The Girl Who Escaped from Auschwitz: A totally gripping and absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 page-turner, based on a true story

by Ellie Midwood

  Mala guessed that the order of someone’s block wasn’t up to Rapportführerin’s high standards. As punishment, the inhabitants of the offending barracks would kneel in the snow, holding rocks in their hands stretched over their heads for at least two hours. Whoever lowered their arms received a bullet from Drexler’s service gun. She had a reputation to mind, after all; Mandl herself praised her for being the best disciplinarian in the camp. A barracks full of Jews who couldn’t keep it sparkling enough wouldn’t ruin it for her, the warden’s stiff back seemed to say as she dealt blows with true SS generosity. The fact that her victims had no access to fresh water and had to use their morning ration of so-called coffee to wash their faces at least to some extent, let alone washing their clothes or barracks, didn’t matter to Drexler.

  Disgusted, Mala turned back to her typewriter.

  The door swung open and in walked Obersturmführer Hössler. His overcoat was open and, in his hand, he held his swagger stick and uniform cap. At once, he greeted Mala with a warm smile as she rushed to take the items from him.

  “How goes it, Mally?”

  She was Mally to all of them now; not quite an inmate, more of a civilian subordinate they genuinely liked.

  “It goes, Herr Obersturmführer.”

  “Mandl’s not in?”

  “She’s at the selections with Dr. Mengele.”

  “Ah, that’s right. I was supposed to go to that too.” He bent his knees slightly so that she could remove the overcoat from his shoulders. “But then I decided not to. It gets too depressing after a while. All of those naked skeletons running about like some grotesque circus.” He grimaced.

  Mala’s well-practiced face betrayed nothing. She went to hang his heavy coat onto the rack by the door.

  “What’s with the ruckus outside?” Perching on the edge of her desk, Hössler tossed his head in the direction of the window.

  “Rapportführerin Drexler is administering the punishment.”

  “For what?”

  Mala shrugged her shoulders. Birkenau wardens didn’t need a reason to bash someone’s head in. “Would you like some coffee, Herr Obersturmführer?”

  She was accustomed to his ways by now. Whenever he came over, found that Mandl was absent, and installed himself in that precise position on her desk, Mala knew to expect “a talk.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.” Once again, Hössler smiled warmly at her.

  “Not at all. Lagerführerin Mandl has just left. The carafe in her room is still hot.”

  When Mala returned with a tray, he moved from the top of the desk to the chair and helped her assemble the tray before him.

  “Where’s your friend?” He glanced at Zippy’s empty desk over his shoulder.

  “She’s at the rehearsals with the camp orchestra. They’re preparing something special for Christmas, she told me.”

  “That’s right. I keep forgetting she plays her little mandolin in addition to her secretarial duties.” A fond smile appeared on his face. “Frau Alma turned those girls into a real orchestra, didn’t she?”

  Mala glanced up at him. Zippy had told her about the fascination the local SS had developed for Alma Rosé, the famous Viennese violinist and conductor, but the almost deferential Frau, particularly coming from Hössler, still astounded her. No one was called Frau here. The most privileged inmates were addressed by their first names; the lower castes considered themselves fortunate if they were called by their number. Most of the times, though, it was, come here, shit-Jew or pick that up before I get annoyed, you quivering hog.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t get a chance to visit the new Music Block yet, Herr Obersturmführer.”

  “It’s not new,” Hössler protested. “They installed it in August, I think.”

  Mala offered him another apologetic smile as she poured cream into his porcelain cup.

  “Is Mandl slave-driving you so much that you can’t find the time for some music?” he teased, stirring his coffee with a silver spoon that looked ridiculously tiny in his large hands.

  “I’m not complaining, Herr Obersturmführer. I like to keep busy. I shall find the time to visit the Music Block. Helen—” Mala purposely used Zippy’s official name, not the one under which she was known to the underground, “won’t stop singing the praises of Frau Alma. She says she’s a true violin virtuoso.”

  “She is,” Hössler confirmed, with unexpected affection.

  Mala suspected that his interest in the violinist wasn’t purely musical.

  “Is she Jewish?”

  He started, stiffened somewhat at the seemingly innocent question. “She’s Viennese,” he grumbled back, almost defensively, as if it was a crime to like a Jew.

  Mala wisely refrained from further interrogation. Viennese it was, if that satisfied him.

  After picking up the cup, he then lowered it again. “Bring one for yourself. You know how much I loathe drinking coffee on my own.”

  “I can’t, Herr Obersturmführer.” Mala shot an expressive glance at the door.

  It was closed but not locked. Anyone could march in.

  “Mandl isn’t coming back any time soon.”

  “I’d rather not risk it, Herr Obersturmführer. Naturally, they won’t say anything to you, but they’ll put me on the next truck to the gas chamber.”

  His brown eyes instantly darkened and the pleasant smile slipped off his face. “I’m in charge of the extermination here!” His usually smooth tone with which he lured the new arrivals into the gas chambers—the very reason why his nickname was Moshe Liar by the Jewish members of the Sonderkommando—changed as though by magic. “No one puts anyone on any truck without my direct authorization!”

  Mala bit her tongue, regretting saying anything at all. “Forgive me, please, Herr Obersturmführer. You’re correct, as always.” Lowering her head in response to such shouts had long transcended into a natural, dog-like instinct.

  Hössler raked both hands through his dark, thick mane, taking a long, calming breath. Among the SS, he was the most unpredictable one. No one could ever tell what would set him off in the next instant, and when that happened, even his own subordinates knew to make themselves scarce.

  A shot rang out. Startled, Mala turned to the window just in time to see a woman prisoner fall into the muddy snow, a halo of ruby red slowly growing around her shaved head. Her skeletal hands still held onto a stone, even in death. Drexler must have shot her simply because she didn’t like her face.

  “No, you forgive me, Mala.” When she looked at Hössler in surprise, he shook his head with a dejected sigh. He, too, was gazing at the scene out the window. “You’re right. It’s an extermination camp. We were put here to exterminate. Not even the new Kommandant with his humanistic policies can change that.”

  He sounded as though he was genuinely upset by the fact. He brought a cup to his lips but didn’t take a sip and his dark eyes stared somewhere past Mala.

  “You know, I studied to become a photographer when I was young,” he said in an odd, somewhat surprised tone, as though he, himself, didn’t quite believe it.

  “What happened?”

  He didn’t answer at once, lost in the past where he wasn’t praised by the Berlin higher-ups for his exceptional talent at establishing an exemplary operation of the crematoriums and demonstrating innovative techniques and work ethic that ought to be used as a model in all other similar facilities. Mala had read the commendation when it had just arrived from the WVHA—the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office in charge of concentration camps. In her opinion, work ethic and gas chambers didn’t belong in the same sentence, but Gruppenführer Glücks, the highest-ranking concentration camp inspector who had signed the document, appeared to have a different view on the matter.

  Hössler began to talk, softly and with infinite longing, about the studio in which he worked as an apprentice, about the magic of the darkroom and the secrets of saving underexposed or overexposed pictures. He was entirely transformed now; in his eyes, us
ually extinguished and black, a light had ignited; he was smiling genuinely, immersed in a world that no longer existed; his pale, sunken cheeks acquired a soft blush as he talked and talked, having completely forgotten about the coffee that was growing cold, about Mala, about the camp around him.

  “…filthy pigs!” Drexler’s shrill shout penetrated through the walls of the camp office.

  Mala saw Hössler’s shoulders jerk slightly at the shout. He stopped abruptly. When the realization dawned on him that it was the camp that was real and not his career as a photographer which had come to an abrupt end due to the raging inflation as he had explained, his face turned to stone once again. He rose from his chair with difficulty, his brows knitting tighter and tighter together. Hard, bitter lines once again framed a slash of his mouth. He turned the lock on the window and shoved it open with such force, the glass nearly shattered.

  “Shut your trap, you dumb fucking bitch!” he bellowed at the warden with sudden savage hatred that had sent his entire body shaking. “I can’t hear myself thinking behind all your shrieking!”

  Mala saw Drexler’s head swivel toward the window. The warden blinked a few times, her face slowly growing red after such an unexpected, vicious rebuke.

  “Have you swallowed your tongue?” Hössler roared, still not satisfied.

  Mala had never seen him speak to his female colleagues in such a manner. He was considered one of the most refined gentlemen among the coarse SS lot, and yet, she understood him just then. Mala’s office was a safe refuge for him, a place to come to when no one was around and just talk, talk for as long as it was possible about the life he had ruined for himself, to reminisce about the man he had never become, to lose himself in a daydream where he wasn’t burning humanity by thousands. And now, Drexler and her crude curses had brought him back to the harsh reality, reminding him of what he wished so desperately to forget; showing him, in a distorted mirror, what he, himself, had turned into.

  Drexler tried to explain something, but Hössler had already slammed the window shut. His day was evidently ruined, and he went to fetch his overcoat.

  “I’m sorry, Herr Obersturmführer,” Mala said.

  He nodded, already in the door. “Me too.”

  Through the window, Mala watched him stalk past Drexler moments later, throwing something spiteful and even more insulting in her face. As soon as he was out of view, the warden took out her horsewhip and began slashing at the faces of her victims with doubled energy. Averting her gaze from the gruesome scene, squeezing her eyes closed, Mala pressed her ears shut, but even through the shield of her own palms, she heard the sickening sound of skin splitting under Drexler’s blows.

  It wasn’t the day they’d agreed on, but that very instant, Mala decided that she would go and see Pavol-the-carpenter, schedule or not. She had food stored in her room—good stuff, the cheese from the Red Cross parcel and even half of the salami; he’d take it as a payment. Going hungry was a small price in exchange for the knowledge that the Sonderkommando would get their supplies, that they would stage their revolt sooner rather than later, blowing all four crematoriums to hell—and exact revenge on all the SS who would come to fight them.

  Seven

  Auschwitz-Birkenau

  After much deliberation, the details of the plan began to take shape.

  “The Auschwitz guard on gate duty may know other Auschwitz guards,” Edek speculated, whenever Wiesław and he had a minute to themselves. “It would be much less of a risk for me to pose as a Birkenau guard. My German is good enough to pass for a Polish Volksdeutsche SS volunteer; there’s plenty of them in the camp. It shouldn’t raise any suspicions.”

  “I’ll never pass even for a Polish German,” Wiesław argued, shaking his head. “I can barely string two words together in German. They’ll never buy it.”

  “And that’s why you’ll remain who you are—a regular inmate whom I shall be leading to work outside camp grounds. Just like that SS man we saw, with the piano tuner. It’s a perfect cover. No one shall suspect anything.”

  “Yes, but the trouble is, we’re not part of the Birkenau crew. How are we going to get ourselves transferred?”

  “Leave it to me,” Edek promised.

  Rather to Wiesław’s surprise, just a week later, an order came for his transfer to Birkenau women’s camp, where he was to join a carpenters’ detail.

  “However did you pull that off?” Wiesław asked Edek as he stared at his transfer card in astonishment.

  From Edek, a nonchalant shrug and a wry grin. “How do you think? A few strategically placed bribes did the trick.”

  “What about you though?”

  “There was only one position open. But don’t fret.” Edek gave his friend a reassuring clap on his back. “I’ll talk to Lubusch about my own transfer. I’m sure he’ll come through. For now, I’ll just keep volunteering for the temporary carpenters’ Kommando that he sometimes sends to Birkenau to assist their local ones. First things first: we need to make contact with that Mala girl. As soon as we have an Ausweis, we’ll start planning the rest.”

  “How are you planning to find one girl among hundreds of thousands?” Wiesław regarded him with great skepticism.

  “Pavol, the carpenter who assisted your transfer, has a set day and place where she usually meets him. For a price of two pinched lemons and my promise to delegate certain goods to her, he traded places with me.”

  A few days later, attired in the Kommando’s blue overalls, Edek and Wiesław were fixing the pipes in Birkenau’s Sauna—a tremendous affair through which all new arrivals were processed and where the privileged inmates could have their daily showers. At once, Edek realized that it was a local black market of sorts; just in the past half-hour, during which the Sauna stood still, having processed its usual daily quota, a rather impressive number of deals was carried out between the inmates who had something to trade.

  Even the local Kapos and block elders were in business. Noticing new faces, a busty German with a blue bow in her long braid pounced on Edek and his comrade, offering them, in the most seductive of tones, “a very pretty girl—or a boy, if that’s what you’re after—for a very reasonable price, too.” Racial status didn’t matter, as long as they had bread or cheese.

  “That’s our Puff-Mutti or just Mutti, as she insists to be addressed as. She used to be a brothel madam in her native Bavaria,” a fellow maintenance worker informed them, steering both men away from the German block elder and advising the woman to leave off. “Old habits die hard.”

  By the row of sinks stained with rust and general grime, a round-faced inmate in a warm padded jacket was caressing the cheek of a handsome boy, who, Edek guessed, couldn’t have been older than sixteen. The boy’s beautiful amber eyes were fixed on the inmate’s other hand, in which he was holding a whole pack of cigarettes—a fortune in camp terms. Passing the couple by, Mutti reminded the inmate that half of the pack was hers. He scarcely heard her, already whispering something into the boy’s ear and nudging him gently towards one of the stalls.

  A well-nourished girl with her hair curled and pulled into a fashionable do which was in vogue in the pre-war years walked with purpose across the vast room, the sound of her low heels echoing off the tiled walls. From under her coat, she extracted a bottle of liquor and held it before another Sauna worker, a woman of around forty with red hair and a pale, freckled face. The lady inspected the label, nodded in satisfaction, and produced something wrapped in waxed paper, tied with a string. When the girl passed by Edek on her way back, he caught a tantalizing whiff of smoked meat—the fresh type, not the usual Auschwitz rot. At once, he caught himself swallowing mouthfuls of saliva as he stared after her with feverish eyes.

  “Wherever are they getting the goods from?” In genuine amazement, Edek turned to look at the local maintenance fellow.

  “The sorting detail—the Kanada.” The man shrugged. “The new arrivals come here with suitcases packed with all sorts of goods, food and valuables. Inmates
who work in the Kanada have regular feasts every other day. Whatever they cannot eat, drink, or use themselves, they trade, or bribe the Kapos and the guards with. It’s not like the goods’ rightful owners will need them anytime soon. Most of them are gassed upon arrival anyway.”

  He spoke of death with such nonchalance, as if he were making small talk about the latest weather forecast.

  “Does Mala come here often?” Edek tried to ask as innocently as possible, without lifting his gaze off the pipe he was presently working on. “Mala Zimet—”

  “You don’t have to specify.” The man grinned knowingly. “There’s only one Mala.”

  “Could you point her out to me when she comes in?”

  “I won’t have to. You’ll recognize her right away.”

  At first, Edek didn’t quite understand. The Sauna was overcrowded with beautiful young women who looked like they belonged on the streets of cosmopolitan Warsaw and not among the pitiful camp lot. Unlike the genderless, skeletal creatures he’d seen on his way here, hunting for scraps of anything edible on the frozen ground—a rotten potato peel, if one was fortunate—these girls were well-dressed and well-fed. All of them looked as though they worked at the camp office; how was he to distinguish Mala among them?

  “She will be wearing her Läuferin’s—runner’s—armband.” Wiesław gave Edek a certain look. “And quit your fidgeting. We’re here to conduct business; you’re not waiting for your blind date to arrive.”

  Edek tried to laugh carelessly in response, but for some reason he couldn’t. It was idiotic, of course, but he discovered that he was nervous. His stomach kept contracting, not in the freefall, sickening manner when one sees an enraged SS approaching him with a raised club, but in a long-forgotten, breath-catching way, like it did when he longed to kiss a girl for the very first time—intoxicating, heady, and slightly terrifying.