by Jay Winik
Thus, even as the D-Day forces massed across the English Channel, Hitler’s plans for the destruction of every Hungarian Jew within his reach were set in motion—though these Jews were previously believed to be untouchable. If May was the month of waiting for Overlord in the west, in the east, it was the end of all waiting for the last remnant of European Jewry: the Hungarian Jews.
SINCE THE OUTSET OF the war, the pro-Nazi Hungarian government had largely allowed the huge and still intact Jewish community—some 750,000 people—to exist unmolested. For an enraged Hitler, this was intolerable, doubly so because he feared Hungary might negotiate a separate peace with the Allies. So through a combination of browbeating and blackmail—he even took the extraordinary step of threatening the family of the Hungarian head of state—Hitler forcibly established a puppet regime in Hungary, ready to do his bidding. With the German takeover complete, on March 19, 1944, German storm troopers massed in the streets of Budapest, accompanied by the feared masterminds of genocide, the SS. That night, their footsteps could be heard echoing across the country. With that, the fate of the Jews seemed sealed.
Within days, under a scrupulously conceived cloak of deception, the country was divided into six zones. By April 15, Hungary’s entire Jewish population had been moved into ghettos. In the following days, Jews were relentlessly hustled into detention centers or herded into cattle cars. As for the seemingly fortunate ones who managed to hide safely, many were quickly hunted down.
With breathtaking speed, a way of life was hurtling to a close. Anguished men prayed while terrified mothers hastily wrapped food for their journey and tenderly bathed their children. Preparing for the worst, they stitched valuables into small cloth sacks or strung them under garments. Having little idea what awaited them, they packed their luggage, being careful to bring along the baby’s best outfits as well as diapers, toys, teddy bears, blankets, and all the other sundry things that only a parent invariably remembers. Now came the sleepless nights—and not knowing what lay next. A resettlement camp somewhere in a distant region? Separation from their loved ones?
Then came the terror.
In the provinces, in Baja or Ruthenia or Kecskemet, there was chaos and confusion. In city after city, Nazi storm troopers swarmed through the streets, launching bruising roundups: families were dragged from their homes, leaving behind unfinished bowls of soup, a slab of dough waiting to be kneaded, and books and bags and other belongings strewn in the corridors or streets, awaiting looters or the ready fingers of the Hungarian police. And ahead of them—though few wanted to admit it to themselves and few, if any, could fully comprehend what lay in store—was the last stop, the place where Jews from all across Europe were gathered for slaughter. Many were wearing their finest clothes, as if they were off to the theater or to a wedding.
“Alle Juden, ’raus—’raus!” the SS shouted. “Keep order. Do not push. Anyone who attempts to resist will be shot!”
Soon, the railway stations were choked with thousands and thousands of grim-faced, muttering people. The elderly, the sick, women cradling infants, the rich and the destitute alike—none were exempt. Although two trainloads had left in late April, the first large-scale deportation began on May 14: a train packed with about four thousand Jewish men, women, and children in forty sealed boxcars—this was like trying to stuff a busload of people into a walk-in closet. Without regard for age or infirmity, and certainly without pity, eighty were crammed into each car until there was no light and little air. Then the doors were nailed shut. Day after day, these cattle cars made their way northwest. Such roundups were repeated not only across Hungary, but in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Poland itself.
Once the cattle car doors were slammed shut, the SS shouted the order to go; then there was a high-pitched squeal, and the train started to move. When the locomotive was only a blur of smoke on the horizon, those inside tried to wrestle with their uncontrolled emotions: a combination of fear and despair, resignation and resolution, collective panic and individual grief. Was this, they queried each other in hushed tones, a journey to a Nazi work camp? Or to an SS gun to the head? Few had any answers; fewer had the courage to speculate.
They didn’t know about earlier transports, such as a train that had arrived with six thousand corpses, whose eyes were still strangely open and whose mouths hung slack, as if gasping; these people had suffocated. Nor did they know about the train carrying four thousand frightened children under the age of twelve, cruelly separated from their parents and each desperately craving not so much food or water as a simple, human hug; all of them were executed. Nor did they know about the cries of other thousands as they were deliberately and slowly asphyxiated in specially designed railway cars.
Each train made its way fitfully, lurching forward between prolonged, unnerving halts. The people were piled together so tightly that they crushed one another. They were unable to bend or budge; they had no food and virtually no water, nor any toilets. As the days passed, there was a suffocating stench of feces and urine, and everywhere, it seemed, there was sweat and filth. The trip took two to three days, sometimes as many as five; for the elderly and ill, it was often shortened: hundreds died standing up, or wedged into a corner of the boxcar by their neighbors.
Through the slits, these deportees could see thin shafts of light, then the tall weathered cliffs of the Tatra Mountains, and then the names of the last Hungarian cities that slowly disappeared behind them. When they passed the border at Kaschau (Kosice) around noon on the second day, silence descended over the cattle cars. Typically here the deportees rose to their feet and, shuddering, clutched each other. Few said a word. They knew they were passing the point of no return.
Pushed to the limits of human endurance, at every stop they begged hysterically for water, but rarely was any forthcoming, and anyone who tried to approach the train to help was forcibly warded off by the SS. And it was not just thirst that was unendurable; it was also the elements. To the deportees in their weakened state, when it rained the cool air was brutal; on warmer days, body heat and the stagnant air were overwhelming. The deportees cried out for a handful of snow, a bit of bread, a spoonful of soup, a sip of coffee—anything to quench their thirst or fill their bellies. Nursing their babies, young mothers groaned throughout the night and cried out for food and water. And then there was the silence when the feeble crying of another infant ceased.
In Zilina, people with tears in their eyes lined the tracks, watching the trains roll by. Decades later they could still remember the confusion of arms plaintively reaching out through the slats as the train moved away.
Inside the cattle cars, sleep became all but impossible, despite the hunger and thirst and exhaustion. As the sun dipped down and night fell, civilized Hungarians—doctors, accountants, shopkeepers, homemakers, grandparents—became an unruly, agitated mass, sprawled across the musty floor. They felt miserable, ashamed, and frightened. Disputes, usually over nothing more than a slight brush from someone nearby, broke out. Curses became commonplace as the night wore on. So did screams. Unable to sleep, someone would impulsively try to climb to his feet, only to topple over from fatigue; deprived of all sustenance, the deportees now struggled to make their limbs obey even simple motor commands. Sadly, not only did their judgment become impaired; so did their compassion. Treated like animals, some became like animals. Little wonder: by now, their senses were numbed and their starving bodies were literally feeding on themselves.
A whistle blew and the train began to chug doggedly along the single-track railway through the tree-lined banks of the Lubotin, the winding river that accompanied it. Peering through the slits, those inside could now see towns with Slovak names, then Polish names, and with each mile, everything became more remote and unfamiliar. The weather turned colder and more unforgiving. The shuddering halts became more frequent, until the train was crawling. And suddenly, with a jerk, in the evening, the locomotive slowed at a quiet vista.
Thickly forested, slashed by dee
p ravines and filled with mist, their destination almost resembled a scene in a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. As far as anyone could see, there were birch trees, then great gusts of white smoke and hazy, distant objects. But as the smoke slowly lifted, the night was lit up by rows of red and white lights lining the tracks. For the passengers, arrival brought an odd serenity; their doubts would finally be resolved. One small girl thought to herself, “Nothing can be worse than these cattle cars,” while another asked her father, “Will there be playgrounds there, Daddy, like there are at home?”
But any such serenity was short-lived. People, now huddling, began to pray, or weep, or whimper. Some were silent. The next stage came abruptly. First there was a thud, then a trampling of feet, then a barking of commands in an unknown language. Then came the squeak of the train wheels stopping, and the opening of the cattle car doors with a thundering clap.
Outside was an ominous sign over the entrance to their destination: Arbeit Macht Frei (“Work Makes You Free”). In the distance, blazing flames shot thirty feet into the sky, and towering clouds of smoke hovered above them. The stench was ungodly.
This, they were soon to learn, was Auschwitz.
And though none could have known it at the time, most of them had less than an hour to live.
VRBA AND WETZLER AT least had some effect. During the third week of May, as the deportations continued, leaders of the Slovak Jewish underground wrote a long letter pleading with the outside world to “bombard the death halls in Auschwitz” along with the main deportation routes. Yet in the west, including the White House, their pleas ultimately fell on deaf ears.
For Roosevelt, first things came first. That meant crushing the Germans on the beaches of Normandy.
MEANWHILE, ABOUT NINE HUNDRED miles west of Auschwitz, in little English towns called Falmouth and Dartmouth, Portsmouth and Newhaven, the men of the largest Allied invasion in history gathered into companies—and marched. For hours on end, tearful crowds lined the streets to watch them. Whistling and roaring, women waved handkerchiefs, men flashed the V-for-victory sign, and children climbed lampposts or trees and called out to the GIs at the top of their lungs. Quartermasters handed out cartons of cigarettes as the ships’ loudspeakers ordered men to board. Here came the tanks and the big artillery pieces, which rolled over narrow country roads that only a few decades before had carried little more than horseback riders, donkey carts, and the occasional carriage. Here came scores upon scores of jeeps, trucks, half-tracks, bicycles, and even locomotives. And then here came the troops. The crowds may have been boisterous, but for the most part, the men were strangely quiet; many of them were scared. Many expected to die.
Over the course of two years these gum-chewing soldiers had dug foxholes together, had swapped stories about their wives or girlfriends, had played poker or drunk beer together. They knew one another’s tastes and fears and whether anyone snored at night or groaned under his breath at his commanding officer. They knew who cheated at craps, and who could hold his liquor. They knew they could rely on their companions, and they knew that in the waters of Normandy, they would give their lives for each other. As one officer gibed to another, “I’ll see you in France.”
TO THE SOUTH, ROME had yet to be taken, but flying from the recently captured air base at Foggia in Italy, the Allied heavy bombers now ruled the skies over central Europe, pounding enemy targets far beyond German airspace: in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, southern Poland, and even Upper Silesia at the outskirts of Auschwitz. And from their bases in southern England, another fleet of six thousand bombers and fighter planes, seemingly enough to block out the sun, gunned their engines and readied to provide life-sustaining air cover for the invading force.
Roosevelt’s commander for Overlord, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, had set D-Day for June 5—a month later than originally planned.
THROUGHOUT THESE GHASTLY WAR-TORN years Roosevelt had always managed to put up a confident front; the American people, in fact all the Allied nations, were accustomed to newsreels showing his hearty laugh, his mile-wide smile, and the gleam in his eyes. But if publicly he always projected an air of confident leadership, privately he agonized. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, behind closed doors at the White House, a drawn and pale Roosevelt had buried his head in his hands, muttering that he would go down in history as “a disgraced president.” He was so despondent that his body convulsed, and he could barely eke out the words to speak to his aides. Later, when the invasion of Italy began, his hand shook violently as he lifted the phone to receive word that the operation had commenced. Now, during the final preparations for D-Day, Roosevelt was determined to keep his composure and inform the American people about the impending carnage. A jittery Eleanor Roosevelt was seemingly less confident, writing poignantly, “Soon the invasion will be upon us. I dread it.”
Roosevelt, however, did not dread it. At one point, he had planned to fly to England for the start of the invasion, but his health made this impossible—Churchill would thus write to him on June 4, “How I wish you were here.” Instead, Roosevelt went to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he would plan one of the most important speeches of his career: his comments to the nation on the invasion’s beginning.
OUTWARDLY CALM, ROOSEVELT KNEW that even the best plans could go awry, and in this case they did. Across the ocean on Saturday, June 3, an anxious Eisenhower was lighting up yet another cigarette—a notorious chain-smoker, on the best of days he often smoked as many as sixty Camels. Meeting at Southwick House with his meteorologists, he learned that this day was not among the best. Eisenhower already looked worn, and well he should have. Earlier that day reports from the Associated Press had erroneously declared: “Flash. Eisenhower’s headquarters announces Allied landing in France.” And now the weather report was not good. In the Channel, the waves were increasingly tumultuous and clouds had begun to form. Then came the wind. It started to drizzle, and soon the drizzle thickened into a downpour. The chief meteorologist told Eisenhower that June 5 would be little better. The day was expected to be frightfully gray, with great gusts of “force 5 winds” and such poor visibility that the Allies’ air superiority, crucial to the success of the operation, would be severely compromised. Moreover, the weather was worsening so quickly that predicting more than twenty-four hours ahead was useless.
Gone now were Eisenhower’s unblinking gaze and infectious grin. Instead, a fretful Eisenhower, his eyes looking downward, announced that they would revisit the decision later on Sunday morning, hoping that the weather would clear. By late that night, however, the storm had intensified; winds were howling, and a torrential rain was rattling the shutters of Southwick House and even shaking his personal trailer. The invasion was postponed for at least twenty-four hours.
The weather, the waiting, and the deep anxiety took their toll. And it was no better across the Atlantic. It is tempting to think of Roosevelt tranquilly smoking cigarettes and putting the final touches on his D-Day speech. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the weekend, Roosevelt’s secretary sensed that every “movement of his face and hands” revealed the president’s nervousness. For his part, Roosevelt leafed through the pages of his Book of Common Prayer in search of a D-Day invocation. But the moth could not resist the flame. Upon receiving news of the delay, an anxious yet unwavering Roosevelt returned to the capital on Monday morning, awaiting the latest developments. They came in fragments. As he contemplated the “what next” of the invasion, more ships continued to sail out of their harbors, thousands of landing schedules were finalized, and in the fog of the distant English Channel, a tremendous fleet of vessels were already rocking in the choppy waters.
“You know I’m a juggler,” FDR once insisted about his ability to handle multiple crises. “I never let my right hand know what my left hand does.” But with the date for the D-Day invasion still undecided, and the Germans lying in wait along their vast coastal fortifications, this proved more difficult than even he imagined.
ON THE EVENING OF Sun
day, June 4, while Adolf Hitler was cocooned in his mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps, Eisenhower slipped quietly into his headquarters at the old country mansion, Southwick House, for the meeting that would decide the outcome of the war. Meanwhile, a chill, ill-tempered rain fell in thick sheets and continued to rattle the rooftops.
Conferring in a mahogany-paneled room with his principal aides, Eisenhower was briefed again on the bad weather. By now, the gaudy optimism that had characterized the initial planning for D-Day had long since evaporated. According to his chief meteorologist, within hours, just before dawn on June 5, there would be a break in the storm. Winds would die down, and for roughly thirty-six hours there would be more or less “clear weather.” How clear? That was uncertain. And any long-range prediction was daunting; by Wednesday, storm clouds would develop again. That would force a delay until June 19—two full weeks.
This left only a narrow window for the invasion. How long, Eisenhower wondered glumly, could this operation be left dangling? “What do you think?” he asked his chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith. “It’s a hell of a gamble,” Smith answered, “but it’s the best possible gamble.” Eisenhower fixed his gaze on the British commander, General Bernard Montgomery, asking, “Do you see any reason for not going tomorrow?” Montgomery shot back one word: “Go!”
