The Brothers of Auschwitz

by Malka Adler

  The bombing ended. I went back to the car and the train set off. According to counts there were fewer than three hundred prisoners left after one bombing. I sat among the dead, almost faceless old-timers and the newly dead with blood and torn flesh. The old-timers and the new ones were mixed up. Because of the smell I looked for two newly dead without blood, I took out the harmonica I’d found in the German kitchen and began to play a sad tune, like the one I heard in the synagogue on Yom Kippur. Well, it didn’t really come out right. A prisoner not far from me began to tremble. He looked old. He had furrows in his face and his head was full of scales like a fish. He raised his head very very slowly and began to sing. His mouth was large and toothless and his head moved to the tune, back and forth, back and forth, and then he began to quicken the tune, faster, faster, I couldn’t keep up. I stopped playing. His head fell and a red stain spread on the straw beside him. Only then did I see that his legs were strangely crooked. They turned outward as if they had no bones. I leaned towards him, and began to play. Slowly. He opened soft, child-like, brown eyes in my direction. He had pink tears on his cheeks. He moved his fists in time on the straw, opened his mouth wide, stretching it to the sides. He strained his throat muscles, no voice came out. And then he smiled at me and died.

  Before Buchenwald, we reached the concentration camp of Blechhammer.

  By now, we were seven hundred prisoners less. On that day, the Germans wasted about five hundred bullets, I saw them using prisoners for target practice until they began to get bored and stopped. According to my count two hundred died without their bullets. That evening brought another miracle. The darkness was thick as a blanket and there was a cold wind. I was weak. I took a step, swayed, another step, swayed like a shriveled dry stalk. In front of me, three prisoners fell. Thump. They disappeared. Boom. Boom. Boom. Large lights lit up the square near the gate. I saw dark posts, barbed wire, a guard tower. A German with a helmet guarded us from above, a rifle in his hand. In the distance I heard the sounds of large pots and the squirting of water. Not far from the entrance I saw four prisoners carrying a box. I craned my neck. The box was full of bread loaves. My heart stopped for a second and then began to race like a madman. I couldn’t leave the bread. Thick, paste-like saliva began to collect in my mouth. My mind screamed, Dov, without bread you are dead, dead. The SSmen stood thirty meters from me, their backs to me. They were talking to the guards just as they always did when entering a new camp. SSmen were busy with absorption and paid less attention to us. By their gestures I realized they had a surplus of people, even a large surplus. One of the guards, a huge irritable man, cut the air with one hand, like a knife. Our SSman removed his hat and scratched his head, thinking, ah. I fixed my eyes on the guard at the tower. Waited for him to turn towards the camp. He turned. Leaving the line, I walked towards the bread. The SSmen were close to resolving the surplus. Leaning, I took a breath and hop, I jumped on the bread in the box. The prisoners were alarmed, they dropped the box on the ground. I snatched a loaf of bread and began to run. I ran in a zigzag, I ran bent in the fire directed at me by the German in the tower. I ran towards the blocs. I glanced back. About twenty prisoners were chasing after me. I knew, if they caught me I’d be left ripped to pieces on the stinking ground. I ran through the blocs, changing direction every second. I glanced to the sides, saw more and more prisoners joining in the great chase. There were prisoners who fell, trampled on by those who joined in and continued to run after me. I moved away from the blocs. I had a terrible stitch. Don’t know where I got the strength. Maybe from the bread in my hand.

  And in a moment I was on my own. I stopped at the first place I felt safe.

  The miracle happened behind a large garbage bin. I stopped, my heart leaping up and down, but I could swallow the bread all at once. I choked, continued to swallow without chewing. I knew, if I left a small piece in my pocket, I’d be in danger. Prisoners killed for crumbs, or potato peels. Once I saw a tall prisoner attack a short one, sticking a finger in his eye, choking him. Only when the prisoner let go of the piece of bread in his hand did the tall prisoner leave him alone. The short prisoner remained behind us, spread out on the cold road.

  I wanted to vomit up the fresh bread. I pressed hard on my mouth, I’d die before I vomited. After about an hour I wanted to leave the garbage bin but at that moment I got diarrhea. I sat near the bin and emptied my stomach. I felt good. I did what the fat Jew in Auschwitz had told me to do. Steal, murder, you have a chance.

  Only the next day did I understand why the prisoners had stopped chasing me. I’d run with bread to the living quarters of the Germans. The garbage bin belonged to the Germans. I understood this because a day later they hanged all the cleaning staff who’d cleaned up my diarrhea in the German area. Prisoners whispered, they hanged those poor chaps. They hanged them because they found fresh poop near the bins.

  It was a miracle I didn’t catch some disease.

  At least three hundred prisoners who left Jaworzno with me died of dysentery, diphtheria, typhus, with fever, diarrhea, vomiting, or rot in the nails or knees. For a prisoner disease was a death sentence. There were no doctors on the march from Jaworzno to Buchenwald and no medication. I wasn’t infected by those who passed by me or slept beside me and I don’t understand how this miracle happened.

  We reached Camp Buchenwald a hundred and eighty prisoners out of the two thousand who set out with striped clothing, a blanket, and shoes if they were lucky. I had shoes and this was very lucky. I was put in Bloc 56. Dark. Bunks, bunks, bunks, all of them filled with skeletons wrapped in striped pajamas and filth. I hate striped pajamas most of all, even more than dogs. Some skeletons made sounds like half-dead birds, most didn’t move. I saw a thin stream of urine and excrement dripping from the upper bunks. Prisoners had no time to get down from the bunks to relieve themselves. The filth dripped like smelly chewing gum.

  A few minutes later, we had to stand in a line next to the bunks. The head of the bloc came in and immediately began to scream and scream, waving his stick about as if there were flies in the bloc, and made a hole in the forehead of a prisoner standing next to me because he was standing with one leg in the air. His knee was swollen and purple and he couldn’t stand. I heard him crying and saw how he stuck a nail in his knee, crying and pressing, and pressing, and he couldn’t put his foot on the floor. Poor chap, poor chap, he wanted to live but he died because of the hole in his forehead.

  On the topmost bunk three other youngsters lay next to me. One was short and had no eyelashes or eyebrows. A thin, yellow thread connected his eye and nose. The other two were brothers. One had a large head and a small body. The other was the opposite. They all looked under eighteen. Maybe this was why we stuck together in the line for bread that first day at Buchenwald. They were in front of me in the line when two older prisoners pushed in. One of them stood on the foot of the brother with the small head. The older prisoner crushed the poor boy’s foot with his heel while whistling a tune. Small-head cheeped and escaped to the end of the line. His brother ran after him. And then the adults came to me. My body shivered. I also ran to the end of the line. There I found three small ones like me. We looked at one another and arranged to sleep together.

  That night, in the bunk, they whispered to one another next to me. Said Hitler had fallen. Said Russian cannon were burning Germany. Said the Americans were strong, that they had the biggest planes in the world, the scariest tanks, America would show the Germans, they’d slaughter them one by one, a matter of days, maybe weeks, it’s the end of the Germans and it’s freedom for us, best to rely on America now.

  I was faint with hunger, and I waited for death while they dreamed about great liberty for all the Jews. I made up a play about certain death for myself. Darkness. I go downstairs. A door opens. A slippery floor. I’m inside a hall. A door closes. I hear an order, strip. Pack clothing in a parcel. Tie shoes with laces. Proceed. Another strong door opens. The door of disaster. I proceed naked and barefooted. I’m cold. The d
oor closes. I’m crying, in the dark. I hear a tap open and then, tshhhh tshhhh. There’s a smell of dust and acid. I run to the door. Knock hard, open, open, I’m dying. The tshhhh tshhhhh. Continues. I lie inside a white sheath, closed. It’s a rubber sheath. I push my arms to the sides, try my legs, the rubber stretches a bit, and sticks to my nose like chewing gum. I have no air, and I die. A jet of cold water cleans after me. I’m thrown into a full wagon, and I fall. They tie my foot to the handle. I travel to a wet pit. Again powder on the body and the dead below me and the dead above me, and earth in the mouth and nose and the sound of a tractor. The tractor presses from above. They plant a grass lawn on top of me and a tree without my name.

  I opened my eyes with strength only the dead have. Gray marks jumped on the wall in front of me and the tingling in my forehead came back and the knocking in my ears. I wanted to sink my teeth into the bunk plank. I wanted to eat a plank for lunch. My head understood, that’s it, I’m going mad. I raised my hand upwards. I whispered, that’s a hand. On the hand there are fingers. I began to count, I found five. I don’t remember how many fingers I had in the beginning, five or six, maybe four? I glanced at the prisoner lying next to me. He was lying on his hand. Carefully I pulled his hand out. He murmured something and closed his fist. I opened up his hand and began to count. I got to five, yes, five. I couldn’t remember how many fingers I’d found on my own hand. I put my hand next to his, the same. Good. I raised my other hand. My hand fell from a scream coming from below. There was a prisoner there who had no nails, he lay on the floor and kicked at the wall. I understood, that’s it, he’s also going mad. I’m not alone, soon there’ll be a group of us. The madman on the floor slowly sat up, his arm straight. I saw he was holding the tail of a fat, black rat. The rat struggled and suddenly jumped and bit his finger. He screamed but didn’t let go, even after his finger bled. The rat jumped as if it, too, was about to go mad and the prisoner began to laugh, his mouth wide open, his teeth rotten. He lifted the rat to his mouth and strangled it with his teeth. I turned my head and began to vomit. I was just making a lot of noise, nothing came out.

  And then came another miracle. A sweet, white miracle.

  An ordinary person came into the bloc. Wore a long coat, a hat, and leather shoes, a human being like someone I remembered from home on holidays. I stood next to my bunk. Didn’t know what I was supposed to do, go outside or climb quickly up into my place. The man with the hat went past everyone once, twice, and finally approached only me. In the meantime a little bit was leaking into my pants. When he bent down to me, I looked aside, let him go to others, but he whispered, wait for me behind the bloc. The ordinary man had good eyes. His clothes smelled clean, like laundry taken down from the line. Lifelessly, I dragged myself outside. Darkness fell. I waited alone behind the bloc, my hands trembling. Nose dripping. A few minutes later the three from my bunk were beside me. The stranger approached us, said, I’m from the Red Cross. I’ve brought you something. He took a large box from his coat and lifted the lid. I didn’t believe it. In the box were white cubes of sugar. Rows and rows of cubes arranged in layers like the bunks in the bloc. A box with one or two kilos, I don’t remember. The trembling of my hands increased. I pressed my fists into my trousers and hit my flesh. I was afraid of fainting and missing out on the sugar. The man whispered, soon, soon, and divided the sugar into four parts. He gave each one two or three full handfuls, said, put it into your pocket, so there’ll be some for later, and he disappeared. I thrust a handful of sugar into my mouth. I crushed the cubes with my teeth and swallowed bit after bit. My gums ached from the pressure. I paid no attention. Finished it all. The others did the same. I went back to the bloc with a sweet smell. I felt good. The sugar gave me a few more days to live.

  A month at Buchenwald and I begin to believe there is a God in that camp, there is.

  The most important miracle in my life happened near Bloc 56. I was standing outside sucking on a dry bone. I’d found it behind the bloc. Nothing came of it except scratches on my tongue. But I went on licking. I was starving. I felt as if the skin on my body was like the peel of a hollow tree trunk. I knew, a day or two without bread and I’d crumble in my bunk or in the mud.

  Two prisoners with dirty faces stood not far from me, moving like branches in the wind. I didn’t know them. One was tall. One was my height. The tall prisoner was missing half his nose. I thought, idiot, instead of eating the rat, the rat ate him. The prisoner who was my height had ears that stuck out and a firm glance.

  The tall prisoner pointed at me. The short prisoner took a step forward, put out his hand and whispered something.

  I didn’t understand the word he spoke, his voice was familiar, but what was he saying to me? I couldn’t remember where I’d heard the word, could he be mistaken? Was I dreaming? I threw down the bone. The prisoner who was my height repeated, is that you?

  My brother Yitzhak stood before me.

  Thinner than he was in the synagogue at my Bar Mitzvah. He had bristles on his head, and a long face, laughter in his eyes. He jumped on me, grabbed me with both hands and hugged me hard, I thought, that’s it, now I’ll fall to pieces for sure, ouch, ouch, came out of me. Yitzhak stood back, holding me by the shoulders, examining me with a piercing glance, said, what have they done to you?

  We wept. Laughed. Wept for a long time.

  We dampened each other’s filthy pajamas. I wiped my face on my sleeve, feeling as if a huge tap had opened in my forehead. My brother’s tears left a delicate, clean line on his face. I stroked his cheek, whispered, it’s really you, and I didn’t recognize you.

  He patted my chest with both hands, we’re together, don’t worry, from now on there are two of us. And then he sniffed and said, father, mother, Sarah, Avrum, have you heard anything?

  Nothing, you?

  Only Avrum, we were together for the first month, then they took him away, are you sick?

  I said, don’t know, I walked for a few months and I’ve been finished ever since. He touched me and sighed, there was a dark shadow on his face, and then he took my hand and we went to my barracks.

  Chapter 14

  Yitzhak

  We came to Buchenwald because of the bombing.

  The track to Auschwitz was shattered at Zeiss. Airplanes fired volley after volley but didn’t hit my car. I wanted to die in the bombing but nothing hit my car. The train to Buchenwald went through Schwandorf. The whole way from Schwandorf I heard a voice that sounded like a father, Yitzhak, jump. Yitzhak, jump.

  At Buchenwald I went straight to Bloc 8.

  I remembered the doctor with the pleasant face who didn’t shout or slap, or hold a rifle with a dog. A doctor with a smile who holds a child by the hand, takes him from the bloc and doesn’t bring him back. But first a candy and a pinch on the cheek from Baba Volodya who guarded the bloc. Baba Volodya wanted to make children happy before the injection. Baba Volodya helped me to leave the bloc for Camp Zeiss.

  I entered Bloc 8 and didn’t see Baba Volodya. I didn’t know a single child, no guards. I ran outside.

  A prisoner I don’t know at all came up to me. He had a yellow face and a crooked hand. He sounded ill, you know you have a brother here, yes, yes, a brother. I felt the blow of a fist in my heart. Cautiously, I approached him, he was clearly mad.

  I stammered faintly, repeat what you said.

  He began to rock the crooked hand, back and forth, back and forth. Said, you have a brother at Camp Buchenwald. I saw him.

  I thrust my head under his chin, whispered, do we know each other?

  He sighed, come with me, boy. I saw the two of you together on the way to Auschwitz. I didn’t believe him but I followed him. We approached Bloc 56. He pointed out a rather short prisoner with an open mouth, his tongue out. He looked more dead than alive. Weighed maybe thirty kilos, looked like a schoolboy. He was holding a bone in his hand, stuck a nail into the hole of the bone, dug and dug, pulled out the nail and sucked.

  The prisoner who brought me disa
ppeared and I didn’t see him again.

  I approached. Whispered, is that you? The bone fell. He had a hemorrhage in one eye.

  He looked at me and immediately tensed like a spring, is that you?

  We hugged. Wept. Wept louder. He said, ay, ay, ay.

  Dov was skin and bone, pale in the pajamas. I said to him, we’re together. We couldn’t part from each other.

  SSman approached.

  SSman in boots with a revolver in his hand. He pointed the revolver at us, his eyes narrowed like a crack in a wall. I wanted to stop crying. Couldn’t. SSman yelled: what are you two doing here?

  I said, this is my brother, at Buchenwald I’ve found my brother. The SSman chewed his lower lip and tapped his revolver on the edge of the boot and then, turning around, he went away. SSman Hans Schultz went away.

  Chapter 15

  Dov

  My brother and I talked organisieren – organization.

  We looked for a way to arrange for food. We found no solution. The Germans gave us a piece of bread once every day or two. No soup. I said to my brother, listen, you mustn’t leave the bloc area, you mustn’t. The Germans shoot anyone who approaches their storage rooms, understand? I noticed that the Germans had become more dangerous since they’d begun to lose the war. They ran about the camp, screamed at one another, there were rumors that American soldiers and Russian soldiers were galloping to Buchenwald. There were rumors the Germans were planning to leave. Vehicles entered, vehicles left, I noticed they paid no attention to us. We no longer stood on parade, didn’t go out to work and we were very cautious around the guards. They were at every corner, tracking us like hunters. They had rifles and magazines, a light trigger finger and, most of all, I was afraid of losing my brother. I begged, Icho, don’t try and steal food, promise me. He looked over my head, agreed, all right, but you also have to be careful.