A Murder in Auschwitz

by J. C. Stephenson

  “It is easy to see the war in Spain as an adventure, to see the foreign fighters there as nothing more than sentimental mercenaries. I am sure there is nothing I will be able to tell you today to change your mind on that. But although Karl went to Spain to fight the fascists, to be a soldier of conscience, that was not how he died. He didn’t die on some Spanish hillside in a useless attack on a Nationalist village, or on some Catalonian road, bombed by the Condor Legion. Karl died a hero, someone that will be remembered by those that he saved that day and their families, probably for generations to come.”

  Brandt stood and nervously checked that the buttons on his overly large jacket were still in place. “I realise that this is a difficult time for you. I know that perhaps you may not wish to hear the details of how your brother died, so I will leave you for the moment. I will only be in Berlin for a few days; the regime in Germany is somewhat hostile to my political views, so I will be leaving for a more liberal-minded country. I am staying at this address,” he said, handing over a card. “I will be there tomorrow, between three and six. If you want me to explain further about your brother’s time in Spain, then please come and visit me. If not, please remember, your brother died so that others could live, not for some abstract political reason.”

  Meyer thanked Brandt and followed him to the door. “Herr Brandt, thank you for coming. I will speak with Klara and see how she feels. It may be that I will come and visit you myself if she doesn’t feel she is capable.”

  Brandt nodded, thanked Meyer, and headed down the apartment block stairway. As Meyer was closing the door, he noticed that Frau Fischer’s door was slightly ajar. He stood and watched as her door slowly closed.

  After Brandt had left the previous night, Klara’s mood had lifted, and she had seemed surprisingly high-spirited. Meyer had been worried that it was a form of shock that she was exhibiting, and when he had questioned her several times about how she was feeling, she took him by the hand and sat him on the sofa.

  “It may seem strange, Manfred,” she had said. “But now I know for sure, it is more of a relief. I mourned for Karl a long time ago, and although those feelings of loss returned when Herr Brandt confirmed that Karl had died, I can now lay those feelings to rest.” Once she had explained how she felt, Meyer agreed to take her to see Brandt at the guesthouse.

  It was four o’clock exactly. Meyer and Klara sat on the bed in Brandt’s small room as he boiled water for coffee on a tiny, single gas ringed stove.

  “Believe me, this is luxury,” he laughed. “Up until a few days ago, if I wanted a hot drink I had to build a fire, find water, hang a pot over it, boil the water, and find coffee or tea from somewhere. And there was rarely milk, hardly ever cream, and never sugar.”

  Once Brandt had managed to fill three mismatched and cracked mugs with hot coffee, he sat on a wooden folding chair, the only chair in the room. “Frau Meyer, please, if at any point you wish me to stop, please tell me. I do understand how difficult this must be.”

  “Thank you, Herr Brandt,” she replied. “But I need to know how he died. I realised last night that I really had known that he was gone a while ago, but what I need to know is how it happened and where he is now.”

  Brandt nodded and stared into his coffee. “First of all, Frau Meyer, you can rest assured that he lies in a proper grave with a headstone in a village just outside Barcelona, called Olesa de Bonesvalls.”

  Klara sipped her coffee. It was a relief to know that her brother was buried in a proper grave. She felt that at the end of one’s life there should always be a grave. Somewhere for your bones to rest, somewhere for family to visit, somewhere to be remembered. She hoped that one day, she and Manfred would visit Spain and Olesa de Bonesvalls and lay some flowers for her brother.

  “I suppose it would be best if I started at the beginning,” said Brandt, cupping his hot mug. “It was during the summer of nineteen-thirty-eight, and our unit, part of the Thalmann Battalion, was in the hills around Barcelona on patrol, looking out for any Nationalist insurgents.

  “It was late afternoon, and we stopped at Olesa de Bonesvalls to replenish our water and pitch for the night. We relied heavily on the local population to provide us with food and water when on patrol, as we would be in the hills for days and we just couldn’t carry enough to keep us going. Sometimes, when we were in the forest, we could shoot pigeon or squirrel or, once, when we were really lucky, a wild boar,” said Brandt shaking his head and smiling. “Someone produced a couple of bottles of wine that day, and one of our unit had been a chef in Austria before coming to Spain. He used some wild herbs and the hard cheese that we all carried and cooked it all over a fire. It was the greatest feast I have ever had.” Brandt took another drink of his coffee, washing away the memory of the wild boar.

  “So, we camped at the edge of Olesa de Bonesvalls and some of the locals appeared with bread and even a little bit of ham and some tomatoes. We had oranges with us from a grove we had passed which were perfect for quenching the thirst after the salty ham.

  “We bedded down for the night, under the stars, without tents. The night air still held the heat from the day. It was so very hot there sometimes, and you get so thirsty; you have no idea how thirsty. So that when you drink water it tastes sweet like someone has spilled sugar into it. It had been a very hot day that day; everything was parched and dry, which probably didn’t help what happened that night.

  “Olesa de Bonesvalls was what the Spanish called a ‘Cuna Aldea’. It means, roughly, a cradle village. The children of those fighting in the war and those who had maybe lost their parents were brought from the cities and looked after in such places. Some with families and some in a communal building, usually the church or school, sometimes the village hall if the village had one.

  “I don’t know how it happened, I don’t suppose it really matters, but a fire broke out in the village, in the building next to the church. The alarm was sounded, and we joined the men in the village carting water from the well and throwing it on the fire. We thought we had put it out, but then someone noticed the flames had spread to the church roof. The church was where the children were.

  “It had probably been done to stop those with the urge to wander and cause mischief, or maybe it was done to keep them safely inside, but the doors to the church had been locked. After all, who would think children could come to harm in the house of God?

  “The children were panicking inside. The locals shouted to them that it would be okay, but Karl and I could see that the roof was like tinder and would soon be completely ablaze. So the villagers got hold of the priest and he arrived with the old wrought iron key. Then, in his haste to get the door open, he got the key jammed and, to make things worse, one of the men from the village tried to turn it and the iron snapped.

  “This was when I realised that Karl had disappeared. Then I saw him with his knife, digging out one of the bars that covered the windows on the church. I could see what he was doing so I joined in, and before you knew it, the bar had been pulled from the wall. Next, he smashed the window with his rifle butt, and I helped him climb up and in through the window.

  “He began passing children out through the narrow window space. The smallest ones came first, then the older ones. All this time, the lock in the huge wooden door had been attacked by chisels and knives in an attempt to get it open.

  “Then, just as they got the main door open, I heard the women scream and part of the roof fell in. I ran round to the door and looked into the inferno of the church. It was like a scene from hell. And then I saw Karl. He was shielding a boy and pushing him out the door. The priest was counting the children, checking to see if anyone was missing. And then someone spotted a boy of about twelve at the back of the church. I could hardly see him through the flames and smoke. There was no way anyone would be able or mad enough to brave the heat of the fire to get to him.

  “But there was Karl, in amongst the flames, running to the boy. Everyone was shouting, first of all for him to come
back, and then, when we saw him pick up the boy, in encouragement. He fought his way through the flames and at one point I thought we had lost him when the last of the roof fell in. But from somewhere he had been given the strength of a hundred men, and he pushed through the flames until he was outside with the boy.

  “The boy was unconscious but, apart from that, relatively unharmed. But Karl...” Brandt’s voice faltered. He looked at Klara, unsure of how he should go about describing the death of her brother.

  “Please, Herr Brandt. Please go on,” said Klara, her voice clear and gentle.

  “Karl was burned very badly on his hands and his face. His shirt had been burned off and there was no hair left on his head. But where he was really burned was where we couldn’t see. On the inside. In his lungs. He sank down to his knees next to the boy, and people were pouring water on him, trying to relieve the pain he must have been in. But he couldn’t breathe. His lungs had been scorched. He lay down next to the boy and closed his eyes and then he was gone.

  “Your brother saved the lives of twenty-two children that night. He went back into the fire to rescue that boy. He didn’t die fighting the fascists and he didn’t die while trying to kill. He died saving children. And when you think, Frau Meyer, that each of these children will have their own children, how many did he really save? Perhaps hundreds.

  “Your brother was buried in the local cemetery and every man, woman, and child was at his funeral. They also erected a gravestone, paid for by the villagers. He is probably one of the only members of the International Brigades to have a gravestone.”

  “What does it say?” asked Meyer. “The gravestone, is it just his name?”

  Brandt smiled and took out a piece of paper. “I have written it down for you and translated it into German as well.”

  Meyer took the paper from Brandt and passed it to Klara. She unfolded the yellow paper and saw that there were words in Spanish, underneath which had been written the translation;

  ‘Here lies a soldier of the Spanish War,

  German in soul and brave in heart,

  Karl Steinmann

  Who gave his life saving 22 children from a fire in the old church

  Remembered by the mothers

  June 1938’

  Auschwitz, 6th February 1944

  KRAMER knocked on Liebehenschel’s office door. More than ever, he wished he had simply shot Kolb. The murder would have been cleared up and he would not be continually asking the Camp Commandant if a Jew could have special permission to help Kolb.

  “Come,” came Liebehenschel’s voice from behind the door.

  Kramer saw the expression on Liebehenschel’s face change as he entered the room. Kramer saluted and waited for the invitation to sit down, but it did not come.

  “Hauptsturmfuhrer Kramer, is this to do with Kolb?”

  “Yes, Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer,” replied Kramer. He allowed his voice to show his own impatience with Kolb as he wanted Liebehenschel to realise that he found Kolb’s constant requests as tedious as he did.

  “What does Kolb want now?” asked Liebehenschel.

  “He asked the Jew to help him last night and he has agreed,” said Kramer.

  “But?” asked the Commandant. “You would not be here bothering me if this was straightforward, Hauptsturmfuhrer.”

  “The Jew has agreed to help Kolb with one proviso.” Kramer’s voice trailed off.

  Liebehenschel stared at Kramer, his eyes widening. “A proviso? The Jew has made a proviso? Why didn’t Kolb threaten to have him killed?”

  Kramer felt uneasy. This was exactly what he had asked Kolb. “He did threaten him with that, but he said that the Jew thought that he was going to die anyway, so it didn’t make any impact.”

  “For goodness sake, Kramer, what was the proviso?” responded Liebehenschel, his temper rising.

  “He wants to see his family,” replied Kramer. He waited for the explosion of temper from Liebehenschel.

  “His family? He wants to see his family? He doesn’t want anything else?” asked Liebehenschel, his anger abated.

  “No, sir. Kolb says that the Jew only wants to see his family. Nothing else.”

  “No extra food? No extra clothes? Nothing like that?”

  “No sir, just his family.”

  “Are they here? In Auschwitz?” he asked.

  “They came to Auschwitz together,” replied Kramer, happy that Liebehenschel had calmed down and was not blaming him for this outrageous request.

  “Are they alive?” asked Liebehenschel.

  “That sir, I can’t be certain about. I would need to check with records.”

  Liebehenschel pushed himself back in his chair and ran both his hands across his head. As much as he did not like a Jew making demands, it had surprised him that he had not requested something tangible, something to make life easier for himself.

  “Go and find out if his family are still alive and have Kolb tell him the good or bad news.”

  Kramer felt relief at Liebehenschel’s reaction, but he had not yet told him the most difficult part. “Sir, there is one last thing. The Jew does not trust Kolb and, probably with good reason, he thinks that Kolb will use him and then renege on his promise. However, he trusts you and would like your word on this.”

  Liebehenschel said something so quietly that Kramer did not pick it up. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  Liebehenschel jumped to his feet and screamed at Kramer. “Get out!”

  “So are you going to tell me where you were for half the night last night?” asked Geller, as they rested by one of the tree stumps as the guards took their ersatz coffee and bread at the wagon. “I thought that you were gone for good. I don’t think I ever remember someone being taken away like that and returning. Ever.”

  Meyer smiled. “You won’t believe me when I tell you.”

  Geller slid a piece of solidified tree sap into his mouth. “I would believe anything and nothing in this place.”

  “It was the officer who stopped us that day, Kolb. The one I had defended in a murder case in the thirties. He has been accused of murder here and he wants me to help with his defence.”

  Geller gaped at Meyer. “How can he be accused of murder in a place like this?”

  “It was one of his own, another SS officer,” replied Meyer.

  “So one SS officer is found dead and it is murder. Then what do we call the dead in the gas chambers then? What name can we give that?”

  Meyer nodded in agreement. “The irony is not lost on me, Anton,” he said.

  Both men were quiet for a while, waiting patiently for the hot but bitter liquid that the wagon-master called coffee.

  “Are you going to do it?” asked Geller, breaking the silence.

  “Yes, Anton. I didn’t have much time to think about it and at first I thought, ‘why should I help you? You are part of the machine that keeps so many prisoners, that kills even more.’ But then I thought that perhaps I could use this to my advantage. So I asked to see Klara and the girls.”

  Geller was astonished at Meyer’s undisguised request. “Did he agree?”

  “Only after he threatened to have me killed. And then my family killed.”

  A snigger escaped Geller’s lips. “So you must have upset him then. Good for you, Manfred. When would you get to see them?”

  “If he is found not guilty, I would get to see them then, at the end of the trial, which would be in four days,” replied Meyer.

  “How do you know he will keep his word? He could easily just refuse at the end.”

  “Ah, that is why I have requested the Camp Commandant’s word,” he explained.

  “And that murderer is different from Kolb in what way?” replied Geller.

  Meyer’s smile returned. “There is no difference. That is the point; I can’t trust any of them individually. But collectively, it is a different matter. Liebehenschel will be told of my request, which I am sure will make him furious, but there will be at least two members of the SS staff
who will know of this agreement and it would not be breaking the trust of a lowly Jew, but the loss of face in being unable to keep an agreement with a lowly Jew that would ensure Kolb keep his promise.”

  Geller shook his head. “You are a wily one, Manfred. You know that they will send you and your family to the gas chamber once this is over, don’t you?”

  Meyer stared at the trees and admired the peacefulness that persisted there. The snow hung lazily from the branches of the pines and there was the occasional knocking noise from woodpeckers.

  “I know, Anton. But we are all destined for the gas chamber here. However, as soon as Kolb asked for my help, my death certificate was signed. Next would have been my wife and children's. If they are not already dead...”

  Meyer reported to a guard near the Gestapo buildings, as ordered by Kolb, as soon as he had returned from the forest. His stomach grumbled as he approached the soldier. Although the only time he did not feel hungry was when the sleep of exhaustion swept over him, his body had become used to receiving nourishment as soon as he returned with the work party.

  The guard took him to the Gestapo stockade and knocked on the adjutant's office door. “This Jew says he is to be brought here to see Hauptscharfuhrer Kolb. Can I leave him with you?”

  The adjutant looked at Meyer. “Manfred Meyer?” he asked.

  Meyer nodded.

  “Okay, thank you. You can leave him with us,” said the adjutant, and led Meyer out of his office and along the same corridor as he had been brought the night before. After checking through a sliding panel in the door, he unlocked it, and held it open for Meyer to enter.

  Inside, Kolb sat at the table with another officer. Kolb’s face was more swollen than it had been the night before, and the bruising had darkened.