The Remnant - Stories of the Jewish Resistance in WWII (34 page)

Then he would casually get out of his car, dog and interpreter following. He'd walk to the first row of prisoners, to a random spot. Unholstering his Luger pistol, he would start down the line of men counting, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven..." and the next man would be shot.

Without even breaking stride he would continue up and down the rows-counting and killing-counting and killing-every eighth man-counting and killing. He used two pistols for this game. When one was empty, he'd hand it back to the interpreter who would reload as they walked. This went on until they became bored. Then, so as not to stop anticlimactically, the next unfortunate "winner" of the lucky number was told, "Run! Run or be shot!"

Not all ran, but most did. With an inaudible command, the Alsatian would pursue the terrified victim and bring him down, clamping his genitals between powerful jaws. The downed runner would scream horribly, producing cheers and laughter from most of the camp personnel. It was the highlight of their otherwise tedious day.

If the dog didn't finish the victim off, which was rare, he would usually be taken to the ravine and left to die. Fortunately, death was far more merciful than the Germans and usually came quickly.

But even with all the daytime help death had from the Germans, many inmates died during the night. They fell, exhausted and weak, sick and starving onto their lice-infested straw at night and were found there, dead, in the morning.

For morning roll call, the dead were taken out by those who had shared the huts with them and were laid on the ground, in ranks, to be counted with the living. Or were the living counted with the dead? Each morning, after roll call, the daily meal was given. It consisted of weak, muddy brown liquid cynically called coffee and dry bread made of potato peels and sawdust. A few days of this diet followed by sixteen hours of hard labor led to death for most of those not skilled in the art of survival.

Ivan made a point of associating himself with those who had lived the longest in the camp. There were some who had actually survived for months. It was from these, Ivan reasoned, he would learn what he'd need to know.

The morning after he arrived at Babi Yar, after the first meal, Ivan asked a man who looked better nourished than the others, "How have you kept from starving? No one can stay alive on this. You've been here weeks and you look as well fed as anyone here."

He looked at Ivan disdainfully. Ivan wondered if he was going to answer. Then he said coldly, "Are you willing to eat rats, cats, mice and other vermin?"

Ivan didn't even hesitate, "If that's what it takes to stay alive-but how do you get them?"

The man's expression changed, warmed. He smiled. "I don't know why I should show you-but I like you. You've got guts. Maybe someday you'll be able to help me. You're the one they call Ivan?"

Ivan nodded.

"Me, they call me Dimitri. Stay with me, it's the only way I know to get enough food to keep going."

After the brief feeding period of the day and before the work of the day was begun, the inmates were made to police the grounds.

"Stay near me, Ivan," Dimitri said in almost a whisper. We'll police the area nearest the fence. Remember that there are 22.000 volts in this fence. Don't touch it, but collect all the rats, mice, weasels, rabbits and other animals that have. In twenty four hours, a lot of creatures meet death on those wires. Carry a stick to pull them away from the bottom of the fence and put the animals in your clothes. When they try to go under the bottom wire, they ground it and poof, our meal!"

Ivan was surprised to see how many of the survivors were doing the same thing. Mostly, the fence held dead rats, mice and occasionally squirrels. The prized larger animals were rare.

"Keep what you can scavenge until lockup tonight. It is up to you how you prepare it for eating. They can be cooked on the wood stove in the huts. If you are at a job where there is fire, you might even be able to eat them during the day, but that is a little risky. Some German might think that an infraction and shoot you on the spot. Most of them get a laugh out of watching us eat vermin, though."

Ivan was assigned to a variety of jobs. Almost every day, he would be sent out on a different work crew. There seemed no pattern or logic to the way jobs were distributed. Some prisoners were sent to the same workday in and day out, while others never did the same job two days in a row. Ivan was glad he did different work each new day for two reasons. If Sosha was still alive-and he made himself believe she was-he'd have a better chance of maybe seeing her if he was moved around a lot. The more different places he was sent, the better the chance to find an opportunity to escape.

On his first day, Ivan was taken on a work detail dismantling some old Russian barracks. Each board was salvaged, each nail withdrawn, straightened and placed in containers according to size. The second day, he was assigned to cut down trees and dig out roots. Any tree in the vicinity of the camp that offered cover to a potential enemy or escapee was removed. For this, they had to go outside barbed wires and they went under heavy guard. They were told that any escape attempt, even by one individual, would get everybody in the party shot on the spot. He went back to dismantling barracks on his third day. On the fourth, he was put to work as a beast of burden. He and several others were harnessed to a heavy wagon and all day they pulled that wagon around the camp while other prisoners loaded it with trash, sewage, garbage and other refuse.

There were other jobs, but Ivan was never assigned to those. There were jobs from which prisoners never returned. Those who were taken to work on secret projects at one end of Babi Yar never returned. Once there, they would know too much of what was going on. They were kept at the project until their usefulness was exhausted; then they were shot, only to be replaced by others who knew they would never return.

Even with this security, information had a way of filtering back. Before long everyone in camp knew that the project was construction of a factory-a factory that would make industrial soap of human corpses.

The worst part of Ivan's jobs was that they used only his body, leaving his mind to think-to worry about Sosha and his son, his daughter in law, his grandchildren. There was still so much he wanted to tell them, do for them, to enjoy them. How was the war treating them? There had been no communication since the occupation. Had they been able to stay safely out of occupied territories? How he wished he could see them, if only once more. The only hope of that would have to include escape. It was, he knew, the only way out of Babi Yar alive.

But most of the time he thought of Sosha. My God, how I wish I could be with her-even if she... He couldn't think it. She has to be alive. God, please let her be alive. Is she eating vermin to survive? Does she know how to live in the face of this horror? I'd like to kill every Nazi in this mad world. How can anyone condone this inhumanity? She's strong. She'll survive. She's smart. She's alive. I know it. She'll live. I'll find a way...

For Ivan and ninety nine other prisoners, all this ended on August 14, 1943. This group was selected for the most inhuman job any person could possibly devise-and the Germans devised it.

"What have we been selected for?" Ivan asked Dimitri, standing next to him in line.

"I don't know. No one seems to know. It must be very secret."

"That's what worries me," Ivan replied.

"What do you mean?"

"People never come back from secret assignments!"

Just then, von Radomsky drove up with his two constant companions, his best friend Rex and the interpreter. "Good morning, men. I presume you all slept well last night!" von Radomsky grinned at his own humor. "You are surely wondering why you have been picked out of all our guests here? Well, you are a very special group," he explained sarcastically. "You are the strongest and hardest workers-and for this you are to be rewarded." At that he started to laugh hysterically. The interpreter spoke with a stupid smirk on his face, not knowing if he should laugh, too. After von Radomsky regained control of himself, he went on with his little speech. "I want to remind you that any infraction or escape attempt will end in the usual manner. Any hesitation to do your assigned work will be punished with a very special, painful death."

"It is obviously our end," the man on the other side of Ivan whispered through his teeth.

"I think you're right. I just wonder what he has planned for us between now and the end."

In just a moment later, Ivan and his group found themselves marching to the single gate of the concentration camp. Timtov, the leader of Ivan's dugout hut, was in charge of the group, along with seven other Kapos. Two Kapos for every twenty five of us, Ivan noted. We've never had such supervision on a work detail before. What can they have in mind for us?

They were marched out through the double gates and up the road by which they'd been trucked into the camp. When they reached the fork in the road, they turned into the ravine.

"Oh, shit," Ivan heard Dimitri say.

For the prisoners of Babi Yar, this had always been a one way road. "Today I join my Sosha," Ivan heard himself say and felt shock as he said it. He realized it was the first time he let himself admit what he feared was true; she was most probably dead.

It was a long hike into the ravine. The men walked in silence, each with his own thoughts-thoughts that surely he considered among his last. Strange, Ivan thought, how often during one's life one wonders what the end will be like. Now it is here. God, I don't even know the date. I hope they make it quick. Why aren't I upset? Damn these Germans. Why did they have to come into our lives? So this is really the end. How many have gone ahead of me here? I'm afraid Sosha did-that first day we were arrested. A tear rose in his left eye. I hope she didn't suffer. I hope she was brave. I hope she felt at ease about it as I do now. I can't understand why I'm so calm. I guess they've worn me down. I guess I just don't give a damn anymore.

"Halt," Timtov ordered.

The procession halted.

They had marched to a far end of the infamous ravine. The ground was sandy, mixed with clay. Looking around, Ivan noted shovels being counted out by German soldiers at the back of a truck some thirty meters away.

Dirty bastards are going to make us dig our own graves, he thought.

"All right, men," Timtov started, "we have a big job to do. Each of you will be given a shovel. You will dig in groups of ten or fifteen. You will unearth bodies that have been buried here. The Germans have decided that all who have been buried in Babi Yar must be unearthed and burned!"

No one could believe his ears. It was absolute madness. Surely this was some insane joke, a ruse to get them to dig their own graves without suspicion. Everyone knew that there must be more than a quarter million dead in the ravine. Every day they could hear the gunfire from dawn to dark. They had heard it every day in Kiev since the end of September 1941, when they rounded up all the Jews. They heard it every day at the concentration camp. It never stopped while daylight lasted. From another part of the ravine the sound of gunfire could be heard. They were still killing!

How many days had there been since September of 1941? This was August 1943. How many days, how many thousands of bodies? Now these madmen expected them to be dug up and burned?

"Get started. Everyone take a shovel and start to dig!"

It was no joke. It was no ruse. It soon became evident the Germans were expecting them to dig up bodies. All day they dug; first in one place, then in another. By noon, they had dug up enough ground to make mass graves for themselves several times over. The Germans were really looking for the dead. And the humor of it was, if one could call it humor, that in this ravine of death they could find no bodies. Could it be that they had started digging in one of the few undefiled places?

After twelve backbreaking hours, the only dead were those of their own that had died of exhaustion or shots in answer to some infraction. At dusk, seventy three men, those who had not died that day put down their shovels for the night. An extra ration of food was given them. It was a real meal with real bread and a bowl of soup that had potato and a bit of meat in it. It was real potato, not just the peels and real meat-horse meat, to be sure, but real meat. For the first time that day they realized they were not to be shot at sundown. They'd not get their stomachs filled for that.

That night they slept where they had been digging, in the ravine. They were exhausted, but for once with something in their stomachs. They slept like the dead they were searching for. They were awakened at the first light of dawn. Again they got bread, real bread and coffee that resembled the real thing, strengthened by chicory. By the time they were ready to start digging again, a truck had come with replacements for those who had died the day before. Again they dug all day, this time sixteen hours. Again they had only their own dead to show for it at day's end. Thirty nine died that second day.

On the third day, replacements came again. By noon, they still had not unearthed any dead. At about 1:00 p.m. a staff car rolled up, two officers in the back seat. One was a member of the present staff at Babi Yar and the other had been at Babi Yar in the beginning, when the Jews were slaughtered there.

It was a quirk in the systematic German mind that made them insist on digging up the dead in the same order that they had put them into the earth. They were determined to dig up the first Jews they had slaughtered, but they couldn't find them. "You damn fools!" the visiting officer called out. No one knew for sure if he was addressing the diggers or their supervisors, but no one really cared. "You are digging in the wrong place! This is where we had them undress." Then he added, pointing to an adjacent area, "That is the place." He got out of the car, walked about sixty meters with determined strides and then with his heel made a mark in the ground. "Dig here!"

The prisoners were brought over and the next few shovels full of earth revealed the ghastly remains.