The Commandant of Lubizec: A Novel of the Holocaust and Operation Reinhard

by Patrick Hicks

  The idea came to him as he studied his clipboard and paced up and down the empty platform. His boots clicked off the wooden planks and he made notes about loose nails that needed to be pounded back into place. He looked up and began to nod.

  “Yes, that might be a solution,” he said.

  He shouted for his deputy, Heinrich Niemann, and they marched off to his office where they made a long list of improvements. Later, when Niemann was interrogated by the U.S. Army about his role at Lubizec, he said the idea was the “mark of a genius.” The officer who transcribed Niemann’s testimony was horrified but he took excellent notes about what was said. Captain Joe Ehrenbach, from Brooklyn, was a Reform Jew but he didn’t tell Niemann this until after the interrogation was over. It is easy to imagine Captain Ehrenbach gathering up his notes (perhaps he smiles as he taps the sheaf of paper onto the table) and that’s when he tells Niemann he is Jewish. Regardless, Ehrenbach’s work provides us with many private conversations between Niemann and Guth. In fact, “Allied Forces Report No. 3042” gives us a surprisingly clear picture of what happened next at Lubizec.

  According to Niemann, Guth’s idea was put into action that same day. Phone calls were made. New supplies rolled into camp. Planks of wood were hauled off a train. Boxes too. Windows were unloaded along with sacks of nails, shingles, and guttering. It only took a few days to build a fake train station next to the platform, and Guth modeled it after a toy in his son’s bedroom. He brought the little model into camp and placed it on his desk. He called in his senior officers and ordered them to build a full scale replica, green roof and all. The men crouched down and examined the tiny station.

  Guth looked out his office window. “When the Jews arrive they don’t see what they expect to see, which is a railway station. Well, we’re going to fix that.”

  A rainfall of hammers echoed around the camp and the air filled up with the smell of freshly cut lumber. Used trolleys for luggage were lined up on the platform. Train schedules to Lublin and Kraków were framed. Travel posters to Berlin, Athens, and Barcelona were placed next to the exit, which led to the massive WELCOME sign. A large clock was placed on a wall and its gigantic hands were set ticking. The guards laughed at how realistic it looked. There were signs for the WAITING ROOM and the TICKET OFFICE. Suitcases were stacked beneath a large sign that read, FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY TO JEWISH RESETTLEMENT AREA.

  Guth called it “The Last Station” or, sometimes when he was in a more festive mood, “The End of the Line.”

  Now, whenever a train pulled into Lubizec, people could look at travel posters and train times. They could squint at a clock and imagine other trains coming and going. This wasn’t anything to worry about. It was just a junction, just a station. Yes, the arrivals could tell themselves with confidence, we won’t be here long. We’re going somewhere else. No need to worry. This Lubizec is just a little stop on the journey. We’re here to stretch our legs and maybe get something to eat.

  When everyone was off the train, Guth stood on his specially constructed box and cleared his throat.

  “Welcome to Lubizec. I am Obersturmführer Guth, commandant of this little transit camp. We’re very sorry your journey wasn’t convenient but we’re at war and cannot spare more pleasant accommodation for rail travel. You will be given bread and cups of tea shortly. I give you my word as an SS officer that everything will be better now. Much better. We’ll take good care of you here.”

  Sometimes a person might shout, “Thank you, Obersturmführer!”

  Guth then announced they would be sent to work in a nearby village, but first they needed to be disinfected with a shower. Men and boys would go first. Women and girls would follow. All females needed their hair cut to reduce the spread of lice.

  “You will be treated well,” Guth added.

  They were taken into the camp at a run and the massive iron gates were shut behind them. After this, the truncheons and whips came out. The separations began.

  Guth usually strolled back to his office around this time but occasionally he stayed to watch the Green Squad sort luggage. He paced up and down the ramp and pointed at trash that needed to be hauled away. He nodded at chalk numbers on the side of the cars that weren’t scrubbed off properly. He inspected many of the cars himself to make sure that no one was hiding in the darkness and “denying their fate.”

  It was also around this time that Jasmine wanted to know more about the camp. For what reason, exactly, had she left her home, her family, all her familiar comforts, and traveled to this lonely godforsaken backwater? For what reason, exactly, had her plans and desires been derailed, pushed into the ditch? Arguments boiled up every night about the need to drink seltzer water instead of tap water, and about the strange orange glow on the horizon. What on earth were they doing in Poland and why on earth did they have to stay?

  In order to get some peace, Guth did something illegal. Even though it was strictly forbidden to take photographs inside Lubizec (or any other death camp), he took several snaps of the platform, the travel posters, the WELCOME sign, and of luggage being hauled away by blurry-faced prisoners. He also took photos of his office, the SS canteen, and the vegetable garden. He brought these photos home to prove that he ran a transit camp, to prove that he had some desire for a shared life, that he understood her feelings and cared about her curiosities. In spite of his military bluster, he wanted to be a good husband and father. That was important to Guth. He wanted a home life where the outside world could be shut out, especially after what he saw in the trenches of World War I. He could feel the space between him and Jasmine growing, and he took these photos because he could think of no other way to bind her closer. As we shall soon see, however, this only made matters worse.

  Guth was so pleased with the effectiveness of “The Last Station” that he wrote a twenty-page report to his superiors about it, and twice a day he stood next to his specially constructed box, waiting to recite his lines. He lit a cigarette and stared down the narrowing tracks. He took several long drags and adjusted his hat. The train blasted its whistle from deep in the woods and a green light was activated that told the conductor to proceed slowly. A great huff of black rose up from the pine trees.

  And in this way thousands of people were sent through Lubizec each day. Thousands.

  6

  NUMBERS

  They came from towns with names like Zakrzówek, Bilgoraj, Szczebrzeszyn, Sokal, and Sambor. Turka, Kolomyya, Wlodawa, Zamosc, and Sasów. Kielce and Grabow. Kraków and Lublin. Two came from Paris. One came from London. Two hundred and twenty-three from Berlin. It has already been mentioned how they were pushed into cattle cars, how they were stuffed in cheek by jowl, how the doors were pulled shut on greased rails, and how a lock was flipped into place with a clacking thunk. A ladder was placed next to the car and numbers were chalked onto the side to say how many people were sealed inside. 131. 135. 149. 130. 152. The cars were designed to carry twelve cows but the Nazis shoved in entire families and villages. Whole histories were reduced to nothing more than chalk numbers riding down the rails.

  Survivors like Chaim Zischer and Dov Damiel offer painfully vivid accounts about what the camp was like from a prisoner’s perspective, but for everyone else that rolled into Lubizec, we can only imagine what it was like to huddle on the platform and listen to Guth’s speech. Perhaps we can place ourselves on those wooden planks for a moment or two, maybe we can feel our toes inside our shoes—how sweaty and swollen they are—but in the end it’s all just guesswork and make-believe on our part. Try as we might, we can’t understand the raw fear these people would have felt swimming around inside their chests.

  When they were told they were going to be resettled to a work camp in the east, posters were hung up in the ghetto and a truck with loudspeakers crawled down the cobblestone streets. The message? Resettlement would occur in two days and no more than fifty kilograms were allowed. Pack lightly. Bring only your most valuable goods. Extra clothes are not needed. Pack lightly. Bring only your
most valuable goods. No more than fifty kilograms. Pack lightly. Bring only your most valuable goods.

  When Mina Auerbach heard this she decided to pack a rag doll her grandmother had made from an old blanket. The doll had two buttons for eyes, wide bands of fabric for hair, and she wore a pink dress. Mina was only four but she gathered up her doll and stuffed it into a pillowcase.

  Semion Wallach, who was seven, wondered which toys to bring while his mother, Hanel, wrestled between packing a skillet or packing a photo album. There was also her wedding ring to consider. If she wore it, the Nazis would steal it, so maybe she should stitch it into the hem of a dress? Hanel got out a needle and thread. She went to work.

  We can only imagine what it was like to look at our things (all that stuff that makes us who we are) and wonder what to leave behind. Fifty kilograms is nothing. Should we take this or this? What about this? And when the SS came with their machine guns and dogs, shooting people in the street and always yelling, yelling, yelling, we can see ourselves jogging towards the train station with the last of our earthly possessions. We might drop something on the ground and realize we can’t go back for it because we will be beaten. We watch this valuable trinket skitter away and in that moment we feel as if we are losing everything. Our fingers tighten on our suitcase handle because, if we can only keep the rest of our possessions together, it means not everything is lost. Clothing and candlesticks become symbols of something much larger. Our fifty kilograms feels like a protective talisman because as long as the Nazis don’t take everything away from us it means that resettlement—and life—waits up ahead.

  Although we can imagine this, what must it have been like to stand in a crowded cattle car and feel it judder towards the unknown? We might close our eyes and imagine the muggy heat or the rocking sway as we rumble over points on the tracks, but these are undefined details because, of course, hardly anyone survived. Their stories were snuffed out, erased, and we have so very few eyewitness accounts.

  Upon arrival at Lubizec, the doors would have rolled open and people would have looked up at the stinging sunlight, but what must it have been like to hear the guards shouting in German? They have rubber truncheons and their faces are flushed with anger. Flecks of spit fly from their mouths as they scream.

  “Schuhe zusammenbinden! Geld und Dokumente mitnehmen!”

  Abraham Krolikowski came from a small village and he couldn’t understand what they were saying so he stroked the bristles of his moustache. Others like Jerzy and Jozek Blatt were at the end of the long platform and they gripped their suitcases. These twin brothers owned a bookstore before the Nazis invaded and they enjoyed heated conversations over pots of mint tea. They adjusted their tortoiseshell glasses and looked around.

  “Schuhe zusammenbinden! Geld und Dokumente mitnehmen!”

  Giesela Wilenberg, who had a mist of freckles on her face, hugged her two daughters. “What are they saying?” she asked in Yiddish. “What’s that?”

  Someone else, perhaps David Stawczinski, might have thought about translating. He was a music teacher and, even in that moment when fear prickled his throat and his stomach burned for a lump of bread, even then he might have wondered if there was a piano nearby. Perhaps he could tell the Germans he was a musician and he couldn’t do hard labor? He opened his mouth to translate, but a woman behind him spoke up instead. The confidence in her voice was surprising.

  “They’re saying, Tie your shoes together. Bring your gold and documents with.”

  Shoes were taken off and suitcases were stacked onto wagons. The engine huffed and vented as the conductor peered out of his hatch. Mina Auerbach held on to her rag doll and stroked its thick brown hair.

  “Don’t be afraid, Miss Doll,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

  “Schuhe zusammenbinden! Geld und Dokumente mitnehmen!”

  Hanel Wallach instinctively put an arm around her son and nodded to herself that she had made the right decision to bring a skillet instead of a photo album. She curled her toes inside her shoes and realized her mouth was dry. She sucked on her front teeth to make some spit. When she swallowed, she felt the delicate bones in her ears pop. It was such a small thing but it suddenly seemed so grand and important. Her whole life came down to a forgettable moment of daily biology. She swallowed again and listened to her ears pop.

  Where is this Lubizec? she wondered. Where are we?

  Others may have entertained thoughts of escape but what they didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that farmers were promised two bags of sugar if they caught a prisoner. Escaping from Lubizec would have been like escaping slavery in the Deep South of the United States during the nineteenth century. Where would you go? Who could you trust? All of this was made harder if you didn’t speak Polish and, to make matters worse, you entered the camp with your entire family. Would you abandon your child? Your parents? Would you leave everyone you loved as you made a mad and useless dash for the barbed wire? Even if you managed to slip through the fence, where would you go? It was a world of machine guns and forest.

  Where is this place? Hanel Wallach wondered again. She shielded her eyes from the sun and squinted into the pine trees.

  What these people were thinking is of course a matter of conjecture but we do know that a man named Rabbi Israel Hirszman refused to be afraid. After everyone was marched beneath the huge WELCOME sign, he whispered words of encouragement. He touched people on the shoulder and patted children on the head. While we cannot know what Rabbi Hirszman said to people like Giesela Wilenberg, Hanel Wallach, and David Stawczinski, we do know what happened next.

  It began when Guth was lighting a cigarette. As he fiddled with his lighter, turning this way and that to block the wind, the rabbi adjusted his wide-brimmed hat and bent down for a fistful of sand. He took a step forward and yelled out, “You there. German.”

  Guth looked up, slowly.

  “Yes. I’m talking to you, German.”

  Prisoners never spoke to Guth, especially not after they had been herded into the Rose Garden. They usually acted like a bolt of lightning had gone off because they were jittery, alert, waiting for the thunderclap to come.

  Guth lowered his unlit cigarette and looked amused. “Yes?”

  The rabbi held up his fist and let the sand fall into the wind.

  “Do you see what I am doing, German? Do you see this? One day you will vanish into flying dust but my people will remain.” The rabbi threw the remaining gravel onto the ground and pointed at the guards. “Shame on you. Shame on all of you.”

  A guard immediately marched over to the bearded man and aimed at that spot where the spinal cord meets the skull. In a cracking flash the rabbi’s head opened up in a spray of pink mist and bone. He stood for a moment, then crumpled to the ground like a wet rag. His wide-brimmed hat wheeled away towards the barbed-wire fence where it got hung up, briefly, before skittering into the woods.

  Blood pumped from the rabbi’s head. It stained the sand with grainy dark blobs. The gunshot startled everyone in a way the screaming had not yet done, and the air became charged with shock.

  The guard holstered his pistol and turned to the group. He cleared his throat and spoke loudly but without anger.

  “Men and women must separate. It’s time for your disinfection showers. There must be no lice in this camp. No lice.”

  Guth went back to lighting his cigarette as screams filled the air.

  When Giesela Wilenberg saw this she might have hugged her daughters and looked around at the wooden guard towers. This is the last of Earth, she might have thought. Maybe she kissed her daughters and enjoyed the smell of their unwashed hair.

  When the separations began, Hanel Wallach refused to give up her son. The deputy commandant, Oberscharführer Heinrich Niemann, came towards her with a truncheon the size of a chair leg and he began beating her on the head with it.

  “He must go over there,” he grunted. “Over there. Over there. Over there.”

  But Hanel refused to give up her boy. She
hunched into a protective loving shell and held her son’s head as blow after blow landed on her back. In this moment of ruinous blinding pain when Hanel teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, her son was dragged away. He kicked wildly against the dirt.

  “Mama, help! Where are they taking me?”

  As Hanel stumbled after him, she was beaten all the harder. Heinrich Niemann’s truncheon became a blur of action and, when he was finally finished crushing her head open, he stood up and wiped sweat from his forehead. He panted.

  “Whew. These Jews keep me fit.”

  Maybe Semion Wallach was picked up by some stranger and shielded from the corpse of his mother and maybe he went limp in this stranger’s arms as they were quick-marched off to the undressing area.

  “I’ve got you, boy,” the man might have cooed. “I’ll be your father now. You can trust me.”

  While we can’t know these things, we do know that after the men stripped off their clothes and ran down the Road to Heaven many of them chanted prayers.

  Men like our bookselling brothers, Jerzy and Jozek Blatt, would have run across the dirt and looked up at the bright blue sky. It was such a beautiful day, so full of life and potential, but they didn’t know where they were going or why the wooden walls on either side were painted brilliant white. It felt weird to run naked. Their scrotums and penises flapped around and this made them feel even more vulnerable. It was hard to run on the sandy dirt and they worried about tripping and being beaten. Men around them were being hit on the head. Rubber truncheons broke arms, and faces were split open with hissing whips. The terror and confusion was absolute.

  They rounded a corner and saw a whitewashed building with the Star of David above the door. Something was written in Hebrew.