By Chance Alone (8 page)

After our morning's labour, we stopped for a thirty-minute lunch break. A horse-drawn cart brought canisters of soup, and we each grabbed a metal dish and lined up in single file to be served. When my turn came, I received a ladle of a foul-smelling mixture I had never before seen in my life. It was dörgeműze, a type of vegetable soup. As I looked in the bowl, I recognized mouldy bread and cut-up stalks of mustard, and I simply refused to eat it. My father knew I must eat to survive, however, and he practically forced it down my throat. A few days later, when the hunger was more severe, the dörgemuze started to taste pretty good, and a single ladle was no longer enough to fill my stomach.

After everyone had received his portion of soup, there was sometimes extra left over. On those days, the man ladling the soup yelled out, “
Repeta!
” People would jump up and jostle one another to get to the front of the line. The Kapo often used this as an opportunity to have some sport, beating those men who'd made it to the front. Even worse, however, was the way the prisoners themselves would nearly kill each other when the soup was gone. I stood and watched as men dove into the canisters headfirst to lick up every remaining drop. I had never seen people act
in this way, like a pack of dogs fighting over a piece of meat. I was determined that no matter what happened, I would never stoop to that level.

One lunchtime, while the prisoners sat together in a tight group, the SS guards formed a cordon around us and sat in the shade of some trees. One of the guards closest to me unbuckled a knapsack, took out a sandwich and a Thermos, and proceeded to have his lunch. He washed down his large sandwich with the liquid from his Thermos, which I imagined must have contained good coffee. As a starving person, I found it terribly demeaning to watch the guards enjoy their generous meals in full view of us. While the guard ate, his big German shepherd sat motionless beside him, watching us with his ears perked up in guard mode. He was a beautiful dog, and he made me think of Farkas. What was he doing? Was he still guarding our house? The guard tore off a piece of his sandwich and threw it in front of the dog, but the dog sat on his haunches without a move. Suddenly, a member of our group jumped up and ran to grab this piece of bread. The guard uttered a simple order, and with one great leap, the dog had the man's wrist between his teeth. He kept hold of him until the guard gave him the order to release. The man's wrist was shredded, and he received a terrible beating as well. I wondered at the time who was crueller, the dog or the handler? At the end of the day, the man with the injured wrist and another with a severe cut were left behind at Budy, and we never saw them again.

After lunch, we continued to work for several hours, until finally we were ordered to stop and pile up our scythes on the flatbed cart, which was then brought back to Budy. Never in my life had I worked that hard for eight or nine hours a day on a
starvation diet of approximately three hundred calories. I was hungry and tired, and we still had several kilometres to march back to Auschwitz. The Kapo drove us mercilessly, calling out, “Left, left, left,” and constantly checking to see that we were all in step. As we neared Auschwitz, I could hear the camp orchestra and this perked me up. I regained some strength, and finally we arrived. Somehow, the marching and the music kept my spirits up. To me, the music was the only humane and normal thing in the camp. The music gave me hope.

We marched into camp looking forward to getting washed and with great anticipation of our meagre dinner. It is amazing how resilient the human body is—how we could survive on so few calories and adjust to so little food. As time went on, however, our bodies began to deteriorate due to the lack of nourishment. This was particularly evident when inmates contracted scurvy from a shortage of vitamins. On top of the hard daily labour, we had to deal with all these ailments and physical challenges, and still try to stay sane. I had a feeling of accomplishment that I managed to keep up with older and much stronger men.

At the end of every day, we rushed to our barracks, washed and cleaned our boots, and lined up for our dinner of ersatz coffee, a thin slice of bread, and a tiny square of margarine. We had to eat very fast and get back outside to line up for
appel
. Standing in that line after so many hours of hard work was a terrible punishment. I had to imagine that I was a tree with deep roots in the ground, and this was the anchor that kept me upright. Some men fainted from standing so long. If they fell, they were beaten and forced back into a standing position. If they could not stand, the prisoners on either side of them had to hold them up until the count was complete.

When everyone had been accounted for, we were dismissed. That first night, I went to the small infirmary to get some bandages for my blisters. A doctor put some iodine on my wounds and gave me a roll of paper bandages. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to work with my injured hand the next day. The wounds did take a while to heal, but eventually my hands became as hard as leather.

At approximately
9
:
30
p.m., a gong sounded, indicating that everyone had to be in his bunk. This was called Lagersperre, and it meant that the camp was closed for the night. Anyone found outside after this could be shot from the guard towers or brought down by a sergeant who was known as Kaduk (Polish for “the Hangman”). Kaduk stalked the streets of the camp with his big German shepherd, which would rip any unfortunate person apart on command.

Once we were in our bunks, the lights were turned off. There was snoring and groaning from the day's hard labour. When we went to sleep, we only took off our boots. I used mine as a pillow, tying the shoelaces to my wrist so people would not be able to steal them from me in the night. As I lay in my bunk, I tried to digest the events of the past twenty-four hours. I thought of my clean and comfortable bed at home, which now seemed a million miles away, and I wondered what the next day had in store.

***

After we finished harvesting the mustard, our unit was split in two. We were down to fifty people from the original hundred. My father, my uncle, and I stayed together in the Landwirtschaft Kommando and would be given a new assignment. After one
week in Auschwitz, I had learned some of the ropes and was beginning to understand how to exist in this horrible place. But the dreariness of following the same routine every day was draining, and there was no mental stimulation of any kind.

Much worse than the everyday indignities and deprivations were the horrors I was exposed to on a daily basis. I recall coming back to camp from work on the third or fourth day and seeing a body hanging from the gallows, right in our faces. The man wore a sign that read, “This is what happens to people who try to run away from here.” It was a shock to see the man hanging, and it was also a warning to keep us in line.

Every day there was another unexpected horror. Those who tried to smuggle in so-called contraband from work—a potato or a beet, for example—were often discovered at the gate, and were given twenty-five lashes for their transgression. This punishment was always meted out at
appel
in the evening, when all inmates were present and had to watch. The accused person was stripped naked and bent over a wooden drum, and his hands and feet were tied down. His back and buttocks were exposed, and he was whipped by a Kapo. In reality, this beating was usually a death sentence, because hardly anyone was able to recover from it. The gallows was located in the same place.

When it was not used to torture and execute inmates, this open square in front of the camp kitchen served other purposes. Sometimes, there was a black market where we could barter our bread rations for rags or something we called
mahorka
(a tobacco made from tree bark). Many of the old-timers were able to get a hold of luxuries such as meat, brandy, cigarettes, cigars, and woollen blankets from Holland. These special items were available only to the Prominente, the prisoners at the very top of
the camp hierarchy. The Prominente lived in comfort compared to the rest of us, enjoying separate rooms and special privileges that gave them status and safety. Most importantly, they had connections they could use to procure food, clothing, and other luxuries. The rest of us had absolutely no chance to partake in these exclusive items. In the twisted logic of Auschwitz, this main square was both a place of everyday commerce and bureaucracy, and a site of torture.

I
t took about a week to harvest all the mustard (although it felt like an eternity), and after that we returned to Budy to pick up our tools for the next assignment. Shovels and hoes were loaded on a two-wheeled cart and brought to a large swampy area, where we were split into two groups. The first group was forced to dig trenches on the edge of the swamp, while the other group, which included me, waded in with boots on to dig channels to direct the water into the perimeter ditch. The sun was burning hot, and my boots and trousers were soon wet and full of mud. Despite all the water around us, we weren't able to drink it because it could cause dysentery, which was often fatal. I had thought the mustard fields were awful, but this was much, much worse.

During our lunch break, my father, my uncle, and I sat together as a family, just as we did every day. The Kapo, Heinrich, must have noticed this, though, because he stood right in front of us and asked my father to identify the person next to him, pointing to my uncle. My father said it was his brother. Then he
pointed at me and asked who I was. My father said I was his son. I feared that this was not going to end well.

I had taken my boots off during lunch to try to get the mud out of them, and so I was barefoot when the Kapo yelled at us to get our hoes and get back to work. I rushed to get my boots on while still sitting on the ground, but I wasn't quick enough for Heinrich, who expected his orders to be followed immediately. He began to beat me with his truncheon. I thought my bones were going to crack, but I didn't utter a sound. I had noticed that when the Kapo was beating others, he would pile it on even harder if they yelled out from the pain or begged him to stop. I kept my mouth shut, hoping that he would be more quickly satisfied and would leave me alone. When he was finished with the beating, I grabbed my tools and my boots and ran into the swamp to continue working. This was the first serious beating I'd received in Auschwitz. I was sore and had welts all over my body, but thankfully nothing was broken. Still, I felt violated and humiliated.

The next day, Heinrich went after my father, giving him his own terrible beating. When I saw his pain, I was frustrated that I could do nothing to help him. Later that day, when we returned to camp, my father suggested that we split up, so as not to present an obvious family group. He believed that the Kapo was attacking us because he feared our family unit would strengthen the ties between us. My father thought that if we didn't split up, we would not be able to survive the daily beatings.

Two days later, my father and uncle managed to get into another work unit; I remained with Kapo Heinrich. I don't know how my father and uncle managed to change work units, but it meant that they were moved to a different barracks. For me, this
was the start of a new chapter. At fifteen and a half, I was completely on my own during the day, and I had only a few hours to spend with my father and Uncle Eugene before evening lockdown. I was worried about how I would manage without my two guardians, but I was determined to show my father that I had the wherewithal to survive on my own.

After a few days of working in the swamps, my feet were bearing the brunt of the labour. Standing in water all day made my boots soggy, and I couldn't remove them until I got back into my bunk. By the morning, when the boots had dried, it was very difficult to get my feet back into them. I had to force them, and I could no longer use the piece of rag that I had previously wrapped around my feet in place of socks. My heels rubbed against the boots and soon became a bloody mess. With constantly bleeding heels, I had trouble walking. I didn't know how to deal with this problem, which was very worrying because without your feet, you were in big trouble. Every morning, I woke up and focused on making it through the day. My father had always told me to put one foot in front of the other, and this was the advice I repeated to myself constantly.

After a while my heels miraculously healed and I was able to wrap them with a piece of cloth to protect them. In the camp, you had to be inventive and use your smarts to survive. I didn't want my father to worry, so I never told him about my injured feet. And soon I had another concern: by the end of June, I was covered with painful boils from lack of vitamins. My body was screaming for protein, but there was none to be had. My bodily functions were also changing—something I'd observed in many older inmates, who simply could not control their bladders. I began to have the same problems, and soon I found myself
climbing down from the top bunk in the middle of the night to rush to the washroom. When we'd first arrived in the camp, my father had said that we should take the top bunks even though it would be harder to get into them as our bodies got weaker. I realized now that being up top at least shielded us from the accidents of those who couldn't make it to the washroom.

Food was the foremost item on our agenda. We thought about it during the day and dreamt about it during the night. I constantly fantasized about meals I'd had at home. I remembered how much I'd hated my mother's tomato soup with rice, but now I thought how wonderful it would be to have a bowl. I told G-d that if I survived and got out of this place, I would be a very good person. I would live happily in a forest alone, and a piece of bread, a potato, and a glass of milk would be a dream come true.

The nights were the time when memories of home and family came flooding back to my mind. How long had it been since I'd left? It was only a couple of months, but it seemed like a thousand years. I could see my family, the faces of each one of them. I didn't want to forget what they looked like or what they had taught me. But at the same time, I knew that if I let my thoughts get too carried away, I would become very vulnerable. So I made myself stop remembering and then was able to sleep more soundly. Still, it always seemed that mornings came much too early, and the Kapo's harsh voice screaming at us to get down from our bunks was a most unwelcome greeting to a new day.

As the days dragged on, I noticed some men with glazed eyes, acting like drunken people who could no longer follow orders. They were beaten, but it made no difference. They had simply given up on living. Inevitably, these men were singled
out and taken to the gas chambers. I didn't know about depression at my age, so I worried that the behaviour of these men was somehow contagious. I resolved not to be stricken with what ailed them. There were many times that I faced desperate situations in the weeks and months that followed, but I was determined to survive.