The Barbed Crown (The Vatican Knights Book 13)

by Rick Jones

  “We don’t know if the Russians are coming or not,” Dror said louder than intended. “That could be nothing but a rumor to keep moral high.”

  Ephraim leaned into him. “Think about your crusade, Dror. There are two sets of fences, all razor-wire and electrified. Then there are the guard towers. Should you somehow manage to bypass those obstacles, then what about the minefields? And if we get beyond those, what about the dogs?”

  “Ephraim, there’s a solution to everything. Don’t back out on me now. I need you.”

  “A solution? Like what, Dror? Dig tunnels underneath the camp? Especially when we’re too weak to lift a hand on most days?”

  “We’ll figure a way,” he told Ephraim.

  “There is no way, Dror. The Germans are astute and well-organized. They seem to see things before they happen.” Then Ephraim pointed to Aaron as if to say ‘my point exactly.’

  “Ephraim, we can organize the way they did inside Treblinka and Sobibor. We look for weaknesses and soft spots, and then we take advantage of the opportunities provided.” Then he appealed to Ephraim one last time. “We can do this,” he stated imploringly. “We can. We just need the courage to do so. And out there”—he swept his arm around to emphasize the camp—“there are others like us who will join. Do you believe we’re the only ones talking about freedom? Of course not. For every one like you and me, Ephraim, there are probably a hundred more who are talking and planning like we are. We just need to find them and pool our resources together—become well-organized. We can do this.” Then he looked at Aaron, his body beginning to bloat with internal gasses. “If we don’t do something soon, Ephraim, and if the Russians are coming, this might be a move by the Lagerkommandant to erase the truth of what’s really going on here at Auschwitz. Block Eleven might be the telltale sign of what’s coming our way. Are you sure you want to take a gamble on the Russians charging the gates to grant us freedom? Even though the stories may not support the rumors. Or would you rather up your chances of survival and do something about it?”

  “Dror, I want to live like everyone else… But you’re asking for the impossible.”

  “You!” It was the kapo. “What are you two talking about?” The kapo left the team he had been engaging, and started to approach Dror and Ephraim. Liev Bodner was in his mid-twenties and appeared healthy from the benefits proffered him by the SS, such as proper food and drink. “I asked you both a question,” he said, pointing his truncheon in their direction. “What were you two whispering about?”

  Dror pointed to Aaron and said, “He was our friend.”

  “Everyone who comes through here is either a friend or a member of the family. It’s just the way it is.”

  Dror shook his head disapprovingly at the kapo. The moment Ephraim saw this, he placed a gloved hand on Dror’s forearm, the gesture telling his friend to let the matter go. But Dror wouldn’t.

  “What happened to you, Liev?” Dror asked him, saddened. Then he pointed to Aaron. “On the way to this camp, this man held you close to comfort you as you sobbed. Do you remember that, Liev? And now you look down at his corpse as if he was nothing to you but a stranger.”

  Liev Bodner didn’t hesitate when he came across with his truncheon and hit Dror square on the side of his head, sending the man to the floor. Then he pointed his cudgel at Ephraim. “Back off,” he told him. “Or you’ll receive the same.”

  Ephraim did as ordered with his hands held up in surrender.

  Then Liev returned his attention back to Dror. “You think I want to live like you, like an animal with limited time?” He shook his head. “Every day you people live on a diet of soup, and that’s if you can get it. Every day you people die by the hundreds and thousands, whereas I’m protected by the SS guards. And every day I escape the beatings. You, on the other hand, are too stupid to see a good thing.”

  Dror started to laugh. “A good thing?” he said. “You’ve been a kapo for what? More than two months? Almost three? You put on weight. You look good. No marks or bruises that I can see. All good except for the fact that your time’s coming to an end, I’m afraid.” His laughter continued to maintain itself—deep, low and even—which angered Bodner even more so.

  Liev Bodner nodded. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “No?” Dror managed to get himself to a sitting position. “Then tell me this: why do all the kapos disappear after three months?”

  “They don’t disappear, Dror. They’re reassigned.”

  “Reassigned? To where?”

  “To other camps.”

  “Is that what they’re telling you, Liev? That they’re reassigning you to other camps? You mean places like Chelmno, Belzac and Majdanek? Those camps closest to Auschwitz yet are three-hundred-twenty kilometers away, six-hundred-forty kilometers round trip, perhaps a ten-hour ride on these roads.”

  Liev remained quiet.

  “Well, if you cannot answer this, then perhaps you can tell me why it is that the trucks leave so early in the morning filled with kapos… but return less than an hour later?”

  Liev Bodner gave Dror a hard look of contempt while white-knuckling his truncheon. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t? Well let me say this. Jews on our side of the fence notice these things, Liev, because we never know when the next transport will be our last. We watch everything, always wondering when they’ll herd us in for the final ride. Every transport of kapos thus far leaves exactly three months to the day they’re assigned the post of kapo, like clockwork. The Germans are very astute and disciplined people, but that’s what makes them predictable.” Dror leaned forward for emphasis. “The reason why the truck is back within the hour, Liev, is because they’re being taken to the fields and executed, their graves right where they fall.”

  Liev Bodner lifted the truncheon in anger and brought it down one-two-three times, hard, the club hitting Dror’s raised arm that was held up in defense.

  “Enough!”

  It was SS Sergeant Kaiser, his broad shoulders and apelike appearance crossing the room with purpose, a truncheon in his hand as well. “What are you doing?” he asked Bodner.

  Bodner fell back with his club pointed at Dror. “He was being disciplined,” he told Kaiser. “For rudeness.”

  “Some other time,” said Kaiser. Then he grabbed Bodner roughly by the collar of his coat and ushered him toward the doorway. Outside, like a jammed traffic, a dozen carts lined up right behind the other were filled with bodies. “We have work to do, a busy day, and you’re inside beating a man who should be manning the ovens.” Then Kaiser pointed his truncheon to the line of carts while maintaining a strong grip on Bodner’s collar. “And it only grows from here,” he added. “Stop playing around and do your work, kapo. Is that understood? Believe me when I say that you can be easily replaced.”

  Bodner nodded and started to tear up. “Yes, sir. Understood.”

  SS Sergeant Kaiser released his hold. “This will be going on throughout the day and most of the night,” he said, referring to the pushcarts. “See that the job gets done.”

  Bodner nodded.

  * * *

  Dror was aided to his feet by Ephraim, his arm throbbing but not broken. “Thank God he wields his club like a little girl,” Dror commented, flexing his fingers.

  And then they watched as the SS sergeant forced Bodner roughly to the doorway and pointed to the carts beyond, the man yelling and issuing demands to Bodner, who apparently agreed to what the SS officer was saying with nods of his head.

  But Dror and Ephraim felt a pang in their gut and a wrenching of their hearts. Pushcarts piled deep with bodies were lining up one right after the other, as if waiting in line for their turn in the ovens. They also saw from other points of the camp three additional carts that were fully loaded being wheeled to the line, this train of dead growing longer.

  Liev Bodner returned. The man was angry as he slapped his club against the trays. “Move! There’s much work to
be done and we haven’t got all day! So stop standing around!” Then he turned and walked away, the man fuming.

  Dror and Ephraim galvanized into action and carefully lifted Aaron onto the tray, then slid the tray into the flames. After Dror closed the door to the oven, he lifted his chin toward the line of carts out the door, prompting Ephraim to take notice. “Do you still have reservations as to what we must do?” he asked his friend.

  Ephraim’s shoulders slumped with the crookedness of an Indian’s bow.

  Dror continued: “The numbers of killing for some reason have been amped up greatly. So you may be right about the Russians. Perhaps they’re trying to erase what’s going on here. And if that’s the case, we have to do something.”

  Ephraim continued to look at the growing line of carts and the bodies they contained, and at all the limbs that were white and gangly in appearance.

  “That’s our future,” Dror added. “Like it or not.”

  “We’ll have to take the camp by force, but only if we have the numbers,” Ephraim finally said. “But we’ll need to get to the armory outside the women’s compound. There are no landmines, but it’s heavily guarded. The last thing I want to do is to go up against the Germans with my bare fists?”

  “Then we must begin to establish contacts,” said Dror. “I’m sure the women want to live as much as the men.”

  “The objective of getting weapons from the armory will prove difficult, but not impossible.”

  “Like I said,” Dror stated, “there’s a solution for everything.”

  Little more was said between them thereafter, as they lifted and pitched bodies all day long onto the trays to feed the fires.

  Chapter Nine

  If there was truly a Hell, thought Frederic Becher, then he was living dead center in the hub of its activity. After he had killed the Jew with his weapon, he was advised by his superior officer to walk the perimeter and keep an eye on the details. If he saw anyone evading work, then he was to handle them with the same measure he handed the Jew who fell out of line; with a few dispensed rounds.

  He had walked the perimeter alone watching the Jews, no matter how exhausted, working. Hans was still standing by the gate, even though there were no new arrivals. And most guards walked the perimeter in pairs, the soldiers often deriding the Jews for the sake of humor.

  Then he worked his way to the area centered between the Blocks where the gallows took center stage. The girl he kicked the stool out from under the day before continued to swing in lazy circles from the cord around her neck.

  She was beginning to putrefy, her flesh becoming mottled with the colors of yellow, green and purple, as crows roosted upon her shoulders to peck at the soft tissue of her eyes. Seeing this, Frederic raced as fast as he could to the corpse and shooed off the birds, who took flight cawing in protest. But he was too late because in the aftermath of their pecking they had taken her eyes, which were now burgundy-colored hollows inside her head. And they had picked at her sores as well, their beaks having burrowed deep into her flesh.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered to her. Then a tear slipped from the corner of his eye, one of great shame.

  He had come to Auschwitz as a boy on the cusp of becoming a man. But as Hans said: One becomes a man quickly in here.

  Frederic Becher continued to stare at the body—could smell the beginning stages of decay and body rot. Is this what it means to become a man? he asked himself. To kill with impunity?

  “She’ll swing there for days,” someone said. It was Hans, who was smoking a cigarette while doing his rounds of the compound alongside another soldier, who was also smoking a cigarette. “And when the stink of her becomes too great and it’s time for the oven,” Hans added, “they’ll replace her with another.”

  Frederic Becher didn’t respond as the two SS guards finally walked away, the men talking about something Becher knew nothing about or even cared.

  Then they were alone once again, killer and victim.

  One swinging on a cord, the other watching on with revulsion.

  Eventually, Becher continued his rounds, the compound a massive area to canvas with nearly 200,000 Jews as residents. He had seen Blockführers beating down Jews with clubs until they moved no more—additional fodder for the flames. And then he passed in front of a brick wall that was pocked and pitted with gunfire, with the bloodied spots that stained them as fresh as they were old. He saw the carts lining up before the crematorium, all filled with their cargos of dead. And he could see the flames greedily burning within the ovens, the fires bright as smoky pillars belched from the chimneys above them, the ashes swirling, dancing, and then alighting on the cold surface of the compound, as a gray mantle. And the smell of charred flesh and burnt hair was as overwhelming as the scent of cotton candy at a carnival.

  I am in Hell.

  He walked north. Then east. Then west. And everywhere he went he witnessed beating after beating; summary executions; faces of Jews who had little to no hope, perhaps wondering if the next round from a Luger had their name on it. Then he ventured into the women’s compound, with the beatings from the female Blockführers equally as vicious as their male counterparts.

  In the south side of the compound, a block of four buildings stood adjacent to one another. These were the factories where the women had labored to stitch together banded uniforms for new arrivals. The next batch was due by the end of the week when a train from Hungary was supposed to arrive, at least two thousand Jews who had less than a twenty-percent chance of making the cut to live out the day.

  Frederic Becher rounded the buildings, making two perimeter checks before stepping inside the largest factory. Row after row of female prisoners donned rags to cover their heads, refused to make eye contact as they went about the routine of stitching.

  The footfall of his boots sounded loud and menacing along the wooden floor, the pace of the stitching suddenly picking up, for some manically, as he continued with his observations.

  At the end of the last row, Frederic Becher noted a young woman who was fresh in appearance, obviously a new arrival, with full features. Her skin was the color of tanned leather, and her eyes shined like newly-minted pennies. She was also without sores or blemishes, the texture of her flesh as smooth as porcelain. And Frederic Becher had never been so captivated by such beauty.

  His footfalls stopped, the boards no longer echoing his approach. “You,” he said to the girl, his voice lacking any hint of menace. “What’s your name?”

  The young woman kept her eyes to the garments, though the needle in her grasp remained still.

  “Your name,” he repeated with sweet patience.

  She placed the needle along the banded cloth laid out on top of her work desk, and raised the sleeve of her garment to reveal her numbers. “One-zero-zero-six-eight-one,” she said.

  Becher shook his head. “Your real name,” he told her. “The one given by your parents.”

  She still didn’t look into his eyes. Not because of fear, but more out of revulsion. “Ayana,” she finally said.

  Frederic Becher smiled, the first one in a long time, one that was true and genuine. “Well, Ayana, that’s a very pretty name for a very pretty woman.”

  The other workers stopped what they were doing and looked up, with shock winning the moment. Never had a German SS guard called a Jewish woman beautiful or pretty or remotely striking in any form, but more as ugly trolls no matter their appearance out of spite. The moment Becher turned to examine the sudden halt in activity, everyone went back to stitching—needle in, needle out, needle in, needle out.

  Then to Ayana: “You’re a very pretty girl, Ayana. Beautiful, in fact.”

  Ayana sat ramrod straight, the woman obviously uncomfortable. She had heard about the guards raping women inside the camp, especially those who were fresh off the trains and still had ‘meat on their bones.’

  “Please,” she managed, “I must get these uniforms ready for—”

  When he placed a hand upon h
er shoulder, she stiffened, her spine becoming as rigid as rebar.

  “There are plenty here, Ayana, to see this done. What I need for you to do, is to step out.”

  Ayana raised her chin in a show of defiance. Taking a round to her temple would be more acceptable than being raped, so she was preparing herself.

  “Ayana, please,” he said to her softly. “Just a moment of your time. You’ll be back soon enough to finish your labors. I promise.”

  Then she stood from her seat, arms tight to her side, kept her eyes straight, and waited for his next command.

  Becher simply pointed to the exit door at the rear of the factory. “You lead,” he told her.

  Ayana, without hesitation and her chin held high, stepped away from her work station and walked stridently down the aisle with strong and purposeful steps toward the exit. Once she left the building, she remained in a state of attention with her eyes fixed on a distant point.

  Becher closed the door behind them, the two secluded from the others. “Ayana, my name is Frederic Becher.”

  “Are you planning to rape me, Herr Becher? Because if you are, you might as well shoot me where I stand.”

  Becher was taken aback by the boldness of her character. But it was also something he admired, the courage without fear of consequence.

  “No, Ayana. I have no intention of hurting you.”

  Her brow furrowed as if perplexed by the admission. Yet her eyes remained fixed.

  “Ayana, I need you to look at me.”

  “Is that an order, Herr Becher?”

  “As a courtesy,” he told her. “Please.”

  The muscles in the back of her jaw worked while trying to muster the will to do so. Then she turned to him, her striking brown eyes meeting his dazzling blue.

  Becher’s smile was becoming as his lips slightly parted to show rows of pristine white teeth. “Now that wasn’t too hard, was it?”

  “Is there something you wish of me, Herr Becher?”

  She was magnificently beautiful, he considered, even with the rag he knew that covered lacerated scores along her scalp. “First of all,” he said to her, “you can relax. All I want is a moment of your time.”