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

by Ellie Midwood

  “From what I heard from the wardens, they’re planning to transport the entire Hungarian Jewish population here. That’s what that Eichmann fellow is rumored to be coming for—to give the SS exact orders about their accommodation. Five hundred thousand people. I wonder where they’re going to put them all,” Zippy mused, squinting at the inmates.

  From where they stood, the construction Kommando resembled busy ants forming lines and going about their business as if nothing else mattered. The SS resembled ravens in their black capes—beady-eyed and cawing their orders at them in their harsh, loud voices.

  “Those new barracks they’re building by the field.” Sofia motioned her head toward yet another construction site.

  Alma, who stood a bit aside from them, smoking, quickly counted the barracks and shook her head with suspicion. “Those few miserable blocks? They will hardly house fifty thousand; never half a million.”

  “I imagine they will build some more by the time they begin deporting them,” Sofia said, but without conviction in her voice.

  Alma took another deep pull on her cigarette. “With the best will in the world, they will house a hundred thousand. Where shall the rest go?” She turned to face the girls.

  All three pairs of eyes instinctually shifted to the chimney of the crematorium. Only a very thin fence separated them from it. From its entrance, another group of inmates was constructing a narrow passage framed by the barbed wire. Alma traced their progress with her index finger until it stopped at the point where the new ramp was supposed to be soon standing. She had just opened her mouth—they’ll gas them all, can’t you see?—but then, seeing the growing horror on the girls’ faces, thought better of it.

  When they marched to the sickbay—it was Tuesday, the music therapy day—they saw three more inmate Kommandos unraveling barbed wire from the entrances of three other crematoriums. All led in the same direction—the ramp under construction.

  Kommandant Liebehenschel was walking toward them with his hands folded behind his back and eyes trained on the ground as though he didn’t wish to see it all. As Alma stopped with her little troop to give him and his aides space, the wind caught their words and threw them in her face.

  “…Even all five won’t be enough, even if we run them continuously night and day. According to the preliminary data that Eichmann gave us, we’ll be getting transports daily. Perhaps it would be wise to put The Little Red House and The Little White House to use as well?”

  “Gassing is not the problem; it’s the cremation that—”

  Alma ordered the girls to start marching even before the grim delegation had passed them. The protocol suddenly didn’t matter. She couldn’t bear the thought of them hearing it all.

  Worst of all, the news seemed to affect Miklós. Alma understood it well enough—it was a damnable business to hear rumors about one’s homeland, soon to be trampled by fascist boots and beaten into submission. But there was something different about the manner in which he reacted. Instead of agonizing openly or lamenting the fate of his people, Miklós seemed to retreat more and more into himself. He still appeared in the Music Block to tutor Flora, but his mind was always elsewhere. With a stub of a pencil he begged off Laks, he kept scribbling something in a small notebook he carried with him and didn’t even notice the mistakes Flora was making. Alma had a suspicion that whatever he was working on was a matter of paramount importance—for him, at any rate—but thought it rude to pry. In Auschwitz, people coped with their misfortunes each in their own way. She felt she had no right to meddle with that private world of his.

  When Alma took him into her room and asked him gently if he needed a few days away from his tutoring responsibilities, he agreed readily, much to her surprise and disappointment. Still, for his sake, she hid it well, smiled at him brightly and told him to take care of himself. He mumbled something incoherent, walked toward the door but, suddenly, as though awakened from a dream, swung round sharply, crossed the room and kissed Alma with infinite passion on her lips. When he pulled away, the pain in his eyes almost tore her own heart in two.

  “It won’t take long,” he promised in a rushed manner. “I’m almost finished. It’ll all make sense soon!”

  He grasped her hand, kissed it almost reverently, and dropped it just as abruptly before rushing out. Alma felt his fingers on her skin long after he was gone.

  The next few days turned into pure torment. Alma had to suffer through bleak days that dragged and dragged, suddenly gray and entirely devoid of any hope. The walls of the barrack were there once again, tangible and closing in on her; the barbed wire, the camp—Miklós had shielded her from it all with the sheer power of his music and his presence and his stolen kisses, and now, it was all back once again and tenfold, desolate, alien, and terrifying.

  She knew he was alive and well. Every morning a runner from Laks’ Music Block brought her short notes scribbled in haste and on scraps of paper, but it was his concern that counted.

  …I miss you terribly, Almschi…

  …These useless chores are the most despicable thieves of the precious moments I so desperately need. It’s quite all right. The nights are still mine for using and I don’t need sleep all that much anyway. Just a few more days, Almschi…

  …Could you possibly send your kerchief with the runner? I ought to have something of yours; otherwise, I feel I shall go mad from loneliness…

  …I had a dream about you last night. When Fredy shook my shoulder to wake me up for the roll call, I smacked him, imagine? He isn’t mad; he understood…

  Alone in her room, behind the closed door, Alma kissed his handwriting and tucked the notes inside her pillowcase and lay wide awake for endless hours, touching the letters with the tips of her fingers under the pillow, and felt madly loved and profoundly lonely, all at the same time. She knew he wouldn’t abandon her for no good reason. It must have been something terribly important, his freedom-fighting affairs perhaps. With such immense pride, he had told her about the connection the camp Resistance made with the Krakow cell; with such fearlessness, he’d admitted that he, himself, was secretly passing documents to the free Polish workers whom the SS hired for odd jobs around the camp, completely ignorant of the fact that the shrewd Poles were gathering intelligence under their very noses. Alma understood it all too well. She was grateful that he took the time to let her know he was alive and well, but still, she felt his absence much too sharply, like a knife stuck in one’s gut. Her pianist was gone and, suddenly, she felt as though the entire world had died.

  All at once, Alma couldn’t conduct anymore. First thing in the morning, she would grasp her violin by the neck and begin to play it with an unhealthy obsession, just to recapture the same sense of peace and serenity Miklós’ hands gave her as they guided hers over the keys of the piano—just close your eyes. You’re not here anymore. This camp doesn’t exist. We’re on stage…

  Sofia and Zippy begged her to rehearse with them. It was official now; Eichmann was coming next Monday. Eichmann, the dreaded SS official who made it a goal of his life and career to exterminate as many Jews as possible, according to what Zippy had managed to learn about him at the camp office. “He was the latest subject of discussion at the Schreibstube,” she reported, visibly alarmed. The camp SS higher-ups spoke about his efficiency with a mixture of reverence and admiration. “Not everyone was cut out to supervise his SS extermination squads shoot entire families for hours on end and smile with satisfaction at the result,” they claimed, marveling at Eichmann’s nerves of steel. “Not everyone could stomach watching little children fall into a ravine atop their mothers’ bodies, nonchalantly brush brain matter and blood off one’s overcoat, and head out to dinner with local civilian authorities, eat with great relish and toast a job well done.”

  To the local SS, Eichmann was an example to aspire to. To the camp population, the Music Block included, he was death personified.

  Even Mandl seemed nervous when she stopped by to check on their progress every day�
�“You ought to play the best you can, you hear me? This is the man who can give special orders without any higher authorization; even Herr Kommandant won’t be able to override him!”

  Alma heard her and didn’t hear her at all. It suddenly didn’t matter what that Eichmann fellow would think of them. The camp didn’t exist. She was on stage…

  “Alma, we’re all begging you!”

  Awakened from her reverie, Alma looked at the intruder in her room. It was Zippy. Her face was stained with tears; the girl whom she had never seen cry before.

  “Please, come out. We must rehearse. The entire orchestra depends on you…”

  That was the whole trouble. Alma lowered the violin and smiled sadly. Everyone was always dependent on her. Her very first orchestra, then her whole family, then—just her father. For far too many years she had to be strong for someone else, with no one to rely on but herself. Finally, someone had come and promised to share that burden with her, but now, he was gone, and it was as heavy as ever. Alma dragged her palms down her face. She wasn’t sure for how long she could go on like this.

  But there Zippy stood and there were the girls, much too young to die, and therefore she had no choice but to move, had to go through the motions.

  “Let’s go.” She rose to her feet wearily and followed Zippy out of the room, catching her reflection in the small mirror. Why had no one told her that her hair was growing out with so many grays in it? And what happened to her aristocratic posture her mother was so proud of? Stooped shoulders, a tired old woman, at thirty-seven years old. “You all think you need me, but you don’t. You think I don’t hear anything, hiding in my room… I hear everything perfectly. You’re doing fine on your own.”

  Zippy stopped and looked her in the eyes. “We do need you. We always will,” she said gravely, and Alma felt something catch in her throat.

  All this time, she believed that she was saving them, but perhaps, it was them who were saving her. Her girls. Her little sparrows. The most wonderful orchestra on earth.

  The girl was crying by the fence. She sat much too close to it—Alma could hear the electricity hum when she approached the inmate from the women’s camp. Shaved head covered with sores, gray skin smeared with dirt and tears, the rag-like dress of an indistinguishable color—the usual Birkenau business.

  Alma knelt in the snow next to her, reached for her bony hand holding a rock. No; a potato.

  “Has someone beaten you?” Alma searched the girl’s face. There were no visible bruises on it; only infinite suffering. Her entire expression was the picture of it. “Has someone stolen your food?” Alma probed again, regarding the potato doubtfully.

  The girl kissed the vegetable, cradled it against her chest and wept even harder, reaching for the wire just over her shoulder. Alma swiftly caught her by the wrist and pulled her away from it and into her lap. The girl scarcely weighed anything; she was all bones—bones everywhere under that dirty sack she was wearing, bones against Alma’s chest—a living skeleton who still breathed by some miracle.

  All of a sudden, Alma felt ashamed. People died here daily in hundreds and here she was, suffering from an aching heart and carrying her grief about her like some brooding, romantic heroine from a gothic novel.

  “If you tell me what happened, perhaps, I shall be able to help,” she suggested softly, rocking the girl in her lap like her own mother used to when she was a little girl.

  Alma never permitted herself such affections with her orchestra girls—on purpose, not to spoil them with tenderness, for tenderness was extremely dangerous in this death factory. In Auschwitz, tenderness killed. Only the hard types survived, and, more than anything, Alma wished for her girls to come out of here alive. But this girl was already too broken; she had to be, if the wire seemed like the only salvation from whatever tragedy she was living—or dying—through. It was only fair to hold her, so she could feel warmth for the last time.

  “There’s nothing to be done.” The girl’s voice was oddly extinguished, full of ash and tears. “He’s dead.”

  Something about those words pricked sharply and painfully at Alma’s chest. She felt blood draining from her face. Naturally, the girl meant someone else, someone unfamiliar and nameless, but still… How ominous the pause was. Alma could hear herself breathing.

  “Who’s dead?” Her question was a mere frightened whisper.

  “Tadek. My husband. See this?” She brought the potato to Alma’s face. It smelled of earth and slightly of rot—a graveyard stench that made Alma recoil. “Every morning, he would throw me one across the fence. A potato and a note tied around it with a string. Only a few words scribbled on it—keep your chin up, my darling, we shall meet again soon, the war shall soon be over—but that was enough. Enough to know that he was alive… And today, his Kommando mate came instead. Came to the fence, threw me this potato, and walked away, wiping his face.” Her bloodless lips trembled. “That’s how I knew.” A ragged breath. A shake of the head. A small smile—a gratitude for Alma’s kindness. “You won’t help me, but thank you for listening.” She enclosed the potato into Alma’s hands with finality.

  Alma rose to her feet a bit too unsteadily, looked at the girl one last time, but she was already moving toward the fence.

  This time, Alma didn’t stop her, only walked faster and faster toward her own barrack, until the walk changed to a trot and a trot to a sprint and she couldn’t get her breath any longer.

  He’s dead.

  He’s dead…

  Inside her block, without shedding her coat, she grasped the violin and began to play, as loudly as possible, just to silence the words that kept echoing inside her mind.

  There was a knock on her door. Alma went to open it and time itself suddenly stopped. Miklós stood before her, looking like he hadn’t slept for weeks, gray-faced and much too thin, but his eyes had never shone brighter.

  “I finished,” he said, by way of greeting, and pushed a thick stack of papers into Alma’s hands.

  She regarded them, dumbfounded. It was handwritten sheet music. Für Alma, the title read. “What is it?”

  “A sonata. For you. I composed it. Beethoven wrote one for Elise and I wrote one for my Alma. I hope it’s worthy of your name.”

  Alma stared at him, speechless. The papers trembled in her hands. She read the first half of the page, heard the music in her head, imagined him playing it for her…

  “I know what’s going on. They will kill all Hungarians,” Miklós said very calmly.

  “No, just the new arrivals! You’re an essential prisoner. Under Hössler’s protection. They won’t touch you.” She didn’t know whom she was trying to convince, Miklós or herself. She only knew that her heart was pounding almost painfully hard with mounting terror at the truth she refused to acknowledge, even to herself, and that the room suddenly felt like a coffin, from which all air had been sucked out.

  He smiled at her sorrowfully. “They’ll kill all Hungarians,” he repeated with quiet resignation. “I am one. Hitler will never forgive Admiral Horthy his betrayal for turning on him and negotiating an armistice with the Allies. A public betrayal, at that; my waiting staff comrades heard all about the Hungarians’ desire to switch sides over the makeshift radio they use to learn about the progress of the war. That’s the biggest talk of the BBC as of now. Someone will have to pay the price for such treachery. The SS are already gossiping about an upcoming Aktion against the Hungarian Jews, but, for now, the Berlin office with that sod Himmler in charge will satisfy itself with offing the ones who are already here, and that’s the Family Camp.”

  He cupped her cheek, regarding her with infinite tenderness.

  “My beautiful, brave Alma. I hope you will forgive me for abandoning you in such a manner for the entire week, but I had to make sure I finished it in time before they round us all up. This way, you shall have something left of me, something to remember me by. Now, I shall die happy and in peace. I wrote off the rights for you too; my signature is on the very las
t page. You will be its rightful owner after you come out of here. You may resell them so that you have at least some money to support yourself for some time. I wrote the addresses of some Hungarian friends and colleagues of mine—they will buy them from you, if it is your wish to sell them. All of them are Aryans, don’t fret. They will still be there when you come out.”

  “You’re mad.” She pushed the sheet music against his chest. “No, you are absolutely mad.”

  She was screaming, and was aware of that fact, but couldn’t stop herself. It all surged in her at once—the desperation and wild, animalistic fear at the thought of a world in which Miklós Steinberg, a pianist and composer, the man whom she loved so selflessly that she would gladly give her own life just so he would live, didn’t exist anymore.

  “Take it back at once! I don’t want it. He’s giving me his last will and testament. I don’t want it. It’s a bad omen. Very bad luck—you’ll jinx us all! Take it back and don’t show it to me ever again.”

  “Alma, be reasonable.”

  She was struggling with him, but the more she did, the tighter he held her against his chest, the firmer he pressed his bloodless lips against her hair, stroking it, stroking her shoulders shaking with sobs.

  “You don’t believe in bad luck, Almschi.”

  “I began to believe in it here. You began believing in Christian God.”

  “I was joking. I’m still very much an atheist. But I believe in lawyers and they know my signature—”

  “Miklós, just stop… If you have a heart, just stop talking.”

  “All right. I will stop talking. I’ll go and play it for you instead; what do you say to that?”

  Before she could stop him, he went to the grand piano, pretended to flip back the tails of his invisible concert tailcoat, gave Alma a wink—do not despair, my love, we still have today—and began to play.

  Alma listened breathlessly and thought that she had never heard anything half as beautiful as that sonata. It was composed in hell, written by an agonized hand and a half-starved mind, and yet, how soft and lyrical the melody was, how hauntingly touching the tone. She understood him just then. She held the pages close to her chest and understood his reasoning, respecting him for making this decision for both of them. He knew that if he died, tears would do little to help things. Money, on the other hand, would help her survive and that was all that was important to him—her survival, her happiness. If the places were switched, she would do the same for him, Alma realized, and felt the beginning of a smile forming on her lips.