I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree (17 page)

Carrying the heavy pail was an unbelievable task. I gagged from the odor and became nauseous. Hoping the nausea would subside if I paused for a moment, I started to set the pail down.

“Move, you swine, or I'll make you drink it,” the SS man threatened, kicking me in the shins and making the pail's contents splatter on my dress.

After I emptied the pail behind the tracks, I got back on the train, covered with waste, ashamed of my own foul smell. All eyes were on me. Before long the train began to move again.

“Look here, this was of your own doing,” Rosie said. “He pointed at Hella, not you.”

“But she didn't move,” I replied. “No one moved. Who knows how it would have ended had I not stepped forward?”

Rosie relented then, ordering people to move aside and make room for me in a corner.
She covered me with a blanket. “Rest now. You deserve it,” she said.

Soon Hella knelt before me. “How you must hate me,” she said. “I couldn't bear to touch that pail. Now you're suffering for it.”

I didn't say anything to Hella, but I managed a weak smile before closing my eyes. Eva watched over me, making sure no one stepped on me. I wondered if she remembered the time she had saved me from a
Kapo
, just as I had saved Hella from the Nazi.

We stumbled out of the cattle cars and looked around.

The air smelled different, and the morning sun was so strong that it melted the packed snow. Ashamed of my stinking dress, I trailed behind the others.

There he was, standing at the platform, the same Untersturmführer Liebholt who had threatened to throw me out the window in Wieliczka. I had not seen him since that day, and I was still afraid of him. But the irony of it all did not escape me. I had been able to leave Auschwitz to come here only because he had demanded it.

There was no shouting, no barking dogs. Only a stern official ordering us to walk up the hill. Seeing that I was having a hard time keeping up with the others, Hella put her arm around my waist, and Eva trailed behind us.

“I am still ashamed of what I did,” Hella said. “Let me make it up to you.” It was certainly better than walking on my own, so I gratefully accepted her help.

In the distance a cluster of buildings appeared. I thought it was our camp. “Look over there. That must be Brünnlitz,” I said.

Hella's face turned white. “All I see are chimneys.”

“Nonsense, Hella. Smell the air. It's nothing like Birkenau. These chimneys have a different purpose. They are not what you think.”

Suddenly Hella's face broke out in a smile. “Look! That man in the Tyrolean hat, that's Oskar Schindler!”

I had imagined him to be small and portly, but he wasn't. Before us stood a dashing,
charismatic figure of a man. His voice generated trust as he assured us that we had nothing to worry about. Pointing to a large building, he said, “Go inside. There is soup and bread waiting for you.”

The people who knew him well and had worked for him in his Kraków factory smiled at one another, as if they had known all along that he would come to their rescue. For me it was a different matter. I was too tired and sick to fully appreciate the situation. All I wanted was to rest. Not even the promise of food tempted me.

Once inside the small camp we heard jubilant cries coming from a balcony to the left. Many men stood there waving, calling names. As the men and women recognized one another the cries got louder.

Then, above the other voices, came
his
: “Little one, I have been looking for you all over!”

I did not look up, even when the voice called me a second time. Fear that it wasn't real
made me ignore him. Besides, I was a skeleton dressed in rags, not the girl he had met in Budyzn. I shuffled along like a sleepwalker, letting myself be pushed up a staircase into a large, rectangular room. I found out later that our room was above the factory.

Exhausted from the journey and the excitement of the day, I was about to collapse. Eva took my arm, guiding me toward the food. “Come, we'll eat,” she coaxed. “The soup smells heavenly.”

Chunks of meat and vegetables were poured into my canteen. This was the best food I had eaten since leaving home. I ate, but I had difficulty keeping my thoughts straight. Had it really been Dick Hillman shouting to me from the balcony? Perhaps I had been hallucinating.

More than anything else, I wanted to sleep, but first I had to take a shower and find clean clothes. I moved around in the shower, making certain every part of my body was clean. I dug my fingernails into my scalp, massaging and
rubbing. In the end I had to give up. I simply could not stand on my feet any longer. The clothes given to me smelled fresh, and even though they were much too big, I didn't care.

My eyes kept closing. It took great effort to stay awake while I waited for everyone to finish showering.

The second contact with the men came when a letter was pushed through a loose brick in the wall. It gave an account of the time they had spent in the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Austria and of their journey to Brünnlitz. Once they had arrived, Schindler promised the men he would get the women out of Auschwitz too. Then they wrote about Liebholt, their commandant. He was overheard having said that it was his aim to destroy every living Jew. Schindler had his hands full controlling him.

Eva had checked out other things while I was resting. “Come see for yourself,” she said. “We share a balcony with the men. The only
thing separating us is a mesh-wire fence. The space is narrow, but that shouldn't stop us.”

However, the line of women waiting to talk to their men was so great, I didn't have the strength to push forward. For now only the very determined succeeded.

Later that day someone called me to come to the balcony. Dick stood on the other side of the mesh fence looking remarkably well. His eyes again had the same glow that had first attracted me back in Budzyn. I was overcome by the joy of the moment and didn't know what to say. Giving way to tears, I explained that I had been ill for a long time and had not expected to ever see him again.

“We are together now,” he said, trying to soothe me. “I've already found a job for you in the SS kitchen, where it is warm and where you'll have enough to eat.”

We met every night after that, and although there could be no physical contact, it was enough to be able to see him and talk
with him. Sometimes I placed my hands on the fence that separated us. He would do the same from his side.

Dick worked in the camp kitchen, so he could again bring me sweetened coffee and bread, as he'd done in Budzyn so long ago. The extra food made me stronger, and I soon felt much better.

During our time at Budzyn, Dick hadn't wanted me to know anything about his activities, afraid of putting me in jeopardy. But now he told me freely of his association with Czech partisans.

“Most of our food comes from the partisans now,” he explained. “They also have provided us with guns, for when the time comes to use them, and a radio. The Russians are advancing with great speed. It is only a matter of months before the Germans will be forced to surrender. Our biggest obstacle is Liebholt. He has vowed to destroy every Jew.” Dick's face grew serious again. “We are so close to freedom, and yet it might still go the other way.”

“Close your eyes, I have a surprise for you,” Dick teased. He was in a joyous mood this evening.

“Give me a clue.”

“Let's see. It was first seen in paradise.”

“Paradise was at the beginning of time. I can't possibly guess what that has to do with your surprise. Tell me what it is.”

“Promise to keep your eyes closed. Now put your hand over the wire.”

When I discovered he had placed an apple in my hand, I acted like a child receiving a piece of candy.

“Where did you get this?” I exclaimed gleefully.

“From paradise.” He smiled, pleased to see me so happy.

After a few weeks of eating good food, I felt much stronger. The sleeping facilities were better too. The room we slept in was not drafty, as had been the case in Birkenau, and there were fewer people to one bunk. But the greatest luxury Brünnlitz had to offer was a hot shower. It was a joy I looked forward to every week.

True to Dick's promise, I started working in the SS kitchen. My experiences serving Nazis had not been exactly pleasant, but Dick assured me I had nothing to worry about here. On my first day I was greeted with remarks I had heard before: “I hope you are clean . . . One never knows with you people . . . Soap and water, that's something dirty Jews shy away from, am I right?” I pretended the slurs were not meant for me. Instead I focused on my work, scrubbing the kitchen counters and floors until my fingers bled.

The guards who came off the night shift had to have their breakfast ready at six in the morning. After I washed their dishes and tidied the kitchen, the officers arrived for their meal. Then more cleaning and scrubbing before I started to peel potatoes and clean and chop vegetables to assist the cook. He checked my hands for cleanliness at every step, not that he washed his own.

Midway through one morning the cook mellowed a little. “The leftovers are kept in this corner,” he said. “They are for you to eat. Just make sure you don't take any food back with you.”

I had not eaten that morning. I was very hungry, and although my eyes continually glanced at the sausage and bread and leftover sweet rolls, I controlled my impulse to rush toward the food. I waited till the cook gave me permission to stop and eat.

In spite of the fact that I still had bouts of pain in my back and abdomen, I did my job
well. The kitchen sparkled. I hoped to convince the cook that his assessment of Jews had been wrong. Also, there was always the fear that he might report me to Liebholt if I did something that didn't please him.

The cook never spoke to me other than to give orders, but his insults eventually stopped and he allowed me to enter the dining room to serve food. I most feared the early mornings, when the guards came for breakfast. They were sullen men from the provinces. Their speech patterns and the awkwardness of their manners revealed their humble backgrounds. Now that they had been put into positions of power, they suddenly felt self-important. The fried eggs set before them, the sausages, and the sweet rolls—very little seemed to please these men. Many times I went back to the kitchen and prepared something else.

One of the guards complained almost daily. Either the rolls were too crisp or not crisp enough; the eggs, too hard or too soft.
He didn't even know himself what it was he wanted, but harassing me was a sport he seldom missed. A heavyset man who looked to be in his forties was an especially cruel guard who beat prisoners. They nicknamed him “Crazy Johann.”

One morning when he was in a bad mood, after a fight with another guard, he stormed into the kitchen. Throwing his food at me, he shouted, “Damn Jewess, the eggs are cold again. I'll report you for this to the commandant.”

All I could think about was Commandant Liebholt possibly remembering me and sending me back to Birkenau. And that sent a chill through me.

I noticed something in Crazy Johann's speech that I'd never detected before—the dialect he used was from Ostfriesland, where I was born. As soon as I was able to stop shaking, I answered him in the same dialect: “I'm sorry about the eggs, sir. I will make you a better breakfast next time.”

He was startled by my speech. I had never spoken to him before, only set breakfast before him.

“You speak Ostfriesisch,” he said. “Where did you learn that?”

“I was born in Aurich,” I answered, immediately regretting that I'd revealed that much. What if he knew my family? What if he'd had a dispute with them? I had so many uncles living in Aurich. Mama was one of twelve children.

My fears were unfounded, for he immediately became friendlier. “The Jews have long been expelled from Ostfriesland. You wouldn't find even one Jew there now.” He had a big smile on his face as he told me this.

My expression remained neutral.
Yes
, I thought,
I know only too well what you did to us
.

“Hey, I'm from Moordorf, not far from where you lived. You know where that is?”

I knew where Moordorf was. It was one of
the poorest villages in the area. People in Moordorf lived in mud huts. Not wanting to embarrass him, I answered, “I have been away from there for so long, I don't remember.”

When he asked me if I knew a man by the name of Selly Wolff, my heart began to beat so loud that I feared he could hear the sound it was making. Should I admit that Selly Wolff had been my grandfather? He had been a successful man, something that might have enraged Crazy Johann, given his own circumstances. I shook my head, indicating I didn't know who Selly Wolff was. From then on Crazy Johann left me alone.

Occasionally, Herr Direktor Schindler came to the kitchen door. He always had a kind word for me. “Are they treating you right?” He made sure the SS cook heard him. “I haven't had my breakfast this morning,” he continued. “Frau Schindler neglected her wifely duties. Will you make breakfast for me?”

I took special care to serve him the best the
kitchen had to offer. But when Untersturmführer Liebholt approached, I busied myself with other tasks. I was still afraid of him.

•   •   •

The harsh winter weather finally let up, making life in Brünnlitz much easier. And the news Dick learned from listening to the radio indicated the Germans were finally losing the war.

But all was not well yet. The radio also announced the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in America. I was saddened by the news, as were all the prisoners. Our greatest hopes for bringing Germany down had been pinned on America and its leaders. And Oskar Schindler was away from camp a good deal. Just when we got used to seeing him, he would disappear again. I knew little of the inner workings of the camp, but I was certain Schindler's disappearances had to do with our survival in Brünnlitz.