The Dentist Of Auschwitz (25 page)

“Why didn’t you tell me that? Where do they work?”

“My father works at construction, with Kapo Hermann, and my brother is working in the coal mine,” I said. “Herr Hauptscharführer,” I added, “many fathers and sons are here. I didn’t know that this mattered.”

Then he asked me how old my father was.

“Forty-nine, Herr Hauptscharführer.”

“Isn’t construction work too hard for your father? Wouldn’t he be better off doing something in the camp? Where would you like to see him working?”

“Home, where we all belong,” was the reply that flashed instantly through my mind, but of course I didn’t say that to him. He surprised me to no end. I had not expected to hear this from the wicked Otto Moll. I looked him in the eye. Was this a genuine offer? It sounded like compensation for my service. I paused and thought about which job would be best for Papa. Then it occurred to me: barracks orderly. “My father would make a good Stubendienst, Herr Lagerführer,” I said enthusiastically.

“Good. Then it’s settled. Tell Grimm to give your father a job as a Stubendienst. And your brother,” he said, “can work in the KB.” With that he buckled his belt, took his hat, and left.

In the past two months I had often thought of finding a way to ease my father’s load. But here, asking for help had usually brought the opposite result. It was taken as an attempt to dodge work. I told Grimm about my conversation with Moll. Papa was assigned to Kapo Nathan Green’s block, where the three of us had first slept, and my brother went to work in the KB. Dr. Lubicz, who always needed more help in the KB, appreciated my brother’s work. Josek stayed there until we were evacuated from Fürstengrube in January 1945.

By the end of 1943 more inmates were brought to Fürstengrube, from Holland, Belgium, Morocco, and Norway. Those who spoke, or at least understood, German or Yiddish were able to follow the Kapos’ orders in German. A Dutch boy, only fourteen years old, named Kopelmann, told me that he and his family were arrested because a Jewish spy was roaming the streets of Antwerp pointing Jews out to the Nazis. His family was told that they were being resettled in Poland. Because someone at their selection had liked his freckled face, he had been separated from his family and transferred to Fürstengrube. Whereas most of those who arrived with him soon became Mussulmen, Kopelmann did all right.

Fürstengrube had a mélange of Jews. The French Jews didn’t like the Belgians, the Belgians didn’t like the Dutch, the Dutch didn’t like the Germans, and no one liked the Polish Jews. The Russians didn’t even count. And as for any cooperation between Jews and non-Jews who shared the same fate, that did not exist.

The biggest priority to our oppressors in Fürstengrube was mining coal and delivering it to Buna, where it was used to make synthetic rubber. To increase production, they brought inmate specialists from our governing camp, Buna. And there were more SS men. One guard told me how he had been made a guard. He was in the army, but one day his army papers, he claimed, were replaced with those of a member of the Waffen SS. He was sent to our camp.

A former
POW
, a Russian by the name of Boris, whom I got to know well, told me he planned to escape. I warned him against it, but he steadfastly maintained he would find a sure way out. One Sunday afternoon Boris, counting on the laxity of our guards during the ordered bed rest, climbed up the wall and jumped to the other side. Shortly thereafter the sirens rang, and in the yard lay Boris’s body on display.

On Christmas night 1943, I awoke to blowing whistles. I looked out the window and saw inmates rushing out of the barracks and into the yard. In their midst was Lagerführer Moll, Unterscharführer Schmidt, Pfeiffer, Schwientny, all the Stubenältesters and the Kapos. A recent snowfall added light to the dark yard. First, all the block elders had their prisoners count off. Then they had them rush back to the blocks, just in time to drive them out again.

I didn’t know what it meant. Suddenly I saw Moll burst into the camp and begin shooting. I heard three rounds of gunshots and a loud echo. I felt cramps within me, as if I had been hit. There was turmoil outside. When I looked out again, the inmates were rushing back to the barracks. Then I saw bodies and blood-spattered snow. One of the injured inmates was trying to get up, but he staggered and fell. Other wounded men were begging for help. The macabre scene resembled a dance of the dead.

What I saw that night overshadowed all previous cruelties that I had seen. I could not bear looking out any longer. I was on the verge of breaking down. I covered my eyes, believing that my father or my brother might be out there. I felt a deep shame that my circumstances had separated me from those whose fate I shared. I learned later from Grimm that Moll had been drinking that night, and when he heard that one of our inmates had escaped, he was furious and became uncontrollable. He ordered all inmates to the yard and released a salvo of machine-gun fire into the rows of prisoners. Had it not been for Unterscharführer Schmidt, who stopped him, the massacre would have been even greater, Grimm said. The escaped inmate who enraged Moll was Gabriel Ratkopf. For his act nineteen inmates were killed that night. They suffered and died alone, since Moll forbade any help. I knew one of the murdered, Max Glazer, who was shot in the stomach. Before the war he taught German at Prague University. This incident also prompted Otto Moll to demote Richard Grimm. He brought a new Kapo from the main camp, Otto Breiten, to became Fürstengrube’s new Lagerältester.

To increase the mine’s productivity further, I.G. Farben introduced bonus points, which could be redeemed at an I.G. Farben stand. Jewish workers, however, were limited to a maximum of four points, which got them very little. Nonetheless, the Kapos were pleased, since they got most bonuses and could use them to enjoy the company of the Nazi-coerced prostitutes in Birkenau.

With a new transport of Jews from Austria came many talented actors from a well-known Vienna theater as well as the conductor of the Vienna State Opera, Harry Spitz, and Tauber, the nephew of a popular opera singer, Richard Tauber. This undoubtedly gave Moll the idea to create an orchestra in Fürstengrube, and beginning in February 1944 our inmates went to and returned from work to the sound of German marching music. Mr. Spitz’s past was shrouded in mystery. Some who knew him from Vienna claimed that he had once been married to Erna Sack, a famous German soprano. The story was that she had divorced him because of the Nazi racial laws. Staying married to a Jew would have ended her career. But Harry never spoke about it. Soon after they arrived, in an attempt to inject some light into an otherwise bleak existence, Spitz organized stage performances of Strauss, Lehár, and Kálmán operettas. The Germans liked that. A stage was constructed in the SS mess hall, and the first rows were reserved for the SS and I.G. Farben personnel. The Kapos followed, and behind them were seats for inmates. Even the sick attended. The Germans were fascinated by Tauber’s tenor, and he was exempted from working in the mines.

One sunny day in February we saw the first Allied bomber fly over Fürstengrube. Two planes appeared, swooped down, and made a pass over us. We believed that they could distinguish who we were. We were ready to pay our price to see this nightmare end. We looked up to the sky, believing that they would drop their bombs on the camp on the next approach. To our regret they did not. We continued to be mired in our fate.

Otto Moll came to the dental station and asked me if I could make jewelry. I told him that my skills fell short of jewelry making, but I thought that there surely must be a jeweler in camp. The following day, I found an inmate, Simche Laufer, who, I was told, was an extraordinarily good jeweler. Moll relieved him of his job, and he began to work in the dental laboratory. With the limited number of jewelry tools I had, Simche blended down the twenty-two-carat dental gold from dead inmates’ teeth into eighteen-carat jewelry gold. After hammering and chipping away at it, he created elegant pins, rings, brooches, and whatever else Moll ordered him to make. He also made Moll a pair of stunning gold cuff links. Simche’s reward was an extra soup ration per day.

While the Nazis must have realized they would lose the war, Fürstengrube kept growing. A new barracks was finished. It was the end of February, and though the sun shone, it failed to warm us. The winds picked up the snow from the rooftops and blew it around into clouds. At night I could hear the wind whine and drive snow through the poorly joined wallboards.

SDG
Hinze still stopped most mornings to continue his cruel routine with me, which had become an obsession with him. I heard about an instance at the construction site, where a guard had thrown away a half-smoked cigarette to provoke an inmate to pick it up. Tempted and little suspecting the outcome, one of the inmates reached for it and was riddled with the guard’s bullets.

The lack of mine safety resulted in many inmate injuries. One afternoon an inmate from Dortmund, Germany, named Erich Wiltzig came to the dental station. He had been struck by a lump of coal at work. I looked at his bruised face, and when he moved his jaw, I saw that he had a fracture of the mandibular bone. I spoke with Dr. Lubicz, and he placed Erich in sick bay for two weeks—the longest time permitted. It actually took three times that long for his jaw to heal. Later, after he went back to work, he was brought back to camp dead. He had been labeled a work shirker, and a guard had shot him in another staged incident.

Winters posed greater threats to our survival, but the winter of 1944 was particularly cruel. The inmates returning from work were frozen stiff. Their coats looked like sheets of metal. For most of us, this was the third winter of captivity. It seemed that we were running out of the tenacity necessary to survive.

One day Willy Engel told me that a number of people from the International Red Cross were expected to come on Sunday to inspect the conditions in Fürstengrube. That Sunday we received a real meal: boiled potatoes, vegetables, and a slice of pork meat. Shortly thereafter, a group of distinguished civilians accompanied by Moll and the newly upgraded Scharführer Schmidt came in. Among them was also the Obersturmbannführer and Kommandant of Auschwitz I, Rudolf Höss. First they went into Willy’s office. Next they came to my dental station. I heard Moll say this was a perfect example of the many kinds of health care they provided for us in Fürstengrube. I listened and wondered why not one of them asked me a thing. But what if they did? Could I tell them the truth? Dr. Lubicz said that the same thing had happened to him.

We heard stories about Polish partisans operating nearby. Our Polish inmates had been contacted by them, we were told, but they never contacted the Jews.

In May 1944 a new transport arrived. Among them were a few Norwegian Jews. One was the 1939 heavyweight boxing champ of Norway, named Boot.

Hinze kept up his routine of terror on me every day. Nothing ever softened his attitude. With no end in sight, I asked Dr. Lubicz for advice. Lubicz, I saw, feared him as well. He told me to speak with Josef Hermann, who by then had Moll’s ear. But Hermann said that nothing could be done about the mistreatment of a Jewish inmate, and Hinze’s streak of arrogance and misuse continued.

One day Blockkapos Maurice and Grimm and three Polish inmates were arrested while digging a tunnel from Maurice’s barracks out beyond the fence. They dug the tunnel at night and carried the soil out in blankets. We did not hear how the guards found out. It was rumored that Goldstein, the camp barber, who was to go with them, betrayed them. Some blamed it on Josef Hermann. Anyhow, after they were quizzed about who else was involved and from whom they got the tools, they were sent to the gallows for the attempt to escape and join the partisans. Maurice, an always happy, good-spirited Frenchman, shouted down from the gallows at the Gestapo henchman, “You will pay for that soon!” And then to us, “Good-bye, comrades. Farewell!” Jan, one of the Polish inmates, sang “Jeszcze Polska nie zqinela,” the Polish anthem.

I knew that every morning I had to undergo Hinze’s ritual. I walked around like a caged animal until he came. Some days I felt like hiding when I saw him enter the camp. Then he came to the dental station and said to me, “You know what you have to do, dentist. You know the routine.” Then he proceeded with the torment. This went on for four incredible months. With no way out, I decided to speak to Otto Breiten.

Breiten said that he would look in when Hinze was there. The next time Hinze came, Otto peeked in discreetly, looking at us through the window. He saw Hinze abusing me and also saw him using dental instruments to clean his fingernails. On the latter point he based his attack. Mistreating an inmate, Breiten thought, was an SS man’s privilege, but sabotage of German property was a crime. He told me that he would talk to Moll. “Of course,” he added, cautioning me, “You will have to tell all this to Moll, in Hinze’s presence.” I knew the risk, but I couldn’t go on like this any longer. Breiten was certain that the best place to talk to the Hauptscharführer would be in the kitchen, while he ate the lavish meal that Koch prepared for him every day.

It was about twelve-thirty in the afternoon one day when Breiten came to me, urging me to hurry. “Moll is in the kitchen, and he is in a good mood. I told him everything about Hinze, and he wants to see you.”

Willy Engel, who also knew about our plan, followed us, anxious about the outcome. “Lay it on him,” Willy encouraged me.

As we came into the kitchen, Moll was having sauerbraten for dinner. Moll hardly looked in our direction, as if we weren’t there. It wasn’t long until Hinze arrived. He sensed something unusual, because in reporting to Moll he seemed uneasy. Moll continued eating as if he did not notice Hinze either. Hinze stood, looking at me and at Breiten, weighing what was going on. Finally the Hauptscharführer, with his mouth still stuffed, said to me, chopping each word, “The Lagerältester tells me that the
SDG
, Unterscharführer Hinze, often interferes with your work. Is that true?”

I knew what was to follow. I would have to complain to the Kommandant, to one SS man about another. But I knew that I could not back out. I had to go through with it. With butterflies in my stomach, I barely answered him, “Yes, Herr Hauptscharführer.”