Home > The Violinist of Auschwitz(6)

The Violinist of Auschwitz(6)
Author: Ellie Midwood

“My wardens won’t stop talking about your performance,” Mandl broke the silence first. “Your father was the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic.” It wasn’t a question; a statement rather, with a measure of thinly veiled respect in it.

Alma recognized a familiar accent. A fellow Austrian, then, Lagerführerin Mandl.

“I’m not from Vienna, myself,” Mandl continued, shifting in her seat, “but from the Upper parts.”

A town—or village—so small she was ashamed to name it. Alma grinned. Just as she’d said: pig farmers, the uniformed lot of them.

“I heard both you and your father play, just before the Anschluss.”

Naturally, before the Anschluss. After the annexation of Austria, every single Jewish musician was dismissed from their position by the Propaganda Ministry’s thugs, to be replaced by an Aryan counterpart. An Aryan, who couldn’t play to save his life, but that mattered not, as long as his blood was pure.

Alma kept staring at the camp leader without uttering a word. She would lie if she said that Mandl’s somewhat uncomfortable squirming from that silence of hers didn’t give her a certain pleasure.

“What luck to have you here with us now, don’t you agree?” Mandl even smiled at her. It was the smile of a woman who didn’t do it often, uncertain and lopsided.

Alma’s brow arched. Was this some sort of a tasteless joke?

“I meant to say, Herr Kommandant himself will be most pleased to hear you play for him and his distinguished guests. I’m a great music lover myself, you see. We share that in common.”

That’s about all we share in common, Alma wanted to say.

“You would most oblige me if you make something suitable out of those women that I’m currently trying to pass off as an orchestra.” Mandl uttered a brisk embarrassed chuckle. “You’ve heard them play. Such so-called music must insult your ears much more than it insults mine.”

“It’s difficult to play well when all one thinks about is getting some food in one’s stomach,” Alma countered.

For a few moments, Mandl sat and blinked at her, caught off guard. It was obvious that the first words out of the famous violinist’s mouth were not what she had expected to hear.

“I certainly can teach them how to play Viennese-quality music, but I simply can’t live or work in such conditions,” Alma went on, her voice full of ice. “I saw where they live now, Lagerführerin, and, with all due respect—” she could only hope it didn’t come out too sarcastic, “the conditions are atrocious. If you want me to lead your orchestra, I’ll need new quarters, assigned specifically to my girls, where we can have a music room to rehearse, storage for the instruments, and access to showers, so we can look presentable for each performance… We’ll need new uniforms, not those striped rags they presently wear. And start feeding them well, for heaven’s sake! Regular meals, substantial ones, and not those measly portions you throw at them after each performance, like bones to the dogs. It’s degrading! How can one create music when one is constantly humiliated to such an extent? Even I won’t be able to play in such conditions if you make me live in such a manner even for a few weeks.” Alma motioned her head toward the vase with flowers. “You wouldn’t leave those lilacs of yours without water and sunlight and expect them to please your senses with their beauty and scent. Can you really, in good conscience, expect us to please you and your comrades with our music if you deny us our water and our sunlight?”

Her head tilted slightly to one side, Alma waited for Mandl’s reaction, annoyed with the fact that she had to explain the obvious to her compatriot.

 

 

For a few moments, the leader of the women’s camp sat frozen, unsure of how to proceed. Her authority had just been challenged, by a Jew no less and an inmate, and she wasn’t called the Beast by her charges for nothing. Birkenau was her kingdom, where she, alone, gave the orders. Here, she was not just a rightful ruler, but the Führer’s appointed God, with the right to decide who was to live and who was to die. A gun sat snuggly in its holster on her hip, for that very purpose. She had killed for less before, and still…

…and still, Mandl dared not even raise her voice at this woman in front of her, for she would lose her position of superiority at once with a shout, no matter how contradictory that may have sounded. Shouts and curses were daily occurrences in her own family house, coming mostly from her drunkard father and met with just as crude a torrent of insults from her mother, aimed at him: the good-for-nothing, the useless hog, let him rot in that gutter from which he crawled.

No one had shouted in the Rosé house; Mandl would have bet money on that. In the Rosé house, they played music, ate from porcelain plates with silver forks, and kissed the ladies’ hands gallantly. No, the crude shouting and—worse still—the demonstrations of the whip would only reveal the differences in their upbringing and that Mandl simply couldn’t have. In front of the others, she would remain the Beast. In front of Alma Rosé, she’d remain the civil lover of everything refined.

“I suppose that sounds reasonable enough,” she finally allowed, contemplatively. “You shall have a new barrack. And new uniforms. The showers, though, you will have to share with the Kanada inmates for now.”

“That’s perfectly fine, Lagerführerin. And I thank you for your kindness and understanding.”

They shook hands at the door—the very first time that Mandl had shaken hands with an inmate. But Alma Rosé didn’t act like any regular inmate; rather, a distinguished guest, who graced their godforsaken quarters with her presence. Long after the famous violinist had gone, Mandl stood and stared at her palm with a stupid smile plastered on her face. She had just shaken hands with Alma Rosé herself.

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

The Birkenau Music Block had a number on it—12. A gray wooden barrack, it stood on the very edge of the women’s camp, tucked neatly away into the relative safety of the outskirts. Here, the grass wasn’t eaten by the starved inmates, and pine trees provided a relief of the shadow in the sweltering afternoon; yet, Alma wasn’t easily deceived. A fresh, thin film of soot colored the lawn ashen-gray. The pines concealed the wall of barbed wire, at least four meters tall. And, the most sinister of all, the long body of a building with a tall chimney rising from it lay just beside that wall, like a predator in wait. It was slumbering just then—the chimney wasn’t belching greasy, foul-smelling smoke into the bright azure sky, but Alma knew precisely what she was looking at. The crematorium.

“Your new block,” Maria Mandl announced in a bright tone of a hostess from some Austrian inn. One of the wardens who accompanied Mandl cleared her throat, indicating that favors bestowed by the camp leader upon them, undeserving inmates, ought to be acknowledged.

“Lovely,” Alma muttered, her eyes still fixed on the chimney.

“The girls have been transferred here just yesterday but as you can hear, they’re already rehearsing.” Mandl smiled wider. “Come, I’ll introduce you properly.”

“Achtung!” the second warden bellowed, stepping inside the barrack.

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