“We’re going to be evacuated tonight.”
“The Soviets have Auschwitz encircled, and they’re going to shell this place until nothing stands.”
“The Boches are going to wipe us all out with flame throwers.”
“No, no, they signed an armistice.”
Toward afternoon, we were told to return to our Blocks. The next morning the assembly bell failed to ring. The sudden shock of change made me nervous. Twelve months of a strict, daily routine had created an odd sense of comfort—dare I even say, a sense of control—that had now been yanked out from under me. I walked aimlessly around the camp. The guard towers were still manned, but the Kapos were out of sight. They knew this idle time could spark one of the milling groups of Häftlinge into a vengeful mob.
I looked toward the east. The Soviets were closer. The sounds of battle were now tremendous hammer blows. I figured they would be here in two or three days, but would we? Would I get the chance to go freely through those gates? And if I did, should I search for Stella? She hadn’t entered my thoughts for some time. If she were alive, I thought, would she be capable of caring about me anymore? My heart had become callous, but still I held a thread of hope for us. Why couldn’t she?
Prisoners ran past me. Without knowing why, I followed them across the yard to a growing mob trying to break into the clothing warehouse. With an old post as a battering ram, a gang of Häftlinge smashed in the door. We all rushed in.
The warehouse was dark and thick with the smell of mothballs and disinfectant. I groped my way through a corridor created by massive piles of clothing in hopes of finding something to insulate myself from the January blizzards. Running my hands along the piles, I recognized the rough material of our striped “pajamas.”
Near the far end of the building, my hand fell upon a handle that seemed to belong to a suitcase. I yanked and then found myself buried under an avalanche of valises. Feeling as if I had been bashed by twenty Kapos, I struggled out from under the luggage and “organized” a suitcase that I could carry with ease.
Machine gun fire exploded from an adjacent guard tower. Bullets pierced the walls and shattered windows. I threw myself flat on my face as most of the others rushed toward the door in a screaming panic, trampling the dead and wounded. Light seeped through dangling shutters. When the shooting stopped, I jumped to my feet and ran to a window opposite the guard tower. I looked out. There was no one around. I threw the suitcase through the glass and jumped out after it.
Bullets whistled by my ears, slamming into the warehouse wall behind me. Terrified, I bent over as far as I could and rushed for the nearest shelter, the latrine. A strong shock nearly wrenched the suitcase from my grasp. I spun around, thinking someone was trying to steal my bounty, but there was no one there. I barreled into the latrine, slammed the door, and crouched breathless behind my brown leather suitcase.
When the machine guns fell silent again, I cracked open the door. The yard was deserted except for a few bodies. I closed the door. It was time to open my treasure chest. It looked new except for the hole on one side, which I could easily stick my thumb into.
There was a key tied to the handle, but the clasps weren’t locked.
Inside were cozy wool sweaters and cardigans. I layered them on me, making sure after each one that my “pajama” top still fit. These were the first civilian clothes I had put on since my arrival. There had been times that I wore the same “pajamas” for three months—clothes made hard and brittle from filth. The clean, soft tickle of angora against my skin was overwhelmingly seductive. Some of the sweaters had odd moth holes in them, but I couldn’t care less.
When I slipped on the fourth sweater, I was barely able to button my jacket.
There were three cardigans left and I planned to give them to Hubert, but I couldn’t walk out with them bundled under my arm.
My fellow Häftlinge would jump me for them and probably strip me of the ones that I was wearing. I had to hide them, and the latrine’s rafters were the perfect spot. When I began to fold the cardigans, a piece of metal dropped to the floor. A machine gun bullet. That’s what almost ripped the suitcase out of my hand and made the moth holes in the sweaters. Shit—how close did that bullet come to putting a moth hole in me?
I was unable to find Hubert. He wasn’t in his Block or anywhere else I thought he might be. I repeatedly called out his name as I roamed the yard. A few fellows were rushing toward the kitchen, and being an opportunistic scavenger, I followed them. With the plant idle, there was no steam for cooking, but there could be some cold leftover soup or some cabbages. To my shock, a cook was standing in the doorway handing out leftover loaves of bread, the morning bread having already been delivered to the Blocks. Holding that hefty loaf of dark bread in my hands, I realized that the rumors must be true. We were going to leave Auschwitz. The SS wouldn’t fill our bellies if they planned to kill us. Figuring that we would be leaving in the morning, the bread joined the sweaters on the rafter.
The assembly bell rang.
“Everybody in their Blocks!” The Stubendienste yelled through megaphones.
“Line up with your blankets,” the Blockälteste ordered.
We were going to “Pitchi Poi” tonight! I grabbed my blanket and the blanket of a bunkmate who hadn’t opened his eyes that morning. As we marched out of the barracks in single file, we received a ration of bread at the doorway.
“Line up by Blocks!” someone was yelling through a megaphone.
As 10,000 men flowed out of the Blocks, I ducked into the latrine to recover my loot. I rolled the sweaters and bread in my extra blanket, tied the bundle with the shoelaces from one of the bullet-riddled corpses, and looped it over my shoulder. Wrapping my blanket around me for the journey, I darted out of the latrine and fell into rank. I called out for Hubert again, but it was useless.
PART III
THE DEATH MARCH
CHAPTER 16
The first columns of Häftlinge began to move. The men of my Block stomped and shuffled about to keep warm as we waited our turn to be ushered out. With the receding sun behind them, the peaks of the Carpathians glowed like the wicks of smoldering candles as a thinly stretched nimbus lowered a crimson veil of snow onto them.
Everyone was grumbling. January was by no means the time to be taking an evening stroll. Finally, a guard in a thick field gray coat waved us forward. This time there were no musicians playing a martial tune as we walked in rows of five through the gate. The quiet was unsettling.
The SS led us back down the road that we had all traveled after unloading from the cattle cars. The Buna plant was to our right, its barbed-wire fence bordering the road. The plant itself was a looming silhouette against the winter twilight. No lights shone inside, no smoke spewed from its multiple chimneys. The Nazis had deserted it. Buna was a dying monster. How I hated and feared that beast when its heart furiously pumped methanol through its snarled network of veins. And now that it was innocuous, I should have felt happy—overjoyed—but I wasn’t. Hadn’t I dreamt of seeing it like this? Yes, but the slave had become overacquainted with his task-master. I knew what it expected from me and that I could endure its many tortures. What monster was I being herded to now along this icy path? Could I survive its demands, its torments, or would it be the one to finally devour me and spit out my ashes?