The woman glanced over her shoulder, making sure the guards were distracted, and lowered her voice. “Well, I’m glad I finally found which kommando you joined. We need to talk.”
If she thought I’d want to talk to her, she must not have remembered what she’d done.
“You lied to me. You told me I’d see my family soon, but you knew they were dead.”
Before I could demand an admission of guilt, she raised her shoulders in a flippant shrug. “I didn’t see the harm in letting you believe you’d see them again. In a place like this, even false hope is better than no hope at all.”
At those words, I couldn’t find my voice to respond. Any ray of hope was extinguished the moment I found my family at the death wall. Hope could have sustained me, but reality crushed me. Suddenly I found myself wishing I’d been able to cling to it a moment longer. But it was too late now that I’d become nothing. A dull, useless pawn, powerless, easily captured. Existence was meaningless for a thing identified by a number.
The day my family died, everything within me died alongside them. Death had already claimed my heart, mind, and soul, and my body was next. All I had to do was wait. And I grew more impatient each day.
“Why did they let you live?”
I took a breath to settle the sudden tightness in my chest. “Bad luck. And you?”
“I speak five languages—Yiddish, Polish, German, Czech, and French—and convinced them to let me work as a translator so a man with the same skills could be used for physical labor instead. If you’re going to survive here, you need to learn some things.” She stared pointedly at the wooden clogs on my swollen, blistered feet. “Shoes can be the difference between dying and living. Organize a new pair.”
“Organize?”
“Steal, plunder, whatever you want to call it. The SS men have stockrooms where they keep items confiscated from transports. I can get some for you, but most people on the black market will require something in exchange.”
So this place had a black market for additional resources, just like Warsaw. She paused long enough to ensure that the guards still hadn’t noticed her before continuing.
“Inmates, kapos, and even some guards are willing to exchange goods or services if you make the right offer. Food. Money. Skills. Yourself.” At this, I dropped my gaze, suppressing a shudder. She wore worn leather boots that looked as if they’d been nice at one time. Stolen from an innocent person who was dead now. The rules that governed this place—or lack thereof—astounded me. Her shoes reminded me there were people here who wanted to survive, people who still had something to live for. Given her offer, she must have been under the impression I was one of those people.
“I don’t want new shoes, and I don’t need your help.”
“The second thing you need is an indoor labor assignment. Give me a few days—”
“I said I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, you do. Or did you find someone else who knows what it’s like to be a woman in a men’s camp?”
She let the words sink in and crossed her arms, but I wouldn’t relent. I didn’t want help, I didn’t want friends, I didn’t want anything other than to leave this place. Her kindness would have been better utilized on someone else.
After a moment, she sighed. “If you won’t accept my help, fine, but if you change your mind, find me. My name is Hania. Hania Ofenchajm. What’s yours?”
I gestured to the prisoner number on my chest. “See for yourself.”
Hania was silent, then she cast a cautious glance around and stepped closer to me. “Prisoners who want to survive will stop at nothing to eliminate the weakest links and better their own odds. You and I are women, so how do you think they see us? We’re a waste of space, a waste of clothes, a waste of rations. The moment you forget that is the moment you die.”
She waited for me to respond, but I didn’t. Although I admired her tenacity, I suspected she’d be disappointed to learn I didn’t share it.
Before either of us could say more, the SS men ordered my kommando to march. Hania muttered something in Yiddish and hurried away.
I pushed her words aside as my kommando passed through the main gate, where the camp orchestra played a lively German march to accompany us on the arduous day ahead. The cheerful music made going to work harder. It was worse when we staggered back, encumbered by those who hadn’t survived the day, marching in time to avoid our own bodies being added to the death count.
Some prisoners envied those who left the camp for work, but I thought leaving was worse than staying. In leaving, I glimpsed the outside world. After a mere few weeks, I’d already forgotten there were people who led an existence far different from my own. People who led normal lives. I was no longer part of the world beyond the barbed-wire fences, and I never would be again.
As we traveled along the main road, the sound of wheels displacing dirt and gravel reached my ears, and I located a boy who often rode his bicycle along my route. A shoddy bag stuffed with newspapers was slung across his back, and as usual he watched us as he pedaled by. His curiosity tended to focus on me, the girl among men, the prominent one despite the uniformity that reduced us to a singular, bland entity of shaved heads and striped uniforms. I tried not to look at him, but I couldn’t help noticing when the fool dropped his bicycle alongside the road and fell into step with me.
“Did you work for the resistance?” he asked, before I’d processed the sheer stupidity of his actions. At least he was smart enough to keep his voice down. “Is that how you became a prisoner? I don’t know anyone working for the resistance, unless they’re working in secret—which is the whole point, I guess, so never mind, that was stupid.”
The boy’s remark wasn’t the only stupid thing about him. He ran long fingers through his dark brown locks and tucked one hand into his pocket. His threadbare black pants were too short.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said with a shrug. “I live in town, but I like riding along this route so I can watch the prisoners and—”He hesitated, and the next words came out more quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that I’ve never seen so many people in one place, and I don’t see you unless you come out because no one is allowed near the camp. And as far as I know, there’s never been a girl before you, so the first time I saw you . . . I don’t know, I guess I’ve been meaning to say hello, that’s all. To let you know if . . . if there’s anything I can do to help . . .”
Rays of crimson and gold bled across the violet sky. I focused on the sunrise and the mass of marching bodies ahead. Another person offering help I didn’t want or need—and if he, a civilian, thought speaking to me, a prisoner, was helpful, he was sorely mistaken.
“By the way, my name is Mateusz. What’s yours?”
The guards were ahead of us, but it was only a matter of time before someone noticed him. I kept looking forward and spoke in a low voice. “Leave me alone.”
Before Mateusz could respond, I heard the footsteps and sensed the figure looming beside me. I had no time to prepare myself before I was on the ground, with my eye throbbing and watering.
“Keep your mouth shut, 16671.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong,” the stupid boy said.
Don’t do it, I wanted to tell him as I rose to my knees, but he’d already extended a hand to help me up. Though I wasn’t stupid enough to take it, the cold barrel of the guard’s pistol pressed against my temple.
All I could think of was this hard, unforgiving metal against my skin. One simple motion stood between life and death. Was this the last thing my family had felt? Had the gun ever touched them?
I banished the horrible thoughts when Mateusz withdrew his hand and backed away, his face pale. He looked as if he wanted to protest, but he kept his mouth shut. He cast a final, guilty glance at me, his startling blue eyes moving over my scraped knees digging into the gritty road, the swell forming around my eye, the gun against my head. Then he retreated. Once he was about ten m
eters away, he turned his back.
The moment Mateusz turned, the guard pointed his pistol at the sky, fired, and kicked me to the ground. At the sound, Mateusz whirled in time to see me collapse, and he stared, mouth agape, paler than ever. Laughing at his own cruel prank, the guard allowed me to get up, then shoved me along. We caught up to the group. Though I didn’t dare look behind me, I knew Mateusz’s gaze never left me.
At last the guards ordered us to halt. We’d reached Kommandant Höss’s home, a beautiful villa where he lived with his wife and four young children. Once, while working in his garden, I’d caught a glimpse of the kommandant. He’d invited Fritzsch to the villa for dinner. I’d watched as he kissed his wife and scooped the delighted children into his arms; Fritzsch had offered a bottle of wine to the adults and candies to the children. It was my most baffling day since I’d arrived in the camp. I couldn’t understand how a man running such a twisted operation could assume the role of father and husband while his vicious subordinate played the polite dinner guest, yet there it was, right before me.
The prisoners and I spent hours under the hot sun. We shifted soil, laid flowerbeds, watered plants, and pulled weeds, making sure the kommandant’s garden was in pristine condition. Before Auschwitz, I hadn’t known much about plants or gardening, even though my mother loved flowers, but I was learning as quickly as I could. Work continued uninterrupted until the day was almost over, when I uprooted a crocus stem instead of a weed. The kapo’s club was quick to point out the error of my ways.
After marching back to the camp, tired and dirty and sore, I received my evening meal, one that made me long for the bundle of questionable meat wrapped in butcher paper that Mama used to bring home after picking up rations. I took my food back to Block 18, where Father Kolbe greeted me with his usual smile and led me past the men toward our pallets.
Most men in my block hardly glanced at me anymore, unless it was a look of frustration or annoyance, as if my presence somehow inconvenienced them. Still, I kept close to Father Kolbe as we passed. Although I remained vigilant and never felt completely safe, Father Kolbe made me feel safer.
Before consuming his meager portion of dark, heavy bread and gray, watery soup, Father Kolbe crossed himself, bowed his head, and clasped his hands, blistered and calloused from his day on the construction site. He didn’t complain, though they must have hurt terribly if they felt as bad as they looked.
I poked his arm. “Stop, you’ll get punished.” It was probably a sin to interrupt someone in prayer, especially when that someone was a priest.
Father Kolbe opened one eye and brought a finger to his lips. “Shhh, I’m not finished.” He smiled and closed it again.
By the time he lifted his head, I’d gulped down my soup. He slipped half his bread to me. With considerable effort, I refrained from shoving the additional portion into my mouth. Instead I nudged him and tried to return it, but he pretended he didn’t notice. I nudged him again, harder this time.
“You might as well eat it, Maria, because I’m not taking it back,” he said, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
I couldn’t resist a small smile. “Fine, but you need to eat, too, Father Kolbe.”
“I’ll eat my soup.”
“Right, of course. Be sure you don’t overindulge.”
With a chuckle, Father Kolbe gathered his food and joined a forlorn young man a few meters away. He’d share words of encouragement with the prisoner and likely give him the rest of his bread. That’s what he usually did. I could attempt to dissuade him all I wanted, but he’d never stop.
As I lifted the bread to my lips, a shadow fell over me. A young prisoner stood above me, large and strong, and his greedy gaze was set on my remaining food. A whole ration and a half of bread.
“You won’t last long here. Hand it over.”
We’re a waste of space, a waste of clothes, a waste of rations.
I clung to the bread with a viselike grip and opened my mouth to consume it all at once, but, before I could, the man caught my wrist. As he wrested the rations from my clutches, all I knew was the hunger that clawed my insides. Without bread, I had nothing left to sustain me until morning. I lunged for it, but when he raised a hand I recoiled and shielded my head and face. One eye was blackening, and I didn’t need another. The blow didn’t come. I lifted my head while the inmate walked toward his next victim: Father Kolbe.
As I suspected, Father Kolbe had passed his bread to the man beside him and was preparing to consume his soup. Before the first spoonful reached his mouth, the thief reached him.
“Rations shouldn’t be wasted on the likes of you, old man.” He extended his hand toward the bowl, but Father Kolbe was already offering it to him.
“You’re young and strong, and you need the nourishment far more than I do, my brother.” Father Kolbe’s voice held no resentment. There was no fear, either, only kindness.
The young man needed no more encouragement. He transferred Father Kolbe’s soup to his own bowl and walked away, looking pleased with his conquests. Father Kolbe returned to my side and offered me a small smile. He didn’t say anything, unaware I’d witnessed the exchange, unaware I was targeted by the same prisoner. I stared into my empty bowl while the anger surging through my veins mixed with astonishment.
In a place where people fought over scraps like rabid dogs, this man retained his humanity. And I couldn’t understand how or why.
* * *
After the evening meal, free time began—the only somewhat bearable part of the day. I hurried to the toilets and washrooms. Ugly ceramic sinks ran the length of the washroom, reminding me of troughs, and I moved to a spigot in the back corner. I cast a discreet glance over my shoulder before filling my bowl and lifting it to my lips. Maybe quenching my thirst would alleviate the emptiness in my stomach.
As I washed my uniform with a tiny piece of soap, I imagined Mama beside me with her clothes submerged in hot water. Back home, I’d sometimes found her armed with a bar of lye soap and a washboard, removing sewage filth from her skirt, blouse, stockings, and shoes. A sign she’d smuggled children from the ghetto the night before.
Mama would insist she could disinfect them herself, but I wouldn’t leave without helping. Together we’d change the water numerous times, scrub every speck of filth from her clothing, and clean ourselves and the bathroom from top to bottom. Once finished, I’d fetch Tata’s clothes and mine so we could wash them and hang them to dry next to Mama’s. Before long, Zofia and Karol would appear with their own dirty clothes, complaining about how Mama refused to use the laundry down the street.
A guard ordered us to hurry, so I donned my damp uniform and departed, rebuking myself for thinking of my family. I knew better.
With each passing day, I was more determined to leave Auschwitz. How it would happen, I didn’t know. As I passed the barbed-wire fence, I considered electrocution, but slipping by the guard towers would be difficult, and if the guards noticed me getting too close to the fence they’d shoot. If my end were to come by bullet, there were easier ways that didn’t include the risk of electrocution if the guards didn’t care to stop me. Despite my determination to leave this place, I wasn’t certain I possessed enough courage to touch the fence when such a death seemed terrifying. Why chance it when I could just as easily prompt a guard to shoot me during roll call or labor? Maybe I’d stop eating, but, if I did, Father Kolbe would notice and insist I maintain my strength. With him sharing additional morsels, malnutrition wasn’t as likely. I kept walking and tugged at the loose skin on my ripped palms. Maybe the wounds would get infected, or maybe I’d succumb to exhaustion or disease.
There was always Fritzsch. As soon as he lost interest in our games, he’d get rid of me.
All I knew was that I was tired, and I missed my family. I would leave Auschwitz, and there was only one way to leave—through the crematorium chimneys.
Finish the game, Maria.
I would plan my attacks and coax my opponent into the endgame I w
anted, but my patience was as thin and worn as the uniform on my back.
When I returned to Block 18, I sat on a pallet, relishing the brief respite. Most inmates lingered outside the block during free time, so I took advantage of the extra indoor space while I could. In silence, I counted the bug bites covering me and discovered seven more since yesterday.
Before long, Father Kolbe entered the block and gave his usual smiles, blessings, and encouragement to the inmates. At last he placed his pallet across from mine and set something beside him, out of my sight. He drew a large square in the dirt on the floor, then added a series of lines, forming smaller squares within the large square. Once finished, he had eight rows of eight small squares. Next he picked up the items he’d placed next to him: a handful of gravel. He put the largest rock in the back row, on a middle square. The second largest went next to it. Two more were stationed on either side of the first two, and he continued in such fashion until the two smallest rocks were in the outside corners. In front of the row, he lined up eight pebbles.
Then he produced some twigs. He lined them up on the opposite side of his grid, arranging them by size as he’d done with the gravel. Once finished, he marked each horizontal row A through H and numbered the vertical rows 1 through 8. At last he surveyed his handiwork.
“Not the best, but it’ll do. The twigs are the black pieces, the pebbles are the white ones. I know you play a good bit of chess these days, Maria, but should you ever care to play simply for enjoyment, I’m happy to oblige.” Father Kolbe gave me a knowing smile. “I’m told I’m quite good.”
Grinning, I positioned myself across from him, then clasped my hands together to keep myself from snatching up my first piece. No matter how much the old me yearned for a simple pleasure from her old life, I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t fair. Not after what had happened.
Maria Florkowska was reckless as she danced around the chessboard one move at a time, strategizing and reacting based on her opponent’s counterattacks, never doubting she would emerge the victor. Prisoner 16671 knew one wrong move was all it took to cost her the entire game.
The Last Checkmate Page 9