It went on for some time. Alma had already marched past her and another ghastly heap that was now thankfully left behind. Then, suddenly, there was panting and the unmistakable sound of dog claws digging into the ground when the animal charged full speed. Alma swung round. It was Drexler’s Alsatian, slamming its mass of pure muscle into the defenseless woman and burying her under its weight. There was nothing human in the scream that pierced the eerie silence. The dog’s sharp teeth glistened white in the fog for one short instant, then tore once again into the soft human flesh.
Alma realized that she had stopped, but for the life of her, she couldn’t force her legs to move just then. Only Sofia’s rough shove snapped her out of her stunned state.
“What is there to goggle at? Keep marching. Do you wish to be next? Drexler will see to it fast enough!”
A blood-curdling death rattle replaced the screams. Like an automaton, Alma was putting one leg in front of the other, her knuckles bone-white as they clenched her conductor’s baton.
“This is what happens to the dawdling Jewish vermin who are wasting my time,” Drexler’s voice threatened.
The sound of the claws again, this time trotting leisurely. Drexler’s Alsatian caught up with the orchestra troop and was jogging on Alma’s left, panting heavily as though after an exhausting play. Once again, the dog’s nose dug into Alma’s free palm. Frozen with terror, she forced herself to keep calm, at least outwardly. Drexler whistled. The dog took off. Alma turned her palm upward. It was wet with blood.
She didn’t remember how they reached the gate. Maybe it was Sofia who helped her onto the small platform on which the stools and music stands had been arranged in a semicircle or maybe it was Zippy. She didn’t remember what they played while the outside gangs were being marched out of the gates—some brassy German tune—but what had branded itself into her memory was a curse hissed just loudly enough for the orchestra to hear and not the SS:
“Dirty collaborating bitches!”
“Is it always like that?”
In Alma’s room, a table lamp was lit. In its dim light, Alma and Zippy sat, heads diligently lowered over the lined sheets of paper supplied by the Schreibstube on Maria Mandl’s orders. While the rest of the girls were taking their afternoon nap—another recently bestowed privilege—Alma was writing the sheet music from her memory as Zippy copied it after her.
“What? The hatred?” Zippy moved her shoulder indifferently. “Not always. Sometimes. Today was a bad day. They have no one to take it out on, so they take it out on us. They march to grueling work that will kill at least a few of them by the end of the day and we play cheerful tunes as they go. I can see how it’s upsetting for them.”
“Surely they understand that we aren’t playing at the gates of our own free will. The SS invented that practice, didn’t they?”
“Naturally. The SS love inventing things of that sort to amuse themselves with. The service here is boring and particularly for the young SS folk. So, from time to time they tie the wrists behind the inmates’ backs and string them up near the gallows in the main camp. While the prisoners are screaming in pain, they order other inmates to bring chairs and tables and install themselves there nicely for the afternoon, drink beer, eat sausage, and bet money on whose shoulder joints will pop out of their sockets the last or who shall faint the first. That sort of thing.” Zippy made a disgusted noise. “Or take ‘bodily exercise,’ for instance. Sometimes, after the work shift is over and the SS man has conducted his roll call, he orders the inmates to do ‘gymnastics.’ Leap-frog over each other’s heads—‘to stay fit and healthy.’ Those who fall, get beaten by a Kapo with a baton, either until they get up or until they die. That sort of amusement makes days more interesting for the SS. Just like our playing for the gangs that go to the twelve-hour shift that some of them won’t survive. The SS think it’s funny, but we’re the ones who get blamed.” Zippy smiled. It was a melancholy, crooked smile. “I was here even before Birkenau was constructed. The very first women’s transport from Slovakia, March 1942. I’ve seen it all.”
“How did you survive?” After what she had witnessed that day, to Alma it seemed almost a miracle. People rarely lasted longer than a couple of months here.
“I made myself indispensable in the camp office.” Zippy’s eyes had a faraway look in them. “I invented a file system for them. Organized schedules, sorted their mail, typed their reports… You would be amazed how many of those SS women are next to illiterate.”
“No,” Alma said, “I wouldn’t.”
For some time, they worked in agreeable silence. It was Alma who broke it first.
“What did you do prior to the deportation?”
“I was a commercial artist in Bratislava. That’s another way I made myself indispensable—I have beautiful handwriting that Mandl admires.” She snorted softly. “Do you want to hear a funny story? I was typing something at the Schreibstube when the runner came from Mandl, summoning me to her office. Now, mind you, I had just returned from the infirmary—someone I knew had a friend there who had dysentery and was asking for some charred bread. I thought, This is it for you, Zipporah. Someone must have ratted. Get your behind ready, Mandl shall lash you personally in front of the entire camp just to freshen up your principles. But what do you know? I knock on her door, trembling like a dog expecting a thrashing, and she welcomes me inside with a smile on her face and pushes a book into my hands. ‘Helen, could you letter a dedication to my good comrade SS Hauptsturmführer Kramer in your special calligraphy? It’s his birthday today, November 10.’ Without thinking, I blurted, ‘What a coincidence! It’s my birthday also…’ And then she smiled even wider and said, ‘Go to Block 5, where they keep all the packages and select one for yourself for your birthday.’” For some time, Zippy stared at something in the distance. “The book was called The River Pirates. I still remember it clear as day. I ate sardines that day, from the Red Cross. And she didn’t beat me.” Zippy looked at Alma. “As long as you’re indispensable to Mandl, you’ll survive here.” She pulled closer and lowered her voice confidentially, “She has changed your classification in the registration book. A punishable offense if her superiors find out, but she still risked it.”
After Alma scowled uncomprehendingly, Zippy grinned wider.
“She changed it from a Jew to a Mischling, a mix-blood. Now, as a mix-blood and a Kapo, it automatically excludes you from regular selections.”
“How do you know?”
“I work in the camp office besides playing my little mandolin, don’t I?” The sly look was back on Zippy’s face. “We need to stick it out for the next couple of years only. The Germans are losing to the Soviets and, with the Western Allies, the things aren’t peachy for them either. We have clandestine radios here. We know what’s going on. Only a couple of years or even less, Alma! With our kosher detail, we’ll pull through and that’s that. You only need to teach us how to play well.”
At first, Alma made no reply. It appeared that she didn’t even hear Zippy. Her face an unreadable mask of distant memories, she sat silently for quite a while with her hands folded atop the papers.