Auschwitz Lullaby

by Mario Escobar

  He only smiled when he got his way. There was something both devious and infantile in his grin, but it meant that he was in a decent mood and that being in his presence held no imminent danger.

  “Thank you,” I managed to say.

  “There’s no need for thanks. I know most of you think we’re all a bunch of monsters, and you may be right to a degree, but that’s simplifying things greatly, don’t you think? We’re pursuing an ideal; we have a mission. It isn’t easy to answer duty’s call, but it is always gratifying. As long as I’m assigned here, those children will enjoy exquisite treatment, I assure you.” The man could never help himself from preaching about duty and sacrifice.

  Impatient with his rhetoric, I asked, “Where will the nursery and school be?”

  “We’ve cleaned out barracks 27 and 29. They should be more than adequate,” he answered.

  That was more than what I was hoping for. The kindergarten could include a nursery for the younger ones and a little school for the older ones. Two barracks was an extremely generous offer. I quickly calculated how many children we could care for: nearly one hundred.

  “You and your family will live in barrack 27. I think you’ll be able to care for other people’s children better if you don’t have to worry about your own. I’ve learned that you have five children, including one set of twins,” Mengele said.

  For some reason I could not fully explain, his comment made me nervous. My children were, to some degree, my weakness. The SS official knew that a mother would do anything for her children.

  “Thank you, Herr Doktor.”

  “It’s nothing. Now I need to get back to work. These are the keys to the barracks. I don’t want the supplies getting robbed before we even start,” he said.

  When I went out, the air was heavy with smoke. When the wind was blowing toward camp, the air was barely breathable. Ludwika was waiting for me when I got to the medical barrack. Then we headed to the women’s hospital quarters. She was impatient to know what had transpired but did not dare ask.

  “We’ll start tomorrow. They’ve given us barracks 27 and 29.” As I spoke, I pointed to the buildings right in front of the hospital barracks.

  “We can give you a hand. We’re right next to you,” Ludwika said.

  We celebrated with a brief hug. Affectionate gestures were rare at camp. Then I went to see Dr. Senkteller. I had to tell him that starting the next day I would be leaving the hospital to run the nursery school.

  “A nursery school. What a marvelous idea. My heart just sinks every time I see those children wallowing in the mud with nothing to eat,” he said.

  “Thank you. I hope I’m capable of running it in a place like this,” I answered.

  He rested his hand on my shoulder briefly and nodded. “Of course you’re capable.”

  The morning dragged on forever. I was so eager to tell Anna and my children about the changes. After Dr. Mengele’s most recent rounds of selections, the number of invalids in the hospital had dropped drastically. Most prisoners were now too afraid to go to the hospital, fearing that they would be sent away and never return.

  That final afternoon of May, nearly four thousand more Gypsy prisoners arrived at the camp. The buildings filled up again, and the brief sense of balance from the last few weeks was lost. The resources were more or less the same for ten thousand prisoners as for fifteen thousand. The arrival of newcomers meant less food, less space, and more illnesses.

  When the workday was finally over and I entered barrack 14, two hundred more people were now residing on the floors and in the few beds that had been empty.

  Anna was with the baby, and my children were trying to kill time playing in front of the barrack. Some of the new children had joined them. It was easier for the younger ones to welcome the new arrivals than it was for the adults.

  “New prisoners today,” Anna said when she saw me, as if it were not already obvious. She seemed overly tired, her body letting her know little by little that life was slipping away and that it desperately needed to rest. Anna had lived through some bright times, but most of her existence had consisted of interminable worry. I thought of how all her effort and striving had been in vain. If all of her children and grandchildren died, no memories of the old woman or her lineage would remain.

  “I imagine they won’t be the last,” was all I could think to answer.

  “We’ve only taken a few into our barrack, but the rest are bursting at the seams.” She handed me the baby.

  I asked, “Are there many new children?”

  “Yes, from Bohemia, Poland, and all over. They’ve brought an entire orphanage that some Polish nuns were running,” she said.

  “How will we ever survive this?” I asked, discouraged. It seemed that just as things were starting to look less bleak, new complications arose.

  “What happened with Dr. Mengele?” Anna was impatient for details.

  “All good news. We’ll open the nursery school. Tomorrow the supplies start arriving, as well as some women to help.” My excitement started to return. “They’ve given us barracks 27 and 29.”

  Anna started telling all the women around us. Some danced for joy and others hugged me.

  “How wonderful! Do you need help? We’re free right now; we could go clean the barracks,” Anna said.

  I preferred to keep things well organized. If the SS saw fifty Gypsy women descending upon the barracks, they might complain to their management and our dream of having somewhere for the children would go up in smoke.

  “No, I’ll go over tomorrow with some women to get it all set up.”

  “Of course, you’re right,” Anna said, serious once again. “Forgive me. This poor old woman gets carried away sometimes.”

  “I will need your help, but at first I need to get things running smoothly,” I said, caressing her cheek.

  “There’s even more good news. They’ve organized an orchestra in our camp. They’re allowed to play certain days of the week. How we love to dance and sing!” The brightness had returned to her voice.

  “That’s wonderful!” I replied, smiling with her contagious euphoria. “Things are going to get better, little by little. Maybe a lot of the hardships we’ve been facing are just the result of how Birkenau was built so quickly, almost improvised. Things are going to get better.” I needed to hear myself say it.

  Still holding the baby, I made my way to my children. Blaz came up very excited. He was carrying a small violin, similar to the one Johann had given him a few years ago. Our oldest son did not have his father’s gift, but he was still a very decent musician and could play quite well.

  “Mom, I signed up for the band, and they accepted me. This morning I had my audition, and the director gave me the violin!” His eyes were dancing with excitement.

  “Excellent, how truly excellent. It seems this day is bursting with good news,” I said.

  “You know, I’m going to miss this place,” he said, waving his hand to indicate barrack 14. It was unbelievable how we could get used to this kind of life and even start to miss the misery and hardship.

  “You can come back here whenever you’d like,” I said.

  Otis hugged me tightly, and as I passed my hands over his face I felt that his forehead was a little hot. One of my greatest fears was that my children would get sick. There was no medicine in the hospital, and invalids were not allowed to stay in bed longer than ten days. After that they were discharged, either back to the barrack or to leave in one of Dr. Mengele’s selections.

  We all went to bed after supper. It was one of our last nights in barrack 14, and we were all a bit unsettled. Not long ago, the people from this barrack had saved our lives. I was profoundly grateful for everything they had done for us, but soon we would be living in the back part of the nursery school.

  Since I had hardly slept at all the night before, it did not take me long to fall asleep. I dreamed of Johann. We were running through a forest in springtime on a carpet of flowers. My soul seemed inten
t on gifting me with sweet memories. Then we were on vacation during Holy Week, and my father had allowed us to go to the country by train. I spent the entire night before the trip fixing food, and I ran to the station at the first light of dawn so I would not lose a second of the adventure. Johann was already waiting for me with his customary smile. We held hands throughout the entire trip. Though I was aware of the looks of surprise on people’s faces as they saw us, I was intent on capturing that unique, unrepeatable moment.

  When we got to the charming little mountain town, we started out on the long, three-hour walk. My backpack weighed me down, but I enjoyed every step of the way. For a moment I imagined we were the first Adam and his wife, Eve, the only two humans on earth. No angry looks, no whispers as we walked by, no insults from Nazis who spit on Johann’s shoes when they saw him holding hands with a German woman. We hiked up the narrow path, clambered up some steep crags, and suddenly an immense prairie opened up before us. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. We stretched a blanket under the shade of a tall pine tree and pulled out the food and a little sweet wine.

  I do not know how long we spent there, but we got to the station at night. At the end of my dream, the beautiful prairie began to wither, the flowers wilted, and the gray skies threatened rain. That pristine garden slowly turned into a terrifying cemetery of the living dead. Barbed-wire fences sprouted and grew from the ground like weeds, and the water turned a stagnant, bloodred color. I awoke with a start. It was the first time I had had a pleasant dream since I had been in Auschwitz. Apparently my mind had started to relax. Yet the terrible ending reminded me again exactly where we were.

  I decided that before going to the nursery school I would go see Elisabeth Guttenberger, the camp secretary. I wanted to know if anyone could tell me where my husband was, but I needed to figure out if I could trust her before asking for her help. Also, I needed to take her the list of everything we needed to get the nursery school up and running. Dr. Mengele had requested the basics, but we would need much more than that to do it well. Plus, they had to authorize the arrival of the two nurses who would be helping me, and I wanted to choose a Gypsy woman as my assistant. The children would feel much more comfortable with someone they already knew than with two nurses coming from a different section of Auschwitz.

  I woke before most of the others and walked out in the cool, early June morning. The main road was still empty when I arrived at the offices. For the first time since I had arrived, the walk had seemed almost pleasant. My state of mind doubtless influenced this perception, as did the slowly warming temperatures and the slightly improved atmosphere of the Gypsy camp.

  When I entered the office, Elisabeth was already at her post organizing files and lists of prisoners. The new Romani arrivals of recent days had increased the workload of all the internees. Germans tend to be very conscientious, keeping things well documented and organized. In that regard, the Gypsy camp was not much different from the bureaucracy that existed outside the electric fences.

  “Guten Morgen,” I said, entering the office.

  “Guten Morgen,” she replied with a smile.

  “I didn’t expect you to be so cheery. The number of prisoners has gone through the roof in the last few days,” I said.

  “Yes, but I also know why you’re here. That there’s going to be a nursery in the camp is very good news,” she said.

  “Rumors fly!” I smiled back.

  “And when they’re good rumors, we all recover a modicum of hope. The selections of the typhus patients were hard on everyone, besides all the unpleasantness that occurs on a daily basis around here. So good news is always welcome.”

  “This is a list of some of the supplies we’ll need. Could you add it to what Dr. Mengele already turned in?” I asked, handing over my list.

  Her eyebrows grew steadily higher as she studied my writing. Most of the things I had asked for had not been available since before the war. But she knew that if anyone could manage to get it, it would be the influential Dr. Mengele.

  “The doctor has important contacts in Berlin. The director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, von Verschuer, is his benefactor. He’ll likely be able to send all this,” Elisabeth said.

  “I do hope so,” I replied.

  “The candidates to be interviewed are supposed to arrive in a few hours. Shall I send them directly to the nursery barracks?”

  “Yes, please. I’d also like to include Zelma as one of my assistants,” I requested.

  “I’ll send her right away to help you with cleaning out the barracks.”

  “I could also use two or three volunteer mothers.”

  “Very well. I’ll send them all with cleaning supplies,” Elisabeth said.

  I left the office feeling that things were looking up for us in Auschwitz. I went straight to barracks 27 and 29. As I passed barrack 14, Blaz and Otis ran out to me. The younger three stayed with Anna so they would not get in the way of preparing the buildings. When I opened the wooden door of the first barrack, a rank odor of decay made us instinctively cover our mouths and noses. The boys hung back at the doorway until I went in first.

  The barrack was poorly lit, as they all were. The only light came from a sort of skylight in the roof, though this barrack’s original design had been modified to include two windows right beside each other and a larger window at the back. Yet wooden shutters covered the glass and only let in a faint glow of light. Blaz and Otis opened the windows and pushed the shutters apart. Light flooded the room, allowing me to really see the place. The main room was in slightly better condition than in our barrack. There was a wood floor over a semblance of a crawl space, which kept out some of the dampness and cold. There was a large iron stove in the middle of the room and a smaller one in the room at the back. There was no electricity or running water, but at least the children would have somewhere to go during the day.

  “It’s a pigsty,” was Otis’s evaluation.

  “Well, it is for now, but in a few days it’ll be so pretty you’ll think you’re back at school,” I said, smiling.

  “This is going to be a school?” Otis asked.

  “Of course,” Blaz answered with a slap on the back of Otis’s neck. “The kids can come here and Mom will teach them.”

  “Oh, leave me be. The only thing I haven’t missed is having to go to school,” Otis complained.

  “We’ll have cartoon movies, notebooks, colored pens, and bread and milk. I think you’ll like it,” I said, trying to help him understand what this meant for the children at the camp.

  “That’s more like it,” Otis said, smiling now. He licked his lips at the mere thought of bread and milk, already tasting the delicacies in his mind.

  We each took one of the brooms I had brought and got to work sweeping. Clouds of dust billowed up at first, but the open windows slowly cleaned the air out. We found some scraps of rotten meat, rather unusual in our camp. We had not seen anything like that since we had arrived. After a few hours of scrubbing and disinfecting, we heard Zelma come in. She was a beautiful Gypsy with light-brown skin, green eyes, and pronounced Eastern facial features. She was very thin and had a green handkerchief covering her hair. Her faded, dirty dress could not hide her beauty. She had two young children who lived with her in barrack 16.

  “Frau Hannemann, thank you for thinking of me for your assistant,” the young woman said with her head lowered.

  “Oh, please, don’t call me Frau Hannemann; just call me Helene. I won’t be your boss. I’ll simply organize the school and nursery with your help.”

  “A real job at the camp always means life gets a little bit easier, and to get to take care of the children—this brings me such joy.” Her eyes were bright as she spoke.

  Surely Zelma had heard we would have bread, milk, and other things for the children. She knew that these “luxuries” might help her own survive.

  I asked, “Do you think the other mothers will be willing to bring their children?” Some mothers were a
damant about never being separated from their offspring, and understandably so. We heard rumors every day about children who were mistreated or who simply disappeared.

  “If the children get real food, yes, I do. Most of our little ones are terribly thin. I’ve yet to see milk or real bread since we arrived.”

  We kept working all morning. At noon, Ludwika arrived with our lunch rations and the two Polish nurses Mengele had chosen to help us. The two Jewish women were very young and seemingly in good health, but they spoke no German. The one named Maja was strawberry blonde with reddish cheeks and dark eyes; the other was Kasandra, a redhead with freckles and gray eyes. They seemed shy and rather scared, but that was to be expected. Judging by their appearance, they had not been at Auschwitz long, and the camp was intimidating, twisted enough to negate your will and your desire to live. I presumed that behind their bowed heads and sad eyes there were stories of persecution and pain. The selection was even more brutal for Jews than for Gypsies. Families were separated immediately upon arrival and, from what I had heard, camp conditions for Jewish men and women were even more pathetic than for us.

  When the two Jewish nurses saw the canned green beans and peas that we were eating, they could barely keep themselves from jumping at the food. Ludwika served them a portion, and though the rations allowed us were hardly sufficient, it was at least more than the rest of the prisoners received.

  “Eat slowly,” Ludwika advised them in Polish.

  I thought that the fact that they did not speak my language would be a problem, but we could not send them back to their camps. It would have been a death sentence for them. On the other hand, there were quite a number of Polish families in the Gypsy camp, and many children spoke only Polish.

  After eating in silence, we continued preparing the first barrack and then moved on to the second. Our cleaning crew grew to include several Gypsy mothers who were free to help us in the afternoon, so the process went much quicker with the second barrack.