Scheisshaus Luck (29 page)

C H A P T E R 1 9

One fine April morning we started out for work as usual, but we were halted half way down the hill. From the edge of the trail I could see a waiting train and the guards beginning to cram
Ha¨ftlinge
into the boxcars. I knew there was no way the Germans had any provisions or water for us on that train. Those boxcars were our coffins.

I heard the roar of an airplane and turned to see a fighter with a white star on the side strafing the entrance of the tunnel. I could clearly see the American pilot as the plane zipped by. Our guards hit the ground. The American looped back, and in a steep dive dropped the bomb strapped to the belly of his plane. It exploded on the tracks between the entrance and the train. The Nazis stayed prone with their hands clasped over their head and their weapons lying next to them as the American plane circled above us like a hawk. I looked at the cowards and thought how easy it would be to overwhelm them if a few of us would just grab their guns.

Two
Ha¨ftlinge
ran toward the camp, disappearing over a hill of bulldozed earth. I ran after them. This is the only chance I have to be left behind, I thought, zigzagging up the slope so I wouldn’t be an easy target if there was a guard who wasn’t cowering.

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Back in the camp, I hid in an empty
Block
. The fighter could be scouting for an advancing column of American tanks. Was freedom only a few hours away? My wait lasted until the next morning, when I was awakened not by the sound of tanks crashing the camp gate but by dogs barking. The Nazis rousted us strays and marched us down the trail. Now at least I was prepared for the trip. Hidden in my blanket were three containers filled with water that I had scrounged during the night. Having slept alone in that
Block
, I was surprised to see that there were about a thousand of us filing into twenty cattle cars. Some of the men probably had come straight from their shift in the tunnel. With only forty of us in the car, at least I would be comfortable for the journey to the next ‘‘Pitchi Poi.’’

Once the train started rolling it didn’t stop until the next morning, coming to a halt in the middle of pine trees and heath. Surprisingly, they let us out of the cars to walk about. There was smoldering brush on either side of us. I could see down the track the skeletal remains of a bridge. We had missed being on the primary target by a couple of hours. I picked up from the guards’

conversations that they were waiting for orders as to where to deliver us. Squatting to relieve myself, I spotted some wild onions.

They went down like fire into my empty belly. Luckily I found some young, tender dandelions to soothe the burning. The SS

brewed coffee and ate by a campfire while we watched with dripping tongues. We’d had nothing to eat for the last forty-eight hours.

The SS got their orders and we started off on foot. We soon reached a village of prosperous-looking dwellings. Everywhere we heard cattle, chickens, and pigs. A rooster crowed from its perch on the fence of a white farmhouse with a red tile roof as we went by. I couldn’t believe it. Even German farm animals were Nazis, teasing and torturing our ravenous stomachs. It had to be a Sunday, for people were coming out of the church. They were all big and fat, clean and well dressed. They turned their backs when we passed by or spat with disgust. Others let loose their dogs or chased us with PART IV | DORA

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pitchforks when we tried to drink from their pumps. I guess ‘‘Love thy neighbor’’ must have been ripped out of their Bibles. They couldn’t give a damn how many cement bags the ashes of
Ha¨ftlinge
had filled.

As night fell we followed a road that ascended the Harz Mountains. Multicolored explosions lit the western horizon, and little silvery birds passed in front of the moon. Again we were fleeing before our liberators and marking our trail with corpses. I had to escape now if I was going to witness the Nazis’ demise. We reached a forested plateau, but with the dogs at our heels there was no chance to make a break. Then the road zigzagged downward and at each bend there was a culvert. From the road, all the culverts seemed to have plenty of mud that I could burrow myself into. I checked behind me. The SS and their dogs were at the end of our column.

At the next bend I jumped into the culvert, but instead of landing in mud I kept falling. My shithouse luck had picked a pipe that was on an extremely steep incline. Pressing my knees and elbows against the slimy walls, I struggled to break my fall. It was hopeless.

I couldn’t get a grip anywhere. I shot out the other end and landed flat on my back in a muddy ditch. I stood up scraped and dripping wet, only to find the head of the column coming around the bend.

There was nothing to do but fall back in line.

When we reached the valley below, they marched us across desolate grazing land to a waiting train sitting on a rusty track overgrown by weeds. I could tell that the march over the mountain had thinned our ranks considerably because we had even more room in the cars. They left the door to our car open, and sometimes there would be a guard sitting there and sometimes there wouldn’t. The SS at Auschwitz would never have such an inconsistent routine.

Things were so desperate and chaotic for the Germans that they were probably wishing we would all jump out of the train and die.

The effects of the Allied bombing raids were evident everywhere. Charred remains of buildings and military equipment dotted the landscape like so many funeral pyres. A perfect postcard to send to the Allied generals. Problem was, I didn’t have a camera or a 206

SCHEISSHAUS LUCK

stamp and I was riding on a high-priority target for their bombers.

There were bomb craters on both sides of the track. The train would roll for miles, then stop for hours as workmen fixed the mangled tracks ahead. When the rails were repaired they were still far from being sound.

While the train sat idle one afternoon, I stepped over to our guard who was sitting in the doorway with a copy of
Der Stu¨rmer
and read over his shoulder. The bold headline gave me a shock:

‘‘Roosevelt Tot.’’

Roosevelt was dead. I slumped down in a corner, crying. I feared his death would alter the outcome of the war, or at least prolong it. At this point every minute counted for a
Muselmann
.

The train began to move slowly. Wheels squealing, our car wavered on the poorly repaired track. We were approaching the outskirts of a town when air raid sirens started to wail. The train lurched forward at full throttle in the engineer’s attempt to escape harm’s way. He was taking a hell of a chance on those unstable rails.

Everyone in the car either plastered themselves against the walls or dropped to the floor as the train rocked and bounced through a burned-out train station. The guard’s newspaper scattered, then was sucked out the open door. I slid across the floor, expecting us to derail at any moment, but by some miracle the track got smoother and we hurtled onward to ‘‘Pitchi Poi.’’

That night a young Romanian who was talking to himself woke me.

‘‘Let me sleep,’’ I grumbled.

He looked at me with dull eyes and continued to mutter. Poor bastard, he’s out of his mind. Someone jostled him and he leapt to his feet howling like a rabid beast. The other man fell over backwards and the Romanian grabbed him by the throat. Foolishly I tried to separate them, and the Romanian came after me with a homemade knife. I grabbed his arm, but he twisted away. I felt a sharp sting at the nape of my neck. I knocked the Romanian over.

Seeing the knife still in his hand, I jumped on top of him and kneeled on his arm. He tried to bite me, so I jammed my other knee PART IV | DORA

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into his neck. I could feel blood streaming down my back as he scratched and hit me with his free arm. I sank my knee into his throat. Gasping for air, the Romanian finally let go of the knife.

With my hand over the gash in my neck I rolled off him, exhausted.

One of the
Ha¨ftlinge
circling us picked up the knife and threw it out of the car. A few others flung the Romanian out after it.

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P A R T V

RAVENSBRU

¨ CK

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C H A P T E R 2 0

The loss of blood from the knife wound had debilitated me. A mal-nutritioned man needs to spill only a few drops to render him a useless shell. I was catatonic for the rest of our train ride. We could have traveled days, weeks, or maybe only hours, before I was overwhelmed by sunlight. I found myself staggering behind a procession of
Muselma¨nner
on a dirt road leading to a camp called Ravensbru¨ck. Once we were all inside, the guards locked the gate and stayed on the other side of the wire. I stumbled into a
Block
and passed out.

When I awoke I was shocked to find myself not in the lowest tier of a bunk but in a normal bed. The whole
Block
was filled with single beds. Still weak and woozy, I slowly sat up. Other than the dandelions and wild onions, I’d had nothing to eat for five days. I asked the
Muselmann
in the bed next to me if the
boches
had passed out any rations. He didn’t acknowledge me. He was on his way out, and it looked like the rest of the men in the
Block
were heading in the same direction. I dragged myself outside. There was barely a soul in the yard, and the
Ha¨ftlinge
who were milling about seemed to have the same goal I did: finding something to eat. Young dandelions were sprouting around the
Blocks
and I filled my belly with them.

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Back on my bed, I put my hand on my neck. My scabbed-over wound was swollen and hot to the touch. I scrounged around the
Block
for something to use as disinfectant. To my surprise I found dirty, ragged dresses, skirts, and blouses. Obviously. Ravensbru¨ck had been a women’s camp. I ventured into another
Block
. Most of the
Ha¨ftlinge
were lying motionless, and the few healthy ones were clowning with the women’s clothing that they had discovered. I came across the remnants of a make-up kit that must have belonged to the
Blokowa
. There was some toilet paper and a few drops of the famous German 4711 cologne in a lipstick-smeared bottle.

Dizzy from the slight exertion, I crawled back into my bed with a scarf of cologne-soaked toilet paper around my neck and blacked out. I spent close to the next four days prone in that bed. The Nazis didn’t bother us, which was fine except that they also didn’t feed us.

They also didn’t pick up the corpses, which made the camp a petri dish for an epidemic.

A rumor shot through my
Block
that Red Cross packages had arrived for us. This made me sit up. ‘‘
C’est une blague
!’’ (It’s a joke!) I laid back down and shut my eyes. A Parisian who was wearing a Greek mariner’s cap awakened me. Where he scrounged up that damn cap I will never know. ‘‘Get up. I need a partner to get a package. We have to split them up.’’

I rolled onto my side and said, ‘‘Another joke? Leave me alone.

I’m not getting up unless it’s absolutely necessary.’’

He kept on insisting, but it wasn’t until other
Ha¨ftlinge
came in holding boxes with red crosses on them that I followed my ‘‘partner’’ outside. What a pair we made as we crossed the yard, him with his fishing cap and me with my flowing scarf of toilet paper. I followed him into a
Block
and was dumbfounded by the stacks of Red Cross boxes towering in front of us. With a contingent of German soldiers observing, members of the International Red Cross had us sign a ledger, then handed us each one of the cardboard boxes. A Gift from the American People was stenciled across the top. In German,
Gift
is ‘‘poison.’’ It took a lot of convincing to get some PART V | RAVENSBRU¨CK