A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy (9 page)

I remember very little about my activities in the days immediately following the Spiegel beating. Of course, I thought a lot
about my mother and missed her very much. I wondered what she was doing, whether they had also cut off her hair as they had
ours, whether she had enough to eat, and whether she had to live in a barrack similar to ours. In those early days, I was
also introduced to the Auschwitz feeding system. We would be awakened early in the morning and made to line up in front of
a big kettle from which an inmate with a ladle would pour out a liquid that looked like black coffee. Next to him stood the
barrack boss, cutting slices of black bread. The bread was frequently moldy and the slices rather small. I soon noticed that
not everyone got the same amount of bread. Those the barrack boss did not like would get a smaller piece or no bread at all,
while his friends and he himself would keep whole loaves. Complaints would invite a beating. In the evening, we would be served
the day’s only other meal. It consisted, as a rule, of some tasteless, watery turnip soup. Since we got no bread in the evening,
I would try to save a little piece of my morning bread for later in the day, hiding it very carefully so that it would not
be stolen.

That, more or less, was all we had to eat. On such a diet, some people gradually became
Muselmans,
the name given to inmates who had become totally emaciated, walked around in a stupor, stopped eating altogether, and in
no time died quietly. I soon learned that if somebody became a
Muselman,
he would not live very long. That was the fate of a friend of my parents whom I had called “Uncle” for as long as I could
remember. He and his wife had been with us in Katowice. He was Jewish; she was not. And while, as a German gentile, she could
have left him and gone back to Germany, she refused to do so and helped him as best she could. In Kielce, she lived outside
the ghetto and somehow managed to get food to him; she did the same in the labor camp. I still remember them talking over
the fence in the ghetto. Access to Auschwitz or anywhere near the camp was closed to her, and he, a big man, simply could
not live on the rations we received. When I saw him a few weeks after we had arrived in Auschwitz, he was the skinniest human
being I had ever seen. He no longer recognized my father or me and kept mumbling to himself. After the war, my mother and
I visited his wife, who had returned to her native Hamburg. Of course, she wanted to know when I had last seen her husband
and whether I knew what had happened to him. I lied and told her that the last time I had seen him, he was his usual friendly
self, although somewhat thinner. I simply could not bring myself to tell this woman, whom we all admired for her courage and
loyalty to her husband, the truth about his last days. She had suffered enough.

I do not remember how long my father and I remained in the barrack we occupied when we first arrived in the Gypsy camp. A
Kapo who took part in the terrible beating of Spiegel was in charge of a barrack that served as a kind of warehouse, where
the clothing taken from people on their arrival in Auschwitz was sorted and eventually shipped out. Where it went, I never
knew. To help us, the Kapo had my father and me and a few of his other friends from Kielce assigned to his barrack. We slept
there and worked there. In many ways, this was a lifesaving break for us. We were no longer subjected to the maltreatment
dished out in the other barrack, we had a little more food, and we had a bunk bed with blankets and a straw mattress. Equally
important, we could keep warm with some of the clothes stored in the barrack.

In our new barrack, my father and I shared a bunk with my friend Walter and his stepfather. Walter had managed to avoid being
murdered with the children of Kielce because he was a few years older than most of them and was rather tall. After we had
moved into our new barrack, Walter got very sick. His father took him to the infirmary, where he was admitted after being
diagnosed with diphtheria. The barracks serving as the infirmary of the Gypsy camp were located kitty-corner across from our
barrack. Less than a week after Walter had entered the infirmary, we were awakened one night by terrible noises coming from
across the street. SS trucks with their motors running were standing outside the infirmary, while SS guards herded screaming
patients into the trucks. Of course, the patients knew that they were being taken to the gas chambers, and we knew that the
SS was thinning out the population of the infirmary to make room for new patients. They would do that every few weeks; that
is why it was so dangerous to go to the infirmary. In the morning, we learned that Walter was among those who had been taken
away. His stepfather kept blaming himself for Walter’s death because he had taken him to the infirmary, but we all knew that
he had had no choice, given Walter’s illness. I still do not understand how it was possible for Walter to come down with diphtheria
while I, sleeping next to him, escaped being infected. Was it just luck, or is it possible that he did not really have this
highly contagious disease?

Every few weeks, the SS would enter the Gypsy camp and embark on its periodic selections. These selections were usually conducted
by one or two SS doctors, most often under the supervision of the infamous Dr. Mengele, known as the Angel of Death, whose
very name made me tremble with fear. The selections would take place early in the morning, after all the inmates had been
lined up in front of their barracks and counted. Even when there was no selection, the daily counting process was an ordeal
that could take hours, particularly when someone appeared to be missing. The missing person usually turned out to be an inmate
who had died overnight. The daily counting was frequently accompanied by beatings and at times also by hangings. Soon after
we had arrived in Auschwitz, my father, seeing how routine selections were conducted and that children were most at risk,
came up with a strategy to beat the system. Every morning when we had to line up for the daily counting exercise, I would
try to stand all the way in the back and very close to the entrance of the barrack. As soon as we had been counted and if
it appeared that there might be a selection, I would try to slip back into the barrack and hide. That strategy saved me a
number of times. It was not always easy to execute, however, because I had to disappear without being seen by the SS or the
barrack boss, but I was never caught.

Selections were sometimes also conducted randomly. Mengele would enter the camp with some of his assistants and order any
children or sick or old people he encountered in the barracks or walking outside to be taken away. My father discussed this
problem with our Kapo friend, who suggested that a real job might provide me with some protection. A few days later, I was
hired by the Kapo of the sauna, as the camp’s bathhouse was called. Here newly arrived inmates from other subcamps were given
a walk-through shower and had their clothes disinfected. My job — I now think that it may have been created as a favor to
my father’s friend — consisted mainly of running errands for my new boss. Whenever an SS guard stopped me somewhere in the
camp, which happened from time to time, I would identify myself as the sauna’s errand boy and be permitted to be on my way.
The job gave me a greater sense of security than I had had before when meeting up with an SS guard, although it was always
hard not to tremble when called over by one of them.

At times too I would have to deliver a message or a package to someone at another camp. I try in vain to recall how I was
able to leave and come back, but I remember being sent once, together with another person, to one of the crematoriums (we
used that term generically to refer both to the gas chambers and the crematoriums). We had to pick up the gas my sauna boss
needed for the disinfection of clothes. Of course, I was terribly afraid to go near the place but had to do it anyway. When
we got there, we were greeted by inmates who worked at the crematoriums. Their job was to remove the bodies from the gas chambers
and burn them in the crematoriums. They were all strong young men who joked around with us, probably because they sensed that
we were terrified to be so close to the gas chambers. After we told them what we had come for, they gave us some containers
of gas to take back to the sauna. The person who had accompanied me thought that we had been given the same Zyklon gas that
was used to kill people in the gas chambers. I have no way of knowing whether that was true, although it made some sense,
considering that we got it from the crematorium.

The air in Auschwitz always smelled foul because of the smoke that came out of the crematorium chimneys. The odor and smoke
was strongest with every new transport that arrived in Birkenau, because the people who could not pass the initial selection
process on the station platform were immediately herded into the gas chambers. Whenever the crematoriums were being operated
at night, the sky above them would take on a reddish brown color. One summer, many decades after the war, I visited Auschwitz
and saw birds and wildflowers in what used to be Birkenau. It suddenly struck me that I had never seen a bird before in Auschwitz.
The smoke must have kept them away. Nor can I remember seeing any grass or trees there. The soil turned to mud when it rained
and remained mud for days on end, except in the winter when a mixture of dirty snow and ice covered the ground.

There was one barrack in the Gypsy camp where we could wash. Its water, always a rusty brown color and always ice cold, came
streaming out from small holes drilled in the long pipes that hung above sinks that resembled feeding troughs for cattle.
Another barrack served as a communal toilet. There, holes cut into long rows of elevated concrete slabs served as toilet seats.
This was our favorite camp location because it was the only place where it was always warm. But we were never allowed to stay
there longer than a few minutes. This rule was strictly enforced by an inmate caretaker from Greece. I will never forget him.
He played the mandolin very beautifully when not chasing us out. I soon learned that if I told him that I loved his music,
he would let me stay a little longer in that warm toilet.

One day, it may well have been in late October, we were awakened for what appeared to be a selection, although it differed
from the previous ones I was familiar with. We had no idea what was happening, since the SS was not following its routine
selection procedures. Instead of being counted as usual on such occasions, we were lined up, barrack by barrack, and herded
into a barrack toward one end of the camp. Once inside, we had to move in single file past a group of doctors who stood facing
us at the end of the barrack. I believe Mengele was there, but I cannot be sure since I never really dared to look. SS guards
were posted a few meters apart throughout the entire length of the barrack and on either side of the panel of doctors. My
father walked in first, and I followed behind him, looking for an escape route. There was none. When we were just a few meters
away from the doctors, one of them motioned my father to the left and me to the right. My father tried to pull me with him,
but an SS guard grabbed me while another kicked my father out of the barrack. That was the last time I saw my father.

I was taken to an adjacent barrack. It was guarded by an inmate who must have been the barrack boss. When I arrived in that
room, some other people were already there. Most of them looked sick; others were old, and some had become
Muselmans
or were close to it. There was another entrance at the end of the room. That door was kept closed with a piece of wire. Seeing
my opportunity, I stationed myself close to the door and waited. More people were brought into our room, all no different
from those already there. They seemed resigned to their fate. I was not! I knew that our destination was the gas chamber and
that I had to find a way to escape in order to rejoin my father. Moving ever closer to the door and keeping my eye on the
barrack boss, I began to unwind the wire. It came apart rather easily, and I bolted out of the door. Behind me, I could hear
some fellow inmates yell that I was escaping. Alerted, the barrack boss raced out and caught me. He slapped me around a few
times and dragged me back to the barrack. I managed to get out of the room twice more but was caught each time and hit again.

At that point, I decided that I would not be able to escape and that in a few hours I would die in the gas chamber. At first,
I was terribly angry with my fellow inmates who had given me away each time I had tried to escape. I could not understand
why they had done that. My escape would certainly not have affected their fate, and they must have known that they were on
their way to the gas chamber. Then I thought of my father and how upset he must be because, unlike in the past, he had not
been able to keep me from getting caught in a selection. I would like to have been able to tell him that he should not blame
himself, for he could not possibly have anticipated the trap we had walked into.

With these thoughts still swirling in my head, I moved to a corner of the room, away from the door, and sat down. After a
few minutes, I realized that I could no longer hear any voices around me, nor the barked orders of the SS guards in the nearby
barrack. Until then, I had been gripped with fear, fear of dying, for I realized that, having failed to escape, I was on my
way to the gas chamber. But then something most unusual happened. Slowly, very slowly, my fear and anxiety faded away as I
admitted to myself that there was no way out and that I would die in a few hours. The nervous tension that had hung over me
like a cloud lifted. An inner warmth streamed through my body. I was at peace, my fear had vanished, and I was no longer afraid
of dying.

When the selection had ended, there were some thirty to forty inmates in our room. We sat there waiting for the truck that
would take us to the gas chamber. Nothing happened for a while, and then an SS truck rolled up, and we were ordered inside.
At first, the truck moved in the general direction of the crematoriums, but then it veered off slightly and entered the nearby
Krankenlager,
or hospital camp, which I believe was camp F. The camp consisted of a number of barracks that housed prisoners who were sick
or quarantined. The truck rolled up to one of these barracks, and we were ordered out. Here we were received by orderlies
who took down our numbers on small index cards and made some other notations on each of them. Pressed to tell us why we had
been brought to them, we were told that we were there “in transit.” The SS had apparently concluded that it would be a waste
of resources to take our small group to the gas chamber, which would also have meant starting up one of the crematoriums.
They decided instead to keep us in this camp until they had put together a larger group.