Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust (5 page)

Peter had tried to talk to Karl, as they had been friendly in training, but he had withdrawn into himself. Max cautioned him about it once and Peter decided he had better distance myself from Karl. He could do him no good.

But he could understand Karl's reaction. All of them were human. They had to be hard to do this work. In the early days of KZs, before the war, guards were only in the camp a week at a time. For two weeks afterward they were retrained. The Reichsfuhrer worried that excessive exposure to the prisoners would soften the guards. He had been wrong. The more they were exposed, the harder they became.

Peter was successful in fitting the part. In time even Wolff watched him no more than he did the others. Outside he fit the part, inside he held his true feelings close, saving them for the day this would all end.

But no amount of rationalization could ease the impact of what he witnessed, indeed of what he did, each day. He hoped his uncle had been right, that the war would soon end. How long could he keep this up and remain a decent person?

###

When Max bartered with Sol, Peter spoke to Eva. She had been reluctant to talk to him at first but the other woman had nudged and encouraged her. He found Eva to be a soft, gentle person in this subterranean existence. As a goldsmith, she was spared the worst of the KZ. She was clean, too thin of course, but not emaciated like the rest. She was seventeen years old, from Duselberg. Her father had been a jeweler there and she had learned to work gold as a child. She looked at Peter with those liquid eyes of sorrow. He often wondered what it would have been like to have met her somewhere else.

Eva showed him her work. She made religious pieces, mostly crucifixes, the Madonna and Child.

“Why do you make Christian pieces?” he asked.

“I am Catholic. It gives me peace.”

“A Catholic? Was your father a communist?”

“No.”

He let it pass. People were here for many different reasons. Some probably were wrongly imprisoned. The prisoners never told you the truth. But she was very different from everyone else. Still, he could not expect the truth.

But inevitably Peter learned her story. He could not resist asking. She was the only child of her Catholic father and mother. Her mother had been unable to have more children and died when Eva was eight. When she was ten her father married a Jewess. This had been very foolish since the Party had come to power by then and official policy towards Jews was clear. But her stepmother was French and her father rationalized that since she was a foreign national it did not matter. The new couple had two children.

Two years earlier, her father had been forced to renounce his marriage. He had been inducted and sent to the Eastern Front. Eva had remained with her stepmother, who was in poor health, to help with her brother and sister. She had still been with them eighteen months before when all of them had been arrested as Jews and shipped here. Her stepmother and the small children had been gassed, as she was to be. Eva had only been spared because Sol, in need of a goldsmith, was convinced she could do the job and pulled her from the Himmel Weg to the shower moments before her death.

Eva was devoted to Sol. He was in his sixties from the look of him, and Peter had to admit he was a skilled artisan. His work was exquisite. Max, seeing him with Eva, would loiter as long as he dared. There were always officers about.

“Don't tell me you believe that story?” he asked the day Peter heard it.

“I don't know. I guess not.”

Max laughed. “Smart man. They’re all liars.” A bit later: “You should take her. She won't care. She expects it. It will make her feel safer.”

“No. That wouldn’t be right.”

Max laughed again. “When will you learn that whatever we do is right? Take her! If you don't, someone else will. Working in the hut won't protect her forever.”

After the first heavy snow Peter was assigned one morning to the SteinbruchKommando. SS-Unterscharfuhrer Koch, with the heavy smell of liquor on his breath, told him the duty was easy though a bit cold. The usual SS guard was being treated for syphilis. The Kommando was under the supervision of a powerfully built Reichsdeutscher with the green triangular badge of the professional criminal. He was kapo number 23 and his name was Schlage. Peter knew he had been taken from prison, where he had been sentenced during the Weimar Republic for the axe murder of his family.

It was the Reichsdeutscher’s practice to kill at least two members of his Kommando each day and the prisoners dreaded being assigned to it. The Kommando was used as punishment or replacements were taken directly from the trains. No single inmate lasted so much as a month. To march to the quarry under the sadistic eye of this Jew-hating kapo was an imminent sentence of death. He carried no club for he killed with his bare hands.

Following the morning count, in a bitterly cold, heavily overcast morning, they marched out under the KZ arch to the strains of a military march, along the Lagerstrasse and onto the narrow dirt road that wound three kilometers to the quarry. Different kapos had different expectations. Schlage demanded military precision. He claimed he had served in the Kaiser's army but no one believed him. They quick marched the distance as Schlage and his vorarbeiters, two Slovak sadists with wooden clubs, beat and shouted obscenities. Peter was the only SS guard.

The work at the quarry was all manual and back-breaking. The men cut the granite and split it into slabs. With chisels and hammers they fashioned blocks of granite that was manhandled into an orderly pile by the spur. The trains no longer removed the granite but the camp still produced it at a steady pace.

The men beat and savaged the prisoners relentlessly. By midmorning Peter watched Schlage’s first kill. A Polish Jew slipped while assisting in hauling a slab to the pile and caused the corner to split. This meant it would have to be fashioned into a smaller piece.

Schlage approached him in a rage. He ranted, for the sake of the others or for his own pleasure Peter could not tell, then struck the hapless Jew on the side of his neck. The man went down as if felled by an axe. He writhed about in the snow for a long minute before expiring. Schlage had him removed to the side of the road to be carried back with the Kommando that night.

The men worked at a feverish pace as Peter expected. He was amazed at the weights they could lift and the size of the slabs they could manhandle. This was all pointless as labor, but no more so than the bricks and stone he had seen prisoners move from one pile to another then back again inside the KZ at double time until they collapsed and were beaten to death.

Towards midday two prisoners arrived from the KZ carrying a small kettle with the noon soup. It was a cold and especially loathsome concoction. Still, the prisoners drank it with absolute concentration as much for the water as any conceivable nourishment.

The lunch break lasted ten minutes. It was snowing very heavily by late afternoon and Peter was frozen, but the men in their wooden cogs and striped pajama uniforms were in far worse shape. The kapo and his men had not let up all day. In their own way they were working as hard as the prisoners.

Three times the two Slovaks ordered an inmate to drop his pants while one of them administered twenty-five merciless blows to his exposed skin with a club. The men cried out as they were struck and were left bleeding profusely. Peter surmised they were picked at random as he had witnessed no offense by any of them. These beaten men were scarcely able to move by the time they prepared to march back.

As the Kommando formed in the brief twilight for the quick-time march to the KZ, Schlage singled still another hapless inmate out. He ranted for several minutes then seized him by the groin and lifted him into the air as he squeezed. The man screamed the most awful cry Peter had ever heard and when Schlage threw him down Peter thought he must surely be dying. The kapo kicked him in the head repeatedly with his heavy boots to be certain, then ordered two prisoners to carry him with the other man he had killed back to the KZ for burning.

When the evening count was concluded Schlage, not content with this day's take, singled out a third inmate from the Kommando and had him hung with those who had answered slowly or fallen from exhaustion and cold.

CHAPTER FOUR

News
from the war was not good. The Western Front had unexpectedly stalled while the Eastern Front shrank with incredible speed. In only a few weeks the Russian winter offensive would begin.

Peter’s mother wrote twice a week, from the dates on her letters. She spoke of the family, gave news of friends and neighbors, and offered words of encouragement.

His letters home were filled with lies. What else could he do? He described conditions very different from those that existed. As winter set in and their mail was interrupted more frequently, he welcomed any excuse not to write as often. He wished his uncle would come. Peter could tell him the truth. He would understand.

By now Peter had seen the entire operation of the KZ. Max told Koch he liked him, so they remained together as a team. Maybe Max paid him to keep the pairing. Peter thought it was because he did not take his cut and whenever he discovered contraband he gave it to Max, who called him his "good boy."

The engineer tooted his whistle as he entered the valley and they heard the trains' arrival ten minutes before they pulled up to the ramp. He was permanently assigned to the Rampe Gespann along with nearly all the SS guards. The quartet began before the train stopped. Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven. The music absurdly and obscenely out of place. Peter knew he would never listen to the classics again.

The Judenrampe and Blocks visible from it were comfortably designed and neatly maintained. Even in winter they held an innocent illusion.

They could off-load three cars at a time, depending on their size. The Alsatian patrols worked the length of the train making certain no one tried to escape. Once the cars were emptied and searched the train moved up three more cars.

Inmate clerks of the Political Section efficiently prepared a card for each arrival, classifying them by crime or status, even those who were gassed within the next hours. The card was used in the case of Reichsdeutschers – German nationals -- to notify next of kin of their death, invariably by heart failure. All very orderly and proper. Peter preferred his assignment on the Rampe Gespann to manning the lines of naked people waiting to take their shower, though on occasion he did that as well.

The routine at the Judenrampe was simple and repetitious. It was surprising how much alike people are in those circumstances. He went through his motions and did his duty.

The condition of the arrivals depended on how long the train had been en route. Up to a week or more caused them to arrive largely dead, the rest crazed. Parents slew their children, slit their own wrists. Even a few days was enough in some cases to cause derangement.

Regardless of the length of the trip they always arrived dazed, exhausted, thirsty and hungry, but especially thirsty, even in winter. Water was promised, after their shower. They fled into the Disrobing Block with cups in hand. Max said keeping them thirsty made them easier to handle.

When the guards pulled the three doors aside simultaneously the first twenty or more tumbled onto the ramp like bales of hay. They shouted at them and hit them with their truncheons to keep them moving. They had been so crammed inside most were initially grateful to come out. There were always a few bodies once the cars were emptied. As winter progressed there were more than a few. The bodies were of the very old and of the small children. The children would become separated from their mothers and in the long days of the trip would slip down and be trampled.

Once a Canada trustee lingered overly long inside a car after it had been emptied. SS-Oberschutze Kitzel found the trustee nursing an arrival who had given birth during the trip. The infant was swaddled in a shawl. “Why are you wasting time with that filth?” Kitzel shouted, striking the trustee. The guard immediately recognized the situation, as it was not uncommon. He kicked the infant like a football as hard as possible and sent the bundle out the open door onto the ramp, where it was shortly dead. He pulled his pistol and shot the mother. “Now clear the car!” After the off-loading that day he watched Kitzel beat the trustee to death.

Once the material was on the Judenrampe women, sometimes men, but usually the mothers, would shout for their missing children. They had been so crowded before there had been no chance to find them. Now they could see the bodies and wail. They were told once to stop. Hysteria spread very easily among desperate people and the guards were heavily outnumbered. Peter had tried to stop the wailing in his early weeks on the Judenrampe. He shouted, or reasoned, or beat. In the end he did as they all did because nothing else would stop it. He shot the women.

Max said even a mongrel dog had some feeling for her pups so it was natural that even subhuman Jews, Polacks and Slovaks felt something for their children.

They separated the men, shoving the families into another line. If the families were left together the fathers became protective and that led to trouble. If anyone objected for more than an instant they were shot.

Those who became deranged rent their clothes, disrobed, muttered gibberish. If manageable, they were sent to the shower; if not, they were shot and left to the LeichnamKommando.

Infants were left with mothers, but not all mothers wanted them. One mother, perhaps nineteen or so, left a small child to join a different queue in the Administration Block. Perhaps she had heard or guessed that her chances for living were better if she did not have a child. Mothers whose children were gassed usually lapsed into depression and were rarely fit workers. It was easier to gas them also and save the work for the single girls. This mother slipped into a queue at the Political Section but her little girl kept calling out for her. A guard immediately saw who the mother was -- he had witnessed this before -- and said: “What’s the matter, bitch? Ashamed of the little swine you swat into the world?” The mother continued ignoring her child. The guard pushed the two-year-old girl to her mother and pointed her out. The mother was trying to hide in the crowd. This was creating quite a spectacle by now and everyone watched. The woman continued ignoring her daughter. The girl ran up to her and clutched her leg, crying: “Why don't you want me? I’m afraid Mama!”

“Mama! Mama!” the guards watching taunted. “Don't you want her? She seems to know you?” someone called out. “I'm not her mother!” the woman protested. “I’m not!” Everyone knew better. At last she said: “I want to live! I don’t want to die! I'm young. I want to live!” But she could stand it no more. She swept the girl up and clutched her to her, sobbing, unable to bear the guilt of betrayal any longer.

Kapo 583, a Selitian, an especially dimwitted savage, yanked the child away saying in his slurred speech: “Not yours, bitch?! Not yours?!” He swung the screaming girl into the air and crashed her skull against the floor. The mother threw herself on the body and lay there a few minutes while the Selitian said over and over dumbly: “Not yours, huh? Not yours, huh?” as if he’d discovered a secret and wanted everyone to know.

Later, Peter watched the woman carrying her daughter's dead body like a bloody doll. She was naked and went into the shower like a zombie. Kapo 486 with the SonderKommando, a Jew of course, allowed her to keep her dead child while she was gassed.

In one form or another Peter witnessed this scene every few trainloads.

After the first three cars it was usually not necessary to shoot as many to maintain order. They seemed to learn what was happening. But the searches of the cars found hidden material that had to be dragged screaming onto the Judenrampe. You would have thought by now they would know better, but it did not seem to matter.

On the Judenrampe the belongings in small parcels that stayed with the arrivals were searched on the spot. This was a popular duty Peter avoided. The larger luggage they did not carry to the Administration Block was searched by the Canada at their warehouse to the rear of the KZ under the careful eye of guards. Still, there was a great deal of stealing. He witnessed shootings or beatings to death every day for pilfering, but it did no good. Jews were born thieves.

Arrivals always had some valuables secreted on themselves or in their belongings. After all, they had been told they were being resettled. Officially everything seized was the property of the Reich and was expected to be surrendered. But the opportunity to pocket valuables was too good for the guards to pass up, as it was for the trustees. Wolff once noticed Peter’s disdain for the SS guards scrambling for some of the loot and complimented him. It made him feel dirty.

Everyone was pushed into the Administration Block doorways for processing. They were shouted, struck and intimidated into silence. Outside and behind the Block the lines formed into one and Herr Kommandant Hoffmann made the selection. Those sent to the shower went to the Disrobing Block, where they were strip searched.

Women frequently became hysterical at this point. Not because they were about to be gassed, though that did occur, but at the indignity of disrobing in the presence of leering, taunting guards and at the humiliation of the body search. This was conducted by women trustees but each orifice was carefully examined. Most of these women, young as well as old and especially the Hasidic Jews, had never been seen naked before. Daylight made it worse. More often than not it was humiliation that still overwhelmed them up through the moment the gas hit.

After the search they were told to remember the number of the wooden peg on which they hung their clothing for quick retrieval following the shower. Water to drink and a bowl of soup was waiting. Lies.

A lecture was given in which they were told they were the lucky ones. They did not have to remain in the KZ. They were being moved on for relocation. The trains would be less crowded now. The treatment after the shower better.

Even the children piled their toys and were told to remember a number so they could reclaim them. In the corner of the Block was always a large pile of their dolls and playthings. Prisoners made them over and sent the best back to the Reich for distribution among the homeless caused by the bombings.

Everyone left the Disrobing Block totally naked and stood in lines for their shower and delousing. Now that they were undressed there was no false modesty. Men and women were co-mingled. These were often people who had lived together in villages and the embarrassment was acute.

The truly fortunate ones, at least for the time being, were sent by the Kommandant to the sauna in another Block on the Lagerstrasse, where they also were stripped and searched. There their heads were shaved, a number was tattooed on their wrist and they were issued a striped uniform. Often the uniform bore bullet holes from its previous owner. If available, they were given one thin blanket for every two prisoners and a tin cup, then were assigned a job and Block.

Unlike the hidden interior of the KZ, the outward portion where this processing occurred was well built, neatly painted and meticulously landscaped. Trees, shrubs and structures concealed the KZ proper from either the Disrobing Block or sauna.

All the while music played. Over the beatings and shots, over the snarling dogs and shouts, the music drifted. The quartet closed their eyes and played.

Sometimes whole trainloads presented no more than average trouble and bought the lie. They believed it or wanted to and went quietly. These were the good days.

Sometimes no one believed the lies and had to be clubbed and bitten by the dogs all the way into the shower. This was increasingly the situation as winter progressed. There were no more good days of easy slaughter.

The arrangement of the Delousing Block was such that no one actually saw the single shower until they were about to enter it. Even with its heavy door it had the innocuous appearance of a large athletic shower.

Nearly always the fear was acute along the Himmel Weg – heaven way -- as the shower queue was called. The arrivals, women mostly, suffered spontaneous "tod panik" as they called it, death panic. Suddenly, without an instant's warning they loosed their bowels. This was a frequent occurrence on the Himmel Weg, even in the good days. Nevertheless, the queue moved without resistance until it had to enter the shower, where greater force was generally required.

But sometimes there was outright panic as they discerned the truth. The nauseating smoke that hung over the KZ took on new meaning. Occasionally there was an hysterical riot in the shower and the material was beaten back as the door was forced closed. Sometimes it occurred outside the door and the SonderKommando was compelled to toss the people in them. It was hard work and slow going.

Guards walked the queue to keep everyone's mind off what was taking place. The Alsatians were especially effective at this. The arrivals were very frightened of the dogs. Guards walking the queue beat people at random. Sometimes two or three kapos beat someone to death for sport. Or whole lines were made to do the stehappell, an especially brutal squatting exercise that led to clubbings and beatings. This was all done to hold everyone in terror and to keep them from thinking about the shower.

Some of the veteran guards told Peter it had not always been like this as late as the spring of 1944, when trains first arrived with material for liquidation. The process was stern and orderly but calm and businesslike. By now suspicion was high and rumor, in the Jewish ghettos especially, was rampant.

The shower handled forty to forty-five at a time. This was nothing, some of the veterans told Peter, compared to the vernichtungslager where the showers killed up to three thousand at a time. It took fifteen to twenty minutes to load and kill and another twenty minutes to unload each batch in their single shower.

They were a small KZ and only received several hundred to a thousand a trainload. Still, it took many hours to kill them all if there were no problems, but often there were. On bad days nothing went right. They panicked in the shower, the teeth were difficult to extract or they broke, word spread like wildfire along the queue that everyone was being gassed.

On those days the guards were especially brutal. They shot people at random. The LeichnamKommando worked ceaselessly to clear the dead. Wolff had the dogs tear people apart at great length. Beatings were especially sadistic. The message was clear. “Maybe you know what is about to happen, maybe you don’t, but you can die a terrible death this instant or you can live a few moments longer.” They always choose the few more minutes. Peter guessed that was human nature. In a perverse way the whole KZ was built based on human nature,