The Librarian of Auschwitz(73)
Alice, Helena, and Vera come to meet him. He hurriedly explains the situation: Fredy Hirsch will never ever lead anything again, and Schmulewski is out of reach. The separation of the three camps has now become an abyss.
“But the uprising can start anyway,” the girls say to him. “You give the order, and we’ll get things going.”
He tries to explain to them that it’s not that simple, that things don’t work like that, that he’s not authorized to make a decision of such magnitude without an order from Schmulewski. They don’t quite understand what he’s telling them. Rudi is worn out.
“I can’t make that decision; I’m a nobody.…”
Right now, proud Rosenberg feels that he’s the most insignificant man on earth. Not only does he feel that everything is falling down around him, but that he’s going to pieces, too.
Inside the family camp, the news is bouncing from one mouth to the next. It’s as brief as a telegram announcing a death. The shortest sentences are the most devastating; there’s no chance for a reply. The news continues on its way around the camp like a bulldozer, leaving a trail of destruction in its path.
Fredy Hirsch is dead.
The rumor grows, and the word suicide begins to be heard. And the word Luminal, a sleeping pill that is deadly if taken in large quantities.
Rozsi Krausz, a Block 31 assistant from Hungary, rushes into the barrack looking shaken. Her eyes are bright with fear. She can barely say the words in Czech, but rather than sounding comical, her strange Hungarian accent adds a mournful note to the news: Fredy Hirsch is dead.
She can’t say more; there’s nothing more to add. She collapses onto a stool and starts to sob.
Some people don’t want to believe her. Others don’t know what to think. More assistants begin to arrive, their faces ashen, and the children’s smiles gradually disappear as they stop singing and playing games. Their faces reflect more fear than sadness. A shiver runs down hundreds of spines. Death had not managed to enter Block 31 even once in the past six months. They had managed miraculously to keep all the children alive. And now the miracle worker himself is dead. Everyone wants to know how, why—although at heart, what they really want to ask is, What’s going to happen to them without Fredy? Whistles blow, and sharp commands are shouted in German ordering everybody to return to their huts immediately for the evening roll call.
Liesl is already waiting for Dita. She gives her a hug. They all know that Hirsch is dead. Mother and daughter don’t need to say anything; they simply stand cheek to cheek for a moment and close their eyes tightly.
Their new Block?ltester climbs up on top of the horizontal chimney that runs across the floor and calls for silence so angrily that all the muttering stops. She’s Jewish, not much older than eighteen, but she’s now the one with the power. She’s going to hand out the soup and bread rations. She won’t go hungry anymore, and she won’t have to wear those wooden clogs that smell foul, because she’ll be able to buy some boots on the black market with the pieces of bread she hides away. That’s why she won’t allow herself to waver. If the camp Kapo or the SS order her to shout, shout she will; and if they ask her to hit the inmates, that’s what she’ll do. In fact, she’ll shout and hit them before the SS order her to do it. And double what they ask, so she lives up to their expectations. First off, she shouts rudely that they are forbidden to go outside the hut until the wake-up call the next morning. The guards will shoot to kill anyone who does.
Dita has spent so much time longing to have a bunk to herself, but now that she’s finally got it, she can’t sleep. Night has fallen on Birkenau, the camps are silent, and the only sounds outside are the wind and the monotonous hum of the electrified barbed wire fences. So much time wanting to sleep by herself, and now she doesn’t know how—she can’t. Eventually, she jumps from her bunk and walks over to her mother, who also has a bunk to herself. She snuggles up beside her mother as she used to do when she was a little girl having nightmares. When that happened, she’d climb into her parents’ bed, because nothing bad could happen to her there.
*
Rudi tries again to access camp BIId to inform Schmulewski. His excuse is that he has to hand over some important papers, but permission is denied. He insists, saying that they have to transfer Hirsch’s body, but permission is again denied. He returns to the fence to talk to his contact in BIIb, but he’s not there; everyone is inside the huts, and contact is impossible.
Rudi returns to his tiny cubicle and, a short while later, goes out again, hoping that they’ll have changed the guard on the gate and that this time, he’ll be able to persuade the NCO to allow him into camp BIId. Just then, a horde of Kapos brought in from other camps swarm into the quarantine camp. They’re armed with clubs, and they start to hit people and shout at them to gather into two groups quickly, men on one side and women on the other. Beatings follow, and the sound of whistles, and howls of pain and panic.
Alice runs toward Rudi and grabs hold of his arm. A guard yells viciously that the men and women must separate: “M?nner hier, und Frauen hier!”
Blows from the clubs rain down around Rudi and Alice, and blood splatters the mud. Alice separates herself from Rudi without taking her eyes off him, without abandoning her sad smile. They push her in the direction of a group of women prisoners and hurriedly lead them to a truck parked at the entrance to the camp. Vehicles keep arriving until there’s a row of trucks waiting with their engines idling.