The Librarian of Auschwitz(48)
Once inside, he could move around freely, and he quickly made for the nearest building. He felt a nervous twinge when he saw two SS guards in front of him, but rather than backtracking, he kept on walking even more resolutely toward them. They paid no attention to him as he passed; there were lots of Jewish civilians moving throughout the area working on a range of tasks.
He entered one of the buildings. It had the same layout as all the other buildings in Terezín: an entrance into a hallway with a staircase on either side and, if you kept going straight ahead, access to a large square inner courtyard formed by the four wings of the building. He randomly picked one of the staircases and headed up. He crossed paths with two electricians carrying rolls of cables who greeted him politely. When he reached the first floor, he caught sight of some of the children sitting on bunks, their legs dangling over the edge.
On the landing, he gave a slight nod to a corporal walking past. The SS man continued on his way. Fredy noted uneasily that it was too quiet for a place with so many children. They were too still. Just then, he heard someone behind him calling his name.
“Mr. Hirsch?”
His first thought was that it was an acquaintance from the ghetto, but when he turned around, he saw it was the SS guard he’d just walked past, who was smiling at him in a friendly manner. A gap-toothed smile. Hirsch recognized him as the player from the guards’ soccer team. His smile in return was steady, but a frown immediately started to form on the Nazi’s face, making it look like corrugated cardboard. He’d realized that the gym instructor didn’t belong here. He raised his arm and pointed at the staircase with his finger, indicating that Hirsch should walk in front of him, as a prisoner would. Fredy, adopting a light tone, tried to invent some excuse for being there, but the guard was adamant.
“To the guard post! Now!”
When they took him to the SS Obersturmführer in charge of the guards, Fredy stood to attention in front of him and even clicked his heels together loudly. The officer demanded to see his authorization for being in the precinct. He didn’t have one. The Nazi stuck his face right up to Fredy’s and, in a fury, asked him what the devil he was doing there.
Hirsch, looking straight ahead, seemed unflustered and answered in his usual, polite way:
“I was just trying to carry out my job as coordinator of activities for the resident children of Terezín to the best of my ability, sir.”
“So you aren’t aware that all contact with this contingent of children is forbidden?”
“I am, sir. But as the person responsible for the Youth Office, I thought I was considered part of the group looking after the children’s well-being.”
Hirsch’s composure reassured the officer and raised doubt in his mind. He told Fredy he would write a report to his superiors regarding the incident, and that Fredy would be informed of the outcome.
“Don’t rule out a court-martial,” he said.
They locked him in the detention area attached to the guard post and told him he’d be released when they had checked out his details for the report. Fredy was undeterred and paced up and down in what could only be described as an empty dog run, irritated because he hadn’t been able to see the children, but otherwise calm. No one was going to organize a court-martial; he was well-regarded by the German administrators of the ghetto. Or so he believed.
Rabbi Murmelstein, a member of the leadership triumvirate of the Jewish Council in the ghetto, was walking along the street on the other side of the enclosure fence. He was unpleasantly surprised to see one of the representatives of the Youth Office locked up inside the enclosure. It was clear that Hirsch had violated the order to stay away from the Bia?ystok children’s precinct, and so now he was under detention as if he were a common criminal. The stern council leader approached the fence and locked eyes with Hirsch.
“Mr. Hirsch,” he said reproachfully, “what are you doing in there?”
“And you, Dr. Murmelstein … what are you doing out there?”
There was neither a court-martial nor any punishment, or so it seemed. But one afternoon, the ghetto Council’s official messenger, Pavel—known as Bones because of his skinny legs, and who was the fastest sprinter in Terezín—interrupted the long-jump training session to inform Fredy that his presence was required that afternoon without fail at the headquarters of the Jewish Administrative Authority in the Magdeburg block.
It was Yakub Edelstein, the chairman of the council himself, who gave Fredy the news: German Command had included his name on the list for the next transport headed for Poland or, to be more precise, for the Auschwitz camp near O?wi?cim.
They’d heard dreadful things about Auschwitz: mass murders, slave labor under conditions that caused the workers to die of exhaustion, all sorts of harassment and humiliation, people whom starvation had turned into walking skeletons, typhoid epidemics that no one treated.… But these were just rumors. Nobody had been able to confirm them firsthand. Then again, nobody had returned to give them the lie. Edelstein told Fredy that the SS Command had asked that Fredy identify himself to the camp authorities when he reached Auschwitz, because they were keen for him to continue his work as the leader of the youth groups.
“So I’ll continue to work with the teenagers—nothing will change?”
Edelstein, a man with the kindly, chubby face and horn-rimmed glasses of a schoolteacher, grimaced.