Lichtenstern stares at her.
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re proposing…”
“I’d have the books out on top of the chimney during morning classes, and that way, each time there’s a class changeover, the teachers could come and ask for a book. Teachers could even request more than one book in the course of a morning, if they wanted to. If there were an inspection, we’d hide the books in the secret pockets under our clothes.”
“You want to have the books out on top of the chimney? That’s reckless. I don’t approve of that.”
“Do you think Fredy would agree?”
The naïveté with which Dita asks the question is so exaggerated that the deputy director loses control. Could it be that this child is trying to undermine his authority?
“I’ll discuss it with the director, but you might as well forget the idea. I know Fredy.”
But Lichtenstern is wrong. Here, no one knows anyone.
6.
Lichtenstern owns the only watch in the camp, and at the end of the morning he bangs a gong made from a particularly thin metal bowl, which sounds loudly to signal that classes are over. It’s time for soup. First, though, the children must form a straight line and walk to the washroom to rinse their hands.
Dita walks over to Professor Morgenstern’s corner and picks up the H. G. Wells book he has been using to explain the fall of the Roman Empire to his students. The professor looks like a shabby Father Christmas with his close-cropped white hair, unshaven white stubble, and eyebrows that look like pieces of white wire. His very worn jacket is coming apart at the shoulder seams and has no buttons. Despite that, he stands very tall in it. He walks with a regal dignity that matches the old-fashioned, if somewhat excessive, politeness of his manners, such as his habit of addressing even the youngest child as “young man” or “young lady.”
Dita takes hold of the book with both hands just in case the clumsy old man drops it. She has felt especially curious about him ever since that incident during the inspection, which served her so well in allowing her to elude the Priest. So, some afternoons, she goes to his corner to visit him. Professor Morgenstern always hastens to stand as soon as he sees her coming, and gives her a very deep bow. It amuses her that he starts to talk without preamble.
“Are you aware of the significance of the distance between your eyes and your eyebrows?” he asks, intrigued. “It’s hard to find people with the ideal distance—neither too close nor too far away.”
His words tumble out as he speaks enthusiastically about the most absurd topics, but he can also suddenly stop talking and gaze up at the ceiling or into space. If anyone tries to interrupt him, he gestures with his hand for them to wait a moment.
“I’m listening to the wheels in my brain turning,” he declares very seriously.
He doesn’t take part in the conversations the rest of the teachers have at the end of the day. Nor would he be particularly welcome. Most of them think he’s crazy. On those afternoons when his students are playing with the other groups at the back of the hut, he’s usually sitting by himself. Professor Morgenstern makes origami birds out of the few scraps of paper that have been discarded because there’s no more space to write on them.
On this particular afternoon, when Dita approaches him, he leaves a small piece of paper half folded and hastily stands up to greet her with a small dip of his head. He looks at her through his cracked glasses.
“Miss Librarian … it’s an honor.”
His greeting, which flatters her and makes her feel grown up, strikes her as somewhat peculiar. Just for a moment, she wonders if he’s making fun of her, but she quickly rejects that possibility. His eyes are kind. The professor talks to her about buildings; he was an architect before the war. When she tells him that he still is one and he’ll continue to put up buildings, he smiles.
“I don’t have the strength to raise anything anymore, not even my own body from this very low bench.”
For several years before he arrived in Auschwitz, he had been unable to pursue his career because he was a Jew, and his memory is starting to fail, he tells her.
Morgenstern confesses to Dita that he sometimes asks her to bring him a book, but then gets distracted and talks about other topics and doesn’t even get around to opening it.
“So why do you request it?” Dita asks him reproachfully. “Aren’t you aware that we have a limited number of books and you can’t ask for them on a whim?”
“You’re right, Miss Adler. You’re absolutely right. I beg your forgiveness. I’m an egotistical and capricious old man.”
And then he stops talking, and Dita doesn’t know what to say, because he seems genuinely distressed. And then, for no obvious reason, he suddenly smiles. In a low voice, as if he were telling her a secret, he explains that having a book in his lap while he talks to the children about the history of Europe or the exodus of the Jews makes him feel like a real teacher.
“That way, the children pay attention to me. The words of a crazy old man are of no interest to them, but if the words come from a book … that’s another matter. Within their pages, books contain the wisdom of the people who wrote them. Books never lose their memory.”
And he brings his head up close to Dita as if to entrust something very mysterious to her. She can see his untidy white beard and those tiny eyes.
“Miss Adler … books know everything.”
Dita leaves Morgenstern absorbed in his origami, attempting to make what looks like a seal. She feels the old professor has a few screws loose, but even so, he makes sense.
Lichtenstern waves Dita over. He looks irritated—the same way he looks when he’s out of cigarettes.
“The director says he likes your suggestion.”
The deputy director watches her closely for any display of triumph, but her expression is serious and focused. Secretly, she is overjoyed.
“He’s given his approval; so be it. But at the first sign of an inspection, the books have to be hidden quickly. That is your responsibility.”
Dita nods her agreement.
“There is one point on which I have absolutely not compromised,” Lichtenstern states more cheerfully, as if this might restore his wounded pride. “Hirsch kept insisting that he would wear the hidden pockets in case there was an inspection. I’ve made him see the stupidity of this plan. He has to receive the guards—he’ll be right next to them, so he can’t be found carrying any package. A different assistant will be with you in the library each day.”
“Perfect, Seppl! We’ll launch the public library right away!”
“I find this business with the books a total madness.” And he sighs as he heads off. “But is there anything in this place that isn’t mad?”
Dita leaves the hut happy, but also nervous, as she thinks about how she’s going to organize things. She’s busy thinking when she runs into Margit, who’s been waiting for her outside. Just then, they see a man coming out of the makeshift hospital barrack. He pulls a cart; in it, a body covered with a piece of canvas. It’s so common to see corpses going past that hardly anyone seems to notice anymore. The two girls walk on in silence until they come across Renée, a young friend of Margit’s. Her clothes are covered with mud after a day spent working in the drainage ditches, and the bags under her eyes make her look older.
“You really lucked out with your work assignment, Renée!”
“Bad luck follows me everywhere…” she says somewhat enigmatically to make sure she captures the attention of the two girls.
She gestures for them to follow her down an alleyway between two of the huts. They find a spot at the back of one of them, a few meters away from a group of men who, given the way they are whispering and looking around warily, must be talking politics. The three girls huddle together to try and keep warm, and then Renée starts to talk.
“There’s a guard who looks at me.”
The other two girls exchange puzzled looks. Margit has no idea how to respond, but Dita gets chee
ky.
“That’s why they pay the guards, Renée. To watch the prisoners.”
“But he looks at me in a different way.… He stares. He waits until I step out of line once roll call is over, and then he follows me with his eyes; I can feel them. And he does the same thing again with the afternoon head count.”
Dita is on the verge of making another joke at Renée’s expense, telling her she’s very vain, but she notices how worried the girl is and opts to keep quiet.
“At first it didn’t seem significant, but this afternoon, while he was patrolling the camp, he detoured from the middle of the Lagerstrasse and came over to the drain where we were working. I didn’t dare turn around, but I could tell he was very close by. Then he walked away.”
“Maybe he was just inspecting the work being done on the ditch.”
“But he went right back to the middle of the Lagerstrasse and didn’t make any other detours till he got to the end. It’s as if he was keeping an eye only on me.”
“Are you sure it’s always the same SS guard?”
“Yes. He’s short, so he’s easy to spot.” And she covers her face with her hands as she says this. “I’m frightened.”
“That girl gets too easily flustered,” says Dita somewhat contemptuously when Renée leaves them.
“She’s scared. I am, too. Aren’t you ever afraid, Dita? You’re the one who should be most scared, and yet you’re the least frightened of all of us.”
“Nonsense! Of course I’m afraid. I just don’t go around trumpeting it.”
“Sometimes you need to talk about things.”
They remain silent for a minute and then say good-bye. Dita returns to the Lagerstrasse. It has started to snow, and people are gathering in their huts. These are hotbeds of infection, but at least it’s not quite so cold inside. Dita can see the door of her hut, Barrack 16, in the distance. There isn’t the usual crowd of people milling in the doorway. Married couples often take advantage of the hour before curfew to be together. She soon realizes why no one’s there. Notes from Puccini’s opera Tosca are floating in the air. Dita recognizes it because it’s one of her father’s favorites. Someone’s whistling the notes with precision, and when she looks more carefully, she makes out the figure of a man with the flat cap of an SS officer leaning against the frame of the door.
“My God…”
He seems to be waiting for someone. But no one wants him waiting for them. Dita stops; she doesn’t know if she’s been spotted. A group of four women overtakes her. They chat anxiously about their husbands as they walk briskly. Dita takes two strides, lowers her head, and walks right behind them so they’ll provide cover for her. Just as they get to the door of the hut, she scoots around the women and almost races inside.
She runs to her row of bunks and leaps up onto her bed. For the first time ever, she’s pleased to see that her bunkmate is already there, and she burrows beside her dirty feet, as if she believes that by doing so, she’ll be able to hide from that all-seeing medical captain. There’s no sound of hurried footsteps or German commands. Mengele isn’t chasing after her, and she feels momentary relief.
She doesn’t know that no one has ever seen Mengele running. Why run? he thinks. Prisoners have nowhere to hide. It’s like catching fish in a barrel.
Her mother tells Dita not to worry, there’s still time before the curfew. Dita nods and even manages to fake a smile.
Dita says good night first to her mother, and then to her bunkmate’s filthy socks, which smell like overripe cheese. She gets no reply; she no longer expects one. She wonders what Mengele was doing there, at the entrance to her hut. If he was waiting for her—if he believes she could be hiding something from the camp commanders—why doesn’t he arrest her? She has no idea. Mengele cuts open thousands of stomachs and looks inside them with greedy eyes, but no one has been able to see what’s inside his head. The lights are turned off, and she finally feels safe. But then she realizes she’s mistaken.
When Mengele threatened her, she was unsure if she should tell the leaders of Block 31. They would relieve her of her responsibility. But everyone would think she’d asked to give up her position out of fear. And so she has made the library more accessible and more visible. She’s risked more, so that no one is left in any doubt: Dita Adler is not afraid of any Nazi.
But is this right? she asks herself.
If she puts herself at risk, she’s putting everyone else at risk. If they find her with the books, they’ll shut down Block 31. The dream of leading anything like a normal life will be over for five hundred children. She has sacrificed sound judgment to her foolish wish to appear brave.
Dita opens her eyes, and the dirty socks still lurk in the dark. She can’t hide the truth in the thin canvas compartments under her smock. Truth weighs too much. It ends up tearing the bottom out of any lining, dropping noisily, and shattering everything. She thinks about Hirsch. He is a totally transparent man, and she has no right to hide the facts from him.
Fredy doesn’t deserve that.
Dita decides that she’ll talk to him the next day. She’ll explain that Dr. Mengele is keeping a close eye on her and that the library—and Block 31—is at risk. Hirsch will relieve her of the position, of course. No one will look at her with admiration anymore. That makes her feel a little sad. It’s easy to commend the hero whose actions are visible. But how do you measure the bravery of those who step aside?
7.
Rudi Rosenberg strolls up to the fence that separates the quarantine camp, BIIa, where he has his office, from the hustle and bustle of the family camp. As registrar, he sent a message to Fredy Hirsch arranging a time to meet and chat across the wire fence. Rosenberg has a great deal of respect for the work the youth instructor is doing in Block 31. There is the odd malicious person who believes that Hirsch collaborates too enthusiastically with the camp commanders, but on the whole, people find him sympathetic and reliable. Schmulewski maintains, in that rasping voice of his, that “he’s as trustworthy as any person can be in Auschwitz.” Rosenberg has gradually become closer to Hirsch through fleeting conversations and the occasional favor with his lists. And not just because he likes him. Schmulewski has asked him to find out what he can about Hirsch discreetly. Information is far more valuable than gold.
What Rudi isn’t expecting this morning is that the head of Block 31 will meet him accompanied by a girl who, in spite of her long, dirty skirt and outsized woolen jacket, has the grace of a gazelle.
Fredy speaks of the problems he’s having with supplies for Block 31 and his attempts to get approval for further improvements to rations for the children.
“I’ve heard tell,” says Rosenberg in a neutral tone to suggest that the comment is trivial, “that the play you put on in Block Thirty-One to celebrate Hanukkah was a real success. They say the SS officers clapped enthusiastically. Apparently, Kommandant Schwarzhuber had a really good time.”
Hirsch is well aware that the Resistance still doesn’t trust him. He doesn’t trust the Resistance, either.
“Yes, they enjoyed it. I took advantage of Dr. Mengele’s good mood to ask them to assign us the warehouse next to the hut where they store clothing so we can use it as a day care center for the youngest children.”
“Dr. Mengele in a good mood?” Rosenberg’s eyes widen at the unlikely possibility that a person who sends hundreds of people to their death on a weekly basis without batting an eyelid could experience such a human emotion.
“The order arrived today with his authorization. It means the little kids can have their space and won’t distract the older children.”
Rosenberg nods and smiles. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s staring into the eyes of the girl standing silently a short distance away. Hirsch notices, and introduces her as Alice Munk, one of the young assistants who helps out in Block 31.
Rudi tries to focus on what Hirsch is telling him, but he can’t keep his eyes off the young assistant, who smiles back at him cheekily. Hirsch, who is able to st
and motionless and fearless in the face of a battalion of SS officers, feels awkward at the sight of the flirting between the two teenagers. Love has been a source of endless problems for him from the time he reached adolescence. Since then, he’s tried to fill his time with tournaments and training, and organizing endless events, all to keep his mind occupied. Keeping busy has also allowed him to hide the fact that, despite being incredibly popular, he always ends up on his own.
In the end, Fredy tells the two youngsters he’s got something urgent to do. He slips away.
“I’m Rudi.”
“I know. And my name is Alice.”
As soon as they are on their own, Rudi attempts to demonstrate his finest seduction skills. They are limited; he’s never had a girlfriend. He’s never had sex. Other than freedom, you can buy and sell everything in Birkenau, including sex. But he’s never wanted—or maybe never dared—to try. Rudi rushes to fill the momentary silence. He wants more than anything for her to stay there forever, on the other side of the wire fence, and to smile at him with those pink lips, chapped by the cold, which he’d love to heal with a kiss.
“How’s the work in Block Thirty-One?”
“Pretty good. It’s our job as assistants to keep everything functioning. Some of us get the fire going when there’s coal or wood, which isn’t very often. Others help to feed the little ones. And we also sweep the floor. Right now, I’m in the pencils group.”
“Pencils?”
“There really aren’t a lot of pencils, and they’re kept for special occasions. So we make basic ones for everyday use.”
“And how do you make them?”
“First, using two stones, we file the edges of some teaspoons until they’re really sharp. Then, we use them to sharpen the ends of pieces of wood that can’t be used for anything else. I usually do the last bit: scorching the tips in the fire until they’re as black as coal. The children can write a few words with each of these, but it means you have to be sharpening the tips and scorching the ends of new bits of wood every day.”
The Librarian of Auschwitz Page 7
