Millions of Pebbles

by Roberta Kagan

  Ben nodded. “You’re right.” Then he added, “Do we have a date yet when this uprising is to take place?”

  “Not yet.”

  CHAPTER 36

  October 1944

  On an October afternoon, Ben was working in the kitchen peeling carrots when he heard a loud noise followed by gunshots and shouting. Then he saw several groups of prisoners running, followed by guards. More shots rang out. Prisoners fell.

  “What’s going on?” Josepf, one of Ben’s coworkers asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ben admitted.

  There was a loud blast that sounded like a bomb. The ground shook as if God had struck it with an angry fist.

  Ben and Josepf looked at each other.

  They tried to sneak outside to find out more information, but as soon as they left the building, two guards with rifles herded them into a line of prisoners who were being held at gunpoint.

  “Does anyone know what is going on?” Josepf asked.

  “The crematorium exploded,” someone said.

  “Exploded?” a prisoner said, his mouth falling open in shock.

  “I think that one of the sonderkommandos blew it up with a grenade.”

  “Where the hell would they get a grenade?” another prisoner asked.

  Ben knew where they would have gotten a grenade. They would have made it out of the explosives he had been collecting. But why wasn’t he told that the uprising was going to take place today?

  “I heard it started because one of the sonderkommandos attacked a guard with a hammer in Crematorium Four. Someone said that this morning the sonderkommando found out that the Nazis were planning to liquidate all of them.”

  “Oh my God. So there has been a revolt?” Josepf asked.

  “Shut your mouth. There will be no talking here.” One of the guards nudged Josepf with the point of his rifle.

  Ben felt his heart sink as he watched the prisoners run by him. Ever since he’d spoken with Paul, he’d been thinking about the possibility of making an escape. And he’d decided that freedom was worth the risk of dying. So he had been waiting for the chance to try and run away when the uprising took place. But, now, as he stood at gunpoint with the rest of this group, he knew the opportunity had passed him by. In the distance, he saw a few of the prisoners getting out by cutting the barbed wire. But many more were being shot down or electrocuted by falling into the fence as they were running.

  Over the next few hours, Ben learned that the revolt had indeed started in Crematorium IV and then had spread to the rest of the sonderkommandos. But before the men in Crematorium III and Crematorium V knew what was happening, the SS arrived and stopped them from joining the others in the uprising.

  That night, the sound of barking dogs sent terror through the hearts of the prisoners in Ben’s block. They knew the SS had sent them out to find the escapees and tear them to shreds.

  The results of the uprising were not promising. Only two SS officers had been killed, one beaten to death, another thrown into a furnace. But two hundred fifty prisoners had died including everyone who had been involved in organizing the revolt.

  Three days later the whistle blew, and the voice of one of the guards came over the loudspeaker demanding that everyone leave their jobs and come outside to line up as if this was a roll call. The prisoners ran to the roll-call area and fell into their regular place in line. Twelve dead bodies of the men who had tried to escape hung in full view of the prisoners.

  “Good afternoon, you disgusting swine,” an SS officer said as he walked up to stand in front of the group. He was a handsome man, healthy and robust. His shoeshine-black hair matched his well-polished, black boots. The death-head symbol on his hat glistened like a false idol in the sunlight. “Take a good look at these bodies hanging here.” He shook his head mockingly. “These vermin were foolish enough to think that they could rise up against the SS and escape. And now? Well, you can see what’s happened to them.” He barked a harsh laugh.

  “As I’m sure you know, a few of the prisoners decided to act up here a few days ago. Let me assure you that no one involved in this fiasco will go unpunished. If you happen to know of a man who you think escaped that day, please be assured that he did not get away. There was a group of men who got out of here and were hiding a few miles away in a barn. Such ingrates they were. But we knew what to do. We sent the dogs after them. The dogs sniffed them right out. How could they not? Jews have a stench, after all. Anyway, their hiding in that barn made things really rather easy for us. We just set the barn on fire, and they were burned alive. You should have heard the screams. And for those of you unfortunate enough to have a wife or a girlfriend who was involved in all of this, perhaps a sister or a daughter, any one of your lady pigs, who we discovered stealing explosives, well, rest assured that she will face torture and execution. Let this be a lesson to any of you who would dare to try and cause chaos here. It will not be tolerated.”

  CHAPTER 37

  January 1945

  On a frigid afternoon in mid-January, Ben was at work in the kitchen. There was not much to be thankful for these days, but he was thankful to be working in the kitchen, especially in the middle of winter because it provided a little more heat than any of the other jobs in the camp. He was cleaning out the large soup cauldron when a group of guards came racing in. They tore through the kitchen and began to divide the food among themselves. But a few of them actually gave a morsel or two to the prisoners.

  Ben received a huge hunk of bread from a guard he knew well. He was glad to receive the extra food but worried. Something was happening.

  “Line up outside in rows of six across,” one of the guards demanded. “Go now and mach schnell!”

  Ben left the kitchen and followed the rest of the prisoners outside. His uniform was thin and hardly protected him from the cold. He shivered as he stood in the lineup feeling as if he might freeze to death if he had to stand outside much longer. Shivering at the sidelines stood three guards in warm coats, with their guns pointed at the prisoners.

  A tall, slender man with dark hair and deep-set, sunken, dark-rimmed eyes walked to the front of the group and began to speak. “I am SS Oberscharführer Wilhelm Boger. Today we will be leaving Auschwitz. You will follow orders. Each of you must stay in this line just as you are now. We will travel on foot to our destination in an orderly fashion. Each of you will be given three potatoes and two pieces of cheese. Don’t be foolish and eat it all at once. This food must last you for the entire journey. You will not be given anything more for a long time, so use this gift from the German people wisely. You will be required to pull the handcarts that contain the luggage of the SS officers. Make sure that you are very careful with these possessions. You will be responsible for their safe arrival. Any damage to these things will cost you dearly. Those of you lazy swine who lag behind or try to escape will be shot on sight. Let’s go. Mach Schnell. March.”

  Ben looked up to see the placement of the sun. He determined it was probably some time around four o’clock in the afternoon as the prisoners were led out of the gate that read Work Makes You Free.

  It had snowed the night before leaving the ground covered in a blanket of freezing, white powder that found its way into Ben’s ill-fitting wooden shoes and treacherous patches of ice hid buried under the snow. Sliding on the ice in their wooden shoes, the prisoners tried to keep up with the rest of the line. They knew if they lost their footing it could cost them their lives. Some fell behind and were shot by the guards. One of the men who walked on the left side of Ben slipped several times. Ben grabbed him, holding him steady, but still walking, not losing his place with the rest of the group.

  Dead bodies lay in ditches on the side of the road. These were reminders of what would happen if a man fell and could not get back up before he was seen by the guards. Ben felt his stomach turn as he lumbered past the dead. The bodies lay in the snow, with blue lips and parchment-paper-gray skin. Dried blood stained the white blanket crimson. It was growing pai
nstakingly difficult for Ben to continue, but he knew that he must. Hunger burned in his belly, and there was a throbbing behind his eyes that made him feel dizzy. Two potatoes left, he thought, but even though he was frightened, he was starving to death, but he was afraid to eat them. If he did, he had no idea if or when there might be more. And yet all he could think of was the potatoes. The way the starch would taste against his tongue and the crunch of it's raw white meat. Walk. Keep walking. Don’t think about food. His eyes teared from the cold, and the tears froze on his eyelashes and cheeks. His nose ran and dripped down the front of his thin uniform. His parched throat ached. Quickly, Ben reached down and grabbed a handful of snow and pushed it into his mouth. It was so cold, so very terribly cold, but the wetness of it soothed the scratchy pain in his throat as it melted down into his belly. Night fell, and Ben was exhausted. Each step he took was a battle, but he willed his feet to keep moving. His ill-fitting shoes cut into the flesh of his feet. And, now as the sun was setting, the wicked, icy wind felt even colder. The man beside Ben collapsed. Ben tried to pull him back up, but he was dead weight.

  “Leave me,” he said. “I can’t go anymore.”

  “No,” Ben insisted. Suddenly saving this man was the most important thing in the world to Ben. “Get up.” Ben was pulling hard on the man’s uniform shirt. In the semidarkness, Ben could see the man shaking his head. And then one of the guards came over.

  “Get back in line,” the guard said to Ben.

  Ben was shivering. He was crying too. For some reason, even though he didn’t know this man, he could not leave him dying in the snow. He pulled at the man’s shirt again. The man would not move.

  “I’m losing patience,” the guard said. He was almost apologetic. For a mere second Ben thought he saw pity, a human quality that was rarely found in the guards at Auschwitz. “It’s cold out here. We have one more mile before we will stop for the night. Get back in line.”

  “But this man . . .” Ben stammered.

  Before Ben could finish speaking, the guard set his rifle on the prisoner who lay in the snow. He fired. The man’s blood and brain matter splattered Ben’s clothing. Ben looked at the guard. For a single second he didn’t comprehend what had just happened.

  “Get up, and get back in line, or you’re next.”

  Ben did as he was told. I was mistaken, he thought. This man’s not human; he’s a monster. They’re all monsters.

  By the middle of the second day of the march, Ben began to feel a terrible stabbing pain in his toes. He wanted to sit down and rub them. They were so cold; he needed to make them warm. But there was no stopping not even for a second. And by the third morning, his toes were numb, and he felt certain they were frostbitten. He was tired; his entire body ached with exhaustion. His eyes began to close, and he wanted to lie down in the snow and let go. But he didn’t. He willed his eyes to stay open and willed his feet to take one more step. At eighty pounds, the bones of his ribs and arms rubbed against the thin fabric of his uniform. One of the men, who had been pulling the cart that was carrying the possessions of two of the guards, died during the night. Ben was put in his place. The weight of the cart was too much for him. He began to weep. I don’t have anything left to live for. Even if the war is really ending, where will I go; what will I do? I don’t know where my son is or if he is alive or dead. And poor Zelda. I am afraid to think of what happened to her. It would be easier to die than to go on fighting for life. It would be so much easier to just sit down in the snow and let these bastards shoot me. Ben stopped walking and sat down. The snow was at least three feet deep. It soaked into the back and bottom of his uniform. The icy chill stung his skin.

  “Get up,” a thick, heavyset guard, with a red face and a double chin, growled at him.

  Ben shook his head and stared down at the snow ready and waiting, waiting for the bullet through his temple that would end the misery that had become his life. But, instead, an arm in a gray-striped uniform lifted him and began to push him forward. When he looked into the prisoner's eyes, he saw the face of a man he hated: Caleb Ornstein.

  Caleb pulled him along, holding him up.

  “Do you know who I am?” Ben said, struggling with the words.

  “Of course, I know. You’re Ben Rabinowitz.”

  “You’re Caleb Ornstein, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Get away from me.”

  “I’m sorry for what I did. Please, I beg you to forgive me. I’ve thought about you every day since I got here to Auschwitz. I owe you. I had no idea what I had done to you by sending you here. I didn’t know until I got here myself. Please, forgive me. I was wrong. I made mistakes. I can’t change the past, but give me a chance to change the future. We need each other. It’s impossible to survive this place without friends. I need you.”

  “Go to hell,” Ben said. “You should have left me there in the snow.”

  “I couldn’t. I’ve changed. Auschwitz had changed me. I’m not the same man I was in Lodz. I’ve been through plenty. And I’m sorry. All I can say is that from the bottom of my heart, I am so very sorry.”

  Ben looked into Caleb’s eyes. “Where did you come from? How did you get to Auschwitz? I haven’t seen you since I left Lodz, and I’ve looked for you here at Auschwitz. The truth is, I wanted to kill you.”

  Caleb sighed. “I know. I don’t blame you.”

  “And why the hell are you helping me now?”

  Caleb let out a deep breath that formed a white cloud around his face. “Because I owe you. Because I am haunted by everything I did to you and Zelda. I was a fool. I was jealous of you because you were born rich, and I was from a poor family. But I learned the hard way that in the end you and I are the same—we are both Jews. The Nazis taught me that. And being in a death camp teaches a man a lot about himself. I didn’t realize what I had done to Zelda or to you until I got to Auschwitz. Then I knew, and it was too late. The guilt of what happened to all the kids, all the people that I helped Rumkowski shove on to those trains.” Caleb hesitated. He shook his head, then he continued. “I got here the same time Rumkowski arrived. I know what happened to him. I’m not sure who did it, the sonderkommandos, I think. But there was no doubt that he deserved it. I probably deserved the same fate.”

  “No talking,” a guard, who walked by them, commanded, hitting Caleb with the butt of his rifle. Caleb winced, but he keep moving.

  The guard stayed close by, and so they walked in silence for almost a half hour. Ben was stunned by all that Caleb had told him. He should be angry. He should tear Caleb apart with his bare hands, but he didn’t. He was too weak to fight and too weak hold on to any anger.

  A man who looked old but was perhaps, in truth, about forty had been walking in front of them. He slipped on a patch of ice and fell, his shoe flying off. He struggled to stand up but couldn’t. He kept slipping like a marionette as he tried to get his feet back under him. One foot twisted awkwardly. It seemed as if he’d broken a bone in either his foot or ankle.

  The guard, who had been watching over Ben and Caleb, was instantly upon the fallen prisoner like a hungry wolf.

  “Please, have mercy,” the man said, still trying to get back on his feet.

  While the guard was busy with the man, Caleb began to speak to Ben. This time he spoke in a whisper. “I want to help you, so listen to me. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. When I was in the Lodz ghetto, I saw a man filling these big metal milk containers with important papers and artwork, then he buried them. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was planning to come back for them after the war was over. That’s when I got this idea. You see, at the time, I had access to valuables I could steal. So I filled a couple of the milk containers with money and jewelry, then I buried them in several different places. I might just survive this, so I can’t tell you where all of them are. But I am going to tell you where you can find one. Do you remember where I worked? Where Rumkowski and I worked?”

  “Of course. How cou
ld I ever forget?”

  “All right. The milk container is buried on the west side of that building, the one where I worked with Rumkowski.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want to make peace with God just in case I die. I feel like I have to do what I can to pay back what I owe you. I know money won’t bring back your girl. We can only hope that she’s alive. And believe me, I pray for it every day.”

  “Me too. And the two children as well,” Ben said.

  “All the children. All the children that Rumkowski had us put on that transport. I wish I had the power to go back and change that. I would never have done the things I did. I’m scared, Rabinowitz. I’m scared I am going to die here and end up in hell for eternity.”

  Ben looked over at Caleb. He was not the handsome, suave man Ben remembered: he was thin and sickly with pockmarks on his face, but he looked sincere. And in spite of all he’d done to Ben, Ben felt sorry for him.”

  “I am hoping that you will live through this, and when you go back to Lodz to dig up that milk container, the stuff inside will help you start your life over again.”

  “I never knew you were such a God-fearing man. I wouldn’t have believed it of you.”

  “I wasn’t until I got to Auschwitz. The man who slept beside me was a Hasidic Jew. I told him everything I did. We talked about you, and Zelda, and all the children. I confessed everything. He listened without judgment, then he gave encouragement as I prayed, and I begged for God’s forgiveness. He brought me back to God.”

  “Is he still alive?” Ben asked.

  “No. He’s dead.”

  Ben nodded solemnly.

  For three days, Ben and Caleb walked side by side. Then they were loaded onto an open train car where they were packed so tight they were forced to remain standing. But because of the close proximity of all the people, it was much warmer than walking.

  “The war is ending,” one of the prisoners in the train car whispered, “The Nazis are scared; that’s why they are taking us away.”