by Denis Avey
I’ll tell you why. I knew that the inmates of Auschwitz were being treated worse than animals. I didn’t know then what the various Jewish camps were, that Auschwitz I to our west was the brutal extermination camp until Auschwitz-Birkenau was built further west again and redefined the definitions of industrial slaughter. I didn’t know then that Auschwitz III-Monowitz, the camp next door to us, was, relatively speaking, the least lethal of the three. What I did know was that Jews were being killed in front of me and that those too weak to work any more were being sent for extermination. When I looked into the faces of the Jewish prisoners, with their hollowed-out cheeks and dark sunken eyes, it was as if there was nothing there. All feeling and emotion had been cauterised in them. I had to see for myself what was going on. I had to get myself in there.
Again and again, they begged us to tell the world what we had seen if we ever got home. The stripeys understood what was happening. The stench from the crematoria told them all they needed to know. So yes, we had all heard the talk of gas chambers and selections but for me it was no good just hearing about it. The words conjecture and speculation were never in my vocabulary. I might not have known which camp was which but I needed to see what turned ordinary human beings into these shadows.
This, Auschwitz, IG Farben’s Buna-Werke with all the slave labourers in it, this was the inferno itself no doubt about it. I saw the brutality day after day but I was powerless to stop it. It was a stain on my life and I couldn’t let it go.
Even there, as a prisoner of war, I was certain that our side would defeat the Germans and that one day we would force someone to account for this. I wanted the names of Kapos and SS officers responsible for the obscenity around me. I wanted to see as much as I could. I knew that there had to be an answer to all this and that one day there would be a reckoning.
So yes, there was something I could do; something I was driven to do. It wasn’t much but if I could get in, if I could only see, I could bear witness.
There was something else, something not about grand causes but about me. I had always been a better leader than a follower; at least I thought I was. My dreams of becoming an officer had been stymied and my war had been cut short at Sidi Rezegh, but I was still on duty and now I had a cause. I could do this.
Chapter 12
Evening was approaching and I knew the British POWs would soon start to assemble fifty yards away from the stripeys for the march back to E715.
I could see that the Jewish work Kommandos were getting ready to form their own column for the trudge back to their camp and I made my move.
People were milling around so taking advantage of the end-of-day confusion, I strode purposefully towards the Bude, a wooden shed tucked away in the contractor’s yard. I opened the door and stepped inside. I knew the stark interior with its small tables and a simple bench because we sometimes ate and sheltered in it. As soon as I was hidden inside I pulled off my heavy boots and got the coarse wooden clogs ready for a speedy exchange. Hans saw me go into the hut, and followed rapidly on my heels.
Suddenly he was framed in the doorway and without hesitation he pushed on in. He was clearly agitated; what we were doing was more dangerous for him than for me but he had come. For him the chance of a safer night and a bit more food was worth the risk. With a nervous glance over his shoulder as he dropped the latch, he darted across to me, his head down as if it helped to hide our purpose.
There was no time to talk. Speed was essential; this couldn’t take more than a minute or we could be missed.
Hans pulled off his infested top and tossed it to me. In return I gave him my thick military tunic. I pulled on his blue striped outfit, the smell of filth and human decay rose from the weave and I was conscious of the creatures emerging from the folds and frayed seams, ready for new blood. I could cope with that, I knew how to live with lice. The desert and the Italian camps had taught me that. The thought of catching typhus never occurred to me then. For now, lice were the least of my problems.
I had left my army shirt in the barracks and was wearing just a vest under my military tunic. A shirt of any sort beneath this zebra sacking could have aroused suspicion even with my head shaved and my face smeared to look gaunt.
All the markers of my real identity had now been stripped away. What a difference a uniform makes, I thought fleetingly as I looked at Hans, now dressed in my clothes. I had been right; he was roughly the same height and build as myself and, like me, he was quite pale-skinned.
I had bartered for a pair of old shoes for him and stashed them away in the Bude in advance. Wooden clogs on a British POW would have been noticed. I had already hidden my army boots away before he came. I wasn’t going to trust anyone with them, not even overnight.
Once the swap was completed I quickly talked Hans through the plan again. I told him he mustn’t show any excitement or do anything to draw attention to himself in any way. His movements had to be calm and deliberate. Above all, I said, don’t run. I doubt he had the strength anyway. He left immediately looking every inch a British soldier and headed off, as he had been told, to find Bill and Jimmy.
I waited a moment. Then I adopted the hangdog expression that I had observed, dropped my shoulders and with my eyes cast downwards I left the hut and hobbled towards the Jewish column which was forming up. There I edged myself into the middle of a rank, coughing as I went so I could hide my accent behind a croaking voice if anyone spoke to me.
It felt good, like I was calling the shots again. I wasn’t merely a bystander any more. Just cheating their discipline meant I was putting one over on the enemy.
I was suddenly aware of new dangers. I ran my fingers furtively up the front of the pyjama-like jacket to check it was fastened to the top, bringing it tight around my throat. It had to be. I knew a missing button or an open neck could result in a clobbering by the Kapos. I would have no alternative but to take the beating or give the game away. If I was unmasked they would have shot me on the spot; that much I knew. Inside I was geared up for a fight but outwardly I had to feign weakness and compliance.
Adrenalin pumped through my veins as I listened to the rhythmic background drone of counting: ‘Eins, zwei, drei, vier.’
The living were counted with the dead whose corpses lay piled to one side. As long as the Kapos saw a head in the dirt they would count it as a body; as long as the numbers were the same morning and evening it didn’t matter if that body was still alive. It made no difference to them.
If a Kapo made a mistake he had to blame the prisoners to save his skin. That meant at least a punch, a full beating or, if the SS got involved, a blow with a rifle butt or worse. They put pressure on the Kapos; the Kapos beat the prisoners. That was how it was. I’d seen it from the comparative safety of the POW ranks. I hated the Kapos all the more for it.
When the counting was over they did it again to be sure. There were SS guards, guns at the ready, standing watchfully at each side of the column, with a Kapo flitting along the ranks, gesturing with his hands and fingers as he checked the numbers. My attention had shifted to the route out of the yard. I tried to anticipate the next danger.
From where I stood in the middle of a rank, pressed between the curving shoulders of men who could easily be corpses tomorrow, it was hard to see the heap of today’s bodies which had been dumped away to one side. It was if the mounds of grimy rags in vaguely human form were already being sucked into the earth.
For some, the end had no doubt brought release; suffering and consciousness extinguished together. The Jewish Häftlinge were always collapsing on the job, gasping their last breath unnoticed in the dirt as work continued around them or they were kicked and punched until they simply faded away.
I was startled by a sudden burst of activity, again focused on the pile of bodies. Their fellow prisoners were dragging the skeletal remains across the ground and dumping them on thin boards making improvised wooden stretchers. They showed no emotion. The dead were just another load, this time of skin and bone, and
the limbs of those who lifted them quivered with the burden. There were not enough boards so some of the carriers had to pick up the remains in their own hands, grabbing at arms and legs or grasping a fistful of their worn-out uniforms. Dropping a body would mean a delay and a beating and an injury here meant rapid decline and usually death.
Those with boards shared the weight between two or more. Even here, even now, human ingenuity was hard at work: one man had rigged up a rope around his shoulders and under the timber stretcher to relieve the strain on his scrawny muscles. They all knew that further exhaustion would shorten their own lives.
With the cadavers loaded, their carriers rejoined the ranks. I was supported by adrenalin but emotionally I was closed down. My defence mechanisms were in play. I didn’t have to think, I just had to do. Too much thought would dull my purpose and bring danger. If you want to speak a language fluently, you have to think in that language and so it was with me, there, in amongst those broken, shadow people. I had to accept what was happening to them as they did. I had to think and act as they did.
After weeks of plotting and running the scenario through in my mind the success of my plan was poised on a razor’s edge. The cold focus returned. It was like all those desert patrols again. I had milliseconds to assess the situation and respond. I had to stay sharp or it was the bullet.
My pulse was racing inside a body that had to ooze hopelessness. Here there could be no fighting back. This was a different job but it was a job all the same. I had to bear witness and nothing must get in my way.
Looking forward in the column I saw that one of the corpses was about to slip off the improvised stretcher. Something had to be done or there’d be trouble.
Quickly and without fuss, one of his comrades flicked the body back into position. He splayed the legs roughly apart so that one dropped on each side of the thin timber and the feet dangled in the dirt. That simple adjustment stopped the stiffening corpse from rolling off the board as it bounced along. The dead man was holding himself in place. He was helping his feeble pallbearers on a journey without ceremony with no funeral at its end.
Finally, the column shambled awkwardly off. If there had been a time to abort my plan it had gone. I’d left my comrades behind, and all that was familiar and predictable receded rapidly behind me. The wooden clogs were loose and cumbersome to move in and I gripped hard with my toes to keep them on. The rags I’d used to wrap my feet helped a little but they still chafed badly. At least that helped me master the shambling walk.
We were soon outside the factory gates. Immediately there was a commotion somewhere in the column and we stopped abruptly. I tried to remain composed or at least like the others but I wanted to see what had happened without looking inquisitive. I heard shouting, the guards were beating someone in the line and a sense of suppressed agitation passed through the ranks. They had seen it all before and so had I, but this time I was not a spectator. I was one of them. In this garb I had already ceased to exist in the eyes of my captors. My life could as easily be snuffed out as theirs. In putting my plan together I had felt in charge because I was taking the initiative again but in reality I was as powerless as those around me. I knew I needed a lot of luck.
In time we were moving again. It wasn’t an especially long march but it was painful and lethargic. To those around me, each step of that trudge was an effort. Think of a condemned man, shackled, weary and full of foreboding and that is how they were; that’s how I tried to appear. I was entering the unknown.
Peering through the ranks before me as we shuffled along, I caught glimpses of the lolling bodies. An arm was flopping loosely. The leg of another kicked pendulum-like as with each step it caught the earth passing below. The body carriers were showing signs of fatigue, their backs were arching with the weight, gnarled fingers were weakening as they stumbled along. Without warning one man crumpled and the body he was carrying dropped to the ground. A burst of violence descended on him almost instantly. I heard the smack of fists, the dull thud of rifle-butts or clubs on frail bodies.
Another Häftling took over the carrying and we were moving again, the feet of each man dragging along the ground in that prolonged, hopeless shuffle. Four times we stopped in the course of that journey and each time I heard the impact of blows on ribs or shoulders.
By then I could see our destination – a sprawling overcrowded camp with low barracks buildings enclosed in an overhanging, double barbed-wire fence. And somewhere in amongst it all was a naked wire carrying a high-voltage current. Watchtowers placed at intervals kept constant vigil and SS guards patrolled the perimeter. We dropped off the main track and headed towards the entrance. This was where their short lives were played out, where they jostled for a crust or succumbed.
It was still light when we passed through the gate and I saw the sign bearing the cruel promise ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ – work sets you free.
I didn’t know then that the irony of those words would scream across the decades. This was Auschwitz III-Monowitz.
Evening was slowly approaching and somewhere far above us in the softening light was a clear sky. I sensed it, I knew it was there but it didn’t fully register, not then. I never saw a blue sky the whole time I was a prisoner in that godforsaken place. I didn’t look up. Just as I had refused to read my mother’s letters in the desert, now even a glance at the beauty up above would have been a dangerous distraction. It would have blunted my purpose, reminding me of the vast expanse of the world and freedom.
From somewhere an order was shouted and we whipped the caps from our heads. I pulled myself upright just like the rest. I abandoned my hangdog expression. I knew we had to look to the SS like we could work another day. They were already pulling someone from the line. There was no begging, no pleading or protest. They were too weak. At the time I felt some of them had been brought so low they welcomed the end when it came. I never saw what happened to him but I knew he would be on the lorry to Birkenau and the gas chambers before long.
Once through the gates I began to take in the layout of the camp, with its sprawl of shoddy barracks buildings.
With the wind in the quarter it was then, the sweet, ghastly smell of the distant crematoria swept across the site, catching in my nose and throat. It was a sickly, stench that joined all the other smells around me produced by filth and decaying people.
Further into the camp a shaven-headed body was hanging motionless from a gibbet. His neck was broken and twisted, forcing his head to one side. If his hands were tied I couldn’t tell. If there was a sign round the neck saying what he had done to end up there, I didn’t take it in.
I was used to bodies by now but the torment that preceded death can be seen in the shape of a hanged man. His body had been left as a warning to everyone. ‘Aufpassen’ – beware, it screamed. It shook me, that. Strung up or not, they had all of us by the throat. They could jerk the noose tight when they wanted.
The body carriers were on the move again. With fatigue carved on their sunken cheeks, they arched their backs for one final effort. They took the skeletal remains to one side and tipped them into the dirt. With barely a sound, one by one the corpses slid to the ground. Then the body carriers straightened their backs and rejoined the rest of us and the dead were counted once more.
I had no intention of trying to escape, that wasn’t why I was there, but I surveyed the scene out of habit, taking in the layout, looking for exits I would never be able to use. To run was pointless. Once inside, there was no way out. If I was identified as an imposter I was dead. There was no Plan B.
The Appelplatz was raised slightly, and as our ragged column dragged itself into place, lining up alongside markings on the ground, I became aware of something strange.
From somewhere across the parade ground, above the barked orders, the shuffles and the coughs, I heard the prisoners of the camp orchestra playing classical music.
Chapter 13
I knew, standing there mid-column on the Appelplatz, that if I were betrayed the
re would be no witnesses beyond the poor devils at my shoulder. How many of them would be alive in three months? Not many. I’d have been shot or carted away with the orchestra providing a ludicrous soundtrack. I heard later they were forced to play at executions.
I kept my head bowed but my height meant I could watch the faces of the SS guards without straining. Any change of mood or attention on their part might signal danger. If a Kapo had turned me in he might have got a reward but he would risk falling under suspicion too. There was no eye contact. It didn’t happen. I started to breathe more easily.
When the latest count and recount were completed and the numbers were agreed, we were dismissed and the passive ranks around me came to life. I scanned the rows of bony faces, looking for the men I had to follow in that mass of worn stripes. I couldn’t afford to attract attention by looking disorientated. If I had gone to the wrong barracks I would have been revealed as an outsider. I was focused and my pulse raced but I couldn’t let it show. I had to go on thinking strong and acting weak.
The inmates were already shuffling away when I got a glimpse of one of my men and, without saying a word, I headed off behind him towards his barracks. We entered into a narrow passage which led to the sleeping area.
I gagged on the foul air as I squeezed through. The men were sandwiched between the rough timber bunks which climbed up in three tiers around the dingy room.
Many climbed in and collapsed straight away. I followed my two guides and we did the same without saying a word. This was the cramped bunk they normally shared with Hans. I clambered in and hid myself away to watch and listen.
These were not ordinary bunks. Instead of lying lengthways as is normal, we were to sleep three to a bed, crossways to the frame. We lay head to foot but as the bunk was little over five feet deep I had to curl my legs up to fit in at all. It also meant that the middle person had a pair of stinking feet either side of his head.
