The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz

by Jeremy Dronfield

  ‘You have to go,’ Gustav insisted. ‘I can’t make it – I’m old, my strength is gone. Leave now – please.’

  ‘No, Papa. I won’t.’ He sat down again and wrapped his arms around his father.

  When dawn came, they found themselves in familiar snow-laden countryside near Vienna. The train steamed along the north bank of the Danube, and in broad daylight rolled into the northern suburbs and across the river into Leopoldstadt. They scarcely dared peek out as their home passed by, heartbreakingly close. They rolled by the west end of the Prater, and then the train was rumbling over the Danube Canal, through the western suburbs and back out into open countryside.

  In the late morning they passed through the town of St Pölten, and in the afternoon reached Amstetten, where the train halted. They were now little more than forty kilometres from Mauthausen.

  When darkness fell, the journey resumed.

  Gustav again pleaded with Fritz to escape. ‘You must, before it’s too late. Please go, Fritzl. Please.’

  Fritz gave way. The pain of it would never leave him: ‘After five years of shared destiny, that I should now sever myself from my father,’ he recalled in anguish.

  The train had reached its maximum speed. Fritz stood and peeled off the hated striped uniform with its Judenstern and camp number and flung off his cap. He embraced his papa one last time and kissed him, then with help from a friend he climbed the sidewall.

  The full force of the sub-zero wind stabbed his body like spears. The train shook and thundered. He peered anxiously towards the brake house. The moon was brighter now than it had been when they’d tested the guards’ alertness: two days from the full, an eerie glow illuminating the white landscape and the trees flying past.5

  Gustav felt a last squeeze of his hand; then Fritz launched himself into the air. In an instant he was gone.

  Sitting alone on the floor of the wagon, by the light of the moon Gustav wrote in his diary: ‘The Lord God protect my boy. I cannot go, I am too weak. He wasn’t shot at. I hope my boy will win through and find shelter with our dear ones.’

  The train sped on, hammering and clanking, as if the locomotive itself was desperate for this dreadful journey to be over. It passed through Linz in darkness, crossed the Danube and doubled back east towards the small town of Mauthausen.

  בן

  Fritz tumbled through the air, all sense of space and direction lost for a fleeting moment. The ground hit him violently, jarring his bones and knocking the wind out of him. He rolled over and over through the thick snow and came to rest with the train wheels clattering past his face, not daring to move a muscle.

  The last wagon rushed by and faded into the distance, leaving him alone in the silence under the vault of stars. He looked around. He was lying in a thick drift, which had cushioned his fall. Despite the pains in his limbs, he hadn’t broken anything. Shaking himself down, he started walking back along the tracks towards Amstetten.6

  Nearing the town, Fritz’s nerve failed him. He wasn’t ready to face entering a town, even late in the evening. Slithering down the embankment, he struck out across an open field. It was hard going, with snow up to his hips, but eventually he came to a narrow backstreet on the edge of town. It was deserted. Warily, he followed it.

  He managed to skirt around the north of the little town without meeting anyone, and was soon on a country road winding eastward, parallel with the railway line. He passed through several small villages and hamlets, gradually working his way back in the direction of St Pölten. It was slow going on the slippery roads, and his strength was faltering.

  After several hours he reached the little town of Blindenmarkt, where the road converged with the railway. The train had passed through this place the previous day. There was a small station where the passenger trains between Linz and Vienna stopped. He was tired, and in his pocket he had some Reichsmarks – his little stock of emergency cash scavenged in Monowitz. Should he risk it?

  On an impulse Fritz turned off the main road and walked to the station. It was still dark, so he found an empty cattle wagon standing on the tracks and crawled inside. It was too cold to sleep, but at least he was out of the wind.

  Towards dawn, lights came on in the station building. Fritz waited a few minutes, then summoned his courage and dropped down from the wagon.

  The building was quiet, with just a solitary clerk behind the ticket window. Fritz hesitated; he wasn’t certain what the proper procedure was nowadays. Would he be asked to show his papers? He approached the window and, as casually as he could, asked for a ticket to Vienna. The clerk, who wasn’t accustomed to people travelling this early, regarded him with some surprise (and suspicion, it seemed to Fritz). But he took Fritz’s money without a word and gave him his ticket.

  Fritz went into the deserted waiting room and sat down. After a few minutes, the clerk came in and lit the stove. Fritz moved closer to it – the first warmth he’d felt since leaving Monowitz. He was cold to the marrow, and the sensation of life and heat flowing into his body was both heavenly and torturous, filling the deadened nerves with pins and needles and awakening the aches of his journey.

  Drowsy with fatigue, he had no idea how long he’d been sitting there when the Vienna train finally huffed to a stop outside the window. Fritz went out to the platform – still the only person there – and got into one of the third-class carriages.

  Closing the door behind him, he saw with a jolt of horror that the carriage was full of German soldiers. Not a single civilian – just a crowd of field-grey Wehrmacht uniforms. Luckily, they were too busy talking, smoking, playing cards and dozing to take any notice of him. It was too late to get off again, so he found a space and sat down.

  As the train moved off, Fritz glanced surreptitiously around him. He felt like a foreigner in his own homeland, with no idea of laws or protocol, and little notion how to behave like an ordinary civilian. The soldiers scarcely glanced at him. Listening to their chatter, he guessed they were returning from the front on leave.

  After a couple of hours and a few more stops (at which nobody else got on), the train reached St Pölten, where it halted. Two German soldiers came aboard, both wearing the distinctive steel gorgets of the Feldgendarmerie – the Wehrmacht military police.

  They made their way along the aisle, demanding to see passes. The soldiers sitting near Fritz took their identity cards and passes from their breast pockets. Fritz took out his ticket, which was all he had. The soldiers bundled their documents together and handed them all at once to the nearest policeman; Fritz, seizing his opportunity, slipped his ticket in among them.

  The policeman glanced in turn at each of the soldiers and handed back their documents. Then he came to the solitary rail ticket and frowned. He looked at Fritz, and gestured impatiently. ‘Papers, please,’ he said.

  Heart pounding, Fritz made a show of riffling through his pockets. He shrugged helplessly. ‘I’ve lost them.’

  The policeman’s frown deepened. ‘All right. You’d better come with us.’

  Fritz’s heart sank, but he knew better than to argue. He got up and followed the Feldgendarmes off the train.

  ‘Please, I need to get to Vienna,’ he said as they led him away.

  ‘We can’t let you go any further till we establish your identity.’

  They led him out of the station to a nearby Wehrmacht outpost. He was questioned sternly, although not aggressively, by a sergeant.

  ‘Why did you board that train?’

  ‘I need to get to Vienna,’ said Fritz.

  ‘But why that train in particular? You must have known it was a front-line special. There’d have been a regular train not long after.’

  ‘I – I didn’t know.’

  ‘A young fellow in civvies with no papers boarding a troop train. That’s not normal, is it? What’s your name, lad?’

  ‘Kleinmann. Fritz Kleinmann.’ He saw no point in lying. It was a perfectly acceptable German name, and hardly unique.

  ‘Why don’t
you have papers?’

  ‘I must have lost them.’

  ‘Home address?’

  On the spur of the moment, Fritz gave a fictional address in a town near Weimar. The sergeant wrote it down.

  ‘Stay there,’ he said, and left the room.

  He was gone a long time, and when he reappeared he was accompanied by a superior. ‘We checked the address you gave. It doesn’t exist. Now, where do you really live?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Fritz. ‘My memory plays tricks on me.’ He gave them a different address.

  They went away, and again found it was false. By now, Fritz was desperately playing for time. The Feldgendarmes went through the charade once more, disposing of a third fake address before finally losing their patience.

  Two guards were summoned. ‘Take Herr Kleinmann to the barracks,’ the sergeant ordered. ‘The security section.’

  He was put in a vehicle and driven through the streets to a small army barrack complex, where he was taken to a gaol-like building with an office and cells.

  An officer looked over the note from the Feldgendarmerie and asked Fritz to identify himself properly. ‘If you lie to me, I will lock you up.’

  What else could Fritz do? He gave a fourth imaginary address. It was checked, and he was placed formally under arrest. The officer was calm and quiet; he didn’t yell or rage or threaten torture; he simply directed his men to lock Herr Kleinmann in a cell. ‘Perhaps the truth will come to you in there,’ he said ominously.

  The cell was large, with three prisoners – all soldiers – already in residence, awaiting court martial for minor offences. They regarded him curiously, and Fritz fell into desultory conversation, explaining simply that he was a civilian who’d lost his papers and was waiting for verification.

  It was pleasantly warm in the cell. It had a bed for each man, a table and chairs, and a basin and toilet in the corner. Fritz hadn’t been in such comfortable accommodation in years. When an orderly brought their evening meals – the first hot food Fritz had had in nearly a week, and his first full meal for as long as he could remember – he had to force himself to eat in normal mouthfuls rather than gobbling it down like a ravenous dog.

  After dinner, when Fritz turned back the blanket on his bed, he could hardly believe his eyes – there were sheets underneath. Sheets! What kind of a cell was this? Easing his exhausted body into bed was little short of heaven, and he slept soundly and blissfully through the night.

  The next morning was, if possible, even better. The orderly brought breakfast, and simple as it was it made Fritz’s head spin. There was real hot coffee, bread, margarine, sausage, and plenty of it. While his cellmates chatted idly, Fritz kept his head down and concentrated on filling his stomach.

  Eventually he was brought before the officer again, who demanded to know who he really was. As the questioning went on, Fritz began to realize that the officer was working on the theory that he was an army deserter. It made perfect sense. His age, appearance and accent were all consistent with it, as were the circumstances of his apprehension. Believing that he’d caught his prisoner in a minor deception, the officer didn’t think to look for an enormous one – that this young man with the chiselled features, civilian dress and Viennese accent might actually be a Jew on the run from the SS.

  Fritz refused to answer any further questions, and was put back in the cell. He felt contented in there: safe, warm and well fed. Lunch consisted of a simple but very good stew and a piece of bread. Yes, this was enough for contentment.

  And yet, despite these luxuries, the part of Fritz’s mind that had kept him alive in the camps was fully aware of the danger he was in. Sooner or later this officer would find out the truth. As the day wore on, Fritz groped around for a solution. After dinner that evening, while his cellmates were busy talking, he surreptitiously pilfered a stick of shaving soap from one of them, and ate it. By the next morning, he was violently ill: hot, sweating and with terrible diarrhoea.7 His cellmates called the guard, and Fritz was carried out.

  They took him to a military hospital. During the examination – which discovered nothing more serious than stomach cramps and a raised temperature – he had his wits about him sufficiently to keep his Auschwitz tattoo hidden. He was put in a side ward by himself and kept under observation.

  It was even better than the cell: crisp white bedlinen, female nurses bringing him tea and medication. After a while he was able to eat, although the diarrhoea persisted. A small price to pay for the postponement of his interrogation. A doctor who visited him on the third day mentioned that there was a sentry outside the door with a machine pistol, so he’d better not be thinking of making a run for it.

  Eventually the fever passed and the diarrhoea cleared up. Fritz was immediately returned to the security section. He was met by the officer, whose patience was wearing thin. ‘It’s time for this case to be closed,’ he said. ‘If you don’t confess, I shall hand you over to the Gestapo.’

  He apparently expected that terrifying threat to break the prisoner, but Fritz said nothing. Seething with frustration, the officer ordered him back to his cell. ‘Two more days,’ he promised, ‘and then I’m done with you!’

  There followed two days of exquisite comfort, and then Fritz was brought back to the interrogation room.

  ‘I have guessed who you are now,’ said the officer, to Fritz’s alarm. ‘You’re no deserter at all. I believe you’re an enemy agent, on a mission for the British. You’ve been dropped by parachute to engage in covert operations.’ Having delivered this astonishing judgement, the officer stated flatly: ‘You will be treated as a spy.’

  Fritz was appalled; this was worse than if he’d been identified as a concentration camp escapee. He denied the accusation strenuously, but the officer refused to listen. In his mind, only an enemy agent would be sneaking about in the way Fritz had been, associating with German troops. And only a trained spy would be able to resist interrogation for so long. No deserter could do that.

  Despite his denials, Fritz was force-marched back to his cell. Suddenly it didn’t feel quite so congenial. Should he confess? No: he’d be returned to the SS and executed. But the outcome would be the same if they believed him to be a spy. On the other hand, even if he confessed, would they believe him now? The officer’s notion of him as a German–Austrian émigré was so fixed, and he seemed so impressed with himself for having nailed a British spy, that even if he saw the tattoo he might believe it was part of Fritz’s disguise.

  The next day, Fritz was taken before the officer once more. Three armed soldiers were standing by. ‘I’m through with your denials,’ the officer announced, ‘and I’m washing my hands of you. You are going to Mauthausen. Let the SS deal with you.’

  19. Mauthausen

  בן

  Fritz felt the pinch of steel round his wrists as the handcuffs snapped shut. ‘If you make any attempt to escape,’ said the officer, ‘you will be shot immediately.’

  His three-man escort – an NCO and two privates – marched him to the railway station, where they boarded a train for Linz. For the third time, Fritz travelled the familiar route: St Pölten to Blindenmarkt to Amstetten, at some point passing the spot where he had made his leap, unidentifiable now in daylight with the snow melting. How vivid it all was in his memory. But no more vivid than his pleasant interlude in St Pölten; like a blissful holiday, he would always remember it as lasting little more than a week, when in fact it had been closer to three.1 Three weeks of eating well, resting in safety and having his health restored.

  At Linz they changed to a local train for the short journey to Mauthausen, a pleasant little town nestling in a bend of the Danube beneath rolling green hills chequered with fields and woods. Fritz was marched through the town two paces ahead of his guards, who kept their rifles trained on his back. The locals, accustomed to living in the shadow of the camp in the hills above the town, paid them no heed.

  A winding road led up the valley. When the place came in sight, it was li
ke no concentration camp Fritz had ever seen – more like a fortress, with high, thick stone walls topped by walkways and studded with gun emplacements. There was an angle in the wall, in which there stood a massive stone gatehouse flanked at one corner by a squat round-tower and at the other by an enormous square turret four storeys high. Somewhere within those walls were Fritz’s father and friends. Or so he hoped. One could only imagine how harsh the selections would be in such a camp. But Fritz had faith in his father’s strength; deep down he was certain they would be reunited – much sooner than they had expected. Fritz would certainly have a story to tell.

  Instead of taking him through this imposing gate, his guards turned and marched him along the road parallel to the outer wall, past a fruit garden. At the corner, the road swung sharply right, the ground on one side falling steeply away to a sheer drop, like a vast gorge, lined with jagged cliff faces.

  Fritz was looking down into the place that gave Mauthausen its evil name: the granite quarry. Larger and many times deeper than the limestone quarry at Buchenwald, its bottom was a hive teeming with slaves and echoing to the tinkling clangour of picks and chisels on stone. On the far side was a broad, steep staircase cut into the rock, curving upwards in one enormous flight of 186 steps from the bottom of the pit to the rim. Up it hundreds of prisoners were climbing, each carrying a square block of granite on his back. They called it the Stair of Death, and it was the symbol of all that was hideous about Mauthausen.

  The granite extracted here was destined for Hitler’s monumental building projects, a grandiose vision requiring stone in colossal quantities. Thousands of prisoners had died extracting it. The Stair of Death was the epitome of SS thinking – why install a more efficient mechanical conveyor when criminal and Jewish labour was so cheap and the process so satisfyingly punishing? Injuries and fatalities were constant – the slightest misstep on the staircase would send a man and his granite block tumbling among the others, setting them off like dominoes, breaking limbs and crushing bodies.