Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust (8 page)

Herr Kommandant Hoffmann placed the body spread naked on a wooden plank for two days and commanded that every guard walk by and see what could happen if they got too close or stopped paying attention. It took a full day to repair the inside of the Disrobing Block so that new material was not unduly suspicious.

A few days after Peter realized that he could not get Eva out he told her he wanted to help and was prepared to risk everything for her. Could she or perhaps the old Jew, Sol, think of any way he could get her to safety?

Sol had been an officer in the Kaiser's army and told Peter during one visit without Max that he had always considered himself a German first, a Jew last of all. “Ich bin ein Germaner!” he had said with fervor. He ran a large company in Berlin before the war and, he said, was well known in the international gold circles. German Jews often arrived clutching a handful of medals or pictures of themselves in uniform from the Great War. As if it would make a difference.

A few days later Eva asked if he really meant what he said. “Of course. You know I would do anything to save you. Just show me how.”

“And Sol. He must come too. Without Sol we would already be dead.”

Peter explained that was impossible. He had no idea how to get her out, let alone Sol as well. But she would hear nothing about it. It was both or neither. “Show me how,” he said.

She told him that Sol had cached enough gold to buy their freedom. This had been his plan for some time. But he needed a means to get it from the KZ. Once it was safely hidden there was an officer, Lenneberg, who worked in administration with whom Sol believed he could barter. If the gold was found inside the KZ it would be taken and Sol sent to the shower. She cautioned Peter not to breathe a word to Max.

The key to the plan was to get the gold off the KZ, to a safe place, so Sol could barter.

There was no doubt in Peter’s mind that he would do as she asked though the risk for him was great. Max and the others had ways of smuggling small amounts of contraband out by splitting the profit with someone. But all of Sol’s gold was needed to buy their freedom so there could be no split. Even then, given the times, it might not be enough.

It was enough gold though that if Peter were caught with it he would be shot, hung or gassed as a war profiteer. His true crime, of course, would have been in getting caught.

Initially the problem of getting the gold from the KZ appeared difficult. They were all watched and there were only certain places they could be when not on duty. Any variation from routine would cause immediate suspicion.

It was February and the end of winter but the weather remained relentless. The trains continued to roll without letup. The Reich was on its knees and had only weeks remaining, but still the killing continued.

The next day when one train was scarcely off-loaded and the material was still in queue from the last, another arrived. They had nowhere to hold anyone and it would be a day or more before they could even begin delousing.

There was a great deal of arguing about what to do. SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Heidel ordered the train off-loaded onto the ground along the tracks. When all the cars were emptied the second train backed out to the main line.

The guards shepherded the six hundred Hungarians into the woods on the other side of the tracks. They were told they would wait here while warm barracks in the nonexistent family section of the KZ were prepared.

In the forest they kept them bunched close together. They were pressed into a circle and maintained there by the dogs. Groups of twenty were broken away at intervals for processing. They were taken to a clearing not far away. There they were forced to strip in the freezing air. They were run to a ravine, made to kneel down and shot in the back of the head with the silenced rifles. This was very similar to the mass executions Peter had witnessed in Russia by the Einsatzgruppen Special Units.

Even with the snarling dogs and the muffled shots, by the time a hundred or so were dead the rest had figured it out. It became necessary to shoot many to keep the rest in place.

Every five minutes twenty more were taken away and killed. One guard Peter overheard said to one of the men: “Why don't you Jews fight? Have you no pride? We will kill all of you. If we lose the war or not, you are dead.”

The man said and did nothing. They breathed those last few precious puffs of air like cows standing in a crowded pen on a cold morning until they were led off and the drunken Rumanians put a bullet into their brains

By then everyone was shrieking as they were chased naked to the killing ravine. The dogs bit at their heels. The guards slapped them with truncheons on the buttocks. In about five hours the Hungarian Jews were in a thick pile that filled the ravine. The clothing had been tossed into a great mound and the Canada cleared the luggage from the railroad and went to work on the clothes. There was an uncommon amount of theft that day since in the gathering gloom it was difficult to supervise the search properly.

After the slaughter there was laughter and horseplay among the men. It had been a good day's kill with no problems. Most of the men had raped someone and it had all turned out quite satisfactory.

In the ravine not all the six hundred were as yet dead. Blood pulsed from the stack of bodies as if the pile had a single great wound and a beating heart. The officers were not certain what to do with the slaughter. Their business was not visible from the tracks so it would not alarm the arriving material and it was not warm so disease was no concern.

Still, no one wanted to risk leaving the bodies as they were. A Kommando was formed and instructed to cover the mess first with chlorinated lime and then with snow. This did not work out well since the bodies were still warm enough to melt the snow. By morning they were covered with a layer of sleek ice that gave the grotesque blue and white bodies the surrealistic effect of expressionist statues. That second day the Kommando managed to cover the dead. They were left there to rot in the spring. No one thought it would still be their problem by then.

A few days later Eva embraced Peter as he left the hut. Max did not see as she passed him the ingots of gold carefully wrapped so he could conceal them in his greatcoat. She even kissed him and it was a genuine kiss of love and admiration, he knew, not the hollow mouthing of a brothel whore.

The butchery of the Hungarian Jews in the forest had given Peter means for getting the gold off the KZ. He did not know how to get it much further than the outer fence but he could get it that far and would work on the rest later.

A train arrived, as they now did nearly every day, but not as heavily laden as most. In six hours it was off-loaded, the selections made and those about to die were standing in queue at dusk shivering in the frigid air.

There was a group of guards -- Peter had never been one nor had Max -- who preferred the compliant whores, who regularly pulled a comely woman from the shower queue and took her into the nearby field to rape. This day Peter gave Max a knowing leer and said he was going to get him a Polish slut. Max was taken aback then got a kick out of the idea. As Peter left the Judenrampe he tossed him a coat from the pile of clothing they had taken from the material. “You will need this to keep your britches clean!” He laughed and told the others what his young comrade was up to. They had seen so many other changes in him no one was suspicious.

The naked material was pressed close to each other. Never mind that the person behind or in front of you was a stranger or, worse, the Rabbi’s wife. People were freezing to death.

Peter was actually going to have to rape one of the women. He could not have her saying otherwise. It would be too dangerous. He rationalized it would be all right. These women were only moments away from dying and he was offering a little more life to them.

He did not want a virgin, none of that, nor did he want to tear a woman from her children. He had had enough of that as well. He walked along the queue searching carefully for what he wanted. At last he selected a chunky one with heavy breasts just out of her teens and grabbed her hand.

She had no idea what was going on and was scared to death. One of the guards laughed and gave her a go-along blow across the buttocks with his truncheon. Peter pulled her by the arm and yanked her down the slope towards the stream near the small railroad bridge. The woman's fox coat Max had given him was swinging in his left hand. He was walking fast and she was trying to stay upright but her bare feet froze on the ground if they were not already frozen. She was saying something to him in Polish but it was not loud enough for him to tell her to stop.

The guards approved of his selection and shouted for him to really give it to her.

Because of the slope they would be out of sight of the KZ when they were on the ground. This was the place all the guards took the women. He tossed the coat on the snow and pitched the naked Polack on her back. He removed the wrapped ingots and laid them beside them as he removed his leather webbing. He looked around to mark the place so he could find it again even if there was more snow.

He dropped on top of her and spread his greatcoat to cover both of them. She was hysterical and he thought the warmth might settle her. He wished he spoke Polish. He thought perhaps she would go along with him if she understood what he was keeping her from. He had seen other world-wise women in the Himmel Weg make lewd suggestions to a guard just to delay for precious minutes the inevitable.

She was sobbing now and nearly overcome with hysteria. She crossed herself and begged. He pried her legs apart and reached down to unfasten his pants. She stopped struggling and began to sob, deep sobs of grief, terror and loss that tore at his heart. He knew he could not rape her.

He rolled off and she curled into a ball, too frightened to pull the coat over her. He dug a place in the snow and buried the Jew's gold. He lay there, watching the haze from the smoke against the new night sky as the Polack sobbed beside him. When he looked over she was watching him. He wondered if she had seen what he had done.

After a bit he rose and put on his gear in view of the guards, took her by the arm and pulled her back to the shower line. She was still upset and was babbling God knew what in Polish. He could not risk her talking to anyone. Some of the guards, and many of the kapos working the line, spoke Polish. He pulled her to the head of the line, striking her several times until she shut up. She was bleeding from the mouth and was frightened out of her wits. He went to the head of the queue and threw her to the kapo.

“Here's another one for you! Give this frigid Polish bitch a good delousing! She's not fit for anything else,” he shouted. She screamed as the laughing trustees pushed her into the shower. But everyone else was screaming as they entered the mouth of hell. He watched them load the children over the heads of the adults then they slammed the door shut on the crammed room.

SS-Oberschutze Kitzel was assigned to the SonderKommando. “Ever see this before?” he asked with a knowing smile.

He shook his head. There was a shrieking inside the shower that sounded like wind in a tunnel. “That’s the gas. Now they know what is in store. You can look in the window here.”

Peter walked to the window. An old man’s face was pressed against it, flattened by the force of bodies behind him. The shrieking was reaching a howl. “It will begin to quiet down soon..” Kitzel said. Peter had never liked him much. He had been drafted from the university and put on airs. Peter guessed he had found his calling here.

Between the shrieks that rose and fell like crashing waves he could hear the murmur: “Ave Maria, Madre de Deus...”

“Good work,” he told Kitzel, who gave Peter a maniac’s grin as he turned out the lights inside the shower. Peter left, intending to get drunk. Instead SS-Untersturmfuhrer Luftig with two guards ordered him to report to the Kommandant’s office. He was escorted there under guard.

###

Peter had never been in the Kommandant's office before. Though the entire KZ was built for function, even the Administration Block, the interior of Herr Kommandant Hoffmann's office was luxurious. He was seated at his desk and wore the stern demeanor Peter had come to know so well. He stood at attention in front of the desk, the bundle he had buried in the snow was on the desk now open to expose the ingots. The escort left him alone with the Kommandant. He was reading a dossier. After a time during which he smoked three cigarettes he looked up.

“There is the contraband you took from the konzentrationslager. What have you to say for yourself?”

“Nothing, Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer!”

“You were betrayed. Here is the statement.” He brushed several pages of typing with the fingernails of his hand. “I was waiting to see how you would get the gold off the KZ. What have you to say for yourself?”

“I have no excuse, Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer!”

The Kommandant eyed him steadily for the length of a half cigarette. “Your mother is a loyal Party member since 1931. Your uncle is an SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer and also a Party member of long standing. I suppose it would not do to shoot you.” Again he eyed Peter, who was sweating in his greatcoat. “You were used, you know that? It is an old story and one that is typical of Jewish treachery. You are young, vulnerable. The Jewess, Eva Maihof, was thrust on you to entice you into this disloyal act against the security of the Reich. You were carefully selected by this gang of traitors. But, Jewish treachery being what it is, one of those in the hut made a full confession. It is fortunate that he did before this went too far.

“I have spoken to Obersturmfuhrer Wolff concerning you. He tells me that in many ways you are to be commended. You resist profiteering and obey orders. You also show less enthusiasm than you should for your duty and are known to have been an associate of Karl Dorman, whose trouble and ending you well know.

“You have been very foolish. In usual times, even a few months ago, you would have been shot or sent to the shower. Now perhaps, I am getting soft myself, or perhaps it is that I am short of men. They keep promising me more but I never get them.”