Luc began to snore. Startled that his partner could fall asleep at such a time as this, but even more frightened that someone might hear him, Jacob poked him in the ribs—not enough to wake him, just enough to get him to shift from sleeping on his back. The snoring stopped, and Jacob’s pulse began to normalize. As for him, he simply could not sleep while fifty-five thousand other souls were standing and groaning in the wind and the rain.
Somewhere out there, he knew Abby was praying for everyone to be brave and strong and make it until the dawn. But where was God in all of this? Why didn’t he just rain fire down from heaven on these wicked troops and consume them once and for all? Why didn’t he shake the Third Reich with a devastating earthquake? Why didn’t he just open up the earth and let Berlin fall into the fiery cauldrons below? How much longer must the innocent suffer? If God had really chosen the Jews as his special people, where was he now?
– – –
As day one turned into day two, the driving rains continued.
Water was seeping in through various crevices, and Jacob again worried the smell of the Russian tobacco was being washed away. The ground was cold and damp, and even with all their extra clothing and the uniforms of Steinberger and Frenkel beneath them like sheets and their own uniforms on top of them like blankets, they were still cold and cramped.
On the second night, the foot patrols seemed to increase. There were more dogs in the area. More lorries drove past. It seemed to Jacob that the Nazis were carrying out a renewed and much more intense search of the Birkenau-III area.
A cramp was developing in both of Jacob’s legs. He could hardly feel his toes. They were so cold they had become numb. He was desperate to stand, to stretch, to get the blood moving through his legs and feet and toes again, but that was impossible. With all the guards combing the area, he and Luc dared not move. But the pain was becoming unbearable.
Somehow, Jacob knew Luc was praying. There were moments when Jacob wished he, too, could believe in an all-knowing, all-loving God who was with them in that hideout, helping them, sustaining them in their darkest hour. But he couldn’t. Try as he might, he just could not believe. Not with all that he had seen and experienced.
Instead of praying, he tried to keep his mind sharp by thinking about what they needed to do once these eighty hours were done, reviewing the things Steinberger and Frenkel had taught him before they left.
“Lesson one: trust nobody,” Steinberger had insisted.
“Lesson two: don’t be afraid of the Germans. There are many of them, but they can die just as quickly as anybody else.
“Lesson three: once you’re out, don’t trust your legs; a bullet can always run faster. Don’t give them a chance to shoot. Rest by day; move by night.
“Lesson four: carry no money. If you’re starving, you’ll be tempted to buy food. If you’ve got no money, you can’t. Live off the land. Keep away from people.
“Lesson five: travel light. You’ll need a knife for hunting or for defending yourself or in case you’re about to be captured. Don’t let them take you alive. You’ll need matches because you’ll have to cook what you steal. You’ll need salt because with salt and potatoes you can keep going for months. You’ll need a watch so that you can time your journeys and make sure you’re never caught in the open by day. You can use it as a compass, too.”
Steinberger had learned these five lessons from Dmitri Volkov, the same Russian prisoner of war who taught him and Frenkel to throw off the tracker dogs using the dried tobacco soaked in petrol. “But only the Russian tobacco, remember,” he had warned them. “I’m not being patriotic. It’s the only stuff that works.”
Volkov had also told them never to carry meat because it would draw the attention of the dogs. And he warned them never to let down their guard.
“Never forget,” he said, “that the real fight only begins when you’re away from the camp. Never relax so long as you’re in enemy territory. Never get drunk with freedom, like I did outside Kiev, for you never know who is lying in the bushes.”
79
JUNE 5, 1944
“Tell me what I want to hear,” Hoess said.
Breathless, Von Strassen stepped into his commander’s office and saluted with a “Heil Hitler!”
He took a deep breath, then admitted, “I’m afraid I cannot yet do that, sir.” Von Strassen’s breathing was rapid, and his voice trembled ever so slightly. “We have not found these two yet—Leonard Eliezer or Jean-Luc Leclerc—but we’ve completed our preliminary investigation. We know much more about who they are. Eliezer was a registrar. Leclerc ran the bakery. We’ve identified their workmates and associates. We’re in the process of interrogating each of them as we speak. I am confident, sir, that we’ll break them and find out what we need to know. Once we do, we’ll have a better idea of where they are likely headed—probably eventually toward France, since that is where Leclerc is from—and we can radio ahead to units in that area to capture them and bring them back alive to be hanged in the courtyard.”
“Hanged?” Hoess fumed. “You think I’m going to hang them? Never. I’m going to make an example of these two. We’ll tie them up alive and put them into the ovens with the rest of the camp watching.”
“Yes, sir,” Von Strassen said. “Very good, sir. That will send a powerful message to all the prisoners.”
Von Strassen then handed Hoess the file he was building on the investigation. Hoess opened it and quickly leafed through the typed reports and the handwritten notes. Von Strassen didn’t wait. He explained to Hoess that “Leonard Eliezer, age twenty-two,” was likely not the real identity of the escapee.
“In the course of the last three days, sir, we have come to believe that this Eliezer figure is actually a young man by the name of Jacob Weisz,” Von Strassen explained. “A man named Avraham Weisz was a German Jew who was a leader in the underground movement, in Germany initially but then more extensively in Belgium. We believe Jacob Weisz is his nephew. Weisz’s parents were shot by the Gestapo in the town of Siegen almost five years ago. Afterward, he was recruited by his uncle to join the underground. He was well trained in Belgium and was involved in the raid on train 801 last year near Brussels. During that raid, Avraham was shot and killed, and as best we can piece together, Jacob Weisz was accidentally caught in one of the cattle cars while trying to help prisoners escape. It was then, on the way here to Auschwitz, that Weisz assumed a new identity, that of Leonard Eliezer.”
“You’re saying we’ve had a trained member of the Resistance in our midst for over a year and we didn’t know it?” Hoess asked, visibly incredulous.
“It would appear that way,” Von Strassen admitted. “But I’m afraid it gets worse. Almost as soon as he arrived, Jacob Weisz linked up with Leszek Poczciwinski in the Canada command.”
“You mean the Poczciwinski who escaped last year?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go on.”
“Well, sir, you may recall that at the time, we arrested and interrogated several men who worked under Poczciwinski in Canada,” Von Strassen continued. “Among them was a young man named Maximilian Cohen. Another was Leonard Eliezer, aka Jacob Weisz.”
“We hanged Cohen.”
“Yes, sir, we did. He never confessed to involvement in the plot, but it was clear he was lying. Unfortunately, I let Jacob Weisz go. He was new in the camp. He claimed he didn’t know anything. I believed him. I was wrong. Now we think it was Poczciwinski who was the head of the underground movement in the camp. One of the top leaders, at least. I now believe that Cohen, Weisz, Steinberger, and Frenkel were all associates of his. I have not yet ascertained whether they were all directly recruited by him or not. But given that they all were plotting to escape—and have done so successfully—I think we can safely assume they were conspiring together.”
“And this Jean-Luc Leclerc,” Hoess said, reading the name from a file. “What do we know about him?”
“At the moment, he’s a mystery, sir. We don’t know anythi
ng about him except his name, serial number, and country of origin.”
“Why not?”
“Well, sir, his file is missing from our records. Actually, the files on all these men—except for Max Cohen—have disappeared. We seem to have, or have had, a mole in the records office. But my men have just pulled in for interrogation two prisoners who seem to have been connected to all of the men I just mentioned.”
“Who are they?”
“One is a young woman, Abigail Cohen,” Von Strassen said, pulling another file out of his briefcase and handing it over to his superior. “She’s a nurse in the medical unit and the sister of Max Cohen.”
Hoess looked through her file. “And the other?”
“His name is Josef Starwolski. He’s a Polish Jew. Used to work in the records office. Was transferred a few months ago but still has close connections there.”
“Where are they now?” Hoess asked, standing.
“They’re in the pit, sir,” Von Strassen replied. “I have not had the chance to personally interrogate them yet. My men have questioned them, but only briefly. But as you know, I just got back from leading the search effort. I am heading over there now.”
“Your search is over?”
“It’s about to end, sir. We are at the end of seventy-two hours. With your permission, I will bring the troops back. But this is by no means over, sir. I am convinced we can get information out of Cohen and Starwolski that will lead us to Weisz and Leclerc. I just need a little more time.”
“Time?” Hoess asked. “You want more time? Der Führer is waiting personally for a call from me. Do you understand how little time we have to make this right?”
“Please, sir,” Von Strassen begged. “I give you my word that I will catch these two.”
“Your word means nothing to me, Colonel. Find them. Now.”
80
JUNE 5, 1944
“Cordon down!”
Jacob could hear the soldiers shouting in the distance. The word was spreading. The manhunt was over. Jacob could hardly believe it. Somehow, seventy-two hours had actually passed. And they weren’t dead yet.
Jacob rubbed his painful legs vigorously, trying again to get the blood moving. He shook his feet and bent his knees. But for now, it only seemed to make the pain increase, so he stopped. He looked at his watch. It was seven thirty in the evening of day three. As was their standard, the Nazis were right on time. They had searched for exactly three full days. They had come up empty. Now they were done.
He glanced over at Luc. The Frenchman nodded acknowledgment of the time and the circumstances. But it was clear from Luc’s face that he, too, was in severe pain. Worse, his face was pale, and he was perspiring profusely.
Jacob felt his forehead. The man was burning up. He desperately needed cold water, which they did not have. He needed medicines, and they did not have any of those either.
They needed to get moving. In just the first full day of their intense anxiety and mind-numbing boredom, they had finished much of their limited supply of food and all of their water. Now they hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in nearly two full days. They needed supplies, but they both knew they couldn’t leave their hideout yet. They still had a few more hours to wait.
As the next few hours passed, Jacob could hear the lorries bringing troops back from the field and the dogs barking and the men chatting with one another. Then two men stopped directly beside their position. They lit up cigarettes and complained about how furious Von Strassen was about another two Jews escaping. Their German shepherd urinated on the woodpile, and soon they were gone.
Jacob smiled. He couldn’t help himself. Von Strassen had no idea who Jean-Luc Leclerc was, not if he thought the man was Jewish.
Jacob was glad for the final favor he had asked of Josef. He had asked his Polish friend to sneak back into the records office, pull his file and Luc’s—their official files with all their personal information—and destroy them. With everything else going on and the stress of those last few days, he had forgotten to follow up with Josef to see if he had been able to do it. It was risky, to be sure. But if it could be done, it would mean that all Von Strassen had right now were Jacob’s and Luc’s serial numbers, the ones tattooed on their forearms. If Josef had been successful, that meant Von Strassen did not have their names or their photographs or their personal histories or the names of their relatives or any description of their physical characteristics, except for whatever details they could force out of their block seniors and the men in their barracks.
Maybe Josef had done it. Maybe he hadn’t. But if Von Strassen thought he was hunting for two Jews, perhaps that was a sign Josef had actually pulled off the minor coup. If so, Von Strassen was at a disadvantage. Then again, maybe he knew exactly who Jacob and Luc were and had just described them both as Jews to get the troops whipped up into a frenzied bloodlust.
There was no way to know for sure. The one thing Jacob was certain of was that with Luc becoming so ill, there was no way they were waiting until two in the morning to make their move. They needed as much darkness as possible to get as far away from this place as they could.
That meant only one thing: they were leaving at midnight, two hours earlier than planned.
– – –
Someone was poking him.
Jacob rubbed his eyes and tried to sit up but found himself dizzy and disoriented in the pitch-dark.
His shirt was drenched with sweat. He felt his forehead and realized he was feverish. Whatever bug Luc had picked up, now Jacob had it too, and the timing could not have been worse.
“Jacob, we need to go,” Luc whispered.
“What time is it?” Jacob whispered back.
“It’s almost three,” Luc replied.
“What?”
“Three in the morning,” Luc repeated. “We fell asleep. Both of us. It must be the fevers. We have to move now, or we’re going to run out of darkness.”
Jacob began to panic. How was this possible? How could they have let themselves waste three precious hours? The sun would be rising in less time than that.
“Should we wait another night?” Jacob asked, mopping the perspiration off his face.
“No, we cannot take such a risk,” Luc said. “Remember, they’re going to start using this lumber soon. We need to go now.”
Jacob’s legs ached terribly. Plus he was hungry and thirsty and growing sicker by the hour.
Standing up had never been so difficult. Jacob had to brace himself against the side of the lumber pile not to lose his balance. Luc, who was doing a bit better, but not much, grabbed the backpack and suggested Jacob climb out first.
But now they had a new problem. As Jacob tried to push away the boards above them, he could not do it. He pushed harder, straining against the wood, but he simply did not have the strength to budge the lumber even a little.
“Come on; let’s go,” Luc urged.
“I’m trying,” Jacob said, the anxiety in his voice clearly audible.
He pushed again, to no avail. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered to himself under his breath. He tried still again, but with little effect.
Exasperated, he turned to Luc and said, “You try it.”
Without saying a word, Luc set down the backpack and made the attempt. He was able to move the boards up a few inches but could not push them over to the side.
“What are we going to do?” Jacob asked. “We’re trapped in. This isn’t a hideout. It’s a tomb.”
“Shhh, Jacob, don’t worry,” Luc said in a whisper.
“What do you mean, don’t worry?” Jacob shot back. “Don’t you see what’s happening here?”
“It’s going to be okay, Jacob. The Lord is with us. He brought us to this point. He’s not going to let us die here. I promise you that.”
“How do you know?” Jacob asked. “How can you say that? There’s no other way out. We can’t dig our way out. And we ought to be on the run by now. This is unbelievable. Absolutely unb
elievable.”
Had there been room to pace, Jacob would have been pacing. As it was, he just dropped to the ground and put his face in his hands, muttering and cursing.
Luc, however, said nothing. Rather, he reached into the backpack and pulled out their two flashlights. Putting one in his pocket, he put the other under his chin. Then he reached up and pushed again on the boards above them. They rose not more than three inches, but that was just enough. Without turning the flashlight on, Luc took the one from under his chin and wedged it into the three-inch space between the planks and the side panels. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
“Get up,” Luc whispered. “Give me a hand.”
Though nearly beside himself with panic now, Jacob stood. “And do what?” he asked.
“Give me a boost,” Luc said.
So Jacob did. He bent down and linked his fingers together, and Luc put one foot into Jacob’s hands.
“One, two, three, go,” he said.
Jacob lifted him upward as far as he could, but it wasn’t enough, and the flashlight fell down.
The sound terrified them. What if someone heard?
“Come on,” Luc said, more urgency in his voice. “Try it again.”
Jacob’s back was aching. The muscles in his legs were screaming. His heart was racing, but he tried again. And again.
The fourth time was the charm. The very real and growing fear that they might be trapped in a wood coffin of their own design gave both of them a burst of adrenaline. With the last of his strength, Jacob heaved Luc upward, and Luc thrust the boards up and to the side. Suddenly they could see the stars and the moon. They grabbed the backpack again and helped each other out of the hole and off the lumber pile.
They were out!
Jacob could hardly believe it. His fever was spiking. He now had splinters in his hands. But he was out. They both were. They were out of Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were past not just one twenty-foot-high electrified fence but two. There were no soldiers to be seen. Even the guard towers, which were rarely manned at night, appeared empty.