I placed a gentle hand on her arm. “You don’t have to be. Please go home, Irena. Don’t put yourself through this on my account.”
Despite the temptation, she drew an unsteady breath and shook her head. “I’m not leaving, especially not after seeing what I’ve seen. God knows I can’t understand how you’re alive.”
I dabbed the handkerchief against my lip, stared at the vermilion stain, and took an unsteady breath of my own. Some wars were fought with guns, others with the mind and will. The fight against Auschwitz was deeper and more complex than any on the battlefront. It whittled away at the mind and will until it had robbed its opponent of all defenses. Auschwitz was a master, but each day of survival was a day we defeated it. I intended for us to see this game through to the end.
“Every day, I choose to live and fight, and every day, people around me choose to do the same. They give me the strength to go on. And together, we will live and fight through this.” I paused and took Irena’s hand. “And I hope you know you have one of the biggest hearts.”
Her hysteria had subsided, but a tear glistened on her cheek before she brushed it away, cleared her throat, and smirked. “You don’t get out much, do you?”
“It’s true, and this . . .” I gestured to the wrinkled uniform on the floor. “I can never repay you for it. And I’ll never understand why you came back.”
Irena followed my gaze. “You know how I feel about self-preservation. I still think it’s the smartest thing to do in these times. But what the hell do I know?”
I smiled, and she gave my hand a light squeeze before crossing the room toward a dark wooden wardrobe with mirrored doors. She kicked off her boots and selected another field-gray uniform, identical to the first. She exchanged one wool skirt for the other and smoothed the large pleat down the front, then made sure her white shirtwaist wasn’t soiled before donning the clean jacket. After stepping into the boots, Irena regarded her reflection with disgust while she put the watch and gloves in one pocket. When I offered her the handkerchief, she waved it away, so I tucked it into one of my hidden pockets.
“Will you do me a favor and be incredibly particular about the standards of your uniform?” I asked as I picked up the stained garments. “The more time I spend cleaning it, the less time I have to spend in the kitchen.”
Irena flashed a mischievous smile. “Frieda won’t be satisfied until every button shines brighter than the damn sun, remember? If that takes all morning, so be it.”
True to her word, Irena let me spend a leisurely morning cleaning her uniform, then escorted me back to the kitchen. As we walked, the afternoon was pleasant—or would have been if we’d been anywhere but Auschwitz. The breeze that surrounded us was mild and temperate, and the sky was clear and blue—except for the addition of smoke.
The sky was always filled with smoke and ashes from the crematoria, but the smoke on this day came with the familiar shriek of alarms, a sound that sent the guards into a frenzy. Something had happened.
As Irena and I neared the kitchen, guards ran around like mad, shouting, cursing, and waving weapons. Most were so distracted they didn’t notice the bewildered prisoners who watched them or hurried to take shelter elsewhere. The scene was absolute chaos.
“Wait in your block until I come for you,” Irena said under her breath. “I’ll find out what’s going on.”
I nodded and hurried to the block, altering my course when the Beast rushed across my path, screeching and striking anyone unfortunate enough to be within reach.
In a place where every moment was strictly regimented, seeing it upended was more satisfying than I could have ever imagined. Guards were frantic, labor was forgotten, and prisoners wandered unsupervised, some confused and afraid, others unconcerned. Part of me wanted to join the fray or see what goods I could organize while the guards were so wonderfully distracted, but Irena was right. I needed to stay in my block until we knew what was happening.
There was only one reason the guards would be in such a panic. The attack I’d been anticipating had begun. I was sure of it. As I waited, the Home Army or Red Army—whichever had arrived first—would be surrounding the entire complex, destroying the electric fences, tearing down the gates, opening fire. Soon the guards would be occupied with the outside attack, and while they were fighting they wouldn’t see the inside revolt coming. The wailing sirens, the cursing guards—all sounds of freedom, a freedom that meant Irena, Hania, Izaak, and I could leave this place.
A freedom that meant I was one step closer to finding Fritzsch.
Hania returned shortly after I did, and we watched the confusion and waited for Irena. It was late in the afternoon before she appeared. Compared to the hectic scene earlier, it was now much quieter, but SS guards were still prowling around, so we remained cautious as we slipped outside and darted behind the block, where Irena joined us.
I couldn’t contain my questions any longer. “It’s the resistance, isn’t it? The uprising—”
“No, Maria, the Home Army isn’t going to attack Auschwitz.”
I snapped my mouth shut, taken aback by the news and the sharpness in her tone. That was impossible. After hearing Pilecki’s report, the Home Army would help us. They had to help us.
“They said an attack isn’t feasible.” Irena sighed as she dug her heel into the dirt. “I heard from outside connections earlier this week, but I didn’t know how to tell you. As for what caused today’s uproar, the Sonderkommando planted explosives in Crematorium IV.”
“Oy gevalt, Izaak, you meshuggener, what have you done?” Hania whispered. Without waiting to hear more, she rushed away, muttering something about finding Protz.
My pathetic hopes went up in flames. My hopes, my plans, my strategies, my rebellion, my freedom. Gone.
Dear God, no one is going to help us.
“We’ll continue the fight ourselves,” I said aloud, keeping my voice as even as possible. “We have willing participants, weapons, and gunpowder all over Birkenau, so I’ll spread the word and—”
“It’s too late, Maria. It’s already a fucking massacre. Security has been increased, and the guards won’t rest until everyone involved is caught. We can’t rebel without getting killed.” Irena swallowed hard, eyes glistening with dread. “And we sure as hell can’t escape.”
* * *
I lost track of how long I stayed outside after Irena departed. I couldn’t make myself return to my block. No one was going to help us.
An angry shout brought me out of my daze, then a club sent me stumbling back to where I belonged. The guard shoved me inside my block, and as I climbed into my bunk a slurred voice greeted me.
“You didn’t keep your promise, Maria.” Hania lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. She lifted her blanket to show me a small empty vodka bottle and shook her head in disapproval. “Remember the last time I organized vodka? You said you wouldn’t let me do it again. But it’s all right, shikse, I forgive you.” She rolled onto her side and gave me a reassuring smile. One eye socket was already discoloring with a bruise, and her lip was split and smeared with dried blood.
“What happened?” I murmured.
Hania’s smile faded, then she touched a finger to her injuries. “I never told Eliasz,” she said softly. “About Protz. Perhaps he knew; at the start of the war, we swore to protect the boys and try to survive for them, no matter what the cost. But I still didn’t tell him. Why force him to bear a burden impossible for him to alleviate? When we found time with one another here, I wanted to discuss our family, our sons, Eliasz playing his violin for them. Not this. Then, one day, my husband was gone, so I told Izaak. I couldn’t bear it alone any longer.”
When she fell silent, I waited. My hands tingled and ached from cold, but not as severely as the ache of every pounding heartbeat while I studied her glassy, dark eyes beneath thick lashes. Often so reticent, now laid bare. These moments were infrequent but always a sign of a significant occurrence. At last she continued.
“Izaak re
fuses to let me visit anymore. He wouldn’t admit if he participated in the plot or not, but he said it isn’t safe for me to be seen with a Sonderkommando member. The guards will assume I was involved in the uprising. He didn’t give me a chance to argue before he moved away from the fence, and when I asked him to wait, he only paused long enough to tell Protz not to bring me back.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll change his mind once the danger has passed.”
Rather than responding, Hania gripped the vodka bottle with both hands, closed her eyes, and spoke in Yiddish. The words emerged through her clenched teeth and sounded angry, almost frantic, but after a moment she relaxed and opened her eyes. Her next few breaths were small and tremulous while a single tear escaped, then they steadied and she blinked slowly, calm and dazed.
“After Izaak left, I’m not sure what came over me, but I broke things off with Protz. He wasn’t happy.” She giggled and pointed to her face, the sight a vicious reminder tempering my marginal relief. “Now he’ll kill me, but it doesn’t matter. My kinderlach don’t need a nafka for a mother.”
“You’re not a nafka, Hania.”
“No, Protz won’t kill me,” she amended as if she hadn’t heard me; then she laughed again. “He said he won’t, and he won’t turn me in for race defilement or force himself on me, either, because our arrangement isn’t over, not until he’s finished with me, and his untermensch will come crawling back the moment she needs something, begging for help and forgiveness. All he has to do is wait. And he’s right. It’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?”
“You don’t need him. We’ve survived without goods from him for a while, and when Izaak lets you visit again, Irena will help.”
She sighed and turned the empty bottle in her hands. “I wish I had your confidence, and I wish I had more vodka. But I mean it this time, don’t let me organize alcohol again.” It was what she said every time. “Do you promise?”
“I promise, and I want you to promise that you won’t go back to Protz.”
She giggled. “I can’t, but even if I could, I wouldn’t remember, would I?”
“Yes, you can, and you can do it again in the morning.” I eased the bottle from her grasp and gave her hand a fervent squeeze. “If not for yourself, please do it for me.”
A bit of warmth joined the inebriated haze in her eyes, and she patted my cheek. “All right, my little shikse. If it means that much to you, I promise.”
We settled down for the night, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay in the darkness, thinking of the failed rebellion, listening as Irena’s words reverberated across my mind.
We sure as hell can’t escape.
Chapter 28
Birkenau, 5 January 1945
THE WINTER THAT followed the Sonderkommando uprising was the coldest I could remember since coming to Auschwitz. The snow and ice were as relentless as the sorrow, guilt, and frustration that had plagued me since the seventh of October. The revolt had been crushed, the Home Army wasn’t coming, and the Red Army hadn’t arrived. Everything I wanted was gone, reduced to ashes like so many other dreams in this dreadful place.
One January morning, I was awake long before dawn, staring at the frost on the windowpane. Hania wasn’t next to me. Since the uprising, she’d been increasingly worried about Izaak, making sleeping difficult, so she often went outside to wrestle her nerves alone. I pulled my blanket more tightly around myself, shivering from the merciless cold, and clung to one of the small pebbles we used as a pawn. Hania and I hadn’t played chess in a while.
How had I believed rebellion and escape were possible in a place like this? Despite the strength of the resistance’s numbers, we were a pathetic force against countless armed guards and electrified barbed wire. We wouldn’t have stood a chance even if we’d gotten help from outside the camp. Auschwitz was built for death, not life. I’d been a fool for thinking life would emerge the victor.
The fourteen-year-old girl with too much confidence and blind faith was still deep inside me, and sometimes I let her influence me more than I should. Now even she knew to stop wishing for rebellion. It might have been a possibility once, but not anymore.
The game was nearing its end. It had been a long, hard battle, but my opponent had placed my king in check. And I wasn’t certain that this was a game I could win.
It was still too early for anyone to be awake when the door to our block swung open, letting in a burst of wind. The slumbering women stirred, gasping and groaning as the frigid air tore across their skin.
“Prisoner 16671, come with me.”
Irena’s voice. Slowly I climbed down from my bunk and followed her from the block. We walked in silence through the dark, freezing morning, and the snow gave way under each new footstep. Once smooth and clean and white, now crushed and marred.
A lone guard passed and reached for his gun when he saw me, but when he noticed I was with Irena, he continued on his way. Word of Frieda Lichtenberg’s claim over Prisoner 16671 had spread, so if Irena was around, most guards didn’t touch me for fear of incurring her wrath. She’d made it clear I belonged to her and her alone.
We approached the gate, where a familiar figure waited for us—Hania. Without a word, she fell into step with me and tossed a cigarette butt into the snow. Tension emanated from her and Irena, as icy as the wind lashing across my body. Something was amiss. Once we passed through the gate and began trekking across the fields from Birkenau to the main camp, both opened their mouths to speak. Neither succeeded.
I didn’t need an explanation. I’d been anticipating this day since the Sonderkommando revolt.
“The Political Department wants to speak with me about the rebellion.”
When I’d heard that the guards had found remnants of gunpowder capsules in Crematorium IV and traced them back to the Union Munitions Factory, I’d also heard that four of our resistance women had been caught, interrogated, and tortured by the Political Department, otherwise known as the camp Gestapo. Since I’d been employed alongside those same women, I’d had a feeling my time would come.
“The bastards called me into a meeting last night,” Irena muttered. “They want to see all prisoners who recently worked in the Union Munitions Factory. Since you’re a special favorite of mine, I have the pleasure of overseeing your interrogation.”
“And Irena told them you’d need an interpreter, so we’ll be with you the whole time,” Hania said.
I came to an abrupt halt. “No, I don’t want either of you there. Witnessing it will be too difficult.”
“If we’re absent, how will I explain Frieda’s sudden change of heart or my lie about the interpreter? We’re staying with you,” Irena said with finality.
Hania looked across the empty field toward the distant, dark outline of the forest, and I could almost see the plan formulating in her mind. “Maybe none of us have to go into that room. You two can escape—”
“Escape?” Irena’s laugh was scathing. “Every part of this fucking camp is crawling with guards, including the perimeters near the forest. They’d catch us in a heartbeat. If it weren’t for your damn uprising, we could’ve left weeks ago.”
“My uprising?”
“It was your brother and his friends, wasn’t it? He won’t say as much, but it was.”
“Is that so, yenta? Did you hear that from your SS friends?” As she finished speaking, Hania’s glare abruptly shifted. She held up a hand to interrupt Irena’s retort and brushed past us. “Delay the interrogation however you can, Irena. I won’t be long.”
I knew exactly what she was planning, and I grabbed her arm. “Don’t, Hania. You promised, and I won’t let you go to Protz on my account.”
“Did I ask for permission?” She tried to pull away, but I held firm, so she rounded on me. “Let go, Maria.”
“I doubt that bastard has any influence over a Gestapo interrogation,” Irena said with a scoff.
Even if he could have helped, Protz would refuse out of spite. I was sure of it, and, somewhere beyond h
er familiar relentlessness, Hania must have known it, too. He’d make her atone for angering him, then say he was permitting her to implore forgiveness, and that was her repayment. She’d go through hell for nothing.
Hania’s arm trembled beneath my grip, her eyes glistened despite their hard edge, and I didn’t think the cold was responsible for either. She tried to push me away again, but she paused when I relaxed my hold and stepped closer.
“Please, Bubbe.”
Hania looked from me to Irena. At last she cursed in Yiddish, sighed, and placed a hand over mine. “Maybe we can’t get you out of this, but we’ll get you through it.”
My stubborn, darling friends. Every part of me wanted to order them away, to insist I could do this on my own, but the little voice wanted them, needed them, selfish though it may have been.
The cold air burned within my lungs, but I fought around it in order to speak. “Promise you won’t give yourselves away. No matter what happens to me, I have to know you’ll be safe, so please, please promise me—”
Hania pulled me close, her embrace as sure and comforting as my mother’s and father’s had once been. I held tight to the rough fabric of her uniform, let her soothe my trembling breaths, sensed her heart pounding through her thin chest. “We promise, shikse. Don’t we, Irena?”
“Dammit, Maria,” she muttered. I took it as a yes.
With every step, the chilling air grew colder, fouler, as if carrying the pungent odors of singed hair and flesh and dusting my skin with ashes. No matter how I chided my mind for playing tricks on me, because the crematoria were not currently running, the scent clung to me while the feeling of the particles lingered. I wrapped my arms tighter around my waist. Death was a constant, familiar assailant, poisoning the air while the sky wept snowflakes of gray ash, mourning each stolen life.
The Last Checkmate Page 24
