“What happened to your husband?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. The question would only upset her more. She merely hung her head.
We watched the unfortunate travelers who had arrived at their life’s final destination. These cars had brought well-dressed individuals, surely from some wealthy city in Bohemia or Poland. But their kempt appearance would not last long. Within a few days they would struggle to recognize themselves in a mirror. Yet at that moment many of them were still arrogant and demanding, as if they were mere tourists making a stop at the Birkenau spa and resort or a ski lodge in the Alps.
The Germans were remarkably subdued, attempting to calm the passengers without the use of force. For some reason, a little blonde girl caught my eye. She seemed lost in the crowd. She was wearing a pretty green coat and held a cute little suitcase in her hand. The poor thing was crying and walking back and forth trying to find her family. An officer holding another little girl’s hand came up to her. The two girls were exactly alike, like two drops of water. The officer knelt down and started stroking the girls’ heads. From where we were, we could not tell who it was, but when he stood up, I knew without a doubt that it was Mengele.
The officer put one of his assistants in charge of the twins and then took his place in front of the large groups the recent arrivals had been divided into. He commenced gesturing with his hand to the right or the left. I could not make out his facial expression from where I stood, but his body seemed calm and relaxed, like he was doing an ordinary daily task. I remembered how an officer like Dr. Mengele had separated my husband from the rest of us. Anger and rage started churning in my stomach, and I thought I might vomit.
Zelma noticed me growing pale. “Are you okay, Frau Hannemann?” she asked.
“Yes, just a little dizzy,” I choked out, doubling over. At that moment a fit of heaving overtook me, and I could not hold back. I vomited right there on the muddy ground of the road. I felt like my stomach was going to fly out my mouth. Somehow my spirit had understood that I was serving the devil himself, though I had tried to deny it with my mind.
We went back to the nursery barracks. My children were impatient to eat and go to bed. They all wanted tomorrow to hurry up and come so they could see the nursery school’s inauguration with their own eyes. I tried to go along with it, but I had lost all the excitement I had once felt. I envisioned the visit with the Nazi hierarchy the next day and felt like vomiting again.
Zelma said good-bye at the door and promised to be back tomorrow with the other three helpers. I trusted her. Despite being very young, she was a valuable companion. Besides, I could relate to her. We had both lost our husbands, though I still clung to the hope of seeing mine again.
There were two beds in our room. Blaz would sleep with Otis and the twins in one, and Adalia and I would take the smaller bed. Compared to the damp, wretched pallets of the barracks, our new situation seemed like a luxury hotel. The workers had insulated the walls and roof well. It felt clean, dry, and warm.
Before the little ones went to sleep, we read one of the new stories. It had been so long since we had seen a book. The three younger children were mesmerized as I slowly turned the pages full of pretty pictures. By the time I finished, Adalia was asleep. I tucked her in and then carried the twins to the other bed.
“Good night, my angels,” I said, very aware that it was the first time we had been alone all together since we had arrived at the camp.
One of the many things Auschwitz stole from its prisoners was the right to individuality and privacy. We were never alone. We could hardly think or reflect. When hunger was not tormenting you, pain, terror, and humiliation turned your mind into an automaton.
“Mom, could you sing us the song?” Emily asked. Her lovely clear eyes looked into mine so intently.
“Of course, but only once tonight.”
My voice sounded so strange as it broke the silence of the barrack. I could hardly recall what I sounded like when singing, but soon enough the song called up memories from my childhood and happier times with my own children. They were all special to me. They were the strong links in the chain that anchored my life. From Blaz, the oldest, to Adalia, the youngest, they were each absolutely unique and unrepeatable. They had their own personalities, preferences, and opinions. I loved them with my entire being. The fact that we were all alive by that point in the war was nothing short of a miracle. I trembled as the last few lines of the lullaby came out of my mouth. In some ways I felt like I had felt that morning at the top of the stairs outside our apartment, when I had hoped so desperately that misfortune would once again pass me by; but this time I was the one chosen to become part of the giant web of terror that was the system of German concentration camps.
The last few words of the lullaby escaped my mouth in a sad, melancholic tone. Yet children’s lullabies are always hushed, to soothe little ones to sleep. When I glanced at the twins again, they had succumbed to sleep. Blaz and Otis kissed my cheek good night and lay down next to each other.
Before turning in myself, I put a sweater on and went out to the main room. I turned the light on and just looked at everything for a few seconds: the pictures on the walls, the school tables, the chalkboard. I felt like I was moving in a dream. This was the Auschwitz kindergarten—it sounded preposterous, but it was real. The next thought that crossed my mind was to wonder where the Nazis had found all these supplies. I knew I should not ask such questions, but I could not help but think that all these wonderful things had belonged to some nearby school that the SS had dismantled to build our own.
I sat at one of the little desks and took out a notebook with graph paper. I chose a pen and started writing:
Dear Johann:
I know that it’s ridiculous for me to tell you about my life here at the camp. Surely you’re somewhere just as bad or worse than here, but we always used to talk about everything, didn’t we? When you lost your job and I was nine months pregnant with Adalia, while the kids were at school, we would walk for hours through Berlin’s streets. They no longer let social pariahs like us into the parks, but the beautiful boulevards of the city were enough to keep us dreaming. We talked about going to America and how life would be when Germany woke up and turned its back on Hitler, but mainly we discussed all the little details of the children and the stories from the week.
I needed to spill out my feelings and fears on that school paper.
I feel that same way now, like this notebook lets me take a long walk with you. You’re not by my side anymore, but we’re still walking together, arm in arm, staring destiny right in the face . . .
Writing a diary in my current situation felt like a way to mock the brutal oppression of our executioners. They wanted to steal everything, including our memories. My cramped writing built a protective fence around the memories so nobody would dare try to rob them. Maybe it was my way of exorcising the danger that constantly floated above our heads. There was an ever-present death sentence that had all our names written on it. Sooner or later, we all have to die, but in the concentration camp it felt like you did not actually die; you merely ceased to exist. Entire families were snatched up, and few ventured beyond the electric fences alive ever again. No one would remember them; their memory would dissipate like fog under the burning sun. Smoke, an infinite nothing, a nonexistent void in which the self becomes a mere sigh exhaled into eternity. I believed we were immortal. My parents had always told me our names were in God’s memory for all time. But the Nazis wanted to erase us from the face of the earth and leave us forever in the limbo of the unborn.
TEN
JUNE 1943
AUSCHWITZ
I woke earlier than usual to get ready for the first day of class. In a few hours Dr. Mengele would be arriving with some Nazi bigwigs, and I wanted them to have a good impression of the nursery and the school. We had barely had any time to get organized, and this was a new endeavor for all of the workers. My children slept on while I laid out the school s
upplies and set up a film on the projector. Then I went to the other barrack to see how things were going. When I opened the door, I saw Maja and Kasandra. They were young but so eager to do their best. We smiled at one another, and they tried to greet me in German. While we finished getting things in order, I grew more and more anxious wondering if Zelma had managed to find three other helpers and if they had convinced the Gypsy mothers to trust their children to us for half the day.
I went back to the nursery barrack and saw a group of children coming down the road. They were the orphans who had arrived a few days ago, and the Nazis had housed them in barrack 16. Only the youngest of the orphans were in the group, and they were in a deplorable state. They were dirty, their hair greasy and full of lice. A young man who had been put in charge of taking care of them—and who was evidently not doing a very good job—had brought them.
“The children can’t come to the nursery and school like this. We’ll take them to the sauna to cut their hair and shower first,” I said, frowning at their caretaker.
Maja and Kasandra came to help me. I took one of the littlest ones by the hand, and my anger slowly turned to pity. These poor wretches had lost their parents. After living in an orphanage run by nuns, they had been dumped in this awful place by the Nazis. I helped the youngest ones get undressed. Their skinny, fragile bodies were covered in dirt, bruises, and sores.
“Thank you. You’re doing it just like my mother used to,” one little brown-haired girl told me as I scrubbed her in the hot water. That broke my heart. I could easily be the mother of all these lost creatures.
I had to swallow hard to keep the tears back. How much suffering had come from this war and, above all, from the evil of those who believed they were superior because of the color of their skin, their background, or their language. When we finished washing the children, we put clean clothes on them and led them back to the barracks. Another group had arrived. Most of them were twins, many of whom were not Gypsies. A few days ago Mengele had started bringing them from the selections and kept them under the care of a woman in barrack 32, where his personal laboratory was. We all wondered why, but few of us asked out loud. The rumors about his experiments had spread throughout the camp. We knew that he was in Auschwitz for reasons very different than caring for poor Gypsy prisoners. I could not deny that his interest in twins made me nervous. I did not want him getting near my children, and I forbade them from going anywhere near his laboratory.
We divided the children up by ages. We had over fifty little ones between three and seven years of age, and not all the camp’s children had arrived yet. When the poor things went into the nursery and school barracks and saw the painted walls, desks, pencils, and notebooks, they reacted either with speechless staring or with excited cries. Most of them had not seen a formal school in years, and for many it was their first time to set foot inside a classroom. While the two Polish nurses tended to the older children, I got the younger ones settled in the nursery. When finally they were all seated with their school smocks on, I started serving breakfast. My three younger children were at one of the tables. Otis had gone to the other barrack, but Blaz had decided to stay to help me with the nursery. At eleven years of age, he would no longer be a student, but now he could help as my assistant.
Despite their hunger, all the children waited patiently for their cups of milk. Then we passed out biscuits. Stale as they were, they tasted like freshly baked cake to the young prisoners.
Zelma showed up a bit late, but she had managed to bring almost all the remaining children in the camp. Two Gypsy mothers went with part of the group to the other building, while one stayed with Zelma to help me.
We sat the children at the tables that remained, and they had breakfast like the others. When they had finished eating, we started a file for each child. It was nearly noon by the time we were finished. There were seven nationalities represented in the room of Jewish and Gypsy children. It would not be easy to integrate them all. We would teach them in German and Polish, which were the most common languages spoken among them.
We brought the children from both buildings together and showed a Mickey Mouse film. Everyone knew Adolf Hitler loved Disney cartoons and that, before the war, Walt Disney himself had been associated with the Nazis. Unfortunately, many of Hitler’s ideas had made their way to the United States and the United Kingdom. But none of that mattered to the children. Most of them had never seen a cartoon. They were hypnotized by the mouse hopping and running around with his dog Pluto. We used the film as break time outside for the adults, leaving Blaz to keep an eye on the children.
The Polish nurses shared a cigarette while the Gypsy mothers sat on the stairs and had some bread and cheese. Zelma stayed beside me. I looked to the other side of the barbed-wire fence. The yard around the hospital was bigger than the other yards, and the open space was sometimes used for soccer games between the Sonderkommandos and the Nazi guards. The previous Sunday we had all lined up near the fence to watch a game. The games and the concerts from our Gypsy band were the only forms of entertainment we were allowed in the camp.
“Are you pleased?” Zelma asked. “Everything has gone just like we planned.”
“Yes, I am, though I wish we could get the Nazi visit over with,” I said, a bit preoccupied. I knew that any passing comment or the slightest whim of the German hierarchy would carry great weight with the camp commando. We could not afford the slightest slipup.
“It’ll be fine,” Zelma reassured me, her deep eyes turned fully on me. “The barracks are adorable, and the children really seem different—happier and healthy.”
“You’re more of the optimist than I. They’ve only spent one day with us,” I answered with a smile. I appreciated Zelma’s outlook. Optimism was hard to come by in Auschwitz.
I heard the roar of several motors and looked up the road to see four dark vehicles advancing slowly through the Gypsy camp. I got so nervous I started giving orders like a madwoman. I straightened the aprons of all our helpers and told them to act natural and pretend not to be nervous, even though I was clearly frenetic.
When the procession came to a stop some sixty feet from the children’s school, I went down the steps and had the helpers all line up in an orderly fashion like we were a group of soldiers about to be inspected. I did not even want to watch. I simply stood stock-still in front of the other women.
I did not see him come up, but when I heard a voice and lifted my head, there before me was Heinrich Himmler himself, the Reichsführer-SS. I recognized him from the newsreels that ran before the movies in the theaters. I had never attended a Nazi rally before, and I had refused to allow my children to participate in the Hitler Youth, though they would not have been allowed anyhow because of their father’s race. Himmler did have a powerful presence. His pale face and little eyes behind round glasses gave him the look of a common government worker. But we all knew he was among the most powerful men of the Third Reich. His voice was soft and his dress impeccable, as if he were above all the misery that surrounded him and which he himself had created.
He smiled at me and said kindly, “Are you the school’s director? Herr Doktor Mengele has spoken very highly of you. A German is just what’s needed in a place like this.”
I could not think of what to say. I was trembling slightly as I stared dumbly at him. It was like I was a little girl again, facing a strict teacher. Finally, I stuttered out, “Thank you, Reichsführer-SS.”
“Is this the nursery?” Then, turning to the rest of his party, he said, “How can the Communist and Jewish trash call us inhumane?” They all laughed.
The Reichsführer-SS nodded in greeting to the rest of my helpers but did not extend his hand to them. Perhaps he feared contamination from the lower races. Dr. Mengele, all smiles, came forward and introduced me to the camp commandant, Rudolf Höss.
“Very nice work, Frau Hannemann. Dr. Mengele has mentioned your skill and dedication. Germans always appreciate the opportunity to show what we’re made
of,” he said, lifting his eyes to the sign I had painted the day before.
Mengele just kept smiling and then, with his hand on my back, directed me to show the facilities to the visitors. The three men and the rest of the party stepped back for me to pass through, and when I went into the barrack I asked the children to stand up. Blaz turned the projector off, and the women quickly opened the wooden shutters to let the soft light of the Polish spring filter through the windows.
The children looked at the men with fearful eyes. The SS uniforms demanded respect from all prisoners. Even the youngest children knew it was better to stay away from anyone wearing a uniform with a swastika. The only one they did not seem to fear was Mengele, who knelt down before the children at the first table and handed out candies.
“This place has no reason to be jealous of most other German schools,” Himmler said, his hands on his waist.
Höss replied, “We want the Gypsy children and Herr Doktor’s twins to live in the best conditions possible.”
“Thank you, Commandant,” Mengele said with a slight bow of the head.
Himmler turned to me. “How many children are in the kindergarten?”
“We have a total of ninety-eight children. Fifty-five are here in the nursery and the other forty-three are in the school,” I replied.
“In what language is the instruction given?” he asked.
I was a bit unsure how to respond. “In German and Polish.” I was afraid he would be displeased that we taught in Polish.
But he only rubbed his chin and said, “Excellent.”
Auschwitz Lullaby Page 10