A Murder in Auschwitz (40 page)

He looked at the faces which surrounded him. They were of all ages, from children to grandfathers and grandmothers, all clutching suitcases, all standing in family knots as they waited for an unknown future.

“Do you know where we are being taken?” Meyer overheard someone being asked.

“I have heard that towns have been built in the east,” came a reply.

“Why would they build towns for Jews? It will be work camps and factories,” was another.

Meyer kept a strong hold of Anna’s hand and told Klara to follow him to a clearing amongst the forest of people.

“I heard someone say that we were being sent to concentration camps,” said Klara, as they placed their cases together and allowed the girls to sit on them.

“What is a concentration camp, Papa?” asked Greta.

“Nothing to worry about, Greta, it just means that it is a camp where they concentrate a population in one place.”

Meyer put his arm around Klara. “It will be okay. As long as we are together,” he said, as he kissed her cheek.

Before long, there were some shouts from the crowd, and in the distance Meyer could see the smoke from a train. The guards started to move towards the crowd and forced those at the rear to pick up their bags and move closer to the platform.

Everyone’s heads were turned to the smoke and the ever-advancing train. The engine noise travelled across the morning fields as it approached, and then it came clearly into view as it curled around the curved track, towards where they stood.

“It’s not for us,” came a shout. “It’s a cattle train.”

But the guards moved the crowd closer to the platform and the train slowed and finally stopped. Wooden cattle trucks were strung out behind the wheezing and hissing engine, and some of the SS guards pushed through the crowd to the front, where they pulled open the heavy doors. “Inside,” came the order.

“They can’t mean us to travel in those, surely,” said Klara. “What about the old people and the children?”

Meyer shook his head. “I don’t know, Klara. We need to wait and see.”

Some of the young men at the front of the crowd had climbed up into the cattle trucks and were now helping up others and their luggage. The people around Meyer began to move towards the train.

“Anna, Greta, pick up your bags, girls. Klara, we need to try to stay together and to get on the same truck,” instructed Meyer. “That truck there, the one with the yellow writing, we will get on that one.”

Meyer and Klara each took a hand of one of the children and made their way towards the cattle truck that Meyer had picked out. The guards were throwing bags onto the train, and people were climbing on after them.

As they got closer to the cattle truck, Meyer thought that he had made a mistake and there would not be any room for them. It already looked full, and he was about to start leading his family to the next truck, but one of the guards put his hand on Meyer’s shoulder, pushing him towards the one with the yellow writing.

Finally, he was standing in front of the wooden carriage. “Inside,” instructed one of the SS guards. Meyer stared at the feet of those already on board. “Inside,” came the order again.

Meyer lifted up Anna onto the truck, along with their bags, and then he lifted up Greta, climbing up after her and pulling up Klara. Meyer and Klara stood at the very edge of the truck. He looked into the solemn faces of those already aboard, keeping his balance at the edge of the open doorway and holding onto both the girls.

Down on the platform came a call from the guards. “Close this one up. It’s full.”

Then the daylight which had flooded the inside of the cattle truck became eclipsed as the vast wooden door slid shut.

“Papa?” shouted Greta, as the darkness enclosed them.

“It’s okay, girls, we are all together. Klara?” said Meyer.

“I am alright,” replied Klara.

“Me too, Papa,” came Anna’s voice, although it was quavering slightly.

Meyer’s eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness which had filled the carriage. Shards of light pierced the truck’s walls, dancing around the faces of those trapped inside. Meyer turned and tried to see through one of the spaces between the wooden slats which made up the walls and doors of the trucks. Outside, he could just make out the uniforms of the SS as they herded the last of the people into the final spaces on the train.

The shouts from the soldiers died away, and the noise of the last of the doors sliding shut completed a silence which now hung over the train. Only the hiss from the engine filled the air. Meyer peered through a knot-hole which he had found and realised that the guards had left. It was just the cattle train standing at a platform. And then it lurched into movement.

There were screams of alarm as the train began to move forward. Meyer held on to Klara as she fell sideways, steadying her by holding onto the inside slats of the door. Both the girls gave a scream as they were forced backwards into a stranger.

Meyer wondered how long this journey would be. They had already travelled all night in the back of the SS truck, where they were at least able to sit down. But now, on the train, they were crammed into the vast wooden cattle trucks where there was no chance of being able to sit. He thought that perhaps this may only be a short journey. Perhaps that platform had been a mustering point, and they would now be taken to a train station where they would be sent on to the different destinations, whether they be the concentration camps, factories, or the fabled newly-built towns in the east.

It was several hours before the truth dawned on him. This was the transport. This was what was taking them to their destination.

The journey seemed interminable. He could tell by squinting through the cracks in the door at the position of the sun that they were heading east. He passed this onto those around him, and then someone said that they could tell that they were heading south east.

“Czechoslovakia,” said an old man standing next to Meyer. “They are sending us to Czechoslovakia to work in the factories there.”

“I can still see German road signs,” replied Meyer, peering into the daylight.

“I tell you, it is Czechoslovakia for us,” said the old man.

The train travelled at a fast walking pace. Occasionally, Meyer saw life outside the carriage, sometimes a field of sheep or cattle grazing in the summer sun and, once or twice, girls working on the land, who would look up at the passing train, unaware of its human cargo.

The temperature inside the cattle truck rose as the day went on and the sun beat down on the wooden walls and curved tin roof. Sweat broke out on Meyer’s brow as the air thickened with the heat.

“Papa, I’m thirsty,” said Greta.

“Me too,” agreed Anna. “And I am tired. I need to sit down.”

“I know, girls. But I don’t have anything to drink. Hopefully we will be given something soon,” said Meyer.

Klara leaned in closer to Meyer. “The children are tired, Manfred, and there is no room for them to sit down.”

“I know, Klara,” said Meyer. He did not know what else to say. He had not thought to bring any water or food with them and they were crammed in so tightly to the cattle trucks that he could barely turn around.

The smell of sweat began to fill the carriage, seemingly making the air difficult to breathe. Then, before long, a smell of urine began to permeate the cattle truck, thickening the air further and making the children gag.

The hours passed as the train made its inexorable journey east, its speed unvarying, the heat slowly increasing. Meyer found a way of leaning back against the door with his legs bent, allowing Anna and Greta to take it in turns to sit against him, allowing them some relief from standing.

The talking had stopped a long time ago and only the noise of the train wheels clacking over the track broke the silence. By midday, the smell of faeces had started to overwhelm both the odour of sweat and urine. Meyer tried to suck in cooler air from outside the carriage but without success.

Then he felt the weight of the old man who was standing next to him lean in against him. “Wake up. We are not in Czechoslovakia yet,” he joked, in an attempt to rouse him. But it was no use. The man who was on the other side of him shook his head.

“He won’t be going to Czechoslovakia, I am afraid. He is dead.”

Meyer tried to see through the dim light of cattle truck at the old man’s face. His eyes were closed but his mouth hung open. Meyer turned the dead man’s body until it was leaning against the wall of the carriage.

The hours passed and the heat and smell in the cattle truck continued to increase. Meyer heard that someone else had died in the carriage, and people were coughing and struggling for breath in the oppressive heat. But as darkness began to fall, so did the temperature.

Meyer and Klara did what they could with the children, holding them so that they might catch a little sleep. Meyer felt his own eyes flicker and shut as sleep attempted to smother him.

The summer night was short, and soon the morning light began to filter into the carriage once again. He tried to see out of the cracks in the side of the cattle truck but the railway embankments were too high for him to make out anything, until suddenly, he saw an old railway sign, ‘
Oświęcim
’. They were in Poland.

A rancid, sweet smell began to permeate that carriage. Meyer initially thought that it was coming from the old man’s body, which remained propped against the wall, but that did not seem feasible. It was coming from outside.

“Manfred,” croaked Klara. “I think the train is slowing.”

Meyer peered through one of the larger cracks. She was right; they were coming to a stop at what looked like a disused railway station. The train stopped and he could hear the voices of the guards outside. A few moments later the catches on the doors of the carriages were untethered and the doors slid open.

Outside of the train stood a line of SS soldiers with a fence running in either direction as far as he could see. All around were guard towers and barbed wire. Meyer jumped down from the carriage before helping down Klara and the girls with their bags. He wondered what kind of place this was.

Auschwitz, 10th February 1944

UNTERSTURMFUHRER Dietrich Ritter pushed another log into the stove in his office, in a vain attempt to fight off the cold which permeated the camp. He could not remember the last time he had been unable to see his own breath when he breathed.

Ritter basked in the heat from the open stove door, allowing the glow from the flames to warm his face. He closed his eyes and imagined that it was the Mediterranean sun he felt on his skin. But the illusion failed. He closed the door of the stove, the cold air of the room wrapping itself around his face once more as he returned to his seat at his desk.

He looked at the dockets which were piled in his in-tray. After every use of Zyklon-B, a docket was filled out which ended up on Ritter’s desk. Once he had ten of these dockets, he would fill in a requisition form which was then sent to central stores in Hamburg. It was the same process for soap, disinfectant, and insect repellent. Diesel fuel for the generators was under his remit but not fuel for the vehicles. Sturmbannfuhrer Straus had been very insistent that these supplies should lie with food requisition.

Ritter wondered when Straus’ replacement would arrive. It may be an opportunity to apply for a transfer again. Perhaps, if he was lucky, the new man would want to bring his own staff with him. It was not unheard of that the same team of officers transferred together. This would be the perfect situation for Ritter as he would have a perfect excuse to escape this god-forsaken place with its Jews and flies, its ice and dust. And the murder of Straus.

He had not enjoyed the court martial at all. Kolb’s jumped-up Scharfuhrer Fuchs had been trying to blame him for Straus’ death.

He had left the tribunal in a fury after being dismissed. How dare they suggest that he would have murdered someone for his own gain. And there was the intimation of homosexuality. It had been outrageous. Ritter had stormed across the courtyard from the court martial while the panel discussed Kolb’s guilt, his anger slowly dissipating the further from the tribunal he got.

Ritter resigned himself to making his way through the paperwork and reached for the pile of dockets, quickly looking through the item descriptions and finding himself reading aloud. “Zyklon-B, Zyklon-B, Zyklon-B, detergent, Zyklon-B, soap...”

He was interrupted by the door of his office opening. In the door frame stood Kramer. Behind him, Ritter could see Gestapo guards. He jumped to his feet and saluted. “Hauptsturmfuhrer Kramer. Can I help you?”

Kramer removed a piece of paper from his breast pocket and flicked it with one hand so that it unfolded. As Kramer read from the sheet, the guards entered the office, removed Ritter’s side-arm, and handcuffed his hands behind him. “Untersturmfuhrer Dietrich Ritter, you have been charged and found guilty of the murder of Sturmbannfuhrer Paul Straus. You have been sentenced to death by firing squad, a sentence which will be carried out immediately.”

Ritter began to shake as the guards placed the handcuffs over his wrists. “Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer, I don’t understand!” he cried.