The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz

by Jeremy Dronfield

  Gustav’s chest had taken some of the impact, and his broken fingers were on fire with pain. The lottery had finally run against him, as it did for everyone. It could only run true so many times, and the longer one was forced to take part, the more certain it was that it would turn bad. The prospects for a badly injured man were grim. The doctor’s needle and a vein full of phenol or hexobarbital was the likely fate, and then – smoke from the crematorium chimney.

  Friedmann died mercifully quickly from his injuries. Most of the other men, lightly injured, were out of the infirmary in a short time. But Gustav remained. The days dragged by, and he was placed in a small ward adjoining Operating Room II. If he didn’t know already what this meant, he would quickly learn; Operating Room II was where lethal injections were given, and this ward was its waiting room.3

  For a while Gustav was left alone; periodically a sick or badly injured man would be selected and taken through to OR II. They never came back. The doctor looked at Gustav each time and passed him by; he was too badly injured to bother with. It would be a waste of drugs to inject a prisoner who would certainly die soon of his own accord. The doctor knew nothing of the will and resilience of Gustav Kleinmann.

  There was a friendly orderly called Helmut, who carefully tended Gustav when the doctor wasn’t about, and he managed to cling on determinedly to life, racked by pain day and night. It slowly subsided, and after six weeks he had recovered enough to be discharged. He was still on a knife’s edge; lacking the strength to return to the haulage detail or even the infirmary wagon, he was now a useless mouth, liable to be sent back to OR II for liquidation.

  His friends and his trade skills saved his life. Words were exchanged between friendly kapos, and Gustav was transferred to the DAW factory, which manufactured military supplies like cartridge cases, barrack-room lockers and aircraft parts, and converted trucks into mobile canteens.4 Gustav was given work as a saddler and upholsterer. He began to convalesce.

  For the first time since his arrival in the camp – almost the first time since the Anschluss – Gustav was able to practise his proper trade again. He was happy – or as happy as one could be. The work was congenial, and he made good friends. His foreman was a German political prisoner named Peter Kersten, a former Communist Party city councillor – ‘a very brave man,’ Gustav thought, ‘I get along with him very well.’ He even managed to wangle a work placement for a Viennese friend, Fredl Lustig, a workmate from the haulage column. Together they made a contented little band.

  So it went on until the beginning of October. And then, like a nightmare resuming after a moment’s gasping wakefulness, everything suddenly, calamitously changed.

  בן

  Fritz and his workmate lifted a heavy concrete lintel from the scaffold bed and carefully eased it into place in the wall above the window space. Fritz positioned it, checking its level and fit.

  Over the past couple of years, his skills as a builder had developed under Robert Siewert’s tutelage. He’d mastered all kinds of brick- and stonework, plastering and general construction. The Siewert detachment was now hard at work on the site of the new Gustloff Werke, a large factory being built beside the Blood Road, opposite the SS garage complex. Once completed, it would turn out barrels for tank and anti-aircraft guns, as well as other armaments. Most of the exterior walls were already up, and Fritz had been put to work on the huge factory windows. He was expected to complete two a day, constructing the fenestrations, setting the lintels and fixing them in place, a job requiring a highly skilled bricklayer and a great deal of care.

  His workmate, Max Umschweif, was a relative newcomer to Buchenwald, having arrived the previous summer. A slightly built Viennese with the face of an intellectual, he had fought with the International Brigade against the Fascists in Spain. After the defeat, he and his comrades had been interned in France; returning to Vienna in 1940 he’d been arrested by the Gestapo as a known antifascist. Fritz loved hearing his stories about the war in Spain, but was utterly bewildered that he had voluntarily returned to Austria knowing that the Gestapo would be after him.

  Tapping the lintel into its final position with the butt of his trowel, Fritz checked it with a spirit level, then quickly and skilfully mortared it in place. It was pleasant working up here on the scaffolding. While the SS overseers constantly harassed and beat the brick and mortar carriers, they never ventured up the ladders on to the scaffolding. Satisfied with the lintel, Fritz turned and took a moment to stretch his muscles. There was a fine view over the forest from up here: the oaks and beeches were beautiful in their October glory, dappled with gold and shades of copper. Far away, the spread of Weimar could be seen, and the rolling farmlands around.

  Fritz had been through some terrible experiences in recent months – the departure of Leo Moses, his father’s near death, close friends murdered by the SS. And yet the worst thing was the news about his mother and Herta, and the agony of not knowing what had become of them.

  His reverie was interrupted by a call from below. ‘Fritz Kleinmann, come down here!’ He clambered down the ladder and found one of the labourers waiting for him. ‘Kapo wants you.’

  He went in search of Robert Siewert, and found him wearing the grave look Fritz had seen before. Siewert took him quietly to one side and put his arm round his shoulders, pulling him close as if he were his own son; he’d never done such a thing before, and Fritz guessed that bad news was coming. ‘There is a list in the records office of Jews to be transferred to Auschwitz,’ Siewert said simply. ‘Your father’s name is on it.’

  The shock was beyond anything Fritz had ever felt. Everyone knew the name of Auschwitz, one of the crop of camps the SS had been establishing in occupied countries. All year there had been talk in Buchenwald: rumour and news from far away, as well as events witnessed in the camp itself, indicated that the drama of the Jews was entering its last act, that the Nazis meant to finally dispose of those who had not emigrated or died already. Since the spring there had been disturbing whispers about special gas chambers being built in some camps, in which hundreds of people at a time could be put to death. One such camp was Auschwitz. A transfer there meant only one thing.

  Siewert explained what he had learned. The list was a long one, comprising almost all the Jews still alive in Buchenwald; the only exceptions were those like Fritz who were required for the construction of the Gustloff factory.

  Fritz was dazed and appalled; he knew so many youngsters in the camp who had lost their fathers, and it had been his abiding fear that he would become one of them. ‘You will have to be very brave,’ Siewert said.

  ‘But Papa does useful work in the factory,’ Fritz objected.

  Siewert shook his head. Factory work was meaningless. ‘It is everyone,’ he said. ‘Every Jew except builders and bricklayers is going to Auschwitz. You are one of the fortunate ones.’ He looked Fritz in the eye. ‘If you want to go on living, you have to forget your father.’

  Fritz struggled to find words. ‘That’s impossible,’ he said. With that, he turned on his heel, scrambled back up the ladder to the scaffold, and went back to work.

  Just over four hundred names were on the list drawn up by Buchenwald’s headquarters. A few days earlier they had received an order sent on behalf of Himmler to all camp commandants: on the wishes of the Führer himself, all concentration camps located on German home soil were to be made Jew-free. All Jewish prisoners were to be transferred to camps in former Polish territory – namely Auschwitz and Majdanek.5

  In Buchenwald there were only 639 Jews left alive: those who had survived the random murders, transfers and euthanasia transports. Of that total, 234 were employed in building the factory; they were to be retained for the time being, while the rest were slated for Auschwitz.6

  In the evening of Thursday 15 October, a few days after Fritz’s conversation with Robert Siewert, all the Jewish prisoners were ordered to assemble in the roll-call square.7

  They knew what to expect, and it was exactly as Siewert
had foretold. Fritz heard his number called out among the roll of skilled construction workers. These men were ordered to return to their barrack blocks. Leaving his papa behind, Fritz marched off with his workmates, his insides knotted with dread and indignation.

  Gustav and the rest of the four hundred were informed that they were to be transferred to another camp. From this moment on, they would remain in isolation. They were marched to block 11, which had been cleared to make way for them, and shut inside, barred from all contact with other prisoners. There they waited for the transfer to begin.

  אב ובן

  That evening, Fritz couldn’t settle, couldn’t clear his mind of the image of his papa left standing among the condemned men. The prospect of being parted forever was unbearable. All night it tormented him. Fritz knew that Robert Siewert’s words were wise and sensible and kindly meant: he had to learn to forget his papa if he wanted to survive. But Fritz could not imagine himself being able to keep on living if that was what it took. His fears about his mother and Herta had planted a feeling of despair in him, and he didn’t see how he could possibly live if his papa were murdered.

  In the early hours a rumour passed among Fritz’s block-mates: three of the prisoners in block 11 had been taken to the infirmary during the night and killed by lethal injections. The rumour was false, but it helped push Fritz towards an ultimate resolution.

  The next morning, before roll call, he sought out Robert Siewert and pleaded with him. ‘You have contacts,’ he said. ‘You have friends who are clerks in the headquarters office.’ Siewert nodded; of course he did. ‘I need you to pull whatever strings you can to get me on that Auschwitz transfer.’

  Siewert was aghast. ‘What you’re asking is suicide. I told you, you have to forget your father,’ he said. ‘These men will all be gassed.’

  But Fritz was adamant. ‘I want to be with my papa, no matter what happens. I can’t go on living without him.’

  Siewert tried to dissuade him, but the boy was immovable. As roll call was ending, Siewert went and spoke to SS-Lieutenant Max Schobert, the deputy commandant. While the prisoners began forming up to march off for morning work, the call went up: ‘Prisoner 7290 to the gate!’

  Fritz reported to Schobert, who asked him what was the matter. This was the moment of no return. Steeling himself, Fritz explained that he couldn’t bear to be parted from his father, and requested formally that he be sent to Auschwitz with him.

  Schobert shrugged; it was all the same to him how many Jews were sent to be exterminated, and he granted the request.

  With a word, Fritz had done the unthinkable, stepping voluntarily from the roll of the saved to that of the condemned. He was placed under guard and led back across the square to block 11. The door opened and he was pushed inside.

  The barrack, built for only a couple of hundred men, was full to bursting. Fritz found himself looking into a mass of striped uniforms, standing, sitting on the few chairs or squatting on the floor, craning at the windows to see what was happening outside. Dozens of faces turned to stare at Fritz as the door slammed shut. Almost every one of them was an old friend or a mentor – the thin, bespectacled face of Stefan Heymann, perpetually surprised, now astonished; his friend Gustl Herzog; the courageous Austrian antifascist Erich Eisler and Bavarian Fritz Sondheim … the astonishment on their faces gave way to horror when they learned why he was here. They protested and implored, just as Siewert had, but Fritz pushed past them, looking for his papa …

  … and there he was, among the crowd, the familiar lean, lined face with its calm, gentle eyes. They rushed to each other and embraced, both sobbing with joy.

  Later that night, Robert Siewert came to talk to Fritz; he was required to sign a paper acknowledging that he was going on the transport of his own free will.8 Their parting was painful; Fritz owed Siewert his position, his skills, his very survival during the past two years.

  On the morning of Saturday 17 October, after two days in suspense, the 405 Jewish transferees – Polish, Czech, Austrian and German – were informed that they were to be transported that day. They were ordered to take no possessions with them. They were issued a meagre ration of food to take with them on their journey – Gustav’s consisted of a single hunk of bread – and then led outside.

  The mood in the camp was unusually sombre, even among the SS. Previous transfers had been marched out under a hail of abuse from the guards, but the four hundred Jews marched to the gate in silence. It was as if they all recognized that this was different, a momentous thing which was not to be treated lightly.

  Outside the gate, a convoy of buses awaited them. Fritz and Gustav sat in civilized comfort as they drove down the Blood Road, along which they had run in terror three years, two weeks and one day earlier. How much they had changed since then; how much they had seen. At Weimar station they were loaded into cattle wagons – forty men in each.9 Extra boards had been nailed on to close up gaps and make the wagons absolutely secure.

  As it set off, the mood in Fritz and Gustav’s wagon – which they shared with Stefan Heymann, Gustl Herzog and many other friends – was depressed. In the daylight leaking through cracks in the wagon walls, Gustav took out his diary, keeping it out of view of the others. Having been forewarned of the transfer, he’d ensured that he had it concealed under his clothing when they were moved to the isolation block. This battered little notebook had come to represent his grip on sanity, his record of the reality of life now, and he wouldn’t wish to be parted from it. But so long as he was with Fritz, he felt he could face anything.

  ‘Everyone is saying it is a journey to death,’10 he wrote, ‘but Fritzl and I do not let our heads hang down. I tell myself that a man can only die once.’

  Part III

  * * *

  AUSCHWITZ

  11. A Town Called Oświęcim

  אחים

  Another train, another time …

  Gustav woke from a doze with sunlight rippling across his eyelids and his nostrils filled with the odours of serge, sweaty male bodies, tobacco smoke, leather and gun oil. His ears were filled with the steady clatter of the train and the mutter of men’s voices, suddenly raised in song. The lads were in good spirits, even though they might be going to their deaths. Gustav rubbed his neck, sore where he’d rested his head on his pack, and retrieved his rifle, which had slipped to the floor.

  Standing up and peering through the side slot, he felt the warm summer wind on his face and smelled the scents of meadows fleetingly through the smoke from the locomotive. The rolling wheat fields were at the green-gold stage, ripening towards the harvest. A church spire broke through a gap in the distant rise; behind stood the green Beskid Mountains, and beyond them the ghostly curtain of the Babia Góra, the Witches’ Mountain. This was the land of his childhood. After six years in Vienna it looked strange, in that peculiar way of a vivid memory suddenly unearthed.

  He’d been drafted into the Austrian Imperial and Royal Army in the spring of 1912, the year he turned twenty-one.1 As a born Galician he’d been placed in the 56th Infantry Regiment, based in the Cracow district.fn1 For most young working-class men, army service was a welcome interlude: conditions were good, and it opened their horizons. Many were illiterate, low-paid workers; most had never been farther than the next village. In Galicia the majority didn’t even speak German; many couldn’t even tell the time.2 Gustav had seen more of the world than most of his fellow recruits, having lived in Vienna, and he spoke both Polish and German; but as an apprentice upholsterer he was poor, and the army provided some stability. It was an exciting environment – Austria’s empire had once been the greatest in Europe, and the army still preserved its imperial panoply of hussars and dragoons, colourful, dashing dress uniforms and endless pomp with the flags and banners of the imperial Double Eagle fluttering over it all.

  For Gustav military service had meant a return to his homeland, spending most of the first two years in a garrison town north of the Beskid Mountains, about halfway between his
home village of Zablocie and a town called Oświęcim, a pretty, prosperous but otherwise unremarkable place on the Prussian border. For two years he lived barrack life: parades, boot-blacking and brass-polishing, with occasional field exercises and manoeuvres. And then, in 1914, just when the 1912 intake thought they would soon be done with the army and going back to their farms and workshops with their manhoods made, the war came.

  All of a sudden, the 56th Infantry Regiment was mobilized, and marched with the rest of the 12th Infantry Division to the railway station to embark for the fortress town of Przemyśl3 – the regiment’s jumping-off point for the advance into Russian territory.4 Gustav and his comrades marched with a lively step under their heavy packs as the band blared out the vibrant tune of the Daun March, immaculate in their grey uniforms with steel-green facings, their moustaches waxed, grinning to the waving girls and as pleased with themselves as only young men can be. They were off to chase the Russians all the way to St Petersburg.

  They had less spring in their step five days later, after a journey in cattle wagons and a long, punishing forced march under fifty-pound packs, winter overcoats strapped on, ammunition, spade and rations for days, rifle straps chafing and feet sore. Lance Corporal Gustav Kleinmann and his platoon-mates were more ready for bed and bottle than for battle. They got neither that first day. Their objective was the city of Lublin, where they were supposed to link up with a Prussian advance from the north. While regiments on their left flank met heavy Russian resistance and took a lot of casualties, the 56th barely made contact; they just marched and marched all day long, pushing into Russian territory.5

  בן

  Gustav eased his wounded leg into a more comfortable position. Outside, a hard Galician frost bit at the edges of the window panes and snow lay heavy on the ground.