The Auschwitz Escape

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  Jacob grabbed the box of glasses, which was heavier than he would have expected, and left quickly, back to the Canada command. It was about a six-minute walk, and Jacob kept his head down. He did his best not to make eye contact with anyone else, though he was careful to doff his cap at every soldier within a hundred kilometers. He didn’t want to see anything else that was happening. He didn’t want to be noticed by anyone else. He just wanted to finish this job and disappear. Maybe Leszek would take pity on him, allow him to sit in some quiet place to grieve all that he had seen.

  That, however, was not the case. When Jacob returned successfully with the box of eyeglasses, Leszek told him to count and catalog everything in the box. Then he showed Jacob where in the warehouse to store them. After that, he took Jacob up to his office and gave him an apple and a large piece of bread with butter and raspberry marmalade. Jacob thanked him profusely, then sat down on the couch and devoured them quickly.

  He battled mixed emotions. He felt guilty eating when his friends were dead. He felt guilty eating when so many others were literally starving to death. But he was determined to survive, which meant he had to eat whenever he could, wherever he could, as much as he could. There was simply no other way.

  When Jacob was finished and had wiped his hands and face clean and washed down the serendipitous treat with a cup of coffee, Leszek sent him out to meet a train that had just pulled in. This time, however, Jacob was not alone. He was sent with a tall, skinny Jewish kid who apparently was one of Leszek’s trusted deputies.

  “Name’s Max,” the kid said as they left the warehouse and headed to the train platform. “Max Cohen. It’s Maximilian, actually, but no one calls me that. Even my father didn’t call me that. My mother did, but I couldn’t stand it. I begged her to call me Max, but she wouldn’t hear of it. ’Cause I was named after her father, and she loved her father, and I can understand why. He was a great rabbi in Bucharest. That’s why she married my father, ’cause he was a rabbi too. Lots of rabbis in our family. They want me to be a rabbi. Studied Torah most of my life. Guess that was a waste. Not a lot of openings for camp rabbi here, you know? Besides, it seems like every other person you meet here is a rabbi. So you’re Jacob—er, I mean, Leonard. Right?”

  Jacob just shrugged and kept walking.

  “So what’s your story?”

  “I got on the wrong train.”

  Max nearly laughed but restrained himself, not wanting to draw undue attention. “So, what, you’re a joker or something? Got on the wrong train? Yeah, guess you did. Where were you really headed? To Paris for the weekend to see your girl?”

  “No.”

  “Then what? Going to visit your rich uncle in London?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Oh, sorry; it’s secret, huh? What are you, part of la Résistance?”

  Jacob just glared at him.

  “Okay, okay, relax,” Max said. “Guess you’re not a big talker, huh? But you’re Jewish, right? I mean, you’re wearing the yellow triangle and all, right? So we’re cousins, right?”

  Jacob said nothing.

  “Ever think of becoming a rabbi?” Max asked.

  “No.”

  “Is your family religious?”

  Jacob shrugged again.

  “Not very, huh?” Max said. “Did you go to shul growing up?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you have a bar mitzvah?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Siegen.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Germany.”

  “Near Berlin?”

  “No, closer to Belgium.”

  “Parlez-vous français?”

  “A little.”

  “So how do you have a girlfriend in Paris if you don’t speak French?”

  Jacob just looked at Max until Max slapped him on the back and told him not to be so uptight. “Relax,” he said. “It’s going to be fine. Now come on. Let’s go to work.”

  An enormous train with at least forty cars had just pulled in. Jacob figured there had to be 1,700 or 1,800 prisoners aboard. The vast majority of them would be Jews. He cringed as he watched hundreds of soldiers beating the new arrivals. Leading the way was the most repulsive human being Jacob had ever laid eyes on, more beast than man. “Who’s that?” he asked Max.

  “The head guard? That’s Fat Louie. He’s a real gem.”

  Fat Louie’s uniform seemed a size too small for him, making his sleeves and pant legs a bit too short. This, in turn, made his tree-trunk arms seem even longer than they were.

  The sadistic guard was squarely in his element now. He was shouting and cursing, forcing women and men out of the cars, though he tended to focus more on the women. He ordered them to leave all their belongings behind and pushed them into the courtyard, where he divided the men from the women and got both groups into single-file lines. Jacob helplessly watched the bewildered faces frozen with fear.

  He watched one particularly beautiful girl, probably about his own age, tremble as Fat Louie ogled her. The girl burst into tears when he groped her while the other guards laughed and encouraged more. When she tried to pull away, her blouse tore, and then Jacob stared in horror as Fat Louie smashed this sweet, defenseless girl in the face repeatedly with the butt of his rifle until she was bloodied and unrecognizable.

  Jacob wasn’t the only one looking on without knowing what to do. Mothers and grandmothers had to keep moving forward in their single-file line, each of them fearing that they could be next.

  Just as painful for Jacob was seeing the looks in the eyes of the husbands and fathers and grandfathers as they inched forward in their own single-file line. He could see many of them balling up their fists, ready to lash out, ready to fight to protect this young woman and the others, and he could see them being told by friends and relatives to cool it, not to do anything rash.

  Suddenly and uncharacteristically, Jacob, who never liked to talk more than he had to, wanted to yell out to the men and urge them to join him in seizing Fat Louie and crushing his skull. Yes, they all would die, but wouldn’t it be worth it to at least take out one of these monsters?

  Then again, he thought, maybe it was better to warn them of what was coming. Maybe he should tell them it was better to die here and now standing up for the ones they loved than to watch them walk into the gas chambers and the ovens and then, perhaps, even follow them in there.

  He didn’t, of course. And he felt deeply ashamed. He hadn’t fought when he’d arrived. Nor was he about to fight now. He wanted to, for the moment, but the moment would pass, and he would do nothing. Why? Because he didn’t want to die. All he wanted to do was to escape, to run as far away from here as he possibly could. Did that make him a coward? He feared it did, and his guilt made the darkness around him seem to grow ever darker.

  Once the guards had cleared the trains, Max and Jacob and a dozen other men from Canada moved in quickly. Car by car, they removed the luggage and trunks and other personal effects. They loaded everything on wooden carts and dragged it all back to a large processing area behind the Canada warehouse, always under the wary gaze of men with guns. Then they raced back to the train with shovels and brushes and hoses and bleach and thoroughly cleaned out each car. When that was finished, they laid fresh hay on the floor of each car and reported to the security foreman that their task was complete.

  The foreman checked their work. Guards with German shepherds made sure none of the prisoners were trying to stow away in, under, or on top of the cars. And when that process was finished, the foreman gave the all-clear signal to the engineer, the whistle blew several times, and the train pulled out of the station.

  At no time did Jacob, Max, or the other prisoners talk to one another. Conversation at such a time might not be expressly forbidden, but no one wanted to do anything that could make the Nazis think they were conspiring with one another for any reason. The only voice heard during those hours belonged to Hoess, shouting,
“Right” or “Left.” Listening, Jacob understood what the sifting process really meant, and it haunted him. For some morbid reason he couldn’t explain, he wanted to follow the people sent to the left. He wanted to see where they went. He wanted to hear what they were told. He wanted to see if what Leszek had said was really true. He knew it was. But how could it be?

  Following this group of doomed souls was not possible, of course, and even if it had been, it would have been exceedingly dangerous. So Jacob followed Max back to the sorting area behind Canada, just as he was supposed to do, and together they began to open the trunks and the luggage. Here they were allowed to talk, and Max didn’t miss a beat. He went straight to work, giving Jacob a cursory explanation of what he was doing, and Jacob tried to absorb it all and follow Max’s instructions. Men’s suits had to be put on a certain pile. Men’s slacks were to be put on another. Dress shirts on still another. Men’s shoes of all kinds had a separate pile. Ties and belts and other accessories still another. The women’s clothing had to be separated out and sorted differently.

  Jacob didn’t laugh or smile. There were times he wished he could. But the gloom over the deaths of his family members and the cruelty of this place permeated every crevice of his being. He didn’t see how Max could be so relaxed, so cavalier. Didn’t he care? Didn’t he see what was happening? Didn’t he know as well as Leszek what was happening to these people—and what could happen to them if they didn’t watch their step?

  40

  In the distance, Jacob heard another train whistle blow.

  He glanced over at Max, who was admiring an old violin he had pulled out of one of the trunks. When Max saw him staring, he tossed it without warning over to Jacob. Startled, Jacob reached out for it and barely caught it.

  “What’d you do that for?” he asked, annoyed.

  “You looked like you wanted it,” Max laughed as he continued to sort women’s hosiery from a mound of scarves and hats.

  “That’s not why I was looking.”

  “Then what?”

  “The train,” Jacob said, carefully setting the violin in a large nearby crate of musical instruments and then getting back to stacking several hundred books they’d pulled out of the cattle cars. “Please tell me it’s not coming here.”

  “Where else?” Max asked.

  “Carrying more Jews?”

  “Of course—and maybe a few Gypsies and political convicts thrown in for good measure.”

  “How many trains come every day?”

  “It varies. Seems to be increasing of late—two, three a day. One time we had five.”

  “Five?”

  “That was a special occasion, I guess,” Max said. “Kill three Jews, get two free.”

  “That’s not funny,” Jacob said.

  “I thought it was,” Max replied. “You play?”

  “What?”

  “Violin?” Max pressed. “Do you play?”

  “I used to.”

  “Maybe you should be in the orchestra.”

  “No thanks,” Jacob said. “Actually, come to think of it, no one is playing today. Why not?”

  “Their conductor was shot last night.”

  “For what?”

  “For trying to steal bread from the kitchen. Two of his friends—a trumpet player and some guy who plays the clarinet—came down with dysentery. They asked him to go to the kitchen and bring them something half-decent to eat. Unfortunately, Fat Louie caught him. Shot him in the back of the head. Anyway, there’s an opening for a conductor. Does that sound appealing?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Well, you could still play the violin,” Max said. “Just don’t steal any bread.”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “Why? Aren’t you any good?”

  Jacob shrugged.

  “I bet you are.”

  “I’m not,” Jacob insisted, seeing the mischief in Max’s eyes.

  “You’re just shy.”

  They went back to their work, Max folding and sorting like a department clerk in women’s wear, Jacob sorting and stacking books like a librarian.

  “Now you’re handling the biggest temptation I’ve faced since coming here.”

  “What?”

  “Stealing a book and taking it back to my block to read it through the night.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “The same reason you don’t want to play that violin—I want to live,” Max said. “And besides, Leszek searches me each night to make sure I haven’t gone rogue and stolen something despite all his warnings.”

  “What does he care?” Jacob asked.

  Max didn’t answer, which was odd. But it was the way he didn’t answer that made Jacob feel like he’d stumbled onto something important. But Max quickly changed the topic.

  “We need to hurry,” he said. “Got to be ready when the next train arrives.”

  As they sped up their sorting and began to put their piles into crates and take their crates into the warehouse to be cataloged and shelved, Max asked a question. “Jacob, does May 10, 1933, mean anything to you?”

  “Not specifically, why?”

  “The great book burning—you don’t remember it?”

  “You mean the one in Berlin?”

  “Not just Berlin,” Max said. “It happened at every university in the country.”

  “I was very young,” Jacob said.

  “So was I,” Max said. “But your father was a professor, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Didn’t he tell you about such terrible things?”

  Jacob shrugged. “Maybe he was trying to protect me from them.”

  “Not my father,” Max said. “I told you he was a rabbi. Actually, he was a great rabbi. Everyone in the town loved him. Well, the Jews, anyway. But he was a great lover of the written word, starting with the Torah and the Mishnah, but anything, really. He loved books. Absolutely adored them. He devoured them, sometimes several a week, eighty or ninety or more a year. He was insatiable in that way. And when the Nazis had those big book burnings, he was appalled—absolutely livid. That May we were in Berlin; my father was meeting with some of the top rabbis in Germany. That night, without telling my mother, he got me out of bed and took me up to the roof of the medical building on the University of Berlin campus, and we stood there together and we watched them do it.”

  Jacob forced himself to keep working, but he found himself drawn into Max’s story.

  “Students came from all over to burn books. They came by the hundreds. And they brought thousands of books. I was just a kid, of course, but I’d never seen so many books, even at the library. And then they built this enormous bonfire. The flames had to be leaping twenty, thirty, forty feet into the air. It was spellbinding. But they started throwing the books into the fire, and they’d shout the names of the authors and cheer. There were books by all kinds of writers—H. G. Wells, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, all the greats. They were all thrown into the fire. Anything the Nazis called ‘heretical’ or ‘un-German,’ their ideas went up in flames. My father was beside himself. He was filled with grief and immense anger. For weeks and months after it happened, he fumed about it with anyone who would listen. But no one wanted to talk about it, and everyone was worried my father was going to give himself a heart attack by getting so worked up over it. Worse, they were sure he was going to get himself arrested by the Gestapo for speaking out publicly. Anyway, one day my father said he’d heard that Freud had quipped, ‘What, only our books? In earlier times, they would have burned us.’ It seemed to my father such a clever line and perhaps a better perspective. Yes, he told me, it was terrible what the Nazis had done. But Freud was right; it could have been worse. So much worse. So he tried to relax, tried not to let the whole thing destroy him. And then he and my mother and I were rounded up one night and thrown onto a train and taken through the darkness until we woke up here. And they sent me to the right. And they sent him and my mother to the left. And I never saw them again.”


  Jacob stopped working. He could hear the whistle again. The train was pulling into the station. They had to finish. They had to move. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Now it was Max who shrugged and wiped tears from his eyes. “What are you going to do?”

  “I guess Heine was right.”

  “Who?”

  “Heinrich Heine.”

  “The poet?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was one of my father’s favorites,” Max said.

  “My father’s, too,” Jacob said.

  “So what did Heine say?”

  “‘Where books are burned, they will, in the end, burn people, too.’”

  Now Max stopped working.

  “He really wrote that?” he asked.

  “He did,” Jacob said.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know—1821, ’22, something like that.”

  “Maybe he was a prophet,” Max sighed.

  Jacob nodded. “Maybe he was.”

  41

  The next morning, Jacob arrived in Leszek’s office right after roll call.

  Max was already there, and together the three of them quickly swallowed several pieces of Swiss cheese, a banana, and a slice of bread, this time with a thin spread of apricot jam. These they all washed down with small metal cups of black coffee. Then they wiped the grounds out of the cups and hid them behind a file cabinet. Jacob wished he could have eaten and drunk more slowly, savored every morsel. After all, under such conditions, this was practically a gourmet feast. Men in the camp would kill for such food—literally. But when he saw how quickly the other two ate and drank and cleaned up and were ready for work, Jacob did his best to follow their lead. They had more freedom than most, but they had to be constantly on their guard.