by Rebecca Bryn
‘You hurt Miriam and I swear I will kill you.’
‘Empty threats, my friend.’ He laughed. ‘One word from me and she’s dead, and this whole block with her. Wouldn’t you rather I gave word that she and these women are to be protected? Come now… I know you’ll wish to assist me. And I want those boys.’
He bowed to the inevitable. ‘I need time to instruct my staff, but I assure you, there are no Roma twins. I confess I saved them from gassing… I knew of your interest in twins. But I’d grown fond of them.’ He shrugged: a helpless gesture. ‘They were ill with typhus and died within days. My staff only carried out my instructions, Herr Doktor. They’re not to blame here. The later records show the children’s deaths.’
‘Ever the professional. Very well. Five minutes. I’ll wait outside. The stench of these Jewish swine…’
He waited for the SS doctor to leave and then nodded toward the hidden book. ‘Write, Miriam… write everything… I’ll find a way to get messages to you.’ He held her close and his lips brushed hers. ‘Stay safe… and get Ilse to help you here. Don’t take any more packages until I find a way for you to get them to me… I love you.’
The door to the surgery flew open. ‘And what do you call this?’ The SS doctor held Arturas by the arm. The boy’s eyes were wide with fear. ‘You think you can trick the Angel of Death, doctor? Where’s the other one?’
Miriam pushed forward. ‘Peti died.’
‘As this one is about to. He’s no use to me, alone.’ The doctor dragged Arturas towards the door. ‘Guard! Shoot this child.’
‘No.’ Miriam stood in front of the camp physician. ‘No. Please.’
He pulled her away. ‘Herr Doktor, the boy, Peti, is inside the infirmary. I’ll fetch him.’
‘Chuck… no. For God’s sake, no.’
He fetched Peti and stood him by his brother. ‘Identical twins, and they have heterochromia iridii.’
‘Fascinating. Thank you, doctor. I’ll take them to the zoo.’
The doctor swept out, holding a boy in each hand. The zoo: where twins were kept while they waited for the Wolf of Günsburg to decide their fate.
‘Why, Chuck?’ Miriam thumped his chest with her fists. ‘Why betray Peti?’
He gripped her wrists. ‘To save Arturas’s life. As twins they have value. Together they have a small chance.’ He felt sick, knowing what that value was: what their chances were. ‘I’ll try to protect them. I promise. ‘According to Radio Blyskawica, there’s still heavy fighting in Warsaw. They talk of Home Army victories. If I can keep them safe long enough for the Soviets to get here…’
A cold rain that fell in torrents turned the camp to a sea of mud, and promised a long, hopeless winter. It was three days before he found a way of passing messages to Miriam. Three days when he was forced to witness his abhorrent brand of medical research on gypsies, dwarves... children. This was what would happen to Arturas and Peti, if he failed to keep them safe. Just the thought made him retch.
It was chance that brought him a way to contact Miriam. The latrines were empty but for himself and the bony, grey-bearded man who knelt cleaning. A rabbi, allowed to keep his beard to show his people how even he could be humiliated with the foulest of tasks.
He relieved himself at a latrine. ‘You do a good job, rabbi.’
The man stood with an air of humility not humiliation. There was dignity in his bearing.
‘What’s your name?’
‘My name? Rabbi Aaron Schaeler.’
‘I’m sorry you find yourself here, rabbi’
‘God is with us, in this valley of death.’
‘I hope so. I hope so. I begin to doubt it.’
‘I am fortunate to be brought here each morning.’ He shrugged. ‘My afternoons are spent digging out the latrine pits in the camps.’ Rabbi Schaeler looked at him. ‘Faith is what sustains us, doctor.’
‘Do you dig the latrines in the women’s camp?’
‘Wherever I am needed.’
‘Rabbi… You are a man of honour… a man of God.’
‘And you are not?’
‘I hope I am a man of honour.’
‘You cannot be less than you are. With God’s help you can be more than you are.’
‘I do my best.’
‘Something troubles you?’
He laughed harshly. ‘Everything about this place troubles me. Rabbi, why would you concern yourself with me?’
‘Because you are not of my faith?’
‘Because…’
‘Because you no longer believe. I see it in your eyes. For people who find themselves in a place like this, it is not important that God exists. If faith sustains us, aids us, then faith alone is worth having, is it not? You think that an odd thing for a rabbi to say.’
‘Anywhere but here, I might think so, rabbi.’ His gesture encompassed the square miles of camp outside. ‘We follow the law of survival.’
Rabbi Schaeler nodded. ‘And God will judge us for it.’
‘I would ask a hard thing of you and, with it, a promise of secrecy.’
The rabbi’s expression was questioning. ‘If it does not go against my heart, and the god of Israel and Moses.’
‘A young Hungarian nurse… Jewish… I wish to contact her… You come here daily?’
‘I said as much. I have a pass to come to clean.’ Rabbi Schaeler smiled. ‘Before I came here, a tryst between a Jew and a Gentile was not something I would encourage.’
‘And now?’
‘Now… we eat non-kosher food or starve. Is it not mitzvah to tell my people to choose life? It is mitzvah also to choose love: it is the greatest human kindness I could allow. If a man obeys the seven commandments of Noah, as any good man does, such a tryst does not go against my heart. God finds a way. Even here I see the goodness of humanity. Even here love survives.’
He shook his head, sure he’d already broken several of Noah’s commandments. ‘If you could speak to her, she will tell you more.’ He glanced towards the door. ‘Things I daren’t utter here.’
‘And this young lady’s name?’
‘Miriam… Miriam Hofmann. When I last saw her, she was working in the women’s infirmary.’
‘I will find a way to pass her a message.’
‘If she is able to reply, find a safe place to leave her message. You should be as little involved as possible. It isn’t safe.’
The rabbi laughed. ‘Here, breathing is not safe. A beating Jewish heart is a challenge to most Nazis.’
‘I’ll come tomorrow morning, if I can.’
Next morning he returned to the medical-block latrine. Rabbi Schaeler was cleaning. He waited until an SS officer left and then brought a package from the pocket of his white coat. ‘I liberated these medicines from the pharmacy. Did you contact Miriam? Can you take them to her?’
The Rabbi took the packet and hid it behind a faucet. ‘She sent a message. It’s in a crack, at the end of the medical-block wall, about a foot from the ground. She told me what you do. God has brought us together for a purpose. I will take her your medicines, and bring those packages from Miriam… I know what they are.’
‘Then you realise we’ll all hang if we’re discovered.’
Rabbi Schaeler smiled. ‘Any day doing God’s work is a good day to die, doctor.’
The links in the chain of resistance mended, packages began arriving again, and the good rabbi took back medical supplies to Miriam. September gold dropped from the birch trees to the ground. October arrived bare-branched and mists from the swamp softened the brutal edges of the camp and bejewelled the wire with bright droplets of hope. He had three packages of explosives hidden in his bunk before he risked contacting the next link.
The mortuary was cold. The young girl who worked there looked up when he entered. She smiled, recognising him. Her angular features accentuated high cheekbones; she would have been pretty once.
‘How are you?’
‘The medicine you gave me helped.’
He
never used her name: he wished he didn’t know it, though she knew his. No-one was safe. He gave her the packages. ‘Be careful. This is dangerous work.’
She shrugged, slipped two of them inside her blouse and looked round the room. ‘Not for them.’
Bodies lay on slabs: bodies of the victims of the Nazi doctors. ‘How do you mean?’
She made an incision in the stomach of a female cadaver, pushed the remaining package inside the abdomen and closed the wound with a stitch. She swept the room with her gaze. ‘They are bound for the crematoria.’ She put a mark by the incision and took her knife to the next body. ‘They will be recognised for what they are. This is their final act of resistance.’
She would say no more, but it was the Sonderkommando who processed the bodies for the ovens, shaving heads that still had hair and removing gold teeth, even cutting open newly-arrived wealthy to look for swallowed rings and jewellery.
Packages continued to arrive: surely soon there would be enough. Rumour spread fingers of hope amid the despair. Explosives were secreted across the camp. The partisans were almost ready to move. The camp waited only for the signal, for news of the Polish victory in Warsaw.
***
‘Good news, doctor.’ The camp physician smiled widely. ‘Warsaw has fallen. The glorious army of the Reich is victorious.’
Sweat made his palms clammy. ‘When did this happen?’
‘On the second. You hadn’t heard?’
Three days ago. ‘So, the Soviets didn’t support the Polish attacks?’
‘Apparently not.’ He turned on his heel and strode away whistling.
If the Germans had destroyed the resistance, they’d have destroyed the rebel radio station, too. The camp resistance must be told. This changed everything: they were depending on the Poles. He wrote a message and pushed it into the crack in the wall. Suppose Rabbi Schaeler didn’t come. He had to get a message to Miriam himself, before it was too late.
The guard on the gate was the one he’d brought kaolin for gut cramp: he let him into the women’s compound without question. He spotted Miriam walking towards the latrines. As he approached, a transport shambled past on the road to the crematoria. They were mainly men, beaten, bloodied, injured.
A group of inmates crowded behind the wire. One shouted to the passers-by. ‘What news?’
‘Powstanie Warszawskie jest skończona. Rosjanie nie atakować.’
Miriam ran to his side and caught at his arm. ‘What did he say?’
‘The Warsaw uprising is over. The Soviets didn’t attack. They let the German army crush the Poles.’ He rubbed a hand across his stubble. ‘The camp resistance may not know yet.’
‘I can pass a message.’
An explosion rocked the camp. Flames and smoke belched in the distance, but not from the chimneys. He strained to see; one of the crematoria was in flames. His message had come too late to stop it. But the Sonderkommando had done it… they’d done it. He held back a cheer. Guards and trucks swarmed towards the site of the explosion.
As flames destroyed crematoria IV, machine-gun fire rattled through the tense air and shouts of freedom mingled with the cries of the dying. He hugged Miriam close. ‘It’s too soon. The resistance isn’t ready. The SS will kill them all…’
She looked up at him, her eyes shining. ‘They would have died anyway. A message was passed to them only this morning, to say they were to be liquidated. At least now their deaths are not in vain.’ She pointed. ‘I saw men running for the woods. The fence must be breached… some have escaped.’
The women cheered them on. For one to escape, or die free, would be a victory for all.
‘Look.’ The noise had brought out the Sonderkommando of another, closer, crematoria, and close-quarter battles raged. Along the road the work groups in their Colorado-beetle jackets were being marched back to their barracks, backs bent, arms held stiffly to their sides: if the bands played them in he didn’t hear the tunes above the gunfire. Trucks full of SS arrived from the surrounding area and sped along the track between the wire enclosures. The might of the SS was ranged against half-starved rebels. ‘They won’t escape. They won’t let any live to tell the tale.’
‘This is what we risked our lives for, Chuck. We helped do this. They can murder us, but they can’t kill our spirit or destroy our faith.’
He stroked her hair: it was beginning to curl. ‘I’m so proud of you, Miriam.’
A guard strode towards them. ‘Zählappell, quickly.’ He pushed the women into rows to be counted. ‘Quickly!’
The numbers had to tally: they needed to know how many had escaped. The dead and near-to-dead were dragged out and laid on the ground to be counted. The living made orderly columns of five behind them, watching the battle for freedom, and willing on the flames. The heavy machine-gun gunfire ceased, leaving behind it a deathly hush that seemed to stretch time itself.
The crack of a bullet split the silence, a brief pause, then another. One… two… three… An execution in progress. Four… five… six… A single bullet to the back of the head designed to strike terror into the inmates’ hearts and stop further uprisings. He counted two hundred.
Miriam’s lips moved in silent prayer but he had no faith left. He had yet to tell her about the experiments, and the suffering of the children.
Chapter Nine
Wind from the Carpathians blew a breath of life across the camp. The October nights were cold, now. Crematorium IV lay idle, damaged beyond use, but the Sonderkommando had failed to set the charges in the other crematoria.
Rumour travelled across the camp, spread by the voracious underground network and the outrage of Nazi officers. Although most of the explosives had been used for demolition charges, the men of the Sonderkommando had also fashioned grenades using sardine cans and shoe-polish tins organised from Kanada. Local partisans had slipped small arms, hammers, knives and axes through the fence. Rumour said twenty-five guards had been killed. Rumour also had it a hated German Kapo had been stuffed alive into a crematorium oven.
The rebels of the 12th Sonderkommando fed the flames as they’d known they would. It was the way of the camp: every few months a new intake burned the bodies of the last Sonderkommando and then processed the bodies of others, including their own families, conscious that they too would feed the same flames. Their lives, waking and sleeping, were filled with flames and grief, hatred and guilt… and the stench of death.
He sent a message to Miriam. Twelve men escaped. SS patrols with dogs are searching. Next day he wrote another. They crossed the Vistula. The SS tracked them and shot them. They have brought back their bodies. I believe one may yet be free.
The dead could not betray them but the living could. He wrote yet another message for Miriam to spread. The SS have traced the gunpowder back to the Union munitions factory. Warn the girls there. He left the message in the usual place and waited anxiously.
A reply came next day. I fear we are too late. Workers in the pulverraum are being questioned as I write.
If he still believed in God he would have begged for his help. He sent up a silent prayer anyway, and paced outside the medical block. Next day he was able to write Miriam better news. Rumour has it orders from Berlin arrived. The gassings are to be stopped.
Another sleepless night and another desperate dawn. He checked the crack in the wall: the message had gone. In the distance a recognisable figure approached, still upright despite his deprivation. ‘Rabbi Schaeler, how are you?’
‘I’m well.’
‘What news?’
‘The guards are jittery... we believe the Soviet army is pushing west at a great rate. We fear for our lives.’
‘The SS are also nervous. They’ve been ordered to stop the gassings. There’s talk of blowing up the other crematoria to hide their crimes.’
‘This is from Miriam.’ The rabbi slipped a note into his hand.
He read it aloud. ‘God hears our prayers. We have great need of blankets.’ He smiled. ‘Miriam’s faith
is absolute. Is she well?’
‘She’s exhausted, but her faith sustains her. Ilse is a great help and comfort.’
‘I’m glad she has a friend. I wish I had her belief.’ It was as Aaron had said, political prisoners with something to fight for, and those of great faith were the ones who most easily found the strength to endure. He enjoyed Aaron’s company: his friendship helped keep him sane. They had had many deep, if short, debates concerning God, Judaism and Catholicism and, more recently, faith in general.
Rabbi Schaeler nodded in understanding. ‘This place is enough to test all belief, yet God upholds us in our struggle.’ He smiled that same serene smile Miriam managed, day after day, fighting with whatever strength she had. ‘It’s freezing in the infirmary. I’ll help take the blankets, if you can get them, after I’ve cleaned the latrines. I’m to go to the women’s camp next.’
He hurried back to the medical block. Miriam would have her blankets.
He blocked his passage. ‘My friend… what conclusions have you drawn from yesterday’s autopsies on the dwarves?’
‘That they were malnourished. Their organs showed signs of failure. I didn’t need to perform autopsies to discover that.’
‘You are being pedantic. What effects did you record?’
He would be strung on the gibbet, or stood in front of the wall of death, if the evil bastard knew what he’d recorded. He knew their names and what they did: Clauberg, killer of women, Oberheusen, murderer of children, Kremer, needle of death… Schmitt, coward, murderer and beast. He looked into the fathomless dark eyes… and him, the Good Uncle… child torturer, madman and murderer. ‘I saw only two senseless deaths. These are people, Herr Doktor.’
‘They’re vermin, but interesting vermin. You’ll carry out your orders. Remember your little nurse, and your patients. Think about the uses human skin can be put to.’ The back of the immaculate green tunic receded.