By Chance Alone Read online

  Auschwitz I had twenty-eight two-storey brick barracks. Each floor was divided into two parts, and and there were a total of twelve hundred inmates per barrack. Each building had a Block Altester (barracks elder), and each room had a room elder. The elders were part of the camp bureaucracy, and they enjoyed certain privileges, including privacy and extra provisions. The washroom in each barracks (one washroom per building) had a trough with many water taps that could accommodate a large number of people at a time, and next to this trough was a room full of flush toilets. We slept in triple-tiered bunk beds, as we had at Birkenau, but now we had mattresses instead of wooden slats. The mattresses had once been filled with straw, but after years of use by previous prisoners, they were now bags of dust. On top of each mattress sat a smelly, dirty blanket.

  Our work unit occupied one room on the second floor of barrack 16, and my bed was on the top of the bunk closest to the roofline, which was covered with small tiles made of some kind of shavings that were glued together. We had no extra items. My total wardrobe consisted of my jacket, my pants, my cap, and my boots. Here I began my new life as a slave labourer working for the German Reich.

  Near the main camp gate was a long kitchen building where prisoners prepared meals for approximately twenty-five thousand inmates and the SS guards. Those twenty-five thousand inmates occupied approximately twenty of the barracks, and several others were used as warehouses for clothing and wool blankets that were confiscated from people when they arrived at Birkenau. These items were cleaned at Auschwitz I and eventually shipped to Germany for their economic benefit. One barracks was used as a first aid clinic where people with work-related injuries came for help. Barrack 21 housed a surgery, and the upper floors were used as hospital wards for patients. Next to barrack 21 was the building used for medical experiments on inmates. Barrack 11 had torture chambers and prison cells; beside it, there was a firing wall where seventy thousand of the earliest Auschwitz inmates—mostly Polish political prisoners—were shot. I always gave barrack 11 a wide berth. On the other side of barrack 21 was the laundry building. Auschwitz I also had a small experimental crematory, called Crematorium I.

  Arriving at Auschwitz I the first time, we were taken to a barracks where a Kapo, who introduced himself as Heinrich, was waiting for us. He was short and wore a green triangle—he was most likely a murderer from a German jail who had been released and brought to the camp to be our work boss. He and others like him turned out to be the most brutal killers in the camp. The SS gave them permission to beat and kill any workers they pleased. He had a truncheon in his hand and piercing eyes that seemed to look right through you. Speaking in German, he said, “If you do not follow my orders, your life will come to a speedy end. I will beat you to death. You will die here from beating or starvation, or be worked to death. And surely you will go through the gas chamber. This unit is called the Landwirtschaft Kommando [Land Management Unit]. Tomorrow morning you will have your first taste of Auschwitz.” I could understand and communicate in basic German, which I had studied briefly in school and heard my grandfather occasionally speak at home. After the Kapo’s introduction, we were abruptly dismissed.

  Because we were not allowed to enter our barracks until all units had returned from work, we had a few hours to walk around and familiarize ourselves with the layout of the camp. I observed that the Kapos and some other inmates appeared to have tailor-made prisoner clothing and sturdy, smart-looking boots. They also looked well fed compared to the other prisoners, who were skinny and haggard. Most of these inmates bore red triangles printed with a P; they were political prisoners and the first inmates in Auschwitz I. They were called the Prominente, and they controlled the entire internal infrastructure of the camp. Eventually it became evident to me that the hierarchy in the camp gave political prisoners certain benefits to keep body and soul together, while we Jews on the lowest rung of the ladder had to fight for survival on a daily basis. I knew that unless a door opened, there would be no way for me to climb out of this hole. Starting the very next morning, our lives were controlled by an iron discipline every hour of the day and night.

  The orchestra suddenly struck up a tune, and we went over to the gate to watch the prisoners coming back from their work. I enjoyed hearing the music, and for a moment, I thought that I was somewhere else–and that I was free. The work units, one hundred per group, came marching through the gate in rows of five. The head of the unit reported the number of prisoners to a guard; this ensured that the same number of people who left in the morning also returned in the evening. These men worked in ammunition factories and at construction sites. It took over two hours for all the units to march back to camp.

  We hurried back to our barracks, which was now filled with very tired, hungry, and aggressive men. I felt like I was in the Tower of Babel, hearing my barrack-mates speak so many different languages. The men rushed to the washing facility to clean themselves and rinse out their jackets and pants. The barracks elder tried to ensure that we stayed as clean as possible, because if we didn’t, lice could easily multiply and spread typhus. Signs in the washing area depicted lice with their ugly limbs and read, “One louse could be the end of your life.” The men wrung out their clothes and put them back on while still wet. Nobody had any towels. Their boots were also cleaned of mud, and black axle grease was applied to them from a bucket that stood nearby, in order to give them the appearance of cleanliness. In Auschwitz I,it was possible to keep yourself fairly clean, and this was good for my morale.

  We then all lined up for our so-called dinner, which consisted of a cup of watery coffee, a thin slice of bread, and a tiny square of margarine. This was my first dinner in Auschwitz I. It was not nearly enough calories to nurture our bodies. My father, my uncle, and I discussed whether to consume the whole slice of bread now or leave some for the next day. Our dilemma was that we had no place to keep even this small portion of bread, and we knew that if given the opportunity, starving inmates would steal it from us, because hunger drove people to extreme measures.

  The next morning, the order for the appel (roll call) sounded early. We all rushed downstairs and lined up in front of our barracks in a military fashion. Twenty rows of five people spread out so that the count could proceed smoothly. I extended my left hand sideways to touch the shoulder of the person next to me and my right hand straight ahead to touch the back of the person in front of me. We had to line up in this manner with great speed or the Kapos would beat us to a pulp. As the SS soldier in charge of our barracks arrived to take the count, the Kapo yelled, “Mützen ab!” (Caps off). This procedure was repeated in each of the twenty barracks.

  We had to stand at full attention while the numbers were collated by the Lagerschreiber, an inmate who was in charge of gathering the tabulations and reporting them to the SS officer on duty. On a good day, when the totals were acceptable, appel would take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. When the numbers didn’t add up, though, we could stand there for hours while they checked the barracks, looking for someone who had died in his bunk. On these occasions, they brought the body down and physically held it up so the count could be completed. The Kapos would then yell out, “Mützen auf!” (Caps on).

  Once the guards were satisfied, the orchestra started to play and each work unit marched toward the gate in a systematic and organized manner, led by its Kapo. We marched off at a fast pace as if we were a bunch of happy campers going to work for the Reich. Our Kommandant, Unterscharführer Kuntz, surrounded our column with guards and German shepherds, in front, in back, and on each side. After the ordeal of appel, it felt good to be able to walk and observe the scenery outside the camp. I didn’t see any local civilians, and I eventually learned that the Nazis had cleared a large area to accommodate Auschwitz I, II, and III, as well as smaller satellite labour camps. Civilians were not allowed to enter this exclusion zone.

  As we walked, we passed a bakery operated by inmates. It was baking bread for the camp and was bustling with prisoners load
ing loaves onto trucks. The air around it was thick with the tantalizing smell of baking bread. It made my stomach growl with hunger. Each day we passed this bakery on our way to work, and each day my stomach growled more than it had the day before. The tiny slice of bread we received each night was a terrible tease. I envied the fellows who loaded the bread trucks, because they would surely never go hungry like me.

  As we walked on, we reached an area where both sides of the road were covered with mustard plants as far as the eye could see. They were waist-high and the flowers on top were bright yellow. We stopped at a large settlement with many barracks, horse stables, and all kinds of farm equipment. This was a satellite camp called Budy. Here many prisoners were doing different types of work. I was surprised to see a boy in his twenties from my hometown. We made eye contact, but we had no opportunity to speak. When I was ordered to load scythes on a flatbed cart, he came around and slipped me a piece of bread.

  There were approximately fifty prisoners who lived and worked at Budy with their SS guards. They were all familiar with farm work and skilled at handling horses. The prisoners cared well for these beautiful animals, which were used to haul farm products and to till the land. Budy was a satellite camp in the middle of large farmlands, and it served as a distribution point for many crops, such as potatoes, beets, turnips, onions, hay, and fodder for cattle. (I even saw a huge pile of mouldy bread that eventually found its way into the soup we consumed for lunch.) The flatbed cart I was told to load was pulled and pushed to the edge of the mustard field, where approximately fifty of us set to work to cutting the plants. There was a big rush to choose a scythe that was not overly large. The bigger scythes had larger blades but were quite heavy. The rush to get a smaller one quickly became dangerous—fifty men wielding these knife-like tools was quite a hazard. We also received a whetstone to sharpen the blades of the scythes. The Kommandant announced that if anyone broke his stone, it would be considered an act of sabotage and the offender would be shot on the spot.

  The Kommandant was an Austrian farmer and he knew his work well. He had a meeting with our Kapo (who was more familiar with the inside of a German jail than farm work) and our under-Kapo (a Polish political prisoner named Stasek, who was a proficient farmer), and he explained how we should proceed and how large an area he expected us to complete by the end of the day. The strongest people would lead, setting the tempo for the rest to follow. Mustard stalks are quite thick and the height of the cut needed to be accurate, no more than three inches above the ground. The lead man began cutting, and when he was a few feet away (far enough that he would not injure anyone with his scythe), the next man started a fresh row, and so on. My father, my uncle, and I were familiar with scythes because my grandfather had used one for cutting hay. We knew the tool was most effective when held at a certain angle and an even height. We set off—I followed my father, and my uncle followed me. Throughout the day they encouraged me to keep up the pace. It was gruelling physical work and our Kapo watched constantly to make sure that we followed a steady rhythm. It was a hot day and the sun burned down on us; I was dehydrated, and there was no water available at the site. Auschwitz and its satellite camps were built in a climatically challenging area in Europe, between the Vistula and Soła Rivers with swamps all around. A hot and humid day without water was very hard on the body.

  I had used a scythe at home for half an hour or sometimes an hour, but here I cut continuously for four hours until we stopped for lunch. I felt like my back was breaking; the palms of my hands had large blisters, and some had already burst. Yet despite all our hours of work, it looked as if we had hardly made a dent. My father told me that I must keep going or the Kapo would beat me, and he knew that repeated beatings would lessen my chance of survival. He told me that I must put one foot in front of the other and think good thoughts about surviving this ordeal. My father had always been a strict disciplinarian, and now that disciplined approach helped keep me focused and determined. I thought about my prior rebelliousness and my historically strained relationship with him. I’d always felt like I never measured up to his expectations in public school and Hebrew school. We were further estranged by his three-year absence in the labour battalions. But in these new circumstances at Auschwitz, I was very dependent on his emotional support, and I was extremely appreciative that I had my father and my uncle there with me. They did everything they could to keep me alive, and without them I would never have survived the first two weeks in that hellhole.

  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 bodie
s 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.