It was both an historic and happy moment when, the following morning, a kommando of prisoners arrived in the courtyard and, split up into two groups, began the demolition of the buildings. Seeing the red brick walls tumble one after the other under the effect of the dynamite blasts, I had a presentiment of the Third Reich’s own destruction. Jews had built it. Jews were tearing it down. Never had any KZ prisoners worked with an intensity such as I saw on the faces of those men, whose expressions reflected the hope of a better life to come.
In the dissecting room, everything movable was packed. As for the dissection table, only the marble slabs were dismantled, and replaced by concrete supports. The moving was finished in a few hours and we spent the night in number four. After arranging the equipment and setting up the table—placing the pedestals and cups in position—the dissecting room was once again ready to function.
For ten days nothing happened. Our indolent life continued. More and more often our SS guards sought refuge in drunkenness. It was rare that they had their wits about them for more than a few minutes a day.
One evening while we were eating dinner, Oberschaarführer Mussfeld entered unsteadily, leaned drunkenly on the table and said: “Guten Abend Jungs . . . Ihr werdet bald alle krepieren, nachher aber kommen wir.” (Good evening, children, soon you’re going to die, but afterwards our turn will come.) By these words, spilled from the lips of a drunken man, I learned a truth I had already suspected. Our guards were going to disappear with us.
I offered a glass of tea with a shot of hot rum in it to the Ober, who emptied the glasses as fast as we could fill them, with obvious satisfaction. He sat down at our table and, as though he wanted to make up for his past silence, began to talk. He told how his wife had been killed during an air raid, and that his son was on the Russian front.
“It’s all over,” he said. “The Russians are barely 40 kilometers from Auschwitz. The whole of Germany is in exodus on the highways. Everybody is leaving the frontier areas to seek refuge in the West.”
His words did our hearts good. And seeing the Ober’s despair, a ray of hope began to grow inside me. Perhaps we would after all succeed in leaving here alive.
XXXV
CONDEMNED TO THAT REGION MIDWAY between hope and despair, we safely reached the first of January, 1945. Snow still blanketed the countryside as far as the eye could see. I left the crematorium to take a short walk around the courtyard.
Suddenly the purr of a powerful motor reached my ears, and a moment later a large brown van appeared. Used to transport prisoners, this van was called “Brown Toni” by the camp inmates, for it was painted a dark brownish color. A tall officer got out. I recognized him as Dr. Klein, an SS major, one of the evil, bloody-handed KZ officials. I came to attention and gave him the regulation salute. He had brought a hundred new victims from KZ Barracks number 10, that is, the camp prison.
“Here’s some work to start the New Year with,” he told the Ober who hurried up to greet him.
The Ober was so drunk he could hardly stand up. He had apparently gone all out celebrating the New Year. Who knows, perhaps he had merely been steeling himself against the guards’ impending end. At any rate, it was evident from his expression that he was not at all pleased to learn he had been given a bloody job to perform on New Year’s Day. A hundred Polish prisoners, Christian men all, had been brought here to be murdered. SS guards took them to an empty room next to the furnace room and ordered them to undress immediately. Dr. Klein and the Ober, meanwhile, took a stroll around the courtyard.
I hastened to where the prisoners were undressing and began questioning them as to the reasons for their imprisonment. One of them told me he had given refuge to one of his relatives, at his home in Krakau. The Gestapo had accused him of aiding partisans and brought him to trial before a court-martial. While awaiting sentence, he had been sent to Barracks 10. Although he did not yet know it, the court had already condemned him to death. That was why he was here. He was under the mistaken impression, however, that he had been brought here for a shower before being assigned to a forced labor battalion.
Another had been imprisoned for having aided and abetted inflation. A serious offense, to be sure. Just what had his crime been? Why, he had bought a pound of butter on the black market. A third had been jailed for having wandered into a forbidden zone. They had accused him of being a partisan spy. It was much the same story everywhere I asked: minor slips and infractions of the law turned into fabulous, trumped-up charges.
Now that there was no longer any Sonderkommando, the SS guards led the men to the Ober’s revolver.
Again, the sound of “Brown Toni’s” powerful motor. A hundred new victims arrived, all women, quite well dressed. They were sent to the same room where, only a few minutes before, the men had undressed. Then one by one the women were also taken to the Ober’s waiting gun. They too were Polish Christians; they too paid with their lives for minor infractions of the law.
The cremation was carried out by the SS, who asked me to furnish them with rubber gloves for the job.
As soon as he had made quite certain, in viso, that the 200 prisoners had been duly executed, Dr. Klein left the crematorium. There was nothing contradictory about the order of November 17th forbidding the practice of violent death, and today’s slaughter. On the contrary, all the SS had just done was to carry out the sentences tendered by a duly constituted court-martial.
XXXVI
MY DAYS PASSED QUIETLY, WITHOUT interruption. It was rumored that Dr. Mengele had fled Auschwitz. The KZ had a new doctor, and, what was more, from now on the area was no longer to be called KZ, but “Arbeitslager,” that is, “Work Camp.” Everything was breaking up and falling to pieces.
On the first of January a newspaper I happened to come across told of the beginning of the Russian offensive. The noise of heavy artillery rattled the windowpanes; the line of fire grew closer every day. On January 17th I went to bed early, although I was not tired. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Lulled by the agreeable warmth of a coke stove, I soon drifted off.
It must have been about midnight. I was awakened by a series of powerful blasts, the crackling of machine-gun fire, and dazzling flashes. I heard the sound of doors banging and footsteps running. I jumped out of bed and opened the door. The furnace room lights were on, and the doors of the SS’ rooms were wide open, witness to the speed of their departure.
The crematorium’s heavy gates were also open. Not a guard in sight. I glanced quickly at the watch towers. For the first time in months they were empty. I ran back to wake up my companions. We dressed in haste and got ready for the great journey. The SS had fled. We would not stay here a minute longer, here where for eight months Death had lain in wait for us every minute of every hour. We could not wait for the Russians, since we risked falling into the hands of the SS rear guard, who would not hesitate to execute us. Luckily we had excellent clothing—sweaters, overcoats, shoes—which meant a great deal, for the temperature was at least 10 below zero. We each took a two-pound can of food, and filled our pockets with medicines and cigarettes.
We left, filled with the feverish sensation of liberation. Direction: The Birkenau KZ, two kilometers from the crematoriums. Immense flames glowed along the horizon there. It was probably the KZ burning.
Crossing the furnace room, we passed in front of the room where the gold was stored. Boxes containing untold wealth still lay inside, but we did not even think of stopping to take some of it. What was money when one’s life was at stake? We had learned that nothing lasts and that no value is absolute. The only exception to that rule: freedom.
We left by the main gate. No one stopped us. The abrupt change seemed incredible. Our path led through the little forest of Birkenau, whose trees were covered from trunk to top with a heavy layer of glistening snow. The same path down which millions had walked on their way to death. . . . We passed beside the Jewish ramp, buried in the snow. And here they had climbed down from the boxcars for selection. . . . The im
age of the two columns, left and right, separated forever, gazing sadly across at those they had just left, came back to me. But for all of them, the matter had merely been one of chronological order: they were all dead.
Yes, the Birkenau KZ was on fire. Some of the guards’ rooms, in which the camp records were stored, were burning. A large crowd, perhaps 3,000, was gathered in front of the camp gate waiting for the order to leave. Without hesitation I joined their ranks. No one knew me here. I was no longer the bearer of unholy secrets, no longer a member of the Sonderkommando, and therefore did not have to die. Here I was merely another KZ prisoner, lost in the crowd. It seemed to me this was the best solution. My colleagues concurred. Everyone was fleeing Birkenau, but I judged it improbable that they would be able to take us very far. In a day or two the Russians would catch up with us. But sometime before that happened, the SS would desert. Meanwhile, our best bet was to march with the others between the two lines of fire.
It was about one o’clock in the morning. The last SS had left the camp. He closed the iron gates and cut off the lights from the main switchboard, which was located near the entrance. The enormous cemetery of European Judaism, Birkenau, sank into darkness. My eyes lingered for a long while on the barbed wires of the camp and the rows of barracks that stood out against the night. Farewell, cemetery of millions, cemetery without a single grave!
We set out, surrounded by a company of SS. We discussed with our new-found friends all that had happened, and what might happen now, trying to guess what the morrow would bring. Would the SS succeed in escorting our convoy to a new prison, or would they, as we hoped, desert us somewhere along the way?
We had walked for approximately five kilometers when our left flank became the target of a deadly fire. The Russian advance guard had seen us and, mistaking us for a military column, opened fire. They were using sub-machine guns and had the support of a light tank. The SS returned the fire and shouted for us to take cover on the ground. We crawled into the ditches on either side of the road. The fire was heavy on both sides. Then, in a little while, all grew quiet again and we resumed our journey across the sterile, snow-covered earth of Silesia.
Slowly it began to grow light. I estimated that we had covered about 15 kilometers during the night. But still we marched across the packed snow. All along the way I noticed pots and blankets and wooden shoes that had been abandoned by a convoy of women who had preceded us.
A few kilometers farther on we came upon a much sadder sight: every forty or fifty yards, a bloody body lay in the ditch beside the road. For kilometers and kilometers it was the same story: bodies everywhere. Exhausted, they had been unable to walk any farther; when they had strayed from the ranks, an SS had dispatched them with a bullet in the back of the head.
So I had not left murder and violence behind me. Apparently the SS had been ordered not to leave any victims behind. A discouraging thought. The sight of the bodies made a deep impression on all of us, and we quickened our pace. To walk meant to live.
Now the first shots began sounding in our own convoy as well. The bodies of two fellow-sufferers fell into the ditches. Unable to advance another step, they had sat down: a bullet in the neck. Ten minutes did not go by without the same thing recurring.
Towards noon we reached Plesow, where we made our first stop. We spent an hour in a sports stadium. Anyone who had some food ate a little. We smoked a cigarette, then set off again along the snowy road, feeling greatly refreshed. But a week went by, two, and still we walked. For twenty days we walked, till at last we reached a railway station. In all, we had covered over 200 kilometers, having had almost nothing to eat for three weeks. At night we slept outdoors, in the bitter cold. When we arrived at Ratibor only 2,000 of us were left. About a thousand had been shot along the way. We were all relieved to see the line of box cars waiting for us.
We climbed into the cars and, after an all-night wait, began to move. The trip lasted five days. I did not count the number of comrades who froze to death, but only 1,500 of us reached our destination, the Mauthausen KZ. Some of the missing 500 were not dead, however, for there were a few who, taking advantage of a propitious occasion, fled the convoy and perhaps escaped.
XXXVII
THE MAUTHAUSEN KZ SAT ON TOP OF A hill overlooking the ancient city of the same name. This extermination camp, which resembled a fortified town, was made of granite blocks. With its bastions, its towers and loopholes, it looked from afar like a medieval castle.
This picture would have been a rare and beautiful one if only the stones had been covered with a century-old growth of lichen, or streaked gray from the constant play of wind and rain and snow through the years. Instead, they presented a façade of dazzling white that clashed with the surrounding landscape, which was crowned with dark forests. For the “castle” had only recently been built and its walls were not yet marked with that austere beauty of ancient buildings. The Third Reich had had it constructed as a KZ. Forty thousand Spanish Republicans, refugees in France, had been brought here after the occupation, as well as hundreds of thousands of German Jews. It was they who had worked in the Mauthausen quarries cutting the blocks; it was they who had carried the finished stones along the seven-kilometer path up the mountain, where formerly only wild goats had grazed. And it was they who had constructed the powerful walls around their house of sorrow, which was composed of wooden barracks. They had finished the castle at the price of unbelievable suffering, but they had never lived to occupy it. In the midst of this great mass of stone and concrete they had all perished, like the slaves in ancient Egypt.
The camp had not remained unoccupied for very long, however. Thousands who had fought in the Yugoslav underground, as well as members of all the various resistance movements throughout Europe—plus, of course, Europe’s doomed race, the Jews—had flocked here by the tens of thousands, filling the fortress’ barracks in a matter of days. There they had lived during the brief period preceding their death.
Now another convoy, ours, decimated by the long trip and the insufferable cold, slowly wended its way up the arduous, snow-covered mountain path. Our strength all but gone, we at last entered the gates of the KZ and lined up, in the gathering dusk, on the “Appelplatz.”
I looked around for my companions. Fischer, the lab assistant, was missing. I had not seen him since Plesow. Then he had been lying in the snow, his strength completely spent. From his contracted facial expression, I had suspected that his end was near. He was fifty-five and had spent five years in the KZ, so it was not surprising that his organism had been unequal to the long walk and paralyzing cold. Dr. Korner was in pretty good shape, but Dr. Gorog, on the other hand, was in a critical condition. His mental troubles had steadily worsened, and even in the days of the crematorium keeping his condition a secret had been a source of constant worry to me. I had done all I could to make sure he never ran into Dr. Mengele. Mussfeld had also been dangerous. If either one had noticed his condition, his life would not have been worth a penny.
Before leaving the crematorium he had already informed me of his last wishes.
“Nicholas,” he had said, “you are a strong-willed person and one day you’ll manage to get out of all this alive. As for me, I know I’m finished.” I had tried to protest, but he had waved my words of encouragement aside and gone on: “I have proof that my wife and daughter both died in the gas chamber. But I left my twelve-year-old son with the monks of the Koszeg cloister. If you ever do get home, fetch him and bring him up as your own. I say this in full possession of all my faculties, knowing I haven’t long to live.”
I had promised him that I would faithfully carry out his wishes, in the event I escaped and he did not.
Now, happily, we had left the site of certain death far behind. To die now, so near to the end of the road, just when the hope of freedom had filled our hearts, would be truly tragic.
Following roll call, we were sent through a tortuous passage to the baths. There we joined groups newly arrived from other camps: ther
e must have been 10,000 of us crammed into this small area. A strong wind whistled between the walls of the castle. The mountain on which the camp was perched marked the beginning of the Alps, and the winters here were extremely rigorous. We learned that we would be taken into the baths in groups of forty. At that rate, I calculated it would take three days for everybody to bathe.
The guards stationed here had been recruited from among German criminals, men serving terms for murder, larceny and the like. Needless to say, they were the faithful servants of the SS. Today their job consisted of grouping the deportees for the baths. Aryan prisoners went first. In fact there were so many Aryans that I figured the Jews’ turn would not come before the third day. To wait here for two days became a matter of life and death, for a prisoner could not enter the barracks and get himself enrolled on the list of those to be fed without first passing through the baths. For a person who was already exhausted, a two-day wait without food would mean almost certain death, for either his legs would buckle or his eyelids would yield to sleep, and he would sink into the hard-packed snow, never again to rise. Already about a hundred prisoners were lying on the ground around me. No one was paying any attention to them, for each had all he could do to save himself. This was our final sprint towards the finish line of Life.
Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account Page 17
