The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz

by Jeremy Dronfield

  20 ‘Even today the thought torments me,’ said Fritz many years later when he recalled his actions.

  21 Fritz mentions this encounter in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund (p. 142) without identifying the young man more specifically. He appears to have been prisoner number 106468, who can be found in the Auschwitz III-Monowitz hospital record (ABM) but not in any other surviving Auschwitz records. This serial number was one of a batch issued on 6 March 1943 to Jews deported from Germany (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 347).

  22 Wagner, IG Auschwitz, p. 108.

  23 Fritz identifies them only by the names Jenö and Laczi. Surviving Auschwitz records show that two Jewish brothers arrived together on a transport from Hungary at about this time: Jenö and Alexander Berkovits (prisoner numbers A-4005 and A-4004; Monowitz hospital records and work register, ABM).

  Chapter 17

  1 Without explanation, Fritz indicates that ‘Pawel’ was also known as ‘Tadek’. These were apparently false names. The real names of the Poles were Zenon Milaczewski (number 10433) and Jan Tomczyk (number 126261), although it isn’t clear which was Szenek and which Pawel; the ‘Berliner’ was apparently Polish-born Riwen Zurkowski (number unknown), who had presumably lived in Berlin (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 619).

  2 Fritz doesn’t explain why Goslawski couldn’t give the package directly to Peller at roll call. Possibly the construction workers were subjected to greater scrutiny when entering the factory enclosure. The date is variously given as 4 May 1944 (ibid.) or 3 May (Jan Tomczyk’s prisoner record, ABM).

  3 Monowitz commandant’s office notification in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 634.

  4 Date unknown. Thirteen Poles were transferred to Buchenwald on 1 June 1944 (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 638) and several transports of Poles went between August and December 1944 (Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 156, 166; Danuta Czech, ‘Kalendarium der wichtigsten Ereignisse aus der Geschichte des KL Auschwitz’ in Długoborski and Piper, Auschwitz, vol. 5, p. 231).

  5 The date of the execution is unclear. It may have been as late as December. The date of the death of Zenon Milaczewski (the real name of one of them – see note 1) is given in the Monowitz hospital death book (ABM) as 16 December 1944.

  6 Fritz states that two men were hanged, but according to Gustav Herzog, there were three (Frankfurt trials statement, Abt 461 Nr 37638/84/15893, FTD).

  7 Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, p. 307. Gilbert states that the raid began at 10.32 p.m., but this seems highly unlikely, as US bombing raids were normally performed in daylight. Czech (Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 692) gives the time as ‘late afternoon’.

  8 Arie Hassenberg, quoted in Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, p. 308.

  9 Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, p. 308; testimony of Siegfried Pinkus, Nuremberg Military Tribunal: NI-10820: Nuremberg Documents, quoted in Wollheim Memorial, wollheim-memorial.de/en/luftangriffe_en (retrieved 5 July 2017).

  10 Levi, Survival, pp. 137–8.

  11 Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 722.

  12 Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, pp. 315ff.

  13 Ibid., p. 326.

  14 Prisoner number 68705, arrivals list, 19 October 1942, ABM; Monowitz hospital records, ABM.

  15 Prisoner number 68615, arrivals list, 19 October 1942, ABM.

  16 Fritz doesn’t identify the weapon as a Luger, but that’s almost certainly what it was. In Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund (p. 158) he describes it as a ‘0.8 mm pistol’, which is clearly an error. The model number of the military-issue Luger was P.08, which might account for Fritz’s error of memory. Luftwaffe units were issued with the Luger well into the Second World War, when higher-status army and SS units had switched to the Walther P.38 (John Walter, Luger: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Handgun (2016), ch. 12).

  17 In his memoir, Fritz mistakenly gives the date of this raid as 18 November. There was no air raid on that date. Altogether there were four during 1944: 20 August, 13 September, and 18 and 26 December (Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, pp. 307–33).

  18 Although many of the bombs fell in open ground, and a few on the surrounding camps, the 18 December raid did very heavy damage to several factory buildings (Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, pp. 331–2).

  19 Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 780.

  20 Ibid., pp. 778–9.

  21 Ibid., pp. 782–3.

  22 Jósef Cyrankiewicz, 17 January 1945, quoted in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 783.

  23 Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, pp. 785, 786–7.

  24 Gustav Kleinmann’s diary indicates units of 100, whereas other records specify 1,000 as the unit size (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 786), and Fritz Kleinmann’s memoir mentions three groups of about 3,000; the inference is that the units were organized hierarchically, in military style.

  25 Gustav specifically identifies Moll. He was based at Birkenau, and no record has been found of his presence at Monowitz at this time. Possibly it was a flying visit to check on the evacuation.

  26 On 15 January 1945, the total number of prisoners in Auschwitz III-Monowitz and its sub-camps was 33,037 men and 2,044 women (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 779).

  Chapter 18

  1 Altogether, 50 prisoners were shot dead during the march (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 786n).

  2 Irena Strzelecka in Megargee, USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 1A, pp. 243–4.

  3 Four trains left Gleiwitz that day, carrying prisoners from several Auschwitz sub-camps besides Monowitz. The Monowitz prisoners were split between different trains, variously destined for the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen and Buchenwald (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 797).

  4 Ibid., p. 791.

  5 Moon phase data from http://www.timeanddate.com/moon/austria/amstetten?month=1&year=1945.

  6 In his 1997 interview, Fritz says that he discarded his camp uniform after jumping, but in his written memoir he places it before. This seems more likely, since his uniform would be of value to the other prisoners to fend off the cold.

  7 Eating regular soap would probably not have much effect (although the carbolic in use at the time might). Shaving soap, however, typically contains potassium hydroxide, which is highly toxic and produces severe gastrointestinal symptoms if ingested.

  Chapter 19

  1 Mauthausen arrivals list, 15 February 1945, 1.1.26.1/1307365, ITS. Fritz jumped from the train on 26 January 1945 (per Gustav’s diary, which agrees, give or take one day, with the record of the train’s arrival at Mauthausen: AMM-Y-Karteikarten, PGM), and was entered on the records at Mauthausen on 15 February (Mauthausen transport list, AMM-Y-50-03-16, PGM) – eleven days later than by his own reckoning of his time in custody in St Pölten.

  2 Prisoner record card AMM-Y-Karteikarten, PGM; Mauthausen arrivals list, 15 February 1945, 1.1.26.1/1307365, ITS. Mauthausen received no documentation from Auschwitz about the transport of prisoners (for reasons revealed later in the chapter); hence Fritz’s ability to pass himself off as Aryan. His tattoo was noted on his record as a distinguishing feature, but the number, which was meaningless here, wasn’t taken down.

  3 The liberation of Auschwitz attracted little attention in the press, despite Soviet attempts to publicize it. It was seen as a rerun of the previous summer’s revelations about Majdanek, and was overshadowed by coverage of the Yalta conference of 4–11 February. On 16 February (the day after Fritz Kleinmann entered Mauthausen) the first Western Allied serviceman to see inside Auschwitz after its liberation, Captain Robert M. Trimble of USAAF Eastern Command, was given a guided tour of Birkenau by Soviet officers (Lee Trimble with Jeremy Dronfield, Beyond the Call (2015), pp. 63ff.).

  4 Prisoner record card AMM-Y-Karteikarten, PGM; Mauthausen arrivals list, 15 February 1945, 1.1.26.1/1307365, ITS.

  5 Testimony of local priest Josef Radgeb, quoted in museum guide at mauthausen-memorial.org/en/Visit/Virtual-Tour#map||23 (retrieved 10 July 2017).

  6 Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 797.

  7 According to
an account cited in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 797n, the transport reached Nordhausen on 28 January. This seems highly unlikely, since it had arrived at Mauthausen on 26 January and was kept there a whole day. Gustav Kleinmann gives 4 February as the date, which is much more likely.

  8 The figure of 766 comes from Gustav’s diary; the other figures are from Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 797n.

  9 Mittelbau-Dora prisoner list, p. 434, 1.1.27.1/2536866, ITS.

  10 Michael J. Neufeld in Megargee, USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 1B, pp. 979–81.

  11 According to Neufeld (ibid., p. 980), this extremely early start was practised during the summer months, but Gustav Kleinmann’s diary states that it was the case in February to March 1945.

  12 A small camp had been established by this time at Woffleben (camp B-12) to save the journey time for workers from Ellrich (ibid., p. 981); however, Gustav and most of the other prisoners were not among those transferred here, and they continued having to make the journey to and from the site each day.

  13 Langbein, Against All Hope: Resistance in the Nazi Concentration Camps, 1938–1946 transl. Harry Zohn (1994), pp. 374–5.

  14 One theory is that the SS intended to use the volunteers as decoys, to draw enemy fire while the real SS made their escape (Evelyn Le Chêne, Mauthausen: The History of a Death Camp (1971), p. 155).

  15 Fritz makes no mention of this episode in either his written memoir or his 1997 interview, and does not appear to have told his family about it. However, he did talk about it in a 1976 interview with fellow Austrian Auschwitz survivor and resistance member Hermann Langbein (Hermann Langbein, Against All Hope, p. 374).

  16 Prisoner record card AMM-Y-Karteikarten, PGM; Gusen II transfer list, 15 March 1945, 1.1.26.1/1310718; Mauthausen transfer list, 15 March 1945, 1.1.26.1/1280723; Gusen II prisoner register, p. 82, 1.1.26.1/1307473, ITS. Langbein’s sources (Against All Hope, p. 384) indicate that the plan to infiltrate the SS units occurred in ‘mid-March’ 1945, but the episode must have been in early March, before Fritz’s transfer to Gusen on 15 March.

  17 Robert G. Waite in Megargee, USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 1B, pp. 919–21.

  18 Gusen II transfer list, 15 March 1945, 1.1.26.1/1310718, ITS; Rudolf A. Haunschmied, Jan-Ruth Mills and Siegi Witzany-Durda, St Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen: Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered (2007), pp. 144, 172. In his memoir (Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 170), which is very sketchy at this point, Fritz erroneously identifies the aircraft as the Me 109.

  19 Haunschmied et al., St Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen, pp. 198, 210–11.

  20 Quoted in Stanisław Dobosiewicz, Mauthausen-Gusen: obóz zagłady (1977), p. 384.

  21 Dobosiewicz, Mauthausen-Gusen, p. 386. The only prisoners left behind were 700 invalids in the hospital, who were too sick to be moved.

  22 Haunschmied et al., St Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen, pp. 134ff.

  23 Ibid., pp. 219ff.

  Chapter 20

  1 Gustav gives no further details about Erich or his sources of food; most likely it came from civilians employed in armament production in the tunnel complex.

  2 Michael J. Neufeld in Megargee, USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 1B, p. 980.

  3 Ibid., p. 970.

  4 Ibid., p. 980.

  5 Gustav names this place as Schneverdingen, north of Munster. This seems unlikely, since it would have necessitated immediately doubling back south to the ultimate destination. However, given the chaotic nature of concentration camp evacuations at this time, that would not have been out of the question.

  6 David Cesarani, ‘A Brief History of Bergen-Belsen’ in Suzanne Bardgett and David Cesarani (eds), Belsen 1945: New Historical Perspectives (2006), pp. 19–20.

  7 Derrick Sington, Belsen Uncovered (1946), pp. 14, 18, 28; Raymond Phillips, Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty-Four Others: The Belsen Trial (1949), p. 195.

  8 Langbein, People, p. 406.

  9 Josef Rosenhaft, quoted in Sington, Belsen Uncovered, pp. 180–81; testimony of Harold le Druillenec in Phillips, Trial, p. 62.

  10 Quoted in Sington, Belsen Uncovered, p. 182.

  11 Celle was liberated by British forces on 12 April 1945.

  12 Testimony of Captain Derrick A. Sington in Phillips, Trial, pp. 47–53; Sington, Belsen Uncovered, pp. 11–13.

  13 Testimony of Captain Derrick A. Sington in Phillips, Trial, pp. 47, 51; Sington, Belsen Uncovered, pp. 14–15.

  14 Sington, Belsen Uncovered, p. 16.

  15 Ibid., p. 18.

  16 Ibid., p. 187.

  17 The original message has not survived, but Edith did receive it. It told her little other than that her father was alive and in block 83 of Bergen-Belsen (Samuel Barnet, letter to Sen. Leverett Saltonstall, 1 June 1945, War Refugee Board 0558 Folder 7: Requests for Specific Aid, FDR).

  18 Molly Silva Jones in ‘Eyewitness Accounts’ in Bardgett and Cesarani, Belsen 1945, p. 57.

  19 Major Dick Williams, ‘The First Day in the Camp’ in Bardgett and Cesarani, Belsen 1945, p. 30.

  20 Ben Shepard, ‘The Medical Relief Effort at Belsen’ in Bardgett and Cesarani, Belsen 1945, p. 39.

  21 Molly Silva Jones in ‘Eyewitness Accounts’ in Bardgett and Cesarani, Belsen 1945, p. 55.

  22 Gerald Raperport in ‘Eyewitness Accounts’ in Bardgett and Cesarani, Belsen 1945, pp. 58–9.

  23 Haunschmied et al., St Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen, pp. 219ff; Dobosiewicz, Mauthausen-Gusen, p. 387.

  24 It is unclear how many prisoners were herded into the Kellerbau tunnels, partly because of widely varying figures for the number of prisoners in the Mauthausen complex at the time. The total prisoner population of Mauthausen and Gusen has been given variously as 21,000 (Robert G. Waite in Megargee, USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 1B, p. 902), 40,000 (Haunschmied et al., St Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen, p. 203), and 63,798 (Le Chêne, Mauthausen, pp. 169–70).

  25 Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 171; Langbein, Against All Hope, p. 374; Le Chêne, Mauthausen, p. 165.

  26 Krisztián Ungváry, ‘The Hungarian Theatre of War’ in Karl-Heinz Frieser, The Eastern Front, 1943–1944, transl. Barry Smerin and Barbara Wilson (2017), pp. 950–54.

  27 Le Chêne, Mauthausen, pp. 163–4.

  28 George Dyer, quoted in Le Chêne, Mauthausen, p. 165.

  29 Haunschmied et al., St Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen, p. 226.

  30 Quoted in Langbein, Against All Hope, p. 82.

  31 Gustav erroneously identifies this place as Ostenholz, a village to the southwest of Bergen-Belsen, well away from the route he and Josef Berger took.

  Chapter 21

  1 Samuel Barnet, letter to Sen. Leverett Saltonstall, 1 June 1945; William O’Dwyer, letter to Samuel Barnet, 9 June 1945, War Refugee Board 0558 Folder 7: Requests for Specific Aid, FDR.

  2 Fritz does not identify the hospital, but it must have been the 107th EH, which established a facility at Regensburg on 30 April 1945 and remained there until 20 May (med-dept.com/unit-histories/107th-evacuation-hospital; retrieved 16 July 2017). No other American military hospital units have been identified in Regensburg at that time.

  3 Fritz later researched the fates of fifty-five Jewish and non-Jewish children who had been playmates in the Karmelitermarkt before 1938 (Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 179). Of the twenty-five Jews, five, including Fritz himself, survived the camps, and eight, including Kurt and Edith Kleinmann, either emigrated or hid. Twelve were murdered in the concentration camps. Of the thirty non-Jewish children, nineteen stayed in or around Vienna throughout the war, and eleven served in the Wehrmacht during the war; of these, only three survived.

  4 Gustav had apparently taken up smoking since leaving Auschwitz.

  5 Gustav identifies this man only as ‘G’.

  Epilogue

  1 Naturalization records for Richard and Edith Patten, 14 May 1954: Connecticut District Court Naturalization Indexes, 1851–1992: NARA microfilm publication M2081.

  2 On their testimony for the Frankfurt trials given in 1963, Gustav
gave his religion as ‘Mosaic’ (Jewish) and Fritz as ‘no religious affiliation’ (Abt 461 Nr 37638/84/15904–6; Abt 461 Nr 37638/83/15661–3, FTD).

  3 Statistics given in Gold, Geschichte der Juden, pp. 133–4.

  4 Devin O. Pendas, The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963–1965 (2006), pp. 101–2.

  5 Trials of Burger et al. and Mulka et al., Frankfurt, 1963; testimony of Gustav Kleinmann (Abt 461 Nr 37638/84/15904–6, FTD) and Fritz Kleinmann (Abt 461 Nr 37638/83/15661–3, FTD). Gustav was interviewed mainly about the death march and camp senior Jupp Windeck; Fritz’s statement is mostly concerned with Windeck and SS-Sergeant Bernhard Rakers.

  6 Along with his father’s diary and commentaries by Reinhold Gärtner, Fritz’s memoir was included in the book Doch der Hund will nicht krepieren (Innsbruck University Press, 1995, 2012).

  Acknowledgements

  This book could not have been written without its primary source material – Gustav Kleinmann’s concentration camp diary and Fritz Kleinmann’s memoir, which came to me through Professor Reinhold Gärtner of Innsbruck University. Reinhold helped Fritz to publish both documents in the book Doch der Hund will nicht krepieren (‘But still the dog will not die’: Innsbruck University Press, 2012), and has provided indispensable cooperation in my initial research for this book, for which I thank him.

  I am profoundly grateful to Kurt Kleinmann, who lived through the Anschluss and the Nazi occupation of Vienna, for the many hours of interviews and months of correspondence. Without Kurt’s generous and tireless help, this tale would have been far less rich in depth and detail. Peter Patten, Gustav’s grandson, has also very kindly contributed interviews and correspondence. I am grateful also to Rachel Schine, who helped put me in touch with the American branch of the family. The Austrian side of the family have also provided support. The encouragement of Peter Kleinmann, Victor Zehetbauer and his father, Ernst, as well as Richard Wilczek, has been indispensable.