The Violinist of Auschwitz: Based on a true story, an absolutely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel

by Ellie Midwood

  “Your orchestra is very good,” the SS man said, calling Alma back to herself. She saw him narrow his eyes at her girls with the detached look of a bank accountant about him. He was calculating something to himself. “But you have far too many Jews among your musicians.”

  Alma’s face grew very still. “They’re all professional musicians,” she said, holding his gaze.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hössler and Mandl climbing the stairs to the stage.

  “That is all fine and well, but the orchestra was first organized as an Aryan Kommando,” the officer pressed, growing annoyed with her staring.

  “The Aryan musicians weren’t professional,” Alma explained with an icy smile. “All they could play was simple military marches and popular songs. Frau Lagerführerin and Herr Obersturmführer expressed their desire for an actual, professional orchestra. Now, we can play Bach and Vivaldi. However, if you still have complaints about the quality of their playing…” Under Sofia’s mortified gaze, Alma turned to Hössler and beamed at him. “Herr Obersturmführer, could you perhaps allow a couple of your men’s camp orchestra’s members to come and tutor my new Jewish girls? Herr Scharführer has just expressed his concerns about the quality of their performance and I wouldn’t want to disappoint him next time we perform.”

  In the periphery of Alma’s vision, Sofia rolled her eyes toward the ceiling in pure torment.

  “I don’t see how it would harm anyone.” Hössler produced an elegant silver cigarette case and, under the blond Austrian’s incredulous look, offered it to Alma.

  Now, thoroughly ignoring her compatriot, Alma was speaking to Hössler directly: “As a matter of fact, the orchestra could use a double bass player, so we could expand our repertoire even further. I have two new arrivals from Greece—Lily and Yvette—and Yvette was just learning how to play a double bass at her hometown, Salonika, when her family was deported. Perhaps, Herr Obersturmführer has someone who could continue teaching her how to play it?”

  “I could certainly free someone of their duties for a couple of months.” He held his lighter to her cigarette. The Austrian officer was staring at him as though his superior had completely lost his head. “Will a couple of months be enough to…”

  “Of course, Herr Obersturmführer!” Alma rushed to reassure him. “Just in time for Christmas.” She smiled charmingly at him.

  “Just what we need, Jews performing at Christmas,” the Austrian commented with a derisive snort, searching Mandl’s face for support.

  But the leader of women’s camp was looking at Hössler instead, her expression unreadable.

  It took Hössler a few moments to react. At first, the benevolent grin slid off his face. His features hardened like plaster; the eyes turned black with growing rage as color mounted in his cheeks. Slowly and deliberately, Hössler turned to the SS man, squaring his shoulders, uncoiling before the Austrian like a poisonous snake. The SS guard was taller than his superior, but he somehow shrank, contracted before this threatening presence that suddenly appeared to tower over him, ready for slaughter.

  “Perhaps you wish to perform yourself then, you miserable idiot?” Hössler roared, his face distorted with ire. Alma’s shoulders jerked from the pure violence of his shout. “If you believe that you can play better than the Jews, go straight ahead. Pick up an instrument. Entertain us. Well?! Why are you so silent all of a sudden? Have you gone dumb with fear? Frau Alma is doing her best trying to conjure up a real orchestra for us to enjoy and you question her qualifications and judgement? SS cultural evenings aren’t mandatory. If Jews playing music offends your delicate senses so much, march out of here before I help you find your legs. Self-righteous raven with epaulettes! Stand to attention when your superior addresses you. Or don’t they teach you that anymore in your schools? Has the racial theory replaced military drill, what?!” he bellowed in the young man’s face.

  The latter had gone white in the face. Shoulders squared, palms pressed against his jodhpurs, he stared straight ahead as though on the parade ground in front of a drill sergeant.

  “I said, what?!” Hössler’s incensed shout immersed the entire hall in tense silence.

  “No, Herr Obersturmführer.”

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “No, Herr Obersturmführer!”

  “No, what?”

  The young man stood there at a loss, already trembling. “No, they didn’t replace military drill,” he managed at last.

  “And what else?”

  “No, Jewish music doesn’t assault my delicate senses, Herr Obersturmführer.”

  “Get lost, you louse with a rank! Whoever signed that promotion for you?!” Hössler snarled viciously at the sight of the hastily retreating officer.

  Meanwhile, Maria Mandl was stroking his sleeve, saying something softly to him, but he appeared to be entirely oblivious to her presence in his infuriated state.

  Alma caught Sofia’s reproachful glare directed at her. Well? That’s the benevolent Herr Benefactor of yours. A fine temper; just what we need to play with.

  The former Polish Kapo was right, of course. The SS were all the same. The Berlin office didn’t send charitable souls here; only savages for whom human life was worth nothing, and after seeing how Hössler had treated his own kind, Alma could only imagine what he could do to hers.

  She looked away in embarrassment. A jolt went straight through her nerves, already strained to the utmost, when a hand landed on top of her arm, under which she was still squeezing her violin by its neck.

  “I hope you can forgive my unacceptable behavior.” Hössler was back to his well-bred self as though nothing had transpired. “It was in no way my intention to insult you with all that…” He sighed, annoyed. “They’re young and stupid. For the most part. Aren’t they?” He turned to Mandl. She nodded readily, a pacifying hand still on his cuff. “What of the banquet? Is everything ready?”

  “I shall go and inquire at once.” The women’s camp leader disappeared, and Alma suddenly felt exposed and in great danger without their Lagerführerin in proximity. A forgotten cigarette trembled imperceptibly in her ice-cold fingers.

  “Yes, young and stupid,” Hössler repeated and smiled at Alma somewhat tiredly. The lines around his mouth and eyes grew more pronounced. “Are you Jewish, Frau Alma?” he asked suddenly.

  She didn’t know what Mandl had told him, but for some reason, after a moment’s hesitation, Alma acknowledged that yes, she was. A full Jew. Baptized first as a Protestant, then as a Catholic, but a Jew nevertheless.

  Hössler shook his head, the same melancholy smile never leaving his face. “No, you’re not a Jew. You’re a Viennese, and that’s an entirely different race of people. Educated, refined, cosmopolitan… How I should love to sit down and share a cognac with you and talk about art and music and whatnot. If you only knew how starved I am for intellectual conversations here, Frau Alma.”

  “I’m sure that Lagerführerin is a fine conversationalist…” Alma’s voice trailed off when Hössler broke into soundless chuckles.

  “Ah, yes. You ought to say that about your camp leader. Very savvy of you. I’ll tell her you said that.” He gave her another wry look. “Are you married, Frau Alma?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Obersturmführer.”

  Hössler made a face. “Don’t say Jawohl to me. I can’t bear hearing it, from you, at any rate. Just say, yes or no, like normal people do.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your husband?”

  “In Holland, Herr Obersturmführer.”

  “A gentile?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded his approval. “Marriage didn’t protect you?”

  “No, Herr Obersturmführer. A new decree came out…”

  “Ah. I see. Always the new decree.” He looked away as though in embarrassment. When he turned back to her, an expression of genuine regret was on his face. “I’m sorry you ended up here, Frau Alma. You’re a fine violinist and a fine woman. You don’t belong he
re.”

  “I’m happy here, Herr Obersturmführer. We have a very nice barrack and we’re treated very well. We have nothing to complain about. And if I didn’t end up here, who knows what would have happened to my girls?”

  For a very long moment, Hössler regarded her with an unreadable expression on his face. “Yes, a fine woman indeed,” he said softly at last. “Well, if you’re happy, I’m happy too. Tell me, Frau Alma: after the war is over, will you have that glass of cognac with me?”

  Caught off guard, Alma wasn’t sure of how to react. But she quickly recollected herself and smiled brightly at the man, who was holding not only hers, but her entire orchestra’s lives in his hands.

  “It will be my pleasure, Herr Obersturmführer.”

  “And my honor, Frau Alma. Thank you for your splendid playing this evening. Don’t leave just yet. Wait behind the stage. When the banquet is over, and the uniforms are gone, the waiters will serve you dinner on my orders. There shall be plenty of food for you and your girls.”

  That was the last thing she had expected.

  “Thank you, Herr Obersturmführer.” Alma discovered that she actually meant it this time.

  Chapter 11

  “I regret to inform you, but our pianist is gone.”

  Alma stared at her counterpart. Just like her, the Kapo of the Birkenau men’s orchestra, Szymon Laks, wore civilian clothes and would have looked like a regular intellectual, if it weren’t for the striped cap appearing oddly out of place with his made-to-measure jacket. His dark hair under it also wasn’t shaved, Alma noticed, but neatly brushed and smoothed with water.

  She had caught them just in time, he had informed her mere moments ago; they were just about to set out for the main Appellplatz to play during the execution. “The camp resistance fellows again,” he had sighed dejectedly. “They say the camp Gestapo chief Grabner fried one of the poor devils’ faces off on one side entirely to get the names of the accomplices from him, but the fellow said nothing. What were they even trying to accomplish, the poor sods?”

  Perhaps nothing, Alma mused to herself, watching the men gathering their instruments. Or, perhaps, at least this way they wouldn’t die compliantly, like sheep, for nothing and that was worth all the torture and the noose.

  “Gone?” Uncertain, Alma jerked her thumb in the direction of the crematorium, hoping to steer Laks away from the subject that would certainly give her nightmares.

  Laks grinned. “No. Gone home.” Under Alma’s incredulous glance, he pushed his steel-rimmed glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “He had served his six-month term and was released back to freedom. He was a Reichsdeutsche, you see,” he went on to explain. “First-rate German blood. Unlike our kind, they can actually get out of here.”

  “Looked like a Teutonic knight,” a double bass player, Heinz Lewin, inserted. “Fit for their propaganda movies, no less.”

  On Alma’s request and with Hössler’s blessing, Heinz had been freed from his secondary duties as a watchmaker and appeared to be very enthusiastic on account of spending his days among the orchestra girls for the next two months. Summoned by the runner from his watchmaking work detail, he had already assembled his things and was patiently waiting for Alma while she was trying to negotiate another couple of tutors for her girls. There was no immediate need for a pianist; in fact, Alma’s Music Block didn’t even have a piano, but she had Flora struggling with her piano accordion and if Alma could find a tutor for her, she felt it would improve the girl’s chances significantly.

  “To be truthful with you, he was a lousy pianist,” Laks went on, “but a good fellow.”

  “He’ll be back before we know it.” Heinz smirked good-humoredly.

  “Why would you say that?” Alma asked.

  “He’s too much of a humanist to know what’s good for him,” Laks explained. “That’s how he got himself into this fine SS resort in the first place. His father is one of those Golden Pheasants: the top Nazi brass. What do you know? Instead of going to one of their Napola schools for the future leaders of the Reich, the idiot decided to make music and, along with it, false papers for our kind.”

  Alma noticed that not only Laks, but at least half of the male orchestra members wore yellow stars sewn onto their clothes. All at once, Hössler’s lenience toward Alma’s taking in more and more Jewish girls began making a whole lot of sense. He’d been practicing the same very thing in his male orchestra for quite some time. It was refreshing, having the SS man in the camp, for whom the quality of music was more important than the musicians’ racial status.

  “He only spent a few months here,” Laks said. “It’s thanks to him that they organized the entire male orchestra in Birkenau.”

  “Unseemly for the Nazi bigwig’s son to bend his back at some detail unworthy of His Grace’s pedigree.” Heinz chuckled, but without malice.

  “He hated it when we would tease him about it,” one of the violinists inserted. “I’ve seen many people being ashamed of their race in my day, but I’ve never seen anyone get ashamed on account of being a Reichsdeutsche.”

  “Perhaps he hated being teased about it because he knew that he had a reason to be ashamed,” Alma reflected. “Other races are innocent. If my race was presently slaughtering the others indiscriminately, that would make me ashamed of it too.”

  Laks didn’t argue the point. “Is your Ausweis good for the main camp?” he asked instead. After Alma nodded, he produced a piece of paper and wrote a short message on it. “Try Auschwitz orchestra for the pianist. Show the conductor this note; they’re Poles there for the most part—the Kommandant doesn’t care all that much what we do here in Birkenau, but he’ll drop dead before he permits any Jews into his Auschwitz orchestra—and they may get difficult with you.”

  “Why would they get difficult with me?”

  “You’re a Jewess who has replaced their fellow Pole as a Kapo.” Laks shrugged as though it was a sufficient explanation.

  Alma snorted softly. In this fine SS resort, it was.

  After taking Heinz to the Music Block and leaving him to his new tutoring duties—although there would hardly be any tutoring that day, Alma thought with a smile, just lots of chatter and that was fine by her—she made her way back to the men’s camp, thoroughly avoiding the Appellplatz with its gallows. Having considered Laks’ warning about the Polish members of the orchestra, Alma thought it wise to supply them not only with the Kapo’s note, but with something more substantial. A direct order from the camp leader, for one instance.

  “Obersturmführer Hössler?” she inquired at the checkpoint, after presenting her pass to a bored-looking SS guard, reading the entertainment section of a newspaper.

  With a voluminous sigh, he reached for his ledger and checked the time. “The transport has arrived two hours ago. He must be supervising the Aktion at the Krema.”

  “Which one?”

  The guard rolled his eyes. “The fourth one.” He was back to perusing a picture of film star, and Hitler’s favorite movie director, Leni Riefenstahl skiing in her bikini before Alma had a chance to thank him.

  The doors to Crematorium IV stood wide open, swallowing entire families within seconds. It was the SS’s pride and joy, the most modern facility fully equipped to exterminate “subhuman” nations in a truly German orderly fashion. There were four of them in Birkenau and they certainly surpassed their Auschwitz counterpart both in size and efficiency. It was thanks to these four monstrosities that the two former gas chambers that stood in the field slightly away from the camp and bore innocent names of the Little White House and the Little Red House were abandoned. Two former village huts, they weren’t efficient enough as gassing facilities. It took the gas too long to take hold; people cried and pleaded something terrible behind the doors, banging at them and upsetting the SS on duty with their prolonged agony. Then the bodies had to be taken to Auschwitz for cremation, and every few days the walls of the chimney would crumble from the overuse, much to the Kommandant Höss’ dissat
isfaction. Open graves would have to be dug out to bury the corpses while the walls were being fixed, but then they would crumble again and more graves had to be dug and the SS gradually began running out of space for those. And then the ground began to rise, expelling toxic fumes and liquids, poisoning the water in the vicinity.

  But now, the ingenious Aryan race had solved all of those troubles. The four crematoriums could run a non-stop operation, processing thousands of people daily. No more mass graves; no more transportation problem. They even installed elevators inside the two-storied facilities for that very purpose. Now, it only took the Sonderkommando minutes to transport the corpses from the gas chamber in the basement upstairs, where their teeth would be checked for gold fillings, orifices for hidden gold, hair shaven off and neatly packed into sacks. Someone was already waiting for the processed ones with the gurney. Sometimes, the Sonderkommando men, those unfortunate slaves of the SS forced by their uniformed masters to perform the grimmest of duties, recognized their own relatives or friends in the still-warm corpses. Sometimes, they went to the wire afterwards. Sometimes, they got drunk and wept, hidden behind a sorting table in the Kanada detail, and told what they had to see to anyone who happened to be near.

  One day, Alma had happened to be near. She couldn’t sleep for several nights in a row after what she had heard from him, haunted by the images of the open graves, corpses with shaved heads, and the weeping gas chamber attendants pulling the golden fillings out of their relatives’ mouths. Now, she would have to see it all with her own two eyes.

  Alma found Hössler precisely where the SS man had promised. Well-groomed and absolutely unarmed, he stood near the entrance and spoke to the apprehensive crowd of about a thousand people in front of him in his well-regulated, pleasant voice.

  “You have now arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau. This is not a resort, but a working camp, and we expect you to do your duty as our soldiers are presently doing theirs on the front. Just like they are, you shall be contributing to the final victory. As soon as the final victory is achieved, you shall be rewarded for your loyalty to the Reich and released back to freedom. And now, please, proceed for the disinfection. It is essential that you undergo it, along with your children, to ensure that you don’t bring any diseases into the camp. Once inside, please undress your children before you undress yourselves and remember the number of the hook, on which you place your items so that you may retrieve them later more easily. The members of our Sonderkommando shall then provide you with soap and towels. You may keep your jewelry on yourselves, so you don’t lose it.”