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

  Walking along the well-heated corridor, Mala wondered how many such guards were scattered around the occupied territories, perfectly harmless and yet aiding Hitler’s extermination program like a well-oiled machine. How many doctors, teachers, civil servants, and journalists cringed and yet abided by the new rules because the pay was good and the life not so bad. To be sure, their Führer was a hateful bastard they couldn’t stand, but he did go through with his promise and turned their country into a superpower. And if they kept their eyes and ears shut, they wouldn’t really hear the screams of little Jewish children being torn from their mothers’ arms; they wouldn’t see the Party’s vicious Brownshirts beating “the anarchists” in the street, and if they allowed themselves not to think and rely on their leader’s propaganda only, they would almost believe his outrageous statement that the last rebels who dared to speak against the regime and all of their Führer’s vileness were the enemies of the state who would spoil it all for them, the law-abiding citizens, and therefore, needed to be annihilated or locked up. Or shipped to a concentration camp for re-education purposes.

  The Führer was kind, indeed. He even gave such anti-fascist, leftist thugs a second chance to change their minds.

  Shaking her head in disgust, Mala raised her hand and knocked on the familiar door. Inside the vast file room, several inmates were typing with impressive speed. The only SS officer supposedly supervising them was far too immersed in a British spy thriller he was reading—Kanada loot, Mala guessed, hiding a knowing grin; such literature had been long banned in the Reich—to bother himself with Mala’s explanations. He merely waved her toward the filing cabinet and turned another page, his brows drawn tightly in concentration. The book must have been good, indeed. Making use of such outright negligence, Mala quickly recovered the needed file and tiptoed out of the room, shutting the door silently after herself.

  Only when she was a few blocks away from the Kommandantur did she finally open it, releasing a breath of relief at the familiar face looking back at her from all three directions—right, left, and center.

  Wiesław Kielar, inmate number 290.

  Shutting the file closed, Mala hastened her steps, a bright smile playing on her lips. She had long ago made it a point of honor to help anyone she could possibly help, but if it was within her powers to aid these two men’s escape, it would be an entirely different matter altogether. They were running away to fight. She would be aiding the future partisans, the future freedom fighters—perhaps, the future liberators. And then, who knew, maybe one day they’d walk through these gates once again, shake her hand and tell her, “Mala, you’re free; we’re liberating you after you liberated us,” and they would leave this place behind and—

  Mala turned the corner, stumbling when she saw the same inmates still polishing the concrete road with their brushes. The surface of it was no longer rusty-crimson, but tender pink.

  Happy endings were only possible in spy thrillers. All future partisans who dreamt too much for their own good ended up on the death cart.

  And yet, she trooped forward, for she was an obstinate little soldier and surrendering was simply not an option. Perhaps, that was the reason she felt such kinship with Edek. He, too, was a dreamer. He, too, refused to submit.

  Thirteen

  “Have they caught the man yet?” Edek asked.

  The inmate in charge of the warehouse with supplies didn’t need any clarification. The escaped prisoner had been the subject of camp gossip for quite some time now.

  “No. The lucky devil must be drinking champagne in some Polish restaurant as we speak,” the inmate speculated with a good-natured smirk, handing Edek a document of some sort. “Sign here for the sink.”

  “Some bureaucracy you’ve got going here,” Edek murmured, mildly surprised and bursting out laughing when Wiesław appeared from the depth of the warehouse carrying a sink on top of his head so it concealed him entirely up to his shoulders. “Just what are you doing, you miserable bonehead?” He knocked on the metal, causing a shout of protest from his friend.

  “Quit it! You’ll give me a headache. And besides, how else do you suggest I carry it? It’s enormous! Carry it yourself if you don’t like my method.” His voice, amplified by the iron, sent even the warehouse inmate chuckling.

  “We drew sticks; you lost,” Edek countered, unperturbed, and returned the warehouse fellow his clipboard.

  “Now, this business—” the inmate pointed at the sink with the stub of his pencil, “goes into the Music Block latrine and the Music Block only. Understood?”

  “Where else would it go?” Edek blinked at him uncomprehendingly.

  The man made a sly face. “You’re new here, I take it.”

  Edek scowled.

  “Birkenau is not Auschwitz,” the inmate went on to explain with an air of a lecturer about him. “Here, black market is everything. Everything that can be pinched, shall be pinched. Everything that can be traded, will be traded. Nothing is off limits. Hence the bureaucracy, as you called it. The SS are trying to stop the widespread stealing. That’s why I warned you about the sink; don’t even consider putting it to use in any other place or selling it to the local Poles. The SS shall come and check; if it’s not inside the Music Block latrine, you’ll make an acquaintance with Kapo Jupp’s lash, and he’s infamous for his heavy hand.”

  “I’ve made my acquaintance with Kapo Vasek’s whip already,” Edek grumbled, rubbing his thighs instinctively. It had been a few weeks and they still hurt.

  Outside, the wind was howling. Wet mist coming from the swamps penetrated both friends’ overalls and the two sweaters they concealed under their uniforms. Moisture froze in their noses, gluing their nostrils together with every breath they took. They had just left the comfort of the warehouse and the tears caused by the biting frost were already beginning to freeze atop their eyelashes. Pulling the collar of his sweater over his mouth, Edek almost wished that he was carrying the sink to protect him from the elements.

  “The Music Block has its own latrine, imagine that?” Wiesław said appreciatively.

  “They’re considered privileged prisoners.” Edek gulped a particularly harsh gust of wind and turned his head away to catch his breath. “Remember the orchestra in Auschwitz? White jackets with red cords—even as a civilian I haven’t had such a nice outfit!”

  “We didn’t have the women’s orchestra though.”

  “We didn’t have women in the first place.”

  “That much is true. Do you think they’ll talk to us? The Music Block girls?”

  “Of course.” Edek laughed cuttingly, his breath coming out in clouds of white mist. “How can they pass on such a catch as yourself? As long as you keep that ugly mug covered, you’ll be able to arrange yourself a date.”

  He was about to add something else, but a swift kick that he’d received quickly put an end to another string of friendly insults.

  “What? Attacking the maritime troops?” He dealt Wiesław a playful blow in the stomach.

  “Is that how you fight, pitiful veteran of the seas? My mother hit me harder.”

  Edek promptly shoved him, causing Wiesław to miss a step and nearly fall with his load.

  “Quit it! If I stumble into the electric wire, you’ll miss the date I’m trying to arrange with our civilian friend from Kozy.”

  “Not that Szymlak fellow you mentioned?” Edek regarded him incredulously. “The tiler? The one who smuggles all sorts of contraband in and out of the camp?”

  “The very same,” Wiesław replied with a smug satisfaction about him. “It’s costing me a fortune in rations, but it will be worth it if he agrees to help us with our plan. Now, we just need a Kapo who knows him to come through with his promise and put us in touch with the man.”

  “Wiesław, you sly devil! Why didn’t you tell me anything?”

  “Didn’t want to get your hopes high in case the Kapo considers it better business to eat my rations and tell me to piss off.”

  “You sho
uld have told me… I would have split mine with yours.”

  Wiesław waved him off generously, lost his balance and almost dropped the sink. “Don’t worry your head about that. I work in the women’s camp’s sickbay sometimes, in case you forgot. Those ladies feed me plenty of rations, so I won’t go hungry any time soon.”

  “In exchange just for your fitter’s services or…?” Edek arched his brow and let the insinuation hang in the frosty air.

  Stealing a glance from under the sink, Wiesław delivered another well-aimed kick at his friend’s calf, nearly tripping him.

  They began to laugh, feeling the warmth creeping back into their extremities that had been frozen nearly stiff, but then suddenly went silent. The women’s camp came into view and, along with it, its inhabitants. This army of apparitions barely resembled women.

  Upon noticing the two fitters and their blue overalls, they pulled themselves off the frozen ground with great difficulty and followed them along the barbed wire with their gray, skeletal arms outstretched in pleading gestures.

  “Bread…”

  “Anything to eat…”

  Even their hoarse whispers had a frightening, ghostlike quality to them. Edek felt himself shuddering and, this time, it wasn’t due to the cold. He shook his head, apologized, and tried to avert his gaze, but still saw it all—infected sores covering bare, shaved skulls; bones protruding under discolored, scaly skin; hollows in place of eyes, as though the visage of death itself stared back at him from each face he dared to look at; and bloodless lips already pulling away from the gums with a few loose teeth still visible in them. Prematurely dead, all of them, these infinitely old women who used to be young, pretty girls just a few months ago.

  “Let’s bring them something next time,” Wiesław suggested quietly. “Surely, we can spare a couple of pieces of bread each.”

  Edek threw a glance at him. Wiesław didn’t have to look; he could have kept that metal sink on top of his head the entire time, pretending that this suffering didn’t exist and continue to horse around with Edek to drown out the soft pleas—“just a crust, my mother is dying”—but instead, he pulled the sink away from his face so now only its edge rested on his inmate’s cap. He looked, purposely and closely, as if in some perverse desire to imprint it all in his mind, to never forget the horrors he’d witnessed.

  “Let’s not throw it through the wire though,” Edek replied just as quietly. “Remember how the Muselmänner,” he winced involuntarily, using the camp slang term for the inmates who resembled walking skeletons more than people; it was too painful to even mention them without feeling a dull ache in one’s chest, “acted whenever we threw a piece of food at them in Auschwitz? They would hurl themselves on it in one big pile and fight for it like jackals until the strongest one made away with it or a Kapo noticed it, produced his wooden stick and let them all have it across their backs. Let’s give it to Mala instead. She brings them food as it is; she knows how to go about it delicately.”

  Wiesław said nothing at Edek’s mentioning the girl’s name, but his knowing grin did.

  Edek released a relieved breath once they approached the Music Block. It stood on the very edge of the camp and, despite the fact that it was facing the crematorium, it was surrounded by a few trees, albeit bare, and didn’t emanate the unbearable stench of hundreds of unwashed bodies that most of the regular barracks did. As soon as they stepped inside, Edek understood why: there were only about forty girls in the entire block, all neatly dressed in blue uniforms of sorts and with kerchiefs covering their hair.

  Hair, he marveled, standing, astounded, in the door of the warm barracks with his mouth slightly agape. Girls, with hair… Just like Mala.

  He couldn’t see their faces yet; they all sat in a semicircle with their backs to him, but he knew instinctively that they looked nothing like the poor creatures they had just encountered in the women’s camp. He would, no doubt, have continued to observe them like some miracle, if their conductor hadn’t rapped her baton on the music stand, stopping the music abruptly. Judging by the displeasure visible on her face—more striking than beautiful, with two huge dark eyes that now regarded him wrathfully—he must have interrupted their rehearsal.

  “In or out?” the conductor demanded with a strong Viennese accent, in a perfectly no-nonsense tone.

  “I beg your pardon?” Edek mumbled, feeling like a school student before a headmaster.

  “In or out?” she repeated impatiently. “Did you come here to listen to us rehearse or do you need anything?”

  “We brought a sink to install in place of the old one,” Edek explained, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, where Wiesław was shifting from one leg to another. “For the latrine.”

  “The latrine is behind the block.” In an elegant, effortless motion, the conductor waved her baton, indicating the direction.

  Edek mumbled his thanks, apologized once again, and was about to turn around when a thought suddenly struck him.

  “Forgive me, please, Frau…”

  “Frau Alma,” she supplied. Her first name, not last, for some reason.

  “Frau Alma.” Edek nodded. “Did you say we’re allowed to listen to you rehearse?”

  “Well, yes.” She gave an indifferent shrug. “It’s not prohibited by the camp administration. As long as you’re quiet, you’re more than welcome in the auditorium.”

  She resumed her rehearsals before he had a chance to thank her. Respectfully, Edek closed the door after exiting the barracks, but instead of heading straight to the latrine, he lingered by the entrance as one enchanted, drinking in the sounds of the music. It swept over him in warm, comforting waves, almost caressing him with its feathery touch, and all at once, for a few stolen moments, the camp was forgotten.

  “How come they have their own latrine?” Wiesław mused out loud, helping Edek uninstall the old, rust-covered sink from its place.

  “The Kapo said it used to be the SS wardens’ block. Before they built special accommodations for them outside the camp, so the Aryan highnesses wouldn’t mix with our criminal types.” The sarcasm in Edek’s voice was palpable.

  Wiesław snorted softly under his breath. “You know, before they shipped us all here, I thought that only men were capable of such unspeakable cruelty. I never suspected that women could be just as ruthless. And do you know what bothers me the most about this entire rotten business? They don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. They refuse to acknowledge themselves as perpetrators. They think they serve their country’s best interests and they hide behind that mock-patriotism, which is, in fact, naked nationalism generously spiced with hatred, and wield their guns and whips in the name of their glorious leader and beat and maim and kill in his name and feel not a single pinch of conscience about it. And Hitler, what a cunning bastard he is! How well he brainwashed that herd.”

  Wiesław’s voice gained force, his eyes narrowed, his words—sharp barbs, cutting to the bone with their truths.

  “‘It’s us against them,’ he told them, and they believed him, the brainless herd, ‘Only I shall bring law and order to Germany and it matters not that I shall do it with the help of the secret police. Only I shall rid you of all the enemy elements—the communists and the pacifists and just general leftists who don’t embrace our ideology, and it matters not that I shall imprison them or slaughter them outright. They’re the enemy. They shall ruin Germany. We’ll strip them of their citizenship and throw them into the concentration camps with Jews and communists—that’s where they belong. Only the good Germans shall remain in Germany. Only the ones who kneel and obey and keep their mouths shut. Or, better yet, spew their hatred openly and kick their fellow countrymen as they’re being herded onto the cattle trains.’ Those are the Germans he wants. And those are the Germans he got. All those with conscience are here. Whoever is left deserve what is coming to them.”

  Emerging from under the sink, Edek regarded his friend in silent amazement for some time. “Whatever brought that on?�
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  Edek tried to smile, but the grin came out uncertain, wavering. The words had hit him too hard; he felt them painfully in his chest, as though from a physical blow.

  Releasing a breath, Wiesław passed the back of his hand over his forehead. All at once, he looked exhausted, as if that passionate speech took all the strength from him. And yet, in his eyes, Edek saw something close to relief. He understood it, too; it all surged up in them from time to time, that pent-up anger at the injustice of the world, producing such outbursts.

  “Those women begging for bread,” Wiesław explained, his voice suddenly robbed of all force. “The wardens in their warm capes. The very fact that we’re here, messing about with this blasted sink, when we ought to be doing things that we dreamt of doing back home. You would have been giving orders on one ship or the other now and I—” He stopped himself abruptly and shook his head, his mouth pressed into a bitter line. What good was dreaming of the things that would never happen? They only made reality more difficult to cope with.

  “You never did tell me what it was you wanted to do,” Edek still pressed. For some reason, he felt it was important for Wiesław to tell him all about it.

  “It’s stupid and it will never happen.”

  “Of course it will. That’s the sole reason we’re running away from here.” He stepped closer to his friend, who stubbornly avoided his eyes. “So that we can fight for our right to do what we want. So that we destroy all that hatred and replace it with love. So that in place of battlefields, we plant trees and flowers and crops. So that in place of army marches, we will all listen to this.” He motioned toward the back wall, from behind which the tender notes of the Viennese waltz could be heard. They echoed around the dingy latrine like precious stones scattered around the sand, lighting up the very air with their reviving, old-Empire breath—intoxicating, going straight to one’s head.

  “I always wanted to be a writer,” Wiesław spoke after a long pause, still refusing to meet Edek’s gaze. “Or work on motion pictures. I love motion pictures.”