The Brothers of Auschwitz

Dov

The hunger at Camp Jaworzno ate me up from inside. I felt the end coming.

The food they gave us didn’t help. In the morning we were given coffee and nothing else. At noon, soup with worms. In the evening, a piece of bread, with a bit of margarine or cheese. That’s it. I felt like a creased sack with all the air punched out of it – Pachchch. I saw prisoners scratching the wall and eating filth. I saw people eating dust. They opened and closed their mouths as if they were chewing something. I did the same and thick saliva began to leak, like snot. One prisoner ran to the end of the bloc, stuck to the door and began to devour the wood. A blow to his head saved the door.

There were prisoners who didn’t get up for morning parade. They were gone before evening. There were prisoners who jumped on the fence. Some laid their bodies on the fence as if it were a bed, their faces to the stars. There were those who tied a rope around their necks and hanged themselves like clean washing from a beam. Not one prisoner in the bloc attempted to stop them. I didn’t know where they got the strength to commit suicide. I continued to stand on parade because I couldn’t think of another plan. I was a boy. I was a head shorter than most of the prisoners. I had sores on my hands, knee, and neck. The bones of my ass hurt, the lice were relentless, settled in a red mark full of scratches, and I continued to walk in the convoys.

One day we were standing in line before darkness fell. I was the last in the line to go back to the camp. A white sun disappeared behind clouds with swollen bumps like pointed stones in cotton wool. It was cold and stinking. Everyone dragged their feet from the trenches to the convoy. They left blurred, crooked tracks under their feet. Their shoulders slumped forward, almost falling apart at the arms. Everyone was silent, their faces on the ground. We’d barely started out in the direction of the camp when three were left on the road. Those who were leaking from behind were finished off first.

My back hurt, mostly in the hollow of the hip and behind the thigh. I felt a thick bulge in the thigh and a muscle pulling down to the ankle. I stamped my foot on the ground. The pain didn’t go away. I felt my stomach dehydrating, disappearing. I was certain, in the end my stomach would come out of my ass. I don’t know what reminded me of my friend Vassily. I felt the urge to say aloud, Vassily, Vassily. I opened my mouth wide, let the air out, and no voice came out. And then I felt the urge to laugh. I stretched my lips sideways, laughed in my mind, a sour smell came out of my mouth. I was certain, this is it, this is how people go mad.

The distance between me and the prisoner in front lengthened. I wanted to close the distance, I bent forward, dragging myself, I was like a log stuck in the ground. I could barely take a step, another step, and another. I felt as if my legs were separating from me and walking on by themselves.

Raising my head, I saw a bent old woman.

She came out of the forest in the direction of the convoy. She had a purple kerchief on her head, a black dress and a small basket in her hand. I didn’t understand where’d she’d come from. I approached her. She looked in my direction and craned her neck as if waiting for an opportunity. I saw she had one very large nostril and the other was small. An ugly scar ran down from the edge of her nose, raising one nostril and part of the upper lip. She looked as if she was smiling crookedly even when she was sad.

The distance between me and the prisoner in front of me grew by at least ten steps, and I reached her. She gave me a piercing look as if to say, stay with me, stay. She took a package from her basket, lifted her arm and hop, she threw it. I was sure she was throwing a stone at me. I bent down, and managed to catch the package. She gestured to me to eat, turned round and vanished into the forest.

I felt as if my heart was falling into my stomach.

The nearest SSman was about twenty meters from me and I prayed he wouldn’t turn round and rage at me. I hid the package in my shirt and began to run in my mind. Somehow I managed to catch up.

I put a hand inside my shirt and felt the paper. It was oily and rough. Carefully I opened it. A sharp smell of sausage tickled my nose. I thrust my trembling fingers inside the paper, bread. God, under my shirt I have two thick slices of bread and a slice of sausage. My entire body trembled. My knees buckled, I shouted in my heart, don’t fall, walk carefully and look for birds in the sky. I pursed my lips, tried to whistle but only something faint came out fff. Fff. Fff. Ffff. Meanwhile, it got darker. I put my hand under my shirt and tore off a bit of the sandwich. I swallowed it without chewing. Another bit, and another. I only chewed the last bit slowly, slowly. I was so sorry the sandwich was finished. I licked my fingers, looked for crumbs in the paper, I wanted to take a bite of the paper because of the smell. I licked the paper from top to bottom then, hop, swallowed it as well.

I felt good.

My stomach immediately became alert. There were sounds like hiccups with a closed mouth. I almost started to laugh because of those sounds but I didn’t want trouble from my neighbor, so I increased my stride and patted my belly. I felt like shitting. Put a hand on my ass and pressed hard.

From that day on I tried to come back last in line. I looked for the woman with the basket. I didn’t see her again. That sandwich gave me strength. A little. I often think about the old woman. A woman throws away a sandwich once and I remember her for the rest of my life.

Israel, 2001

14:26 stopping at Acre. I’m on the train from Nahariya to Binyamina.

I dig around in my bag and find a chocolate bar in a crumpled wrapper. Three squares of chocolate restore me to life. Four squares. I lean my head against the window of the train and see that according to the headlines on the first page of the newspaper, any hope for a bit of quiet is at risk.

If we were sitting in Dov’s living room, he’d say, what will be with us, will we always be afraid? Then Yitzhak would tug at his nose and say, that’s how it is with Jews, even if we do have a state and our children have a father and a mother, and our grandchildren have a grandmother and a grandfather, we’re not in a normal situation. And then Dov would say, I’d never have believed we’d ever be in such a situation, what will be? Yitzhak would put up a hand and push his chin towards the ceiling, without knowing what would be. This is why we’d stay silent without coffee and sandwiches and cocoa cookies. We’d just sit there, and then Dov would grab the TV remote and turn on Channel Two, yawn at the talk, on Channel One, they’re arguing, only on National Geographic would he calm down and say, see how simple it is with animals. They don’t just kill, they kill to live.

I wouldn’t leave the armchair opposite Dov and Yitzhak, I’d look directly at them, and Dov would say, I see you’re not in a good mood, can’t have that, and then he’d pull a bottle of Slivovitz out of his sideboard so that every few minutes he could make a toast. After the third or fourth glass I’d feel a pleasant warmth in my feet and say, wait, slow down, I’m dizzy.

But Yitzhak would hurry to ask for a fifth and sixth round of toasts, so we’d never get thirsty, and Dov would say, to the State of Israel.

Instead of dessert, we’d drink strong coffee with cookies, and I wouldn’t open my notebook or the tape because in some situations there‘s no strength for other people’s troubles. Maybe I’d say, sometimes we have to drop everything and just look at each other, and smile with our eyes like a good hug and that’s enough.

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