Sol, think of any way he could get her to safety?

  Sol had been an officer in the Kaiser's army and told Peter during one visit without Max that he had always considered himself a German first, a Jew last of all. “Ich bin ein Germaner!” he had said with fervor. He ran a large company in Berlin before the war and, he said, was well known in the international gold circles. German Jews often arrived clutching a handful of medals or pictures of themselves in uniform from the Great War. As if it would make a difference.

  A few days later Eva asked if he really meant what he said. “Of course. You know I would do anything to save you. Just show me how.”

  “And Sol. He must come too. Without Sol we would already be dead.”

  Peter explained that was impossible. He had no idea how to get her out, let alone Sol as well. But she would hear nothing about it. It was both or neither. “Show me how,” he said.

  She told
him that Sol had cached enough gold to buy their freedom. This had been his plan for some time. But he needed a means to get it from the KZ. Once it was safely hidden there was an officer, Lenneberg, who worked in administration with whom Sol believed he could barter. If the gold was found inside the KZ it would be taken and Sol sent to the shower. She cautioned Peter not to breathe a word to Max.

  The key to the plan was to get the gold off the KZ, to a safe place, so Sol could barter.

  There was no doubt in Peter’s mind that he would do as she asked though the risk for him was great. Max and the others had ways of smuggling small amounts of contraband out by splitting the profit with someone. But all of Sol’s gold was needed to buy their freedom so there could be no split. Even then, given the times, it might not be enough.

  It was enough gold though that if Peter were caught with it he would be shot, hung or gassed as a war profiteer. His true crime, of course, would have been in getting caught.

  Initially the problem of getting the gold from the KZ appeared difficult. They were all watched and there were only certain places they could be when not on duty. Any variation from routine would cause immediate suspicion.

  It was February and the end of winter but the weather remained relentless. The trains continued to roll without letup. The Reich was on its knees and had only weeks remaining, but still the killing continued.

  The next day when one train was scarcely off-loaded and the material was still in queue from the last, another arrived. They had nowhere to hold anyone and it would be a day or more before they could even begin delousing.

  There was a great deal of arguing about what to do. SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Heidel ordered the train off-loaded onto the ground along the tracks. When all the cars were emptied the second train backed out to the main line.

  The guards shepherded the six hundred Hungarians into the woods on the other side of the tracks. They were told they would wait here while warm barracks in the nonexistent family section of the KZ were prepared.

  In the forest they kept them bunched close together. They were pressed into a circle and maintained there by the dogs. Groups of twenty were broken away at intervals for processing. They were taken to a clearing not far away. There they were forced to strip in the freezing air. They were run to a ravine, made to kneel down and shot in the back of the head with the silenced rifles. This was very similar to the mass executions Peter had witnessed in Russia by the Einsatzgruppen Special Units.

  Even with the snarling dogs and the muffled shots, by the time a hundred or so were dead the rest had figured it out. It became necessary to shoot many to keep the rest in place.

  Every five minutes twenty more were taken away and killed. One guard Peter overheard said to one of the men: “Why don't you Jews fight? Have you no pride? We will kill all of you. If we lose the war or not, you are dead.”

  The man said and did nothing. They breathed those last few precious puffs of air like cows standing in a crowded pen on a cold morning until they were led off and the drunken Rumanians put a bullet into their brains

  By then everyone was shrieking as they were chased naked to the killing ravine. The dogs bit at their heels. The guards slapped them with truncheons on the buttocks. In about five hours the Hungarian Jews were in a thick pile that filled the ravine. The clothing had been tossed into a great mound and the Canada cleared the luggage from the railroad and went to work on the clothes. There was an uncommon amount of theft that day since in the gathering gloom it was difficult to supervise the search properly.

  After the slaughter there was laughter and horseplay among the men. It had been a good day's kill with no problems. Most of the men had raped someone and it had all turned out quite satisfactory.

  In the ravine not all the six hundred were as yet dead. Blood pulsed from the stack of bodies as if the pile had a single great wound and a beating heart. The officers were not certain what to do with the slaughter. Their business was not visible from the tracks so it would not alarm the arriving material and it was not warm so disease was no concern.

  Still, no one wanted to risk leaving the bodies as they were. A Kommando was formed and instructed to cover the mess first with chlorinated lime and then with snow. This did not work out well since the bodies were still warm enough to melt the snow. By morning they were covered with a layer of sleek ice that gave the grotesque blue and white bodies the surrealistic effect of expressionist statues. That second day the Kommando managed to cover the dead. They were left there to rot in the spring. No one thought it would still be their problem by then.

  A few days later Eva embraced Peter as he left the hut. Max did not see as she passed him the ingots of gold carefully wrapped so he could conceal them in his greatcoat. She even kissed him and it was a genuine kiss of love and admiration, he knew, not the hollow mouthing of a brothel whore.

  The butchery of the Hungarian Jews in the forest had given Peter means for getting the gold off the KZ. He did not know how to get it much further than the outer fence but he could get it that far and would work on the rest later.

  A train arrived, as they now did nearly every day, but not as heavily laden as most. In six hours it was off-loaded, the selections made and those about to die were standing in queue at dusk shivering in the frigid air.

  There was a group of guards -- Peter had never been one nor had Max -- who preferred the compliant whores, who regularly pulled a comely woman from the shower queue and took her into the nearby field to rape. This day Peter gave Max a knowing leer and said he was going to get him a Polish slut. Max was taken aback then got a kick out of the idea. As Peter left the Judenrampe he tossed him a coat from the pile of clothing they had taken from the material. “You will need this to keep your britches clean!” He laughed and told the others what his young comrade was up to. They had seen so many other changes in him no one was suspicious.

  The naked material was pressed close to each other. Never mind that the person behind or in front of you was a stranger or, worse, the Rabbi’s wife. People were freezing to death.

  Peter was actually going to have to rape one of the women. He could not have her saying otherwise. It would be too dangerous. He rationalized it would be all right. These women were only moments away from dying and he was offering a little more life to them.

  He did not want a virgin, none of that, nor did he want to tear a woman from her children. He had had enough of that as well. He walked along the queue searching carefully for what he wanted. At last he selected a chunky one with heavy breasts just out of her teens and grabbed her hand.

  She had no idea what was going on and was scared to death. One of the guards laughed and gave her a go-along blow across the buttocks with his truncheon. Peter pulled her by the arm and yanked her down the slope towards the stream near the small railroad bridge. The woman's fox coat Max had given him was swinging in his left hand. He was walking fast and she was trying to stay upright but her bare feet froze on the ground if they were not already frozen. She was saying something to him in Polish but it was not loud enough for him to tell her to stop.

  The guards approved of his selection and shouted for him to really give it to her.

  Because of the slope they would be out of sight of the KZ when they were on the ground. This was the place all the guards took the women. He tossed the coat on the snow and pitched the naked Polack on her back. He removed the wrapped ingots and laid them beside them as he removed his leather webbing. He looked around to mark the place so he could find it again even if there was more snow.

  He dropped on top of her and spread his greatcoat to cover both of them. She was hysterical and he thought the warmth might settle her. He wished he spoke Polish. He thought perhaps she would go along with him if she understood what he was keeping her from. He had seen other world-wise women in the Himmel Weg make lewd suggestions to a guard just to delay for precious minutes the inevitable.

  She was sobbing now and nearly overcome with hysteria. She crossed herself and begged. He
pried her legs apart and reached down to unfasten his pants. She stopped struggling and began to sob, deep sobs of grief, terror and loss that tore at his heart. He knew he could not rape her.

  He rolled off and she curled into a ball, too frightened to pull the coat over her. He dug a place in the snow and buried the Jew's gold. He lay there, watching the haze from the smoke against the new night sky as the Polack sobbed beside him. When he looked over she was watching him. He wondered if she had seen what he had done.

  After a bit he rose and put on his gear in view of the guards, took her by the arm and pulled her back to the shower line. She was still upset and was babbling God knew what in Polish. He could not risk her talking to anyone. Some of the guards, and many of the kapos working the line, spoke Polish. He pulled her to the head of the line, striking her several times until she shut up. She was bleeding from the mouth and was frightened out of her wits. He went to the head of the queue and threw her to the kapo.

  “Here's another one for you! Give this frigid Polish bitch a good delousing! She's not fit for anything else,” he shouted. She screamed as the laughing trustees pushed her into the shower. But everyone else was screaming as they entered the mouth of hell. He watched them load the children over the heads of the adults then they slammed the door shut on the crammed room.

  SS-Oberschutze Kitzel was assigned to the SonderKommando. “Ever see this before?” he asked with a knowing smile.

  He shook his head. There was a shrieking inside the shower that sounded like wind in a tunnel. “That’s the gas. Now they know what is in store. You can look in the window here.”

  Peter walked to the window. An old man’s face was pressed against it, flattened by the force of bodies behind him. The shrieking was reaching a howl. “It will begin to quiet down soon..” Kitzel said. Peter had never liked him much. He had been drafted from the university and put on airs. Peter guessed he had found his calling here.