By Chance Alone (12 page)

L
ike many prisoners, I lived in hope that the Red Army would arrive in the next week or two and our nightmare would finally be over. On January
18
,
1945
, my hopes were dashed. Many inmates of satellite camps were brought into Auschwitz I, and the rumour went out that we were going to be evacuated. We didn't know where this was going to end, and whether the Germans were going to execute us or let us go.

Among the people brought in to barrack
21
were two brothers from my hometown who had been working in the coalmines at Buna, a satellite camp of Auschwitz I. They were in terrible shape and black from coal dust. They simply lay down on the floor of the barracks and said they could not get up again. I also saw, for the last time, the boy with the gunshot wound, whom Dr. Gordon had nursed back to health and taught to speak again. The boy, like the brothers, was not strong enough to join the departing prisoners. They stayed behind, and in fact were liberated one week later by the advancing Russian army.

That evening, SS men combed the camp and shouted for everyone to line up. We were told we were being moved to another camp—a move for which I had no time to prepare. I had only my light jacket and cap, but thankfully I still had my sturdy boots with their now-worn soles; many of the marchers had nothing but wooden clogs, which made it virtually impossible to walk.

It was an eerie night with fires burning all around and Russian airplanes dropping magnesium flares that lit up the camp. I could hear artillery in the distance. Before we exited through the gate, we were given a chunk of bread for our journey. Approximately twenty thousand of us were ordered to form ourselves into rows of five with our arms hooked together. Outside the gates, the SS guards and their attack dogs positioned themselves on each side of this enormous column. It was bitter cold and there was a lot of snow on the ground. I was on the outside left of my row. Those who fell out of the column were immediately shot in the head by the guards, who were determined not to leave any prisoners behind.

In the chaos of our rushed departure, I lost contact with all the doctors of barrack
21
. I was alone and I realized that this march would be the ultimate test of my endurance. My body was in a cold sweat, my feet were soaking wet, and my light jacket and pants were also damp. The only thing that gave me a little warmth was a paper cement bag that I'd managed to retrieve as we passed a construction site. I ripped holes in the bottom and the two sides to create a vest, then slipped it over my head. We were constantly prodded to move faster because the SS did not want the column to stretch out too far, making it difficult to guard. The five of us in my row realized that we needed to
march in unison, with our arms hooked together, in order to conserve our strength. We could not waste energy on anyone who would weigh us down, because it was difficult enough to carry our own bodies.

The second night was starless, but the snow made it possible to see the faint contours of the trees on my side of the column. On the other side, there was a large open area without trees. Suddenly I heard popping sounds coming from a distance, and I could see something that looked like fireflies coming toward us. They were tracer bullets, and I could hear the impact as they hit many marchers on my right side. Everyone panicked and pushed over to the left. I was overrun by the mob and thrown into a ditch, and many marchers landed on top of me. I was pinned down and unable to move, but I kept my cool and tried not to panic. The guards shouted for us to get up and keep marching, and the tone of their shouting suggested that they were scared of losing control of us. Those who were injured in the attack were shot on the spot.

We were the unfortunate victims of Red Army scouts, or perhaps partisans who had mistakenly taken us for retreating German army units. When I finally emerged from the ditch, I couldn't find the other four marchers from my row, so I tried to move as far as possible to the front of the column. It was more dangerous to be in the back with the stragglers, who were systematically picked off by the guards. I sweated profusely from the exertion of marching through deep snow, and my ears, hands, and nose were frostbitten. I had to find some way to protect my skin. As we marched on, I realized that one person in my row had succumbed and was dead. Before we let go of him, we stripped off his jacket and tore it into strips; I used my strips
to cover my head and ears. I felt like a vulture, but I told myself that this person didn't need his jacket anymore. This was an act of self-preservation.

As the sun rose over the snow on the third day, the landscape was strangely beautiful. There were thousands of inmates in front of me and thousands behind me, and on both sides the SS guards cursed and shouted. Where were they taking us? What was the point? At midday, we exited a forested area and came to a village, where I could see houses with smoke rising from their chimneys. I thought about the warmth inside these houses and imagined normal people having their lunch. How wonderful a cup of tea would taste right then! All I could do was grab a handful of snow to keep myself sustained. As we entered the village, we were ordered to squeeze closer together because of the narrow streets. The guards were alert for people who might try to escape. I thought of the doctors from barrack
21
. They could have slipped away easily because they were in their homeland and spoke the native tongue. I could not take this risk. Instead, I had to march on, and as I did, more people fell away from the column and the gunshots became more frequent. The byways in occupied Poland were strewn with the bodies of those who could not endure this death march.

Later in the day, as we neared a crossroads, I saw a farmer sitting on a sled pulled by two beautiful horses. The bells on their harness were ringing as they waited impatiently for the large column to pass. I remembered those cold winter mornings from my childhood, when farmers came to town and I would jump on the runners of their sleds to hitch a ride to school. Would I ever hitch a ride again? I grabbed another handful of snow and continued to put one foot in front of the other. Surely, I thought, we
would stop soon. While I was determined to carry on, the dark nights were extremely difficult and my spirit was at a low ebb.

In the afternoon of the third day, we came to a large abandoned farm where the Nazis told us we would spend the night, our first rest stop since leaving Auschwitz. It had many stables and storage barns, and it was wonderful to rest at last. The straw on the floor of the barn gave my body a cushion that helped me survive another day. I buried myself in a pile of this heavenly smelling straw and went into a deep slumber. The following morning, I awoke to the guards shouting, “
Raus! Raus!
Line up!” For a moment, I considered hiding in a pile of straw, but I was concerned that I would be shot on the spot if discovered. As it turned out, my concern was well placed. As we lined up in formation, the SS guards combed the stables, shooting indiscriminately into the piles of straw. Any who were hiding there were killed.

We had already marched for three nights without any food, and now we were onto the fourth day. I was light-headed from hunger, and my body was not cooperating. I tried to keep my mind from deteriorating and focused on positive thoughts. The day was milder, and I could see that we were headed toward a sizeable town. By the afternoon, we were crammed into a soccer field. I lay down on my back, rested my feet against a fence, and looked up at a beautiful blue sky. I was almost able to imagine that I was catching my breath after a soccer game with my friends. An hour or two later, the SS ordered us to get back into formation and we were on the move again, this time to a railway station in a town named Loslau.

When we got to Loslau, we found a long line of forty to fifty open flat cars waiting. We were ordered to climb inside and were
packed tightly together. Between the flatcars, there were several cabooses where the SS guards positioned themselves. They watched over us and shot anyone who tried to escape. The walls of the flatcars were metal and extremely cold. Everyone tried to get into the middle of the group for warmth. We started up, and as the locomotive built up speed, the wind it generated against our heads and bodies made the cold penetrate even deeper. I felt like I was in an icebox. I was in this flatcar for approximately four days, standing up, chilled to the bone, without food or toilet facilities. Many people died along the way.

At one point, I thought about a book I had read about the Orient Express, and I tried to imagine how wonderful it would be to experience that level of luxury right then. But this thought was not able to distract me for long. How many more days would this journey last? Where were we going? We travelled only during daylight hours because at night the smoke and the cinders of the locomotive would have been a giveaway for low-flying Allied fighter pilots, who bombed anything that moved on rails. Overnight, we stood at railway stations or sidings, and the SS units aggressively patrolled our transport so that no one could escape.

Standing in the cars was even worse than marching because we were in such cramped quarters. The tougher among us waited for the weaker ones to expire so that we could get some relief. We stripped these poor souls of their meagre clothing to protect our freezing heads and limbs. Because the SS did not permit us to dispose of the dead, the cadavers were left in the cars and we were forced to endure the indignity of standing on the bodies. In the mornings, before the train took off again, the SS guards and their officers were served breakfast from the kitchen car. I could
smell food being cooked, and it was a terrible tease. They were fed while we were dying from starvation.

On the seventh night, the train came to a stop at a large station that was in total darkness. We heard the eerie sound of sirens as searchlights combed the skies for airplanes, and then there was a racket of anti-aircraft guns. We were right in the middle of a bombing raid, and shrapnel hit the metal sides of our flatcar. I thought that after all I had been through, I could not be killed by Allied bombers! When the raid was over, silence prevailed.

As the skies became lighter in the morning, wet snow came down, and I could make out the name Pilsen on the railway station. This told me that I was back in occupied Czechoslovakia. I began to feel more hopeful when I heard a commotion several cars behind us. I saw that there was a bridge extending over the railway tracks just down the line, and on that bridge were several people throwing chunks of bread into the flatcars below. The SS guards yelled out, “Do not throw bread! These are Jews!” but the people ignored them. Finally, the guards sprayed the bridge with their submachine guns and the people ran away. Although I was too far away to receive any bread, the actions of these people nurtured me nonetheless. Knowing that there were still kind and caring people in the world boosted my spirits and gave me new life.

We left the Pilsen station. It was January
25
,
1945
, and I had not had any food since we'd departed Auschwitz on January
18
—seven days earlier. I was catching snowflakes on my tongue to hydrate myself. Half the people in our flatcar were now dead, and we'd pushed their bodies to one corner to give us extra space. But I couldn't ignore the frozen cadavers—they were a constant reminder of where I would wind up if the journey
continued much longer. I was in need of exercise and nourishment, and the constant standing was torture on my body.

I was barely hanging on. Heavy snow was coming down on us, and all the dead bodies were blanketed in it, while we living zombies were wet to the bone. The train came through a station with a German name plaque. I wasn't sure if we were in Austria or Germany, but both felt like the lion's den. In the distance, I could see a railway bridge spanning a wide river, and someone said that this must be the Danube. The train came to a stop, and we were ordered out of the flatcars. I could see large chunks of ice floating down the river, and my first thought was that the guards were going to shoot us and dump us into the water. Why didn't the train proceed across the bridge? I had my answer as soon as I got closer and saw the twisted metalwork and missing railway ties. The bridge had been badly damaged by Allied bombings, and we were forced to make the hazardous crossing by foot. I had to pace myself while jumping over missing railway ties—it required a delicate strategy because others tried to grab at you, and that would hinder your balance. Many people fell through the missing spaces into the icy waters below and were gone. There was no margin for error. Those who got across were made to line up in formation by the SS guards, and we marched forward. Ahead of us, I could see a town. We were told to tighten up our lines as we came closer to it. A roadside sign told us we were in Mauthausen.

My first impression was of beautiful homes and storefronts with sparkling clean windows and delicate lace curtains. The structures were about three storeys high and had beautiful wooden ornamentation on the outside. For me, it was unbelievable to think that people were living in such comfort while we
were in such misery, filth, and danger. I longed for a hot bath in one of these homes. I could die happily if I could just have a bath, I thought. While we marched through the town in the centre of the road, we passed three young women, each pulling a child in a sleigh. The children were all bundled up in knitted wear, toques, and scarves, and they had rosy cheeks and bright eyes. But they looked at us in horror. We were black from frostbite, dirty, and in rags, and a foul odour followed us like a stray dog. The children stared at us, but the three women refused to look our way. They totally rejected the sight of us, as if to say that they did not acknowledge the reality of what was happening right in front of them. I thought of the people in Pilsen throwing bread to us and noted the stark contrast.