Cover -- I Survived Auschwitz -- new extended 2011 edition

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THE CREMATORIES


A FEW DAYS after Hanka’s death, I was signed out of the hospital. I stood at the entrance to the Sauna, just where I had waited when I first arrived, swaying on my feet shivering through the cold, anger and bitterness. How could I stand the cold, the roll-calls? This was February. As the same time I realised that it was almost Spring. I had been sick almost all winter. I was receiving parcels, the war must end some time. I must have gone through the worst, and if I succeeded, mother, friends were waiting.
But how could I live without Zosha, without so many others? It could not be true that Zosha was no longer here. At that moment I could see her clearly as she had been before the arrest. She was setting the table wearing a white apron and smiling. She took an underground newspaper and two counterfeit identity cards from under the tablecloth and winked at me mischievously:
‘We’ll fool the Nazis—right Krysha?’
And in the meantime ... Someone called from the Sauna, ‘You’re a real Musselman if there ever was one. Come in. After all you worked here before you took sick.’
Is Magda still here?’ I asked.
‘Yes. That dirty skunk! Only the decent ones die.’
I entered the Sauna and saw my reflection in the window pane. I looked like a skeleton. I was still covered with abscesses and there were still scars from sores. Bits of hair stuck out all over my head. I touched my scalp.
‘Don’t be too happy. They’ll come out again,’ an experienced prisoner scoffed at me.
‘Again?’
‘After the typhus ... understand?’
I was really indifferent. The most important thing at the moment was to what sector and what block they would assign me. I waited in complete indifference while everyone who passed bumped against me in anger.
‘Musselman, where are you standing? Move!’
Finally I was told that I had been assigned to the functional block, where those who worked under a roof slept. It was obvious that Wala had taken care of that. She arrived in time, just as always, when my case was being decided.
‘Well, Krysha, chin up. You stayed in bed a little and now we must find work for you—and you’ll write poems again.’
They pushed us out toward the exit and lined us up in fives, the old routine. Just across the way they were carrying out cauldrons with soup. The kapo was shouting at a woman who had stumbled.
Near us, a husky peasant woman and a few others were lugging a cauldron. We were taken to help. I stumbled and swayed under the weight. They had to set the cauldron on the ground. Looking at me with contempt the peasant woman said, ‘Yes, yes, there are some people that are made of shit …’
The head kapo was beating a girl, triumphantly pulling a few potatoes from under her striper. They had been stolen from the kitchen. Just opposite, on the camp street, miserable, grey, frozen figures were pulling a cart and Aunt Clara was brandishing an iron rod … the same, the same. Only now the women and girls were different, from other transports which had arrived in the meantime. The old ones had died. These were not Dutch but Czech and Italian women but they looked just like the others.
I was the only one to return from my transport. With whom was I going to stand at the roll-call today? And the block-senior—would she beat us up? I looked around.
High up, the chimney was exuding red flames. Just the same. An SS man rode by on a bicycle. He kicked an old woman in passing. She gave a piercing cry.
Beyond the barrels of soup, through the stripers, the sun suddenly appeared and was reflected in the mud. Far beyond the wire fence appeared the outlines of snow-capped mountains. Thanks to Wala, I was assigned to the property-registry squad which took over and stored the personal effects of people who had been sent to the camp by the Gestapo. These prisoners were called the “card-worthy”. They had personal dossiers upon which, on admission, was recorded their names and other particulars. The ultimate fate of the prisoners was also registered on these cards. This last entry could only be death, transfer or release. “Dead” (verstorben) was entered on the majority of the dossiers which the messengers brought from the hospital-office. The possessions of the deceased were then confiscated by the Third Reich. Only the belongings of the Reichsdeutsch were sent home.
The property-registry was the office in which these records were kept and where the name-index and records of deposits were compiled. Orders to the store-huts in which the possessions of the prisoners were stacked and guarded, were issued from this office.
This was undoubtedly the highest position one could attain in the camp-hierarchy. The work, come what may, benefited the prisoners. Its purpose—to protect the possessions of our friends. Our working conditions were the best in the camp. It was always possible to “organise” something out of the confiscated property of the dead. These things could be exchanged for potatoes or some delicacy from a parcel, if one did not get parcels.
I received parcels quite regularly so that I could partly satisfy the hunger I had developed after the typhus. The roaring in my ears was growing weaker. I made new friends. Immediately after the roll-call I went to work. I did not have to wait around on the wiese nor die slowly in the hospital.
I felt useful because I worked. Slowly I returned to life. Even the attitude of our boss was better—he treated us like office workers. My hair was getting longer.
Toward the end of March, the property-store-squad hut was shifted to a meadow just behind the camp gates. I kept the name-card index of the whole camp. Automatically and without thinking I stamped verstorben on the cards according to the list of the dead.
On the horizon rose the smoke from the trains passing the Auschwitz station. I could smell the spring air through the open window of our hut.
‘What are you doing now?’ Basha asked. She was a funny Musselman with glasses and swollen legs.
‘The December death-list,’ I answered.
‘Friends?’
‘Almost our whole transport.’
‘And you pulled through? That’s strange. And spring’s coming as if nothing had happened.’
At that moment I noticed the name: Drews, Wieslawa—further Czerwinska, Zofia; Sikorska, Zofia; Hiszpanska, Natalia. I took out Czerwinska, Zofia’s card. My Zosha—I read it several times. I stamped it and wrote verstorben, XII.20.1943’.
‘What’s the matter?’ Basha asked. ‘You’ve turned pale all of a sudden.’
‘Nothing, only the whole Pawiak is in these lists.’
‘I understand,’ Basha said. ‘My whole transport went in December and January. The healthiest and the strongest. I don’t know how I, all skin and bones, pulled through.’
The train whistled in the distance and again awakened our longing.
‘If we could only catch up with it,’ Basha sighed. Looking at her I could not imagine that not so long ago she had known a prosperous home, the luxuries of theatres and concerts and the gay life of the cafés.
‘Kraczewicz, Zofia—verstorben
‘Pioterczyk Hanka—verstorben
‘Skapska, Maria—verstorben.’
I began to stamp the cards again. remembering each one as through a haze. Remembering them as they had been when we left Pawiak, then on the wiese, the quarantine, our conversations, discussions, our hopes and our plans. What remained of all this? Death-list files.
After work I would visit the hospital, making use of the break before the lights-out. I could not forget the sick women begging for one drop of warm water. Not so long ago, I had been there, without help. One evening, I slipped in for a glass of water. The kapo, a woman in trousers wearing a black winkel, was coaxing a girl into the empty washroom. ‘Come here. I’ll give you some hot potatoes.’ The girl did not understand. Someone offering potatoes! Another woman? What could that mean? She approached with distrust, examining the expression on the other one’s face—the moist eyes and licentious movement. And suddenly, the hungry girl understood. She leapt behind the hut, the black winkel after her and disappeared in the evening dusk.
I took this chance and hurried into the washroom.
Todzha, a Polish woman, who cleaned the faucets and washed the floors, quickly placed a pot on the stove. I washed my hands. Every minute counted. In a short while Todzha handed me the boiling water, smiling in her usual good-humoured and sympathetic manner.
I slid past the guard into the hospital. A large number of corpses were piled beside Hut 24. Something was moving between the wires. At first I wanted to run but something forced me to look. I moved closer. A small, three-year-old child was sitting behind the hut and sucking the finger of a dead hand. As I opened the door the fetid air struck at me so strongly that my head reeled. I took hold of myself and walked in. In the dim hall, I finally found my friend. She had tuberculosis. I knew that she would die. I gave her the water. She clasped with the cup in her trembling hands. Near her Marysha from Pawiak lay completely lifeless. Stefa was at her side crying. Dr. Nulla, always so lively and vigorous was now lying in the doctor’s room, paralysed. Her huge black eyes sadly followed the movements of the busy nurses. The fact that she was needed hurt her most. And she could not help, she could not get up.
A truck loaded with corpses stopped in front of the barrack. Two men from the corpse-squad jumped out of the driver’s compartment. They called on nurses from the barrack to come out and help. Two girls from the corpse-squad wearing gloves took a corpse at both ends and began to swing it. Then they flung it expertly on the truck.
One of the girls was smiling and the other was humming. A seventeen-year-old nurse looked on with wide-eyed horror. These girls from the corpse-squad were very tough.
‘I can’t touch a corpse,’ muttered the nurse, ‘I tried but it’s so cold and horrible.’
No one paid any attention to her. The men called another nurse to the driver’s seat. She climbed up with them. They kissed. At the same time a swinging corpse flew through the air and fell on the truck with a thud.
I ran out of the hospital. Just as I entered our block, the lights went out. Simultaneously I heard whistles and shouts: ‘Camp-closed! Camp-closed! Do not leave the block!’
We huddled in the corner of our hut whispering in the dark: ‘Who? Whom will they take today?’ We listened in tense silence for an hour or maybe two—no one knew how long.
The sound of motors broke the silence.
‘The hospital,’ someone whispered, ‘they’re going to the hospital.’ The trucks stopped. We tried to catch each sound but could hear nothing. Frightened of this silence, we were also afraid to speak.
The trucks moved. The hum of the motors became louder. At the same time we heard voices:

Allons, enfants de la Patrie ...

What’s that? I pressed my ear against the barrack wall. We remained still. These were French women going to their death. The hymn penetrated to every corner and filled us with mortal hate.

* * *

One morning, our chief, a tall, slim SS man with a long moustache, Romanian by birth, walked into the office and said in his cool, dry voice. ‘We’re going to Birkenau tomorrow.’ Birkenau was where the crematories were located. A number of huts had been prepared there to store the belongings of the Jewish transports. Our chief had obtained a few huts for our squad. Transports were arriving in increasing numbers and so our premises had become too crowded.
At the beginning of April 1944, we were moved to Birkenau. We were all afraid of this change. There we would have to look at close range at the people going to their death. I tried not to think about it. This work was a chance won on the lottery where only one in a thousand could win the chance to live. I must not hesitate. I had seen so many die. Nothing could be worse. The most important fact was that I did not have to work in the fields. Some preferred to work in the fields, afraid of the experience and afraid that our squad would be changed into a Sonderkommando—because we would know too much. The Sonderkommando was decreed to die regardless of the remaining prisoners. They were put out of the way at certain intervals because they were the only eye-witnesses of what happened in the crematories. They were then replaced by new prisoners which knew that they had only a short time to live.
All this information reached us in the form of rumours. We were frightened but we always arrived at the same conclusion: ‘They will get rid of us in the end, it makes no difference where we are, there are wires all around.’
Yet, when I first passed through the gate to Birkenau, I was oppressed by fear. I kept repeating as we marched: ‘I won’t give up now. I have suffered so much. If the typhus did not kill me, I won’t die because of a nervous breakdown. Besides I know everything about the gassing. I even saw it, but I still can’t believe it. Perhaps they’re not gassing anymore.’ I tried to reassure myself.
‘Why should we bother about the crematories,’ Basha said as if in answer to my thoughts. ‘We’ve got our work and our purpose. I barely escaped with my life. I won’t let it worry me.’
She walked at my side swaying on her swollen feet in the clumsy “post-typhus” walk.

* * *

We occupied four huts in Birkenau. Three of them were packed with bales of clothes, the fourth served as our office. Now all the entrants were to come to Birkenau and from there, after changing their clothes and washing in the local Sauna, they were to be quarantined in the camp.
Our huts were separated from the men’s barracks by the width of the camp street. Simply a street. Only instead of houses—barracks; instead of vehicles—carts piled with sacks and pulled by prisoners.
On the next street stood our residential block. The other blocks on this street belonged to “Canada”. This name stood for fabulous wealth. It was given by the prisoners to the huts containing Jewish possessions.
A small piece of land stretched on the other side of our residential block. That was where our latrines stood. Just opposite was a crematory. We were separated from it by a wire fence. From behind this crematory towered the chimney of the second crematory. And from the side of the barrack where our office was located, we could distinctly see the third crematory. The Sauna stood alone to the left of all the streets. Far behind the Sauna we could see the shape of the fourth crematory.
All the crematories looked alike from the outside. Wide, two storey buildings made of red brick with two jutting chimneys. All were surrounded by a wire fence. Branches were woven through the wire to screen the buildings from sight. We could see only the chimneys.
The Birkenau Sauna had been built with more imagination and more care. Thousands passed through it. It was a solid brick building. Inside there were showers and dressing-rooms as well as fumigators for delousing clothes, and hot running water day and night. There were furnaces in the cellar and a cloakroom so that the arriving prisoners could dress immediately.
And surrounding everything—wires, wires, live wires.
The landscape around Birkenau was quite diversified. Several birch tree woods were scattered through the district. The Polish name for the village, Brzezinka, must have been taken from the Polish name for this tree, brzezina. Outside the gates a road led to the crematory right by the “little white house”. On both sides of the road stretched fields of buckwheat and lupines. Potatoes and vegetables grew between our barracks. Closer to the barracks were lawns or flower gardens. The most romantic spot was in the vicinity of the crematory behind the Sauna. The “little white house” inspired one with carefree joy and confidence. When the sun shone on that part of Birkenau, one was under the impression that the “little white house” was a rural retreat where gentle folk could find peace and rest. But—this “little white house” was where they carried out sentences of death. The prisoners were shot and the walls inside the house were spattered with blood. In this manner they could take care of up to a hundred prisoners at a time.

 

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