The Tattooist of Auschwitz(49)
‘Smart, and beautiful. I’ll never forget them, you know?’
‘I couldn’t love you if you did. They were your family, I know that. I know it’s a strange thing for me to say, but you will honour them by staying alive, surviving this place and telling the world what happened here.’
Lale leans over to kiss her, his heart weighted by love and sorrow.
A massive explosion rings out, shaking the ground beneath them. From their spot behind the administration block they jump to their feet and run to the front of the building. A second explosion makes them look towards the nearby crematorium, where smoke rises and pandemonium is breaking out. The Sonderkommando workers are running from the building, most of them towards the fence that surrounds the camp. Gunfire erupts from the top of the crematorium. Lale looks up and sees Sonderkommando up there, shooting wildly. The SS fire heavy machine guns in retaliation. Within minutes they have put an end to the shooting.
‘What’s happening?’ Gita says.
‘I don’t know. We need to get indoors.’
Bullets strike the ground around them as the SS take aim at anyone in their sights. Lale pulls Gita up hard against a building. Another loud explosion.
‘That’s Crematorium Four – someone’s blowing it up. We have to get out of here.’
Prisoners run from the administration building and are gunned down.
‘I have to get you back to your block. It’s the only place you’ll be safe.’
An announcement on the loudspeakers: ‘All prisoners return to your blocks. You will not be fired upon if you go now.’
‘Go, quickly.’
‘I’m frightened, take me with you,’ she cries.
‘You’ll be safer in your own block tonight. They’re bound to do a rollcall. My darling, you can’t get caught outside your block.’
She hesitates.
‘Go now. Stay in your block tonight, and go to work as normal tomorrow. You must not give them any reason to look for you. You must wake up tomorrow.’
She takes a deep breath and turns to run.
In parting Lale says, ‘I’ll find you tomorrow. I love you.’
?
That night, Lale breaks his rule and joins the men, mostly Hungarians, in his block to find out what he can about the afternoon’s events. It appears some of the women working in an ammunition factory nearby had been smuggling tiny amounts of gunpowder back to Birkenau, pushed up into their fingernails. They had been getting it to the Sonderkommando, who made crude grenades out of sardine tins. They had also been stockpiling weapons, including small arms, knives and axes.
The men in Lale’s block also tell him of rumours about a general uprising, which they wanted to join but didn’t believe was meant to happen on this day. They have heard that the Russians are advancing, and the uprising was planned to coincide with their arrival, to assist them in liberating the camp. Lale admonishes himself for not having made friends with his block companions sooner. Not having this knowledge nearly got Gita killed. He questions the men extensively on what they know about the Russians and when they are likely to arrive. The replies are vague, but are enough to provoke slight optimism.
It has been months since the American plane flew overhead. The transports have kept coming. Lale has seen no lessening of the dedication of the Nazi machine to the extermination of Jews and other groups. Still, these latest arrivals have a more recent connection with the outside world. Perhaps liberation is coming. He is determined to tell Gita what he has learned, and ask her to be vigilant in the office, to glean any information she can.
At last, a glimmer of hope.
Chapter 24
Autumn is bitterly cold. Many don’t survive. Lale and Gita hold on to their glimmer of hope. Gita lets her block-mates know of the rumours about the Russians and encourages them to believe that they can outlive Auschwitz. As 1945 begins, temperatures plummet further. Gita cannot stop morale ebbing away. Warm coats from the Canada cannot keep out the chill and fear of another year captive in the forgotten world of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The transports slow. This has a perverse effect on those prisoners who work for the SS, particularly the Sonderkommando. Having less work to do puts them in danger of execution. As for Lale, he has built up some reserves but his supply of new currency is much diminished. And the locals, including Victor and Yuri, are no longer coming in to work. Construction has halted. Lale has heard promising news that two of the crematoria damaged in the explosions by the resistance fighters are not going to be repaired. For the first time in Lale’s memory, more people are leaving Birkenau than are entering. Gita and her co-workers take turns processing those being shipped out, supposedly to other concentration camps.
Snow is thick on the ground on a late January day when Lale is told that Leon has ‘gone’. He asks Baretski, as they walk together, if he knows where to. Baretski offers no answer, and warns Lale that he too might find himself on a transport out of Birkenau. But Lale can still make his way mostly unobserved, not required to report at rollcall each morning and evening. He hopes this will keep him at the camp, but he doesn’t have the same confidence that Gita will remain. Baretski laughs his insidious laugh. The news of Leon’s probable death taps into reserves of pain Lale did not know he still had.
‘You see your world reflected in a mirror, but I have another mirror,’ Lale says.