The Librarian of Auschwitz(104)
They take Miriam and her son by jeep to Auschwitz I and escort them into a room where two guards are holding the handcuffed Yakub by the arms with a vise-like grip. Miriam has a hard time recognizing him inside his dirty striped suit and, even worse, inside the shredded skin barely sticking to his bones. It probably takes him a moment to recognize her, because he isn’t wearing his round glasses with their tortoiseshell frames. No doubt he lost them when he first arrived, and everything after that must have been a blur.
Miriam and Yakub Edelstein have sharp minds. They immediately understand why they have been reunited. No one can begin to imagine what must pass through their minds in this instant.
An SS corporal takes out his gun, points it at little Arieh, and shoots him on the spot. Then he shoots Miriam. By the time he shoots Yakub, he is surely already dead inside.
*
When the process to close camp BIIb is set in motion on July 11, 1944, it holds twelve thousand prisoners. Dr. Mengele organizes the selection, which takes three days. Out of all the huts, he chooses Block 31 for the process since, as it contains no bunks, it offers a brighter workspace. Mengele comments to his assistants that it is the only hut where the smell isn’t nauseating. Although he is a great fan of autopsies, Mengele is also a refined person who can’t stand bad smells.
*
The family camp has come to the end of its life. Dita Adler and her mother get ready to pass through the filter of Dr. Mengele, who will decide if they live or die. They’ve been ordered to line up according to their huts after their breakfast slop. All the inhabitants of the camp are agitated: People move about on edge and go back and forth, using up what might be their last few moments. Husbands and wives run to each other to say good-bye. Many couples meet in the middle of the Lagerstrasse, halfway between their respective huts. There are hugs, kisses, tears, and even reproaches. There is still the odd person who says, “If we’d gone to North America when I told you.…” They all spend what could be their final moments in their own way. Before the indifferent gaze of the SS soldiers who have arrived in the camp, the Kapos angrily blow their whistles to order everyone back to their own barracks.
Mrs. Turnovská comes over to wish Liesl good luck.
“Luck, Mrs. Turnovská?” says another of the women from their group of bunks. “What we need is a miracle!”
Dita walks a few steps away from the bustle of people nervously wandering up and down. She senses that someone has stopped right behind her; she can even feel his breath on the back of her neck.
“Don’t turn around,” comes the order.
Dita, so accustomed to orders, stands rooted to the spot without looking behind her.
“You’ve been asking about Hirsch’s death, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I know things … but don’t turn around!”
“The only thing they’ve told me so far is that he was afraid, but I know that the fear of dying wouldn’t have given him cold feet.”
“You’re right about that. I saw the list of inmates the SS were going to reclaim and remove from the quarantine camp to be brought back to the family camp. Hirsch was on that list. He wasn’t going to die.”
“Then why did he commit suicide?”
“You’re wrong about that,” comes the reply, but there’s hesitation in his voice for the first time, as if he doesn’t know how much to tell. “Hirsch didn’t commit suicide.”
Dita wants to know the full story, and she turns toward her enigmatic speaker. But as she does, he breaks into a quick run through the crowd of people. Dita recognizes him: It’s the errand boy from the hospital block.
She’s about to set off in pursuit when her mother grabs her by the shoulder.
“We have to line up!”
Their Kapo has started to lay about with her stick, and the guards are doing the same with their guns. There’s no time. Dita reluctantly gets in line next to her mother.
What does it mean that Fredy Hirsch didn’t commit suicide? So then what? He didn’t die in the way they told her? She thinks maybe the boy has invented his story. But why would he do that? It was all a joke, and that’s why he ran off when she turned around? It’s possible. But something tells her that’s not the case: There was no smile in his eyes in that instant when she looked at him. She’s now more convinced than ever that what happened in the quarantine camp that afternoon bears no resemblance to what people in the Resistance are saying. So why would they lie? Maybe even they didn’t know the ultimate truth of what actually happened.
Too many questions at a time when the answers might come too late. There are thousands of people in the family camp, but they all have to pass in front of the compass-needle eye of the mad Dr. Mengele, which points toward life or death.
Groups have been going into and out of Block 31 for hours, and nobody knows for sure what’s happening. They’ve been given their lunchtime soup, and they’ve been allowed to sit on the ground, but tiredness and nervousness caused by the wait have left their mark on the women in Dita’s group. And rumors are rife, of course. The healthier inmates are being separated from the ill and the unproductive ones. Some of the women comment that Dr. Mengele is deciding who lives and who dies with his customary indifference. The male and female prisoners have to enter the hut naked so that the captain can examine them. Someone says that Mengele has at least had the decency to have the men and the women go in separately. They say he doesn’t even look at the naked women in a lustful way, that he looks at everyone with absolute indifference, that he occasionally yawns, tired and bored with his task as examiner of human beings.