Fortunately, Gruder was in the front and hadn’t seemed to notice Jacob was missing. He was about to lead them into a barracks building marked Block 18 when one of the men broke away from the group and began running for the fence. Gruder yelled after him, warning him to stop, but the man would not listen. He didn’t make it thirty yards before he was shredded to pieces by machine-gun fire.
Jacob shuddered, and not only because of the cruelty of what he’d just witnessed. He realized he could have been shot for running to catch up with his group. He had discovered another unwritten, unspoken rule—two, perhaps: no running, and stay away from the fences.
Shaken, the men clattered up the stairs to the second floor without saying a word. Gruder ordered them into the first room on the left. It was packed with three-tiered bunk beds. Each bed had a thin mattress topped with a single neatly folded, thin, green wool blanket.
The problem became immediately obvious: there weren’t enough beds for all the men under Gruder’s command. As that fact dawned on the men, everyone began to push and shove to get a bed and blanket of his own. Jacob managed to scramble to the top of a bunk in the far corner of the room just as Gruder began cursing and screaming at them all. He said every man had to be in a bed immediately. There could be no exceptions. In most cases, that meant at least two men—and sometimes three—would have to share a bed. There simply were not enough for every man to have a bunk of his own.
Before he knew it, Jacob found himself with a thin, wild-eyed, and somewhat-odorous man in his forties as well as a pleasant enough but shell-shocked young man about his own age. Neither introduced himself. Neither made eye contact. The older man grabbed the blanket for himself, leaving Jacob and the other boy without any covering whatsoever. What’s more, the older man kept kicking and pushing the other two away from him. Just before Gruder turned the lights out, Jacob saw the older man was wearing a black triangle. The antisocial label fit him perfectly. The younger man had a yellow triangle. He was a fellow Jew.
Jacob noticed there was a coal-fired stove in the middle of the room, but there was no coal and no fire. The windows were covered with steel bars. The floor was littered with hay, reminding him of the cattle car they had arrived in.
When the lights went out, Jacob noticed how cold he felt and how exhausted. Yet he could not sleep. Not with this lunatic pushing and kicking him. Not with men moaning and crying all around him. Not with some snoring instantly and loudly, and others finally feeling free to talk to one another or to themselves. Not with his stomach grumbling and his mouth parched. Not with the fear of what the night would hold and what tomorrow would bring. He remembered the letters people had read on the train. He thought about the hidden warnings so many had tried to give to their loved ones. He could almost see the angel of death hovering over this place. It was not passing over. It had come here to rob, kill, and destroy, and for the first time in his life, Jacob was scared to close his eyes. He didn’t know if he was more afraid that he might never wake up, or that he might.
He stared up at the ceiling in the pitch-blackness and tried to think about something—anything—other than death. He wondered who all these men were. What were their names? He didn’t want to be mad at them. They obviously didn’t want to be there any more than he did. Where were they from? How had they been caught? What were they thinking? Did they know anyone here? Were any of them in the Resistance? Was there anyone he could trust?
There were no answers, for tonight at least. Jacob certainly wasn’t about to start asking questions. But maybe in the days ahead, if he listened carefully, he could get to know the men in this room, which of them might be enemies, and who, if anyone, might become an ally.
35
At 4:30 a.m., Jacob was awakened by a loud gong.
Moments later, Gerhard Gruder was standing in their doorway, demanding everyone get up, fold their blankets, and use the facilities. Having decided to do everything Gruder ordered first and fastest, Jacob leaped over his two comrades, jumped down to the floor, and led the crowd to the lavatories.
What he found were only twenty-two toilets and forty-two sinks for the nearly three hundred men who lived in Block 18. Worse, the guards gave each prisoner less than a minute to do his business, even though many of the men were starting to experience severe diarrhea.
Those who delayed were beaten. Those who resisted were beaten more. Those who complained to Gerhard that they were suffering dysentery were beaten worst of all. Jacob backed away from the melee. Having had so little to eat and drink, he had hardly any business to attend to and no desire to get his head pounded in. He suddenly remembered the strange voice he thought he had heard in the showers and found himself grateful for not having drunk the freezing-cold water. He suspected the water—probably in combination with the spoiled salami—was the cause of the stomach problems these men were having.
Back in the bunk room, Jacob found that Gruder was handing out small crusts of bread, barely more than a few crumbs. Jacob relished every morsel and couldn’t believe it when it was gone so quickly. How could he get more? He was tempted to grab some out of the hands of others, but he had to assume that was a sure way to get beaten, if not by Gruder then by a fellow prisoner.
Then someone dragged in a barrel of some steaming liquid, and someone else handed out small metal cups. Jacob took his immediately and was given half a liter of something pale and frothy that was described as tea but looked more like sewer water. Fortunately it did not smell, nor did it taste as bad as it looked. Jacob swallowed it as quickly as he could and then stuck his cup back through the throng of men. In the confusion, someone ladled another portion into his cup, but before Jacob could get it to his mouth, the angry, wild-eyed man he’d bunked with the night before grabbed it from him and pushed him away.
Jacob’s blood boiled. He balled up his fist and was ready for a fight, but then he thought of Mr. Eliezer’s admonition to keep his cool. This was no time for a fight, unless he was planning to commit suicide, and he was not.
The gong sounded again. It was time for the morning roll call. Jacob trailed the crowd down the stairs and into the courtyard and followed Gruder’s barking orders to the letter.
At precisely 5 a.m., the men lined up in rows of ten, block by block, surrounded by hundreds of guards with machine guns at the ready. Once again, every prisoner’s number was called out one by one. As each man shouted, “Here,” his number was checked and double-checked against two separate lists. Jacob noticed that each block senior individually inspected his men to make sure each prisoner was present and accounted for. This, Jacob assumed, was done so that someone couldn’t shout “here” for a friend when his friend was really still sleeping or going to the toilet, much less escaping.
Block 18, it soon became clear to Jacob, was mostly comprised of relatively new arrivals. The men in the roll call all looked reasonably healthy and well-fed. Next door in Block 17, the men looked like they were on the verge of death. The same was true of the men from Block 16, on their other side.
And that’s when Jacob noticed the block seniors weren’t simply counting the living. They were counting the dead, as well. At that moment, several seniors and their deputies from Block 15 were actually carrying out of their building the corpses of five men, each of whom had presumably died in his sleep. To his astonishment, Jacob watched as the corpses were stacked up against the front wall of their building. The block seniors then read out the tattooed numbers of each of the men so they could be checked off the master list. Then the bodies were loaded on wooden carts by men who didn’t look like they were long for this world either, and they were wheeled around the building and out of sight.
36
When the roll call was finished, another gong sounded.
This was the signal for the men to rush to their labor detail and head off to work. Of course, neither Jacob nor any of the men in Block 18 had been assigned to a labor detail yet, so their block senior explained the procedure.
“Work begins precise
ly at 7:30 every morning, except Sundays,” Gruder began. “If you survive until Sunday, I’ll explain that to you then. In the meantime, each of you better come to terms with the fact that you’re at a labor camp. You will give every ounce of energy you have for the Reich, or you will be punished severely. No exceptions.
“There are many types of jobs. Among them, the construction squad, the roofing squad, the roadworks squad, working at the timber yard, the fishponds, handling trash and sewerage, working in the clothes room, helping in the motor works, or serving as Sonderkommandos. Some of you will be assigned to the medical clinic or as clerks and record keepers, though most of those jobs are handled by women. You are men. You were strong and healthy enough to pass the initial inspection, so you’ll be expected to show us what you are made of. Don’t expect to be block deputies or seniors anytime soon. All of us have been here at least two years, and frankly, I don’t expect most of you to make it to summer. And don’t waste your time thinking about how to escape this place. It’s impossible. The only way out is through the chimney.”
With those depressing words, Gruder gestured to a dozen men who had been watching from the perimeter of the group, and they stepped forward. Gruder introduced them as work-detail bosses, calling them kapos.
The kapos wore green triangles on their clothing.
These, Jacob would soon learn, were the real slave masters of Auschwitz. They were prisoners who had somehow proven their loyalty to the camp leadership and had been assigned to run the work details in return for better living conditions, better clothing, and more and better food.
As soon as Gruder was finished speaking, the kapos swooped in and grabbed whomever they wanted, swearing at them and telling them to fall in line and do what they were told or they were going “to the ovens.” Jacob had no idea what that meant, but he was not about to ask questions.
Suddenly he was slapped on the back of his head by a nasty, brutish-looking kapo who told him he was going to be a Sonderkommando. It was another term he had never heard before today, but he said nothing.
Jacob dutifully followed along with two others from his block. One of them was his wild-eyed bunkmate, who for some reason had wound rags around both of his hands. The man was a lunatic, Jacob decided. He wanted nothing to do with him and stepped behind the kapo to be as far away from this creep as possible.
Jacob had no idea what a Sonderkommando did or what the duties entailed, but he was determined to work hard and prove his worth. After all, he thought, if Gruder could make it through two years and earn a promotion, so could he. But no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the wild-eyed man broke away from the group. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he ran down an alley to their right. He was headed straight for the fences.
Jacob suddenly understood what the rags were for. They weren’t to keep the man’s hands warm. They were to try to blunt the pain of the barbed wire as he climbed for freedom. He really was crazy, Jacob realized as he watched the man run and heard the kapo and Gruder yelling. But he had to give the man some credit. He was tall and he was fast, and for a split second Jacob wondered if he might actually make it. In some strange way, Jacob wanted him to. He was for anyone who could escape this hellhole.
Moving in a blur, the man reached the end of the alley before the guards could open fire. Then he made a running leap and grabbed for the top of the fence. Suddenly the scene erupted with sparks and flames. No one had told them the fence was electrified. Nevertheless, thousands of volts went ripping through the man’s body, thoroughly frying him before he could have possibly known what hit him. The man’s head and hair burst into flames, and a moment later, his charred, smoking body fell from the fence into a smoldering heap on the ground.
Even from fifty feet away, the smell was horrific. Jacob nearly began to gag again, and then it hit him. That was the smell! It was the same odor coming from the big smokestack. It was the smell of burning flesh, human flesh. Was that where they were taking all the bodies? Were they actually cremating all the people who died in this camp? Was that what Gruder had meant when he said the only way out was through the chimney?
“Quit staring—let’s move,” the kapo snapped at Jacob and the other recruit. “You’d better pray I find someone else or you’ll be working till midnight every day.”
Jacob couldn’t tell if the man was kidding, but he doubted it. He didn’t look like a man capable of humor.
As they walked, another kapo strode up beside them and walked with them for a stretch as they headed toward the squat little building at the base of the great chimney. He was staring at Jacob and finally asked, “What’s your name, son?”
Jacob wasn’t sure whether he should answer or not. Was that allowed? Which was worse, to answer or to remain silent? “Uh, my name is Leonard, Herr Kapo,” he said at last. “Leonard Eliezer.”
“No, it’s not,” the man replied.
“Pardon?” Jacob asked, his anxiety spiking.
“You’re Avi’s nephew,” the man said. “Right? Aren’t you Avi Weisz’s nephew?”
Jacob stopped in his tracks. All the color drained from his face. How could this man know him? And what did that portend?
“I . . . uh . . . I don’t know what . . .”
He was so flustered, he couldn’t finish a sentence.
The first kapo now turned and berated this interloper, but it quickly became clear to Jacob that this other kapo, the one who had approached him and somehow actually knew him, outranked the first.
“This man’s coming with me,” the second kapo declared, grabbing Jacob by the arm and walking him down a side alley to a large building marked Canada.
The first kapo put up a fight, but only briefly. Then he turned to his remaining recruit, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and insisted, “Don’t even think about it. You’re not getting away.”
The penalty for lying in this place had to be death, Jacob told himself. They seemed to kill people for far less. Was that where this man was taking him—to the gallows or to the wall to be shot?
Jacob stumbled as they walked. His knees felt weak. Despite the cold, he was sweating profusely. He wanted to be back with the other kapo, working, keeping his head down, staying anonymous, staying alive. But this was not to be. The kapo manhandled Jacob into the building, past two armed guards, up some stairs, and into a small, cluttered office, where he was pushed into a chair and told to stay put and not touch anything.
The man left. Jacob was trembling. He looked around for a way to escape, but there were no windows to the outside, though there were windows looking out over what appeared to be a gigantic warehouse. From Jacob’s angle, however, he was sitting too low to see much through the windows, and he didn’t dare stand or move at all or make a noise. He spotted a phone on the desk, but whom was he going to call in Poland? He didn’t know a living soul in this country, and even if he knew how to make a long-distance call to Germany or Belgium—and even if he believed the call would not be monitored by the Gestapo—whom was he going to call in either of those places? His family was dead. His friends were on the run. He was utterly alone in the universe. That was the pathetic truth. No one knew where he was. No one even really cared. And even if they did, there was nothing they could do to get him out.
He had entered hell itself. Who knew exactly what the afterlife held, but how could it be worse than this? Here they worked you to death or starved you if they could. Here they beat your brains in for sport. Here you were nothing—not a name, not a soul, just a number, and a worthless one at that. Here a German rapist and murderer had more value than an innocent Jew. He had come to a place with no hope, no life, and no way out but the chimney.
Maybe the wild man was right—live free or die as quickly as you can.
37
Not two minutes passed before the kapo stepped back into the office.
He handed Jacob a wanted poster. On it was his uncle’s name and photograph and personal details—height, weight, date of birth, home addresses
, all three of his business enterprises, and several aliases.
“That’s your uncle Avraham Weisz, is it not?” the man said.
Jacob just stared at the paper in his hands. He knew the look on his face betrayed him. He couldn’t very well say he didn’t know him. Not now. And what if his uncle was still alive? So he nodded and kept staring at the photograph. It was grainy and out of focus and badly reproduced, but there was no question—that was Avi.
“So that would make you Jacob Weisz, would it not?”
Jacob winced and nodded, refusing to look at the man, but rather staring down at the wood floor.
“It’s okay, Jacob,” the man said. “I’ve heard a great deal about your uncle. He was a hero among my circles of friends. We all mourn his passing.”
Startled, Jacob looked up at the man. “So it’s true?” Jacob asked tentatively. “He’s really dead?”
“Didn’t you see it yourself?”
“I saw him get shot,” Jacob confirmed. “I was hoping he had survived.”
“I’m told he died instantly,” the man said. “You should be glad he did. If he’d been captured by the Gestapo after what you all did . . .”
The man’s voice trailed off, and Jacob was glad he did not finish. He was right, of course. To have been captured under such circumstances would have been a nightmare. If Avi had lived, he would have been tortured mercilessly, and if he had survived that, he’d have been sent to certain death in Auschwitz.
“How do you know about him and about me?” Jacob asked.
“My name is Leszek Poczciwinski,” the man said. “I have—well, again, let’s call them ‘friends’—who work in various parts of this camp and outside this camp too. I help these men when I can. They help me when they can. One of them works in a particularly sensitive position here in the camp. He came to me early this morning and told me that Commander Asche in Belgium, a man with whom I believe you are familiar, recently telephoned Rudolf Hoess, a man with whom you will become acquainted. Hoess is the commandant here at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps. Commander Asche wanted Hoess to know about a raid by the Jewish underground on train 801, which he said occurred not far from Brussels. Asche provided the details of the raid and a list of the Resistance members who were involved. Overnight, a special courier came from the Gestapo with a copy of the file on the incident. My friend saw a portion of the file. He only had access to it for a moment, but he saw that the three Belgians involved in the raid appeared to have fled the country. The report also said that one Avraham Weisz was killed in the raid and that his nephew, Jacob, was on the run but believed to still be in Belgium.”