The Brothers of Auschwitz

by Malka Adler

  We returned hungry to the blocs. Each one to his own bloc. We didn’t know what would happen to us. In the following days we mainly hid. Sometimes in the uppermost bunk, sometimes behind the bloc. Guards would catch prisoners and take them outside the camp, we didn’t know where.

  One morning the loudspeaker shouted, get into rows. Fast. Fast. I thought, a bad sign. I left the bloc and saw bowed prisoners already standing in rows. Some held their bellies, or pressed thin hands to their chests. My brother ran up to stand beside me. Pinched my hand and whispered, they want to get rid of us, they want to throw us out of the camp.

  I cried out, how do you know? He gestured with his head, I cried out softly, answer me, who said so.

  My brother whispered, remember the SSman who saw us hugging when we met next to the barracks? His name is Hans Schultz. On the way here we met by chance, we looked at each other, it took a second, and then he walked off and began to scream like a maniac, out to the march, idiots, idiots, and he struck a prisoner who fell down near the bloc.

  I began to stamp my feet fast, fast, fast.

  My brother didn’t understand what was happening to me. I couldn’t stop stamping my feet. The loudspeaker shouted, stand in straight rows, get in line at once, all of you. I stamped my feet faster, I felt a terrible heat in the hollow of my neck, tiny ants began to run along my forehead and worms ran along my back. My brother tried to stop me, what’s the matter with you, talk to me.

  I gritted my teeth, I said slowly and clearly, I am not going on a march, no chance, I’ve done one, can’t do another, no.

  My brother whispered, shhhhh. shhhhh. Calm down.

  I shouted in a whisper, don’t want to calm down, can’t bear to see any more people spread on the road, can’t bear the crying and the shouting of the half dead, no, no.

  We’re together, don’t worry he told me and I felt he didn’t understand, because he hadn’t walked hundreds of kilometers without food or water or a place to lie down. He hadn’t heard the bursts of fire, the killings on the roads and he hadn’t heard about the surplus of people and the eight hundred bullets that killed them, and he wouldn’t understand.

  I cried out, no, no, no. Leave me alone, because I’m not moving from here to the gate.

  He pressed my neck and said you have to give me strength, yes, yes. Listen to me, you’ve been on the roads, you know the situations, you have experience, you’ll help me, you hear?

  I shouted in a whisper, I won’t! Don’t want to hear German anymore and the whistle of bullets, I refuse, understand?

  My brother frowned, biting his lips, he had a scratch that bled. And then he hugged my back, shhhh. shhhh. All right, we’ll hide.

  SSman called through the loudspeaker: attention, attention, any prisoner who leaves the camp on a march will receive half a loaf of bread. Half a loaf of bread for any prisoner who leaves the camp now. Attention, attention, go in the direction of the exit gate and you’ll receive half a loaf. No one went to the gate. The air was electric. I whispered to my brother, I’m not moving.

  The loudspeaker shouted irritably: a whole loaf for anyone who leaves the camp, understood?

  We remained in our rows. The Germans began to shout and curse. They pushed prisoners by force to the gate, hitting them with rifles, kicking them, prisoners ran to the camp and not to the gate, they scattered like mice with trampled tails. My brother seized my hand, cried, to the German area, quickly, that’s the safest place. We ran bent over, we passed several blocs, reached an unfamiliar area, suddenly a trench. We jumped into the trench. After us, jumped other prisoners. We saw Germans approaching. We ran away from the trench to the nearest bloc and hid behind a wall. We heard dogs approaching. We ran round the bloc, reached a door. The bloc was empty, dark. We jumped inside. Again there were bunks. We ran to the end of the bloc and climbed into the highest bunk. We heard prisoners entering after us. We heard shouts, groans, dogs again, and then shots, pew. Pew. Pew. Pew-pew and silence. SSman screamed, come out of the bloc or you’re all dead. I peeped down. Two SSmen stood at the door. Their guns were aimed at us. I knew we didn’t have a chance.

  We got down from the bunk.

  Dragged our feet towards the door. At least twenty other prisoners left before us, and then one fell. SSman turned round to kick him outside. Another SSman bent down to help. My brother and I looked at each other and jumped into the nearest bunk. We lay close to the wall. We were wet with sweat. My brother moved close to me. He was hot and tense as a spring. I didn’t breathe. We heard voices moving away and silence.

  And then my head fell.

  SSman Hans Schultz stood in front of us. He gave us a dark look. The muzzle of his gun was aimed precisely between us. He made a small sideways motion with the muzzle. Not a muscle moved in his face, he didn’t blink. We climbed down. Stood opposite him. My brother Yitzhak looked steadily at him. I looked away. I felt that all my blood was draining away onto the floor. He signaled with his gun in the direction of the door, waited. I was the first to go out. My brother Yitzhak after me. SSman Hans Schultz followed, without firing a magazine. I thought, another miracle, and I don’t have the strength for any more miracles, no, no, I want to run to the fence, lie on my back and sleep without getting up.

  On the road outside the camp we were several thousand and more, thousands more, like a huge field of thin, black branches bent in the wind of the camp, hop. One collapsed. Hop. Two. Four. Ten. Pew. Pew. Pew. The Germans replaced magazines. They had a lot of them. I raised my head. The mist dispersed, a cold sun stood above. I heard SSmen laughing. I heard dogs running back and forth, happily barking. Like a trip they’d decided to take to an entire town, even a country. There were many-many thousands and I didn’t want to set out on that trip in the sun with the happy dogs.

  I looked for a German who would put a bullet in my head. I looked back. The nearest SSman was far away. One SSman for every hundred prisoners, maybe more. Pew-pew-pew. They fired at anyone who fell. Every few minutes Pew. Pew. Pew. Sometimes there was no pause. Sometimes we heard Pew. Pew. Pew for an hour or two. Many fell on the road. After the war they showed it in photographs and documentaries. They called it the death march, yes. I looked for us in every place where there were photographs and documentaries, found none. I think we appear in several books and documentaries, I’m almost certain, but not even we know who we were in the pictures, how could we?

  Israel, 2001

  15:15 Interurban train from Hof Hacarmel to Binyamina.

  A group of men are exploding with laughter at the end of the carriage. Evil laughter. A woman with flowers in her hair, says, quiet. A woman pleads in a Russian accent, a little quiet please.

  They’re jubilant. The woman raises her voice, thick with cigarettes, shut up over there, enough. The men choke, you can hear the tears in their throat. What’s going on there for heaven’s sake?

  The woman shouts, you to stop this, enough already, you make me crazy.

  The men repeat her words in a similar tempo, you to stop this, enough already, you make me crazy, enough already, enough already. Their laughter was guttural, ravenous, as if they sensed an easy prey.

  The woman jumps up from her seat and walks vigorously in my direction. She holds out her hands as if nothing is right. She has flowers in her hair that waves outward. She is wearing a purple dress, a mini, with a deep cleavage. She’s wearing shiny platform shoes. A black shiny bag is slung over her shoulder. She mutters broken words to herself. What had they said to her to make her lose it. I point to the empty seat beside me, but she hurries by, disappears.

  Half a minute later and a shrill scream pierces the carriage. People run to the end of the carriage, I join them, what happened, what happened, a female soldier, her hair loose, is pointing to the window, she jumped out of the train, who, who, who.

  The woman standing here, she jumped, God, I saw her, a second before, a moment ago, she jumped out, I saw her, she had flowers in her hair, stop the train, quickly, a woman jumped, don’t you understand,
press the alarm, come on, she jumped, the one in the purple dress, mamaleh, she’s crazy, she came from over there, I’m standing here, here, and suddenly, hop, gone, how?

  A gray-haired man approaches the soldier, asks, are you sure? Maybe you turned away for a second and she went into another carriage?

  Wait, we’ll ask, have you seen a woman in a purple dress, has anyone seen her? Ask if she had flowers in her hair, ask, have you seen a woman with flowers?

  He asked and no one had seen a woman like that.

  The soldier looks for a place on the floor, grabs her head, talks to herself: She jumped. It looked as if she was rushing to the toilet. She jumped with her bag, a little black bag, I can’t believe I saw it, why did she do it?

  All she asked for was a little quiet.

  If Dov had been in the carriage, he’d tug at his shirt, smooth his collar, saying, I can understand her, how much can you take without family, without knowing a single person, what could she do with such bastards, eh? And then Yitzhak would thump his knee and say, nonsense, no need to pay any attention, so what if they laughed, let them choke on their laughter, who cares, I would have gone to another carriage at once, that’s all. Apart from that, I would refuse to get on a train, can’t bear the choo. Choo. Choo. of a train, and the whistle, oy, oy, oy, that whistle is the hardest, do you know what it is for me to hear a siren, just like the war, I immediately see the Auschwitz train, a few whistles and a loudspeaker, and you’re with strangers in the world, surrounded by tall SSmen and dogs, and a crematorium that doesn’t rest for a second, ah, better to be silent.

  In that time, I would think, better to start a war with an alarm than without, so you can prepare for trouble, and then Dov, who knows how to read my mind, would say, something alcoholic? A Slivovitz or a cognac?

  Yes, yes.

  Here’s to the State of Israel. To life.

  Chapter 16

  Yitzhak

  We left Buchenwald on foot.

  The Germans didn’t manage to kill everyone. We were too many even for the methods they invented with the crematorium and the pits and the magazines. They didn’t want the Russians to enter the camp and count us among the dead. Didn’t want it to be known that they’d found tens of thousands of dead in every corner of the camp. The old methods worked vigorously, the pits were dug, the magazines replaced, but they couldn’t kill everyone before the Russians entered, not a chance, so they took us out on a long walk so we’d die on the way, on the roads, near villages, and the white snow would cover us and the terrible smell until spring.

  I think it was the end of winter. There were clouds in the sky and a cold sun. I saw snow at the sides of the road, sometimes the ground was clean. Beside me, Dov was worn out. He walked and swayed. Walked and swayed. He walked with a bowed back and his tongue out. His head would drop every second. He tried to look straight ahead, most of the time he failed. Dov had already been on one march. For me it was the first. We walked along German roads, sometimes we went by train. We walked from early morning until dark. We wore our usual clothing, dirty, striped trousers and a shirt. Most of the time we were wet from the rain. The soles of our feet slid in what was left of our shoes. Paper-thin soles with torn plastic straps. We had to tie them with something, we were very lucky if we found some barbed wire. We slept whenever it became dark, in forests, at the side of the road, in fields, wrapping ourselves in a blanket we’d carried on our backs, falling asleep immediately, despite the hunger.

  Every two or three days they gave us bread. Water we found alone. We ate snow and swallowed drops of rainwater as we walked. Don’t remember shitting. We peed whenever, at the side of the road, in our trousers, on breaks, depending on the pressure. We walked from morning till night along the roads of Germany. We walked for about a month, maybe two months. The direction was south. The Germans were running away from the Russians, they didn’t want to fall into the hands of the Russians, they wanted Americans. They knew they’d be captured. Until they were captured they wanted many-many Jews to die along the way, and they succeeded. Prisoners went in convoy, fell. Walked. Fell. Fell like flies after being sprayed from a plane. The Germans shot anyone who fell. Shot to kill. It didn’t always succeed. Prisoners who got a bullet lay in their blood on the road and wept, begging the SSmen to shoot one more bullet, here. Here in the head. Here in the heart. Begged for a place where death was certain. The Germans refused. One bullet per prisoner, that’s it. Whoever died, died. Whoever was wounded was left for the dogs, wolves, jackals, crows, flies, worms and ants.

  We advanced slowly, barely speaking.

  One day I stopped feeling the toes on my feet. As if they were paralyzed. I had painful rubbing on my thighs. The blood that oozed from the sores stuck to my trousers. I couldn’t take my trousers down. When I wanted to take them down, the scabs were removed and the blood seeped out. The clothing was hard as boards because of the blood and the dirt. When it rained it was easier, less painful.

  Dov dragged his feet beside me. Dov whispered rhythmically, no chance, no chance, sometimes bending over, leaning on his knees, saying, I’m falling, that’s it. I’m ending it now.

  I put a hand on his waist. Held him fast by his trousers, whispered into his ear, you aren’t falling, we’re together, and you’re moving on.

  He would take a step forward and repeat after me, rhythmically, not falling. I’m moving on, and again he’d stop and look back. Kept looking for a German to put a bullet in his head. I pulled him by his pants and he said, no chance, no chance, and he’d calm down and walk.

  My brain beat like a heavy hammer.

  Just don’t fall. Stay on our feet. Keep a clear mind. I didn’t care about dying. I was afraid of being left spread on the road. I was afraid of suffering pain. Afraid of lying with other prisoners on the road and waiting for the dogs, or dying in the ice. Afraid of hearing the sobbing of those waiting to die, my mamaleh, give me water, a little water, Mamaaa. Afraid of dying slowly, hours, days, that frightened me the most. I bit my lips, whispered, no mistakes. Careful. I was only sixteen and I already knew I had to save my brother. He had already marched along roads, my body ached in every place I touched. My skin itched from the lice. I looked for leaves to chew so I wouldn’t die of hunger. My mind was empty. Just one channel was working, like a needle stuck on a revolving record, no mistakes. Don’t fall. Don’t get into the sights of a rifle. Don’t faint. Don’t strain your foot. Don’t stop. Don’t bend down. Walk. Mm. Walk. Mm. Mm. Mm.

  And there was also Dov and he was suffering. He wanted to die and I didn’t let him so I’d have a reason to live. I agreed to go on the death march because of Dov. I knew that if Dov died, I would die.

  Chapter 17

  Dov

  I told my brother, let’s part before the hills.

  I was worried about my brother. I was sure I’d fall on a hill and SSman would put a bullet in me and my brother Yitzhak would attack the SSman and would also die. I wanted at least one of our family to survive. I knew that if I died, my brother Yitzhak would go mad. I also knew that if Yitzhak had the ants and worms I had, he wouldn’t hold up. I know him, he wouldn’t be able to tolerate ants like that in his head, he’d die immediately. That’s why I told him, let’s part before the hills. We’ll meet at the top. Let’s part so we don’t have to see SSman shoot one of us.

  My brother Yitzhak agreed.

  We hugged. Looked at one another. Promised, we’ll meet at the top. My brother Yitzhak spoke quietly to me, I’ll wait for you at the top. You will reach the top. We’ll walk down together, understand? Your head will give the order, walk, don’t stop, walk, keep moving on, you look straight ahead and don’t stop, until the top, promise me, so I’ll have faith in my heart.

  I promised, we’ll meet at the top, and you be careful too, and I felt relief. I was sure I wouldn’t finish a hill, but my brother Yitzhak would, at least one of us would survive.

  We parted.

  Yitzhak went to one side of the road. I to another. There were pe
rhaps thirty or forty prisoners between us. I began to climb the hill. Slowly, slowly. I kept my head straight on the road, didn’t dare look right or left. My legs were heavy, as if filled with sacks of concrete. I stepped forward, dragged one leg after another. Closed the gap. Another step. Gap. Another step, break. My mind hammered, don’t fall. I leaned on my knees. Breathed in, my mouth open. I heard a whistling sound in my nose. SSman approached me. Go on. Don’t fall. Another step, close the gap. My head dropped, dragging my back with it. I had no room in my lungs. We were in nature near large trees, and I didn’t have the strength to breathe. Shshsh. Breathe. Shshsh. Step, Close. Step, Close. I heard a shot not far from me. Another, two, five shots.

  A fat needle pricked my neck, descending down down to my backside. I didn’t move my head. I gave myself an order, don’t look, don’t peep. Don’t! Only forwards. Step, close. Left. Right. Left. Boom. Another shot. Boom. Boom. And a scream. Right beside me. I whispered, nothing to do with me, no, no. Moving on. Don’t see anyone. I promised not to stop. Step, breath, close. Step, breath, breath, breath, close.

  I heard the sound of weeping near me. I heard coughing and choking, as if someone was drowning in water.

  God, he’s finished, aaaah, walk. Don’t look. Step, close. On the black asphalt. The asphalt curves, I curve. Before me another curve. I see the top of the hill, not much left. I feel like singing. I’ve been searching for a tune since morning, but the ants are biting inside my head, going from one eye to the other, through my forehead, I try and kill them, another thousand ants come along, making holes in my forehead.