by Shmuel David
“Are you suggesting that I leave Jewish patients to sit in the office of a German officer?” she asked angrily. “How could you even think such a thing?”
“Because I see your suffering here and want to help you.”
“That’s not help. After all, I did come here voluntarily, to relieve the suffering of the unfortunate.”
“But you’ve told me how much you suffer, how you hate the people who watch you eat as if you’d stolen the food right out of their mouths.”
“Yes, things are terrible for me here, but I wouldn’t degrade myself to that extent.”
One of the soldiers suddenly rushed in.
“A nurse is needed, urgently! Someone’s tried to kill herself in Block 10 A. She’s critical.” I grabbed my first-aid bag and we both ran to Block 10 A.
“Quick! Quick!” someone urged us from the doorway. “She’s losing a lot of blood.”
The scene was horrific. Hilda pulled a tourniquet from the bag while I made a temporary tourniquet by pressing my fist into the hollow of the shoulder. Quick and practical, Hilda didn’t say a word as she worked. Once she’d stopped the blood and tied the tourniquet, she asked for a stretcher to be brought from the infirmary. Someone standing beside us started shouting.
“No, no, you should have let her die. She’s right. Her little son died two days ago. She has nothing to live for. Leave her alone. We should all have done the same. It’s a pity to make such an effort.” Her words provoked the women standing there watching us.
In the meantime, I took out the IV bag and needle. Although her veins were sunken in for lack of blood, Hilda managed to insert the needle into a vein, but very little blood came out, which meant we hadn’t inserted the needle in the right place. We were thinking about changing the place, but when we connected the tube, the color red appeared at the juncture of the needle, and we realized that the infusion would soon begin to drip. She was in her forties and had decided there was no point to this existence. She’s probably right, but we aren’t here to resolve philosophical problems but to save a life. It’s just not possible to start asking every patient if in fact they’d prefer or deserve to die. It’s hard for me to save a woman who doesn’t want to live.
We took her to the infirmary and laid her down on one of the beds we’d made up that morning. She began to revive and murmur the odd word, finally bursting into sobs we were unable to calm. Maybe she was glad to be alive, and maybe she was actually disappointed to find she was still alive in this terrible, anguished camp where the concept of life has lost all meaning.
When we were once more alone, Hilda told me she in all conscience couldn’t work in that commander’s office.
“But everyone is built differently,” she added. “And each person has to think about how to save him or herself, not only how to save others. I reached that insight after many internal debates,” she said with a piercing look into my eyes.
“You’re right,” I responded. “Maybe the time has come to save my own skin. Though I also experience internal debate. My heart tells me not to go, but my head tells me I should act in my own interests. Maybe that’s where the solution lies.”
“If you choose to leave here, there’s a chance you’ll be saved from something we don’t know about yet but that’s waiting for us.”
“On the other hand, there’s our friendship, and I’d hate to lose that,” I said.
“Wunderbar!” Hilda cried out. “Do you think I don’t feel the same? You’re my best friend in the camp. Almost like Marianna and Nada. But they are free outside. It’s different.”
“We’ll stay friends even if I go. After all, I won’t be leaving the camp. We talk as if tomorrow I’ll be getting a free pass out of here while you have to stay.”
“Do what you think is right. You have my blessing. All I want is for you to be free and happy.”
March 15
Night again. I always write at night. I’ve been in Untersturmführer Herbert Andorfer’s office for almost three weeks now. From now on, I will call him Commander Andorfer. I have my own corner here, and I’m spared the constant noise of the crowd of women in Block 14 A. And the cold and blowing wind don’t bother me anymore either. Because of the broken windows, I felt as if I were living in a house without walls. I arranged with Hilda to do night shifts twice a week. In this way, I quieted my conscience a little. But my mood remained as low as ever.
The painful scenes at the infirmary continue to haunt me even after my shift. Even the relatively simple cases of facial frost bite, which cause deep skin peeling that distorts the face, are unbearable for me.
In the morning, I clean the camp administration offices, including the toilets. Afterward, I am free to take care of Commander Andorfer’s office. He introduced me to the typewriter, and after several exercises during the first two days, I learned how to use it, daily improving my typing speed. He doesn’t give me everything to type up, only things that have to do with the daily running of the camp. In this way, I found out that Commander Andorfer was furious at the neglect of the infirmary building in the Nikolai Spasič Pavilion. He demanded more beds and the installation of inside toilets with running water. He was concerned by the food portions coming from Belgrade and demanded that Belgrade food suppliers increase the portions so that the prisoners could carry out their tasks in the sewing rooms, and the men, whose numbers were decreasing daily, could work in the camp metal and carpenter workshops. In the matter of the pharmacy and medication supply, he asked me and Matilda for advice. She’s the main pharmacist in the camp, and he wanted to know which medications were lacking, and wrote urgent requests to Belgrade and Berlin.
Herbert Andorfer turned out to be a completely different person behind his tough exterior and the menacing person he is. I noticed this when he came to the infirmary to ask for sleeping tablets. I thought that for a man like him, who does the things he does, it would be a miracle if he could sleep at night. If he needed sleeping tablets, clearly his actions during the day would make it difficult for him to rest at night.
I will never forget my first encounter with him. He came to the camp to replace Edgar Enge, who was inexperienced and did not find favor with his superiors in Berlin. Following his sudden replacement, we discovered that he became Andorfer’s subordinate.
That day, a young gypsy woman, her baby in her arms, attempted to escape. Commander Andorfer took out his revolver and shot the woman and her baby. Then he continued his daily routine as if nothing had happened, merely shouting that the soldier who was derelict in his duty should be court-martialed. The bound soldier was taken aside somewhere and supposedly shot. The three bodies were added to the daily number at the Turkish Pavilion.
On the very first day, when I was cleaning his room, I was surprised to see a book of Schiller’s poems on the shelf above his head. Strange, I thought. The murderer reads poetry. Doesn’t seem like him.
That day, he asked me where I came from and where I’d gone to school. He completely ignored the fact that I was a Jewess. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t volunteer the information. I looked Aryan in every way. But on another occasion, he surprised me, saying, “I saw the little book you keep hidden next to your bed.”
“I didn’t know you were prying into my things,” I was amazed. The blood rushed into my face.
“You’re lovely when you blush like that.” He added, “You have nothing to worry about. I already knew about you.”
I am also curious, and more than once hastily glanced at the papers on his desk. This is how, a week ago, I discovered the request he’d filled out for a transfer from the camp. I discovered that he was only thirty-three, had already been awarded the Iron Cross for bravery, and that he had a wife and two daughters in Düsseldorf.
He justified his request for a transfer thus:
“Although I do my best to carry out my role here at the camp,” he wrote. “I feel that my training as a
n observation officer and professional gunner is going to waste running a labor camp for Jews and gypsies, most of whom are no longer really useful. My job is administrative, not combat, which I would prefer in order to better serve Germany and the Führer.” I hastily read the letter and returned it to its place under the leather upholstery on his desk, just the lower corner peeping out.
One day, I found a curious document, which I didn’t really understand. A letter placed next to the typewriter that didn’t look particularly secret. It was addressed to the Commander of Sajmište, Untersturmführer Herbert Andorfer, from the Head of the Gestapo in Berlin, Heinrich Müller.
I read that the Head of the Gestapo was happy to inform Commander Andorfer of the arrival of Z. Pol. No. 71463.
“At your own convenience,” was written. “You can now end your important job for the Führer and Germany with all possible speed and greater efficiency, and without any physical harm.” At first, I thought it was about a horse called Z. Pol. No. 71463. A gift, perhaps, from the Gestapo for doing a good job. After all, he did tell me once that horses were his favorite hobby. But something about it didn’t feel right to me. It can’t be a horse. It can only be something far more terrible. The words written there were, “You can now end your important job for the Führer and Germany with all possible speed and greater efficiency, and without any physical harm.”
You don’t need a horse for that; you need a tool of destruction. My heart beat fast and my hands trembled. I returned the letter to the envelope and tried to go back to cleaning, but at that moment the door opened, and Herbert Andorfer entered. He noticed my distress and asked, “Why are you so pale? Is something wrong?”
“No, no, nothing.”
I must have stammered. He offered me a glass of water.
“You look faint. Maybe you need to rest in your room. I’ll bring you a glass of water.”
I sat in my room and thought about the meaning of Z. Pol. No. 71463—it was probably something dreadful. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was tormented by the words “Z. Pol. No. 71463” and how Andorfer would swiftly and efficiently end his role in Sajmište Camp. What did the words “end your job efficiently” mean? Finish at the camp? Or perhaps finish off the people here, or transfer them to another place? Terrible thoughts began to rush through my mind concerning this Z. Pol. No. 71463. I have to confide in my friends in the block.
At the time, there were a lot of rumors going around about transferring the female prisoners to a labor camp in the north, where conditions were far more comfortable. Directions for facilitating this were also given, which Commander Andorfer asked me to type out. Between eighty and a hundred people would be divided into groups each time. Those in the group would be permitted to take their personal belongings to the new place, which was more spacious and comfortable. Every day, prisoners would be allowed to check the notice board to see who was on the next day’s list.
I persuaded myself it was probably a term for a large truck that could transfer between eighty and a hundred men or women at a time, to a better place, as they say, somewhere in the north, and I calmed down.
March 16
I met Louisa today. We’d met occasionally, by chance, in line for the evening meal, or on our way to our various jobs. She’d worked in the sewing shop like many other women, but as her eyesight was failing, she was given work that didn’t strain her eyes as much. At each meeting, she managed to tell me a little more about what had happened to her and Emil after they left Sabac, tried to escape, and been caught. But today, she particularly asked to speak to me.
We met this morning, she on her way to the sewing shop, and I on my way to the office of Commander Andorfer. She was surprised to hear that I’d gone to work for the German.
“We’ll talk this evening,” I said. “I haven’t left altogether, you know.”
“How could I know? I haven’t been to the infirmary for two weeks.”
“Yes,” I answered. “I’m still doing shifts at the infirmary.”
I ended the conversation and quickened my steps.
That evening, she appeared as promised. She’d tied a scarf around her shorn head.
“I’ve gotten used to having no hair,” she said, when she saw me glancing at the scarf.
“At first, I found it very strange. And then I got used to it,” she said, sitting down opposite me. “When Hilda told me you were working in the German’s office, I couldn’t believe it.” She spoke, looking directly into my eyes. “‘Is this the Inge I knew?’ I asked myself. ‘What does it mean? That innocent, idealistic girl suddenly prefers the comfort and ease of the commander’s office? The same commander who is responsible for all the terrible things happening here?’”
Louisa’s harsh words caused me great discomfort. I answered that I hadn’t just given in. I didn’t have a choice, I tried to explain, telling her about the evening Commander Andorfer came to the infirmary, about his suggestion that initially hadn’t attracted me at all. I also told her about my conversation with Hilda the following day, how she’d had strong reservations but after going through further difficult experiences, she gave me her blessing.
Louisa had trouble believing it. She said it was hard for her to understand how a girl with values and moral judgment could take such a step, lean on the tyrant who deprives us of life.
“It isn’t right, no matter how you look at it,” she said. “It simply goes against everything I believe in, and I thought you and Hilda believed in the same things. All the values we were raised on.”
I tried to explain that we were living in a completely different reality. The world I grew up in was being destroyed in front of our very eyes. Hilda had also said so. This is not a world we’ve ever known. Here, people are simply trying to survive. Hilda was shocked by her exposure to the animal sides of women who were once just like her mother and her mother’s friends.
“What would you do instead of me?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you consider trying to save your own life? Or enjoy a little comfort?”
Louisa answered vehemently that she wouldn’t do it even if her life depended on it.
And then I told her about the other reason. How I thought I might manage to find out what they were planning to do to us and tell the other women prisoners. Which is what happened with the letter I found about Z. Pol. No. 71463.
How I’d been trying for days to make my friends in Block 14 A understand the implications of this seemingly innocent name. I tried to find out what she thought. Should we do something, perhaps? Organize an uprising or escape?
Louisa gave a bitter laugh and said that, in her experience, the chances of escape were so small that even talking about it was a waste of time.
“And anyway,” she said. “We will never know what happened to those who have already gone on the truck, if they really did transfer them to another, safer place, or to a firing squad in the forest. I’ve already survived one escape attempt. Even those I trusted had no hesitation in betraying me. Emil made very thorough plans in advance. Checked in different places, with various people, and even on the evening before our departure, he was uneasy and had doubts. Maybe this man really only wants our money. Maybe he isn’t really trustworthy. Emil was very anxious and tried to organize everything, think of everything, every detail. He knew how long the journey would take. He knew the route, and who would be waiting for us on the other side. That’s Emil, as you know.” A transparent tear rolled down her cheek. She was quiet for a few seconds, adding, “And when the blow fell, he was so surprised. He told me that his experience with cards should have taught him how to read faces. He blamed himself all the way back to Belgrade; we sat, hands bound behind our backs, like criminals caught for some dreadful crime.”
She told me that after she was imprisoned at the Banjica camp, he wrote her what he’d really thought about on the way, as they sat bound there in the truck. He wrote her that he was sure they’d be taken
to some distant spot in the forest and shot, as he’d heard happened in other similar situations.
“He didn’t say so, because he wanted to encourage me. We sat close to one another all the way. We couldn’t even embrace because our hands were bound, and he only told me what he was planning to do when we arrived, that we had to go on trying to organize immigration permits, so I wouldn’t think about the worst of all. But now, I’m worried, Inge. They took him to an even worse place, the Topovske Šupe concentration camp, as punishment for trying to attack a German officer. They’re taken from that camp to the firing ditches.”
“How do you know all this? Did he write to you about it?” I asked.
“No, I know it from letters that Dr. Bucič Pijade managed to send to his wife. She told me that Sime Spitzer was also interned there. The same Sime who was responsible for our transport, which didn’t take place, and whom everyone hated when we were in Kladovo. He was arrested in September, on the day they arrested most of the men in Belgrade, and taken to Banjica. He was badly tortured there by SS officers, especially by a Dr. Jung.”
“We couldn’t see what they did to him,” Dr. Pijade wrote in his letter. “Until one day, Emil saw the camp doctor, Dr. Jung, hitting Sime with a baton on his arms and back. He couldn’t stay silent and stood between Sime and the German officer, using his large body as a shield against the German officer, holding his hands and pulling at the baton. In seconds, two SS soldiers appeared, handcuffed Emil, and threw him into a cell. Sime Spitzer was shot that day by Dr. Jung, and Emil was transferred to Topovske Šupe as punishment, and from there, groups are regularly taken out for execution.”
In the meantime, Dr. Pijade was made director of the hospital at the Banjica internment camp.
Louisa remembered that Dr. Pijade had visited their home once in Dedinje, and she greatly appreciated his qualities. He wasn’t only a superb doctor, but also had a poetic heart. He was interested in poetry and literature and came to one of the literary evenings at her home. She recalled, too, that he’d taken Hilda Dajč under his wing when he ran the Jewish hospital on Visokog Stevana Street and taught her the basic rules of medicine.