The Stone Crusher

by Jeremy Dronfield

  He lay there, pinned like a butterfly on a card, staring up at the swirling canopy of leaves flickering in the evening sun, his body a mass of pain, his ears filled with the screams and groans of other men. Then striped uniforms were in his vision, hands scrabbling at the trunk, lifting it off him. Looking around, he saw others picking themselves up, bloodied hands and faces, some sprawled and moaning with broken limbs. Friedmann lay a few feet away, motionless, whimpering hoarsely. He had taken most of the force of the falling trunk on his chest. Blood was leaking from his mouth.

  Gustav was picked up and carried. Seven other injured men were either carried or managed to hobble up the road to the camp and were delivered to the infirmary.2 Friedmann was brought in on a stretcher. He couldn’t move; his ribcage was crushed and his spine broken. He lay helpless, shat‑

  tered, and in agony. Gustav’s injuries were less severe, but not by much; his chest had taken some of the impact, and his broken fingers were on fire with pain.

  The lottery had finally run against him, as it did for nearly everyone. It could only run true so many times, and the longer one was forced to play it, the more certain it was that it would turn bad, until it became all but inevi‑

  table. Although there had been no invalid selections for several months, the prospects for any badly injured man were grim. The doctor’s needle and a vein full of phenol or hexobarbital was the likely fate, and then—smoke from the crematorium chimney like the rest.

  Friedmann died horribly but mercifully quickly from his injuries. The other men, most of whom were less badly injured, made it out of the infirmary in a short time. But Gustav remained, too sick to move. The days dragged by, and he was placed in a small ward adjoining Operating Room II. If he didn’t know already what this meant, he would quickly learn; Operating Room II was where lethal injections were given, and each man in the ward would be taken in there at some point and never come back.3

  It was probably the severity of Gustav’s injuries that saved his life. Those who were badly but not mortally sick or hurt were usually selected for killing.

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  called Helmut and managed to cling on to life. He was in the infirmary for six weeks, at the end of which he had recovered enough to be discharged.

  He didn’t have the strength to return to the haulage convoy or even the infirmary wagon, but his trade skills saved him. He was transferred to the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW), the smal factory within the main camp perimeter. It manufactured miscellaneous military supplies like cartridge cases, barrack‑room lockers, aircraft parts, and so on, and handled conversion of trucks into mobile canteens, as well as various other tasks.4 Gustav was given work as a saddler and upholsterer. For the first time since his arrival in the camp—almost the first time since the Anschluss four years earlier—he was able to practice his proper trade again.

  Gustav was happy—or as happy as one could be—in his new position.

  The work was congenial, and he made good friends. His foreman was a Ger‑

  man political prisoner named Peter Kersten, a former Communist Party city councilor—“a very brave man,” Gustav thought; “I get along with him very well.” He even managed to obtain a place for a Viennese Jewish friend, Fredl Lustig, who had been his foreman at one time on the haulage column. Together they made a contented band.

  So it went on until the beginning of October. And then everything changed.

  Fritz and his workmate, Max, lifted a heavy concrete lintel from the scaffold bed and carefully eased it into the place prepared for it in the wall above the window space. Fritz positioned it, checking its level and fit.

  Over the past two years, his skills as a builder had developed and grown under Robert Siewert’s tutelage, as had those of all the other young men in the construction detachment. All kinds of brick and stone work, plastering, general construction—he had mastered it all. Since completing the heat‑

  ing plant, the Siewert detachment had been moved to the site of the new Gustloff‑Werke, a huge factory that had been under construction since the spring on a site beside the Blood Road, opposite the SS garage complex.

  Once completed, it would turn out barrels for tank and antiaircraft guns, as well as rifle barrels and other armaments. When Fritz and his comrades arrived, most of the exterior walls were already up, and he had been put to 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 154

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  work fitting window lintels. Fritz was expected to complete two large fac‑

  tory windows a day, constructing the fenestrations, setting the lintels, and fixing them in place, a job requiring a highly skilled bricklayer and a great deal of care.

  His workmate, Max Umschweif, was a relative newcomer to Buchenwald, having arrived the previous summer. A slightly built Viennese with the intel‑

  ligent face of an intellectual, he had fought with the International Brigade against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. After the defeat of the Republican forces, he and his comrades had been interned in France; returning to Vienna in 1940 he’d been picked up by the Gestapo as a known antifascist and sent to the camps. Fritz loved hearing his stories about the war in Spain but was utterly bewildered that he had voluntarily returned to Austria knowing that the Gestapo would be after him.

  Using the butt of his trowel to knock the lintel into its final position, Fritz checked it with a spirit level, then quickly and skillfully mortared it in place.

  It was pleasant working up here on the scaffolding. While the SS overseers constantly harassed and beat the brick and mortar carriers, driving them to go faster, they never ventured up the ladders onto the scaffolding. Satisfied with the lintel, he turned and took a moment to stretch his muscles. There was a fine view over the forest from up here: beautiful in their October glory, the oaks and beeches were dappled with gold, pale oranges, and shades of red. Far away, the spread of Weimar could be seen, and the rolling farmlands around.

  Fritz had been through some terrible experiences in recent months—the departure of Leo Moses, his father’s accident and near death, close friends of his murdered by the SS, and the worrying news about his mother and Herta, which brought with it the agony of not knowing—but dreadfully fearing—what would become of them in the east.

  His reverie was interrupted by a call from below. “Fritz Kleinmann, come down here!” He clambered down the ladder. “Kapo wants you,” said one of the laborers.

  Fritz found Robert Siewert. He had that grave look again, and took Fritz quietly to one side. He put his arm around Fritz’s shoulders and pulled him close; he had never done such a thing before, and Fritz guessed that bad news was coming. “There is a list of Jews to be transferred to Auschwitz in the records office,” he said simply. “Your father’s name is on it.”

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  The shock was beyond almost anything Fritz had experienced. Everyone knew the name of Auschwitz, one of the crop of newer camps the SS had been establishing in occupied territories. He also knew its reputation, and what a transfer there would mean. There had been talk in Buchenwald; rumor, gossip, and news from far away, as well as events in the camp itself, warned the pris‑

  oners that the drama of the Jews had entered its last act, that the Nazis meant to final y dispose of the remainder who had not emigrated or died already.

  And there had been disturbing whispers about the gas chambers being built in some camps, including Auschwitz.

  Siewert explained what he had learned; the list was a long one, almost all the Jewish men in Buchenwald were on it, except for those like Fritz who were required for construction of the Gustloff factory. Fritz was dazed and
appalled; he knew so many youngsters in the camp who had lost their fathers and always feared that he would become one of them. “You will have to be very brave,” Siewert said.

  “But Papa does useful work in the factory,” Fritz objected.

  Siewert interrupted him. “It is everyone,” he said. “All the Jews except builders and bricklayers are going to Auschwitz.” He looked Fritz in the eye.

  “If you want to go on living, you have to forget your father.”

  Fritz struggled to find words. “That’s impossible,” he said. With that, he turned on his heel, scrambled back up the ladder to the scaffold, and went back to work.

  There were just over four hundred names on the list drawn up by Buchenwald’s command headquarters. A few days earlier they had received an order sent on behalf of Heinrich Himmler to all camp commandants: on the wishes of the Füh‑

  rer himself, the Reichsführer‑SS required that all concentration camps located on German home soil be made Jew‑free. All Jewish prisoners were to be trans‑

  ferred to camps in former Polish territory—namely Auschwitz and Majdanek.5

  In Buchenwald’s case there were only 639 Jews left: those who had survived the random murders, transfers, and euthanasia transports. Of that total, 234

  were employed on construction of the Gustloff factory; they were to be retained for the time being, while the remaining 405 were slated for Auschwitz.6

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  In the evening of Thursday, October 15, a few days after Fritz’s conversa‑

  tion with Robert Siewert, all Jewish prisoners were ordered to assemble in the roll‑call square.7 They all knew what to expect, and it was exactly as Siewert had foretold; the numbers of Fritz Kleinmann and the other skilled construction workers were called out. These men were ordered to return to their barrack blocks. The rest were informed that they were to be transferred to another camp. They were taken to block 11, which had been cleared to make way for them, and shut inside, barred from all contact with other prisoners. There they waited for the transfer to begin. They were kept in suspense for two days.

  Fritz hadn’t been able to rest since walking off the roll‑call square and leaving his father behind. Al night it tormented him. He knew that what Robert Siewert had said about learning to forget his father was sensible, wise advice, but Fritz could not imagine himself being able to follow it. The news about his mother and Herta had set a feeling of despair in him, and he couldn’t imagine how he could possibly live if his papa were murdered. In the early hours a rumor passed through the block, claiming that three of the prisoners in block 11 had been taken to the infirmary during the night and killed by lethal injections.

  The rumor was false, but it helped push Fritz over the edge.

  The next morning, before roll call, he sought out Robert Siewert and pleaded with him to pull whatever strings he could to get him placed on the Auschwitz transport.

  Siewert was aghast. “You have to forget your father,” he said again. “These men will all be gassed.”

  But Fritz was adamant. “I want to stay with my papa, no matter what happens. I couldn’t go on living without him.”

  There was nothing Siewert could say to dissuade him. As roll call was ending, he went and spoke to SS‑Lieutenant Max Schobert, the deputy com‑

  mandant. While the prisoners began dispersing and setting off for morning work, the call went up: “Prisoner 7290 to the gate!” Fritz reported and explained himself to Schobert, requesting that he be transferred with the others. It was all the same to Schobert how many Jews were sent to be exterminated, and he granted the request.

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  Fritz was led to block 11 and pushed inside. He found himself looking into the surprised faces of old friends and mentors—the thin, intellectual Stefan Heymann was there, and Gustl Herzog. There was the courageous Austrian antifascist Erich Eisler and Bavarian Fritz Sondheim—their faces gathered in front of him, astonished and appalled when they realized why he was here.

  They protested and implored, just as Siewert had, but he pushed past them, looking for his papa. And there he was, among the crowd. They rushed to each other and embraced, both crying with joy.

  Later that night, Robert Siewert came to take Fritz to sign a paper acknowl‑

  edging that he was going on the transport of his own free will. Then he was taken back to block 11. His parting from Robert Siewert was painful; he owed him his position, his skills, his very survival during the past two years.

  On the morning of Saturday, October 17, the 405 Jewish transferees—Poles, Czechs, Austrians, and Germans—were given a meager ration of food to take with them on their journey. Gustav’s consisted of a single hunk of bread. They were ordered to take no possessions with them, and then they were led outside.

  The mood in the camp was somber, even among the SS. Whereas previ‑

  ous transfers had been marched out under a hail of abuse and blows from the guards, the four hundred Jews marched to the gate in silence. Outside, a convoy of buses awaited them. Fritz and Gustav sat in almost civilized comfort as they drove down the Blood Road, up which they had run in terror almost exactly three years earlier. How much they had changed since then; how much they had seen. At Weimar station they were loaded into cattle cars—forty men in each.8 Extra boards had been nailed on to close up any gaps and make the cars absolutely secure.

  As it set off, the mood in Fritz and Gustav’s car—which they shared with Stefan Heymann, Gustl Herzog, and many other good friends—was depressed.

  In the daylight leaking through cracks in the car walls, Gustav took out his diary, keeping it out of view of the others. Having been forewarned of the trans‑

  fer, he’d ensured that he had it on him when they were moved to the isolation block. Whatever lay ahead, he felt better able to face it with Fritz by his side.

  “Everyone is saying it is a trip to death,”9 he wrote, “but Fritzl and I do not let our heads hang down. I tell myself that a man can only die once.”

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  Part III

  A u s c h w i t z

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  11 A Town Called

  O ś w i ę c i m

  ANOTHER TRAIN, ANOTHER TIME . . .

  Gustav woke from a doze with the sunlight rippling across his eyelids, and his nostrils filled with the odors of serge, sweaty male bodies, tobacco smoke, leather, and gun oil. His ears filled with the steady clatter of the train and the mutter of men’s voices, suddenly raised in song. The boys were in good spirits, even though they might be on their way to their deaths. Gustav rubbed his neck, sore where he’d rested his head on his pack, and retrieved his rifle, which had slipped to the floor.

  Standing up and peering out through the side slot, he felt the warm sum‑

  mer wind on his face and smelled the scents of the meadows, coming to him fleetingly through the shreds of smoke from the locomotive. The rolling wheat fields were at the green‑gold stage, ripening toward the harvest. A village spire broke through a gap in the distant rise; beyond stood the green of the Beskid mountains, and beyond that the ghostly curtain of the Babia Góra, the Witches’

  Mountain. This was the land of his childhood. After six years in Vienna it looked strange, in that peculiar way of a vivid memory suddenly unearthed.

  He’d been drafted into the Austrian Imperial and Royal Army in the spring of 1912, his twenty‑first year.1 As a born Galician he’d been placed in the 56th Infantry Regiment, which was based in the Cracow district.* For most young working‑class men their three years’ army service was a welcome interlude. Conditions for conscripts were good b
y military standards, and

  * Now Kraków, Poland

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  it opened their horizons. Many were illiterate, most had never been farther than the next village, and all they knew was low‑paid agricultural work or journeyman trades. In Galicia the majority didn’t even speak German; many couldn’t even tell the time.2 Gustav had seen more of the world than most of his fellow recruits, having been a resident of Vienna for the past six years, and he spoke both Polish and German; but as an apprentice upholsterer he was poor, and the army provided some stability. It was a transition to manhood, and provided an exciting environment—the army was still in its imperial heyday of hussars and dragoons, colorful, dashing dress uniforms, and endless pomp with the flags and banners of the imperial Double Eagle fluttering over it all.

  Austria was immensely proud of its imperial history and of its army, which contained in its ranks Slavs, Jews, Hungarians, and many other nationalities and ethnic groups besides Austrian Germans; it had once been the greatest empire in Europe, and although reduced considerably by its wars with Napoleon and various other nineteenth‑century enemies, Austria‑Hungary remained a great and extensive power, at least equal to its upstart neighbor, Germany. It was said that the cryptic Habsburg heraldic device “AEIOU” stood for either a German phrase meaning “All the Earth is subject to Austria” or a Latin one meaning “Austria will stand until the end of the world.”3 Either way, it was a nation of gigantic pride and hubris, and to be in its army was to be part of a martial history going back to the Holy Roman Empire.

  For Gustav it had meant a return to his homeland, and he had spent most of the first two years in the garrison at Kenty,* a small town in the farmlands north of the Beskid mountains, about halfway between his home village of Zablocie and a town called Oświęcim, a pretty, prosperous, but otherwise unremarkable place on the Prussian border, remembered by soldiers of the neighboring 57th Infantry as the scene of a minor battle in the 1866 war against Prussia.4