“The markings on the inmate’s breast are just as important as the numbers,” Magda had continued. “In men’s camp, Green Triangles—criminals—constitute half of the Kapos. Red Triangles—political prisoners—constitute another half. Most of the Reds there are Poles, while the Green ones are mostly Germans, so the Greens are considered higher than the Poles just due to their Aryan status. But the Reds are better organized and so the Greens have to be careful around them if they know what’s good for them.”
Alma’s head had begun to ache. A hungry stomach didn’t inspire such mental gymnastics, yet Alma had forced herself to stay focused on the nurse’s words.
“With women, it’s pretty much the same, but there in Birkenau, asocial prisoners—Black Triangles—mostly function as Kapos. They are mostly German prostitutes. Then go Greens, but, naturally, there are few of those. Then Reds and only after them—us, Jews, the Yellow Stars. A rather amusing arrangement, if you think of it—murderers and prostitutes having the unrestrained authority over former professors, doctors, journalists, and artists—but this is Auschwitz-Birkenau for you. Blood is everything. But the connections are still more important than blood.”
Now, as she stood before these women, more than half of them Reds, Alma couldn’t be more grateful for Magda’s instructions. The Reds must have been Polish. Presently, they began to exchange hushed remarks in their language that gradually grew louder in volume. Their lips moved, but their eyes remained on Alma, a mixture of suspicion and hostility in them, and were hard and unblinking.
Emboldened by the fact that their new head of the orchestra appeared to be in no rush to establish any sort of authority over them, one of the girls pointed at Alma’s yellow star and made what sounded like a complaint to their former Kapo. Alma didn’t have to understand their language to understand the meaning: why was the Jew appointed as their leader? The situation was familiar by now; she had encountered such attitudes all over Hitler’s Europe and had grown perfectly immune to it. What disappointed her was a flash of resentment in her fellow inmates’ eyes. Poles or not, surely they should have learned by now that they were all in this together? The SS were the enemy, not her.
Alma shifted her glance toward the Jewish girls. Contrary to the Polish ones, they remained silent and subdued, casting their eyes about without meeting hers, looking guilty for no particular reason.
Only Spitzer from the Schreibstube, the representative of the camp elite, regarded Alma with an unreadable expression on her face. Fine-boned and wiry, she possessed two gems of black liquid eyes and a habit of narrowing them now and then, which gave her a cunning expression. Whether it was curiosity or the attempt to size her up, Alma decided to ignore Spitzer for now and instead offered her hand, palm up, to the former Kapo.
“My name is Alma Rosé. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Please, accept my sincerest apologizes concerning the manner in which we had to meet and allow me to assure you that it is in no way my intention to usurp your power over the block. You may keep your Kapo’s duties and I shall obey you as one of your orchestra members and your charge. The only thing I will ask of you is to allow me to keep control of the musical activities. I don’t mean it as an insult to you or your band—”
“None taken,” the former Kapo interrupted her with a smile and grasped Alma’s hand. She spoke German very well, with a very slight Polish accent. “Sofia Czajkowska, political. It’s my pleasure to make your acquaintance as well. And you’re absolutely right concerning both the band and my conductor’s abilities. I have none, but Lagerführerin Mandl has taken it into her head that I’m related to the Russian composer Tchaikovsky—I’m not—and apparently, it was enough for her to put me in charge. I can play a few tunes on the guitar well enough, but none of that sophisticated stuff that you just produced. So, by all means, take over the orchestra and don’t spare us. We all have one goal and one goal only—to come out of here alive at one point or another, and it would be utterly idiotic of me, or anyone else for that matter, to stand in your way. It’s obvious that out of us all you have the most experience—do what you must, Frau Rosé, just keep us alive.”
“Please, call me Alma.”
“I will. But it’s better if they don’t.” A discreet nod toward the orchestra. “It’ll give you more authority.” Turning toward her former charges, Sofia began speaking Polish, apparently, translating whatever had just transpired between the two women to the girls who didn’t speak German.
The dissatisfied grumbles subsided. One by one, the band girls began nodding enthusiastically to her words. Soon, a few of them were even smiling at Alma, to which she breathed out with relief. The transition of power had been as smooth as one could have only hoped.
“It was very smart of you.” Spitzer from the Schreibstube approached Alma a few minutes later. “If you tried taking charge without asking Sofia first, she could have made your life a living hell here, you take it from me.”
“I’m not interested in any positions of power,” Alma explained calmly. “I’m only here to ensure that we all come out of here alive. That’s all that matters to me.”
“I can tell.” For a few moments, the young girl with those sly black eyes appeared to be considering something; then, suddenly, thrust out her hand and announced her name, a different one from that offered by Mandl. “I’m Zippy. Zipporah, actually, but that’s what the local underground knows me as. I don’t have to tell you that I must remain Helen Spitzer from the Schreibstube for everyone else.”
“Of course.” Alma took her narrow palm in hers and pressed it with great emotion, touched to the marrow with such an unexpected expression of trust.
She had heard Magda speak of the camp resistance with a measure of reverence and fascination. She had also been warned to stay as far away from them as possible, if she knew what was good for her, for those underground types ended up on the camp gallows with frightening regularity. Smuggling, clandestine radios, handwritten leaflets, minor-scale workplace sabotage—in Magda’s eyes, their resistance activities were relatively harmless, but, apparently, the SS saw things differently. For some reason, Alma thought the underground types were all men—perhaps, former Red Army soldiers with at least some formal training in combat, or French militants shipped to Auschwitz by the Gestapo for their Resistance activities. Certainly not orchestra mandolinists with shrewd eyes and the white, fragile hands of an archetypical musician.
“So, it was you who got me my new violin?” She was studying Zippy with new-found respect.
“Is it any good?” Zippy bared her beautiful teeth in a grin. “It must be good, if you extracted such music out of it just now.”
“To be truthful, I did it out of spite.”
“I figured.” Zippy dropped a mischievous wink. “I like you. You’ll do just fine here, take my word for it.” Before long, she was back in her chair, her mandolin at the ready. “Frau Conductor, command. We’re ready.”
Chapter 4
The SS concert that evening was a great success, even though Alma pulled it off almost entirely on her own shoulders, letting the girls accompany her only in certain places that all of them could manage. Her back wet with sweat, Alma patiently waited for the camp leader to finish accepting congratulations from her colleagues on such a brilliant addition to her orchestra. Back home, in Vienna, she would have already downed her obligatory glass of water that would have awaited her backstage before rushing back to her audience. But this was Birkenau for you. Thirsty and annoyed, Alma looked on as the SS exchanged pleasantries at her expense, congratulating themselves on her talent.