The Dentist Of Auschwitz (7 page)

With our pails dangling from the chains, we followed our guard, Tadek. The man chosen to go with me was taller than I, and I had to take three steps for each two of his to keep up with him. Indifferent, hardly raising his eyes, he walked ahead of me. I asked him what his name was. “Marek,” he answered. Marek, I judged, was about thirty-five. He had the intelligent look of a city lawyer. Seeing him in his well-tailored gray trousers, herringbone jacket, and red tie, without the water pails, one would think he was on the way to court. His kind face drew me to him. I liked him from the first moment on.

As the pails bounced at our knees, we silently followed Tadek’s instructions. The smell of freshly cut grass tickled my senses. In many homes in rural Poland, water was supplied this way, by professional water carriers. Their carrying devices were made from logs and designed to contour to the shoulders. The length of the chains could be adjusted by knotting them in the middle. To us, however, the carriers were so uncomfortable that after the first try, we preferred to carry the pails in our hands. The trauma of the last three days had had a deeply dehumanizing effect on us. I felt all the more trapped.

The thick brush in the inner forest slowed us down. The path led us over bumps covered with slippery moss. Rotted trees and roots were everywhere we stepped. Finally we had to jump over a small stream, and then we found the spring. The spring water was pristine and cold and seemed to be bubbling out of the earth. Mosquitoes and other little insects swirled in a screen of dew that hung over the water. The look of the water invited us to sample it, and it was pure and delightfully refreshing. Because of the spring’s shallow basin, we took some time to fill the pails. I asked the guard, speaking Polish, if he had been here before. “No,” he said.

I continued probing. “How long have you been in this service?”

“I just started doing this last Wednesday.”

“What kind of service is this?” Marek dared to ask.

“It was organized by Germans just recently, to guard all kinds of installations.”

“Including camps?” Marek continued.

“Yes. Mostly Jewish,” he disclosed. Then we knew that our guards were Poles. The pails were as full as we could get them, and we returned to camp.

Stasia waited for us at the open hearth. The peeled potatoes received a good washing, and we went back for more water. Tadek was anxious to be with his comrades, and he asked if we could find our way without him. “Yes!” we replied in chorus, eager to be alone. As we entered the forest, we realized that this was the first time we had been unguarded.

Marek Lewinski, I then learned, was an electrical engineer from Koo, a town less than fifty kilometers from Dobra. He was handsome, nearly two meters tall, and slender. He had an olive complexion, a straight forehead, and a slightly elongated nose. He had been seized in a Racia. The Nazis took no heed of his being the only male in the family. He and the other men of Koo were loaded on trucks and brought to join our transport. He never got to say good-bye to his wife and two children. The bitterness of his ordeal lay on his face. As he talked, his eyes glued to the ground, I sensed anger and condemnation of Koo’s Judenrat.

We were soon at the clearing. We put the pails on the slimy soil surrounding the water pit and sat down on a large rock. The peace and serenity we found in being alone brought a discharge of emotions. We were glad to have this opportunity to unburden ourselves of the rage accumulated in the last few days. Our new helplessness and despair, buried in our hearts for the last week, forced tears, and we both sat and cried.

About fifteen minutes later, at about a quarter to eight, we heard voices in the distance. As the sound grew, we heard young girls singing a gentle, popular Polish school graduation song. The singing dried our eyes, but suddenly the song stopped, and the cheer and beauty of it faded. As the silence persisted, that minute of softness seemed just a dream. I closed my eyes. It was difficult for me to let go. Suddenly I heard movement in the bushes, and raising my eyes, I saw another pair of eyes staring at me. The bushes soon parted, and before us, in the bright sunshine, five young girls emerged. We could not believe our eyes, but they were real.

“Dzie dobry” (Good morning). I greeted them quickly so they would not fear us.

“Dzie dobry,” they answered in unison. The five neatly dressed young girls with bundles under their arms radiated happiness. “Who are you?” they asked.

“We are Jews. My name is Bronek Jakubowicz. I am from Dobra. My friend Marek is from Koo.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We are at a camp called Steineck. Today is our first day at work at the Hoch und Tiefbaugesellschaft.”

“In Brodzice?” one of them asked.

“Yes.”

They were Jadzia, Halina, Kazia, Anka, and Zosia. Schoolmates before the war, they were all from Poznan, and they worked on a nearby plantation. Poznan, a city the Germans claimed, was the home of very few Jewish people. When the Nazis entered the city, it quickly became
Judenfrei
(free of Jews). When we told the girls about conditions in our ghettos, they were outraged. They were also shocked to learn about the conditions in camp. “All this just because you are Jews?” they asked. “Why? Why?” This was the question we never stopped asking ourselves. There was no end to their curiosity. They wanted to know why we were hairless. One stared at me, stretched her hand out, and said, “I am Zosia Zasina. I can’t believe the Germans can be so horrible.” What a lovely name, I thought. “You must be hungry. Here, take this,” she said, giving us her lunch.

It was embarrassing. I refused to accept. I wasn’t quite ready to forgo the normal gentlemanly response. “I can’t take it, Zosia,” I responded, her name rolling off my tongue softly.

“Please take it. Share it with your father,” she pressed. Hearing my father mentioned, I knew I should accept.

As if to comply with Zosia’s lead, the others left their food as well. “Please, please,” they pleaded, “give it to the others.” We thanked them warmly. “We’ll stop by tomorrow at the same time,” they said as they left. We watched as they disappeared into the thick forest with tears in their eyes.

Carrying the food bundles with us would give our secret away, so we buried them. Lest our guard come looking for us, we filled the pails and swiftly started back to the camp. I walked ahead on the narrow path. I was filled with excitement and longing for the next day. I saw Tadek coming toward us. I wasn’t sure how he would react if he found out about what had just happened. “We lost our way for a while,” I said. He accepted that, and we returned to a more impatient Stasia.

“Where have you been so long?” she queried.

“Oh, we strayed a bit, but we are sure of our way now,” I said, hoping we wouldn’t lose their trust and could continue bringing water by ourselves.

The guards, preferring to sit in the shade talking, smoking cigarettes, or playing cards, weren’t anxious to have to escort us. Stasia gave a short speech on how poorly the potato peelers did. She had to check each potato, to remove what she called eyes. I wanted to explain that until today they knew little about the art of potato peeling, but instead I just said, “In time you’ll see, they’ll do better.” For a moment it sounded like the old Nazi claim that Jews were lazy.

Returning again to the spring, I was still occupied with the thought of what had happened earlier. Zosia’s beautiful face pushed all others aside. I was moved by her generosity, kindness, and genuine concern. The food they left us was irresistible: tempting fresh bread, ham, kielbasa, cookies, and fruits. We ate more than our share there, and the rest we concealed in our pockets to take to the others. Stasia did not want any more water, so we waited for the midday break.

At noon work halted. As the foreman brought the inmates in front of the kitchen, out came the casseroles, pots, and saucepans. The foremen, supervisors, technicians, and engineers ate in the mess hall. Stasia prepared their food with particular reverence. She lunched with Mr. Witczak after everyone left. I saw that after just a half day of work my father looked worn. When I asked him whether the work was too difficult, he said, “No, I am strong. I can do it.”

Schmerele, an Austrian foreman in whose detachment Papa worked, quickly got a reputation for being a terrorizing bully. He demanded that every shovel be full each time it was lifted. At forty-seven, with a heart condition, my father wasn’t the person to lift fourteen-kilo shovelfuls of dirt all day. I gave Papa part of the things Marek and I had brought from the forest. I didn’t say where the food came from, and he didn’t ask.

The soup at Brodzice did not smell as foul as the camp slop. Although its main ingredients were potatoes and turnip, it contained slivers of horse meat. We scraped up every morsel. After the meal, Marek and I went back for more water. Our comrades headed back to work in the marshes. Witczak later ordered me to find out how many inmates each foreman had on each site, so only Marek was left to provide Stasia with dishwater.

Most earthmoving in those days, especially in Poland, was done with pick and shovel. As I proceeded through the site, I saw how hard our inmates worked digging and lifting the stringy soil, loading it on wheelbarrows, and pushing them hundreds of meters, for a new rail bed. Most of the foremen were more humane than Schmerele. As the inmates’ strength diminished, their attitude also changed. After I counted the inmates, I wanted to report to Witczak. His office curtains were drawn, so I knocked on the door. He opened it and took my notes without saying a word. I quickly learned that he wasn’t a man to waste words.

Although Hoch und Tiefbaugesellschaft was strictly a German concern, the three Poles—Witczak, Kmiec, and Basiak—ran this part of the project. Kmiec and Basiak were of the Polish intelligentsia, while Witczak was not of the gentry. Kmiec and Basiak often expressed their disgust for Germany’s treatment of us, but I never knew Witczak’s opinion.

At four in the afternoon work ceased. On the way back to Steineck, guards tried to teach us to march in rhythm. They would yell, “One, two, three, four! What do people say when they see you looking like wobbling ducks?” To us, exhausted, tired slaves, it mattered little what people said. How could one expect Cantor Pinkus and other scholars, who had lived so long in a world where goose stepping didn’t exist, to march? They had spent most of their lives in Talmud study and in teaching spiritual enrichment. In time the guards became convinced we were too fatigued and accepted our marching in the only way we knew how.

When we finally arrived back in camp, the yard became a beehive of activity. Inmates were trying to attend to their personal cares all at the same time. Many brothers, fathers, and sons were assigned to different groups, and changes were nearly impossible. When we returned, those already in camp surrounded us to talk about their work. We were all doing the same thing: laying rails.

That night I lay thinking of Zosia. In the dark I saw her face. At 4:00 A.M. I was so deeply asleep that even the sharp school bells couldn’t awaken me. It was my father’s tugging that brought me to my feet.

The inmates’ strength was waning, and we had to find ways to substitute our meager camp rations of coffee substitute, mortar bread, and fake marmalade. We had all heard the aphorism “Necessity is the mother of invention.” We flattened the ends of spoon handles with rocks, to make a knife-and-spoon combination.

After breakfast rations our group assembled, and we went to the gate, where Tadek, the chief guard, took charge of us. It was only our second day of work, and already life had become a routine. The sky looked threatening, but no rain fell. The thought of Papa still working under Schmerele nagged at me. I had to try and get him out of there soon.

We reached the construction barracks a little before seven. Stasia, Witczak, and his foremen waited. The shovels, picks, and wheelbarrows were outside the shed. After Tadek’s report, inmates were ordered to follow their foremen. “If your foreman isn’t present,” said Witczak, “go to your site and begin where you left off yesterday.”

Stasia left Marek and me at the barracks and escorted her three helpers to the potatoes and knives. Marek and I left for the spring, without a guard. It was only a few minutes after seven, too early to expect the girls. Close to eight, we had just filled our pails for the second time when we heard them coming. “Good day,” they cheerfully said, reaching the spring.

“Good day,” we answered.

That day lacked the curiosity and spontaneity of the day before. We even talked about the weather. Only Zosia seemed to have retained a gentle fascination for us. I thought she looked as if she wanted to say something. Jadzia broke the ice. “We had few Jewish students in school,” she said. Kazia and Halina agreed.

“I had a music teacher, Mr. Kaplan, who gave me private piano lessons. I think he was half Jewish. I liked him a lot,” Zosia said. “He and his wife were already old when the war began. I don’t know what became of them.”

“You said that you are married and have two children,” Kazia queried Marek.

“Yes, my son is nine, and my daughter is three. Next week will be her birthday,” he replied. From his breast pocket he pulled out a brown leather billfold with his initials in gold and showed them a picture of his wife and children. Like any proud father, he watched their faces as the postcard-sized picture was passed around.

“What an attractive wife you have, and what beautiful children,” they said. “Can they write to you?” one asked.

“They are still allowed to send mail from the ghetto, but we won’t receive it,” answered Marek.

The girls looked at each other, amazed. “What harm is there in your having contact with your families?” Kazia asked. “If you’d like to write to them,” she said, “a letter or a postcard, we’ll be happy to send it out for you.”

“How gracious of you,” Marek responded in impeccable Polish. His good manners were not those of a water carrier. He thanked them and gratefully accepted their offer.

I seized the opportunity and asked if I too could send a letter to my relatives. Halina quickly agreed, and so did Zosia. “Gladly,” they said.