Eva's Story (8 page)

She was directing the line of naked and shorn women to a table at the far end of the room where everyone was being questioned in turn about their names, ages and professions. It was just like being admitted into a hospital. Every detail was written down on a form. This efficiency gave us a sense of being enrolled. As I stood and listened I noticed that everybody in front of me suddenly seemed to have a useful profession. Ordinary housewives declared themselves to be ‘cooks' or ‘dressmakers', ‘shoemenders' or ‘nurses' so when I came to give them my details I said I was a secretary.

From time to time SS men came in and strolled around to look and leer at our bodies. It was a sport for them to pinch the bottoms of younger, attractive women and I felt really degraded when one of the men walked near to me and then pinched my bottom.

We are being treated like cattle – not people
, I thought.

We were lined up to be tattooed on our arm with numbers corresponding to those on our admission papers. Mutti was branded first and when it was my turn she stood beside me with her arm round my shoulder.

‘She is only a child,' Mutti said. ‘Don't hurt her.' Once again the woman acquiesced so that the tattoo on my left arm was done as gently as it could be and my number came out much fainter than the others.

All this processing had taken hours. We were very thirsty and feeling faint. I was so thirsty that I promised myself I would drink the first water I saw.

At last we were moved on to the final ‘reception room' where we were given some clothing. Everybody was issued with one pair of knickers of indiscriminate size, one overgarment handed out at random and two shoes. Not a pair of shoes, not even a right and left shoe, just two odd shoes. None of them matched and we spent some time going round to each other trying to swap garments and shoes to fit.

So much for my steel supports!
I thought.

As we were about to be let outside, I heard the SS screaming at the Kappo guards. They in turn shouted at us to get back into line. We were all queued up again to be re-tattooed. Apparently, there had been some error in the numbering and the ‘clerk' had made a mistake. My number which was A/5232 was changed to A/5272. She simply scored a line through the ‘3' and tattooed ‘7' on top, just as I might have corrected mistakes in my exercise book. Even with tattooing everything had to be done exactly by the book.

The ordeal was finally over. We stepped out into the early evening light to be marshalled to our quarters. As we began to move forward in fives I spied an outside tap on the wall of one of the buildings. I could not resist it. Darting over I turned on the tap, put my mouth to the stream of water and drank. It was so wonderful to taste that refreshing liquid. Several others copied me and ran over to the tap before we were screamed at and pushed back into line.

It was a weary walk for us in unaccustomed footwear along a dry and dusty road. We stumbled towards the quarantine block where we were to be kept apart from the rest of the camp for the next three weeks. It seemed ridiculous to take such precautions.

Birkenau was the largest of the Auschwitz camps – a vast complex of barrack buildings divided and subdivided by barbed wire and electrified fencing. Some of the buildings had originally been designed as stables, others had been built by former generations of inmates. The entire camp held tens of thousands of prisoners and the compound we were taken to contained about twenty barracks, each housing approximately 500 to 800 women.

There were two Kappos – barrack bosses – in each building whose task was to administer the block according to Nazi regulations. For the most part they were Polish Christians, though a few were Jews. They survived as long as they were tough enough to control the rest of us. They had special privileges and their own small rooms with stoves at the end of the block where they could cook their own food and keep warm.

We, on the other hand, had no facilities at all. We had to sleep ten to a bed – and a ‘bed' was one tier of a three-level wooden bunk. That first night, when we were ordered to get into bed, I climbed into a middle bunk with Mutti and eight others. We had not been given any food or water since we had arrived. Even though it was still early evening we were told we had missed supper and would have to wait for breakfast.

I was utterly exhausted. Oblivious to everything, including our bedmates, I lay in Mutti's arms and slept.

In the early hours of the following morning before the sun was up (it was about 4.00 a.m.), the Kappo women appeared and yelled at us to get up and make our beds – even this routine was strictly regimented; the blankets had to be fitted and tucked in absolutely symmetrically. Then we had to sweep the barracks – funnily enough, there was little dirt or rubbish because we had no food or possessions so, while our quarters were relatively clean, it was only we who were filthy and vermin-ridden. Then we were ordered outside for roll-call (Appel). It was warm, the sky luminous with a pale yellow light that gradually merged into blue. As we stood in rows of five I watched the dawn appear. The whole camp was outside waiting to be counted. Every woman prisoner was called out for Appel, in lines along the length of the camp, while German guards and their dogs walked along the rows. The count lasted for two hours. We had to stand without moving, looking straight ahead for as long as it took.

It was to be a test of endurance we would have to face twice every day of our life in the camp. On this warm, summer morning it was inconceivable that we would be subjected to this kind of torture throughout the bitterly cold Polish winter dawns without anything warmer to wear than the clothes we stood up in. Nor did I imagine then that if just one digit of the count was wrong, the whole process would have to begin again. Inevitably, as time wore on into winter, deaths would throw the count out and the ordeal would inflict more deaths the following night.

The first Appel was a special torment because we had still been given neither food nor water. By this time I was so hungry I was desperate for something to eat, but we were not dismissed until the sun was up and only then were we allowed to return to the barrack where food and drink was distributed. Everyone was given a piece of black bread about four inches thick. Cold black substitute coffee without sugar was handed out in chipped enamel or old tin mugs to one in every five people. As there were not enough utensils to go around it meant the portion in each mug had to be shared by five. This was the usual system and we quickly learned that possession of one's own mug was necessary to get one's share. Mutti and I eventually had to sacrifice several rations of bread between us to obtain a mug.

But this morning I hung on to the mug until it was pulled away from me by another desperately thirsty woman. I don't think Mutti had any at all. I ate all my bread immediately without realizing that it was supposed to last for the whole day.

After this feast we were led to the latrines. These were in a barrack five blocks away from ours and consisted simply of an open sewer running down the centre of the barrack. Along the middle was a higher stone walk where a supervising Kappo could march the length of the latrines. Each concrete side had about thirty round openings set over the open sewer. There were no facilities for cleanliness or hygiene; no toilet paper, no flushing water and certainly no privacy. As we entered the barrack the stench was overpowering.

One of the golden rules that Pappy had tried to impress upon me was never actually to sit on a strange toilet seat so I tried to stand – as did several others: we all shared a feeling of intense disgust. However, when the walking Kappo eventually came up behind me she hit me so hard across my shoulders with her stick that it forced me to sit down. She walked along striking out with vigour at anyone who tried to stand.

‘You will be brought here three times a day in a whole group,' she told us contemptuously, ‘and you had better use it properly.'

And with that, we were marched back to an open courtyard surrounded by barbed-wire fencing outside the perimeter of the barrack and left there to spend the rest of the day.

The sun beat down on our unprotected, newly shaven heads; it burned the backs of our necks and ears and made my fair skin red and sore. There was no shade, nowhere to sit, and nothing to do.

The routine was to be the same for the next three weeks. We were left outside all day, even if it rained. When the skies opened we were drenched and the dry dust turned into a muddy quagmire around our ankles. We could not avoid being caked in mud and dirt. Every refinement of ordinary human living, even simple shelter, was denied to us. We were being treated like animals – rather worse, because we were not even fed or watered.

We spent the days talking to each other in small groups. Most of us had come from Holland and since we were sharing the same fate we tried to become friendly with those around us. We met Franzi again and she joined our little group. She had been through the same ordeal as we had and although she had not lost her quiet courage, now she seemed to need a little comfort herself.

‘Eva reminds me of Irene, my little sister,' she said to Mutti catching hold of my hand and squeezing it. ‘So we can be a kind of family in here, can't we?'

‘Of course,' said Mutti. ‘We will try to take care of each other as best we can.'

It was only a token reassurance in such awful circumstances but from that moment onwards we became trusted friends.

Early on the second day I began to suffer from violent stomach cramps. I had very bad diarrhoea and needed to relieve myself almost immediately. I could hardly contain myself as I went to ask the Kappo at the end of the barrack if I could go to the latrines.

‘Verfluchte Mistbiene
,
1
it is not your turn,' she spat at me.

‘But I have to go!' I was quite desperate.

‘You must wait for your turn like everyone else!' she said.

I could hardly believe that she would refuse me and I did not know what to do. I had terrible cramps that doubled me up and it was impossible for me to hold on for even two more minutes. I got outside the barrack just in time to crouch down and use a corner of the yard.

But the Kappo had followed me out and she stormed over, yanked me up and cursed, ‘You filthy Jew!' She slapped me around the head as hard as she could, yelling, ‘This is the way you will all die! Infected with dysentery and typhus – because you animals can't control yourselves!'

She had a firm grip on my dress. She dragged me forward hitting me viciously across my face, first on the right side and then on the left until my ears rang and I felt even sicker than I was already.

‘Here is a bad example to you all,' she shouted to the others. ‘Her thoughtless action will give you all contagious illnesses. She is a typical specimen of you pigs and we will punish her!'

Everyone was called out to witness my degradation. I had to fetch a heavy wooden stool, then kneel down and hold it above my head. All the members of the barrack had to stand in a circle around me. As I sank to kneel in the dust, terrible stomach cramps gripped me again.

The heat became unbearable as the sun beat down on my shaven head, severely burning the back of my neck and ears. I was plagued with thirst. My arms ached as I struggled to keep the stool above my head. If I flagged and tried to rest a bit with the seat on my head to release the tension in my arms the Kappo would come over and kick me. I was in agony.

Mutti had placed herself right in front of me and she was crying, her face showed me her heart was nearly breaking with anguish at the sight of my plight. But as I knelt there in the centre of the crowd they started to whisper encouraging words to support me.

‘Come on, Eva!'

‘It won't be much longer!'

‘Don't give in, Eva!'

But no Kappo was going to have the satisfaction of seeing me do that! Somehow I got through the next two hours until I heard the voice of the Kappo saying, ‘That will teach you to obey orders in future.'

My ordeal was over. Everyone crowded around and made a great fuss of me for having been so brave and tough – even though, they said, I was so young. They supported me, half fainting, back to the barrack and I was left to lie on the bunk for the rest of the day. By the evening the stomach cramps had gone and I was feeling much better.

At first I seemed to recover because for a time I became a little heroine and it boosted my morale. Many women yearned so desperately for their own children that they poured all their maternal love on me and I became quite a pet.

However, the ailment had got hold of me. I awoke a few days later shaking with fever, and burning with such a high temperature that I could hardly stand up. But I knew I had to go out on Appel because otherwise the count would not be correct; it would last for hours and it would all be my fault.

My teeth were chattering so much I could hardly speak. ‘Help me, Mutti,' I moaned.

She lifted me against her, supporting me until we were outside. Franzi stayed close by to help hold me up and we managed to position ourselves in the last row so that when no SS women or Kappos were near enough to see I could lean against the wall. It was early dawn again. By now I was only semi-conscious. Once or twice I sank on to my heels after Mutti or Franzi told me my head had been counted. Throughout that day I lay in the compound barely conscious of anything around and by the next day I was still no better.

Any inmate with a high fever was a dangerous bunkfellow. By now the others were beginning to complain that I should not be there. ‘Take her to the hospital block,' they kept nagging Mutti, but I refused to go. Even though I had not yet faced up to the reality of the gas chambers, I had realized that the hospital block housed the most vulnerable inmates for torture and death. There were many rumours going round that patients were being experimented on, often in the most painful and disgusting ways.

‘I don't want to die!' I sobbed. ‘I want to stay with you, Mutti.' As long as she was there she would protect me.