By Chance Alone Read online

  CHAPTER 13

  Selections, July 1944

  The SS initiated a wave of selections in Auschwitz I in early July 1944. Simply hearing the word selection sent fear through me. My fellow prisoners had explained the entire gassing and cremation process to me, and I knew that selection meant certain death. I made a firm decision that if I was selected, I would try to electrocute myself on the fences or get shot from the guard towers, rather than submit to being gassed.

  One night, we were abruptly awakened from our sleep. SS guards and Kapos were yelling, “Raus! Selection! Leave your clothes in your bunk and get down to the ground floor.” They herded us onto the street between the barracks and forced us to run to a nearby building where SS doctors were waiting to make the selection. We filed by them in a single line. They looked at each inmate to determine who was too weak or sick to work and who could continue. I knew that my life was hanging in the balance, and the fear almost froze me at a point when I should have looked most alive and capable of physical labour. The person in front of me was stopped, and his tattoo and barracks numbers were recorded on a clipboard. This was a death sentence for him but an opportunity to live for me. While he was stopped, I simply kept moving toward the exit of the building, breathing a sigh of relief when I got there. I knew that if I had paused for even a moment, they might have scrutinized me more closely and sent me to my death. I was lucky this time.

  Back in the barracks, I couldn’t get to sleep. I wondered what had happened to my father and my uncle, who were in a different barracks than I was. How did they fare? I would have to wait until the morning to find out.

  The next day, I ran to their barracks, but they were not there. I thought the worst must have happened. I had no time to investigate further, however, because I had to join my unit for appel. I spent a horrendously difficult day thinking about them, but I tried to convince myself that they had just been selected to join another work camp. I hoped for the best, but inside I knew that I was lying to myself.

  When I returned from my work that evening, I went immediately to their barracks again. Still they were not there. I asked people in the bunks next to theirs if they had seen them, but no one had. I ran to a fenced-off holding area where the SS kept the selected prisoners until they were ready to transport them to Birkenau to be gassed. I saw many people milling around inside this area, and I called the names of my father and uncle. Within seconds, they came to meet me at the barbed-wire fence. I was so happy to see them, but at the same time, I knew these were likely our last moments together. I didn’t have any words. I couldn’t express a single word of consolation or hope. The guard from the tower yelled, “Move away from the fence immediately or I will shoot!” My father reached out across the wire and blessed me with a classic Jewish prayer: “May G-d bless you and safeguard you. May He be gracious unto you. May He turn His countenance to you and give you peace.” This was the same prayer my father once uttered to bless his children every Friday evening before the Sabbath meal. Then he said, “If you survive, you must tell the world what happened here. Now go.” As I walked away, I took one final look before I turned the corner of the building and was unable to see them any longer.*

  I was devastated and confused. How does a father feel when he is saying goodbye and leaving his son in such an evil place? For days, I barely existed, drifting along in a constant haze. My two guardian angels were gone. Without their encouragement and their small gifts of food, I never would have survived the first two weeks in Auschwitz. Now I was the only living member of my immediate family—a sad, lonely, and daunting feeling. How was I going to survive without them?

  CHAPTER 14

  Land Reclamation Outside Auschwitz

  One day, the SS marched us to a large tract of land that was overgrown with scrub and full of large tree stumps. We were directed to clear the entire area and level the soil because they wanted to use the land for growing grain and mustard. Although the hot sun beat down on us, the fresh air was invigorating and it didn’t seem that this work would be as rigorous as our former jobs. We had space to move around and we could use the bushes as a sort of a camouflage so we were not under the constant surveillance of the Kapo or the Kommandant. The guards and their attack dogs were spread out along the perimeter of the work area, and while I could not see them, I knew they were constantly patrolling in a circle. I thought of trying to escape, but I soon realized that there was no chance of success. Being under constant watch was like having a ball and chain around my neck. The Kapo drove us mercilessly to work at a fast pace, but we had some respite because he had such a large zone to patrol.

  The SS divided us into units to perform different tasks, such as cutting bushes and hauling the branches to an area designated for burning. Others levelled the land or filled ditches with soil. My unit of four was ordered to dig out the roots of the large stumps. Two of us had pickaxes to loosen the soil and two of us had shovels to remove it. We were to dig in a circle around the stumps so that the roots could be exposed and severed, and then remove the stumps. I estimated that we would be doing this work for about one week.

  Around noon each day, a horse-drawn cart brought canisters of watery soup and we had thirty minutes of rest. Lunch was always a risky time because of the jostling and shoving for position. Your spot in the lineup often determined how thick, and therefore how filling, your meal was. We were like ravenous wolves desperate for sustenance. If a prisoner was in the good graces of the person ladling the soup, he had a chance to get more of the vegetables that settled at the bottom of the canister. I told myself that if I survived, I would never, ever stand in line for anything again. I felt that there was no humanity here, only degradation, dehumanization, and the desire to grind us away, body and soul. We were forced to fight over soup so that we could go on.

  One day while I was savouring my watery soup, I heard the whistle of a locomotive a short distance away. We were on a plateau near a river and some railway tracks, and I was eager to see what was coming our way. When the locomotive drew near, I could see that it was pulling many flat cars. Each flat car carried two big tanks, and on each tank there were soldiers in black SS overalls. They were singing, laughing, and waving as they went by. My thoughts turned inward, and I wished that I were free to sing and laugh as they did. I had not laughed once since my arrival in this harsh world two months earlier. But then I realized that these soldiers were going east to face the tank units of the Russian Red Army, and I wondered if they’d be laughing then.

  After eating our soup, we continued to dig until the Kapo told us to assemble and be counted for the march back to the camp. I was tired, thirsty, and in need of sustenance. I was looking forward to the evening cup of ersatz coffee, a thin slice of bread, and a tiny square of margarine, as well as being able to rest on my wooden bunk.

  By now, we were a seasoned marching unit, with the Kapo calling out the orders and setting the pace. We sang German marching songs as we went. The marching and singing helped me feel more normal, and empowered me to go on from day to day in this distressful situation. It also showed our guards that we could not be beaten down; in fact, they had to hustle to keep up with our pace. If the wind was blowing in our direction, I could hear the sound of the camp orchestra as we neared. More and more, this music was an integral part of my camp life. Like the coffee and the bit of bread, it sustained me.

  The next day, we were working in a deep cavity we’d dug; all the excavated soil formed a mound that hid us from view. This gave us a feeling of security, and we let down our guard. It was a dangerous mistake, because the mound also prevented us from seeing if anyone was approaching. At one point, we were loafing carelessly, holding our tools in our hands, when suddenly two of my co-workers jumped up and furiously started to work again. I felt a blow on the back of my head. Although I did not feel any pain, there was a buzz in my ears and a feeling of dizziness overcame me. When I tried to pick up my shovel to resume working, I felt something warm dripping down my neck and I saw blood. I tur
ned around to see an SS guard standing behind me, and I realized that I had received a blow from the butt of his gun. Our eyes locked for a second and I saw his twisted, evil grimace. I thought I was looking at the devil.

  Blood continued to pour from the wound, and I went into shock and collapsed. The other prisoners hauled me out of the pit and threw me into a nearby ditch to keep me out of the way until the end of the day. The blood continued to ooze out of the wound, and eventually the under-Kapo, a man named Stasek, approached. He tore off a piece of my prisoner garb and told me to urinate on it and then put it on the back of my head. This bandage eventually stopped the bleeding, and I was thankful to him. Without his assistance and advice, I would not have made it back to camp.

  I was no longer able to participate in the work detail. I tried, but my feet would not cooperate and my legs couldn’t hold me up. My thoughts ran on like a movie, a retrospective of my life up until that moment. I recalled my father’s parting words—about telling the world what happened at Auschwitz—and I knew I would not be able to fulfil his final wish. My demise would be the end of the family Eisen.

  When it came time for lunch, I watched from the ditch as the soup was ladled out, but I could not go there and no one would bring any to me. I was simply written off. At some point, Kommandant Kuntz probably received a report that our unit was down one prisoner, and he came to have a look at me. I thought he would pull his pistol from his holster and shoot me on the spot. Instead, he signalled with his right hand, his finger pointing up in a circular motion, meaning that I was going to go up the chimney of the crematorium. I understood that my fate was sealed. A feeling of helplessness and fright overtook me. How could I prepare myself to face the gas chamber? I would be reduced to a simple pile of ashes. I had always planned, as a last resort, to run to the electrified fence and die by my own action, but this was no longer an option because I had lost my mobility. I began to wish that the Kommandant had put a bullet in my head. I thought of my family and how they must have felt while facing their own demise. When my mother entered the gas chamber, she had my three siblings in her care. How she must have fought until the last breath in that horrible chamber. What would it be like for me? Slow or fast? Would my soul leave my body? Would I meet my family again? Would they all be waiting for me? How would I know them? What shape or form would they be in? I felt utterly alone, with no one to take care of or comfort me. No one could save me.

  At the end of the day, our work unit was lined up and counted. All the tools were loaded on the two-wheeled cart, and I was thrown on top. As the unit proceeded to march back to camp, I was acutely aware of what I saw and heard around me; it was the last time I would experience any of it. The cart was left in a shed with all the tools in it, and two inmates took hold of my arms and dragged me a short distance through the gates of the camp. Under-Kapo Stasek directed them to the hospital in barrack 21, where I was left in a hallway, near the surgery room.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Operating Room

  I was carried into the operating room and my bloody jacket, pants, and boots were removed. I was placed on an operating table, and someone put a mask on my face and administered ether. When I awoke, I found myself in a bed with the taste of anaesthetic in my mouth. My head was bandaged, and I was groggy and weak. I was surprised that I was still alive after the traumatic experience of the previous day. Looking at my surroundings, I saw patients who were sickly and skeletal. Instinct told me that I needed to leave this place as soon as possible. Although I was dizzy and weak, I managed to get out of bed on my own. I was determined to walk around the ward by holding on to the bed frames. Eventually, I had to lie back down to gain strength.

  A photo of Dr. Tadeusz Orzeszko, taken on his incarceration at Auschwitz I, July 29, 1943.

  There were two doctors in charge of this ward: Dr. Jakob Gordon, a Polish Jew, and a French Jew named Dr. Samuel Steinberg. At mid-morning, the chief surgeon, a Polish political prisoner named Dr. Tadeusz Orzeszko, came into the room to check on the patients who were recovering from operations. When it was my turn to be examined, Dr. Gordon removed the paper bandages and the chief surgeon inspected the wound on the back of my head. Satisfied, Dr. Orzeszko instructed Dr. Gordon to put on new bandages.

  To my surprise, I found my boots placed carefully under my bed. But I wore a straggly surgical gown and had no other clothes. When I asked Dr. Gordon if he could get me some coverings, he obliged by giving me a pair of white cotton pants and a white shirt. These were the clothes worn by the doctors under their white coats. I felt clean and presentable for the first time in months. The daily rations were the same, but I was given a watery Cream of Wheat–type cereal, which was reserved for hospital patients. When this cereal got cold, it became rubbery and I could hardly swallow it.

  All patients still in the ward after three days were deemed unfit for work and taken to the gas chambers. On the morning of my third day in the ward, the SS sergeant in charge of barrack 21 arrived with stretcher-bearers and began to collect the tags of the patients to be removed. As each patient was laid on the stretcher, his identity card was placed beside him. When my turn came, I feared I was in great danger. The stretcher-bearers carried us down the stairs to the main hallway; from there, we were to be taken out the door and loaded onto waiting trucks.

  The chief surgeon, Dr. Orzeszko, was standing in the main hallway when we appeared. He was a tall, well-muscled man, with short blond hair and steel-blue eyes. He had an aura of calm confidence about him. When he saw me, he stopped the stretcher-bearers, helped me get up, and took my identification tag. He then led me to the prep room of the surgery, where he gave me a lab coat and told me that I would now do the cleaning and other duties required for the efficient running of the operating theatre.

  Prior to my recruitment, this job was filled by a young Polish medical student who was serving a one-year sentence as a political prisoner. He was due to be released in about three days, and I would be his replacement. The student trained me during his remaining days on the job, and I keenly observed him and learned the importance of running the unit smoothly and efficiently. There was a long list of things to do. I had confidence in my cleaning abilities because of my apprentice work with the furrier, but it was intimidating to see medical instruments and other equipment that I had no idea how to use. I was determined to succeed, however, and I knew my life depended on my performance.

  The prep room had two sinks with hot and cold water where the surgeons washed before surgery. There was a huge autoclave for sterilizing sheets, gowns, masks, gloves, and other items, and a sterilizer for instruments with several trays and a timer that had to be set. I had to learn these and many other duties. The shelves in the credenzas were neatly laid out with instruments such as clamps, scalpels, hammers, saws, chisels, scissors of all shapes and sizes, syringes, and needles. There were two worktables to prepare items and compounds before surgeries. The storage cabinets were filled with supplies such as paper bandages, cotton balls, gypsum for casts, cleaning supplies, disinfectants, brooms and mops, buckets, and other odds and ends. The surgery itself had a basic operating table with an overhead light, several portable floodlights, and a credenza in which Novocain and ether were stored. We did not have blood plasma or intravenous therapy.

  At first, I was not comfortable watching the surgeons perform,particularly when I saw them make the opening incision. But I quickly became used to the sight of blood and the gore of the operating room. When the surgeons finished their job, they came out through the swinging door into the prep room and removed their gowns and gloves. Two orderlies would arrive, put the patient on a gurney, and take him to the upstairs ward. It was my job to immediately mop the floor and clean and disinfect the operating table. I had to be quick about it. Within thirty minutes, another patient would be laid out on the table and made ready for his operation. I had all the responsibility for the efficient upkeep of these two rooms so that the doctors could continue to perform their tasks.

  E
very night, patients awaiting surgery the next day had to receive enemas. My duty was to administer the enema and help the patients evacuate their bowels. I did not like this task in the beginning, but it became routine and necessary. If the patient didn’t have an enema, he could soil the operating table and the post-surgery cleanup would be twice as difficult.

  Day after day, new patients arrived at barrack 21. They were skeletal, weak, and sickly, and near the end of their struggles. They also knew that unless they could walk out of that ward on their own two feet, their next stop was the gas chamber. So every patient faced a bleak dilemma. Many had severe hernias, phlegmon (flesh-eating disease), broken limbs, burst appendices, or severe injuries from bullets that tore the flesh and destroyed bones. Watching them stoically accept their fate inside the twisted logic of the concentration camp made me realize how brave they were.

  The surgeons at barrack 21 did their very best under impossible conditions. The surgery ward was, in many respects, a ruse to show how “well” the Nazis looked after their inmates. These patients were destined for annihilation, because in most cases they were beyond help. But the surgeons still took their job seriously and did the best they could for their patients. The doctors were themselves prisoners, and they had to dance to the tune of the SS officers in charge of the camp. My job, in the scheme of things, was simply to make sure that the operating room was shiny and clean at all times.

  My workday started at 7 a.m. and usually lasted for twelve hours. My system was strict and precise. I started my day by sprinkling talcum powder on the floor of the prep room and the surgery, and then standing on two rags and using my feet in a polishing motion until the linoleum shone. I picked up the freshly washed linens, gowns, and masks from the laundry barracks and packed them neatly into three perforated drums. Next, I loaded the drums into the autoclave, closed and bolted the lid, and turned on the high-pressure steam so that the linens were sterilized. Finally, I prepared the instruments for that day’s operations. When the surgeons arrived at 10 a.m., I had the water boiled for their tea and I took a fifteen-minute break before the first operation began. The patients were lined up on a bench in the hallway, and I called their numbers in the order that was given to me. While the surgeons were washing up, I helped the patient onto the table and covered him with a sheet, and then I went to the prep room to help the surgeons tie their gowns and masks and to hold the latex gloves so they could put their hands into them. Patients who were being operated on from the waist down were given a spinal needle with Novocain by the doctors. Sometimes I had to administer ether to those who were being operated on above the waist, and I instructed them to count backwards from thirty to one as the ether took effect. My final task was to bring the instruments to the operating table and lay them out before the assistant surgeon.