Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust (7 page)

Without thinking, unaware he had done it, Peter pulled his Mauser out and shot the woman in the face. The father threw himself across her. The pistol was shooting itself. Peter shot him, then the boy who kept screaming. He kicked the father aside, shot him again, then the boy laying on the ramp in the forehead. The baby was wailing. He shoved the mother’s body aside and the gun emptied itself -- two shots -- into the infant.

Peter was salivating when it was done and dripping in sweat despite the fierce cold. He was breathing as if he had run a great distance. He could not recall shooting them except as an uninvolved observer. He was shivering, but not from the cold. The slide on his gun was locked back on empty and he instinctively reached for a fresh clip as he had learned at the Front.

Wolff shouted over the girl’s bloody body, now torn to bits: “Good work! Give them a taste of German lead!” He laughed like a dog barking.

Peter was suddenly violently ill but held the vomit in his throat. If he threw up it would be a sign of weakness. The LeichnamKommando started pulling the family away. They were working feverishly to keep pace with the dead. He cursed and struck them repeatedly across the back with his truncheon.

“That's it! Nice work with the family. Now you’re getting in the swing of it.” That was Max, finished with his old couple, kicking and clubbing the rest of the material out of the cattle car.

The strains of Mozart drifted over the slaughter. Hours later, well after dark, when Max suggested they get drunk Peter went with him. What choice did he have? There was nothing in his sleep he wanted to face and he could not bear to think about the day.

Their brothel was beside the officers', and both were inside the KZ near the electric fence. If their mess was not good enough for the officers they could not expect them to share their woman as well. Sometimes if the officers tired of a certain whore and she was not as yet diseased she was sent to the enlisted brothel. Very nice of them.

The brothel was a two-story Block. On the first floor was a barren beer hall. The second floor was rooms for the whores. The women, about twenty or so depending on supply, were taken directly from the first selection. Occasionally a skilled woman who worked in the KZ and who was not yet a scarecrow was sent to the brothel before going to the shower. The women ranged in ages from fifteen to thirty. They were well fed and drank with the men if invited. They made merry when there was nothing to be glad for and serviced the guards upstairs. The smoking fires were a constant reminder as to their fate if they displeased the SS.

The average whore lasted two months. They were inspected weekly by the KZ medic. Some of the guards were constantly picking up diseases from the inmate women and giving them to the whores. The men were treated. There were always fresh bodies arriving so the contaminated women went to the shower and were promptly replaced.

The mischling madam, Zelda, who ran the enlisted brothel, had been a whore before the war but few of her women had. She saw that they knew how to behave and she gave favors to the sharp-eyed guard who pilfered some cologne, stockings or silk from the luggage at the Judenrampe or who sent her a girl who became popular.

The brothel was open all days, all hours, except as punishment for the week or so following an unsuccessful inspection. There were always three or four men there, as many as twenty when a shift changed. Peter’s first visit was New Year's Eve and already over forty men were celebrating. There was a great deal of apprehension over what this new year would bring so the drinking was especially frenzied.

For many of the guards this was a daily release. They drank themselves insensible in the arms of a Jewish or Polish whore. Drunkenness on duty was rampant among the men and not uncommon with the officers. The parties here were legendary. As a result the Kommandant had imposed rules. Anything broken came out of the guards' wages and no whore could be killed on the premises. He heard there had been one guard who always killed the woman he selected and it got to be a problem.

It was a beer hall with women in underclothes, that was Peter’s first impression as he entered with Max, arm in arm. Since killing the family all of the men had been friendlier than ever. It was hard to accept that these laughing, playful women had been students, mothers, nurses, wives just a few weeks before. They fit their new role so well.

The same was true for all prisoners, though it was easy to forget it. Among the inmates were doctors, teachers, skilled craftsmen as well as laborers and farmers. Shut in their pajamas and wooden cogs, with their skeletal bodies and vacant, over-sized eyes, they all looked the same.

Max and Peter ate and they drank well. The hall had a wide selection of the best German beers and hard liquors. A few women sang and played musical instruments. One of Zelda's rules was that the music and singing must never stop. The party was well under way when they arrived and Peter was free until he had to report for duty. He reminded himself repeatedly to watch his tongue. If he spoke his true feelings he could be in the freezing queue outside and never live to see the New Year. He decided to say nothing. After a while everyone was so drunk no one noticed.

One of the whores was very young, with black hair and large, dark eyes that reminded him of Eva. She was putting on a brave front but he could see she was very frightened. Towards midnight he took her to a room upstairs. Max and a few others were cheering as they mounted the stairs.

“How long have you been here?” he asked as she prepared the bed.

“Two weeks.”

Her German was very poor. She did not sound Polish but he did not ask her origin. She removed her skimpy clothing and spread herself naked across the bed.

“Are they good to you?” he asked drunkenly. What a stupid question, he thought.

“We eat all right. We can get drunk with the men. Zelda says all men are the same with their pants off, so I guess it is as good as we can expect. It is better than out there. How would you like it?”

Peter thought about that numbly for a moment with his uniform half off. He sat on the bed and told her to turn out the light. He did not want her to see his wounds. “Just do as most of the men like.”

###

That January was cold in Poland. The guards were all sick at one time or another and some of them constantly. The prisoners were dropping over dead as they worked. Suicide was very high. The daily count of bodies in the Death Zone was four times what it had been.

Several times a week now he went to the brothel. He always took the first woman, who looked so much like Eva. He did not drink, he just took her to her room. He pretended she was Eva. This bit of fantasy, however, did little to quell his obsession for the real girl. By February she contracted a venereal disease and was gassed with a load of Hungarian Jews. But by then he was pretending with several dark-haired whores.

His doubts continued about what he was doing despite this diversion. Now that any fool could see the war was lost the madness to kill only increased. There was a frantic rush to kill these enemies as if somehow in killing them they could save themselves. Each week reports were dispatched to Berlin tabulating the death count. Many inmate clerks were involved in making certain the lists were accurate. And Peter could see that each week the count mounted.

The work at the quarry came to an end in January. Life now had no business, no pretense of business, but slaughter. Schlage replaced the HimmelKommando kapo, the only non-Jew so assigned. He said the Jewish kapo had grown soft.

Herr Kommandant Hoffmann received a medal in January as well and wore it proudly, though rumor said he was disappointed that he had not been promoted instead.

When Peter first began visiting the whores he shunned Eva. He feared she would know what he was doing. By now his feelings for her were beyond his control. It was all he could do to conceal them whenever they were near the hut. Besides this and his shame at what he had been doing at the brothel, he felt guilty over his inability to help her. He could not have avoided seeing her had he wanted and inevitably returned to the hut with Max.

Eva was delighted to see him. Inside was warm. With the increased material they were handling, the gold business was booming. He could stay just a few moments and stood awkwardly as she spoke.

“You have been avoiding me,” she whispered. The others were occupied with their work and gave them the illusion of privacy in the small room. The stench of hydrochloric acid was very strong with so many extra buckets soaking.

“No, I have been busy, not well.”

“Yes. There is a great deal of sickness. Did your mother like the Madonna?”

“I haven't heard. The mail is not regular. I am certain she will.” Eva smiled. Peter took her arm and spoke spontaneously, without thought of the consequences. “There is little time. The war is lost. Hang on just a little longer. You will survive this.”

She touched his cheek. “How can you be so naive and do what you do? I will not live. No one in this hut, or who is in the camp now, will. When the end comes all of us will go to the shower to hide what they have done. Herr Kommandant Hoffmann will leave no witnesses to this. All we will ever have is this. Take it. Do not think about later. You do not look well. I believe what you are doing is hard on you, heh?”

He nodded. “So very difficult.”

“I understand. Some of the others here think it is wrong for me to even talk to you -- like this. They say you are just like the rest, that your baby face is a lie.”

“I am,” he mumbled. “I am just like all of them.”

“No, Peter. You will never be like them. We both know why you are here. Don't ever think that. It is the war. It does terrible things to all of us.”

“Come on boy! Back to it,” Max said in his barrel voice, his business with Sol finished. Outside in the freezing air he told Peter once again to rape her every time they went to the hut. That was better than all this talking, and a great deal safer.

But this was only a brief respite from what he did each day. Despite his doubts, or perhaps because of them, he threw myself into his duty with passion. He was more brutal, more violent than ever, as if somehow this would erase his doubts. Each night he tossed in his bunk. The faces he killed were always there, and he believed he would go mad.

CHAPTER FIVE

In
February, 1945, the war news was catastrophic. Krakow had fallen the previous month. Though the Russian offensive was not directed towards the KZ, the enemy was now only eighty kilometers away. The guards were restless and uncertain. Peter saw a glimmer of hope in the eyes of many of the trustees who had lasted all this time in hell. Everyone found it unsettling. It was as if the prisoners had risen in open revolt.

His mother wrote that his father's Volksstrum unit had been activated. Fortunately he was assigned duty not far from home and was able to be with her most nights.

In Peter’s fears of madness he increasingly dwelt on Eva. In that place her sympathies took on a disproportionate significance. In every part of his waking hours when he could he thought of her. When the day was especially terrible, and nearly all of each day was, he thought of her with passionate intensity. It seemed to him that if somehow he could find a way to spare her, if he could manage this single act of charity, all the rest of his doing would be undone.

Peter did not speak to her of this or of what he thought as he went about his duty. It would be a surprise. And she would be grateful. She would find a quiet place to wait these final weeks until the war at long last ended and then he would join her, her savior. .

He had never had a girlfriend, though he was nineteen. Conditions of the war and of his service had denied him the usual contacts a young man had with girls. The wave of emotion he experienced for Eva was overwhelming to him. Perhaps if there had been other sweethearts ... but there had been none.

The first plan that came to him was through Max. They went to the brothel together most nights now. He pulled him into a quiet corner where their conversation was masked by the music. “Tell me about your business with Sol,” he asked.

Max looked around quickly to see if anyone could overhear them. “What? You want to get us hung? You never cared about it before. Don’t tell me you want your cut now!”

“No, it is not that. But tell me what you do with Sol.”

Max shrugged. “All the men do it with someone or other. I'm just lucky to have access to the old Jew. I give him the gold. I use another source for the diamonds. The old yid melts the gold down for me and keeps a little for his trouble. I send the gold out in a certain way.”

''How much are you making?”

“Say--what is this? What are you after?”

“I want to buy someone out.”

“So that’s it!” Max slapped his thigh and bellowed. “It's that Jewess whore turned your head!” He laughed heartily. When the mirth was gone he said: “Forget her. You cannot buy her out.

“Why not? Others are bought out all the time. You see it the same as I do.”

“Yes, but never anyone who does what she does. And that has all ended anyway. You must have noticed.” This was true. Since before Christmas no one had left the KZ. “Tell me this,” Max said, “Where do the goldsmiths get the gold?”

“You know.”

“That's right. And so do they. From the bloody buckets of teeth. You think anyone will let one of those in that hut out to say that? They are all going to die. Every one of them. And the girl too. The whole KZ before this is over, if Hoffmann has half a brain. Get it over with, that will settle your blood.”

Max was right about buying Eva out. Peter realized with a sinking heart that it should have been obvious to him. He had been very foolish to refuse the gold earlier. If he had taken his fair share from the beginning there would have been enough to get her out before, but not now. Max was right about that. Max was always right.

Everything was breaking down throughout Germany. Trains with dead cargo were increasingly common. The cars had been shunted aside and delayed because of the bombings, and those in the open cattle cars froze to death.

Peter considered other ways to save the girl. Perhaps, he thought, he could have her assigned to duty off the KZ. Then he could arrange to be her guard and oversee her escape.

But almost no one worked beyond the fences any longer. And to where would she flee? Even now, from time to time, prisoners escaped, usually Russian POWs. The dogs always hunted them down. If they were captured alive they were hung and left to rot inside the KZ for all to see. A sign was placed on them. “I'm back. Hello to everyone,” or something like that.

Even if Eva could escape from a Kommando, where would she go in the dead of winter? She would freeze, or starve. No one would help her, and there was a reward for the capture of escapees. She would be shot or hung.

Again Peter cursed his stupidity for not taking the gold earlier. Perhaps with it he could have paid someone to hide her. If he had the gold he could get her out of the KZ.

For the following week Peter was acutely depressed, more even than usual. Now that he had decided to save Eva despite Max’s warning, he could find no way to do it. The time for rescues had passed. But he was determined to find a way. He believed that if he could save her he would, in an important way, be saving himself.

Events proved Max correct. The killing machine moved into high gear.

Despite all obstacles, and there had been many, Herr Kommandant Hoffmann had taken a small, labor KZ and turned it into a vernichtungslager – a death factory -- of some measure. Organization had been the key, Peter heard him tell the Berlin inspectors with regularity. By driving the guards to the absolute brink, by calling on total devotion to the Fuhrer, by eliminating every difficulty, every delay, it had been possible.

The lines of material moved steadily into the shower. Where once forty had been the maximum, with the new year it was raised to sixty. This was only possible by crowding the naked material as tightly as possible. The dogs were very helpful, the Kommandant said with a laugh. Also, the kapos had to use their common sense. A careful mix of men and women, of small bodies with large, allowed more people in the pack, up to ten more. Then, at last, the children were piled on top and passed along to the rear. Every inch was filled. He had given strict orders that no less than sixty must be gassed each time. It now took an extra five minutes to gas everyone but still, you could see, he would say with a flourish of his crop, how much quicker this was. Oh, once in a while a few packed in the middle did not receive enough gas to die. The kapos saw quickly to those except when they were in a hurry, when the dying were thrown into the ovens alive. Another laugh.

Next had been body disposal, always the biggest bottleneck in any KZ operation. Bodies could not pile up for too long. Disease became a serious problem in warm weather. And there was only so much room in which to stack them. Very inefficient, double work. Once to stack, once to unstack. In winter the bodies clung to each other and quickly formed a solid pile that required axes to break up.

His solution, the Kommandant said with considerable pride, was to work the established crematorium which, after all, was the most efficient, every day, all day. He did keep a small stock of bodies for this purpose and saw to it there was always enough staff. Then he had other, cruder, less efficient, crematoriums built. These handled the rest.

Max and Peter were assigned to supervise their construction. Beside the KZ, in back of the crematorium, between the black stream and fences, well out of sight of the Judenrampe, a fresh load of Czech Jews dug a network of four trenches. These trenches were carefully graded to run evenly downhill into a common pit. Mattress springs, railroad rails, any long metal object they could find was laid across the V-shaped trenches.

For some time the HolzfellerKommando had worked the forest cutting wood for the crematorium. Now it was increased five-fold and a large stockpile grew into a mountain as large as the snow-covered pile of shoes beside the Canada.

It took nearly a week to get it right. A clever Serbian Jew had designed it for SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Glauss. When it was ready for testing the Czech Jews who built it were stripped naked under close guard. They were lined up kneeling beside the trenches they had dug. Four Rumanian SS guards, reeking of ouzo, worked their way down each trench with a small caliber, specially designed rifle, and put one slug into the base of each skull.

The increased HimmelKommando under Schlage stretched the newly dead out over the makeshift metal grill and packed them with wood and pitch. Perhaps a quarter of the two hundred Czech Jews were not yet dead. The bullet must enter the brain precisely to kill on impact.

Schlage lit the fires personally. As he moved along the improvised grillwork a thousand tiny blue and red flames began slowly licking the bodies. Soon they were burning bright in a fierce yellow fire. Stokers threw fresh wood on and poked with sticks to keep the bodies open to flame. The fat sizzled in a disgusting way and soon was dripping into the trenches. Before the bodies were half consumed the fat was running into the common pit.

There several unfortunate prisoners had to crawl down into the pit and dip out buckets of scalding human tallow. All of them slipped into the boiling mess and received serious burns on the feet. The sides of the pit became slippery from the fat and two of the men fell completely into it. They died there, unable to get out. Wolff and Schlage allowed no one to help and enjoyed their struggles immensely.

The buckets of boiling fat were poured back over the bodies which crackled and burned fiercely. Before the bodies were entirely consumed, Wolff pulled two naked teenage girls, fourteen years of age or so, from the Himmel Weg and brought them to the horror to witness it. He made them face the inferno and watch it on their knees. They were aghast and numbed from the vision. Tears streaked their cheeks and ashes caked their faces. He shouted over and over that this was their fate. They began sobbing uncontrollably. Then he shot them several times in the back and had them thrown onto the fire.

In a few hours all two hundred Czech Jews were reduced to ashes. When the fires died down water was thrown into the trenches to cool the ashes enough to pull them out, Greek Jews for some reason always performed this duty. Bits of arms and legs were not entirely consumed. They were tossed into a separate fire Schlage kept going for that purpose. Beginning with these new crematoriums the ashes were dumped into the black stream. Some days the ashes clogged the stream at the bridge and a Kommando worked with poles to clear the blockage.

These measures made it possible for body disposal to keep pace with the accelerated rate of killing in the shower. Whenever the Kommandant related his account of these measures there was a great deal of pride in this kind of talk and many compliments. Berlin was pleased, yes, very pleased. The Kommandant would preen at the praise and strut even more about the KZ.

But there were times when Herr Kommandant Hoffmann was distant and a look of despair rested on him. Surely, Peter thought, he knows the war is lost and will soon end. The Kommandant’s visits to his mistress, whom he maintained in a small hut inside the KZ, were less frequent. He must know what is in store for him, Peter thought.

But the despair passed and the Kommandant would redouble his efforts and drive them to new records. Each evening, promptly at six, he joined his lovely wife and children for a generous dinner and his collection of classical records. Once each week the officers still joined them for dinner, the camp string quartet entertained frequently with a new selection they had perfected for the Kommandant's enjoyment, and the discussions of the Master Race continued.

Inside the enlisted brothel drunkenness had taken over from lasciviousness and Zelda complained to everyone that no one wanted to use her girls anymore. In his new purity of thought to rescue Eva, he too stopped going. The day would soon come when a free and grateful Eva would welcome him into her bed. He wished to be worthy of her and regretted his earlier conduct with the whores.

Peter felt now a great pity for the prisoners. The inferno of the new crematoriums had been the most ghastly scene he had ever witnessed. Many who had done their bidding for years in the KZ and who bought favored positions were now sent to the shower. Some of the veteran guards were bothered by this since they had worked daily with these prisoners. But Max grinned about it as the shocked senior prisoners who believed they would be spared were taken away and replaced by new arrivals with, as Max put it: “no memories.” The history of the KZ was being erased. “I wonder if anyone’s remembering the meticulous records kept at Gestapo HQ in Berlin?” Max said with amusement.

Now the occasional act of defiance exhilarated Peter. He saw in it that these victims retained a measure of dignity and humanity. Whatever these people had become, whatever they were -- and there were many as sadistic as the guards who were his brothers -- they were what the oppressors had made them. Material now froze routinely at the shower door and refused to enter. Even as Peter clubbed them into submission he praised them for this bit of disobedience.

During that winter there was an act of aggression against the guards. It was by a woman, and occurred the week after the inferno when a group of French Jews was in the Disrobing Block.

They were a clever group and not fooled by the lies nor very intimidated by the brutality. One of the young women, a dancer Peter was later told, noticed SS-Obersturmfuhrer Dietrich eyeing her. Unlike the Ukrainian guard who masturbated as he watched the disrobing, Dietrich only enjoyed viewing the naked women knowing they were all to die in a few minutes. This one knew what was in store for her.

The dancer performed a slow strip, encouraging Dietrich to come closer. When she was nearly naked and flaunting her small dancer's breasts for him he moved within arm's reach. She pulled out his pistol and shot him dead. She killed another guard, the dimwitted, sadistic Selitian who had murdered the baby, and managed to shoot another fleeing guard in the foot.

Peter was back towards the exit and made it out with the rest of the guards. They sealed the doors as the arrivals searched for another way out. An SS-Untersturmfuhrer arrived and ordered the power cut to the windowless Block, then had two machine guns mounted at the entrance. When the door was thrown open the guards let them have it. They sprayed the inside until no one was standing, then moved in with pistols to finish everyone off. Peter found the dancer who had started it all with the empty gun still in her hand. Half her head had been blown off by a machine gun bullet.