“Leave it,” Julia said.
Shosha picked it up.
“It’s mine,” Julia said. “You don’t smoke.”
“You can have it when I’m done.”
She tore a piece of her dress and set the lit end to it. Soon she had a flame.
“You have a fire.”
“Dear God—a fire.”
Shosha sat next to her bunk, pealing away thin slivers of wood from planks and posts. Other prisoners crawled over. They handed her papers and rags and pieces of wood.
“We ought to burn this fucker down,” Julia said.
“Yes!”
The man from the bunk over Shosha watched the fire grow. “You have a fire,” he said. “That means you can eat a warm meal.”
“With what?” Julia asked.
“With this.” The man held out his bony hand.
“Go away,” Shosha said.
“You think I’m crazy.”
Shosha wouldn’t look at him.
“I’m not living long,” he said. “Why should my death be meaningless?” The other prisoners looked at Shosha. The man lowered his hand. He started to withdraw it when Shosha reached up and grabbed it. She looked up at him. He could see her eyes, purple-blue and clear in the flame.
“You won’t die,” she said.
“Wanna bet?” Julia said.
Shosha looked around at the others. She licked her dry lips and took a deep breath. “L’Chaim,” she said. Then louder, “L’Chaim!”
No one responded.
“L’Chaim,” Shosha yelled again.
Silence. No one spoke. Julia looked at Shosha.
“Okay,” Julia said. “L’Chaim!”
“L’Chaim,” someone else finally responded.
“L’Chaim,” from a little farther down. “L’Chaim.”
“L’Chaim!”
“You Jews stop saying that. You’ll get us all killed.”
But the echo kept traveling.
“L’Chaim.”
“L’Chaim! L’Chaim! L’Chaim!”
“I’m not a Jew, but L’Chaim!
“Make that a double! L’Chaim! L’Chaim!”
“Ah what the hell,” another woman said. “L’Chaim!”
Shosha looked up at the man with the bony hand. “We live,” she said.
LEBENSRAUM
Fifty
Sergeant Schmidt spoke to long lines of male prisoners through a bullhorn. “You have all been fortunate enough to be selected as the first Kommando of laborers from our facility to serve the needs of the Third Reich.”
“Cut the shit,” von Kempt told him.
Schmidt lowered the bullhorn.
“Go on,” von Kempt said.
Schmidt raised the bullhorn again. “You will march,” he said. “North and east, toward Oswiecim.”
The whistles blew and five columns of one hundred men each marched through the main gates with SS guards at their sides and chief kapos at the front. Von Kempt, the Lagerelder or march commander, rode in a motorcycle sidecar. Janusz Jerczek marched in the third column, Jakub in the first.
They marched through Melinka village in the first hour. Some villagers stared. What they saw defied the expectations Heinrich Petersdorf created with his public relations campaigns: men who were sick, frail, thin, starving. The guards yelled and acted like asses. It was cold, but only the guards wore coats.
The marchers made fifteen miles the first day. Trucks pulled alongside around dusk. The guards at the front motioned with their hands. They blew whistles and the march stopped near an open field.
“Line up,” the kapos yelled. “Line up. Time to eat.” They gave each man one piece of stale bread and a lukewarm liquid that smelled like coffee but tasted like muddy water.
“They want us well fed,” Jerczek said. “So we won’t drop.” He devoured his bread.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said another man.
“What?” Jerczek said.
“Eat so fast.”
“I’m hungry,” Jerczek said.
“All the more reason not to eat fast.”
“I always eat fast when I’m hungry.”
“This is it,” the man said. “They told me. Until same time tomorrow.”
“Here,” Jakub said. He handed Jerczek his bread. “Take it.”
“I can’t do that,” Jerczek said.
“I’ll take it,” said the other man.
“Me too,” said another.
“Take it,” Jakub said.
“You don’t want it?” Jerczek said. “You’re not hungry?”
“You should eat, even if you’re not hungry,” the other man told Jakub.
But Jakub kept the bread extended in his hand. Jerczek hesitantly took it.
“You should divide that,” said another man. “You might make the others angry.”
“Divide this a hundred ways?” Jerczek said. “Each man gets a crumb?”
“I’m not being absurd,” said the man. “I meant for the few of us standing here.”
Jerczek started to break the bread but Jakub took his wrist. “You have some,” Jakub said to the other man. He pointed to the ground. “You must have dropped it.”
The man looked down and saw a piece of stale bread near his feet. “I didn’t drop it,” he said. “Someone else….” He looked around. Several men were bending over, picking up bread on the ground. He looked at the bread at his own feet and then at Jakub. The man picked up the bread and put it to his lips.
“It’s not very good,” Jerczek said. “But it is bread.”
They slept on the cold ground in the field that night, under a clear sky with stars.
THE MARCHERS CAME TO A VILLAGE LATE the second day. A misty drizzle hung in the air and the men shook in the damp cold. They talked among themselves. They kept their heads down. They had lost three men—one to the cold, one to a beating, and one to the dogs.
The guards and kapos heard grumbling. The refrain was a variation of “this is insane. We should go back, turn back. We’ll starve out here. We’ll freeze out here. We were better off at the camp.” The supply trucks passed and slowed ahead. A man fell. Jakub turned and helped him to his feet. A kapo ran up and whacked Jakub’s arm with a stick.
“You don’t help,” the kapo screamed. “You don’t help.” He looked at the marchers. “Forget going back,” he yelled. “Forget it! The camp is being burned as we speak and will be gone in a few days.”
THE THIRD DAY STARTED WITH SUN, then the sky became overcast and rain fell. The marchers made four miles on a cup of cold water and a piece of hard bread. They walked in the rain, some with blankets on their shoulders, in ragged clothes stuck to their flesh. Their eyes were red and faces dirty with stubble and grime.
They rounded a shallow curve in the road. Ahead, they saw other soldiers and a tank listing to one side. Jakub could see where the roadside had flooded and the earth had given way under the tank’s heavy tread. Soldiers were leaning against the tank, smoking and pointing through the rain. The marchers heard von Kempt yelling orders and they stopped. The lieutenant strutted toward the tank commander. They both wore the Wehrmacht uniform.
“Stuck?” Von Kempt asked.
“What’s it look like?”
“We can get you out.”
“With them?” The tank commander smirked. “Müselmanner?”
Von Kempt signaled toward his men and raised the whistle to his lips. The tank commander caught his arm. “Don’t waste our time.”
“You’d rather stand in the rain?”
“What would you know about it?”
Von Kempt turned and blew his whistle. He waved to his men. The camp guards herded a group of marchers around the tank. They yelled the order. “Dig. Dig.”
The marchers shoved their hands into the mud. The tank commander looked disgustedly bemused.
“No shovels?” he asked. “Is that your way?”
“You have shovels for them?” von Kempt said.
The tank commander
drew on his cigarette. He blew out the smoke. “Which camp?” he asked.
“Melinka.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Near the village.”
“What a waste.” The tank commander watched the digging. “We’re losing the war for this.”
The earth sunk and the tank slipped. The commander threw down his cigarette and walked over. “All right—all right,” he said. “Get away. Get the fuck away. Fucking morons. Get the fuck away. Get back. Get away.” He pulled his sidearm. The guards and marchers fell back. “I’ll shoot the next mother fucker gets near this.”
Schmidt and the other camp guards looked at von Kempt. His cheeks were red in the rain. He felt wobbly on his new leg.
“You heard him,” von Kempt said finally. “Back in line. Time to go!”
The tank commander held his sidearm and watched the marchers pass. “Fucking morons,” he said. His men laughed and stood in the rain.
Fifty One
Franz Strauss was a fastidious man, but to Heinrich Petersdorf he looked weary and unshaven today.
“Franz?”
“What is it? More good news?”
“Word from Berlin has the Red Army moving toward us at a rate of seven kilometers per day.”
Strauss looked down at his desk. “Seven kilometers. Where were they last?”
“Jaroslaw.”
“That close?”
“Ja.”
“How big a detachment?”
“Brigade.”
“Whose command?”
“I don’t know.” Petersdorf looked out the window. “You’re following commanders now?”
“It’s important,” Strauss said. “It adds or subtracts to our time.” He looked at the major. “What are our numbers?”
“Six thousand before the march,” Petersdorf said. “They took five hundred. Another group leaves tomorrow. Down to two hundred a day in the gas.”
“Two hundred?”
“Berlin told us to stop. We dismantled six and seven.”
“I don’t see that as particularly humane “
“Agreed.”
“We have food enough for our men. Anyone else will starve.”
“Winter’s coming.”
“Starve and freeze then,” Strauss said.
FOR OVER A WEEK AFTER HIMMLER ENDED THE Final Solution, no trains came to the camp. Fiddler celebrated the end of selections duty by drinking for three days. Hehl said there was nothing to celebrate but he felt the knot in his stomach loosen. Strauss ordered the ramp dismantled. With regular marches, an increased rate of four hundred killings per day, and no new inmates, the camp population fell.
From his perch in the far guard tower, Corporal Walkenburg was the first person to hear the whistle and the grinding wheels of the Kriegslokomotive that now approached. He didn’t believe it at first, and had to confirm what he heard through binoculars. People in the hospital block tried to peer through knotholes in the pine walls for the same reason.
“What do you see?”
“It’s a train all right,” Shosha said.
“Maybe it’s the allies.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Supply cars, probably,” Julia said.
They saw Petersdorf and Fiddler hurry by. The engine pulled a long line of cars, but no one could yet tell what kind.
“When was the last time supplies came by train?” Petersdorf asked.
“Hardly ever,” Fiddler said. “They never bring enough to fill a boxcar.”
Hehl joined them.
“You know?” Petersdorf asked him.
“What?”
“When did we last get supplies by train?”
“I can’t remember,” Hehl said. “It’s usually by truck through Krakow.”
The train slowed through the gates and cars packed with evacuees rocked by.
“Shit,” Fiddler said.
Petersdorf jogged to the engine. Two SS guards stepped down. “What’s this?” Petersdorf asked.
“Orders,” said one of the guards. He handed Petersdorf a sheet of paper. The major looked it over and handed it back.
“We can’t take them,” Petersdorf said. “We’re shutting down.”
“Well—we can’t take them back.”
“Why not?”
“You ask that?”
Petersdorf surveyed the train. He saw shoes and hands. He heard people yelling, questioning, moaning, sobbing, and talking.
“You’ll have to take them back or somewhere else.”
“It’s not possible,” the guard said.
“You have to take them back.” Petersdorf raised his sidearm.
“Herr Stürmbannführer.” The engineer leaned out of the locomotive. “This is not our doing.”
“I don’t care,” Petersdorf said. “We’re shutting down. We can’t take them.”
The guards looked at each other. The engineer stepped out and pushed past them. “Then shoot me,” he told Petersdorf. He took a hammer in his gloved hand and rapped on a releasing screw on the heavy chain coupling that connected engine to cars. “You won’t shoot me.” He pounded the screw and pulled up on it. Petersdorf fired into the air. People in the cars screamed and made other noises. Both train guards drew their weapons.
“Don’t be stupid Herr Stürmbannführer,” said one of the guards. “If you shoot us, you’ll hang.”
The engineer undid the couplings and with a wrench released the brake lines. He climbed back into his cabin. Strauss ran up behind them as the engine fired. He was breathing hard. He climbed the steps to the engineer’s cabin.
“You can’t leave these people here,” Strauss said.
“Orders,” the engineer droned.
“There’s to be no more killing,” Strauss said.
“So don’t kill them.”
“We can’t take them.”
“Leave them, then.” The engine started to move forward. “Herr Standartenführer—step off.”
“You can’t leave these people here,” Strauss gasped.
“We’re not arguing with you.” One of the guards pushed Strauss off the train. He fell and hit the ground. Petersdorf and Hehl helped him stand. The engine moved away.
“We can’t handle this many,” Hehl said.
Strauss looked at the boxcars stretched so far back he couldn’t see the end.
“Hehl’s right,” Fiddler said. “They’ll run us over.”
Petersdorf looked at the cars. He looked at the engine moving away. “Don’t open any doors,” Petersdorf said.
“What else can we do?” Hehl asked.
“What would we do with them if we opened the doors?” Petersdorf asked.
“You know what we’d do,” Hehl said.
“We can do the same thing, doors closed.”
“I’m sorry,” Fiddler said, “but I cannot administer injections behind closed doors. I cannot make assignments behind closed doors. I cannot order duties behind closed doors.”
“Administer injections?” Petersdorf said. “You shoot them in the heart with poison.”
“You know what I mean,” Fiddler said.
“I know you make assignments for people to dig their own graves,” Petersdorf said. “I know you make assignments for people to go to the gas. I know you make assignments to carry dead bodies to the fire. I’m suggesting cutting all the bullshit and getting to the end right now.”
“Burn them?” Hehl said.
Strauss staggered back. He started to laugh. “You mean it?” he said. Strauss placed his hands on the major’s shoulders. He looked his friend in the eyes. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Petersdorf looked at Hehl. “Get the petrol.”
The doctor looked at him. “I won’t, Stürmbannführer.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
“You will not,” Strauss said. “I order you not to.”
“Do you know what you’re ordering?” Petersdorf said.
“Yes,” Strauss said.
; “Ordering that these people stay here and starve?” Petersdorf said. “Stay here and die in the cold and spread disease to the rest of us?”
“So burn them after they die,” Fiddler said.
Petersdorf pulled his sidearm and turned to Hehl. “Get the petrol,” he said. He raised the weapon.
“Shoot me,” the doctor said. “I won’t do it.”
“Stürmbannführer.” Fiddler put his hand on Petersdorf’s arm.
“Get the petrol.”
“I won’t do it,” Hehl screamed. “I won’t do it. You shoot me. Shoot me!”
Petersdorf aimed at Hehl’s head. The doctor closed his eyes.
“Heinrich,” Strauss said.
Petersdorf pressed the barrel hard into the side of Hehl’s head. They heard sobbing and talking on the train.
“Heinrich!”
Petersdorf lowered his sidearm. Hehl stood motionless. Petersdorf looked at Strauss, then turned and walked away. Hehl raised his hands to his face.
Fifty Two
Before sunrise, the kapos walked around and kicked the marchers awake. They slept in an open field on the cold wet November ground. By this seventh day of the march, they had lost eighty seven men. Two SS guards went into the forest to shit and never returned. The guards beat over a dozen marchers to death. They shot dozens more. Exhaustion and starvation brought down the rest.
Von Kempt stood in the field with Schmidt, unfolding a map. “Where do we go?” the lieutenant asked.
“We’re supposed to follow the Wisla.”
“The Wisla is a river. Where is it?”
“Here, Herr Leutnant.” Schmidt pointed to a place on the map.
“And where are we?”
“We”—Schmidt bent his head closer to the map—“we should be here.” He pointed.
“Should be?”
“We’re here, Herr Leutnant.” Schmidt pointed on the map again. “Here.”
A FEW HOURS LATER, THE MARCHERS MOVED up a gravel road.
The Fires of Lilliput Page 38