The Brothers of Auschwitz

by Malka Adler

  The door to the carriage opens with a sigh and I wait for people to enter before me. Enter last. The seats are taken. I quickly pass through a second carriage, a third, fourth, fifth, stop. An elderly man snores, beside him is an empty seat. About to sit down, I notice a revolver stuck in the belt under his gray battledress.

  Lady, sit down.

  Lady, sit down please. Nu, sit down. Tickets please.

  Don’t want to sit down. A state like a weapon depot. Yitzhak would say, better that way, if I’d had a rifle during the war, I’d have killed a few Germans, and maybe I’d have killed myself. Dov would say, you don’t know what it’s like being small in a camp of adults. I wish I’d had a gun, I wish I had.

  Chapter 10

  Yitzhak

  At Camp Zeiss they prepared us for death by gas.

  Three months of hard labor. In the middle, snow fell and everything was covered in white. The girl and the mother no longer stood anywhere. I’d walk to the factory feeling as if I was sinking into bottomless mud. My skin itched and bled and I had sores on my legs. The sores stuck to the shoe didn’t hurt. My mind was empty. I was like an automaton. They said walk, I walked. They said stop. I stopped. They said ten minutes for your needs, I sat over the hole and nothing came out. I felt my body was as thin as dirty glass. I looked at other prisoners and knew how I looked. Yellow and thin like a disease, the mouth falling inward, the chin without flesh. Everyone’s pajamas were all a uniform color, mustard brown like baby’s poop. We were on the ramp, waiting to be replaced, standing crowded in the fresh snow. We waited for the train to Auschwitz.

  There were rumors of a change. The dogs of the SSmen barked halfheartedly. The SSmen irritably tapped their boots on the snow. For hours we stood on our feet and there was no pity and no chariots of angels.

  A cattle train with large lights and a face like a hyena slowly, slowly approached us, I heard wheezing and whistles like suffering, Choo. Choo. Choo. Choo-oo. I remember thinking, the train doesn’t have any strength either. Prisoners saw the train and slowly began to move back, slowly, like a dark oily stain that doesn’t spread out. A prisoner near me began to tremble where he stood, said, the Germans have gone mad, they don’t know what to do with the stuff for the fire. Another prisoner with one eye closed, said, who knows if the train can take the whole ramp to Auschwitz. I knew that the fresh transport had already taken over our barracks, and I said, don’t worry, they don’t lack a thing, trains either, damn them.

  Prisoners began to call out to God, to Mama, Papa, three fainted together, hop, hop, hop, they fell like dominoes. After them, two more intentionally fell to the floor. I heard whimpers, don’t want to die, don’t want to go to the cattle car, Mamaaa, Mamaaa. Rifle blows brought us quiet. Some tried to escape, jumping from the ramp, skipping over the track, running in a zigzag, I heard shouts, and a series of shots then silence and immediately God. Oy-vey God. God save us, save us, and Shema Israel, and weeping like a stormy sea, hummm hummm. And curses, a lot of curses in German.

  The car door opened with a loud boom. I couldn’t climb up. Prisoners pushed me from behind. The Germans’ blows helped us advance, fast, fast. Prisoners grabbed one another’s clothing, grabbed the door, rifle butts beating their fingers, I heard terrible weeping, don’t want to, leave me alone, don’t want to, I fell on the floor of the car. I barely managed to crawl to the wall and stand up. The eyelids of a nearby prisoner were trembling, his head fell forward, dragging his shoulders, and he vanished. At the door they continued to force people in. I felt a trembling below. The door to the car slammed shut. The train didn’t move.

  I couldn’t breathe. A large broad prisoner stood with his back to me. I saw his hand going into the pocket of another prisoner. He waited a moment, removed his hand, put it in his mouth. Swallowed potato peels. Then he pulled down the prisoner’s trousers, grabbed his ass, and rubbed and rubbed, rubbed, more and more. The prisoner in front of him didn’t move. I wanted to die.

  We stood shut up in the car for maybe two hours. The train didn’t move. It was suffocating. People were screaming. Vomiting. Shitting in their pants. I heard the whine of airplanes above us. Planes dropped bombs and disappeared. I prayed that a bomb would reach the roof of my car, and that would be that. I prayed for machine gun bullets right to the middle of my face. Leave this life of garbage with one blow, but it didn’t happen.

  The door to the car opened. The loudspeaker called, get down. Fast. Get down. Fast. We saw that the track to Auschwitz had been broken in the bombing and I realized we weren’t going to Auschwitz. We stood on the ramp for an hour or two. We stood stuck together, shivering. We breathed the stink that passed from mouth to mouth. We didn’t warm up. Snow fell as if they hadn’t bombed the place. I was sure my teeth were breaking in my mouth, I felt with my tongue, didn’t find any spaces. Meanwhile the Germans were running about, shouting, and I was afraid, maybe they’d take us to Auschwitz in motor cars, and maybe they’d take us on foot to some forest and we’d have to dig a deep pit with plenty of space for this whole ramp.

  Finally they put us on a side train with open cars. I realized that the Germans were looking for an alternative crematorium. We were good for nothing but gas and burning.

  The ice consumed us in the open car, sticking us to the floor. We lay on one another like a pile of wet rags. The clothes I was wearing disintegrated at the seams. The shoes too. I pulled some string out of my pocket and tied the sole to my foot, even though I knew the shoe wouldn’t fall off because it was stuck to my foot by the scabs of my sores. Snow fell and fell, mixing with snot, vomit, and blood, it was colorful and shiny, like decorations in the sukkah our neighbor made every year for her and her husband because the children had gone to America and they were left alone and wretched. Those neighbors from the farm had also been on the ramp for a long time, also on the floor of the cars, yes, yes.

  We traveled from Zeiss as if in a clean, white sheet, it was only disgusting and stank inside.

  The train slowly slowly entered Schwandorf.

  Again came the whining of planes and boom, a bombing. The Germans jumped down to find shelter. Some of the prisoners jumped after them, me among them. We rushed about like hungry mice in a burning house. We looked for food. We ran from door to door. Building to building. We didn’t find anything. We came to the window of a rather dark cellar the size of a largish room. The cellar floor was filled with closed suitcases. The window was narrow and barred. I stood next to the window with a group as finished as I was, but of all of them I was the smallest and thinnest. Prisoners standing next to me looked at me. At the suitcases. At me. At the suitcases. I understood. I was most afraid of death by gas, least afraid of dying from bullets or bombs. I grasped the bars and put my leg inside. Slid my body in. Passed in my other leg and hung in the air. One two, boom, I jumped. I landed on a full, brown suitcase. I opened it quickly. Shook out clothes, threw aside silver dishes, books, pictures, dolls, sweaters, glasses, slippers, shoe-laces, toiletries, didn’t find any food. I opened another suitcase. Looked in coat pockets, dug into the sides, found nothing. Tossed everything out of a third suitcase. Fourth. Fifth. The prisoners guarded me from above. Didn’t make a sound. I turned out tens of suitcases, nothing.

  I wanted to get out.

  The distance from the cellar floor to the window looked scary. A prisoner above called to me, put one suitcase on another and climb up. The prisoner’s voice was like my father’s. The voice of someone who knows things. I threw clothes into several suitcases, shut them quickly and stood one on top the other like a tower. I climbed up onto the pile. The suitcases sank under my feet. I fell down. The prisoner yelled to me, the bombing is over, hurry, hurry. I felt a dryness in my throat. I felt my legs melting like butter in the sun. I looked for solid objects among the belongings. I shoved books and silver objects on top of the clothes. I made a taller pile. Climbed up carefully. My body rocked, my legs trembled, I straightened up very slowly, raised my head. I heard my father’s voice, Yitzhak, jump,
jump. Thin pale hands slid in through the bars. Skinny fingers signaled to me to come, to jump. Slowly, slowly, I raised my hands. I was far from them. The prisoner called in alarm, jump, jump. I jumped. Fell to the floor.

  The sharp siren of a train paralyzed my entire body. I wanted to get up. My body was as heavy as a sack of flour. I knew, if I couldn’t get up, I’d die like a miserable rat in that cellar. I raised my head and screamed to the prisoners above me, I can’t die here like this, noooo! Help me to get out, I have to get out of here. The prisoners above knocked on the bars. I saw white fingers pressing on the bars. I leaned against a suitcase and pulled myself up. The cellar door was in front of me at the top of stairs. I ran to the door and pressed the handle. Locked. I’d forgotten, we’d tried to open it from above. I banged on my head like a madman, shouted, Yitzhak, think, think, otherwise you’ll rot here among the suitcases of the dead. Father’s voice called to me: Go back to the suitcases. Try, quickly, SSman coming. I’m waiting for you.

  I felt stronger.

  I took a deep breath. Wiped my wet hands on my shirt. Looked for the largest suitcases in the pile. Stood one on top of the other in a straight line. Climbed carefully, slowly straightening up, slowly. I barely moved. From above I heard, Yitzhak, jump, jump. I bent my knees slightly. Gathered momentum and jumped in the direction of the bars. Two hands held me fast, God, where did he get the strength, I heard Father’s voice breathing heavily from above, hold fast, hold, I’m pulling you out, hold, several more hands grasped me, and pulled, and pulled, I pushed my feet against the wall, I felt my arms were ripping from my body, my head fell back and I didn’t have a chance.

  The prisoners didn’t let go. I reached the bars, got out and heard another siren and heavy wheezing from the direction of the train engine. SSman with a rifle approached the window and found nothing. The prisoners dispersed like hay in the wind.

  I ran to the nearest car.

  I managed to climb up. The open train left the station as the snow stopped falling. A cold wind whistled in my ears, I was hot. I gathered a fistful of snow from the floor and wiped my face. Until Buchenwald I vomited stomach juices. Until Buchenwald my knees shook and I heard that father’s voice, Yitzhak, jump. During all the days in the camps I’d hear, Yitzhak, jump. To this day I still hear it in my ears, Yitzhak, jump, jump.

  Chapter 11

  Dov: Many people wanted me to tell them

  what happened but I didn’t want to.

  I only want to tell good things.

  No one will believe the bad things

  I went through; no one will believe me

  because it isn’t normal.

  Yitzhak: I don’t even want to remember.

  Dov

  The hunger at Camp Jaworzno ate me up from inside. I felt the end coming.

  The food they gave us didn’t help. In the morning we were given coffee and nothing else. At noon, soup with worms. In the evening, a piece of bread, with a bit of margarine or cheese. That’s it. I felt like a creased sack with all the air punched out of it – Pachchch. I saw prisoners scratching the wall and eating filth. I saw people eating dust. They opened and closed their mouths as if they were chewing something. I did the same and thick saliva began to leak, like snot. One prisoner ran to the end of the bloc, stuck to the door and began to devour the wood. A blow to his head saved the door.

  There were prisoners who didn’t get up for morning parade. They were gone before evening. There were prisoners who jumped on the fence. Some laid their bodies on the fence as if it were a bed, their faces to the stars. There were those who tied a rope around their necks and hanged themselves like clean washing from a beam. Not one prisoner in the bloc attempted to stop them. I didn’t know where they got the strength to commit suicide. I continued to stand on parade because I couldn’t think of another plan. I was a boy. I was a head shorter than most of the prisoners. I had sores on my hands, knee, and neck. The bones of my ass hurt, the lice were relentless, settled in a red mark full of scratches, and I continued to walk in the convoys.

  One day we were standing in line before darkness fell. I was the last in the line to go back to the camp. A white sun disappeared behind clouds with swollen bumps like pointed stones in cotton wool. It was cold and stinking. Everyone dragged their feet from the trenches to the convoy. They left blurred, crooked tracks under their feet. Their shoulders slumped forward, almost falling apart at the arms. Everyone was silent, their faces on the ground. We’d barely started out in the direction of the camp when three were left on the road. Those who were leaking from behind were finished off first.

  My back hurt, mostly in the hollow of the hip and behind the thigh. I felt a thick bulge in the thigh and a muscle pulling down to the ankle. I stamped my foot on the ground. The pain didn’t go away. I felt my stomach dehydrating, disappearing. I was certain, in the end my stomach would come out of my ass. I don’t know what reminded me of my friend Vassily. I felt the urge to say aloud, Vassily, Vassily. I opened my mouth wide, let the air out, and no voice came out. And then I felt the urge to laugh. I stretched my lips sideways, laughed in my mind, a sour smell came out of my mouth. I was certain, this is it, this is how people go mad.

  The distance between me and the prisoner in front lengthened. I wanted to close the distance, I bent forward, dragging myself, I was like a log stuck in the ground. I could barely take a step, another step, and another. I felt as if my legs were separating from me and walking on by themselves.

  Raising my head, I saw a bent old woman.

  She came out of the forest in the direction of the convoy. She had a purple kerchief on her head, a black dress and a small basket in her hand. I didn’t understand where’d she’d come from. I approached her. She looked in my direction and craned her neck as if waiting for an opportunity. I saw she had one very large nostril and the other was small. An ugly scar ran down from the edge of her nose, raising one nostril and part of the upper lip. She looked as if she was smiling crookedly even when she was sad.

  The distance between me and the prisoner in front of me grew by at least ten steps, and I reached her. She gave me a piercing look as if to say, stay with me, stay. She took a package from her basket, lifted her arm and hop, she threw it. I was sure she was throwing a stone at me. I bent down, and managed to catch the package. She gestured to me to eat, turned round and vanished into the forest.

  I felt as if my heart was falling into my stomach.

  The nearest SSman was about twenty meters from me and I prayed he wouldn’t turn round and rage at me. I hid the package in my shirt and began to run in my mind. Somehow I managed to catch up.

  I put a hand inside my shirt and felt the paper. It was oily and rough. Carefully I opened it. A sharp smell of sausage tickled my nose. I thrust my trembling fingers inside the paper, bread. God, under my shirt I have two thick slices of bread and a slice of sausage. My entire body trembled. My knees buckled, I shouted in my heart, don’t fall, walk carefully and look for birds in the sky. I pursed my lips, tried to whistle but only something faint came out fff. Fff. Fff. Ffff. Meanwhile, it got darker. I put my hand under my shirt and tore off a bit of the sandwich. I swallowed it without chewing. Another bit, and another. I only chewed the last bit slowly, slowly. I was so sorry the sandwich was finished. I licked my fingers, looked for crumbs in the paper, I wanted to take a bite of the paper because of the smell. I licked the paper from top to bottom then, hop, swallowed it as well.

  I felt good.

  My stomach immediately became alert. There were sounds like hiccups with a closed mouth. I almost started to laugh because of those sounds but I didn’t want trouble from my neighbor, so I increased my stride and patted my belly. I felt like shitting. Put a hand on my ass and pressed hard.

  From that day on I tried to come back last in line. I looked for the woman with the basket. I didn’t see her again. That sandwich gave me strength. A little. I often think about the old woman. A woman throws away a sandwich once and I remember her for the rest of my
life.

  Israel, 2001

  14:26 stopping at Acre. I’m on the train from Nahariya to Binyamina.

  I dig around in my bag and find a chocolate bar in a crumpled wrapper. Three squares of chocolate restore me to life. Four squares. I lean my head against the window of the train and see that according to the headlines on the first page of the newspaper, any hope for a bit of quiet is at risk.

  If we were sitting in Dov’s living room, he’d say, what will be with us, will we always be afraid? Then Yitzhak would tug at his nose and say, that’s how it is with Jews, even if we do have a state and our children have a father and a mother, and our grandchildren have a grandmother and a grandfather, we’re not in a normal situation. And then Dov would say, I’d never have believed we’d ever be in such a situation, what will be? Yitzhak would put up a hand and push his chin towards the ceiling, without knowing what would be. This is why we’d stay silent without coffee and sandwiches and cocoa cookies. We’d just sit there, and then Dov would grab the TV remote and turn on Channel Two, yawn at the talk, on Channel One, they’re arguing, only on National Geographic would he calm down and say, see how simple it is with animals. They don’t just kill, they kill to live.

  I wouldn’t leave the armchair opposite Dov and Yitzhak, I’d look directly at them, and Dov would say, I see you’re not in a good mood, can’t have that, and then he’d pull a bottle of Slivovitz out of his sideboard so that every few minutes he could make a toast. After the third or fourth glass I’d feel a pleasant warmth in my feet and say, wait, slow down, I’m dizzy.