Wiping her free palm discreetly on her blue dress—the Birkenau women’s orchestra’s new uniform—Alma followed Mandl and her SS entourage inside, holding her violin firmly in her other hand.
At the sight of the SS and the leader of the women’s camp herself, the band members instantly leapt to their feet and froze to attention. Mandl waved them back to their chairs that stood in a semicircle around the conductor’s stand in the middle of the practice area. She turned to Alma, looking immensely pleased with herself.
In ordinary circumstances, Alma would have thought it to be a tasteless joke. But then it occurred to her that for Birkenau, which was an even more overpopulated and vermin-riddled version of the main camp Auschwitz, it must have been one of the decent barracks indeed. Alma had never set foot inside regular women’s camp’s barracks, but she had heard plenty about them. Birkenau women’s camp was one of Magda’s favorite threats for the new arrivals and not once did its ghastly descriptions supplied by the Hungarian block elder fail to frighten them into submission:
“Keep testing my patience and I’ll make it my business to put your name on the transfer list. You think it’s bad here, in Auschwitz? Let’s see how you’ll like sleeping on a wooden bunk in Birkenau with seven or eight women packed next to you like sardines in a tin, instead of having your own bed with a mattress and a pillow. If there’s no place for you on the wooden bunks, you’ll have to sleep on the lowest level. Do you know what the lowest level means? A wet brick floor. It’s so narrow in there, you’ll have to crawl inside as though it’s a doghouse. If you’re fortunate to squeeze in along with seven other women into one of the middle-level bunks, prepare to have human waste to drip on your face while you sleep—dysentery is a regular occurrence there and once the door to the block is locked for the night, there are no latrine trips for you, my gentle lambs. Everyone does their business right where they lie. To be sure, there’s a top bunk, which looks rather good to those who have to sleep below, but it also comes with a caveat: when it rains, it pours directly onto your silly mugs, right through the planks. And in summer, the heat that gathers under the roof will have you suffocated sooner than any gas chamber. At night, rats come to gnaw on your tender pink heels, and they love the fresh arrivals.”
By now, Alma was aware that Blockälteste Hellinger only used such fear-instilling stories to keep her charges in check and had never gone through with her threats to transfer any of them to the hell of Birkenau, but the image was convincing. Even Mandl’s reassurances that Alma would get her new accommodation for the orchestra hadn’t been enough to ease Alma’s apprehension. It was still Birkenau. It was still the anteroom to the gas chamber.
Slowly, she looked around, taking in the premises. There were typical Birkenau three-tier bunk beds, but those had bedding on them, Alma noted with relief. Actual blankets and pillows, one per each bunk. The floor was wooden and not dirt and stone; there was no ceiling, just the roof, but from it, exposed electric bulbs hung on wires and that was already a luxury unheard of by other inmates, who had to trade their bread rations for candle stubs to provide at least some sort of illumination for their barnlike quarters. It was still a mere pitiful shed, but it was a livable pitiful shed and that was all that mattered for now.
Alma offered Mandl a tight-lipped smile. “I don’t know how to thank you, Lagerführerin, for your generosity.” It took Alma great effort to keep sarcasm out of her voice.
Mandl grinned broadly. “No need to thank me. Contrary to the rumors, I’m open to rational discussion and you brought up certain arguments that I found to be convincing. I only did what was right in this case.”
A regular philanthropist with a horsewhip, Alma thought to herself and forced another smile.
“Oh, and this will be your private quarters.” Mandl pushed open the door to the room next to the entrance.
It was a closet; not a room and certainly not “quarters.” Just four white walls into which a bed, a table with two chairs, and a small cupboard had been squeezed by some magic. But that was Birkenau for you and beggars couldn’t quite be choosers, could they now? Alma mused darkly. She ought to be grateful she would have a room to call her own, which afforded at least some privacy.
And yet, her sense of justice was outraged. Why should she thank this woman for this doghouse when she wouldn’t have been here in the first place had it not been for that demented Führer of theirs and his proclamation that belonging to the Jewish race was suddenly a crime against humanity punishable by death? Why should she be grateful for at least some human decency afforded to her and her new charges when none of them should be here at all; when this entire extermination factory shouldn’t exist?
Just shut your trap if you know what’s good for you, Highness, Magda’s voice sounded in her mind, much too real and knowing. You hear the gunshots daily by the Wall. You know how revolts end here.
“Thank you, Lagerführerin,” Alma squeezed the words out of herself through gritted teeth. “It is much appreciated.”
Just then, she noticed someone’s shawl hanging off the back of the chair.
“It looks like someone lives here.” Alma gestured toward it.
“Not anymore.” Without ceremony, Mandl pulled it from the chair and threw it into the corridor.
It was a sudden and chilling realization, witnessing firsthand how quickly privileges were snatched away from the inmates.
With the same languid, thoroughly rehearsed grace, Mandl motioned Alma after herself as she moved to the center of the practice room. She stopped at the conductor’s stand and clasped her hands behind her back. Flanking the orchestra on both sides, her wardens mirrored her pose like two uniformed, demented reflections.
“Meet your new Kapo and conductor, Alma Rosé,” Mandl announced to the orchestra.
Next to her, a blond woman with a conductor’s baton stood in a stiff position, clutching at the useless stick with desperation. With some sadistic relish, Mandl motioned to her to surrender it to the new authority.
“Czajkowska, from now on your role is reduced to the block elder’s duty. Your room will be occupied by the new Kapo. You will vacate it as soon as I’m gone and will occupy the room next to it. You are to listen and obey your new Kapo and conductor in everything she says.” Slowly, the camp leader roved her heavy gaze around the orchestra as though to drive her point across. “If you work hard enough, Frau Rosé will make something suitable out of you.”
Frau Rosé. Alma was aware of stunned gazes directed at her. She wondered if they recognized the name or were astonished that Mandl addressed her with the respectful Frau. She stole a glance in the camp leader’s direction; saw how the girls shrank away from her—a frightened school of fish before a great white shark. It must have appeared inconceivable to them that the great white shark had respect for anyone who was not a fellow, gray-clad predator.
“However, if she reports to me that you’re sabotaging her work, you’ll find yourselves in one of the Aussenkommandos turning ground outside the camp for twelve hours straight instead of making music. Am I making myself clear?”
A loud and slightly terrified, “Jawohl, Lagerführerin” reverberated around the vast block.