Holocaust

by Gerald Green

  “In the hallway,” Moses commanded. “Fire when I give the order.”

  They ran into the corridor, hid in broom closets, behind the stairs—Moses, Zalman, Eva, Aaron, others.

  This time the Germans were unable to kick a door in.

  They were blasted with guns and grenades from above, and could not return the fire. They staggered back, bleeding and dying, to the street, piled into their trucks and left.

  “I can’t believe it,” Zalman said. “They’re going going …”

  “They die like anyone else,” Moses said.

  There was no doubt about it. The Germans, in that battle of January 1943, were giving up the fight—for a while. They had never counted on Jews firing back.

  Later, as the resistance leaders gathered at the headquarters on Mila Street, stories came back to them of the courage—often doomed—of the Jews, who were denying the Nazis their attempt to clean out the ghetto.

  Apparently a young woman named Emilia Landau was the heroine who started the resistance. When the SS invaded the carpentry shop where she worked, she threw the first grenade, killing several SS men. But in the firefight that followed, she was killed.

  At the headquarters of Kibbutz Dror, another battle took place—here the Germans were forced to retreat.

  And around the Umschlagplatz itself, where my father had once so pathetically tried to save handfuls of doomed people, a score of running battles took place.

  Some supplies now came in from a few sympathetic Poles outside the walls. The majority refused to help. There was even a group of Fascist Poles who warned their brethren not to aid the Jews, because the fighting was a ruse—the Jews would join with the Germans to crush the Polish resistance. (Their Fascism did not help them; the Germans intended to stamp them out also and make slaves of those who survived.)

  Among the supplies sent in were land mines, grenade launchers, a mortar, and one machine gun.

  “At last,” Zalman said.

  “Yes,” Uncle Moses said bitterly. “All paid for. Cash on the line.”

  Eva asked, “Is there any hope they will join us?”

  Anelevitz shook his head. “It is unlikely. They do not want to spill Polish blood in our behalf. We have learned by now. Only we can save ourselves.”

  “Save?” asked Moses.

  “Yes,” the young Zionist said. “Even if it means we die. We are still saved.”

  My uncle cocked his head, gingerly looked at the flat land mine, packed in waterproofing grease. “What does the Talmud tell us about assembling land mines?” he asked. No one laughed.

  Anelevitz pointed to the calendar. “Remember the day, January 21, 1943. In the ghetto, we are at war.”

  On arriving at Auschwitz, my parents were spared the immediate trip to the gas chambers.

  The selection was done at the railroad siding, by an SS officer in immaculate uniform. Those deemed unfit for work were sent to their deaths at once. My parents, in comparative good health—all these things were relative in the camps—were marched to separate barracks.

  Papa was assigned for a while to the camp infirmary, a dismal mockery of a place, some more of that grim German humor. He did the best he could to treat the ill and injured. It mattered little. The first sign of weakness, of uselessness to the masters, and people were marked for a trip to the “delousing” area. Virtually no medicine was available. It suited the Nazis to let people die in the barracks area. It took a load off the four gassing complexes, the forty-six ovens.

  My mother worked in one of the kitchens with Chana Lowy.

  Although men and women prisoners were kept in separate parts of the camp, my father, as a physician, was able to slip away now and then and visit her.

  One day he came with what all felt was remarkable news. One of the medical orderlies who had done some work in the SS barracks had heard the Germans talking in low, saddened voices. An entire German army was said to have surrendered at Stalingrad. Not a division, mind you, but an army.

  Papa tried to cheer my mother up. She was sitting on the edge of the bunk she shared with Lowy’s wife, and sewing. Life in the camps was a nightmare of filth, lice, hunger, foul water, thin soup and moldy bread. She, who had presided over elegant dinners and played Mozart on the Bechstein …

  Over her bunk she had placed photographs of Karl and Inga in their wedding clothes, and one of Anna and me. I know the photo. I’m wearing a striped soccer shirt, holding the ball under my arm. Anna’s just kicked my shins because I teased her. But you can’t see it in the photo.

  “If they catch you here you’ll be punished, Josef,” my mother said.

  “It’s all right. Lowy forged a pass for me. Besides, I’ll say I’m making a call.”

  “Josef, you’ve become a daredevil.”

  He kissed her cheek. “And how are you?”

  “I’m fine. There’s a rumor that a group of us in this barracks, all who are strong enough, and that would include me and Mrs. Lowy, will be taken to work at the I. G. Farben factory tomorrow. That’s surely good news.”

  “Perhaps they need a concert pianist.”

  “Or perhaps you could hire me as a nurse.”

  They both knew the rules at Auschwitz: those with no jobs, no skills, not needed to run the camp, or supply labor for the factories, for the giant corporations that kept the German army moving, did not last long.

  “At least you are safe in your hospital job,” she said.

  He did not tell her that orders had come down to cut the infirmary staff by a half. Seniority would prevail; as a newer member he would probably lose his post.

  Chana Lowy leaned over from the top bunk. “Max says there’s road work to be had. Some German engineer, he’s looking for people to build roads.”

  Lowy worked in the camp laundry, but it was not a safe place. The weakest, least likely to survive labored there, and it was often no more than a way station to the chambers.

  “Road work?” asked my father. “That sounds good. Outdoor work.”

  “Oh, Josef, you?” my mother laughed. And they hugged each other again.

  They heard a woman kapo outside, hurrying new prisoners to the barracks.

  “You must go, Josef.”

  He held her in his arms. “They have consigned us to hell, Berta, but we must defy them. I insist we try to live, to sustain ourselves. I think a great deal of the boys, and of Inga.”

  “I too. I cannot forget them.”

  “Something tells me Karl and Rudi are alive. If one of us should die, the other must find them. And love them, stay with them. There must be a family Weiss again, Berta. Grandchildren, a home. Do you understand?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Not just because we are one family, and united to each other, but because we are Jews. If they wanted so terribly to destroy us, then surely we are people of value, of worth. Perhaps we even have something to teach the world.” He blinked, shook his head. “My goodness, I sound like a lecturer, a rabbi.”

  There was a commotion at the door to the barracks. A woman kapo entered, dragging a slender young girl with her. The girl could not have been more than seventeen. Once she slumped to the floor, and the kapo yanked her to her feet by her hair.

  The kapo spied my father. “You. Against rules. Out.”

  “I’m leaving. Medical visit. I’m Dr. Weiss.”

  “Don’t let me see you here again.”

  My father left.

  The woman kapo shoved the girl into the crowded, fetid room. At once, the girl, making moaning noises, sank to the floor on all fours.

  “Find her a place, any place,” the kapo said. “She’s crazy.”

  My mother got from her bunk. “What did you do to her? No. Don’t strike her again. I’ll look after her.”

  “I didn’t do anything. She got off the train yesterday like this. She was all right until they sent her parents for delousing.”

  “And why can she not see them?”

  “Who knows? Maybe it was an extra-long
delousing shower. Or they went to a different part of the camp.”

  The women prisoners were silent, somber. They knew what the showers meant.

  “See she don’t mess herself,” the kapo said. She left.

  The girl was thin, very pretty, with long dark-brown hair and dark skin. My mother knelt beside her and stroked her back. “It’s all right, my child. We won’t hurt you here. Are you hungry?”

  The girl would not talk, but she rose and embraced my mother. On the breast of her ragged cloth coat, next to the yellow star, someone had pinned a tag: SOFIA ALATRI, MILANO, ITALIA.

  Chana Lowy joined my mother and they helped get the girl to her feet, and to one of the wooden berths.

  “Are you hungry, my child?” my mother asked.

  Mrs. Lowy suggested they might find some bread in the next barracks; one of the women, a former prostitute, was a notorious trader and usually had some extra food.

  But the girl would not speak. She buried her head on my mother’s chest and continued to moan.

  “Do you want some water?” asked my mother. She even tried talking Italian to her; through her musical training she spoke fairly good Italian.

  But Sofia Alatri seemed beyond help. And so my mother decided that affection, just the warmth of another human body, was all she could offer. It is odd, as I write this, from information I received from a woman who was in Auschwitz in that very barracks, how clearly I can see the scene. My mother had that talent for endowing any place she was with dignity and charm. She behaved elegantly and politely, and thus hoped to change the world.

  “It’s hard to remember that we are more than names on a tag,” my mother said. “Or a blue number tattooed on one’s arm. We’re all people, yes, and we still are, dear Sofia. People with names, homes, loved ones. They cannot take that from us.”

  “But they have,” Chana Lowy said. “That’s how they’ll finally do away with us. No names, nothing. So we’re not anything any more.”

  My mother began to brush the girl’s hair, and Sofia stopped moaning. The touch of a human hand, the sense of love, and warmth, perhaps.

  “Poor child,” my mother said. “You make me think of my daughter Anna. How can people be so cruel? How can they do such things to innocents?”

  “It’s an old story,” Chana Lowy said. “When you have nothing else to do, pick on Jews. We were in their way, that’s all.”

  My mother put her arm around Sofia. “You can talk to me. I am your friend.”

  The girl covered her face. Still, silence.

  My mother took the photos down from the boards over the bunk. “Look. My children. They are such good young people. Like you, my dear.”

  Sofia said nothing. But she looked dumbly at the old wrinkled photos.

  “My Karl. And his wife Inga. That’s Rudi in the striped shirt. He’s twenty-four now. You would like him. So handsome. And that’s Anna next to him. She would … would be … a bit older than you.”

  “They’ve scared her wits out of her,” Mrs. Lowy said. “You know, I’m as frightened as she is, but I try not to show it.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” my mother said.

  “Well, maybe work tomorrow. I mean, real work, in the factories, where they need us.”

  Sofia began to shiver. My mother put a blanket over her shoulders. One small stove, usually cold, was all that any barracks had.

  “You’re cold, Sofia, come sit closer. Tell me about your family. Your mother and father. Oh, I know about Italian Jews, they are very fine people. Sephardim, scholars. Tell me about Milano.”

  Chana Lowy shook her head. “Nothing. They’ve killed her mind. Maybe she’s better off not remembering. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with Jews, they remember too much.”

  Mama held the girl’s chin up and looked into her eyes. “So beautiful. Like my Anna. Come, I’ll sing to you.”

  Sweetly, softly, my mother sang the Lorelei, rocking the girl back and forth in her arms.

  For a few moments there was no sound in the barracks, except for my mother’s singing. Some of the women joined, humming softly. Some wept, with memories of the lives they had once known—homes, families, meals together, children going to school, weddings, all the happy fragments that make for a good life.

  Then there was silence.

  Two women kapos and an SS guard carrying a machine pistol stood in the doorway.

  The first kapo spoke. “Everyone in this barracks fall out.”

  “Why?” a woman asked. “We’ve had our medical inspection.”

  “You have work for us?” Chana Lowy asked.

  “No questions,” the SS man said. “Just fall out.”

  “Nothing to be afraid of,” the kapo said.

  But they all knew. Those that did not know, pretended not to. The deception would take place to the very end—and the self-deception.

  “Hurry along, ladies,” the SS man said. He was a squat, pockmarked man, one woman recalled, unfit for front-line duty. “Form a double file outside, fast.”

  “It must be for the jobs,” Chana Lowy insisted.

  My mother combed her hair. She would go to the end neat, clean, as proper as she could make herself appear. “I am afraid not, Mrs. Lowy. We must do as they tell us, and do it with dignity.”

  The Italian girl would not get up when the others rose. The woman kapo lunged at her with the truncheon.

  “Stop!” my mother cried. “Don’t touch her.”

  “She’s crazy.”

  “She will come with me. Do not hit her.”

  My mother, Berta Weiss of Berlin, musician and housewife, daughter of a hero of the First World War, then lifted Sofia from the bunk and held her close to her. She kissed her cheek.

  “You will walk with me, Sofia,” she said.

  Outside, the older women were helped along by the younger. They knew. I am told this was a common occurrence. When the transports were light, when Hoess’ chambers and ovens were slack, entire blocks of barracks would, without warning, be emptied. No excuses saved anyone; no privileges mattered. It was a matter of getting the job done, of filling quotas. The goal was twelve thousand a day, and the Führer and Himmler would have their twelve thousand.

  They were marched across the barracks area, under guard, out of a gate, and toward the famous rows of trees Hoess had planted. Ahead of them loomed the concrete chamber, with its long flat roof. It was wintertime. The famous women’s orchestra was not serenading guards and victims that day.

  In the freezing cold, they were ordered to undress. Clothing was piled neatly. Valuables taken for “safekeeping.” They were advised that the fumigating, the delousing, would take about five minutes. Their property would be returned as they left.

  “You’ll be better fit for work,” the SS men told them.

  And they stared at the naked women.

  “Help her, she’s crazy,” the woman kapo said, pointing to Sofia, who had again fallen to the ground. My mother and Chana helped her undress. She seemed pitiful, defenseless. The Reich was doing away with its mortal enemies.

  “You’ll feel better afterward,” a guard shouted.

  Apparently, the undressing of the women was an event, a diversion, for many of the SS men. They gathered in groups, grinning, nudging one another. Their bestiality had no limits. No one has yet explained it to me.

  My mother turned to one of the women kapos—a Jew like herself, and one who with the Sonderkommandos later dragged the corpses out and to the ovens—and said, “I am Berta Weiss of Berlin, and this is Chana Lowy, my friend. Please tell our husbands what happened.”

  The woman nodded. Kapos and Sonderkommandos, too, when the time came, would be committed to the chambers.

  It was cold, damp, and it almost seemed that some of the women welcomed death. Or they preferred to believe to the end that the Germans were not lying.

  “They say it’s good for the lungs,” an old woman said to my mother.

  “Breathe deeply,” the guard said. “Hold the children
high, so they can breathe it in. It’s good for you. No colds, no coughs.”

  Chana Lowy began to weep.

  “Be brave, Chana,” my mother said. She was holding Sofia erect, talking softly to her.

  “Less than five minutes, you’ll be out,” the guard said.

  A young red-haired girl broke from the ranks of people being marched from the trees to the opened metal door. They caught her. She screamed, howled, begged, refused to join the line of march. An SS officer appeared. He ordered her dragged behind the trees. Two shots were heard. There was no more screaming.

  “Move, move,” the guards shouted. “It’s only a shower room.”

  My mother paused at the door, turned her head toward the camp, and said, “Goodbye, Josef. I love you.”

  The camp records reveal it was a slow day. Only seven thousand were gassed. The bodies were consumed by the gas ovens and the ashes thrown into the Sola River that flowed near the camp.

  My father and Lowy missed selection for the chambers that same day, through a stroke of luck.

  Lowy had mentioned that a road-working detail was being set up, and that it meant a good long assignment. By a freakish coincidence, both he and my father were pulled out of their jobs—where people were being randomly selected for death—and assigned to the road team.

  Outdoor work usually meant an extra ration of food. It was also rather unusual for Jews to last on this kind of work any length of time. They were held in contempt as laborers by the Germans. Poles or Russian war prisoners were preferred.

  But the day after my mother was murdered—my father had no knowledge of it—Lowy and Dr. Josef Weiss found themselves spreading hot tar over a road on the outskirts of the barracks area. It was vital work, providing a new link between one of the factories making armaments and a railhead. Eichmann and his transports of Jews had so clogged the railway lines in and out of Auschwitz that war materiel destined for the front was often sidelined, or was delayed.

  The work was arduous at the road-building site. But it was work that would last. Moreover, the man in charge, a German civil engineer named Kurt Dorf, had achieved something of a reputation among the Jews. He was alleged to have saved hundreds of Jews by selecting them for work, by insisting they were good laborers, and somehow keeping them out of the clutches of Hoess’ insatiable underlings.