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

by Ellie Midwood

  Alma took the doctor’s palm into hers and gave it a very firm shake, her warm smile mirroring Dr. Mancy’s.

  Chapter 20

  Each day, instead of only Tuesdays and Thursdays, Alma brought her orchestra to the front lawn of the sickbay. Each day, against the wet snow or howling wind, they played the sick girls’ favorite pieces. Each day, Miklós snuck in whatever goods Birkenau men’s orchestra could “organize” for their female counterparts. The goods ranged from raw potatoes brazenly appropriated from the SS kitchen to various pills and powders, just as insolently pinched from the SS medical block. Each day, Dr. Mancy delivered short notes to Alma written by her sick charges—we are doing quite well here and recovering slowly but steadily; thank you for all the food and medicine; how delightful today’s Brahms was! Each day, Alma left the sickbay with a painful knot inside her chest, unsure if she would find the entire block empty the very next day. Each night, she sat, plagued by insomnia, and stared at the orange glow of the chimneys through her window, terribly afraid to close her eyes, as if her doing so would somehow jinx the girls’ fate and send them all to that flaming inferno.

  Sofia and Zippy had long given up on Alma’s nocturnal ways and assurances that she didn’t need more than four hours of sleep; only Miklós regarded the dark half-moons under her eyes with disapproval and soon acquired a habit of smuggling all sorts of food items into her room without her noticing it—“to lift her spirits.” Two days ago, it was an apple. Before that, a bar of Swiss chocolate. Bread days were rare and occurred only out of pure desperation—Miklós preferred more refined items to the pitiful official camp rations.

  Whenever Alma discovered the items before the pianist was gone, he would only shrug her reproaches off with the nonchalance of royalty about him and positively refused to take his gifts back or even split them. Hands thrust in pockets, he stood before her like a starved Rockefeller’s son on whom his Music Block jacket was all but hanging and declared that he had more where that came from and wasn’t hungry at all. He often played his piano during dinners in the SS canteen, he had explained. They fed him well enough.

  Alma doubted that such was the case; his cheekbones stood out much too sharply in his face and the skin had a grayish undertone to it, making his resemblance to a gothic statue of some noble, medieval knight complete.

  “You could exchange that bar of chocolate for a whole loaf of bread,” she argued.

  “Local bread is a disgrace and wouldn’t make me full at any rate,” he countered, unimpressed.

  “And imagining me, drinking my morning coffee from a Limoges cup with Swiss chocolate you risked your life for would?” Alma arched a skeptical brow.

  “Yes. That image and my piano are two things that keep me alive these days,” he declared in a grave tone he ordinarily reserved for his jests, but now, Alma saw that his eyes were perfectly serious, and it made her heart miss a beat.

  “But I have nothing to give you in exchange for your generosity.”

  “You’re offering me your company and your music. That’s more than enough.”

  “Still, I would like you to keep at least something for yourself.”

  “I’m giving it all because giving is what makes a human human. As long as I can give something, I feel I haven’t spent that day for nothing. Don’t you feel the same when you give whatever you can to your girls?”

  She did. But she also guessed that he stole all of those “presents” when the SS weren’t looking and pleaded with him to stop it for his own safety’s sake. However, he refused to listen to reason and brought her an orange, as though in defiance, the very next day.

  “I didn’t steal it this time, don’t fret,” Miklós explained, laughing, before Alma could scold him for it. Only the SS had access to fresh fruit; being discovered with something of that sort on one’s person meant an automatic death sentence, a bullet in the back of one’s head without any questions asked. “Herr Kommandant’s lady friend gave it to me.”

  Alma noted the respectful form of address, Herr Kommandant. Former Kommandant Höss used to be referred to mockingly as the Old Man, both by the inmates and the SS. It appeared that Kommandant Liebehenschel enjoyed a better reputation among the camp population.

  “One ought to feel for him, the poor fellow,” Miklós continued. “He’s in love with her something mad, and his superiors won’t allow him to marry her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Rumor has it, she’s politically unreliable. Much too friendly with the Jews,” Miklós repeated the same rumor Zippy had mentioned not that long ago. “That’s why they have shipped them both here from some high office in Berlin—for re-education. Little do their superiors know, they appear to be very happy here. He was in the kitchen with the inspection today, talking to us like a normal human being about our concerns. She accompanied him. At first, I thought she was his secretary or some such, but then I saw the way he was looking at her. Later, the head waiter explained it all to me.”

  He snorted as though not fully believing it.

  “Imagine that? Our concerns,” he repeated in amazement and shook his head. “Herr Kommandant wrote everything down in his little black notebook and promised to do what he could to make things easier for us. Tried to explain that every time a gassing occurs, it’s due to the direct orders from Berlin, not on his own initiative. I could swear to you, he appeared almost upset about the whole rotten business, and particularly when he was talking about women and children… And his lady friend, what a nice woman! I am the only Jew on the waiting staff, the rest are German Green and Red Triangles. What do you know? She takes me aside and asks me—very discreetly, so my fellow waiting Kommando mates wouldn’t hear—if they’re treating me all right. I said yes, they treat me just fine and that they’re all first-rate fellows. She smiled, took this orange out of the basket, enclosed it into my palm and patted my hand with hers.”

  He regarded his hand in disbelief. Alma was also looking at it, a smile growing on her face. She wished she was there to see it with her own eyes, such an unexpected display of humanity in a place where that very humanity was slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands.

  “How did the head waiter come by such information?”

  “You won’t believe how much the SS spill when they get good and drunk.” Miklós chuckled. “They would easily put any washerwoman to shame with their aptitude for gossip. Naturally, the waiting staff hears it all and uses it to their advantage.”

  “What advantage?”

  “The regular camp affairs.” Miklós turned suddenly very vague, as though he’d let on more than he had initially intended, and quickly changed the subject. “Do you want me to peel it for you?”

  “Yes. And share it with me, please.” Alma held out the orange to him, ignoring his sudden secretiveness out of politeness only. “Just today. Oblige me.”

  He hesitated, but something in her eyes moved him. “Very well, Countess. But only today and only because it was bestowed upon me by some miracle.”

  Alma’s face had grown very still when he produced a pocketknife from his boot to cut the orange. Only the camp resistance was rumored to have access to cold weapons. The SS hanged two of its members not that long ago for discovering precisely such unauthorized items on them. Only two, for those two withstood all of the camp Gestapo’s tortures but betrayed nothing else to Grabner’s grisly department; Alma recalled all the chilling details of the story.

  “Don’t tell me Herr Kommandant’s lady friend gave you the knife as well.”

  “No, of course she didn’t.” He purposely avoided her eyes; she could tell.

  “Miklós?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you get mixed up with the wrong people?”

  Miklós looked at her strangely and gave her a smile that was both secret and proud. “No. This time, I got mixed up with all the right people. This time, I shall be brave too.”

  He gazed into her eyes for a long moment and then suddenly drew her to himself and kissed he
r, deeply and without restraint, seemingly robbing her of the very ability to breathe. Alma didn’t mind the suffocating feeling of harsh, overpowering desire that flooded her body. Instead of pushing him away—it was madness to kiss in such a manner even behind the closed door of Alma’s private room; Mandl had a habit of strolling inside without knocking and inmates landed in the Strafblock, the penal confinement barrack, for much less—Alma wrapped her arms around his neck and held him fast; pressed herself against him, feeling his heart beat wildly against her, and allowed herself to forget everything for a few precious moments. It had all ceased to exist—Mandl, danger, the camp and the entire world outside; now, there were only his long fingers tangled in her hair and his hot breath against her open lips and, for Alma, it was all that mattered.

  The sun hung low and bleak over the crematorium, but the inmates had never seen it brighter. It wasn’t obscured by the permanent curtain of thick black smoke and the air itself was now clear and pure. They sniffed at it greedily during the roll calls, inhaled the long-forgotten scents of earth and the breeze and melting snow. Even their own filthy clothes smelled of sweat and grime, rather than the sickly-sweet of burnt flesh, and that was a vast improvement.

  The new administration demanded to shorten the time of the roll calls and two extra hours of sleep lifted their spirits immensely. They shouted their “Jawohl” when their numbers were called and exchanged quick, happy looks of disbelief at the fact that for the first time in years their hands were empty. On the new Kommandant’s explicit orders, they were permitted to keep their uniform caps on to keep their heads somewhat protected from the elements, instead of holding them in their trembling limbs as a sign of respect for the SS conducting the roll call as it used to be during Höss’ ruthless rule.

  In the distance, a water reservoir was being constructed. Officially, for the Birkenau fire brigade. Unofficially, for the inmates to swim in during summer for overachieving their quota. “Herr Kommandant has promised, personally,” they whispered to one another and followed the tall figure in his gray overcoat with eyes full of genuine gratitude.

  Kommandant Liebehenschel himself appeared to be in excellent spirits. The crematoriums had stood inactive for a week now. Alma wondered what it cost him to wage those battles with Berlin. She also wondered how long such a standoff would last.

  Alma had just returned from the sickbay with her orchestra, relieved with the progress her four sick girls were making, when Maria Mandl burst into the block in utter excitement. Speaking rapidly and snapping her fingers at the composer—“what the devil was his name, but the melody goes like this”—she announced that she had just heard the most wonderful piano four-hands piece on the radio and wished for it to be included in the Christmas music program.

  Miklós recognized the melody the women’s camp leader was humming—Schubert, Fantasia in F minor—and, before Alma could open her mouth to protest, he was already assuring Mandl that it would be their pleasure, Lagerführerin, but in view of the piece being rather difficult, it would require long hours of rehearsals…

  Mandl agreed to everything and even freed Alma of some of her Kapo’s duties.

  As soon as the women’s camp’s leader was out of the door, Alma swiftly turned to Miklós. “Whatever have you just signed me up for? I’m a violinist; piano is not quite my sphere of expertise, to say the least, and he wants me to play a Schubert duet!”

  Unbothered, Miklós airily waved her protest aside. “There’s nothing really to it. I’ll teach you in two days.”

  “Two days?” Alma stared at him. “You are mad.”

  “Countess, we are all mad here,” he quoted Lewis Carroll with a playfully wry smile. “And now, enough with the empty jawing and at it. You heard your camp leader. She wants Schubert and Schubert she’ll have. We ought to prove to our Aryan masters that we aren’t useless eaters.”

  Sofia took the girls to the Sauna for their daily shower. Alma was much too preoccupied with the blasted Schubert Miklós had imposed on her to waste her time on scrubbing when it could be spent on rehearsing. Her friend regarded her in stunned disbelief—Alma was infamous for her obsession with cleanness and hygiene—but accepted Alma’s Kapo armband without another word.

  “I’ll wash up later, from the faucet in the latrine,” Alma explained, her tone almost apologetic. “I really must rehearse every waking hour I have. My piano skills are much too rusty for someone of Schubert’s level.”

  She needn’t worry; Miklós turned out to be an excellent tutor. With infinite patience, he guided her through the sheet music he wrote from memory. Alma herself wrote quite a few pieces from her own memory for the orchestra and could never comprehend Zippy’s amazement whenever the girl watched her do it with her mouth agape. But, for some reason, she saw Miklós produce the entire piece under twenty minutes and was suddenly overcome with profound admiration for him.

  “No, not like that.” Miklós stopped her gently now as they practiced. “You’re much too hard on that poor piano. She doesn’t like it and it makes her scream and whine.”

  “She?” Alma asked, amused.

  “Naturally, she.” Miklós looked at her as if it was something obvious. “All musical instruments are either male or female. Piano, just like your violin, is definitely a female. It needs to be caressed.” With utmost gentleness, he began brushing the keys with his fingers. “Hear the difference? Now, she hums softly. Here, let me show you. Someone taught you a beautiful technique, but your fingering is stiff and wooden. The piano doesn’t like stiff hands. You ought to relax your wrists more.” Positioning himself behind her back, Miklós placed his hands under Alma’s palms. “Rest your hands, completely relaxed, on top of mine and feel how my muscles move when I play this passage. You barely need any effort at all. Feel it?”

  Alma felt that it was suddenly very hot in the room and that she was acutely aware of her own breathing.

  “Close your eyes. Your muscle perception works better when your eyes are closed.”

  Alma did as she was instructed. Now, it was just the peaceful, serene darkness all around her, a haunting, beautiful melody penetrating her very skin, and someone’s arms around her.

  “You’re still much too stiff. Relax your shoulders. Lean against me. Stop processing everything with that restless mind of yours and start feeling the music, at least for five minutes.” His voice was low and oddly hypnotizing. “You are no longer here. This place doesn’t exist. We are in Vienna, on the stage where you used to play chamber music with your father, but now it’s just us and the piano and we’re preparing for a concert. You shall wear a beautiful gown and I, an elegant black tailcoat with a bow tie starched to such an extent, it’ll be stabbing my neck like a knife the entire time. You will curse your new unbroken shoes but wear them all the same because appearances are everything and we’re two old musical veterans and can withstand anything in the name of art.”

  Alma grinned and pressed her back against him. It would have been inappropriate in any other setting, but here, it suddenly felt the most natural thing to do. He didn’t move away, but, on the contrary, pressed his cheek against hers as he rested his chin on her shoulder.

  “The entire Philharmonic was sold out in mere hours,” he continued. “The posters for our performance are plastered all over the city. The Rothschilds will be sitting in their box and will drown you in roses, as is their habit, when you rise to bow to your audience as gracefully as only you can. In front of the stage, the press will be going wild with delight. All eyes, all cameras, are on you while you stand, a veritable goddess, basking in the light of their flashes and floodlights.”

  “I don’t want to stand there alone.” She’d been alone as long as she could remember. Even with Váša sharing a stage with her, she was always aware of that gnawing solitude all around her. Even with Heinrich, running from the Nazi-overrun Austria, she was alone—alone in her grief, alone in her misery, even as he sat next to her in their train compartment and swore to her that he would share whate
ver hardships would stand in their way. Just like her first husband, he didn’t last long. It only took a few months in a foreign city with Alma supporting them both with her music for him to flee back to his native Austria, where the family business was prosperous and where his male dignity was once again restored.

  “You’re not alone. I’m right behind you, waiting to take your hand as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Take it now.”

  Miklós took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. “You shall never be alone again.”

  “You all say that.”

  “I’m not all. I will never abandon you. Not of my own free will, at any rate.” He was kissing each of her fingers. “They will have to send me to the gas to separate me from you.”

  Instantly terrified, Alma pulled away at once. “Why would you say such frightful things? Of all things…”

  He was already apologizing and holding her face in his hands. He kissed her pale cheeks, her wet dark eyelashes, her lips, her neck, her hair and her hands.

  She had sworn to herself never again to be involved with a man, not seriously, at any rate. She had been so determined to keep her heart closed and cold, but Miklós kissed her and suddenly, breathlessly, she had no choice.

  “It won’t last forever, Almschi,” he whispered to her. “We shall come out of here one day. We shall come out of here together and I will be holding your hand when we walk out of those gates. And then we shall tour all over Europe and every evening I shall stand by your side and hold your hand. Do you believe me?”

  She did. In spite of herself, in the middle of this death factory, she did.