Touching the Wire (32 page)

Adam put his arms around her
and kissed her hair. She leaned into him, loved, comforted, her stomach
churning at the thought of losing him as Grandpa had lost Miriam. ‘
I am beyond tired. Hunger fills my mind. Every night I dream about
soup and bread. We saw Father again today. He seemed to know us but I worry
about his will to endure. His arms and legs are like thin sticks and are
covered in sores that won’t heal. He is a chemist, and Buna is to produce
synthetic rubber, yet he is made to carry cement on his back twelve hours a
day. Mother says if he dies she will touch the wire like Darja.
’

‘Oh God.
The
guards opened fire on men and women calling to one another across the road that
separates the camps. Mother and Father are dead.
Everyone she loved.’

They walked
for a while in silence. Adam’s hand held hers and she gripped it as if it were
a lifebuoy in a raging sea. He’d been right when he’d said she shouldn’t come
here alone. Numbness threatened to steal the horror. Grandpa and Miriam
couldn’t shut it out and fly home. How had they endured? They’d had each other.
Their love, so intense in such conditions, had kept them strong, courageous,
alive
.

Adam stopped
beneath a watch-tower behind which high wire fences stretched in both
directions as far as the eye could see. He took the pages from her. ‘
I am
afraid. Mengele ordered Chuck to work in the Main Medical Block. He didn’t want
to go but Mengele knows Chuck cares for us. He goes to protect us but I miss
him. Ilse and I continue his work. The hours are very long. The days are
longer.
’

‘They were
so brave.’

‘They lived
in constant terror but, other than touching the wire, they had no option.
There’s a bit here…
Chuck came today. He told me something of the plight of
the children Mengele keeps. I will not have him hold my life above theirs. He
looked awful. He wept as he wrote in the diary. He wouldn’t tell me what he
wrote.
’

She took the
diary from her handbag and turned to the place that had made her retch. ‘Here.
He…
Mengele bleeds children to see how little blood they can survive on. He injects
them with lethal germs, and transfuses blood between children with different
blood groups. He removes organs and performs castrations without anaesthetic.
When one twin dies as a result of his torture he kills the other and compares
bodies. And in the midst of this horror he makes meticulous notes. Today he
dissected a baby, alive. He is insane for surely no-one is this evil. I vomit
at what I see and I can do nothing to prevent it without risking retribution
upon others. Death would be a release, but I must survive to bear witness.
’
 
She closed the diary and reached for Adams hand. ‘If Miriam had
read this she would have touched the wire herself. She would never have asked
that of him.’
 
 

Miriam took her hand and
whispered through her mind.
You must see… You must tell the world… we were
people like you. We loved and lived, but they stole our dreams, our families,
our
lives.
They walked again in silence towards a ruin
of collapsed reinforced concrete and bricks. Miriam led her on.
Come… come.
They
stopped in front of a sign.

Crematorium II

 This hundred-metre
long pit was called the Changing Room. A thousand or more people at a time were
suffocated with ZyklonB, industrial pesticide. Above, serviced by elevators,
stood a building where the bodies were robbed of their jewellery and gold
teeth, and then shorn of all their hair before being burned in the furnaces
.

‘Dear God, they ran it like
an industry… this is where the gold…’ She’d run her fingers through that gold.
The ring: could it possibly have been Miriam’s, or was it another’s token of
love wrenched from a dead hand?

Adam took up the narration.
‘
It was estimated…
’

‘Go on.’

‘
Economically packed, the
furnaces could reduce around five thousand people a day to bone and ash, and
they worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
That’s like
murdering, what… a hundred coach-loads, day in, day out?’

‘And Auschwitz wasn’t the only
camp.’ She stooped to pick something from the grey soil between the wildflowers
that endured amid the desolation. ‘It’s bone.’ She paused, shocked, in the act
of casting the fragment away. The land all around was grey. It was ash; tons
and tons of humanity fed the very plants that flowered around them. Auschwitz
wasn’t a memorial or a museum… it was a mass grave.

***

Charlotte walked into the museum curator’s
office in front of Adam. They were expected and were greeted soberly, but with
an air of suppressed excitement. ‘Dr Bancroft, Mrs Bancroft. I am Andrzej
Wiśniewski. This is a great day for the people of Poland, a great day for
justice.’

Mrs Bancroft… the curator
didn’t need to know they weren’t married, and might never be. Adam being his
usual optimistic self… or making sure she kept her anonymity intact? She should
have told him about the baby but anything could happen in the first
trimester.  And she was making excuses. She let him do the talking.

‘Yes, it is a great day, Mr
Wiśniewski. I’m honoured to be able to make these copies available to you.
I shall personally return the originals to Auschwitz when our experts have
examined them.’

Mr Wiśniewski nodded.
‘Thank you, as you say, they belong in Oswiecim One. They’ll be pivotal to the
new exhibition. The press…’

‘Press?’ She gulped down
panic.

Adam appeared unconcerned.

‘I respected your wishes to
be allowed to visit the museum in peace. The press won’t be informed of the
documents’ arrival until after you’ve left.’

‘Thank you. My wife and I appreciate
that. It’s been a very moving experience. I’ve prepared a statement for you to
read to them.’ Adam undid his rucksack, took out the file of documents and
passed it to her. She held it while he casually re-fastened the straps.

Mr Wiśniewski’s hands
reached forward expectantly. It was hers to give, her oath to keep. She held it
out silently.

Mr Wiśniewski turned a
few pages. ‘I can’t believe this. Mengele, Muench, Schmitt… Written, signed
proof after all these years. How did you come by the documents?’

Adam answered quickly. ‘They
were an anonymous donation but their authenticity is not in doubt.’

The curator turned more
pages. ‘Someone risked a lot to save these. I should have liked to have thanked
them.’

She moved away and stared through
the window across the Birkenau camp complex. Thanks? She had fulfilled her
oath.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI

The words hung over the main
entrance to Auschwitz I. Charlotte looked up at Adam. ‘What does it mean?’

He pulled a wry face. ‘Work
makes you free.’

Rows of long, well-built
brick buildings crowded neat streets, in military order. Adam put the
translation back in its envelope: Miriam couldn’t help them here.

 They followed the
signs to the photographic exhibition. She searched the faces of prisoners, trying
to recognise Grandpa or Miriam. Naked skeletal bodies… tattooed forearms,
branded like cattle. Heaps of emaciated bodies. Women, leaving the camp for
their march west, wearing clothes and shoes unsuitable for a Polish winter.
Children, every bone distressingly visible. ‘Adam, look… There’s a picture of
Mengele and this is Schmitt.’

Mengele was a commanding
figure: tall and slim, his dark hair smoothed back, his uniform immaculate. His
dark eyes pierced her. Beside Mengele, Schmitt was disappointingly ordinary: a
small, neat young man with close-cropped fair hair and pale, cheerless eyes.

‘They don’t look evil, do
they? I don’t understand what can make a man do such terrible things. The power
that Hitler must have wielded…’

‘The Jews weren’t popular. Maybe
he was just a spark fanned by the wind of resentment.’

‘But wholesale slaughter…
how could they live with what they did?’

Adam shook his head. ‘They
say Mengele never showed any remorse for his actions. You’ve seen enough,
Charlotte.’

They arrived back at Sunnybank exhausted. Charlotte trudged up the stairs and
dropped her handbag onto the bed. Adam followed lugging his rucksack.

She wouldn’t sleep after
what she’d witnessed today. She wanted to hold him and never let go.  She should
stop being a coward and tell him the truth, but she hadn’t the emotional
strength left. She hadn’t even the strength to finish reading the translation
and she wasn’t sure she ever would have.

Adam held her close as tears
wet her cheeks. ‘Let it out, sweetheart. It’s been a harrowing day.’ He held
her for a long while and then kissed her. ‘Better, now?’

She nodded. She didn’t
deserve his love. She concentrated on practicalities. ‘You have an early start in
the morning. Would you like a drink before we turn in?’

‘I’ll make it. You look
shattered.’

She followed him down the
stairs. Dobbin stood in the corner, waiting for her child to bring him back to
life. Adam had glued on his ear and mended the broken leg. Life scars, he
called them. She knew how Dobbin felt.

She ran her hand along his
back, stirring memories of galloping through imaginary fields and mythical
forests. For a moment she was five, in Grandpa’s workshop with the smell of
wood dust, paint and polish. She missed him; he’d always made everything right.
Adam stood in the kitchen doorway, watching her. He’d been quiet all the way
home. Had he guessed her secret?
Who keeps silence
…
‘What’s bothering you, Adam?’

‘It’s that photograph of the
tattoos on the prisoners’ forearms. I keep picturing Albert Carr, sitting in
his chair at Barton Leys. I can’t remember seeing a tattoo.’

‘He was wearing a
short-sleeved shirt. If he’d had a tattoo we’d have noticed, surely.’

‘He could have had it
removed.’

‘It would be a painful
reminder.’

‘What was that number he
quoted?’

‘Two, zero, two, five
hundred, I think. Why?’

‘The series of numbers
beginning with two… Can I use your laptop?’ He switched it on, tapping his
fingers while he waited. ‘If I’m right…’ He clicked on several sites. ‘Look,
here… The last number issued in that series was two, zero, two, four, nine,
nine.’

Adam’s words carried her
back to the horror that was Auschwitz… to the photograph of the ordinary man.
There
had
been something familiar about him. Sister’s words came back.
He
doesn’t always know who he is
. ‘Schmitt… His face is vaguely familiar. I
think I’ve seen it before.’

‘Where?’

‘I’m not sure but… Carr?’

 ‘You think Carr is
Schmitt?’ 

Her gut instinct had let her
down. ‘He seemed such a nice old man… and anyway, how would he be friends with
a prisoner like Grandpa?’

‘Lord knows.’ Adam gestured,
casting about for an explanation that was avoiding the bait. ‘He could have
escaped the allied forces at liberation, like Mengele did. He could have disguised
himself as a prisoner and told Walt his name was Carr.’

‘But Grandpa mentions him
along with the last quotation. He must have known him, surely.’

‘That’s true.’

‘He calls him the beast.
He’d never had been his friend, as Albert Carr must surely have been.’

‘Maybe he had some hold over
Walt. After all we can’t be sure what happened to Miriam.’

‘You think Schmitt may have
been involved with Miriam, somehow?’

‘Most prisoners were marched
west before liberation. Thousands died on the March of Death. If Miriam was
evacuated, he may have known where she’d been sent.’

‘You think he forced Grandpa
to take him to England?’

‘How else was he going to
escape justice and start a new life?’

‘By calling himself Carr?
Why didn’t Grandpa turn him in once he got home, and why would Schmitt, Carr…
whatever his name is, transfer the title of the deposit box to him when he,
Schmitt, would be incriminated?’

‘Maybe, he and Walt had
struck some kind of deal. As for the evidence, perhaps he was one Nazi whose
conscience bothered him.’

 ‘A conscience…
a
man who tortured children? To think Grandpa kept all this to himself. A hunted
Nazi living nearby…’ She threw up her hands in helpless confusion. ‘No, it’s
all too impossible and he did seem concerned about Gran.’

‘Then I guess, whatever hold
he had over Walt, he does have a conscience… If Carr is Schmitt.’

She’d thought it was all
over and she could leave the past behind. The past would never be left behind.
‘If Carr
is
Schmitt, he’s told us a pack of lies, hasn’t he?’

‘It seems so.’

‘I promised him I’d take
Lucy to see him. This son of the wolf has lost his bite. I intend to see that
justice is done, though the heavens
should
fall.’

***

On Saturday, Charlotte stood in front of the
man who called himself Albert Carr. ‘Remember me, Albert.’ She glanced to her
side. ‘This is Lucy, and you already know Adam.’

He stared at them. ‘You’ve
come, at last.’

‘But Adam and I came
recently. Don’t you remember? I said I’d come again with Lucy.’

He held out a shaky hand;
his voice caught. ‘Ah, little Lucy… and Adam. Yes… ’

She ignored the gesture. ‘We
did as you asked. I took copies of the documents to Auschwitz and Birkenau. The
Candles Holocaust Museum has a copy, and the gold.’

Lucy took a step closer.
‘We’re here for the truth, Albert, and to find out what happened to Miriam.’

She moved closer to stand
beside Lucy. ‘We have Grandpa’s diary.’

His mouth worked; he let out
a tremulous sigh. ‘You’ve read it?’

‘Some of it. Have
you
read it?’

‘Do you have it with you?’

She laid the book in his
hands. ‘I suppose it should be in Birkenau, really, with the copy of the
documents. There can’t be many diaries surviving that were written in the
camp.’

‘W… Walt… Chuck and Miriam
risked much to write it.’

If he was Albert he surely
wouldn’t be able to read the Hungarian, though Schmitt may have spoken several
European languages.

He opened it at the back,
entries she hadn’t been able to force herself to read, and carefully turned
several pages. He seemed to have no trouble translating it. ‘Miriam writes…
I
have another fever. Ilse helps me with the sick. Rabbi Schaeler came with Chuck
to the infirmary. He comforted many. He agreed to marry us. I am so happy.’

Lucy sat on the chair next
to Albert. ‘Miriam was Grandpa’s first wife?’

‘Yes. They were married in
the camp.’ He paused. ‘She continues…
Rumour sweeps the camp. They say
trucks and trains roll west while the German army strips the land bare. This
way they hope to delay the Soviets. May they speed to our
aid.
’
He fell silent. His eyes saw something she could only imagine.

‘Go on.’

‘
Ilse has lost her faith.
She says the Nazis have put Hitler in God’s place and fashion themselves in his
image. She says the Soviets won’t come. If I believe there is no God, then who
is left to know we ever existed? If I die, who is to speak the names of my
family? Who will remember that my gentle Benedek died protecting us, that Abel
Gy
ö
rgy, my grandfather, suffocated in a
cattle wagon. Or that Efah Majoros, my beautiful sister, and her children,
Gellért and Julianna, were gassed along with Flóra
György,
my grandmother, and my precious child,
Mary Hofmann? Who will know that Jani and Czigany Gy
ö
rgy, my clever, wonderful parents, died reaching
for each other… machine gun bullets riddling their bodies. Who will know the
good Chuck does?
’

He shook his head and she
waited in silence for him to continue. Hearing their names, and what they meant
to Miriam, made them unbearably real.

His finger shook as it
traced the next entry. ‘
I fear I may have caught scarlet fever.
’ The
cracked nail followed the Hungarian script slowly. ‘
They have blown up the
crematoria and gas chambers to hide the evidence of their atrocities. They may
yet kill us all to ensure our silence.
’ Again the finger scrolled down the
page. ‘
The Nazis are leaving. They are evacuating the camp.
I will stay with those too sick to walk.
Chuck is staying too. He went for medicines but he hasn’t come back. I worry for
him. I worry for the sick who need the medicines. They are in great distress
but hope buoys us.
We have survived
.
’

He swallowed
noisily and cleared his throat.

‘Chuck
still hasn’t come. He wouldn’t desert us. He will come if he can. My fever is
worse.
’ He turned a page.
‘I grow weak…
The Soviets don’t come. They must only be days away. I must hang on. If Chuck
has perished I must tell them about the children. I have neither strength nor
paper to write all I must. I sleep with the book and write a little when I can.
There is no food, no water, no heating. We wrap ourselves in blankets and
huddle together. My fever keeps us warm.
’

She put a
hand on Albert’s arm and he covered it briefly with his own. She removed it
quickly. If this man was who they thought he was, he was partly responsible for
this horror. She’d come for truth not to comfort the guilty.

‘
All are
very sick now, and dehydrated. We have nothing left to vomit, but lack of water
doesn’t stop the diarrhoea. We no longer make it to the latrines. We go where
we lie. We have had only snow for sustenance for eight days. Pray God it does
not thaw.
’ He shook his head slowly. ‘
Half of us have frozen to death.
We have no strength to carry the dead outside.
The next day she writes,
Today
Ilse died. She lies beside me. Her hand is cold. I wear her ring but it is
loose now and I fear I’ll lose it. It is my only proof Chuck was not a fever
dream. I pray the Soviets come soon.
’

‘How did she
find the strength to write?’

‘It was two
days before liberation when she forced herself to write these last entries,
judging by the date, though how she managed to keep count.’ He swallowed again.
‘
This must be my only testimony.
’ He wiped away a tear and looked up.
‘She ends,
Chuck, where are you?
’

Tears ran
down her cheeks as he handed back the diary: the two remaining pages were
blank.

***

Charlotte stared at the blank pages, knowing
what they meant.

Lucy’s voice broke through
her thoughts.
‘What did happen to Miriam?’

She closed the diary.
‘Grandpa must have returned or how did he get the diary?’

Adam rubbed his stubble and
looked at the old man. ‘How did you know about the diary?’

The man who called himself
Albert Carr seemed preoccupied with his hands.

‘Albert?’ Adam’s voice was
quiet. ‘Or should I call you Schmitt… Dr Hans Wolfgang Schmitt?’

She moved closer. ‘We want
the truth.’

He shrank into clothes
suddenly too large. ‘No… you… How did you find out?’

She hadn’t been mistaken
about Schmitt’s photograph seeming familiar. ‘What did you do to Grandpa to
force his silence? Tell us what happened to Miriam.’

 ‘The truth, Schmitt,’
Adam pressed.

Schmitt rubbed the
paper-thin skin on the back of his left hand. ‘A whole generation of Hitler
Youth was betrayed by Hitler, indoctrinated into racial hatred, robbed of their
innocence. I didn’t know what he would do, you have to believe that. It’s no
justification… obeying orders… believing the propaganda… but back then it was…
like a roller-coaster we couldn’t get off. Weak fools… afraid for our worthless
skins.’

‘It was no excuse.’

‘I hated standing on the
ramp to take part in the selections. The only one who enjoyed it was Josef.’

‘Josef Mengele?’

‘Mengele.’ The name rolled
off his tongue like distant thunder. He sat straighter and the effort told in
his face, as it had in Mum’s and Gran’s when they’d stood at Grandpa’s
graveside. ‘Yes, he was always there. Intelligent but mad… like Hitler. Racial
purity obsessed them.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Mengele’s power was absolute, what
he did abhorrent. Few wanted to assist him. He would find a weakness in his
staff and exploit it. I wasn’t the only one.’

Her voice was
uncompromising. ‘And what was your weakness?’

‘He knew my wife wasn’t
Aryan. He promised she’d be safe.’ Schmitt’s body began to shake. ‘I assisted
him in his experiments. Twins, little children, died because of me. I did what
I had to.’

Lucy would die for Grant and
her children. Now her own child grew within her she began to understand how
that felt. Could either of them take one child’s life, never mind thousands, to
save their own loved ones? The horror of it made bile rise in her throat. ‘What
about Grandpa? How did you meet him?’