The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz

by Jeremy Dronfield

  These intakes – many of them Jews brought directly from western Europe and Poland – hadn’t been through the winnowing process of the camps, and weren’t as tough as the veteran prisoners. They also lacked the essential survival skills. They were rapidly broken by the pace of the labour, the abuse, the starvation and the lack of care for the sick. By Gustav’s reckoning, between 80 and 150 of these poor wretches disappeared from Monowitz each day, sent to the gas chambers without anyone ever learning their names or stories.

  The transports brought heartbreaking news to Fritz; among the new arrivals were two old friends from Buchenwald: Jule Meixner and Joschi Szende, who had been transferred temporarily to Natzweiler a few months earlier. From them he learned that Leo Moses had been murdered there. After surviving eight years in the camps, the SS had finally finished him off. The tragic injustice of it was agonizing. Fritz recalled that first encounter in the stone quarry, when Leo had offered him the little black pills, and the influence Leo had used to have him moved to the safety of Siewert’s team. Poor Leo, the hard-bitten, gentle-hearted old communist, had been the dearest of friends, and Fritz grieved for him.

  If Fritz had learned one thing from Leo, it was that kindness could be found in unexpected places. So it proved here. The SS brought in paid workers from Germany, and for the first time since entering the concentration camps, Fritz and Gustav worked alongside civilians. These men were wary of the SS and forbidden to speak to the prisoners, but gradually they became a little more communicative. Fritz learned that they weren’t dedicated Nazis, but neither were they hostile to the Nazi cause. When he tried to probe deeper into what they thought of the brutal slave-driving of the prisoners, they clammed up. And yet some of them at least were sympathetic; their manner became a little warmer, and they began to leave pieces of bread lying around after lunch, and the cigarette butts they discarded were longer than before, with a good deal of smoking left in them. The civilian foreman, nicknamed Frankenstein because of his angular skull and constant ferocious expression, proved gentler than he looked; he never yelled or berated the prisoners, and his manner influenced kapo Boplinsky, who became more approachable and used his cane less on the carriers.

  Gustav had a short reprieve from outdoor labour once the first few barrack blocks had been completed. Trucks arrived loaded with bunks and bales of straw. Gustav and a few others were set to stuffing jute sacks to make mattresses. He rather enjoyed himself, stitching up the mattresses faster and more neatly than any of the others.

  The reprieve was soon over, and before long he was back outdoors. With the barrack walls in their part of the camp complete, he was faced with the prospect of hard labour again. Even worse was the possibility of being assigned to the Buna Werke building sites. Men who worked there returned each evening half-dead, telling dreadful stories. It was like the Buchenwald quarry all over again. Often the prisoners came back on stretchers. Any man who couldn’t maintain the pace was sent to Birkenau.

  With calm determination, Gustav set about avoiding this fate. Each morning, when Sergeant Stolten called out the day’s requirements for skilled workers, Gustav stepped forward. Whether the demand was for roofers or glaziers or carpenters, Gustav was there, swearing that he had that skill. And he managed to pull it off, day after day, bluffing his way through all kinds of building work. Fritz worried about the consequences if the SS found him out. His father shrugged it off; he was smart, and good with his hands; he believed there was no craft he couldn’t master sufficiently well to evade notice by the dolts in the SS.

  As more barracks were completed, they were filled with newly arrived transports of prisoners, who were sent to work on the factory sites. Conditions in the camp were horrible beyond imagining, even for veterans: overcrowded, freezing cold and dirty. The sanitary facilities were insufficient, and dysentery began to spread. Prisoners died in frightening numbers every day.

  And yet it was mild compared with what was occurring at Birkenau. Three or four transports came to Monowitz each day filled with Jews who had survived the Birkenau selections. They told awful stories about the plundering of victims by the SS: ‘In Birkenau they are sleeping on dollar bills and pound notes,’ Gustav wrote angrily, ‘which the Dutch and others bring with them. The SS are millionaires, and every one of them abuses the Jewish girls. The attractive ones are allowed to live; the others go down the drain.’

  The Polish winter set in fiercely, freezing the ground. There was still no functioning heating in Monowitz, and the cooking facilities were ramshackle. At Christmas the cookers broke down, and the prisoners starved for two days. They didn’t even get the usual crusts from the civilian workers, who were on holiday. Eventually, food had to be trucked in from the kitchens at Auschwitz I.

  To their dismay, Fritz and his papa were moved to separate blocks. They met in the evenings and talked about their situation. To Fritz, it seemed that things had never been this bad before. He was losing hope. After only two and a half months in Auschwitz-Monowitz, most of their comrades from Buchenwald were dead. The Austrian Prominenten had all been murdered: Fritz Löhner-Beda, lyricist of the ‘Buchenwald Song’, beaten to death in December for not working hard enough; Robert Danneberg, the Social Democratic politician, the same fate; the lawyer and author Dr Heinrich Steinitz … the list went on, all dead. The worst blow to Fritz was Willi Kurz, the boxer, the kapo from the Buchenwald gardens who had helped Fritz and his friends survive their ordeal there.

  Fritz poured out all his fears to his papa when they met in the evenings. Gustav told him not to give up hope. ‘Hold your head up high,’ he said. ‘Lad, the Nazi murderers will not beat us!’

  But Fritz was not reassured; his friends had all lived by the same courageous philosophy, and most of them were dead.

  In the privacy of his own thoughts, Gustav struggled to live by his own motto. He confided his fears secretly to his diary. ‘Every day the departures. Sometimes it is heartbreaking, but I tell myself, Keep your head high; the day will come when you are free. You have good friends by your side. So don’t worry – there are bound to be setbacks.’ But how many setbacks could a man take? How long could he go on holding up his head and avoiding death?

  Even the fittest had little chance. The Final Solution was being enacted, and even those Jews who were strong, useful labourers were being deliberately, methodically worked to death. Their labour value was of little consequence; if one died, well, that was one less Jew to trouble the world. There were a dozen more to do his work. If a person was to survive, it must be by skill, companionship and an extraordinary portion of luck.

  For Gustav, his skills and his luck came together just in time. In January he was appointed camp saddler, with responsibility for all saddlery and upholstery work in Monowitz – mostly repairs for the SS. It was indoor work, out of the savage weather, and once the heating system became operational, he was even warm.

  This felt almost like safety. Gustav was acutely conscious that others were not so fortunate, and that safety never lasted long.

  13. The End of Gustav Kleinmann, Jew

  בן

  The buildings rose in the Monowitz camp. The double electrified fence was up, the barrack blocks all but complete, and the SS barracks were under way. Through the early weeks of 1943, Fritz helped build the headquarters garage and a command post for the SS Blockführers by the main gate.

  He worked alongside a civilian bricklayer. Like many of the others, this man didn’t speak to the prisoners, but whereas they avoided conversation, this man wouldn’t even acknowledge Fritz’s existence. Day in, day out, he never said a word. Fritz grew accustomed to his eerily silent presence until one day, out of the blue, the man murmured without looking up, ‘I was in the moors at Esterwegen.’

  It was almost inaudible, but made Fritz jump. The man carried on working without missing a beat, as if he hadn’t spoken.

  That evening Fritz told his father and friends about this cryptic pronouncement. They understood immediately. Esterwegen had been one
of the Nazis’ earliest concentration camps, part of a group established in the sparsely populated moors of northwest Germany in 1933. The camps had been set up to incarcerate political enemies – mostly members of the Socialist Party. They were run by the SA, who were so chaotically brutal that when the SS took over in 1934 their behaviour seemed civilized by comparison.1 Many of the prisoners were later released, and Fritz’s silent workmate must have been one of them. No wonder he was so reluctant to be sociable – he must be in constant fear of being singled out and incarcerated again.

  In confiding to Fritz, the man had broken the spell. He never spoke again, but each morning Fritz would find little gifts beside his mortar tub. A piece of bread and a few cigarettes; small things, but heart-warming and potentially lifesaving.

  Working alongside free civilians, receiving acts of charity, enjoying the privileged existence of a skilled worker who didn’t have to slave on the Buna sites, Fritz began to recover his spirits and grow more relaxed about life. After more than three years in the camps he should have known better.

  One day he was at work on the scaffolding around the shell of the half-finished Blockführers’ building. He was musing on a remark his grandfather had once made; old Markus Rottenstein had been a bank clerk specializing in shorthand with the prestigious Boden-Credit of Vienna, bankers to the imperial family.2 He had firm views on his people’s status in society, believing that Jews should be elevated and civilized, and shouldn’t work in manual trades. Just then, a friend of Fritz who worked on the haulage column arrived with a load of building materials and called up to him, ‘Hey, Fritz, what’s new?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Fritz replied, and indicated his surroundings. ‘My grandfather always used to say, “A Jew belongs in the coffee house, not on a builder’s scaffolding.” ’

  His laughter died in his throat when a furious German voice called from below, ‘Jew! Down from that scaffolding!’

  Heart racing, Fritz hurried down the ladder and found himself facing SS-Lieutenant Vinzenz Schöttl, director of the Monowitz camp.

  Schöttl was an unpleasant-looking brute with snake eyes in a face like dough. His main interest was in acquiring booze and luxuries for himself through the black market, yet he had a capricious, volatile nature, and when angry was absolutely terrifying.3 Once, when some inmates were found to have lice, Schöttl had had the whole block – including the seniors – sent to the gas chambers. He glared at Fritz. ‘What were you laughing at, Jew?’

  Standing to attention and whipping off his cap, Fritz replied, ‘Just something my grandfather said.’

  ‘What did your grandfather say that was so funny?’

  ‘He said, “A Jew belongs in the coffee house, not on a builder’s scaffolding.” ’

  Schöttl stared at him. Fritz hardly dared to breathe. Suddenly the dough face split and let loose a guffaw. ‘Clear off, Jew-pig!’ said Schöttl, and walked off, laughing.

  Sweating, Fritz climbed back up the ladder. He had nearly paid the price for complacency. There was no such thing as safety.

  בן

  The influx of Jews to Monowitz kept growing. Fritz and the other veterans were troubled by how naive some of them were. They had been through the selection at Birkenau, and their wives, mothers, children and fathers had all been sent one way, while they – the young men – had been sent the other. They had no inkling of what would happen to their families, and hoped they would see them again.

  Fritz couldn’t bear to reveal the truth and shatter their hopes. Eventually, inevitably, they found it out anyway – their wives and little ones, their mothers and sisters and fathers, had all been gassed. Some of them fell into a depressed torpor. In their hearts, they died. They moved about in a state of utter apathy, didn’t look after themselves, and gradually joined the ranks of the hopeless, wasting away to skin and bone, scabbed, with lifeless eyes and empty souls. In camp slang these walking dead were known as Muselmänner – Muslims. The origin of the term was lost in camp lore, but some said it was because when these poor souls could no longer stand, their collapsed posture resembled a Muslim at prayer.4 Once a person became a Muselmann, the other prisoners would avoid him; their hearts closed, partly in disgust, partly in dread at the thought that they too might become like this.

  The building work complete, Fritz was among a lucky group of six selected by Stolten to work on the camp bath block. He cemented and mounted heating units under a civilian foreman who nearly drove him mad. Jakob Preuss was all noise and bluster in front of the SS. He yelled constantly at the prisoners, and if a guard or an officer came near, Preuss would throw out a salute and cry ‘Heil Hitler!’ He grated on Fritz’s nerves.

  One day, Preuss called Fritz into his office. ‘What do you think you’re doing with your work rate?’ he demanded. Fritz was taken aback; he knew better than to slack, and his performance had never been criticized before. Preuss lowered his voice and said, ‘If you keep working this fast, we’ll be finished soon, and I’ll be sent to the front!’

  Fritz didn’t know what to say. He was in a bind. If the work slowed, all the prisoner workers were at risk from the SS. On the other hand, if Preuss concocted some pretext to report him in revenge, that would be fatal. Fritz decided that the safer course was to slow down. Preuss became positively friendly, wangling extra food for his workers. He was joined in this by another of the German civilians, a welder from Breslau called Erich Bukovsky. Both confessed that they hoped the Nazis would be defeated.

  It was beginning to look like that might happen. Until now Germany had seemed unbeatable. And then, in February, news came through the grapevine that the German force at Stalingrad had surrendered to the Russians. The Nazis were not invincible.

  Fritz heard this heartening news from a French civilian named Jean, whom most people called simply ‘Moustache’ after his extravagantly waxed face ornament. Jean also told him stories of the French Resistance. Fritz shared the information eagerly with his father and friends when they met up in the evenings. And yet, Stalingrad, Britain and Africa – the places where the Allies were beating the Germans – were all a very long way from Auschwitz.

  אבא

  Gustav’s fingers worked skilfully at a leather panel, trimming, pushing the heavy needle through the tough, pliant material. He was content in his day-to-day existence, if not in his heart. There was no shortage of work, and he was, in effect, a kapo now, with a handful of semi-skilled workers under him. Being indoors had been a boon during the winter months, and even with May beginning and summer on its way, it was infinitely better than being on the haulage column or the factories.

  Taking each day as it came, Gustav reassured himself that he would survive. Fritz didn’t share his father’s sanguine, dogmatic principle of determined optimism; he never ceased worrying about everything – his friends, his papa, the future. He worried about Edith and Kurt and fretted about what had become of his mother and Herta. Hearing the tales out of Birkenau – especially the terrible rumours leaked by the ‘bearers of secrets’ who served in the Sonderkommando in the crematoria – it was sickeningly easy to imagine. An anger was growing in Fritz, born out of helplessness. His nature was not like his father’s. Gustav tried not to dwell on things. He kept his head down, did his work, and lived from day-to-day. For Fritz, it wouldn’t be long before his hatred of the Nazis became too great to contain. What kind of explosion might happen then didn’t bear thinking about.

  His thoughts focused elsewhere, Gustav had no idea that while he sat stitching, a short distance away, across the road and railway line in the Buna Werke, a decision was brewing which threatened to bring his relatively comfortable existence to an abrupt end.

  Construction of the factories was still far behind schedule,5 and a group of officers had been sent from Berlin to investigate. Himmler wanted answers. They were given a guided tour of the site by Lieutenant Schöttl and senior staff from IG Farben. What they found didn’t please the SS top brass at all. The vast complex was only half-complete, and no unit
s were ready to begin production. The methanol plant was almost set to go on-line, but the far more important rubber and fuel plants wouldn’t be ready for months, maybe another year.

  They grew more displeased by the minute. It was noted that about a third of the construction workers were camp inmates, who were visibly weaker and less efficient than the paid civilians. Their effectiveness was hampered further by the necessity of constantly guarding them and keeping them together. But what really disgusted the visitors was that many of the prisoner foremen were Jews. Schöttl explained that he didn’t have enough Aryans in Monowitz; nearly all the prisoners he was sent were Jews. The visitors glowered and said it would not do; Jews must not be put in positions of responsibility. They ordered Schöttl to do something about it.

  A few days later at evening roll call, Schöttl appeared in company with SS-Captain Hans Aumeier, the malignant demon who had first welcomed the Buchenwalders to Auschwitz. Schöttl’s porcine face looked grave, as if he had a very serious task to perform. He mounted the podium, took out a piece of paper and read out the numbers of seventeen prisoners, ordering them to step forward from the ranks. Among them was prisoner 68523: Gustav Kleinmann. All were Jews who held foreman positions – mostly veteran Buchenwalders and Sachsenhauseners.

  Everyone guessed what this must signify; such selections happened all the time, and meant only one thing: departure for Birkenau and the gas chambers.