“What do you usually play here?” Alma inquired in an undertone.
From Sofia, a shrug. “Anything cheerful. None of that sad classical business. Our official task is to lift their spirits, so any popular tunes should do.”
“Will Zara Leander’s ‘Blaue Husaren’ do?”
“Zara Leander will most certainly do.”
“You know, her grandparents were Jewish,” Alma said in a neutral voice. “Just like Margarete Slezak’s, the Berlin opera star and Hitler’s favorite.” Ignoring Sofia’s stunned look, Alma picked up her bow, her eyes gazing into the distance. “Margarete—Gretl as we all used to call her—was my childhood friend… She used to vacation with us every summer, at our summerhouse near the Black Forest. We used to be so inseparable, Vati liked to joke that we were attached at the hip. But when I tried contacting her again in 1938, right after my father was fired from his position at the Vienna Philharmonic, she refused to help us. Was afraid for her family’s fragile position, I suppose. She travels all over occupied Europe, entertaining the troops, from what I last heard.” As though suddenly awoken from a dream, Alma struck her bow on the wall in the absence of a music stand and commanded, “Ladies, ‘Blaue Husaren’!”
Within seconds, the very atmosphere in the ward changed. A merry tune swept over the infirmary inmates, waking them from their fitful daytime sleep.
Alma thought it to be a travesty to play such cheerful music in the barrack that stunk of death and where condemned women lay on the bare floor just outside this ward, ignored even by the medical staff. But the SS declared that the music raised morale and so they played—for the dying women in the sickbay and for the outside gangs heading out of the gates every single morning to their brassy marches as though on some grotesque parade.
Slaves themselves, they played for the enslaved people, in a world that must have gone completely mad if such concepts as music and unimaginable suffering could peacefully coexist in a hell like Auschwitz.
While they played, a few women dragged themselves off their bunks and shuffled, barefoot, just to stand against the wall near the orchestra girls, clutching their pitiful imitations of blankets next to their caved-in chests. From time to time, they reached out with their nearly transparent, blue-veined hands and touched the instruments, faint smiles full of tender melancholy lighting up their exhausted, ash-white faces.
A nurse appeared with a single roll of aspirins and distributed it among the patients that were ready to trade their rations for the little relief the pills could provide. Most of the medicaments came from the local black market, according to the all-knowing Zippy. Morphia was the most expensive, but even that could be organized from the SS hospital, where it could be had in abundance. One only had to know the right infirmary inmate to bribe.
An impatient honk from the outside and familiar German shouts sent the medical staff and the healthiest inmates that could still move about scrambling. The inmates who had been listening to the music, resting the weight of their bodies on one elbow, flattened themselves on their bunks and pulled the blankets up to their necks, their frightened gazes riveted to the corridor. In it, some sort of an Aktion—a typically German euphemism for an extermination operation—was happening, for the frantic screams soon replaced faint moans and desperate pleas, in all European languages imaginable. That still-invisible, Babylonian orgy of violence nearly drowned out Alma’s orchestra with the sheer volume of it. Stiff with fear, the girls picked up the tempo without any command, propelled by some animalistic instinct of sheer self-preservation.
From the corridor came an incensed shout in German. It was the voice of someone who was used to giving commands and having those commands obeyed. “The SS medical office gave you an order to put seventy inmates on today’s list. I’ve only counted forty-three. Where are the rest?!”
The inmate doctor—body positioned firmly on the threshold of the ward, blocking the SS man’s way to her charges, the brave woman—responded something to the effect of the rest being able-bodied workers in recovery, tried demonstrating some charts to the uniformed man, in a pitiful attempt to save a few patients from him and his list.
Germans loved making those, Alma recalled Zippy saying. They also loved putting numbers on them, numbers to which they had reduced the camp population. The main office in Berlin had put a request for twenty thousand to be liquidated in August; Auschwitz Kommandant Höss ensured that precisely twenty thousand were put to death by the end of the month. Sick or healthy, Jews or communists, men or women—that mattered not. What mattered was that the lists were correct and numbers in order.
The inmate doctor was still saying something, her pleading eyes trained on the guard, but he simply backhanded her with such force, she stumbled into the wall and sank onto the floor, still clasping the clipboard to her chest.
The SS man stepped over her legs and regarded the ward, eyes narrowed, a truncheon in hand. In less than an instant, he yanked a flimsy blanket from a patient who had the misfortune to lie closest to him. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m recovering from malaria, Herr Unterscharführer.” Eyes wide open, the entire body trembled with dread on her bunk.
“Are you still sick?”
Unsure of her reply, the woman risked a glance in the doctor’s direction. The latter didn’t meet her gaze; only stood, rubbing her temple, with a doomed look on her face.
“I asked you a question, you Scheiße-Jude! Have you gone mute with fear?!”
“Jawohl, Herr Unterscharführer.” Her answer was a mere whisper.
“Jawohl, what?!”
“Jawohl; I’m still sick, Herr Unterscharführer.”
With a vicious grin, the guard raised his truncheon and hit the woman on her bare legs. “How about now? Still sick? Shall I give you some more medicine or shall I help you onto that truck outside? The Reich has no need of sick Jewish vermin that can’t work and contribute to the war effort.”
Two painful welts were already rising on the woman’s legs. As though in some terrible nightmare, Alma stared at them, unable to look away, all the while her hands produced the joyful music of their own volition. She suddenly felt herself to be a powerless marionette in some grotesque puppet theater performance conducted by an invisible madman. Her fellow terrified puppets followed her tune just as mechanically, as though their hands were being pulled by the same hidden strings.
The woman scrambled off her bed and swayed at once, almost collapsing from the effort. “I can work, Herr Unterscharführer!”
The SS man burst into laughter, spreading his arms wide. Behind his back, two male inmates in striped pants but civilian jackets joined in. Standing in the door, they were shifting from one foot to the other, awaiting their master’s orders. Turning to them, the guard motioned his truncheon in the trembling woman’s direction. “It’s a miracle healing! Have you ever witnessed anything like it? Let us see how many more of these Jewish cows have been vacationing here at the Reich’s expense. I still need those twenty-seven inmates to make my list.”
The two hulking inmates swiftly moved through the ward, sending more women scrambling off their bunks. The ones who could stand, pulled themselves upright, their shaking hands clasping at the walls and each other for support. The ones who couldn’t manage even that were roughly pulled off the beds and dragged into the corridor by their ankles or wrists.
In her corner by the door, the doctor silently ticked off their numbers off her list. Her face was entirely wet with tears.
Outside the barrack walls, the wailing had grown to an unbearable level. Fighting the desire to press her ears with both hands, Alma continued to play under the SS man’s curious gaze. He strolled among the emptied bunks and approached the orchestra. Stopping within mere steps from Alma, he began whistling the song she was playing in perfect tune with her violin. She closed her eyes, unable to stand the sight of his handsome, vicious face in front of her.
Suddenly, something landed on top of her right hand, startling her.
Alma’s bow cut across the strings in sharp protest. Inside her chest, her heart was pounding so loudly, she could swear it would break her ribs any moment now. The rounded end of the truncheon touched her bow hand once again—a playful tap, not a painful blow.
“That’s my favorite song,” the guard announced amicably. The sudden change from a raging beast to a Zara Leander music lover was more than disturbing. “Are you a professional?”
“Jawohl, Herr Unterscharführer.”
“What’s your name?”
“Alma Rosé, Herr Unterscharführer.”
He scrunched up his face, searching his memory. “Are you that new violinist Lagerführerin Mandl won’t stop bragging about?”
“I suppose, Herr Unterscharführer.”
“Now I see what the fuss was all about. You play very well.” Alma didn’t detect any notes of sarcasm in his voice. He appeared genuinely impressed.
“Thank you, Herr Unterscharführer.”
In the silence that followed, animalistic screams coming from behind the barrack walls turned outright deafening. All of a sudden, Alma couldn’t get her breath. It was all too much, too loud, too terrifying—this SS man with his truncheon, the helpless doctor, the emaciated bodies shivering next to each other along the wall, the condemned humanity that wailed like a herd of trapped animals led to slaughter and the fact that there was no escape from it all.
“Hey, stinkers,” the SS guard called to his inmate underlings, “have you heard how well she can play?”
“First-rate music, Herr Unterscharführer!” They rushed to nod in agreement at once, their faces a unanimous picture of servility. “Such talent!”
“You wouldn’t know talent if it hit you in your ugly mugs,” the SS man grumbled, just to hear a deferential, Jawohl, Herr Unterscharführer, in response to the insult. Disgusted, he slapped one of his underlings half-heartedly as he passed them by.
Whatever propelled her to move after him, Alma didn’t know. The floor of the eerily empty corridor, where dying women had lain mere minutes ago, was already being hosed down by an inmate-nurse. Alma regarded her with reproach. Sofia tried calling after her, but Alma’s feet carried her forward as though of their own volition.
Outside, a truck was parked. Two well-built inmates in white undershirts and striped caps were presently hurling the women into it by their legs and arms, ignoring their petrified shrieks.
“There are corpses here! Corpses! You’re putting us together with the dead people! We aren’t dead yet!”
“You shall be, in about thirty minutes,” the SS officer explained good-humoredly, after consulting his watch.
Gradually, the protests gave way to the sobs, forlorn and profoundly miserable.
Without thinking, Alma brought the violin to her shoulder and rested her chin on it. She had no power to change their fate; neither could she help the condemned women any other way and so she did the only thing she could think of—she played the Hatikvah for them. It was a capital offense, playing the national song of the Israelites in Auschwitz and yet, it suddenly didn’t matter to Alma that she would land in the back of the same truck for such insolence, adding one more name to the SS man’s list.
He stood there gaping at her in stunned silence, which could be followed by a violent eruption any moment and Alma knew it. But still, this was the right thing to do; she felt it deeply inside, and the right thing was always worthy of risking one’s life for.
Inside the truck with the Red Cross on it, the women gradually quieted down. Alma’s violin roused something in them; something that the Nazis had tried to eliminate and erase from their very memories for all eternity—the national pride of the long-suffering people that had survived for thousands of years against all odds.
With resolute, noble dignity, they rested their shaved heads on each other’s shoulders and sang the song of the Promised Land with their eyes closed. Most cried silently without a single muscle on their faces moving; some regarded her with gratitude for bringing them peace during the last minutes of their lives.
Taking her violin off her shoulder, Alma saw that it, too, was wet with her own tears. She didn’t even realize that she had been crying this entire time.
When Alma turned to face the SS man, she noticed his truncheon hanging motionlessly by his side, as if he suddenly wasn’t sure of what to do with it.
“Herr Unterscharführer,” she addressed him softly and this time with a measure of respect in her voice. “Allow me please to go with them. They’ll go more peacefully if I keep playing for them—”
“No.” Recovering himself at last, he interrupted her with a categorical shake of his head. “That’s not allowed. Only the Sonderkommando are allowed inside the—” Stopping himself abruptly, he pursed his lips as if he had let on more than he was supposed to, put his cap back on and marched off. The doors to the truck were locked with an ominous clang, but this time not a sound could be heard from the inside. Soon, it drove off in the direction of the crematorium, leaving Alma alone in front of the deathly silent barrack.
Chapter 7
“You don’t have to go to the ramp,” Sofia said. By now, Alma was familiar with a camp slang the inmates and the SS used for the railroad unloading platform. “It’s just idiotic march music that they expect for us to play for the new arrivals while the SS doctors sort them out. I have just enough conductor’s talent to supply that.”
Sofia was standing on the threshold of Alma’s room, watching her struggling with the hairbrush. Alma’s hair was growing out and curling into short, silky ringlets that positively refused to be assembled into any sort of order. In the washed-out light of the morning, the violinist’s eyes shone brighter than usual—black, radiant, alert with intelligence. They were her most striking feature that commanded attention at once. She was painfully pallid; her cheekbones stood out far too much in her face and yet, those marvelous, liquid eyes of hers glowed with such hidden strength, it was impossible not to fall under the spell of their quiet power. Sofia found it amazing how, even in such horrid conditions, Alma managed to carry herself with the dignity of royalty, no less. It appeared as though she simply refused to be touched by the baseness of camp life and kept her head high and shoulders squared almost in defiance of the degradation they all had been forced to embrace.
It was a fortunate thing for the orchestra that Mandl had appointed Alma as a Kapo, Sofia thought without an ounce of resentment for the lost position. Alma was much stronger than her; she would teach the girls how to survive.
“I’ve heard that you-don’t-have-to-go-there song before.” Alma gave her a certain look. “Last time, it came from Zippy. I’m starting to fear you two are plotting against me in the hope to usurp my hard-earned Kapo’s power.”
In spite of herself, Sofia chuckled, grateful for the humor, gallows or not. “Even Zippy doesn’t go to the ramp if she can help it. Why would you want to?”
Having given up on the brush, Alma covered her head with a kerchief and gathered her violin case along with the conductor’s baton from the table. “I don’t want to, but I shall go all the same. If the entire orchestra is there, it’s only suitable for the conductor to be there as well.”
“Ramp is hell.”
“This entire place is hell, if that idea is new to you.”
“Some of its parts are more hellish than the others.”
“Perhaps so. Even more reason for us to go there and play music.”
“Dr. Mengele will be conducting selections. His presence alone would be enough of an incentive for me to stay away from the place.”
Herr Doktor’s reputation preceded him. The camp rumor was, compared to Dr. Mengele, Dr. Clauberg from the Auschwitz Experimental Block was a simple scoundrel. Unlike his colleague, Dr. Mengele’s imagination wasn’t limited to bloodless sterilization. Sterilization was, in fact, below him. Dr. Mengele had much grander ambitions than that—he was working on a paper on Aryan racial theory and thought it to be a marvelous idea to use Auschwitz inmates as gu
inea pigs to prove its thesis. He’d arrived in the camp only recently, after being injured on the Eastern front, but had already secured the entire compound of Birkenau experimental blocks for himself—separate barracks for twin boys and twin girls, a barrack for gypsies and dwarfs, a facility for inmates with deformities, whom, according to Zippy and the documents she was sometimes forced to type in the camp office, Herr Doktor dissected with envious regularity and the fanaticism of a mad scientist. Sometimes, he didn’t bother with the anesthesia. Sometimes, he put chemical dyes in children’s eyes in the hope to change their color. So far, he’d been unsuccessful, Zippy had told Sofia; Zippy knew it because it was her and Mala, her Jewish colleague from the camp office, who packed jars with those eyes swimming in them in different solutions, into boxes that bore “Handle with Care: War Material—Urgent” labels on them. All were shipped to the Institute of Biological, Racial and Evolutionary Research at Berlin-Dahlem.
Something clicked in Alma’s mind. She was still shaken after what had occurred in the sickbay and she had sworn to herself, as soon as they returned to the block, that she would do anything in her powers to prevent her girls from being thrown onto one of those trucks in such a despicable manner. And now, she stood before Sofia, thinking feverishly. It was something uttered by that SS man, just one phrase that kept working itself in circles in her mind—the SS medical office gave you an order to put seventy inmates on the list…
Alma’s head snapped up. She was looking at Sofia sharply, a beginning of a smile forming on her lips. “Is Dr. Mengele only in charge of the ramp selections?” Alma inquired with sudden interest when Sofia didn’t budge from her position in the door, as though physically blocking it with her body.
“No. He conducts them around the camp as well, whenever he’s bored. Which is almost every other day.”
“Can Mandl override him in his decisions?”
The Violinist of Auschwitz: Based on a true story, an absolutely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel Page 7
