A draught blew through a crack in the door, which Skinny had left ajar, and the flames flickered until she closed it. She stood by the wall, the last in line, trying not to look around too much for fear of being conspicuous; but at the same time she observed the girls who had already been selected, about 15 of them. They wore civilian clothes -blouses and skirts and shoes, and had coloured jackets hanging on hooks. The girls must have been fresh; they had only just been brought in. They were all around 18. The room was beginning to smell of sweat and perfume, and of clothes and underwear not changed for some days. Skinny was preparing herself for the Hauptsturmführer’s questions. She didn’t suppose that those the doctor didn’t choose would become nurses.
She felt as she had on the 28th of September at the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau – at the mercy of whatever might happen, a lump of clay that could be moulded into anything. Was it to be her good fortune that Dr Krueger could not bear cleaners in prison outfits and had ordered some civilian clothes to be brought for her from the store, with long sleeves and lace-up boots and thick woollen stockings?
The girls were standing casually against the wall, legs crossed. Either they did not know they were at Auschwitz or they didn’t realize what that meant.
Now and again the Hauptsturmführer shouted: “Ruhe!” Quiet!
Then he said: “Schweinerei.” He called out three German names from his list: “Mathilde Seiler, Brunhilde Bausinger, Helga Burger.” He had dark rings under his eyes.
At that moment Skinny knew she would deny that she was Jewish. There was no mistaking the pointed questions of the Hauptsturmführer as he verified the racial origin of each girl. She would lie. If he asked her she would say she was Aryan. If he asked her religion she would answer as though she were her drawing teacher from primary school. They’d all known which church she belonged to. She composed her answers in her head, trying to guess what the Hauptsturmführer would ask.
She had been 18 days in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her head had been shaved. The girls by the wall did not yet have the prescribed masculine crew cut. They had slides, ribbons and combs in their hair.
The girl with the quiff failed to answer the Hauptsturmführer’s questions satisfactorily and joined those not selected, along the wall. The girl probably thought she would become a nurse. How come so many people believed the Germans? Probably because it was more comfortable to believe; it was not so easy to disbelieve and terrible not to trust in anything. What qualities would a girl need to have for the Hauptsturmführer to choose her?
Skinny wondered how Kowalska in Block 18 would deal with her absence. Would she assume she was dead already? Unless they had been looking for her in the evening, they wouldn’t bother looking for her in the morning. Even with the meticulous organization of Auschwitz-Birkenau, people got lost for a day, for two or three days, even for longer.
What were her chances? No-one knew that she was only 15. On the advice given to her by some Poles at the ramp as soon as she had arrived, she had added three years to her age. In the twinkling of an eye she was 18. After a day and a night at Auschwitz-Birkenau she wouldn’t have been lying if she’d declared that she was 1,000 years old. Children under 15 went straight to the chimney. And most of those over 40 went as well.
She listened carefully to the Hauptsturmführer’s questioning of each girl, how he moved from one question to another, what he wrote down. He was in a hurry. That was good. The girl with the quiff had accepted her fate lethargically. What did it matter that she would have to carry bedpans around in a sick bay?
The air was getting thick. The candles were smoking. The gaunt Hauptsturmführer was eating porridge from a soup bowl next to his bulging briefcase, washing it down with mineral water from a bottle with a German label. He had searching, tired eyes and short blond hair. His cap with its skull and crossbones was perched on the edge of the desk. On his questionnaire he ticked off the characteristics of the girls he selected. He was not looking for office workers or cooks. If he didn’t like a girl, or if he suspected her of lying, he made no secret of his annoyance. Next one. Another Schweinerei, fort mit dem Dreck. A few times he swore, scheissegal. He spoke carefully and acted in a businesslike manner, severely. His vocabulary was almost coarser than Dr Krueger’s, and he was not exactly prissy. From the ceiling, on a two-foot length of wire, a light bulb, extinguished, swayed in the draught.
It was Skinny’s turn. He looked her over quickly, head to toe. Did he remember that she was the one who had brought him the candles? He picked up his riding crop and lightly smacked the open palm of his hand.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Let’s get on with it then.” He put the crop on the desk and picked up a pencil. He wrote something on the top of the sheet and cursed when the lead broke.
“Aber jetzt nur die Wahrheit!” he said. Only the truth. Without knowing why, he’d decided in advance that he would take her, but she did not know that. She was the last needed to make up the prescribed number. He fumbled among his papers to find the 30th questionnaire. He told her to answer only ja or nein.
It was not the first time her life had been in the balance, but each time felt like the first time. She hung on to what had so far always helped her. Something that made her rely on herself and hope she would be lucky. It was not quite rebellion, but there was a touch of rebelliousness in it.
Perhaps he sensed in her a will to live; and this didn’t affect him the way it did the Waffen-S S who killed people in order to kill that very will to live.
She didn’t wear glasses. Hauptsturmführer Schneidhuber had been told that female prisoners with glasses weren’t suitable for field brothels.
Skinny had already lost everyone she could lose; but she had not yet lost herself and did not wish to. It was a primitive instinct, but it was the only thing she could hold on to. She refused to let it distort her outward appearance: the Hauptsturmführer mustn’t suspect what she was feeling. Pity was not a Nazi characteristic. She was going through a selection, of the kind they had at Auschwitz-Birkenau every Monday, morning and evening. At every selection her life was in someone else’s hands. Whether she lived or died would be decided, as always, by someone who did not know her, who was seeing her for the first time, perhaps with only half an eye. For her brother, Ramon, his first test had been his last. And at one unexpected selection at Block 18, Skinny had lost her mother. In some recess of her brain were all those, acquaintances and strangers, whom she’d last seen at a selection. There must be no uncertainty about supplies to the crematoria. When there were too few sick people, more healthy ones went into the gas chamber. In the commandant’s office they had detailed quotas according to which selections were performed. If there were no Czechs, they took Hungarians. On the Tuesday morning when they selected her mother, a story went around that the Sortierabteilung truck would take them not to the crematorium but out through the gates of Auschwitz- Birkenau.
She thought all this in the instant between nodding her head and raising it again. Ja, nein.
“Name, day, month, year of birth. Place of birth.”
The Hauptsturmführer was sharpening one of his pencils with a pocket knife. He stifled a belch and took a sip of mineral water.
“Last place of work.”
Those were easy questions.
“Dr Krueger’s surgery.”
“Is that so?” said Hauptsturmführer Schneidhuber. “Have you any Jewish relations?”
“No.”
“There was never talk in your family about anyone, no matter how distant?”
“No. Not that I remember.”
“Good. You’re sure that you only have Aryan blood?”
“I have Aryan blood,” she replied, in the firmest voice she could manage.
There was no way back now. She gave her old Prague address to avoid making a mistake later on. She heard herself speaking as if the voice were not her own. Her blood was no longer throbbing in her temples as it had while she was waiting her turn. She tried not to think of their Prague fla
t which had been taken over by the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung. The Germans had made sure that the flat would go to a German.
“What’s your height? You don’t look short.”
She told him, not sure whether to straighten up or make herself shorter.
The Hauptsturmführer was anxious now to pack up his things and lie down. He had come from Hamburg by fast train, but because of enemy air-raids they had been held up eight times. He was exhausted. He went through her questionnaire quickly, but he didn’t skip anything. Nor did he recognise that what confronted him was concealed stubbornness. What he had seen during the day had been mostly resignation rather than defiance. As Skinny stood facing the doctor she heard within herself only one voice out of the many she was suppressing. Hers was a small lie compared to the German lie: that the gas chambers were only shower rooms where they could freshen up after their journey.
The Hauptsturmführer heard only eagerness, willingness, perhaps a keen and ambitious desire to serve Germany. Her voice was hoarse with excitement and resolution. The doctor knew that in Krueger’s surgery she had become used to working with the human body. She would be prepared for touching the bodies of German soldiers.
Skinny had not anticipated the questions for which the Hauptsturmführer had a long column and to which he now turned.
“If you had to choose between a rat and a rabbit, which would you choose?”
“The rabbit,” she said.
“Why?”
“For its soft fur.”
“Between an ox and a cockerel?”
“The cockerel.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Between a pig and a horse?”
“The horse. It’s cleaner, faster and cleverer.”
“Good. What about between a lamb and a snake?”
The Hauptsturmführer might – for his own amusement – have enriched the questionnaire, but he didn’t feel like it. It was getting late. And it was dark. Very well, we shall see, he thought. A whore did not have to brim over with intelligence. He was thinking of the paper he would write about lymphatic glands.
Dr Schneidhuber finally ordered her to lift her skirt. She knew about this already from the ramp, from when they had arrived. Legs apart! She obeyed. She had long legs, childish thighs, yes, but that shouldn’t be a problem. At that moment the Hauptsturmführer’s voice sounded almost genial. He had not said yet that she had passed.
“Ich bin unfruchtbar.” I’m sterile.
“How do you know?”
“Dr Krueger used x-rays on me. Twice. From the front and behind, with my legs apart.”
She was beginning to interest him.
“How sure are you of this?”
“As sure as there’s a God above me.”
“Suppose he’s below you in hell?” Dr Schneidhuber smiled.
“Gott macht die Nüsse, aber er knackt sie nicht auf.” God makes the nuts, but he doesn’t crack them. It sounded to him as if she were boasting that she was blind, deaf and dumb. He felt more at ease with an Aryan than he did with Jewish subhumans, on whom he would start his experiments the next day. He signed her questionnaire at the bottom. She followed every one of his movements wordlessly. He put the questionnaire into his briefcase. That someone else would go into the gas chamber in her place in the morning so the numbers would be right – this she did not think about. The doctor drank some mineral water and picked up his cap.
“You’ll have to grow your hair,” he said. “You haven’t got much now. Why? Did you have lice?”
He told the girls it would be for a year. To serve frontline soldiers was an honour. Duty to Germany came before all else. Cleanliness, order, obedience. They would wash and sew their own underwear. There would be enough time for needlework. Embroidery, crocheting, knitting sweaters and woollen face-masks for themselves and the troops.
He left some porridge at the bottom of his bowl. It was cold now. He picked up his riding crop. Its handle was made of African hippopotamus hide. He allowed one of the girls to finish his porridge. She licked out the bowl and the spoon, not knowing when she would get her next meal. He picked up the telephone. They would leave under escort at once. Yes, they were all ready, things had moved fast. When would the light come back on? Five minutes? All right, better late than never. They could take their coats with them. Skinny did not have one and didn’t know whose she could take in the next 15 minutes, so that she wouldn’t have to travel in just a dress. She mingled with the girls; it was always better to be in the middle of a crowd than at the head or the tail.
Those he had not picked for the brothel would find plenty of work as nurses, Dr Schneidhuber added. Morgen gehts los, he thought to himself. Tomorrow they’ll be off.
The guards were bored. They were not allowed to have any dealings with the prostitutes, though some did. This was an infringement of the prohibition for both parties and if they were caught, it meant punishment. The guilty S S man would go to the front, to join an Einsatzgruppe, or be sent to prison. The army whore, if she was lucky, would go to Festung Breslau, to the “Hotel for Foreigners” which they knew only by reputation. In any case she would get a thrashing on her bare bottom.
By the wall where the executions took place when the quarry was too deep in snow, the previous detachment of guards had organized dog fights. They would catch stray dogs on the wasteland, keep them hungry, then choose three of similar size, one of them a weaker one. The two stonger ones would tear the third to pieces and lick up its blood. The guards had another trick. They would take a pair of dogs and by giving them nothing to drink, even snow, they became so dehydrated that their blood would not run so much. They would bet their wages on which dog would win the fight. The dog that survived would drink the blood of the defeated one to quench its thirst.
In November the guards had invited Madam Kulikowa to a dog fight. A sheepdog which had won two fights let itself be torn to pieces in the third. It had no strength left. Its blood splashed all the way to the wall, mingling with the dried bloodstains of the executed.
Oberführer Schimmelpfennig saw a confirmation of the laws of nature in the brutality of the dog fights. The ancient Germanic tribes were instinctively right when, instead of praying, they relied on the flight of birds, the behaviour of horses and dogs; the mirror of lakes, the whiteness of hoarfrost. He didn’t need the whores to confirm his conviction of the closeness of human and animal behaviour. The soldiers confirmed it too. Consciously or unconsciously he felt close to his distant ancestors. Did not the wasteland with the quarry resemble a giant emerging from frozen mist? The rats in the snow with their ravenous teeth reminded S chimmelpfennig of squirrels fanning quarrels according to the wisdom of the ancients, spreading dissension.
He was suffering from insomnia. At night he reflected on the Nazi Movement. The cold and the loneliness stripped from him the veneer of civilisation his medical education had given him. He was reverting to nature, to what perhaps he once had been. It thrilled him to watch animals fighting to the death.
“When dogs have an all-out fight they teach you what’s good and what’s bad,” the Oberführer said to Madam Kulikowa. “They remind you of what’s happening all around you, of what you must do to win. Every bark, growl or bite affirms to me that what I’m doing, what we are doing, is good. You should teach that to your little tarts.”
“Is it the fight that makes you shiver?” he asked her.
“It is the cold that is slow death to me,” Madam Kulikowa replied. And to herself she added: “And you Germans, you, Oberführer Frog, are my rapid death.”
She did not even attempt to clean off the gobs of spit and excreta that had splashed onto her legs. She would have to change her clothes. She washed everything three times. This was not the first time that Big Leopolda Kulikowa had been sick with horror.
The guards chased the victorious dog out through the gate, where the wolves, faster and stronger, would catch him. The guards were keeping themselves warm wi
th tea from thermos flasks. With frozen fingers they were paying their bets and sharing out their winnings. The girls watched from the window.
The commandant of the new Waffen-S S guard detachment, Hauptsturmführer Peter Hanisch-Sacher, who arrived on the last day of November, did not care for dog fights. He brought his Alsatian, Fenti, with him from Bremerhaven and assigned a place for him in the kennels. Stray dogs reminded him of Gypsies: they had no business among the pure-bred dogs in the kennels. Among quadrupeds Fenti was what the Hauptsturmführer himself was in his own eyes. They both had their reputation, race, honour and fame. Dead dogs, savaged and bled to death, reminded him of Jews. In that respect he and the Oberführer understood each other. It was love or at least understanding. The fight itself somehow reminded him of the field prostitutes, though he could not have said why. He turned a blind eye to his men’s contact with the prostitutes – so long as they kept within bounds – because, as he would remark over a glass of schnapps, boys will be boys. He did not question the logic of his superiors who would send one lot of SS men here and forbid the same practices elsewhere. He was not interested in the prostitutes himself. They disgusted him, though he couldn’t stop talking about them.
The fight of the sheepdog, Austri, lasted 35 minutes. Austri cost Sturmmann Ruhe his pay. The dog that killed Austri was torn to pieces by wolves within five minutes. The entrails of both dogs were devoured by rats.
It was 2 a.m. when Madam Kulikowa got to bed, having first sent four girls to the kitchen to peel potatoes for the morning soup. Before pulling up her blanket she went over the day’s events.
When the war was over I would sometimes converse in my mind with Big Leopolda Kulikowa, just as if we were having a chat. Even the best person – never mind the worst – will in the end do what suits them best. Danger merely enhances everything. That was why she felt no qualms at stealing bread, margarine and salami from the girls’ rations. But she gave them underwear, perfume, make-up or costume jewellery when the Germans brought in a crate of what they had stolen or confiscated from the troops.
Lovely Green Eyes Page 2
