The inmate doctor—body positioned firmly on the threshold of the ward, blocking the SS man’s way to her charges, the brave woman—responded something to the effect of the rest being able-bodied workers in recovery, tried demonstrating some charts to the uniformed man, in a pitiful attempt to save a few patients from him and his list.
Germans loved making those, Alma recalled Zippy saying. They also loved putting numbers on them, numbers to which they had reduced the camp population. The main office in Berlin had put a request for twenty thousand to be liquidated in August; Auschwitz Kommandant Höss ensured that precisely twenty thousand were put to death by the end of the month. Sick or healthy, Jews or communists, men or women—that mattered not. What mattered was that the lists were correct and numbers in order.
The inmate doctor was still saying something, her pleading eyes trained on the guard, but he simply backhanded her with such force, she stumbled into the wall and sank onto the floor, still clasping the clipboard to her chest.
The SS man stepped over her legs and regarded the ward, eyes narrowed, a truncheon in hand. In less than an instant, he yanked a flimsy blanket from a patient who had the misfortune to lie closest to him. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m recovering from malaria, Herr Unterscharführer.” Eyes wide open, the entire body trembled with dread on her bunk.
“Are you still sick?”
Unsure of her reply, the woman risked a glance in the doctor’s direction. The latter didn’t meet her gaze; only stood, rubbing her temple, with a doomed look on her face.
“I asked you a question, you Scheiße-Jude! Have you gone mute with fear?!”
“Jawohl, Herr Unterscharführer.” Her answer was a mere whisper.
“Jawohl, what?!”
“Jawohl; I’m still sick, Herr Unterscharführer.”
With a vicious grin, the guard raised his truncheon and hit the woman on her bare legs. “How about now? Still sick? Shall I give you some more medicine or shall I help you onto that truck outside? The Reich has no need of sick Jewish vermin that can’t work and contribute to the war effort.”
Two painful welts were already rising on the woman’s legs. As though in some terrible nightmare, Alma stared at them, unable to look away, all the while her hands produced the joyful music of their own volition. She suddenly felt herself to be a powerless marionette in some grotesque puppet theater performance conducted by an invisible madman. Her fellow terrified puppets followed her tune just as mechanically, as though their hands were being pulled by the same hidden strings.
The woman scrambled off her bed and swayed at once, almost collapsing from the effort. “I can work, Herr Unterscharführer!”
The SS man burst into laughter, spreading his arms wide. Behind his back, two male inmates in striped pants but civilian jackets joined in. Standing in the door, they were shifting from one foot to the other, awaiting their master’s orders. Turning to them, the guard motioned his truncheon in the trembling woman’s direction. “It’s a miracle healing! Have you ever witnessed anything like it? Let us see how many more of these Jewish cows have been vacationing here at the Reich’s expense. I still need those twenty-seven inmates to make my list.”
The two hulking inmates swiftly moved through the ward, sending more women scrambling off their bunks. The ones who could stand, pulled themselves upright, their shaking hands clasping at the walls and each other for support. The ones who couldn’t manage even that were roughly pulled off the beds and dragged into the corridor by their ankles or wrists.
In her corner by the door, the doctor silently ticked off their numbers off her list. Her face was entirely wet with tears.
Outside the barrack walls, the wailing had grown to an unbearable level. Fighting the desire to press her ears with both hands, Alma continued to play under the SS man’s curious gaze. He strolled among the emptied bunks and approached the orchestra. Stopping within mere steps from Alma, he began whistling the song she was playing in perfect tune with her violin. She closed her eyes, unable to stand the sight of his handsome, vicious face in front of her.
Suddenly, something landed on top of her right hand, startling her. Alma’s bow cut across the strings in sharp protest. Inside her chest, her heart was pounding so loudly, she could swear it would break her ribs any moment now. The rounded end of the truncheon touched her bow hand once again—a playful tap, not a painful blow.
“That’s my favorite song,” the guard announced amicably. The sudden change from a raging beast to a Zara Leander music lover was more than disturbing. “Are you a professional?”
“Jawohl, Herr Unterscharführer.”
“What’s your name?”
“Alma Rosé, Herr Unterscharführer.”
He scrunched up his face, searching his memory. “Are you that new violinist Lagerführerin Mandl won’t stop bragging about?”
“I suppose, Herr Unterscharführer.”
“Now I see what the fuss was all about. You play very well.” Alma didn’t detect any notes of sarcasm in his voice. He appeared genuinely impressed.
“Thank you, Herr Unterscharführer.”
In the silence that followed, animalistic screams coming from behind the barrack walls turned outright deafening. All of a sudden, Alma couldn’t get her breath. It was all too much, too loud, too terrifying—this SS man with his truncheon, the helpless doctor, the emaciated bodies shivering next to each other along the wall, the condemned humanity that wailed like a herd of trapped animals led to slaughter and the fact that there was no escape from it all.
“Hey, stinkers,” the SS guard called to his inmate underlings, “have you heard how well she can play?”
“First-rate music, Herr Unterscharführer!” They rushed to nod in agreement at once, their faces a unanimous picture of servility. “Such talent!”
“You wouldn’t know talent if it hit you in your ugly mugs,” the SS man grumbled, just to hear a deferential, Jawohl, Herr Unterscharführer, in response to the insult. Disgusted, he slapped one of his underlings half-heartedly as he passed them by.
Whatever propelled her to move after him, Alma didn’t know. The floor of the eerily empty corridor, where dying women had lain mere minutes ago, was already being hosed down by an inmate-nurse. Alma regarded her with reproach. Sofia tried calling after her, but Alma’s feet carried her forward as though of their own volition.
Outside, a truck was parked. Two well-built inmates in white undershirts and striped caps were presently hurling the women into it by their legs and arms, ignoring their petrified shrieks.
“There are corpses here! Corpses! You’re putting us together with the dead people! We aren’t dead yet!”
“You shall be, in about thirty minutes,” the SS officer explained good-humoredly, after consulting his watch.
Gradually, the protests gave way to the sobs, forlorn and profoundly miserable.
Without thinking, Alma brought the violin to her shoulder and rested her chin on it. She had no power to change their fate; neither could she help the condemned women any other way and so she did the only thing she could think of—she played the Hatikvah for them. It was a capital offense, playing the national song of the Israelites in Auschwitz and yet, it suddenly didn’t matter to Alma that she would land in the back of the same truck for such insolence, adding one more name to the SS man’s list.