My Mother's Ring: A Holocaust Historical Novel

by Dana Fitzwater Cornell

  Would I have jeopardized my safety by opening even one of the cattle cars? Would I have been willing to risk my life for another person? What about fifty people? What about five hundred? I ran the scenario through my mind many times, imagining that I was the messenger and came across the loaded transport. Each time, I refined my actions slightly, never sure of what I would have actually done.

  The men and women who did reach Mauthausen defied death, failing to let it gain the upper hand. Manifested by their blistered, blackened toes and fingers, they had more aches than I could even imagine. Somehow, some way, they had made it. The cold had dramatically slowed their thought processes so that they reached a tipping point where they could have easily succumbed to unconsciousness and lunacy, and some did. Upon seeing such prisoners, we began describing the torment they endured as “Death Marches.”

  When I became aware of my transfer from Mauthausen, I feared a similar fate as the new arrivals. I wondered how soon the war would end and if the German Army would be defeated or if they would be victorious. Would the war ever end? A German victory could mean that I might spend the rest of my life caged like an animal in the camps. It made me wonder if the captive animals I had seen all of those years ago in the zoo had felt the same way I was feeling then. I had to believe that the conclusion of the war would be a favorable one because, after all, the Germans wouldn’t be running away from the approaching armies if they felt they could fight them off. But why would they send me away from the same camp they were sending other people to? How would I survive when death had already been lurking around me for so long? Anxiety gave way to panic and panic gave way to dread. I didn’t know if I could handle another move. The six hundred men whose numbers were on the same transport list as me spent the afternoon obsessing over the uncertainty of our pending reassignment.

  And then the news came that we were not being sent on a “Death March,” but rather we were being relocated less than five kilometers away to Gusen II, a prime sub-camp of the Mauthausen-Gusen camp complex. Even though we were only traveling a short distance, in our condition it was not an easy journey. I joined a row of five men and we set off. All the while, I couldn’t help but stress about a possible forced mass exodus in the future.

  Since I had lived so close to Gusen II for the past eight or nine months, I knew, everyone in my group knew, that a transfer to it was the ultimate damnation. Terror surfaced. Rifles were fired. Dogs got riled up. We didn’t want to leave Mauthausen despite how horrible it was because we feared that the graphic stories about the Gusen camps were true. Gusen II was like entering the fiery pits of the underworld. No story can ever even scratch the surface of the events that took place there. For this reason, my recounts will not dip too far into the details. At every turn death was there to stalk you, constantly grinding down your will to persevere until it nearly reached oblivion. Even the strongest of men could not shake away from the iron grasp of extreme melancholy. You wanted to die, and felt like you were already dead, but you had to keep on living to see if the evil would ever end. That was Gusen II.

  However, as we set off for Gusen II, we relied only on the secondhand accounts from our fellow prisoners about what we might expect when we arrived. We hoped their tales were only hype; we didn’t want to come to grips with the possibility that the camp might actually be worse. After all, we recognized that if the prisoners who made it out of Gusen II alive retold such awful encounters then the prisoners who didn’t survive would have probably described even more grisly experiences chronicling the moments surrounding their last breaths.

  With our cups, bowls, and spoons in hand, we walked shoulder-to-shoulder westward through ankle-deep snow. Though the frozen accumulation was less than a third of a meter high, it provided a host of problems for us as we moved forward mainly because it was the perfect depth to swallow our shabby clogs when we stepped down and to bestow our feet with cakes of ice crystals when we stepped up. There was no opportunity to stop and remove the compacted snowflakes from our shoes. Instead, they stuck upon themselves so that our feet gradually became heavier and less agile.

  Shuffling along in route to our destination, I reflected on how much my life had changed since the war started. It was amazing how my life’s possessions had been compressed down to three vital items and some clothing, all of which were weather-beaten and flimsy. Nevertheless, I especially treasured my bowl and my cup; many prisoners had theirs stolen. So far, I had not been the victim of such thievery and I did not intend to lower my guard.

  Only five years prior, a move to a new location involved bringing material items such as bulky furniture and posh linens, and yet I felt lucky just to take along a beating heart, rags covering my body, and a couple of objects in which to obtain sustenance. I also still had the golden ring hanging around my neck, but to me it felt like an appendage not like a possession. I pondered whether I would have been content to live with these few things in Warsaw without experiencing the camps. The truth was that no matter how full our houses had been with riches before the war, none of that mattered in the camps. Exquisite artwork adorning our walls back home and designer fashions folded away in our closets did nothing to aid us. Sure, some people were able to buy or bribe their way out of Europe before the outbreak of war and they were able to take some of their fortunes with them, but once the Nazis rounded us up, valuables back home were useless.

  In the concentration camps we had become grateful for anything we had with us regardless of how insignificant these possessions would have seemed before the war. The camps also largely leveled the socioeconomic playing field. You could share a bunk with someone who had previously been several rungs higher or lower in terms of class rankings. For example, I had bunked with both a former pediatric dentist and a former garbage collector.

  I had come to realize that in life the only person you can truly count on is yourself. As long as you can still think clearly without yielding to desperation then you can survive. Once your will to live is tainted then you become a ticking time bomb. No object can save you when you mentally defeat yourself. Why do so many people measure their self-worth by the monetary value of the items surrounding them? Why do some people need to be constantly coddled and fussed over by others? In that moment, my entire perspective about life had evolved.

  My mind was racing with thoughts during the entire walk. I felt as though it was lit up with activity just like the lightning bugs I used to capture in glass jars at the lake as a child. I was sure that if I could see my reflection I would see a brightly illuminated beacon radiating from my skull. This sense of mental stimulation was refreshing. I was invigorated and very much cognizant of my situation. My mother had long ago expressed her belief that I would endure to see the end of the war, and something just then made me believe she was right. It didn’t occur to me that she might have made such a prediction as a placebo in order to comfort me, like when someone tells you that you look “good” when you are ill so that you don’t feel so down about your condition even though you know you look detestable. She wouldn’t have said she thought I would die during the war even if she thought I might. If she had, perhaps I would have had the excuse I needed to give up. But to me, her words forecasted the future: I would survive. That conviction made the walk to Gusen II—a place that I already knew would be hell—more tolerable.

  CHAPTER 41

  Upon arrival, I noticed that the Gusen complex was in stark contrast to the Mauthausen compound. It looked less like a sturdy fortress and more like a dilapidated collection of shabbily constructed buildings. It was obvious that we had arrived to a place that was built in haste as an afterthought. This realization didn’t sit well with me. Poor planning during erection meant that our basic needs might not be met. The differences began with the short metal gate we entered through and the unpainted, untreated boards nailed together to form barracks. Even the electric wires running in trios along the edges of the camp failed to seem intimidating. From the corner of my eye I saw that a smokestack discha
rged thick, misty clouds. Peering up, I noticed a small number of wooden watch towers dotting the fields, but the guards manning them didn’t have their guns lifted and ready to shoot. It was as though everything about the place was temporary or just for spectacle. The fence, the watch towers, the gate, and the crematorium were all elements in every camp I had lived, but I viewed them as lacking muscle in Gusen.

  Maybe life in Gusen wouldn’t be as awful as I had expected it to be? Or maybe my first impression was wrong?

  Details of my first day are spotty, but what I do remember is that the registration process was brief and painless. We were not assigned new identification numbers. Instead, our Mauthausen numbers were logged in a paperbound ledger and then we were divided into groups. I was placed in an all-Jewish group and led away to the separate Jewish section of the camp. Passing by the Gusen I camp as we walked several hundred meters to the west through a barbed wire fence, we expressed our disappointment to one another that there was no redistribution of clothing, delousing, or showering. I’m not sure why these steps were skipped, but to me it seemed like the guards eliminated them in the interest of saving time. I felt especially grungy by then since my barracks’ monthly shower at Mauthausen was supposed to be that same day. The odor and stickiness of compounded cold sweat, layers of dirt, soiled underwear-less pants, and a body that hadn’t been scrubbed for thirty days disgusted me. Missing two bottom teeth, which had rotted out of my inflamed, infected gums during the last few months, I knew that I looked loathsome. I don’t know why I was so ashamed of myself that day. Maybe it wasn’t shame that overtook me; maybe it was despair. My emotions were unstable from hour to hour. No sooner had I convinced myself that all would be okay than I would tumble into a hopeless state. In that first hour in Gusen, I was miserable. I knew that I had to find a way to bathe so that bugs wouldn’t prey on me, mistaking me for the decaying corpse that I felt like. As it turned out, I would not have the opportunity to shower my entire stay at Gusen II. But, I did find ways to clean myself, such as standing in the rain and vigorously wiping my hands and feet over my body like a fly and fighting for the first splash through a puddle after a downpour.

  Unclean and unconfident, my group followed behind a clean-shaven guard with an impeccably spotless uniform. He showed us to a one-story building where four or five hundred Jews were already living. Opening the door, a burst of rancidity ran up to greet us. Nauseated, I covered my nose with my hand, pushing back the urge to spew. Droplets of melting snow fell onto my striped cap from a hole in the roof. Insects crawling in zigzags on the bare floor turned and headed in one direction…ours.

  Although it was a Sunday afternoon, a segment of the prisoner population was at work. With an eerie smirk, we were notified that we would be working the graveyard shift. We weren’t assigned to a bunk as we had been in the past. The understanding was that since a portion of us would be working at any given time, then the rest of us would find a place to sleep in whatever bunks we could cram ourselves into. This meant that upwards of six of us shared one tiny level of a bunk; we were even more crushed together than we had been at Mauthausen. Having just returned from work, the other occupants were either sleeping or lying around, limiting their movements and preserving their power. Nearly all of them were sickly and looked like “muselmanner.” Most of them were coughing or convulsing. I didn’t know how any of them were fit enough to work, but I knew they—like the rest of us—had to anyway.

  Would we even be capable of making our own decisions when we one day were allowed to? Had our ability to choose for ourselves been permanently wiped away?

  In the midst of wondering if my free will would be restored at the conclusion of the war, I was jostled into a bed frame. An angled, loosened nail protruding from a beam caught my fall, scraping my shoulder and cutting my shirt. Righting myself, I saw that some of the other prisoners were surrounding us. From the moment we entered the barracks, they began hunting us. They eyed us from afar at first, sizing us up and calculating our movements. Eventually they lurched at us like famished tigers. However, instead of exhibiting nimble, cat-like reflexes and stealing from us, they clambered over to us, begging us for our possessions. Some of them didn’t even have a bowl in which to obtain food and so seeing us with our bowl, cup, and spoon, they hungered for our “excessive” supplies. A few men offered up their cups to the needy prisoners, but I fervently hung on to my things. I didn’t see the point of giving something I had protected for so long to someone else just because they wanted it. I had to continue to look out for myself. Therefore, I tied my items around my waist just as I had in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

  In no time—maybe five or six hours since our arrival—sixty of us were rounded up, counted, fed a half a cup of tepid, contaminated broth, and then escorted to our work site which was less than a half of a kilometer from our barracks. We passed other labor groups in the dark, many of them containing Soviet POWs, and saw cadaverous prisoners shoveling snow from walking paths and roads. With no prior indication of what our job might be, our gyrating nerves silenced us.

  When we arrived at our work site, three hundred men were standing outside of a tunnel that had been carved into the side of a mountain. Loud drilling and hammering echoed from inside the tunnel. Our SS guard broke away from us and joined the two other guards at the opening of the tunnel under a pair of floodlights. Dancing from foot to foot to keep warm, I concentrated on my breathing to calm myself from the unknown. I didn’t know what we would find inside the tunnel.

  When the machinery ceased, I looked around at my fellow laborers, sensing that they were just as frightened as I was. Before we knew it, an outpouring of prisoners emerged from the opening of the tunnel covered in soot and grease, looking frazzled and weak. Scooting back to camp, their faces reminded me of ghosts. About to walk inside, our progress was halted when ten men walking with five stretchers lifted above their heads marched straight for us. Four of the carried men were motionless and pale, but one man—with his limbs spilling out over the sides of the taut canvas—was still alive, though barely. His eyelids were fluttering wildly as his jaw opened slightly, revealing a severed tongue that was hanging on by the slimmest of muscle tissue. Making a mighty effort to roll onto his bruised and lacerated side so that he wouldn’t choke on his blood, he hollered in pain, giving up and staying on his back. I couldn’t decipher his age—camp life had blurred the usually apparent signs—but the delicate skin around his eyes was smooth and unblemished. To this day I don’t know who or what was responsible for his injuries, but seeing someone in such an irredeemable condition coming out of the very place I was about to enter unnerved me. I told myself that a stretcher would never find me on it. Who would be the first casualty of our shift?

  When the tunnel had cleared of workers, we filed inside. Most of the prisoners, aside from my new cohorts, already knew their responsibilities and so the cloud of laborers quickly dispersed. Guards lined the walls and the entrance, kicking the dirt up with their boots as they engaged in quirky lighthearted banter; but their playful demeanor did not fool any of us. We knew that they could turn into cold-hearted killers without provocation at any moment. As my group stood around waiting for orders, we puffed our warm breath onto our hands to keep them from going numb. The chill from the outside easily coiled inside the opening of the passageway.

  While continuing to wait, I looked around at my new environment. Lit up by dozens of hanging light bulbs, I saw that deep inside the tunnel rows of ladders were leading up to what appeared to be a partially constructed airplane. Next to it were tables with grease-spewing machines and tools. Further back were open flames, ready to melt pieces of steel. Based on my observations, I guessed that we would be assembling fighter jets for the Germans. The men standing with me discussed the implications of such a job. In this tunnel we might help to build a plane that could end up destroying our loved ones. Some men said they would refuse to participate in the operation, but our new kapos forced them to change their minds. Therefore, we fol
lowed our two kapos to the right side of the tunnel, and after a brief lesson regarding proper usage of the machines, we began working. Men who had prior welding experience were singled out and taken to other areas. The rest of us split up the tools and set to work assembling sections of the aircraft. I was assigned to the mid-underbelly of the plane.

  That first day I must have twisted my screwdriver thousands of times from a stooped position. By the end of the continuous shift, with no break for a meal, my wrists and thighs felt like jelly and my face was glossy with perspiration and bruises. Countless times, the heavy bolts I was fastening to the metal sheets fell on my face.