The Dentist Of Auschwitz (16 page)

I knew that I would not be allowed to leave the camp without a guard. Since I had not implicated him in the bread debacle in Steineck, I had a good relationship with Tadek. He agreed to go with me. I knew he had a bicycle, since he rode it every day. I asked him if he could find one for me. He thought that he could.

It had been snowing for days, and more than a quarter of a meter was on the ground. When it did not snow, dark clouds covered the sky. The infirmary was filled with the sick and dying. Most prisoners survived by bare will. I hoped to escape this prison, even if for just a few hours.

Though I saw Grimm several times, he made no mention of what we had talked about. I thought he had forgotten, but one day he and the Kommandant came to the infirmary, and the subject arose. “Achtung!” Seidel yelled out when they entered. “Herr Lagerführer, sixty-five sick in bed and seven attendants. All is well.” The number of inmates changed so fast in the infirmary that, at best, he could only be guessing. Seidel knew what was important to Scharführer Köhler.

The Kommandant looked like a country farmer, a bit older than the average SS man, with hair that was turning gray. But he was not heinous, and unlike his predecessors he took an interest in his prisoners. Then Grimm turned to him and said, “Herr Lagerführer, the camp for women nearby probably doesn’t have a dental station. Our dentist says that he could go help the prisoners. Of course, a guard would be with him at all times.”

The Kommandant looked at Grimm, stared at me, and after deliberating said, “Freilich, OK.” I bit my lips to contain my exuberance.

“Thank you, Herr Lagerführer,” I said as they left. Grimm later returned to tell me that the Kommandant cautioned that my entry into that camp was up to the Kommandant there. Having gotten this far, I was cautiously optimistic.

It was late in April 1943. The sun was out, giving us a deceptive taste of spring. Wherever the sun shone, winter seemed to disappear, for surrounded by the tall buildings we lived a fortresslike existence. When I told Tadek that the Old Man, as he called the Kommandant, had given me permission to go to the camp for women, he said, “Good.” He added, “I talked with my brother-in-law. He’ll let you use his bike.”

Now I was anxious. “Tadek, when can we go?” I asked him. Wednesday was his day off, he said, and he would try to go with me then. Tadek played an important part in my life. Being a guard did not interfere with his basic good nature. In the midst of many evil guards, he was as helpful as the situation would allow. Whereas I knew that the chance of finding my sister and mother was slim, trying to find them meant a lot to me. In my heart I still had hope.

On Wednesday Tadek came to pick me up. When I was little I had watched my brother and sister on their bicycles, and riding just came to me naturally. I was too small then to reach the pedals, so I tilted the bicycle to one side and put one foot underneath the bar. Tadek’s arrival with the two bicycles reminded me of those days. As we rode away from the camp, Tadek told me to remove my yellow star. “We’d better be careful,” he said.

It was sunny but still quite cold. My heart pounded with excitement. The zest of life ran through me. Leaving the camp, unmarked, gave me an illusion of freedom. I didn’t know which camp we would be visiting, and neither did Tadek. Not too far away we passed a village. A few peasants were working, spreading dung on their fields. Tadek asked one for directions to a village I had never heard of. “Just follow the road,” the man said. Soon Tadek recognized a landmark and was certain we were going in the right direction. A few minutes later, around a curve, we saw people working on both sides of the road. As we came close, I saw guards and a hundred men grading the embankments. We were close enough to see their yellow Stars of David. Neither of us expected this.

“Just act natural,” Tadek said. As we rode past, Tadek greeted the guards with “Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler!” the guards replied. Then most heads raised up with curiosity. Though I wanted to see if I recognized anyone, I could not give myself away. I drove by them, stone-faced, as if I was completely disinterested. But suddenly one of them yelled out, “Look, it’s Bronek, Josek’s brother!” I feared their guard’s reaction and put a hand over my mouth, trying to silence him. By then they all stared at me, while I remained indifferent to what the man had said. As we rode by the long rows of inmates, I kept making the hush sign. Then I thought I saw a ghost. One man’s posture and the color of his sweater reminded me of my brother. When he looked back at me, I was sure it was Josek. He stopped digging, rested his arms on his spade, and looked even more shocked than I. It was a miracle, to find my brother so unexpectedly. Tadek knew something had stirred me. I whispered, “Over there, Tadek, in the beige sweater, it’s my brother!” We moved off the road and stopped a hundred meters from them. If the guards noticed anything, they didn’t speak.

“Tadek,” I asked, “would they let me talk to my brother, even if it’s just for a minute?”

“Wait,” he said. “I’ll go over and see.”

The whole group was looking at me, wondering how I could ride around without the mark of a Jew. As Tadek walked over to the nearest guard, I followed him with my eyes, waiting anxiously for the answer. It wasn’t long until he returned. “Those are inmates from Lenzingen, the camp we are going to. Their barracks are just a few kilometers down the road. He’ll let you see your brother for a few minutes. They are afraid that if any of the SS from the camp come by and see it, it may cost them their jobs,” he said.

When we got together, Josek and I hugged, two brothers who had never thought to see one another again. Then we sat down on a patch of grass that was free of snow. I saw that Josek hadn’t changed, except that he looked thinner. I had so many questions to ask him that I found it hard to begin. I knew I had to share with him what I knew about Mama and Pola. But first I asked him how he got here, and what went on in Dobra before he was arrested.

“It was inevitable,” my brother said. “The situation was ominous.” Seeing that he was prepared for the worst, I told him about Mama and Pola. “Pola had chances to escape, and as for Mama, I knew it was the end,” he said. “Someone had offered Pola an Aryan document, but she refused to leave Mama.”

We saw the guards’ impatience. When I told Josek that we were going to his camp, he said, “Don’t go there. If Krusche sees you, he will kill you.”

He amazed me. How could he know Krusche, and my troubles with him? I had never written home about Krusche. Krusche, he said, was their Kommandant, and when he heard that Josek’s name was Jakubowicz, he asked him if he was my brother. Hearing that he was, Krusche got angry. “I hope to find your brother and see him dead someday,” Krusche said. Conditions at their camp were much like ours. Most of them were working on the same railroad.

Before we parted, Josek asked me if I could come back someday. “From twelve to one we are off,” he said. I promised to try to be back there very soon. I returned to Tadek. He was still scanning the road for any signs of danger. I told him that we couldn’t go to the camp and why. He agreed. He wasn’t anxious to see Krusche either.

It was past two by now. We had no time left to ride anywhere else, and we returned to Gutenbrunn. I told Tadek what the Old Man had told Grimm. It did not surprise him. He knew that Köhler couldn’t speak for another camp’s Kommandant. “Even being on the road wasn’t risk-free,” he said. Anyone who wanted to could cause us trouble.

Papa was returning from work as we entered the camp. I told him I had found Josek, and he could hardly believe it. Later I had to share every detail. When I told the unemotional Seidel that I had found my brother, he mumbled, “That’s good.”

Grimm, however, shared my joy in my good fortune. “Be careful,” he cautioned. “You are on your own out there.” In spite of the danger, I looked forward, blissfully, to my next day out. Grimm and I had a good relationship. He confided in me how difficult it was to minimize the harsh Nazi directives often given him and how hard it was to retain his self-respect. Working in the first aid room gave me a purpose. I could do something useful. Despite their misfortunes, some inmates here, eminently wise, affirmed their spiritual respect for life. This mitigated their sense of hopelessness.

The next Wednesday, with a few snowflakes falling, I went to the main gate and sneaked out. The young guard knew me. By now most of the guards knew me.

Then Tadek and I rode off. “It’s too early to go to your brother. Let’s try the women’s camp first. It is only an hour away,” Tadek said. With the miracle of finding Josek to boost my spirits, I had hopes of finding Pola and my mother. However remote hope is, sometimes it’s stronger than logic. No matter how hard I pedaled the old bike, though, I couldn’t keep up with Tadek’s faster pace. Having served its usual time, my bike preferred to be in retirement.

We turned onto an unpaved road, where we saw many women working in a field. One kilometer further on was a cluster of barracks. “That,” Tadek said, pointing, “is their camp.” The barracks were typical single-story buildings all in rows. A fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the camp. We stopped. “Put on your patch,” Tadek said. “The Kommandant here might not like seeing a camp inmate not wearing one.” He left me holding the bicycles some hundred and fifty meters from the entrance, and he went alone to the gatehouse. The barracks were built of unfinished pine. It all looked like a hastily constructed job. Although I couldn’t hear Tadek’s conversation with the sentry, I followed their gestures. After a third joined in, I saw Tadek nodding his head. I suspected that they had reached some understanding. “The Lagerführer is not here, but they’ll let you go in. However, only a few women are in the camp,” Tadek said.

We leaned our bicycles against the guardhouse and entered the camp. The two Polish sentries gave us inquisitive stares and expressed particular interest in my little box. I assured them that it held only my dental tools. They looked at me with strange adulation and let me in. I followed Tadek. An eerie silence hung over the camp. So far I had not seen a single woman. My pulse raced. I didn’t know what to expect. One door seemed an entrance to a kitchen. Surely someone must be there. We opened the door and saw two women in their early twenties peeling potatoes. Though I expected girls’ faces, I was not prepared for their bizarre look: without hair, they looked more like young boys. Until we explained who we were and why we had come, they too were stunned. Then everything began to unfold. One of them was tall and slim, the other short and plump with a husky voice and a heavy Yiddish accent. The short one was the quicker to reply, very much the spokeswoman. They were dressed in their clothes from home and wore yellow stars. The tall one had a pleasant face, wide-open eyes, and a good figure. She wore a dark skirt and a light-colored flowered blouse. Once these clothes were fashionable, but now they were nearly rags. Had it not been for her bare head, she would have been very attractive. I asked them how long they had been here and where they were from. We found they had arrived only three weeks before. So far they had not buried any inmates. Of course, the term
Mussulman
—or, rather,
Mussulwoman
—meant nothing to them. There was not a doctor, a dentist, or even a first aid facility in their camp.

“I am Malka Rosen,” the spokeswoman said in her colorless voice. “I am from Kalisz.”

“Is Ruzka your sister?” I hastened to ask.

“Yes,” she said. “Do you know Ruzka?”

“Did your father run a soda water business?”

“Yes,” she answered.

I remembered Ruzka vividly. “Where is your sister?” I asked.

“She is here. She is now at work.” I couldn’t believe it! Beautiful Ruzka, here in this labor camp? We had gone to the same school, the Jewish gymnasium. I recalled a custom long forgotten. We used to promenade on the Boulevard in Kalisz for hours in the evening. Ruzka was always the most affable of company. When I calmed my surprise, I asked if anyone from Dobra was there.

“I am Chana Cimerman from Koo, not far from Dobra. I know a few girls from Dobra here,” said the tall one.

“Do you know Pola Jakubowicz?”

They looked at each other, and then the spokeswoman said, “There is a Balcia Jakubowicz, from Uniejów.” Balcia was my cousin, Uncle Chaim’s youngest daughter. She should know more about what happened in the last days in Dobra, I thought. I knew I had to see her. I told Malka that we would be back the next Wednesday. Tadek added, “We will try to be here between ten and twelve.”

“Tell my cousin about it,” I added.

“I think it would be best if you came Saturday or Sunday,” Malka replied. “Then all the girls will be here.” I looked at Tadek, who shook his head no.

The door opened, and a broad-shouldered woman wearing a police armband came in, looking very surprised. Malka explained to her who we were. Satisfied that our visit wasn’t her business, she left. Tadek reminded me that if we didn’t go now, we might not get to see Josek.

It was half past twelve when we saw my brother. He and the others sat on the side of the road, resting against trees towering twelve to fifteen meters high. Tadek got off his bike and approached the same guard who had allowed me to see my brother the week before. By Josek’s piercing look, I could see that he had been waiting. Since the guard had already given him permission, he came to me while the other one stared at us. The guard had told him that he could separate from his group but should remain in sight. We walked off on a path leading to some trees, about eight hundred meters away, and stopped there. We had so many things to ask one another. First he wanted to know if Papa was well. He was curious to know where he worked and what he did. Then he asked me how I found Zosia and where I got to see her. I told him in detail the miracle of our meeting. He also wondered where I had gotten the bike. Later I showed him the last letter we received from Mama and Pola and said that we had just been at a camp nearby that the Nazis had opened for Jewish women, and though many were from our area, I found neither Pola nor Mama there. After he had finished reading the letter, he shook his head and said that it had been obvious to him that the end of the ghetto was near. I also told him that I hoped to see our cousin Balcia and thought she might shed more light on the fate of our mother and sister.