“They’re very well done. Paintings like these saved my life,” the young woman said.
“Really?” I was intrigued.
“Yes, just after I was brought to Auschwitz, someone in my barrack asked if I’d create a mural of Snow White and the seven dwarves, from the Disney movie. I thought the guards would punish me, but Dr. Mengele saw the mural and thought he could use my talents.”
“Dr. Mengele is always looking for people who can further his experiments,” I said, aggravated. I knew he was using all of us. He manipulated us like pawns to help himself go down in history with shining glory.
“It’s true, but that’s what saved me and my mother. We have better living conditions, plus I actually like what I do,” she said, taking a sip of tea.
“It’s been several days since I’ve seen Mengele,” I commented.
“Surely he’ll be at the soccer game.”
Dinah had barely finished her sentence when we heard a woman shouting in the street. We ran outside and saw a mother about thirty feet away with her twin boys, Guido and Nino, who were four. Five days ago, an SS soldier had taken them despite my protesting. Since then, their mother came to the nursery constantly to ask about them. We ran to her. She was beating her chest, and her children were crying disconsolately. When we got closer we saw that the boys were covered with a torn blanket. They were shrieking uncontrollably, their dirty faces twisted in an expression of severe pain.
“What’s going on with the children?” I asked, bending over to lift the woman from the ground.
“Good God! He’s a monster!” she shrieked. Emotion made her speech nearly incomprehensible.
“Calm down, calm down. What have they done?” I asked, growing more scared.
“See for yourself. That fiend has mutilated them!”
I lifted the blanket carefully. Then I saw how the twins’ backs and arms had been stitched together. The large wound was oozing pus and looked horrible, all discolored and swollen. Why in the world would anyone do this? The twins had literally been sewn together, their veins united.
Then I smelled it. The skin was rotting. Soon they would have a systemic infection, get gangrene, and die. I led them and their mother to the hospital. Dr. Senkteller and Ludwika were there. They ushered us in immediately, and while I left the mother with Dinah, the painter, I went to help my colleagues.
“Who did this to them?” the doctor asked, his eyes bulging in disbelief.
“Mengele.” I practically spat out the name.
They looked at each other in shock. The deep, dirty wounds did not look like the work of a professional; they were more like the hacking and rough patching of a butcher.
“The infection has reached the bone. They might survive a few days if we amputate the arms, but since we don’t have morphine or antibiotics, the infection will spread throughout the body, and it will be a terribly painful death,” the doctor said.
I was sweating, and nausea was rising up in me, but I forced it back down. Ludwika studied my face and said, “You look like you’re about to be sick.”
“I’m fine. What can we do for them?” I asked desperately. What was I going to tell the twins’ mother?
A few months prior I had sworn to the camp’s mothers that I would protect their children, but four pairs of Mengele’s twins and another five Gypsy children had disappeared with the excuse of curing them of noma, though none of them had presented the slightest symptoms. But this was something else entirely. Mengele had gone completely mad. The only thing he cared about were his experiments.
“If we do nothing, the children will die in less than twenty-four hours. We can give them the little bit of morphine we’ve got left to put them to sleep, so they don’t suffer,” the doctor answered.
“Yes, thank you,” I answered, unable to hold back two large tears that escaped from my eyes. I dried my face quickly and went out to the room where the mother was waiting.
She turned her imploring eyes on me, but when I shook my head, she started screaming, crying, and beating her chest again.
“At least they won’t be in pain anymore,” I said, holding her tightly.
We stayed like that for a while, weeping in an embrace, until she calmed down a little. We left the hospital and walked slowly back to her barrack. Suddenly she threw my hand away from hers and tore off in the direction of the electric fence. I ran after her, but she had the advantage. From just a yard away from the fence, she leaped and grabbed on tight. A bright spark brought me up short. The woman convulsed momentarily until the charge threw her back. When I went up to her, I could see the terror on her face. Death had found her at last, but there was fear in the empty eyes that stared at the gray March sky.
I hugged her singed body while other prisoners began to gather. The kapos made me turn her loose and, after verifying she was dead, took her to the mound of cadavers that piled up every day behind the hospital barrack.
Dinah helped me stand up. Her serious face reflected the exhaustion that all that violence and death produced. Cruelty and evil were the clock hands that made Auschwitz tick.
We had hardly gone two steps when a wave of prisoners headed for the fence at the back of camp caught up with us. The soccer game was about to begin, and people crowded together to watch how the SS and the Sonderkommandos from the crematoriums competed on equal ground for ninety minutes. The prisoners loved it when an SS player fell down and went wild when the prisoners scored a goal against the Germans.
Looking one way, we could see the body of the twins’ mother, still warm, resting on top of another dozen cadavers, but no one was paying attention anymore. Everyone was focused on the game, indifferent to their former comrade-in-arms. I looked toward the stairs leading to the sauna and saw Mengele. He was standing with one hand resting on the wooden banister. He was smiling in the direction of the soccer field, as if he were seated in a private box in a stadium. I was so furious I could not stop myself. I made my way through the crowd and walked straight to him. I went up the stairs, and he frowned in acknowledgment of my presence.
“Herr Doktor, two twins from my school have returned in a deplorable state. The doctors believe they will die within twenty-four hours.” I willed myself to remain calm.
“Not now, please. I’m watching the game!” he said, trying to ignore me.
I stood right in front of him. I was just a bit taller than him and blocked his view. He brusquely pushed me aside, and I would have fallen in the snow had I not managed to grab on to the banister.
“What did you do to them, Herr Doktor?” I insisted.
He grabbed me with his cold, enraged hands and started shaking me.
“Cursed woman! I have been entirely acquiescent toward you. I have treated your family well, affording you great privileges. I pampered this camp with a nursery school and an orchestra, but I must continue with my research. Everything you’ve got comes from my institution. If it were up to the camp itself, all the Gypsies would have been gone weeks ago. Is that clear?”
I was stunned and terrified. In my heart I knew he was speaking the truth, but it was so repulsive I could not accept it. Right then everything in me wanted to die. I longed for the courage to throw myself against the fence like the twins’ mother had done and end all the suffering.
“German children are going hungry and suffering the consequences of the war! Pregnant women are losing their babies! Old men and women are dying in the streets begging for bread! You cannot demand anything more from me; I am doing everything I can. If a few have to be sacrificed for the good of Germany, so be it. They end up saving many more. Do you want your children to be next?”
His red eyes looked like they were about to explode. He pulled out his Luger and held it to my head. I really thought it was all about to be over, but then everyone started shouting. The Germans had scored a goal. The doctor let go, put his gun away, and shoved me off the stairs. I fell hard into the cold, wet snow. I felt destroyed, completely depleted and about to give up for good. Then
Blaz appeared and helped me to my feet.
“Let’s go, Mom,” he said, bearing my unsteady weight on his shoulders.
We left the crowd and walked toward the main road, then covered the short distance to the nursery barrack. It was still warm inside. I slouched at one of the tables, where our teacups from that morning still sat.
“I’ll fix you some tea,” Blaz said.
“No, I’ll be fine. Go watch the game.”
He went to our makeshift stove and heated up some water. In a few minutes, a steaming cup was before me. I felt the hot liquid descending my throat and thought of Johann. Surely he was watching the game from his side of the fence, so close and yet impossibly far away. I knew he would have protected me from that monster, but he would have lost his life in the process. Sometimes the things we lack or the obstacles we face become allies that help us endure. I decided then and there I would not be beaten. I would fight to the last breath. With the world falling to pieces around me, I would stand firm. Maybe spring would pull Auschwitz’s starving inhabitants back from death’s dark grasp.
SIXTEEN
MAY 1944
AUSCHWITZ
Rumors flew like sparks around Auschwitz. Sometimes the guards themselves or the kapos let slip an order or a sudden change in camp conditions; other times prisoners who worked for the Nazis as secretaries or in some other administrative position with access to privileged information spread the news. Somehow we always caught wind of what the camp authorities were planning.
The Allies had taken over nearly all of Italy, and people said that there would soon be another front on the Atlantic. The Russians were slowly pushing the Germans back toward their borders and ridding the Soviet Union of the Nazis. Allied bombing raids had destroyed the main German cities, and Hitler needed an ever-increasing supply of slave labor to keep making weapons. In April, the SS had taken away over eight hundred men and almost five hundred women from section BIIe. The Gypsy camp was steadily being emptied, as though we were the Birkenau rubbish pile being cleared out little by little. As our camp population dwindled to only those who were useless to the Nazis, living conditions grew even worse.
The only thing that seemed to improve in those days was the weather. The rain was constant, but at least it was not snow, and the temperature was bearable. Our work in the nursery and school had been drastically reduced. There were only about twenty children in each class, and the numbers dropped every month. I had not spoken with Dr. Mengele since my last encounter with him. I kept our communication to written reports about the work and requests for the children, which were systematically ignored. My assistants were showing signs of serious fatigue, and we faced the additional fear that they would be taken away as well.
In those days in May, one of the kapos, Wanda, brought us a little German girl named Else Baker. She was eight years old. Wanda was by no means the worst kapo in the camp, but nor was she necessarily an angel, which is why we were surprised when she said she had been caring for the newly arrived child for almost a month.
Else Baker was a beautiful little girl with fine features and an intelligent expression. She still looked soft and delicate—it was clear she had yet to face the hardships that most of the Gypsies in Birkenau had experienced. I went up to her and, smiling, said, “Would you like to stay here with us? You can be here from early morning until early afternoon.”
She nodded, and as Wanda made her departure, I led Else to the school barrack. Though only seven, my twins, Emily and Ernest, were now there with the rest of the group. Lately we had begun accepting children of any age, though we had hardly anything to offer them beyond a few hours of distraction. The projector was broken, we had no more paper or school supplies, and, worst of all, we had no more food.
I had hardly opened the door when I met the desperate face of Vera Luke. She was rushing out and took no notice of the new girl.
“I was just coming to find you. They took the twins,” she said in anguish.
I looked at her in disbelief. It was unusual for the guards to take children from the nursery school without informing us, but in Auschwitz nothing ever made sense. My chest started to close in, and I buckled forward. I had to do something. I tried to scream at my mind to get moving and go after them, but sheer panic was paralyzing me.
“We have to go to the secretary or look for the children directly in the sauna. If they’re taken out of the Gypsy camp, they won’t return,” Vera said.
I let go of Else’s hand and ran with Vera out to the road. There was no sign of them there. We thought they would have been taken to the sauna where Mengele often did experiments. We ran under a fine mist of rain and were soon drenched through. The grayness of the sky threw the intense green of the yards between the barracks into relief, and the forest swayed at the far end of camp. We ran up the stairs behind the sauna and stopped short at the door.
“Go back to the children,” I told Vera. I did not want to get her in trouble. After all, it was my son and daughter who were at stake here. I was willing to risk everything to save them, but no one else should have to suffer the consequences.
I burst into the laboratory without knocking. Zosia was there with some files, just about to leave the room.
She looked up in alarm. “What are you doing here?” she hissed, looking frantically about.
“They’ve taken the twins,” I choked out between sobs.
“It’s complete madness today. The camp authorities have demanded nearly all the young men who remain, and another eighty women. It could be that your children got on the list by accident; they’re just numbers to the SS,” she explained.
“Maybe, but maybe not. They didn’t let us know at the school. How are they going to make a mistake like that with twins?” I said in frantic disbelief. I could no longer believe a word she said. She had helped Mengele with his experiments.
“I don’t know what else to tell you,” she said, shaking her head. She waved to indicate that I should leave the office, but I managed to slip around her and run toward the laboratory.
I could hear Zosia’s voice behind me as I threw the door open. Inside, the place had changed since the last time I had been there. It no longer looked like a research center. Now it was more like a torture dungeon where Mengele tormented innocent children. The walls were lined with different colored eyeballs in frames and horrid photographs of some of his experiments and containers of human organs of different ages and sizes. Some of the jars filled with disinfectant liquid contained deformed twin fetuses.
The doctor was at the back of the room with his back toward me, his pristine white coat partially blocking the bare legs of two children seated on the long cot. They must be my children. I ran toward Mengele, fully intent on attacking him if need be, but before I reached him, he turned and looked at me sternly.
“What are you doing here?” he growled.
I got behind him and saw the children. They were not mine. They looked up at me with sad little faces, begging me silently to get them out of there. Mengele dragged me by the sleeve out to the hallway.
“Have you gone completely mad? I nearly killed you once. You’d better not try your luck again.”
“Where are my children?” I demanded. “Someone took my twins.”
“They’re not here. It must have been a mistake. I sign orders every day for the coming and going of prisoners. The factories need manpower, and some of the youth are leaving to work in other camps, but not the children,” Mengele said seriously. Yet I sensed he was not telling the whole truth.
Then I heard the sound of trucks and ran to the door. The vehicles were parked in the road, and nearly a hundred soldiers jumped out and began rounding up Gypsies of all ages. I had no idea what to do. I should go back and protect the rest of my children from whatever the soldiers intended to do, but I should also go out in search of the twins.
Finally, I decided to look for my missing children. I knew that my assistants would give their own lives to protect the rest of the children
in the school and nursery. I ran to the trucks. At first the prisoners put up no resistance, but suddenly an older boy threw a rock at one of the soldiers, hitting him square in the face. The young soldier began bleeding through the nose and shot the boy at once. The Gypsies around the scene jumped on the soldier and started beating him. It did not take long for the rest of the prisoners to follow suit. Men and women, the elderly and adolescents began throwing anything they could find at the soldiers and hitting at them with sticks and makeshift clubs. There were some gunshots, but the SS sergeant ordered the soldiers to fall back.
Some Gypsy adults helped the children and teenagers get up on the roofs, while others lighted torches and set the canvas coverings of some of the trucks on fire. The drivers reacted by speeding away toward the camp entrance, and chaos took over.
The soldiers drew back and holed up between barracks 6 and 4. The reaction of the prisoners had taken them completely by surprise. Typically there was little resistance to their brutality in Auschwitz, but that day they met their match.
I was proud of those Gypsies. Most people considered them antisocial, but they were the only ones who had been capable of defending their families and resisting being led to slaughter.
The soldiers shot and killed one of the boys who was throwing stones from a nearby rooftop, and I spotted Blaz not far away with his slingshot. A soldier was setting his sights on him. I ran and shoved the soldier hard, and the German lost his balance, sending the bullet harmlessly into space.
“Blaz, get off the roof and get back to our barrack!” I shouted. Then another soldier smashed the butt of his gun into my face.
Blaz dropped down from the roof and threw himself at the throat of the soldier. A group of boys joined him, and the two soldiers ran off toward the rest of their comrades.
Blaz helped me stand up. I seized his shoulders and demanded, “Have you seen the twins?”
He shook his head, but one of his friends pointed to one of the few remaining trucks parked at the camp gates. The canvas covering was ripped, and we could see a group of at least thirty prisoners trying to escape. The twins were among them.
Auschwitz Lullaby Page 16