The generosity was great, but the quantities, in the face of the thousands who needed it, were tiny. All but the most Orthodox Jews received bacon and other non-kosher food with gratitude, having long let go of the stricter elements of their faith.19 Some, like Fritz, had abandoned their religion altogether, finding it impossible to sustain a belief in a God who cared about the Jews.
The women in Gustav’s workshop, having been inside Birkenau, told Gustav all about what was going on there. Four Hungarian tailors allotted to his curtain detail described the round-ups in Budapest. It had been like a tornado, far quicker and more ferocious than in Vienna. Hungarian Jews, despite living under their own anti-Semitic government, had been allowed to keep the Shabbat and attend synagogue, and had convinced themselves that the persecution stories coming out of Germany were exaggerated. Then the Nazis came and they saw for themselves.
For nearly two years Gustav had absorbed the stories out of Birkenau, but what was occurring now was a new level of barbarism. ‘The stench of the burning corpses reaches as far as the town,’ he wrote. Every day he saw the trains pass by Monowitz on the railway from the southeast, the wagons closed tight. ‘We know everything that’s going on. They are all Hungarian Jews – and all this in the twentieth century.’
בן
With Fritz helping, Schubert fixed the last curtain to the office window. He tried to explain to the manager how to use the curtains, but it was heavy-going; Schubert was an ethnic German from Poland and spoke German very badly.
He and Fritz packed their tools away. As they did so, one of the civilians passed some ends of bread to Schubert, with a nod at Fritz. Schubert took them discreetly, slipping them into Fritz’s toolbox. Fritz heaved the stack of curtains on to his shoulder, and they moved on to the next building. They got on well together, despite the difficulties of communication. Schubert came from the town of Bielitz-Biala, where Gustav had worked as a baker’s boy in the early years of the century. Fritz rather enjoyed being out and about – it was almost like a taste of freedom. Each day he and Schubert returned to the workshop with their toolboxes full of scraps of bread.
The next building on the list was close to the main factory gates, where there was a checkpoint manned by an SS corporal known to the prisoners as Rotfuchs – Red Fox – because of his flaming red hair and temper to match. As they were passing, Fritz noticed Rotfuchs staring in irritation at a group of Greek Jews standing idle inside the gates. Fritz could sense that something was about to happen, and slowed his pace. Rotfuchs’s anger got the better of him; leaving his checkpoint, he marched up to the Greeks and started yelling at them to get back to work. None of them spoke German, and they had no idea what he was saying. He began battering them savagely with the butt of his rifle.
Fritz couldn’t stop himself. He dropped everything and ran across, throwing himself between Rotfuchs and his victims. ‘You have to get back to the checkpoint,’ he said, pointing towards the wide-open gate. ‘Prisoners might escape.’
Other SS men might have been brought up short by this reminder of their duty, even from a Jewish prisoner. But not Rotfuchs. His pale, blotchy face turned purple with fury. ‘I’ll do as I please!’ he screamed. There was an oily schlick-clack of his rifle being cocked, and the muzzle pointed at Fritz
So this was it; after all these years, it would end here in a moment of blind rage, all for some prisoners he didn’t even know.
At that instant, as Rotfuchs was about to pull the trigger, the rifle was pushed aside by Herr Erdmann, a senior engineer, who had been drawn by the noise. Without hesitation, Fritz turned on his heel and walked determinedly into a nearby materials store. He knew better than to hang around at the scene.
It could go either way; he might still be shot as a punishment, or at the very least be whipped. But it never came to that; Herr Erdmann lodged a formal complaint against Rotfuchs with IG Farben, and the corporal was transferred to a different posting. The prisoners of Monowitz never saw him again.
Erdmann’s action typified many Germans’ feelings. The little respect remaining for the Nazi regime was being eroded by the ever-worsening situation Hitler had brought upon Germany. Many Germans were afraid of what would become of them, and for those who worked in and around Auschwitz, the more they learned about what the SS had really done, the less they could stomach it.
With his ability to move around the Buna Werke on curtain-fitting duties, Fritz was able to meet up with Fredl Wocher often. On one occasion, he introduced Fritz to some friends in the Luftwaffe anti-aircraft batteries stationed around the perimeter. They had more rations than they needed, and gave Fritz several cans of meat and fish preserves, jam and synthetic honey.
Gifts of food had become more important than ever. With Germany afflicted by shortages, all resources were being channelled to the military on the front lines; citizens at home were on short rations, and prisoners in the concentration camps got almost nothing. The number of Muselmänner increased, and deaths from sickness and starvation escalated, as did the selections for the gas chambers. There was a limit to how far the donated food could go, but at least it helped a few. Fritz and his better-fed comrades gave up all their camp-issued rations to those who were starving.
How to share out the food among such a large number was a constant worry to Fritz, and he was haunted by the harsh choices it forced him to make. ‘If we were to share it among so many, for each it would be no more than a drop of water on a hot stone.’ Giving food to a Muselmann, so starved that one look told you he would be dead within days, seemed like a waste.20
Hardening his heart against the terminally weak and dying, Fritz gave his spare food to the young. There were three boys in his block, all of whom had lost their parents to the gas chambers. One was his old playmate from Vienna, Leo Meth, who had initially escaped the Nazis by being sent to France, only to fall into the net after the German annexation of the Vichy zone. Fritz gave them his share of ration bread and soup, as well as a portion of the sausage and other morsels donated by people at the factories. In his mind it was a return for the kindness he’d received from elders when he was a vulnerable sixteen-year-old in Buchenwald.
Gustav too did what he could for young and needy prisoners. One day when a batch of new arrivals were being entered on the register, he heard the name Georg Koplowitz called. Gustav’s mother had once worked for a Jewish family with the name Koplowitz; she’d been fond of them and remained with them until her death in 1928. Intrigued, Gustav tracked down this young man, and discovered that he was in fact the son of the very same family, the sole survivor of the selection at Birkenau. Gustav took Georg under his wing, giving him surplus food each day and fixing him up with a safe position as a helper in the hospital.21
The circle of kindness was completed by British prisoners of war who were forced to work in the factories alongside the Auschwitz inmates. They came from camp E715, a labour sub-camp of Stalag VIII-B. Despite being within the SS-controlled Auschwitz zone, they were prisoners of the Wehrmacht, and it was Wehrmacht guards who escorted them to work and guarded them. They received regular welfare packages via the International Red Cross, and shared some of the contents with the Auschwitz prisoners, along with news about the war picked up from the BBC on secret radio sets in their camp. Fritz particularly enjoyed their chocolate, English tea and Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes. Given how priceless these commodities were to the British soldiers, it was an act of great generosity to share them. They were appalled by the abuses they saw perpetrated by the SS, and complained to their own guards about it. ‘The behaviour of the English prisoners of war towards us quickly became the talk of the camp,’ Fritz recalled, ‘and the assistance they gave was of great value.’
As welcome as gifts of food were, being found in possession of them would earn a whipping or days of starvation in the standing cells in the Death Block bunker: tiny, claustrophobic rooms in which it was impossible to sit down. There was one SS man in particular to beware of. SS-Sergeant Bernhard Rakers ran the
prisoner labour details in the Buna Werke as his own little kingdom, lining his pockets, sexually harassing the women workers and dishing out savage punishments.22 Fritz, going about with contraband food in his toolbox, was constantly at risk of bumping into him. Rakers would often search prisoners, and the discovery of any kind of contraband earned the culprit twenty-five lashes on the spot. There would be no official report – the contraband went straight into Rakers’s pocket.
Fritz and the others looked for new and better ways to acquire food. It was two Hungarian Jews who came up with the ingenious idea of making and selling coats.
Jenö and Laczi Berkovits were brothers from Budapest, both skilled tailors who’d been assigned to Gustav’s blackout detail.23 One day, in a state of excitement, they approached Fritz and outlined their audacious plan. The black fabric they were using to make curtains was thick and sturdy, coated on one side with waterproofing. It would make excellent raincoats, which could be exchanged for a good price on the black market. They could be swapped for food or even be sold for cash to civilians.
Fritz pointed out the obvious problem: the curtain material was carefully stock-controlled, tallied against the number of curtains produced. Even rejects had to be handed over to Herr Ganz. Jenö and Laczi brushed this problem aside; they were positive they could siphon off a proportion of fabric. A skilled tailor could organize the usage of material so that the garments would come out of the normal percentage of wastage. With the number of curtains being produced, that would make a lot of coats. Fritz consulted his father, who agreed to give the plan a trial.
Between them the brothers managed to turn out between four and six overcoats a day, without noticeably increasing the overall consumption of material. Meanwhile the other workers in Gustav’s shop laboured extra hard to keep curtain production up to speed.
The scheme had scarcely got going when it came to an abrupt halt. The brothers realized that they’d overlooked one important factor: they had no buttons, nor anything that could be used as a substitute. They asked around, and one of the Czech curtain fitters offered to bring back a supply on his next trip to Brno. With that problem solved, production resumed.
Distribution was Fritz’s responsibility. He had made friends with two Polish civilian women in the insulation workshop next door, Danuta and Stepa; they smuggled the finished coats out to their labour camp and sold them to fellow workers. Others were sold to civilians in the factories. The price per coat was either one kilo of bacon or half a litre of schnapps, which could be exchanged on for food.
The coats, which were well made and practical, quickly became popular, which brought with it a growing danger of the SS noticing all the civilians suddenly wearing the distinctive black garments. This risk was reduced somewhat when German engineers and managers started acquiring them; these influential men now had a vested interest in turning a blind eye to the operation. Accordingly, the number of prisoners Fritz and his friends were able to help increased, and more lives were saved.
17. Resistance and Betrayal
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Despite all he was doing to save lives, Fritz craved a more direct form of resistance. What he really wanted to do was fight, and he was not alone.
Putting up an armed resistance against the SS was impossible without weapons and support. As things stood, the only way to achieve that would be to make contact with the Polish partisans in the Beskid Mountains. Messages could be smuggled to them fairly easily, but developing a proper relationship would require a meeting in person. Somebody would have to escape.
Word was passed to the partisans, and at the beginning of May a five-man team of escapers was chosen by the resistance leadership. First up was Karl Peller, a thirty-four-year-old Jewish butcher and one of the old Buchenwalders. Then there was Chaim Goslawski, the senior in block 48 who had looked after Fritz after his staged death. As a native of this region, if anyone could find a way to the partisans, it would be him. There was also a Jew from Berlin whose name Fritz never knew, plus two Poles known only to Fritz as ‘Szenek’ and ‘Pawel’, who worked in the camp kitchen.1
Fritz was brought into the circle by Goslawski. His role was to obtain civilian clothes for the escapers from the Canada store.
All the preparations were in place when, one morning in the pre-dawn dark before roll call, Goslawski came to Fritz and handed him a small package, about the size of a loaf of bread. ‘Give this to Karl Peller,’ he said softly, and melted away into the darkness.2 Fritz secreted the package inside his uniform and rejoined his block-mates as they marched off to roll call. He had been kept out of the inner planning circle, but he guessed that the moment for the escape must be imminent.
Later that morning, on his curtain-fitting rounds, Fritz invented an excuse to visit the building site in the Buna Werke where Peller worked and slipped the package to him. At noon, Szenek and Pawel arrived in the Buna Werke with the lunchtime soup for the prisoners. Fritz noticed that Goslawski had found some pretext to accompany them. All the escapers were now inside the Buna Werke, which was far less heavily guarded than the camp.
Fritz went about his work and saw nothing more. At roll call that evening, all five men – Peller, Goslawski, Szenek, Pawel and the Berliner – were missing. They had simply walked out of the Buna Werke wearing the civilian disguises Fritz had supplied and disappeared. While the SS launched a search, the prisoners were kept on the roll-call square under guard.
The hours ticked by. Midnight came and went, the early hours of the morning wore away, and dawn found them still standing to attention, surrounded by a chain of armed sentries. Breakfast time passed. An agitated whisper went through the ranks: the SS were not only seeking the five missing men but also an unidentified prisoner who had been seen talking to Karl Peller on the building site the previous morning.
Fritz’s heart shrank in his breast; if he were identified, it would be the bunker for him this time, and the Black Wall. Despite his fear, he inwardly rejoiced. The escape had been a success.
Eventually the prisoners were ordered off to work. Away they went with empty bellies, exhausted but with spirits raised. Days went by, and despite the rumour nobody identified Fritz as the mystery person who’d spoken to Peller. Three weeks passed with no word … and then, without warning, the blow fell.
The two Poles, Szenek and Pawel, along with the Berliner, were brought back to the camp, battered and dishevelled. The resistance leadership learned that the three had been arrested by a police patrol in Cracow.3 This was mystifying – Cracow was nowhere near the Beskid Mountains, almost in the opposite direction in fact. And where were Goslawski and Peller? Had they managed to join up with the partisans?
At roll call that evening, the three recaptured men were put on the Bock and whipped. And that, astonishingly, was the sum total of their punishment. Some time later, when a transport of Poles was sent to Buchenwald, Szenek and Pawel were put on it.4 The Berlin Jew remained in Monowitz.
Eventually the whole story came out. Having been too scared to speak while the two Poles were still in the camp, the Berliner revealed to a friend what had happened after the escape. The package Fritz had conveyed from Goslawski to Karl Peller had been at the root of it. It had been stuffed with cash and jewellery stolen from the Canada store, intended as payment to the partisans to secure their assistance. A rendezvous had been pre-arranged, but Goslawski and Peller never got there; on the first night, both were murdered by Szenek and Pawel, who took the loot for themselves. The Berliner had been too terrified to intervene.
Instead of running off with their booty, the three decided to head for the rendezvous after all. When they got there, the partisans were waiting for them. They weren’t happy; they’d been told to expect five men – where were the other two? Szenek and Pawel feigned ignorance, but the partisans weren’t satisfied with their excuses and evasions. They sheltered the three men for a week, but when Goslawski and Peller still didn’t show up, they called off the deal. The three men were driven to Cracow and dumped. Lost and
friendless, they simply wandered the streets until they were picked up by the police.
The Berliner’s confession found its way to the camp senior, who passed it on to the SS administration.
A few weeks later, Szenek and Pawel reappeared in Monowitz, brought back from Buchenwald on SS orders. A gallows appeared on the roll-call square and the prisoners were ordered out on parade.
Fritz and his comrades marched into the square to find a cordon of SS troopers in front of the gallows with machine pistols levelled. The prisoners formed ranks, and in the silence that followed, Commandant Schwarz and Lieutenant Schöttl mounted the podium. ‘Caps off!’ came the order over the tannoy. Fritz and eight thousand others tucked their caps under their arms. From the corner of his eye, Fritz saw the two Poles marched in. Schöttl read the sentences into the microphone: both men were condemned to death for escape and for two counts of murder.
First Szenek was led up to the gallows, then Pawel. In typical SS fashion there was no drop; a thin cord noose was put around each man’s neck, and then they were hauled suddenly off their feet, legs kicking and body jerking, twitching with diminishing force. Minutes passed, and eventually they were still.5 The commandant, having delivered an instructive lesson to his prisoners, dismissed the parade.
The whole disastrous affair weakened the Monowitz resistance. Not only had they lost Goslawski and Peller, but all the old tensions and mistrust between Poles and German Jews were revived.
It also turned the SS violently paranoid. Not long after, they claimed to have uncovered an escape plot among the roofing detail. The suspects were taken to the Gestapo bunker and subjected to horrific torture. On Commandant Schwarz’s orders, three were hanged, in a repeat of the same dreadful ritual.6 More hangings followed.
The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz Page 25
