A Murder in Auschwitz (9 page)

“Ah, well I thought we could go to Clärchens Ballhaus. It is on Auguststrasse and the tram takes us straight to the door. It has great music and a restaurant attached,” he replied.

“Manfred, that sounds delightful. I am a bit worried about the snow, though.”

“Klara, if I have to carry you there through snowdrifts, I will make sure that we go dancing tonight.” Meyer then fished out the box from his pocket.

“I have a Christmas present for you,” he said, holding up the wrapped box for her to see.

Klara made an excited gasp. “What is it?”

“You will have to wait until morning, no opening until then!”

“I have something for you, too,” she said. Klara then scurried away before returning with an equally beautifully wrapped box.

“You have to wait too,” she teased, before her laugh infected them both.

Christmas was an unusual time for Manfred and Klara Meyer. Both were from Jewish backgrounds, but Meyer had celebrated Christmas to a certain degree since neither of his parents were practising Jews and it helped him fit in with his gentile neighbours and school friends. His family decorated their house, had a Christmas tree, and exchanged presents with each other.

Klara, on the other hand, had not celebrated Christmas before. She was from a much stricter Jewish household, and the idea of celebrating a Christian festival was seen as ridiculous, although her father always gave her and her brother a small gift each on Christmas day as a reward for being ‘good Jewish children’.

Klara and Manfred shared another belief though. They were both atheists. Klara’s scientific background and Meyer’s father’s belief in socialism had removed any faith in the Jewish, or any other religion. So it was a surprise to Klara when, on their first Christmas since having met, Meyer had bought her a Christmas gift. When she questioned Meyer jokingly on whether he had secretly converted to Catholicism or whether it was a purely capitalist Christmas he celebrated, he gave her a letter to read.

She had opened the envelope, which was dirty from fingerprints and slightly torn at the corner due to the letter inside being taken out so often over the years. There was no stamp, but the franking on the letter showed the Imperial German crown and was dated 1915. The letter inside was addressed to Manfred, who would have been ten years old at the time, and his brother Nils, who would go to France the following year. It read:

‘
My dear boys,

I have had a letter from Mummy telling me what good boys you have been and what a help you are to both your mother and your grandmother. Thank you very much for your own letters, they are a constant comfort to me and I read them over and over again when I am missing you all.

Manfred, to answer your question, the food is very nice, lovely black bread and bratwurst with potatoes and gravy. It is always lovely and hot as the weather has been particularly cold recently.

Nils, it is difficult as a soldier on the front line to determine which way the war is going, but I can tell you that we have been making good advances along the line. If you can, talk to Herr Koch about machine gun training. I think that this would be the best position to try to get when you join next year, but hopefully the war will be well and truly over by then.

But I am writing to tell you of a wonderful thing which has happened here on the front line. In case you did not know, the Kaiser had Christmas trees sent out to all the troops at the front so we could have a little bit of home comfort.

We decorated the trees and put them up above the parapet. I fully expected the enemy to shoot them down, but instead, when we sang Christmas songs, they joined in the singing! I could hear them clearly across no-man's-land. It was wonderful. Then some of our boys, who had worked in England as waiters before the war, got up out of the trench and walked over to them, hoping to swap cigarettes and wine for chocolate and whisky.

When I could hear them talking I couldn’t stop myself from laying down my rifle and joining them. I ended up talking to a Scotsman from a place called Glenfinnan. We managed with a little bit of English and a little bit of French to have a great conversation. He also has a wife and two boys at home waiting for him. I also found out that he did not much trust the French or like the English any more than I did! We had a good laugh about that!

I even heard a rumour of a football match being played between German and British soldiers further up the line. Can you imagine that boys? Enemies putting down their guns and playing a game instead! But the next morning the big guns started shelling again and the war was resumed.

The whole experience has heartened my confidence in the human race and shown that the proletariat are capable of working together in peace, as I have always known.

If Christmas can stop a war, then everyone should celebrate! It was the best Christmas present I could have ever wanted.

With all of my love,

Papa’

After she had read the letter, Meyer had asked her to open the present. It was a book by Erich Maria Remarque, ‘
All quiet on the Western Front
.’

Auschwitz, 24th July 1943

DEATH camp. Meyer tried to take in what Geller was telling him. How could this be? He had heard about the concentration camps. He knew about the deportations to the east and had never believed it was for resettlement. He had always thought that they would be labour camps. In fact, Klara and he had discussed this many times over the years. If you were arresting all of the people from a large ethnic community during a time of war then it made economic sense to put that population to work. Otherwise, not only would they be a drain on resources, but you would be removing a percentage of your skilled workforce from wartime production.

But to kill them? He could never have known. Never have guessed.

Meyer thought back to when he first got off the train. The old people were guided away. It seemed kind at the time. They had been on the train for a very long time and would need to be processed first, fed and given water.

The separation of the men from the women. At the time, Meyer thought it would be temporary. After all, they were in the same camp, which could not be so big that he would not be able to see his wife and girls. He knew that life would be hard in a concentration camp, but he thought that families would be allowed to stay together. Now Geller was telling him that he would never see his wife or children again. He pushed the images of Klara and the girls being led away from his mind.

When Meyer had begged Geller to tell him everything he knew about the camp, so that he might work out where his wife and children were, Geller had explained that there was a women’s camp and the children who had not been sent to the gas chambers were allowed to stay with their mothers. He also said that the men and women rarely saw each other. However, depending on the work group Meyer was put into, he might be able to get a message to his wife.

Meyer had had to ask Geller to repeat what he had said about what happened to those who had been selected for extermination, as he could not believe how organised the facilities were for the killing and disposal of such huge numbers of people.

Geller had nodded when Meyer had asked him to tell him again about the selection process and the fate of the prisoners, as determined by which group they belonged to. Geller knew it was difficult to take in, especially if you were German. Meyer had been shocked that such things could be done to anyone, but especially your own countrymen. Anton Geller ran through what he knew of the processes used on those arriving in Auschwitz.

First of all, the prisoners were split into those who would be capable of working and those who would not. The old, the infirm, the sick, and the very young were sent one way. As with the processing that Meyer had experienced, they were stripped and their possessions taken from them before being taken to large chambers which were filled with gas. The bodies were then taken to the crematoria and burned en mass. This work was carried out by the Sonderkommando; prisoners picked to work in the death machine.

Those who were fit enough to work were then split. The women were led off one way, the men the other way. Both groups would be worked until they died. It was all very simple, all very mechanical, all very industrial.

Meyer was exhausted. He wasn’t sure what time it was when he curled up on the hard board of the broken bunk, but he felt that his eyes had only just closed when he was being shaken awake. Geller was the one waking him.

“Come on, Manfred, we need to go outside for roll call,” he instructed.

Kapo Langer was making his way down the aisles between the bunks, shouting at everyone to get up and get out. He worked his way around to the wall where most of the new arrivals had spent the night, kicking those still on the floor of the hut, forcing them to their feet.

“Get outside and line up with the rest. This is roll call!” he shouted.

Anton Geller took Meyer and guided him out, through the door, into the yard outside, where the dark of the night was being chased away by a slowly emerging summer sun. They lined up with the other men from the hut and waited as the stream of inmates continued to line up in rows behind them.

“Thank you, Anton,” said Meyer.

“What for?” came the reply.

“For being kind in this place of unkindness.”

Anton Geller put his hand on Meyer’s back.

“Manfred, I was brought here in January and have survived the snow and the bitter cold while others died. I have survived the hard labour, the food, and the beatings, and I plan to survive the camp. If you feel the same way then we should survive together.”

Langer stood in front of the assembled men with a clipboard and started shouting out names. Beside him stood two men, both of whom carried the green triangle indicating the wearer as a criminal.

“Who are the other two?” asked Meyer in a whisper.

“That is Braun and Klein. They are Langer’s muscle,” replied Geller. He didn’t need to explain any further.

The names came slowly from Langer, with a ‘yes’ or ‘present’ coming in reply. Meyer waited for his name and replied with ‘present’. Two names shortly after Meyer’s did not come back with a reply. Both times Langer shouted the names a bit louder and again when there was no reply. Each time, Langer chatted to Braun and Klein and there was a nodding of heads. At the end of the roll call, Langer and his two deputies returned to the hut.

“They will be checking the hut to see if the two missing men are either dead or ill,” explained Geller, “Then they will do the roll call again.”

“What if the two missing men are not in the hut?” asked Meyer.

“You know, I have no idea. It has never happened,” laughed Geller, “I am not sure it is possible. Langer gets a fresh list of names each morning, with any new inmates included and anyone who has died the previous day removed.”

“Has no-one ever escaped from here?” asked Meyer.

“Not from the camp, although I have heard rumours of some people escaping during the confusion at the gas chambers but I am not sure if these stories are true. Some have made it away from the working parties into the forest, but if you are caught, you are shot on sight.”

Langer and his two men reappeared from the hut and the roll call of names started again, this time missing out the names of the two men who had not responded earlier. Once the list of names had been completed successfully, Langer left Braun and Klein in front of the assembled prisoners.

“What happens now?” whispered Meyer.

“Kapo Langer goes to the registration office and hands in his sheet. I suppose that they then take account of any missing prisoners. When he comes back he will be followed by a couple of SS guards. We then wait for the SS officers, the Blockführers, to arrive and we go through the same thing all over again. Until then we just wait here.”

The morning was cold but Meyer imagined how cold it must be in the snows of a Polish winter. As he was wondering about preparing himself for the coming winter, a white flake floated past his face. He thought he was imagining things until he saw another. His eyes turned to the sky above him. There were clouds tinged blood red and gold by the rising sun, but these could not be snow clouds, could they? Had all the death and misery of this place created its own weather? That just was not possible. Was it? He turned to Geller.

“Anton, snow in July? Am I imagining things?”

Geller shook his head.

“You are not seeing things Manfred, but it isn’t snow,” he whispered back.

“What is it?” asked Meyer, as he watched another flake float over the heads of the men in front.

“It’s from the crematorium chimneys,” came the answer, “The wind has changed and it is blowing the smoke and ash this way.”

Meyer swiped away a flake which had landed on his cheek and thought about the crowd of old people that he had watched being taken away, hundreds of them. It was hard to digest the fact that they were now all dead and their remains were being cremated at that very moment. At least they were free from this place of torture. Perhaps it was a blessing that they did not have to suffer this place. How long would they have survived for, anyway?