Last Stop Auschwitz Read online

  “How much nutritional value, how many calories, is that altogether?”

  “I’ve more or less worked it out,” Kalker said. “The soup’s not worth much, about 150 to 200 calories a liter. Altogether you manage about 1,500 calories a day. Of course, that’s not enough. Even at rest the body needs 1,600. It’s clear that someone who has to do hard labor here soon turns into a Mussulman.”

  “But if you see those Pfleger, they all look fine,” Hans objected.

  “Sure, but first, they’re mostly Poles, who get packages from home, and second, they’re often the biggest ‘organizers’—or, to not mince words, thieves. The Pfleger dish out the soup. The patients get the liquid on the top; that way the few potatoes and beans the soup contains are left over for the Pfleger.”

  Just then a tall man came in. He was older, definitely over sixty. He had a slight stoop and was wearing an old-fashioned pince-nez on his nose.

  De Hond leapt up. “Good afternoon, Professor.”

  Hans realized that this must be Professor Samuel. He introduced himself and waited to see how the conversation developed. The standard questions: when had they arrived, political news, etc. Hans told him about the transport and their arrival in Auschwitz, placing the emphasis on Friedel.

  The professor took the bait. “In point of fact, I have spoken to several of those new Dutchwomen. I don’t recall the name Van Dam though. You should try to speak to your wife at the window, but be careful. I’ll give her your regards.”

  Hans wanted to ask the professor to deliver a letter for him, but restrained himself. He was counting on the professor for more important favors. “Do you visit the women’s block often?”

  “Every day. I work there.”

  Hans feigned ignorance. “Are you the attending physician?”

  “Not entirely. I have certain tasks to fulfill. In a sense, those women are study material.”

  “Isn’t that unpleasant for them?”

  The professor became defensive. “There are certain experiments that are highly unpleasant, perhaps even deleterious for the women concerned, but what I do is very different. I have managed to interest the SS in research into the development of uterine cancer. I have access to a great number of women for that purpose and as a result they are not used for other, unpleasant, experiments.”

  Hans gave a nod of understanding. He was more than a little skeptical about the professor’s good intentions, but didn’t want it to show. He still needed the professor’s help.

  “Decide for yourself,” Samuel continued. “With my women, I remove a small piece of mucous membrane from the cervix. That sample is then studied under a microscope. Among a certain proportion of the women, we find particular abnormalities in the tissue. We see cells whose structure deviates greatly from the norm. I believe that these cells later give rise to cancer. In this way I hope to identify the cause of tumor formation.”

  Judging by the professor’s account, the tests were not very harmful to the women. Hans just didn’t understand what particular purpose they had. Japanese researchers had already rubbed the skin of white mice with tar products and meticulously tracked the resulting changes to the tissue. Their experiment had resulted in the formation of artificial cancers, establishing that the tar contained carcinogenic substances. At the same time, general medical practice had already shown the medical profession something analogous: lip and tongue cancers in habitual pipe-smokers. Once people had thought these cancers were caused by sucking; now they realized that the true cause was the tar products that formed in the stem of the pipe.

  It seemed to Hans that, whether the tests were useful or not, it was still improper to use people for vivisection against their will. He had to reserve judgment though, as he didn’t have enough facts yet and, in any case, he had other things on his mind.

  “Will the Dutchwomen who have just arrived also be subjected to the experiments?”

  “Undoubtedly,” Samuel replied. “But I can help your wife. I’ll put her on my list. That way she won’t fall into the hands of the others and I’ll be able to keep her out of harm’s way for as long as possible.”

  Hans thanked the professor. He was a little relieved. He didn’t know what the promise was worth, but he had achieved something. For the time being, Friedel would be spared.

  It was evening. The lights on the wire had been turned on.

  The Stubenältester, a fat Pfleger, appeared. He called to the two newcomers: “Corpse Kommando.”

  De Hond grinned. “That’s a nice job. Roll up your sleeves for the gunge.”

  They went outside, where there was a large truck with a zinc-covered bed. The corpse carriers were bringing the dead bodies up from the cellar. Two per stretcher. They could easily carry two at once because, by the time they died, these emaciated wretches who had been worked into the ground were already skeletons, just skin and bones.

  The corpse carriers took the bodies one at a time by the arms and legs and tossed them up onto the back of the truck where Hans and Van Lier had to stack them. When the cadavers landed, they slid to the front of the bed under their own momentum, as the zinc was soon slippery from the fluid leaking out of them; Hans and Van Lier had to jump out of the way to try to keep their clothes clean. Once a body had stopped sliding, they picked it up and laid it neatly on the pile, then quickly jumped out of the way again because the next one would be already sliding toward them. With the corpse carriers doing their best to hit Hans and Van Lier with the bodies, the Dutchmen were constantly dancing back and forth on the back of the truck. It was a gruesome affair.

  It was now almost dark and they were lit by the lights on the wire. The cadavers kept sliding over the bed toward the two dancing men, whose hands were now so filthy and slippery they could hardly hold the bodies anymore and definitely couldn’t stop them from rubbing against their clothes.

  By the time Hans made it back to admissions, he felt unbelievably filthy. There was only cold water to wash his hands in. He didn’t have any soap and no one would lend him any. As far as washing his clothes went, that was completely out of the question.

  Beautiful slogans about the virtues of cleanliness were painted on the walls of the washroom: Reinlichkeit ist der Weg zur Gesundheit, Halte dich sauber, and similar noble sentiments. That was what it was like with the Germans; the slogan had to replace reality, and if you repeated a motto often enough and stuck it on all the walls, everyone would end up believing it. Wir fahren gegen Engeland, V = Victoria, Die Juden sind unser Unglück.

  The Tibetans have paper wheels with prayers written on them. The wheels turn in the wind so the prayer is repeated over and over again. If you had been in the washroom and rinsed yourself off with cold water, you just had to read Halte dich sauber three times and everything was healthy again. Hans would have rather been amongst the Tibetans. As far as civilization went, the only lead the Germans had on them was in their murder techniques.

  When he got back to admissions, De Hond was looking for him. “Come on, Van Dam, it’s almost dark. We’re going to Block 10.”

  They went out into Birkenallee. There were quite a lot of people there, strolling aimlessly to and fro. A few men were standing near Block 10. De Hond led Hans over and introduced him to one of them: “Adriaans, a fellow doctor.”

  Adriaans couldn’t stop asking questions about Westerbork and his parents-in-law, but Hans found it almost impossible to pay attention. He couldn’t take his eyes off the barred windows ten yards away, where female faces kept appearing every now and then.

  Adriaans continued. He had been here for a couple of months already—he had been so lucky. His wife Ima was in this block. She was working as a nurse and he was at the Hygienic Institute—to be precise, the Hygienisch-bakteriologischen Untersuchungsstelle der Waffen-SS und Polizei Südost. That was where the laboratory research for all the camps in the whole area was carried out. It was fairly normal work. The SS lab assistants rushed you, but—and then, without turning, he said, “Hello, Ima. Hello, darling, ho
w was it today?”

  A young woman had appeared at the window closest to Birkenallee. She was wearing a white shirt and had a red scarf around her head. She gave a scarcely audible reply.

  Then Hans couldn’t take it anymore. He called out to Ima, asking her if she would look for Friedel. But the lads gave him a thump and made it clear that he had to be quiet. The corner of the camp was fifty-five yards away at most. There—on the other side of the first fence—the sentry was at his post on his watchtower. One loud word called out to a woman; a shot; and the idyll would be over forever.

  Waiting had never been Hans’s greatest talent. But now it was as if he had been waiting for years and could no longer bear the tension. The atmosphere was loaded. It was twilight and women appeared at the windows like silhouettes in a shadow theater. It was a sultry, late-summer evening and the air was full of mystery. As if in a tale from One Thousand and One Nights, the young men stood here outside this enormous harem, full of longing for the women who were rightfully theirs.

  And then her voice came, like a song from a distant minaret reaching him through a quiet Oriental night, a dream of longing and wistfulness. As gentle as the whispering of hidden lovers and as sad as the song of the imam, calling to the Prophet, with his body bent low to the ground.

  “Hans, sweetheart. Thank God you’re here too.”

  “Friedel, now we’re together, it makes all the difference.”

  He tried to pick her out, but the growing darkness had made the women braver and they were now crowded up to the windows, all looking alike in their red headscarves. He told her so.

  “I’ll take my scarf off so you can see how beautiful I am now.”

  There, at the second window, that was her, his girl. He smiled. Of course she was beautiful. He would always find her equally beautiful, whether she had hair or whether her head was shaven, and, if he could possess her again, she would be the same for him no matter how violated.

  “What’s it like in your block?” The lads had taken position in front of Hans so the sentry couldn’t see him and now he could speak a little more freely.

  “Oh, it’s not bad here. You don’t have to work and it’s clean.”

  “Friedel, I’ve spoken to the professor. You needn’t be afraid. He says that as a doctor’s wife he’ll spare you.”

  “Good. Apparently some awful things go on here.”

  Hans saw the woman next to Friedel nudge her. Clearly that was something you weren’t allowed to talk about.

  “Friedel, dear, I’m in the hospital, I’ll be able to stick it out there…”

  Then it was over. He heard a whistle and the lads gave Hans a push. They were walking along Birkenallee and no longer paying any attention to the women’s block.

  A young man came up to them. “It was me who whistled. Claussen’s in the camp.”

  Claussen was the Rapportführer. He came into the camp at odd times so he could report back to the Lagerführer in the evenings about what was happening. He was a real German, tall and blond, who looked like he’d just stepped out of a picture. In the mornings he was mean, but in the evenings he was dangerous, because in the evenings he was usually drunk.

  The urge to cruelty, which is systematically suppressed in every civilized person by their environment and education from early childhood, had been stirred in the German nation. National Socialist morality, plus the required dose of alcohol, turned men into devils—although that is actually an insult to the devil, because he is a just avenger. The devil only torments those who have earned their punishment, or when he, as with Faust, is justified by a contract and terms of sale. Nazis throw themselves on defenseless victims with no justification at all.

  That was what happened that night with Claussen, the Rapportführer. The lads observed him from a safe distance. Everyone who came near him was in for it—a kick or a blow—and those who didn’t make off in time were beaten to the ground and received a terrible introduction to Claussen’s boots.

  But up came Willy, the Lagerältester, the senior representative of the Häftlinge. Smiling, he approached Claussen, cap in hand. The object of fear hesitated a moment, but when he saw Willy’s open expression and friendly nods, he calmed down. He gave the Lagerältester a jovial pat on the shoulder and went off with him, probably to have a drink together.

  The camp could breathe again. Willy had saved the day. Willy was a decent chap. He felt duty-bound to take the side of the Häftlinge and wasn’t scared of running risks to do so. He was a German, but as a Communist he’d already spent eight years in the KZ.

  Dering, however, was different. Dering was the Lagerältester for the Krankenbau. Like all the Älteste, he had been chosen from among the prisoners by the SS. Hans first met him the next morning.

  “What kind of doctor are you?”

  Hans told him in just a few words. He felt an aversion to this man, who leaned back in his chair with such indifference and addressed a fellow doctor as if he were a naughty boy.

  “Enough. Wait in the corridor.”

  Several Häftlinge were already waiting there. Most of them were young Poles, who were going to be presented to Dering as potential Pfleger. In addition, three Jews: Hans, the junior doctor Van Lier, and an elderly man who introduced himself as Dr. Benjamin, a pediatrician from Berlin. He was from the same transport as Hans, but after disinfection Professor Samuel had taken him straight to the hospital. He knew the professor from their student days.

  After Dering had seen the last of the young Poles, a clerk came with a list. He put the Jewish doctors to one side and took away the Poles. After a few minutes he came back.

  “You have to go into quarantine first,” he told them. “Then you can be placed in the Krankenbau.”

  When Hans had come back from seeing the Lagerarzt the previous day, he’d thought he’d achieved his goal, but De Hond had warned him: “You’ve got past the German, but you’ve still got to get past the Pole.”

  Unfortunately De Hond had been right. The Lagerarzt had taken him on, but the Polish head of the hospital had now fobbed him off with quarantine. Would he make it back into the hospital, or was this just a ploy on the part of the Lagerältester?

  The possibility terrified Hans. Why weren’t the young Poles going into quarantine with them? Why just the three Jews?

  In quarantine Hans got to know Lager life. He had to share the top berth of a triple bunk with two others: the elderly Dr. Benjamin and a Russian. In the morning at half past four the big gong on the roof of the kitchen was rung and within ten seconds an enormous racket had been unleashed. Everyone was awake and climbing down the bunks and then the Stubenälteste were climbing up to make sure nobody was still snoozing. If they were, they would be beaten out of bed.

  They joined the long line waiting in the central corridor for a turn to wash. That hour spent waiting was a harsh ordeal for Hans. After waking up, he always had to go straight to the toilet; he had been like that his whole life. And now he had to stand in line wearing just an undershirt and with no opportunity to slip off for a minute. If you tried to seek sympathy from the Stubenältester or the guard at the door, you would only get a few slaps for your trouble.

  That hour, too, came to an end. Then you were given a pair of wooden sandals at the door and went downstairs. That was where the latrines and the washroom were. At the latrines: the Scheissmeister, keeping a close watch to make sure nobody made a mess. He had a stick in his hand and knew how to use it. In the washroom: the Bademeister, again with a stick. Slogans on the walls: Sauberkeit ist der halbe Weg zur Gesundheit and similarly beautiful statements. Cleanliness might be halfway to health, but try getting clean when you only have a few drops of cold water, no soap, and have to dry yourself with your undershirt. After washing there was an inspection and woe betide those who weren’t clean!

  Then, making the beds. Wherever they were, the Germans had a thing about these beds. In the first place they were not meant to be slept in, but looked at. And if the blankets were dirty or the straw
mattress empty, or if a diseased person or a dead body had been lying in the bed, it didn’t matter, as long as it was well made, without a crease in the blanket or a loose straw on top of it.

  And then queuing up again, for a mouthful of coffee, in that interminable line behind the bunks with two hundred Poles and Russians. Whether you were thirsty or not, you had to line up. There were far too few bowls, so two of you drank out of one bowl and you had to be quick about it because others were already waiting for that bowl. Halte dich sauber was written on the walls—and they all drank out of the same bowl! Keep clean while slurping your coffee out of it and eating your soup out of it with a piece of wood as a spoon.

  Hans couldn’t help but think of the story about a parson visiting a farmer—one of his parishioners—and sitting at the table to eat groats out of a common pot. When he gets a lump in his mouth, the farmer notices and says, “Spit it back in, parson. I just had it too.” What kind of things had been spat back into the bowls here?

  Hans still had a humorous take on it all, but not Dr. Benjamin. The old man was broken. He couldn’t bear being hit and harried all day long and at the same time his helplessness meant he received more slaps than anyone. When they finally had their coffee, he of course couldn’t drink it fast enough. He paid for it with a slap. After the coffee, the order: “All on the beds.” It cost Dr. Benjamin a kick.

  After that, they spent a couple of hours sitting on the beds, while more privileged prisoners, the “room orderlies,” mopped the floor. Privileged because they earned an extra ladle of soup for it. Hans was bored; he just happened to be a very active person. But he thought of something Leen Sanders had said: “Every day you’re in quarantine is a bonus. Just as much to eat as in the work Kommandos, but no work.” You conserved energy, sure, but it turned you into a nervous wreck. Waiting for coffee, waiting for soup, waiting for blows and snarls.