The Brothers of Auschwitz
Our family was given a space the size of a living-room sofa. We slept on planks and wet blankets. We ate a bowl of potato soup after waiting in line for hours. One bowl a day. We were still hungry. We saw peddlers walking around the pit. They made signs at us with their hands. Signs of the cross, signs of slitting throats as if they held a knife in their hands. They grinned toothlessly, hee hee hee. I could have pummeled them with my fists. Mother spoke to me wordlessly. I pummeled myself with my fists until my leg was numb. People with important faces and wet jackets walked among us. They were known as the Judenräte.
They promised, just a matter of days and you’ll be in the east. They spoke of many work places.
We waited for the train that would take us east to many work places. The train didn’t come. People became impatient, at first a little, then increasingly so. After three days they yelled at one another for no reason. If they unintentionally touched an elbow in the line for soup or the tap, they yelled. They argued about where to place their head or feet when going to sleep. Or why they farted right into a baby’s face.
Poor little thing, he choked, a little consideration, Grandpa. They argued about rumors. Yelled, yelled, yelled, a day later, they repeated the rumors and reported new ones. There were no rumors about death, no words about death; about liberation, yes. Many words about imminent or distant liberation. We were ignorant about the news they reported, we just heard and waited. Waited almost a month.
Finally a special cattle train arrived on the track.
We were sure it was a mistake. Soldiers pushed us into the cars. They forcefully pushed entire families. Entire villages. Towns. Cities. I understood. The Hungarians wanted to cleanse the world of Jews. Didn’t want to breathe in a world a Jew had passed through. Wanted to look far into the future, ah, no Jews. None. Clean sky, sun and moon, too.
The journey by train was a nightmare.
We traveled three days without food or water. We traveled in a car with a tin bucket for the needs of a small town. The infant in the arms of the woman with cracked glasses cried ceaselessly. A yellow thread oozed from his ear. My mother cut a strip of fabric from a sheet and tied it around his head. Like mumps. The infant’s crying increased. The woman tried to give him her nipple, but he didn’t want it. He only wanted to cry. After two days the crying stopped and the woman began. At first she wept alone, then another five or six people alongside her began to weep, like a choir. Finally, she covered the infant’s face with a sheet. Refused to give him to the tall man standing beside her. She had a brown spatter on her glasses. I dug my nails into my leg, dug and dug, until there was a small hole.
Dov said, he was saved, the baby died in his mother’s arms. We will die alone.
We stood in line on the platforms at Auschwitz.
Trains were standing the length of the track. Like an enormous, long-tailed serpent.
Babies flew into the air like birds. Pregnant women were thrown onto a truck. One woman’s belly exploded mid-air, everything scattering as if there was a watermelon there, not a baby. Old people who couldn’t walk were smeared on the floor. Whole villages stood on the platform without room to move. In the air, a column of smoke and the sharp smell of burned chickens. That’s what I remember.
First they separated the women from the men.
I never saw mother or Sarah again.
We passed by an officer with a pleasant face, as if he liked us, felt concern. As if he cared about us. With his finger, he signaled, right, left, right, left. We didn’t know his finger was long enough to reach the sky. Then they asked about professions. Dov jumped first. We didn’t have time to part from each other.
The soldiers shouted builders, are there any builders? Avrum and I walked forward together. Father remained to choose another profession. I never saw father again.
They took us to a building where we were to strip.
A long, never-ending line. As if they were handing out candies there. And then they told us quickly, strip quickly. Naked women ran in the direction of a large iron door. The door constantly opened. Naked women were swallowed up into the black opening of the door. Like the large mouth of the sea. Men and boys ran the other side. Bearded rabbis screamed Shema Israel, Shema Israel.
Avrum and I stood trembling opposite the building that had swallowed the most people.
The building had a black door and another one just the same. My brother and I didn’t know where we should run. Naked and confused we ran from one side to the other, treading on legs, pushing with our hands. Around me I saw people spinning with their hands above their heads, beating their chests, pulling their hair from their heads, their genitals. I saw people weeping to their God, telling him, God, hear me, give me a sign, where is the Messiah, Master of the Universe. The was a sound there like a low hummmm, heavy as a snowstorm. Hummm. Hummm.
I called to my brother until my throat was hoarse.
I called, Avrum, Avrum, which door should we run to, Avrum, answer me.
Avrum caught my hand. Avrum sobbed, here, no, there, no, no, Avrum, what do we do, where, where, the first door, no, no, the second, Icho what are you doing, Icho listen to me, wait, liiiiisten. We were inside.
We were inside a huge hall with benches. A huge hall with barbers who shaved hair. Tirelessly, they shaved and shaved. Then they took us to the showers. And then, phishsh. Water. I called, Avrum, it’s water, water, we’re alive, Avrum, we’re still together, Avrum, we’ve been lucky, Avrum. I sobbed during the entire shower.
Chapter 2
I am Dov: The State of Israel gave me the name Arieh-Dov, Dov for short.
The Nazis gave me the number A-4092.
The goyim gave me the name Bernard.
My Jewish people gave me the name Leiber.
In Dov’s Living Room
I was sure they were taking us to die.
Father thought they were sending us to work in distant factories. I thought about death. My death had a shiny red color. Red like the blood oozing from the ear of the man standing beside me in the train to Auschwitz. This man had refused to board the train and the blood refused to stop streaming for three days, perhaps because of the crowdedness and the pressure, everyone was pressed against everyone else. We were like fish in a barrel stinking of fresh death, a new smell that came into my life and didn’t leave me for a long time.
The train to Auschwitz stopped.
The car door opened quite suddenly. Torches like projectors exploded in our eyes. The loudspeaker announced, quickly, quickly, schnell, schnell. Leave belongings on the train. We heard irritability in a voice that was sharp and loud, as if there was nothing but a voice there, no human being, just a voice, schnell, schnell.
On the platforms were soldiers with guns and voices like loudspeakers. Get down, quickly, quickly. They yelled as if they had a loudspeaker installed in their throats. To the side stood piles of striped pajamas, a head and arms sticking out of them. I saw nothing else of them. They stood to one side with bowed and shaven heads. They were more frightening than the orderly soldiers. They looked ill and suffering. The soldiers didn’t. The orchestra was also healthy. They played cheerful marches suitable for a victory parade.
Dogs on leashes barked wildly. Dogs with sharp teeth and runny noses, their hackles up like nails. Soldiers pushed an old bearded grandfather who didn’t understand, who said, excuse me, sir, to the commander, what should … Thwack. The old man fell. Soldiers beat up other frail old people. Smashed shoulders, belly, back. They didn’t let them die on the spot, they left them to sob. And they sobbed with pain. Others wept in worry or because of the orchestra. There was a good orchestra at Auschwitz. I could immediately hear it was good. I almost wept for the beauty of it, but the large pile of striped pajamas stayed in my mind, and I didn’t cry.
On the other side, soldiers were kicking a small child about like a ball; he was maybe three years old. The child hadn’t heard, move, quickly, quickly. The little boy had black curls, a short coat and a heavy diaper in his trousers. A diaper full of poop from the journey. The child had lost his mother and father and all he had left was a brown teddy bear that he held under his arm. The teddy bear was first to fall. The child followed. Another kick. Again he didn’t hear move quickly. It was a little hard to hear because of the music. The child’s head opened slightly. Another kick, and that was it. He remained on the platforms beside his teddy bear like a black stain on the road. The place grew very quiet. For a moment nobody spoke, not a word, just cheerful music.
I was dragged forward and the noise increased. It was a great weeping. The greatest weeping I had ever heard. The weeping of a large ocean, a stormy ocean. Weeping like waves breaking against rocks on the shore, whoosh, whoosh.
Soldiers screamed stand in line, quickly.
Soldiers divided, women to the left, men to the right. Men hugged young children. Children sobbed Mama, Mama, Grandma, where’s my Mama. A grandmother with a scarf hid her mouth behind her hand. She had no teeth. Grandmother made strange sounds, like a life-saver at the beach. A life-saver who shouts into a megaphone, not a big one, in the wind. Waaah, waaah, waaah, waaaaaah.
A grandfather with a cane took the hand of a crying child. Held him firmly, saying, sha, sha, sha, don’t cry, boy, and collapsed to the ground. Thwack. The child fell silent. Soldier seized a baby wrapped in a blanket from a mother’s arms. Soldier ripped the woolen hat from the baby’s head and smashed the bald head against the car door. I heard a scream like a calf being slaughtered in the village, before the knife.
Mother and Sarah grew steadily more distant.
Mother threw her hands up in the air. As if she wanted to chase off spirits and devils. Mother pulled the scarf from her head, pulled at her hair, shrieked: children take care of yourselves. Mother shouted more loudly: My children, take care of yourselves. Do you hear me? Mother’s cry made a wound in my heart. As if someone had put a nail on a nerve and hammered it in. To this day I ache when I remember mother’s tears and her last words.
Mother and Sarah were among the first four. They walked and walked until they vanished in the middle of the platforms.
Soldiers yelled to stand four to a line, quickly, and the orchestra played.
The loudspeaker continued to issue orders. The torches hurt less. People were running about like cockroaches in the dark. They forgot there was light. They were looking for relatives with whom to make a foursome. The noise was immense. An order from the loudspeaker momentarily stopped everyone on the platforms, then everyone began to run, call, Tibor, come closer, Solomon, Yaakov, come, come, we’ll make up a foursome. Shimon, who sold meat with them, came up without his glasses, tried to push in. You aren’t with us, Shandor-with-the-limp was alarmed, move back.
Cross-eyed Yaakov from our village said, that’s enough, we’re four, and you’ll stand behind us. Cross-eyed Yaakov began to walk.
Shandor-with-the-limp grabbed his hand, where are you going, stand next to me, here, one, two, three, four, five? No, no, move, no room, Yaakov, wait, what’s wrong with him, he’s throwing down his hat and pulling down his trousers, Shimon, come here, come back quickly, stand here, here, don’t move, no more room, you will all stand in front of us, so what if you’re cousins, nu, start another foursome.
The platforms loudspeaker changed station. Moved to dance music. We stood there, three boys and father, thin and beardless. Father raised his head, Avrum caught father’s arm, Yitzhak took two steps towards SSman.
Avrum forcefully pulled Yitzhak into the line. Whispered, what d’you think you’re doing.
I stood like a heavy stone thrown into an abyss. Spin, spin, spin, thump.
Like a stone that had crashed on a rock.
Father was silent, pressing my arm like hot pliers.
A calm German officer signaled with his finger, right, left, left, left, left, and right again.
The orchestra changed the dance. The officer had eyes like the crack of a window.
He wore white gloves. He had shiny buttons and a wine-drinking face.
We went right. Whoever went right went to work. Whoever went left, went.
I saw smoke traveling not far from a cloud. I remember it, a black cloud, special. The smoke came out of the chimney of a large building, a huge building, the smoke drew mushroom . I asked father, what’s that?
A steel factory, Dov.
Father, answer me.
It’s a factory, Dov. A steel factory for the war.
This is where they burn Jews, father, that’s the smoke of Jewish flesh.
Father jumped as if he’d trodden on a snake, no. No, of course it isn’t, it’s a factory, that smoke is from machines, Dov.
Soldiers called out, mechanics, any mechanics here?
I shouted, I’m a mechanic, me, me. I jumped out of the line. Jumped alone.
I wanted to run as far away as I could. I wanted to escape the piles of flesh in the smoke to come. Father, Avrum and Yitzhak remained behind me.
I didn’t look back, I wanted forward, far away.
Soldiers in polished shoes and leggings like tarpaulins took me to a two-storey building. They put me on a storey with German political prisoners. German prisoners with blond hair, and one with a mustache. The prisoners had received food packages from home. They sat eating in a group. They had a wooden box at the end of the bed. A box with a lid and a medium sized lock.
I sat on the last bed and observed the mouths of the people in the room. I watched them take a bite with their teeth, gurgle, chew, swallow, chatting, offering to each other, saying thank you, sucking, wiping, burping, scratching, laughing, wrapping left-overs in a napkin, putting them back in the box, locking it and going to sleep. The German prisoners didn’t notice that I’d come, they were oblivious. For them, I was a bit of dirt on the wall.
The smell of food drove me mad. My mouth filled with saliva. I could smell sausage and cakes. Bread and smoked fish. And peanuts and chocolate. I heard sounds in my belly. I smacked my belly. The sound didn’t stop. I took off my shoes and lay down on my back. A Jew from Budapest came in to sleep next to me. A fat, older Jew, about sixty. He had drops of sweat on his cheek. He breathed heavily, like an old train engine. He told me about the enormous farm he’d left behind in Hungary. I was shocked. A Jew with lands? Yes, boy, lands the size of three villages. Really? Yes, boy, and what use is it to me now that I’m dying, dying of hunger. What’s your name, boy?
Bernard, that’s my Christian name. At home my name is Leiber.
How old are you, boy?
Sixteen and a bit.
The man caught hold of my shoulders, shook me firmly, staring at me, one eye healthy the other made of glass, and said: Bernard, look at me, I don’t stand a chance, you do. Steal, kill, live, do you hear me? You’re young, Bernard, you’re a boy with a good chance of coming out of this war, understand?
I made a small movement with my head, understand. The fat man fell back on his bed. We fell asleep in a second. The next day he was gone, in the way of Auschwitz, as I understood in time. One moment you’re talking to someone, the next moment he’s gone.
Chapter 3
Yitzhak
At Auschwitz, in the year 1944, I received a new name.
55484 was sewn onto the side of my trousers and this was my new name. I was given striped clothing. A shirt and trousers from the same fabric, like the pictures we see today. I was given a striped hat and plastic shoes with wooden soles. We stood in the dark, rows and rows of prisoners, everyone the same. Like a convoy of ants with numbers on the chest and side.
We were put in Bloc 12. In the bloc were three-tier beds. Not really beds, more like sleeping benches. We were ordered to stand in a line next to the beds. Avrum and I stood next to each other. Avrum was eighteen and asked where Dov was. I was fifteen and a bit, a year younger than Dov and didn’t know where he was. Avrum was at least a head taller than me. Avrum had broad shoulders and the bristles of a beard. I had room in my shirt at the shoulders and a smooth face with no sign of a beard. In the Bloc were other children my age. They stood among the older prisoners, looking down at the floor. I glanced at my brother, fiercely rubbing the thumb of my left hand. I couldn’t stop rubbing.
An SSman entered the bloc. He stood straight with legs apart and a hat on his head. He stood with one hand on his hip and the other playing on his thigh. He pursed his lips as if whistling and slowly passed from one prisoner to another. Advanced. Stopped. Went back. Stopped at a boy of maybe thirteen, maybe less.
The thirteen-year-old puffed out his chest and belly, made himself taller and taller and taller.
SSman beckoned with his finger.
Boy stepped out of the line. Boy cried quietly. Boy trembled.
SSman hit him on his thigh. Thwack. Boy fell silent.
SSman scratched his neck with the long nail of his little finger. Slowly scratched his bristles. I heard the scratch of sandpaper on a board. He scratched, scratched, scratched, stopped.
I stopped breathing.
SSman pursed his lips. Began to scan us again.
A boy opposite me pinched himself on the arms. I saw him stand on tiptoe. Fall. Stand. Fall. A boy beside me pulled his shirt away from his trousers, as if he’d grown fatter since standing in the line. Someone at the end of the line fell. They dragged him to the boy standing on the side.
SSman took three children and the one who’d fallen and they left.
I didn’t know the crematorium. But I did know I mustn’t go outside with SSman. I understood everything through the crack in his eyelids. I was fifteen and a bit, thin as a match, and it was my great good luck not to go out with them. That was my first stroke of luck. And there was a second stroke of luck. Two brothers from my village saved me. They were in the bloc, two beds away from me. Two large brothers, with swollen muscles in their arms, and bull like necks. The brothers lifted me onto the third tier of the bed.
Covered me with a straw mattress, saying, when there’s appel – counting – you don’t come down, understand, Icho? I stayed on the third tier for four days. SSman came to our bloc every day or two, took small thin prisoners. Avrum gave me bread. Avrum whispered the situation to me from below.
After a week they announced over the loudspeaker: Going to work, not counting. The two brothers from my village didn’t believe the loudspeaker. They told the group, they’re taking us to the crematorium. The two brothers climbed onto the bed and help me to get down. I get down from the third tier and feel my legs fold by themselves. As if they’d been filled with margarine. I held onto the wall and looked at my brother. Avrum grabbed me by the hips and stuck out his tongue. Dragged me to the door. We were the last to leave and I glanced at the fence. An electric, barbed-wire fence at least four meters high. I saw a sign with the drawing of a skull and several words.
Someone behind me whispered, careful, death hazard. I thought, a long time ago, ordinary people walked to and fro behind the fence. What happened to them, are they alive or dead, I had no answer.
SSman shouted, left, right, left, right, in the direction of the train tracks.
Again the crowding in the car. I calculated, if I kill the one in front of me, and the one behind me, and if I kill those to the side, how much room will I have, maybe the length of a ruler on each side, no more. I looked for my brother. I saw there was no point in calling him. He was pressed between two tall people. Pale. I saw his eyelids jumping like a broken automaton.
We traveled for several days. A quarter of bread per day, no water. People around me died without a murmur. They died a purple color, their mouths closed. They had purple under their fingernails. Like iodine poured on a wound. Someone died and we immediately searched him for food. Then we laid him down, while he was still warm, and took turns sitting on him.
There wasn’t enough air in the car for everyone.
Sour sweat dampened our clothing. We stood pressed against one another with our mouths open, we shouted, air, air. We beat on the door. Screamed for an hour. I lost my voice. Finally they opened a narrow strip above. We climbed over the dead and the frail in order to breathe. We climbed on them as if they were our staircase to life.
Through the window I saw we had reached Weimar. There was a prominent sign there. From Weimar they took us to Camp Buchenwald. I knew it from the sign.
We arrived at Bloc 55. The first thing a prisoner with a wounded hand said to me was: careful, they’re looking for children, and in a moment I threw myself onto the third tier of the bunks. The barracks door would open, and I was on top, just as I did at Auschwitz. My brother Avrum told me when to come down. After two days the loudspeaker called my brother Avrum to report. We knew by the number they called.
Avrum came to say goodbye but in the end he said nothing. He looked at me and trembled. His face was white as a sheet. I fell upon him, oy, oy, oy, it’s a mistake, they mistook the number, don’t go, Avrum, don’t leave me alone. Tears wet Avrum’s shirt. The trembling of his chin increased. His mouth stretched up and to the sides as if he was telling me many important things. He was breathing very fast, and his nose ran like a tap. The loudspeaker called Avrum’s number again. I was afraid. Avrum jumped and hugged me hard. I wept into his ear, I want to stay with you, what do we do, Avrum, let’s go together. Avrum refused. I felt as if both our ribs were breaking, and then he pushed me, breathing in and out, dried my face so I’d see him more clearly, left. I ran after him to the door. The guard at the entrance wouldn’t allow me to leave. He gestured, go back to your place or you’ll get it. He had a baton in his hands. A baton with an iron knob at the end. I wanted to shout, Avrum, Avrum, wait for me. I opened my mouth wide. Closed it. Went back to my place on the third tier.
I felt myself falling, falling, as if into a bottomless pit. As if they’d tied me to a heavy weight and thrown me into a dark place among strangers. I lay on my bunk and cried for an hour, until they brought a new prisoner to Avrum’s bunk. I immediately turned my back. Couldn’t bear to see someone else beside me. I got down. I knew I was angry enough to kill that prisoner. Two hours had passed and I still couldn’t calm down. A German from another Bloc came into the barracks. I didn’t have time to climb up.
We were ordered: Line up, don’t move. The German half-closed his eyes and scanned us slowly. Back and forth. Back and forth. He had a crooked smile and puffiness under his chin. Like a pocket full of food. His eyebrows were joined like a fence and he had a pointed belly under his belt. He held white gloves in one hand, tapping them against his other hand. As if the gloves were helping him to think. Back and forth, back and forth. I stopped breathing. The German put on his gloves and took me and four other children. I followed him, oblivious to anything.
Outside, the late-afternoon sun was warm, the beginning of summer. Bright light filled the spaces between the blocs. I searched for Avrum in that bright light. Examined the parade grounds. I saw trucks with tarpaulins. I didn’t know if there were prisoners inside or if they were empty. I never saw Avrum again, never saw him again.