I stamped my foot and ran back to the bloc. I grabbed a freckled boy by the neck, calling agitatedly, boy, wait. What does it mean when the doctor leaves with a boy and returns without. Tell me, is it true they cook him in a pot? Cut him?
The boy said, don’t know, and ran away as if I were holding a butcher’s knife. I didn’t give up. I ran outside. I caught a short prisoner with saliva on his chin.
Asked, what are experiments, and why do healthy children leave beds empty, huh?
He asked, where.
I muttered, in Bloc 8.
He sat down, are you in that bloc?
I hit him on the shoulder. Shouted, tell me, now, what’s going on in my bloc.
He rolled his tongue and said, they inject a needle with a substance into the boy’s vein, but first they talk to him nicely. Then they measure how long it takes for the substance to reach the heart. For some it takes three minutes. For others one minute. For some even less. But you should know it doesn’t hurt to die like that. They die well there, without a nasty smell.
I asked who talks such nonsense, the one who dies?
The man said, no. Not the one who dies, and he wanted to go.
I tugged at his shirt, the doctor says so?
No.
So who says it doesn’t hurt, who? The prisoner turned and walked off.
I decided to escape from Bloc 8.
I heard they were looking for a cook for the women’s camp. I told Baba Volodya I’m a very good cook. Get me out of here into the women’s camp. Get me out, Baba, please. As if I were your boy now. Baba Volodya stuck a match between his teeth and pressed hard. I didn’t move from him. Volodya wrote down my name.
Volodya said, wait. I waited. I watched him from wherever I stood. I pursued him and waited.
Achtung. Achtung. 55484, report.
My heart stopped. I didn’t know where they were sending me, to the gas chamber of the Jews, the experiments’ pot, or to cook in the women’s camp. Gas. Kitchen. Pot. Gas. Kitchen. Pot. Kitchen. Kitchen. My tongue went dry in moment. I felt a strong pain in my backside. I went out.
Soldiers took me to a petrol station. Soldiers put me on a train car. I moved from Buchenwald to Camp Zeiss. An entire day on a cattle train.
Chapter 4
Dov: Do you remember when they took us from home to Ungvár,
we sat in open cattle cars and heard train whistles?
Yitzhak: Remember.
Dov: Do you remember our rabbi saying, when the Messiah
comes, you’ll hear a shofar?
Yitzhak: Nu?
Dov: When I heard the whistle, I thought,
maybe our rabbi was right, maybe the Messiah did come.
Yitzhak: Nobody came to save us. Nobody.
Dov
At Auschwitz, in 1944, a number was tattooed on my arm, A-4092.
“A” signified a transport from Hungary. The next day they made us stand to attention for eight hours on the parade ground. The rain didn’t stop falling. I was cold. Cold. Cold. I had gooseflesh like pinheads on my skin. I felt as if they’d stuck a board in my back. In my shoulders. My legs trembled rapidly, rapidly, slowly. Rapidly, rapidly, snap. The muscle jumped. I was sure everyone could see.
SSman yelled, Do Not Move. Do Not Sit. I grabbed my trousers and pushed the fabric forward.
Anyone who fell did not get up.
Prisoners usually fell quietly. Sometimes they’d cheep like chicks in a nest. Sometimes I’d hear a blow, thwack, and that was that. Prisoners with a function had stripes and a ribbon on the arm and they’d drag the fallen out of the row. I focused my gaze on the nearest wall. I saw black circles running along the parade ground. The circles brought prickles to the temples and shoulders, two-three minutes and the prickles settled in the legs. Suddenly, hot. Hotter. And that was that. I couldn’t feel my legs. Like paralysis. In my shoulders and neck as well.
They announced numbers over the loudspeaker. The voice over the loudspeaker was cheerful. As if he had a few chores to finish before going home, la-la-la. A prisoner next to me, an older man, began to cry quietly.
I heard him say Sh’ma Yisra-el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad – Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One and immediately fall. He had white foam on his lips. He made the mewling sound of a cat kicked by a boot. Within seconds he was dragged out. Vanished. Poor man, poor man, God didn’t hear him. I wanted to scream, where are you. God didn’t answer. He cut me off too. I gave myself an order, stand straight, Dov, don’t move, huh. I heard my number over the loudspeaker. I went with other prisoners. They sent us to work at Camp “Canada,” named for the belongings left on the platforms by prisoners from the trains. They called us “Canada” Commando. They put me in a huge storeroom and told me to sort out clothes. There was a huge pile in the storeroom. Like a colorful hill of sand. There were suitcases. Many many suitcases with a number, or a name, or a label tied on with string. Sometimes, just a small ribbon on a handle, a red or green ribbon, like the ones used to arrange little girls’ hair.
I divided the clothes into piles. Men’s suits to the right. Dresses, skirts, and women’s blouses, to the left. Coats, apart on the right. Children’s clothing, behind me. Best of all was touching children’s clothing. They were stained and worn at the edges. Sometimes a patch or a tiny pocket, and another pocket stretched out of shape, sometimes embroidery with bright thread, a flower. Butterfly. Clown. Ah. The clothes had the smell of a regular home. The smell of soap and moth balls. Among the clothes I found some mama’s apron. A blue apron with a large pocket. I thrust trembling fingers into the pocket. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I found nothing. The apron smelled of fried pancakes and sausage. My mouth watered. I wanted to take the apron, hide it under my shirt. I didn’t dare because of the tall SSman who stood behind me, keeping an eye on my pace.
For hours, I ran among the piles, without stopping to rest. My legs ached but I didn’t even stop for a second. The SSman stuck to my back. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a hand and a gun. I knew he’d put a bullet in me where it prickled. In the hollow of my neck. Ever since I’ve felt a prickling in that hollow whenever autumn comes. Once I saw his face and there were nails there instead of pupils.
Daily routine at Auschwitz was consistent.
We got up early, in the dark. We straightened blankets, ran to the holes in the latrines to clean up, ten minutes to pee or shit, crowded together in a suffocating stink, then splash the face with a little water, the line for thin, tasteless coffee, parade – and then we were divided up for work. Groups upon groups of prisoners with dry faces, shaved heads, dirty and quiet.
We worked for twelve hours a day on a shrieking belly with pains in our muscles. Again the line for a bowl of soup. Again roll call in the bloc, and the evening parade, on the parade ground. Count. Mistakes. From the beginning. They hit a prisoner on the head with a baton. Thwack. Thwack. Scream into the loudspeakers for hours. I wanted to sleep. I so badly wanted to get to my bunk in the bloc, fall onto the board, sleep. I’d fall asleep in a second.
After three weeks they sent us on foot from Auschwitz to Birkenau, a distance of three or more kilometers. I dragged my feet in a convoy of uniform stripes. I could barely walk. I raised my head and saw a yellowish brown color, like the moment before a storm. Smoke coming out of a chimney. Dense, thick smoke without holes. Without spaces. There was a sweet smell outside. The smell of good meat cooked over a fire. I wanted to vomit. Thick saliva rose in me, disgusting. In the distance I saw a row of barracks with walls built of rough logs. I couldn’t see any windows.