The Dentist Of Auschwitz (10 page)

The next time Zosia and I met, I explained my strange behavior on Sunday. Suddenly I noticed something crawling up my sleeve. It was a body louse. I hoped she had not seen it. I excused myself and went to examine my clothes. There were more. I recalled that my grandfather had once told me he was a similar predicament in a trench during the First World War. They buried their clothes in the soil, he said, leaving a small piece out. Deprived of oxygen, the vermin would crawl out and sit on the piece of garment, and from there they could easily be shaken off. I tried it, but it didn’t work. Always conscious of the ugly pests, I felt them crawling on me everywhere. I feared that if Witczak, Basiak, or Kmiec noticed the blight, I would not be allowed to work in the office. A ghastly awareness kept me from eating that evening. The turnip soup tasted so foul that I vowed that if I survived I would never eat turnips again. These schoolrooms weren’t built to house eighty people. On warm nights the stench of our bodies was overpowering. No matter how much I tried to force myself to sleep, the bugs wouldn’t let me. This seemed to be a new form of Nazi cruelty, as if to assert the claim “Jews are social vermin.” At times all this seemed like a bad dream. I thought that someday I would wake up, and everything would be the way it used to be.

The next evening I saw my father picking the lice off our blankets. He thought the best way to get rid of them was with naphtha. I went into the first aid room to ask for some.

This was the first time that I had gone to the first aid station. The room was spacious and had a cabinet, two chairs, a table, a bench, and a stool. In the glass cabinet were aspirin, bandages, and a few bottles with iodine and the like. Goldstein, our first aid attendant, had the same remedies for all ailments: aspirin and bitter-tasting Baldrian drops. When I asked him if he had any naphtha to get rid of our lice and fleas, he laughed. “We do not have naphtha, and even if we did, you could not get rid of them. Every room is infested with them,” he said.

Goldstein knew that I had been a dental student before the war. A few days later, on a Saturday afternoon, he came looking for me. Could I help an inmate suffering pain from a toothache? he wondered. I followed him into the first aid room. The man, about thirty-five years old, had a handkerchief tied around his swollen right cheek. There was nothing in Goldstein’s cabinet that I could use to help him. I thought of the box under my pillow. When I returned with my tools, I looked into his mouth. I could see a fistula beside his second upper molar. I disinfected my scalpel over a flame and cut through the fistula, letting the pus drain out. My first operation was a success. From then on, Goldstein called me regularly. After work I spent many hours helping fellow inmates in the first aid room. By then, because of the lack of vitamins, especially vitamin C, most inmates suffered from bleeding gums. All I could do was dab iodine on the diseased gums, for temporary relief. In time everyone called me Dentist.

Eventually the day came when I had to attempt to extract a tooth. I winced at confronting it, but there was no one except me to do it. We had no novocaine. I had no choice. I quivered, my hands shook, and sweat ran down my forehead, fogging my eyes. I had to wipe them constantly. When I grasped the tooth with an angle forceps, Goldstein gripped the inmate’s head to keep it still. But the molar crumbled and broke off, leaving all three roots in the gingiva. Shaking, I reached in and tried to pry out each root separately, using levers. The poor man cringed and yelped, yet he held on and let me do it. After a half hour of torture, I succeeded in extracting two of the three roots. By then we both had had enough. Luckily his gums healed, and the remaining root did not bother him. Extracting a decayed molar without novocaine gave me confidence in the future. I knew that I could do it again, even with my rudimentary skills and no anesthesia.

The bugs now multiplied much faster than we could kill them. My greatest concern was for them not to be seen on me by the people working in the office. When they gnawed, I discreetly scratched through my clothes, but that led to more itching and pain. Sometimes I could not stand it and had to leave the office. One day I saw them crawling on my sleeve. Kmiec was next to me. I held my breath in fear that he might have noticed. I walked out and went to a secluded spot, and there I again tried the technique my grandfather had told me he had used. I undressed, buried my clothes, and waited. My skin looked as though it had been pricked by a thousand needles. There were handfuls of lice in my armpits and my crotch. I waited, but as before, the method didn’t work for me. These were not the same lice. They were not the lice of the First World War. Nearly impervious, they could only be killed with a hard fingernail. I killed as many as my time allowed and then returned to work. To go on killing them was useless. I knew that once I was in camp they would infest me again.

To avoid embarrassment, I was seeing Zosia less frequently. One day when she insisted on knowing why, I told her, adding that she should decide to stop seeing me. “Bronek,” she interrupted, “this is not going to change our relationship.” She came to see me as before.

The bugs were determined. The more we killed, the faster they seemed to multiply. They now were able to change colors. On the blankets they were gray, and on our bodies they disguised themselves in the color of their hosts’ flesh. Shaking them off our clothes only freed space for new colonies. Finally one day, in desperation, we burned all the straw that filled our pallets and pillows and slept on the bare wooden planks. The people of Heine, Kant, and Goethe were degrading us to a life in lice pits. Even now, so many years later, remembering this still brings shivers to my spine.

On a hot unbearable night with a bright full moon, I noticed that my father had left his bunk. I waited a while. When he didn’t return, I went to look for him. He wasn’t in the washroom or in the yard. I went back to the room, hoping he had returned in the meantime. I was startled, for he wasn’t back. This was unusual for Papa. I went back to the facilities building and saw him sitting in the back facing the fence. Being there at night was extremely dangerous. I walked in the shadow of the building so as not to be noticed by a guard and whispered, “Papa, is that you?” Hearing my voice, he rose. “Papa, what are you doing here? This is a very dangerous place at this hour. Is anything wrong, Papa?” I asked.

On the way back to our barracks, he said, “Oh, I just couldn’t sleep.” Back in the room I saw that his eyes were red, and I knew then that he had been crying. It suddenly occurred to me how hollow this sounded. So many things were wrong. It was wrong for us to be there. It was wrong for them to make us into slaves. That and more was wrong! I never found out why my father had sat out in the moonlight weeping. My father’s generation of Jews believed that they were at the mercy of their fate, without rights or the capacity to change. It saddened me to see this once-proud man cleaning floors, peeling potatoes, and washing dishes.

We Jews weren’t alone in hating the Nazis. One day when I came into the office, Basiak was standing by the window. “Those bastards,” he gasped. “They took away my sister to work for them as a slave in Germany.”

By then Tadek had my ring, and the other guards also had to be paid, as our bread-buying project continued. Most of us had found ways to communicate with our families. The news from the ghetto wasn’t encouraging to anyone. In each letter new victims were mentioned. With Zosia’s help and Stasia’s leftovers, Steineck was still bearable for my father and me, but a sudden incident of deception changed our lives.

B
y the end of August
the warm weather had come to an end. One day when we returned to camp, Chaim looked at me uneasily and said, “Krusche wants to see you, in the first aid room.”

“Why?” I asked. “What does he want me for?”

“He just wants to see you,” he repeated. His face showed concern, and I was sure that he was hiding something. No one was called to Krusche without a reason. I thought that Chaim knew more.

“What does he want of me?” I asked again, frightened. He looked around and then whispered that Krusche knew about our bakery ventures. I grasped my predicament, and immediately fear shot down my spine. “Who told him? How did he find out?” These were the big questions that troubled me.

“I think one of your group told him.” I couldn’t believe it. One of us? Why? “I think it was Baran,” he mumbled. I was stunned. Feivel Baran, a respected man from one of the most outstanding families in Dobra? The student of the acclaimed Gerer Rabbi Yeshiva? I could hardly believe that he could squeal on his fellow prisoners. With Krusche waiting, Chaim urged me to come, and I followed him.

When we entered the first aid room, the raffish German stood, feet apart, whip in hand, with Cheetah, the fierce German shepherd, at his side. Krusche’s face, never pleasant with its cramped lips, now looked full of violence. “Herr Lagerführer, Bronek Jakubowicz obediently reports as ordered,” I announced myself, expecting the worst. His heartless eyes speared me and made me believe I was standing before a tribunal of one. I had good reason to be frightened.

With his eyes riveted on me, he tied Cheetah to a chair. Then he came within centimeters of my face. I could smell his foul breath and feel his blazing anger, and in his guttural German he yelled: “Du Schweinehund, which guard let you go to the bakery and buy bread? Which one?”

I cringed. I had to gather enough courage to lie. I knew I couldn’t name Tadek. “Herr Lagerführer, we did not buy any bread. People left it for us on the road,” I mumbled.

He was convinced that I was lying, and his voice rose and became loud and threatening. I realized that he was mostly interested in the guard who had allowed us to leave the group. “You damned Jews, all you know is lying. I know you bought bread. Who permitted you to go into the bakery?” This time he struck my face with his gloves. “Tell me who let you leave!” He was furious. I saw that it was too late for me to admit having bought bread.

My heart pounded. Cold sweat ran down my spine. I had given Tadek my word not to give him away, and I had to stick to it. Besides, I thought, what I might say wouldn’t matter now. Krusche would punish me just the same. I bit my lips, dug my fingernails deep into the palms of my hands until it hurt, and repeated the lie. “Herr Lagerführer, the only bread we had outside was what people left for us on the road.”

But nothing would dissuade him, and he came violently at me again. This time I was sure he would kill me. He tore at me, hitting both sides of my face with his gloves. My head bobbed like a ping pong ball. Cheetah barked and foamed at the mouth, trying to get close and grab me. I was lucky that Chaim held her back, or she’d have torn me apart. Though my courage was waning, I kept telling myself, “Don’t give in.” It seemed that my persistent lie obsessed Krusche, and he was intent on punishing me rather than trying to get at the truth. Blood spattered from my mouth and nose onto my clothing and the floor. My stomach cramped. Will it ever end? I wondered.

Krusche picked up his leather-covered wire whip and handed it to Chaim. The real torture was about to begin. Krusche ordered me to lean over a chair and lower my pants, and then he ordered Chaim to dole out twenty-five lashes on my naked behind. I knew that Chaim wanted desperately not to have to do it. Chaim’s whip came down hard, but not hard enough for Krusche’s liking. Krusche took the whip and landed three very slow and deliberate blows on my rear. “This is how you do it,” he said, and he made Chaim begin all over again. This time I was ordered to do the counting.

One, two, three…I sensed when the whip rose and gritted my teeth until it landed. “One at a time,” Krusche said. “Slowly. Let him suffer.” The time of waiting between the blows doubled my pain. I bit my lips until they bled. And so it went on, seemingly forever. The last number I remembered counting was fifteen. I heard Krusche rumbling, “Slower. Harder.” At that point, I thought, life had left me, and I remembered nothing further.

By the time I realized I was still alive, I was on the corridor floor, still only half conscious, with my hands on my belly, doubled over with pain. I saw Papa and a few other inmates leaning over me, staring. I felt numb. Slowly I grew conscious and remembered what had happened. Papa and some others tried to help me to my feet. I got up, staggering. Blood was dripping from my mouth and nose. Papa ordered me to tilt my head back until the bleeding stopped. He shared all of my anguish. When they got me to the washroom, I saw Krusche’s fingerprints on my face. Because of my bludgeoned behind, I walked with my legs wide apart, trying to keep my clothes from brushing against my flesh. The most persistent and excruciating pain, however, was in my stomach.

Then I returned to the room and slid into my bunk. I pondered, wondering whether there was really a God, as I was taught to believe. I wallowed on the bunk. I thought about Feivel. Something must have gone wrong with his mind. How could he, also an inmate here, turn on his brothers? Perhaps he wanted to ingratiate himself with Krusche? These and other questions raced through my head.

It was the first time Krusche had punished any of us so brutally. As the night continued and the throbbing in my stomach didn’t subside, I wondered, Will I have to live with this pain from now on? The pain did not stop then and has not ever since.

Streaks of dawn found their way through our dirty windows. When the bells rang, I was already in the washroom, wiping my face and putting cold water on my behind. As my group assembled, I saw Krusche talking to Chaim. Chaim was his most-trusted policeman, and Krusche passed most of his orders concerning us through him. Then I saw Chaim go to the gate and call the head guard, Tadek. They returned and stopped before Krusche. Tadek saluted him with “Heil Hitler.”

“This is a Jew swine!” Krusche shouted to Tadek, pointing at me. “Did you know that he has been leaving the group to buy bread?”

I wondered how Tadek would respond. “I don’t know anything about that, Herr Hauptscharführer,” he answered.