Every time I had to take a piss I would pass by a section of bunks being tended by an orderly who seemed to be highly competent and compassionate when treating patients. He could have passed for the twin of that Nazi officer on the train from Nice who had the cans of milk, except that the orderly wore a yellow triangle. The day after the fire he came and sat on the edge of my bunk.
“Mein Name ist Paul. Kannst du Deutsch sprechen?” (My name is Paul. Do you speak German?)
“Je parle le français.” (I speak French.) He frowned. “Mon Français nest pas très bon” (My French isn’t very good), he told me.
“That’s okay, I was only kidding,” I told him in German.
His face brightened. “Did you know any German Jews in France? Two cousins of mine emigrated there in ’33. I haven’t heard from them since the war started.”
“Only German Jews I met were a few elderly couples while I was in a camp in Paris.”
“I’m sure those couples didn’t make it past the first day here.
My parents didn’t.”
“I’m sorry. Why didn’t you leave Germany with your cousins?”
“My father was a decorated veteran. He thought that the Nazis wouldn’t touch him, and I was in my fourth year of medical school.”
I asked a question that I had been eager to ask a German Jew for some time.
“Why do you think Hitler hates you people?”
“I don’t know, but he sure needed us—blaming us for losing the war and causing the depression. He would’ve been a nobody without us. He got rich off us, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“The gangsters confiscated everything we owned. Affluent Jews were jailed, and when they managed to secure a visa to another country, the Nazis turned them loose and legally took everything they had.”
“Legally?”
“Oh, yes. Hitler imposed a penalty for fleeing Germany, a Reichsfluchtsteuer, which was only a lawful way for him to steal everything a man owned.”
“There were many wealthy Jews?”
He shrugged. “Wealthy, I don’t know. Understand that many were forced to start their own businesses or be self-employed because the German guilds and unions didn’t accept us.”
I told him that I never knew that. “I always heard that Jews didn’t want to get their hands dirty.”
He laughed at my ignorance and bid me good luck. My heart grew heavy, realizing how horrible it must have been for Stella and Hubert to grow up stigmatized and then witness that intolerance turn into ovens.
On a rainy Tuesday night the assembly bell rang as the Kommandos returned from the plant. I pitied my fellow Häftlinge for having to stand out there, soaked and shivering, after toiling for twelve hours. A gaggle of bitching SS passed by. I went to the window. The wind carried the echoes of the Lagerführer’s pronouncement. They were hanging another man for trying to escape. The execution was over quickly; the boches were in a hurry to get back to their warm quarters.
I slipped back into the bunk. For the first time, Pressburger was sleeping soundly. I mulled over why the SS hadn’t postponed the hanging. Was the man’s demise that urgent? Were the boches that rigid with their protocol? Of course, they were. They probably kept records of every man, woman, and child they slaughtered. Maybe they didn’t want to wait one day because then the condemned man would have enjoyed the double ration of bread and spoonful of jam we received every Wednesday morning. For a doomed Häftling that jam would be a royal delicacy, but as the White Queen told Alice,
“The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today.”
The Nazi jam, like their margarine, was made from coal. I didn’t believe it when I was first told, figuring it was a dirty trick to sucker me into giving my portion to an “old timer.” Then I overheard some Häftlinge mention that they worked in the factory labs that used coal to make synthetic food products and other materials used in the camp. There wasn’t any nutritional value whatsoever in the ersatz jam, but it did help quiet the hunger pangs for a while.
I awoke as a searchlight beam skimmed across the icy windowpane, making it sparkle like crystal. The footsteps outside told me the sentries were being relieved. I had to relieve myself, so I ran for the pail. My bare feet stuck to the cold, oiled floor. I passed the Häftling who was on night watch. He was asleep in a chair, snuggly wrapped in a blanket. Nice to see that one of us was momentarily having it better than the Nazis outside.
When I got back under the covers, Pressburger’s feet were on my side of the bunk. Irritated, I pushed them away. His legs were rigid and cold. He was dead. Pressburger was gone.
Having slept next to a man while he gasped his final breaths gave me the creeps. My instinct was to run, but since there was nowhere to go I just laid there and got goose bumps. It’s a depressing revelation how easy and unceremoniously life can vanish. I couldn’t help thinking that if life had any value at all, then Pressburger’s death wouldn’t seem so completely meaningless. I thought about waking the night watchman, but he would have to wake the Stubendienst, who would have to wake a couple of the orderlies. I felt foolish that Pressburger had that much sway over me. Why rouse the whole Block for one corpse? It could wait till morning.
I took Pressburger’s blanket, and was about to shove his body out so I could have the whole bed to myself, when a better idea popped into my head. In a few hours Janec would arrive with the morning rations, and if he saw that Pressburger was dead he would keep his share. Why should he get it instead of me? The big Pole didn’t need the bread and jam; he got packages from home. I was the one who had taken care of Pressburger, made things easier for him in his last hours. I deserved his ration.
I dragged Pressburger to the other side of the bunk, away from the light of the corridor. The body had stiffened, and it took all my strength to move the limbs into the semblance of a normal sleeping position. I turned his face toward me. The features were contorted into a horrible scowl. I pushed on his jaw, but his mouth wouldn’t close. His eyes were rolled back and his eyelids kept sliding up every time I tried to close them. I pulled the blanket so that only the top of his head showed. I went to the spot where Janec would stand while distributing the food and inspected my stage setting. It seemed perfect.
As I tried to go back to sleep, I considered what Pressburger would have done if he had known that he was going to die so forsaken. Would he have confided in me about his life, his dreams, his failures, his loves? Would he have prayed to God or cursed him for such a foul-smelling fate? Here was another man whose family, if he had one and if they were still alive, would never know where and how he died. This man suffered, laughed, thought of the future….
No, I had to stop. I wasn’t strong enough. There were too many dying for me to grieve for any of them. And was Pressburger the one to be pitied? His suffering was over, but what was still in store for me? What would I have to go through till my forsaken death?
The camp’s reveille brought me to consciousness with a jolt. I kept my back turned to my bunkmate and dozed back off. A little while later the Kommandos marched out as the camp’s band played