The Family Camp would die that day.
He still hoped for some miracle against all reason; hoped that they would pass the Family Camp and drive forward; that there was, perhaps, some logical explanation. Perhaps, farmers needed trucks for—
Dejectedly, he released a ragged breath and shook his head. Farmers, his foot. And the SS were there to guard the potatoes, no doubt.
Of course, there were no farmers and no reasonable explanation.
Once the truck leading the procession turned into a muddy semblance of a road leading to the Family Camp, all of Edek’s hopes were obliterated. Here, there were even more SS, even more machine gun squads, more Alsatians foaming at their mouths as they pulled on the leashes of their uniformed handlers. They were driving inside the perimeter now, pulling to a stop next to the barracks. Inside Edek’s chest, his heart was thumping furiously.
Not a person was outside. For an instant, Edek was gripped by a desperate hope that the underground had warned the camp’s inhabitants, that they had barricaded themselves inside, that there would be a battle, an uprising, in which he would join, even if it meant being mowed down by the steel shower of SS machine guns within seconds.
Didn’t Mala say that the Sonderkommando were making bombs? To be sure, they would share them with the Family Camp’s underground. Perhaps they’d even give their Theresienstadt counterparts their entire stash and distract the SS by sabotaging a crematorium…
But there was no uprising. The Green Triangles were already pouring out of the trucks and inside the barracks, from which they instantly began to drive out the terrified Family Camp inmates with blows and crude curses.
“Raus, raus, raus! Out, out, everyone, now, you bloody shits!”
They were beating everyone indiscriminately, women and the elderly and children too, herding them toward the trucks with truly horrifying efficiency. From the safety of his vehicle, Edek watched the tragedy unfold in real time. For an instant, the sheer inhumanity of it made it appear almost unreal.
In front of Edek’s truck’s hood, an elderly musician was cradling his violin case against his chest like a child; trying to explain something to one of the German murderers in a polite tone. The Kapo listened for exactly five seconds, then yanked the case out of the old man’s hands, hurled it to the ground and began stomping on it with savage force. Not a muscle moved on the musician’s face, but from under his rimless glasses, heavy tears rolled, collecting under his chin. He didn’t have to mourn his instrument’s loss for long: the same Kapo swung his club and dropped it precisely on top of the violinist’s head. Blood pouring down his face, the man sank softly to his knees, swayed ever so slightly and keeled over, his bloodied hand landing atop his crushed instrument as though in some devastating farewell.
An SS guard stomped into the scene, his sense of order outraged. The Berlin office had ordered for the Family Camp to be gassed, so they ought to be gassed and not clubbed, according to the SS man’s tirade. To Edek, it appeared almost ghastly amusing that the officer was berating his inferior not for killing the musician—some brilliant virtuoso, no doubt, whom the entire music world would mourn—but for killing him at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in the incorrect manner. Then, both figures in front of Edek’s eyes began to blur and he rubbed his eyes viciously, swallowing hard and biting his tongue when the swallowing didn’t help any longer.
In the truck just in front of him, a man in a three-piece suit was helping a mother lift her child inside. The little girl with a big blue bow in her blond hair was still clutching a stuffed rabbit to her chest. Edek saw another SS man shake his head and turn away, spitting on the ground. His colleague, who was watching the mother closely, commented something to the effect of “a fine piece of tail going to waste,” but the first guard didn’t join in with the joke; only glared at him with hatred and told him to shut his ugly mug right that instant. It suddenly occurred to Edek that even some of the calloused SS men found the picture of such heartless annihilation unraveling before their eyes appalling. Or, perhaps, this particular one also had a blond little girl at home who this child reminded him of. Whatever the case was, the German marched off as though washing his hands of the entire bloody affair.
In the midst of all that violence and destruction, a couple caught Edek’s attention. They stood, holding each other and speaking softly to one another while waves of bloodied people washed around them, without touching them, as though they were an island of love and serenity that even death had no power over. The young man clearly belonged to the camp elite with his riding breeches and tall boots; a Kapo or a clerk of some sort—Edek couldn’t quite make out what precisely his armband said. His beloved, into whose mahogany eyes he was gazing with infinite adoration and profound sorrow, was dressed with great taste in civilian clothing. The Family Camp girl, Edek concluded to himself and rubbed his chest, the spot that was aching dully at that devastating sight before him, for he knew very well how such farewells ended in the hell of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
He tried not to think of Mala, yet he couldn’t stop himself. He saw her face in place of this young girl’s; he imagined having to kiss her goodbye for the last time and averted his eyes—it was too much to bear.
“Get that bitch up in the truck!” a coarse voice shouted. “There’s no time for screwing!”
With tremendous effort, Edek turned back to the couple. The young man was still saying something to his beloved, completely ignoring his Kapo colleague and his baton, with which he was administering cracks to anyone who happened to be within reach.
“Well?” The Kapo stopped short from grabbing the girl by her arm, restraining himself out of respect to the fellow inmate functionary. The young block clerk’s girl was about to die; the least he could do was not manhandle her roughly. “The bitch goes onto that truck this instant or you both go.”
At once, the girl stepped away. Her pale hand lingered on the young man’s face that was twisted with tragedy; he made a move after her, but she shook her head and jumped into the bed of the truck.
An SS man slapped the hood of Edek’s lorry, signaling that it was full. With a heavy heart, Edek pulled away from the spot where the bereft man still stood, gazing after the departing vehicles, and his departing lover, with a look of someone who had been mortally wounded.
The drive was oddly, frighteningly quiet. Outside, the dusk crept over the barracks, entangling itself in the barbed wire. Rigid with horror, Edek followed the leader of the column like some demented automaton. His hands turned the wheel, his feet pressed on the gas pedal, and all the while his mind screamed in agony at the sight of the crematorium toward which they’d been creeping—accomplices in murder and future victims, all wrapped in one. Not a sound came from the bed of the truck. Only after the lorries pulled to a stop and the SS began tearing children out of mothers’ arms did the blood-curdling cries break the deathly silence. Edek sat at the wheel with his eyes shut painfully tight and felt as though the entire world wept together with them.
And then, a young woman’s voice tore through the fiber of the terror, clear and high, singing the Czech national anthem with fearless determination. Stunned by the sheer power of it, Edek opened his eyes and recognized the block clerk’s girl—a sole motionless figure in the ocean of chaos. Soon, more voices joined in; the SS tried to club and whip them into submission, but in vain. Before long, the entire camp had picked up the notes of the resistance and carried them long and far above the land, defiant and proud, refusing to surrender even at the sight of the approaching, unavoidable death.
Edek saw the young block clerk again near the entrance of the crematorium the next morning when he inquired about Mala, who was nowhere to be found. Kostek was just in the middle of assuring Edek that he had nothing to worry about—Mala wasn’t among those poor wretches they’d been cremating all night—when the same man, torn from his lover the day before, staggered on uncertain legs toward the entrance.
At first, Edek assumed that he was drunk. But when
the young man stopped next to him and began to speak—tried to speak, with carefully faked nonchalance but with a voice that was hoarse and shaking in spite of it—Edek realized that he was perfectly sober.
“How did it go yesterday?” he asked.
“All right,” Kostek replied, throwing a warning glance at his Kommando mate, who was smoking next to him. Filip, if Edek remembered correctly. He was too preoccupied with Mala’s whereabouts and forgot the lad’s name right after they’d been introduced to each other. “It was a dry night. They didn’t suffer.”
The Sonderkommando were specialists in Zyklon-B now. They knew exactly in which conditions it performed most efficiently.
Kostek spat on the ground in disgust.
“Three girls tried to fight—” Filip began.
The young clerk’s head shot up. But Filip had already clammed up after receiving a sharp blow in his ribs from his Greek mate.
“No one suffered,” Kostek said evenly once again. “Everyone went very quickly and as painlessly as possible.”
“Go back to your barracks and sleep it off, Rudek.” Filip regarded the young clerk with genuine sympathy and offered him a cigarette. Rudek took it with trembling fingers. “And don’t torture yourself over it. What good would it have been if you both went into that truck?”
Edek watched Rudek nod and suddenly realized that he would have jumped without a second thought into the back of that blasted lorry just to hold Mala’s hand for a few more minutes, to be with her till the last dying breath, to hold her in his embrace just so she wouldn’t feel alone and terrified, among strangers. He didn’t judge this young man in the slightest, but deep inside, he’d already come to a decision. He would live with Mala or he would die with her. For him, there was no other option.
Twenty-Six
The door to the coal room swung open. The light in the cellar’s corridor was dim and yet Mala and Zippy felt momentarily blinded. In the door stood the same inmate who had brought them two buckets the previous evening—one with water and one to use for their needs. Only this time, instead of a warden, Mandl herself stood behind the prisoner functionary’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch them,” Mandl said when she saw Mala reach for one of the buckets. Her voice sounded oddly tired. “Lena will take care of those.” She nudged the inmate from the maintenance Kommando forward. “Out with you two. You’re lucky I managed to persuade Schwarzhuber that it’ll be impossible to find suitable replacements for you two. He had worked himself up into such a state, he was ready to send you both to the gas along with the Czechs.”
Mala considered thanking their benefactress for her intervention, but with the best will in the world, she couldn’t force the words out of herself. She too had worked herself into quite a state, while being locked in that dusty, dark cellar. Her loathing for Mandl, for the SS in general, had increased tenfold and now there was no going back to her previous compliant self.
“Go to the Sauna and put yourself into a presentable state,” Mandl continued. “You two look like chimney sweeps; I can’t have you in the office in this condition.”
“Lagerführerin, may I check on the orchestra?” Zippy searched Mandl’s face.
Mala saw the SS woman cringe ever so slightly, as though that was precisely the matter she wished to avoid.
“Yes,” the women’s camp leader said at last after a long pause, averting her gaze. Her discomfort was audible in her voice. “I was planning to send you there at any rate. Fetch Alma Rosé. Tell her I want to see her in my office.”
Zippy stopped in her tracks, her hand clasping her mouth.
Mandl turned to face her, annoyed. “What?”
“You killed him,” Zippy whispered with barely suppressed emotion. “You didn’t take Miklós off the list. You knew how much she loved him and you killed him.”
“It was an accident!” Mandl’s shout reverberated along the cellar’s walls. Her cheeks were blotched in red patches—either from shame or indignation or a mixture of both. “If I wasn’t so preoccupied with saving your sorry lives, I would have remembered to take him off the list. Whatever was he doing in the Family Camp at any rate? He was a pianist; he was supposed to live in Laks’ block. It’s not my fault… I can’t remember every single inmate…”
She was still going on and Mala stood, staring at her and wondering how she could live with herself and justify her actions.
Hypocrite.
Murderer.
Mala’s expression must have been much too eloquent, for Mandl shouted at her, visibly unnerved: “Quit your staring! You ought to be grateful for what I did for you. Off to the Sauna, now! And report to the office in thirty minutes precisely.”
She stormed off, leaving Zippy crying softly and Mala enveloped in cold, hateful silence.
Alma Rosé, the celebrated violinist virtuoso and women’s Music Block conductor, came into the office precisely at ten. She sat across Mandl’s desk, deathly pale and silent, and stoically bore all of Mandl’s fussing and explanations that mattered little and helped even less.
“Ach, what a frightful night for all of us.” Mandl’s tutting and incessant head-shaking and sorrowful, guilty looks she threw Alma’s way—truly pitiful attempts at displaying sympathy—made Mala cringe inwardly with disgust. “Mala, go. No need to loiter here. No, actually, wait! Bring us coffee, will you? There’s a good girl. A frightful night indeed. I, myself, haven’t slept a wink. Those liquidation orders came out of nowhere…”
Heavy silence followed, drowning Mandl’s hypocrisy, her pretense at pity and compassion Mala knew the women’s camp leader was simply incapable of. Mala purposely took her time fixing the coffee tray in the neighboring room just to torment the chief warden with that nerve-grating stillness, interrupted only by the squeaking of Mandl’s chair.
Let the bitch squirm. Let her deal with the consequences of her actions at least once. Let her look in her favorite mascot’s eyes and choke on her excuses for murdering the only person who still kept the violinist alive in this hell.
When the pregnant pause had grown intolerable, Mala lifted the tray off the table, pushed the door open with her shoulder and could scarcely suppress a sneer at the visible relief on Mandl’s face.
“Ah, there you are! I had begun to think that you had lost your way.”
Mala didn’t deem the jab worthy of a reply. Alma’s suffering occupied all of her thoughts. The haunted look in the violinist’s eyes nearly tore at Mala’s heart. She felt Alma’s pain sharply in her own chest as she was pouring coffee for the camp leader and her distinguished guest.
As though sensing the silent comradery between the two women inmates, Mandl pushed Mala’s hands away. “Just put it down and go. Go! I can do everything myself. No need to loiter here.”
Lagerführerin Mandl serving coffee to a prisoner? With a tremendous effort, Mala restrained herself from arching a sardonic brow. She was truly growing despondent, the Birkenau Beast.
They always fussed over the celebrated Frau Rosé; the countless privileges afforded to the Music Block testified to that. But now, Mandl’s fussing had notes of desperation to it.
Alma hardly reacted to the camp leader’s words; it was as if she had already decided that she didn’t belong to the camp any longer and, suddenly, Mandl was terrified at the prospect of losing her favorite pet whose playing she so enjoyed.
Before taking her reluctant leave, Mala stood just by Alma’s shoulder in silent solidarity and thought of Edek. She suddenly realized that she, too, wouldn’t want to live without him; that she, too, would follow him wherever he went—to hell, if that’s what it meant. As long as they were together, even hell would be a fine place. This camp had already proved it to be true.
When Mala saw Edek shifting from one foot to the other in the door of the office—he had smuggled himself through all of the SS officials somehow—a beaming smile warmed her face at once.
“Inmate number 531 reporting,” he said, clicking his heels smartly at the SS officer who re
garded him with displeasure. “Kapo Jupp told me you need some pipes to be checked in the cellar?”
“I’ll take care of it.” Mala was already on her feet, sailing past the SS man and toward Edek.
It took him great effort not to scoop her into his embrace right there and then.
As soon as they were alone in the cellar, he dropped his fitter’s toolbox and took Mala’s face in his hands, regarding it tragically: the red, angry slash cutting across her swollen mouth—the Nazi punishment for opening it when she shouldn’t have; the slightly faded, purplish imprint of a heavy SS palm on the marble of her cheek. “Mally, my dear, dear Mally! What have they done to you?”
“Freshened up my principles for listening at the door to my superiors’ private conversations.” Mala laughed in spite of herself. “Considering what I overheard, I expected Schwarzhuber to shoot me. He satisfied himself with giving my curious mug a couple of slaps. I ought to consider myself fortunate. Don’t just stand there, kiss me. I’ve lived through such torture for these past few hours, I need to reassure myself that love still exists in this world.”
As though he’d been waiting for that invitation, Edek rushed to cover her face with kisses. She laughed softly and winced when his mouth brushed her broken lip and the skin on her cheek that was slightly discolored from Schwarzhuber’s slaps, but not once did she pull away.
“I have decided everything,” Edek breathed. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with you.”
“I have decided everything too.” Mala grinned, stroking his unshaven cheek. “I’ll go with you if you want me to.”
For an instant, Edek had lost all faculty of speech. “You will?” he asked at last.
Mala only nodded, offering him her bruised face again.
The Girl Who Escaped from Auschwitz: A totally gripping and absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 page-turner, based on a true story Page 22