DEKEL, LUCETTE MATALON LAGNADO SHEILA COHN

by CHILDREN OF THE FLAMES

  The wretched conditions notwithstanding, the Gypsies alone among the inmates of the concentration camp had the comfort of being with their loved ones. Their encampment looked like a vast playground. In an open area, dark-haired, dark-eyed men and women with traces of their former beauty sat watching their children at play.

  The youngsters ran around as if they were still in their own camps in the crossroads of Europe. It was an ongoing carnival, right in the middle of Auschwitz. The adults exchanged stories, sang songs, even danced. Some of the old melodies were so haunting that even the SS guards making their rounds would stop to listen. The music seemed to conjure up another life, far from Auschwitz and the war.

  Mengele, the benevolent despot of this enclave, passed through the camp every day on the way to his laboratories. He appeared fond of these children, too, and they liked him in return, just like the twins in the compound next door. When Mengele came to see them, they crowded around him, extending their hands for candy, daring to reach for his bulging pockets that promised chocolates and other treats. “Uncle Mengele!

  Uncle Mengele!” they cried out. And Mengele would pat the children’s heads and, reaching into his pockets, smilingly retrieve a bonbon or two. At the same time, he kept his eye out for potential experimental subjects. Tests were being conducted on several pairs of Gypsy twins, and Mengele was always watchful for more.

  There was one little boy of exceptional beauty who was Mengele’s favorite companion as he made his daily rounds at the Gypsy camp.

  What a striking pair they made-the tall, graceful doctor and the dark, delicate child who barely came up to his knee. Mengele had him dressed all in white, so that the boy looked strangely regal. Sometimes he would ask the little boy to perform a jig or sing a melody. Afterward, Mengele would lean over and hug him, and ply him with chocolates and candies.

  Mengele knew that conditions in the Gypsy camp were deteriorating quickly and that the death rate was mounting. He also knew why the Gypsies’ situation was so abysmal: The Nazi hierarchy in Berlin had decided to exterminate them. Although Berlin kept wavering, it was only a matter of time before the inhabitants of the camp were to be put to death.

  As their fate was being decided, the Gypsies formed little orchestras.

  They played tinny waltzes, lively mazurkas, touching ballads and operettas. Little girls danced to the music. The Gypsies always played when Mengele passed through because they knew how much he loved music.

  The summer of 1944 dragged on. They were starving to death!

  Gypsy babies died, emaciated, after only a few days. There was no running water. Still, they danced. They did not realize it was a dance of death. Only Mengele knew.

  The order finally came down from Berlin on August 2, 1944. At seven o’clock that evening, the Gypsy camp was sealed shut.

  MENA5HE L0RINGzI: We heard a terrible cry. The Gypsies knew they were going to be put to death, and they cried all night.

  They had been at Auschwitz a long time. They had seen the Jews arriving at the ramps, had watched the selections where old people and children went to the gas chambers. And so they cried.

  And when the Gypsies cried, all the twins heard them.

  And even though I was a child, only nine or ten years old, I understood.

  Toward the end of that terrible night, when nearly all the Gypsies had been slaughtered, Mengele went to get the boy who had been his little mascot. Hand in hand, they walked around the camp, as they had done for so many months. Then Mengele took the child to the gas chamber and showed him the way inside. He obediently climbed in.

  Efficient as ever, Mengele did not forget the sets of Gypsy twins on whom experiments were being conducted. They were gassed with the rest of the Gypsies, but he had the letter X marked on their chests so they would not be cremated. The corpses were duly delivered to his pathology laboratory, where his assistant, Dr. Nyiszli, performed analyses of them as ordered. His work complete, Nyiszli turned over his reports to Mengele. That same night, the two sat for hours calmly discussing the findings.

  A few weeks later, in September, Mengele’s wife, Irene, arrived.

  It was her second trip to the death camp. She had been there the previous year as well, and had brought along little Rolf. This time, she left the child behind in Germany.

  Irene and Josef had spent little time together since their marriage four years earlier. Although Mengele’s wife was certainly aware of what was happening at Auschwitz, her diary suggests she did not let it mar her reunion with her husband. The couple went swimming and enjoyed outings in nearby fields, where they picked berries. Irene’s Auschwitz holiday was interrupted when she contracted typhoid fever and had to be hospitalized. After receiving every care, she became well enough to travel back to Germany with Josef. In an entry she made after the trip, she observed that her darling husband had seemed a bit depressed.

  She did not elaborate. But the course of the war-as well as his activities in the camps may well have been weighing on Mengele. On a visit made to the Berlin home of Professor Verschuer at about this time, Mengele appeared dour when asked how Auschwitz was. “Simply horrible,” he replied.

  In those final months of the war, Mengele made more selections than ever. To observers, he acted like a man possessed, as though he was driven by the notion that if he worked hard enough, performed enough experiments, tested a sufficient number of twins, he might still make some important scientific discovery.

  One of Mengele’s greatest fears was that the hated

  “Bolsheviks” would get their hands on his research material, so painstakingly collected over the last couple of years. One day, he invited Dr. Ellanngens, a non-Jewish physician who was a political prisoner, to review the reports he had compiled. As Lingens leafed through the thick sheaves of papers, charts, and graphs, Mengele bitterly observed,

  “Isn’t it a pity all this work will fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks?”

  And, indeed, that fall Russian troops were reported to be rapidly approaching. As they drew nearer and confusion at the camp mounted, the twins’ protected status became increasingly imperiled.

  PETER SOMOGYL: One day, a new doctor came around to inspect the twins.

  His name was Dr. Thilo. He made a selection, which had never been done on us. He selected all the male twins-we were all to be sent to the gas chambers. Every twin’s number was marked down as destined for the crematorium.

  Our barracks were sealed. All the doors were boarded up. We were not allowed to leave.

  ALEX DEKEL: It was November when I was sent into the barracks with the other children. I was thirteen at the time, and I knew exactly what was going on. I knew everyone was selected to go to the gas chambers.

  You were selected in the afternoon, and by midnight you were picked up and sent to the gas chamber.

  Our barracks had small windows-they were four feet, five feet, off the ground. I jumped up to one of those small windows. It was impossible to reach, but I jumped. Somehow I reached it, and I just hung there, barely grasping the windowsill with my fingers. Then, I do not know how, I managed to jump outside. I landed in the snow and saw a building in front of me. I climbed through the window and found myself in a toilet. Outside, I heard truck engines. And so I jumped down into the toilet. I heard a German guard enter. He took a flashlight, shined it around the room, but he didn’t see me. I stayed there all night, hidden inside the toilet.

  TWINS’ FATHER: The children were very upset, very frightened. They knew what was going to happen to them. They knew the end was coming-that the Nazis were planning to kill them.

  PETER SOMOGYL: I remember trying to plot ways to get revenge. I had a little pocketknife-we all did, to cut our bread in the morning. The Nazis never thought there was any danger in giving little children pocket knives.

  I remember sharpening my knife like a fanatic. I knew we would be taken to the gas chambers in trucks, with several SS guards inside to watch over us.

  Although I was only eleven years old,
I remember this very distinctly, wanting to kill a Nazi. I said to myself

  “Before I go, I am taking at least one SS man with me.”

  TWINS’ FATHER: I don’t know how I got the authority, but somehow I was able to leave the barracks.

  I ran toward Mengele’s office. I ran even though it was very dangerous to run through the camp, because the SS shot anyone who moved too quickly. But I knew time was of the essence.

  I told the guards outside Mengele’s office that I wanted to speak with him. This was a bit like saying you wanted to speak with God.

  To this day, I don’t know why they didn’t shoot me for that request, either. But somehow, I was allowed in to see Mengele. I told him about Thilo’s order to kill all the twins.

  Mengele was quite upset. He immediately went to reverse the order, and said the children should be kept alive.

  PETER SOMOGYL; The Nazis came and opened up the doors to our barracks.

  To our surprise, we were told we could go outside.

  When Twins’ Father returned a bit later, we kept asking him,

  “What happened? Why didn’t we die?”

  He told us simply that Mengele had called off the selection.

  Later that fall, the twins were alarmed to hear they were being moved into the deserted Gypsy barracks. No explanation was given for the change. The children were afraid they had been marked again for extermination. Rumors spread through their barracks, despite the fact that Mengele was proceeding with his tests and experiments as diligently as before. Even with the end closing in on him, even as Hitler, his generals, and his professors brought Germany to ruin with their notions of a superior race, Mengele still hoped to make some great scientific discovery that would validate them all, save the crumbling Third Reich-and his own disintegrating dreams.

  JUDITH YAGUDAH: I still remember when they moved us into the Gypsy camp. It was very cold-below zero-and it was snowing.

  MENASHE LORINCZI: We thought it was the end of us.

  JUDITH YAGUDAH: They made us stand outside because a prisoner was missing. We stood for hours in the cold, in the snow, until they found this prisoner.

  But as a result, my sister Ruthie got severe frostbite. Her feet were frozen. She had to have an operation, and they removed some of her toes.

  She could not walk after that.

  Back home, in Hungary, Ruthie had always been the livelier twin.

  She had loved to dance.

  Ruthie kept asking my mother if we would ever go home, and if she would ever dance again.

  That was her main concern-whether she would dance again.

  4.

  THE ANGEL VANISHES.

  For the inmates of Auschwitz, December 31, 1944, marked the long awaited time of hope and celebration. The camp was quiet that New Year’s Eve.

  Many of the SS guards and commandants were no longer there, having fled to avoid being captured. The Russian Army was now just a few kilometers away.

  At previous New Year’s festivities, bedraggled inmates of the death camp orchestra had played through the night for the Nazis. Prisoners would lie awake listening to the drunken revelry. But this year, the only music to be heard was the soft whir of Russian planes circling overhead. Air-raid sirens sounded intermittently, plaintive and insistent.

  A furtive party was held in Dr. Mengele’s infirmary by a group of nurses and doctors who were also prisoners. The celebrants traded news about the fall of Berlin and the imminent Russian arrival; they toasted the future by clinking cups of soup.

  Auschwitz was no longer the formidable death camp it had been.

  Those Nazis who remained on duty through New Year’s were busy trying to cover their tracks. They scurried around destroying documents and photographs, attempting to obliterate any evidence that would reveal the enormity of their crimes. Many of the crematoriums had already been dismantled, the culmination of a process undertaken in November and December on direct orders from the Nazi hierarchy in Berlin.

  Several of the warehouses containing the personal belongings of the Jews had been emptied of their goods. Between December and January, for instance, 514,843 articles of men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing were shipped out, according to an official Nazi report.

  But the camp where four million people had passed through-of whom only sixty thousand survived-had more evidence than even the Nazis’ able hands could destroy. Entire storerooms remained intact, crammed from floor to ceiling with the belongings of the millions.

  One morning in late December, Mengele had marched into his laboratory and announced it was being moved to another crematorium.

  The equipment was carefully packed away and transported to the one crematorium that was still operational. The German Army was in shambles and the Russians just weeks away from storming the camp, yet Mengele ordered his assistants to set up the dissecting tables exactly as before, in preparation for more “work.”

  Although Mengele was maintaining his usual studied nonchalance to the last, he was secretly planning his own escape. But unlike the other camp doctors, who destroyed their work, Mengele didn’t want the results from a single experiment to be destroyed, or worse, to fall into the hands of the despised Russians. Mengele apparently took steps to safeguard his work. Key slides and specimens were carefully packed and sent to Gunzburg for safekeeping. He could only hope that Professor Verschuer in Berlin-Dahlem would find some way to preserve the hundreds of documents, reports, tissue samples, and organs he had sent him over the last eighteen months.

  Late one night, sometime in the middle of January-no one is certain exactly when-the Angel of Death vanished. He had betrayed no hint he would be leaving, even as he visited the twins and inspected the surviving women of Birkenau for what he knew would be the last time.

  One prisoner did notice him putting boxloads of documents intO a waiting car. He left the camp so stealthily that for days even some of his assistants failed to realize Mengele was gone. He was one of the last SS doctors to leave Auschwitz.

  The remaining SS command was torn between a desire to destroy all remaining evidence, which would take time, and the more primitive mandate of Sauve qui peut-getting away while they still could. In just a few days, the SS managed to blow up the most damning evidence of all: the crematoriums that were still standing. Explosions ripped the ovens that had consumed so many millions, until all that was left of them were heaps of ashes and piles of smoking rubble. The Nazis also set fire to the

  “Kanada,” the storage room filled with so many treasures that the inmates had named it after that faraway country whose very name conjured up visions of wealth.

  JUDITH YAGUDAH: The whole camp was burning.

  The Germans placed explosives under the barracks and storerooms.

  They were setting fire to different parts of the camp.

  We thought the Germans were going to burn us alive. We ran out of our barracks. The sky was red with flames. It looked like an inferno It was a terrible period. The Germans were leaving the camp, and taking with them anyone who was able to go.

  But my sister, Ruthie, couldn’t walk. She was very sick.

  My mother decided then and there we were going to leave the camp.

  She got a wheelbarrow-God knows from where-and lined it with blankets and pillows. She stuck Ruthie in the wheelbarrow, took me by the hand, and started walking. She was prepared to wheel Ruthie out of Auschwitz.

  But a woman saw the three of us walking together and told my mother, “Are you crazy? Where are you going to go with your small children?”

  She told her to go back to the barracks and stay there.

  My mother went to some of the storerooms and grabbed things for us.

  She took sweaters-coats-blankets-from among the beautiful items the Jews had brought. The Nazis had kept them in excellent order.

  Eager to avoid the oncoming Russians, any guards still left at the camp had rounded up most of the remaining adult prisoners and marched them off into the frigid Polish winter to
destinations unknown.

  Many of the twins were forced to join this Death March, as it later came to be called. With defeat finally imminent, the Nazi guards were even more brutal toward the enfeebled veterans of the concentration camp than ever before.

  VERA BLAU: Anyone who stopped was shot instantly.

  My sister, Rachel, kept saying she couldn’t go on, that she had no strength to walk anymore. And so I decided to drag her along. I grabbed her by her coat and dragged her through the snow.

  For four days, we walked in the snow. It was extremely cold. Once, we were given hot water to drink. I spilled the hot water, and it fell into my shoe. It was so cold, my foot got frozen.

  LEAH STERN: The Nazis gave us neither food nor drink during this march.

  We were so thirsty, we wanted to swallow some of the snow. But the Germans wouldn’t even let us do that.

  The snow came to our knees. My sister, Hedvah, and I were wearing very thin clothes. We huddled under a blanket as we trudged through the snow. I was so weak, I kept wanting to stop, but my twin wouldn’t let me.

  She decided we had to lighten our load to make walking easier.

  First, we threw away the blanket. We even tossed out some bread we had taken with us. For weeks prior to leaving Auschwitz, we’d been saving this bread. But even those little crusts of stale bread were proving to be too heavy for us to carry.

  When it looked like I was going to collapse. Hedvah hoisted me on her shoulder and carried me. She saved my life.

  ALEX DEKEL: We were forced to march in the freezing cold from Poland, through Czechoslovakia, to Austria and the Mauthausen concentration camp.

  Every step I walked, I would sink to my knees and pray to God to kill me. I would get up, walk, and fall again, and again ask for death.

  ZYL THE SAILOR: We started the Death March with about twenty thousand people. After two or three weeks, we arrived at the Mauthausen concentration camp with three thousand people-maybe only two thousand.

  On this march, the Nazis treated us worse than animals. They did whatever they wanted with us.