The Dentist Of Auschwitz (8 page)

We reminded ourselves that our delayed return might bring someone to look for us, and Stasia surely would miss the water. Since it was way past nine, the girls too were expected at work. A large box rested at Zosia’s side, a collective endeavor, I thought. Discreetly, lest she embarrass us, she pointed to the box. “We brought it for you.” Knowing that such a gift would not deprive them, we accepted it. As they were leaving, Zosia turned to me. “Bronek, can you come here at lunchtime? We are free between twelve and one. Can you come?”

“I think so,” I answered. A certain warm feeling touched me inside. Was she interested in me? Then they left us, taking with them their vitality, the vitality of freedom.

We hid the food, picked up the pails, and left. On our return Witczak was walking around impatiently. I soon learned, though, that this was his habit. He never stood still. Seeming to be in a hurry always, he walked fast while talking to people behind him. As we approached him, he signaled me to follow him.

“Yes, Herr Obermeister,” I said, following close behind. He didn’t answer.

We passed the toolshed and the administrators’ dining room and entered an office. No one was there. Witczak pointed to a desk at the yard window. On it, surveyor’s manuals and books were stacked against the wall. He picked up a ledger. “From now on you’ll keep a daily record of the people you bring,” he said. “You’ll also enter their time of arrival and the number of hours each worked. As you probably know, we pay the camp for what you do.” This was news to me. From an open drawer he took out a list, apparently the one Tadek had given him. “Use this desk,” he said, fidgeting as he left.

“Yes, Mr. Witczak,” I said, but it was too late for him to hear it. He was on his way to the sites.

A stuffy, pinesap aroma permeated the air. Except for the three desks and chairs and one drafting table, which were all well worn, the office was bare. I opened the door and found Marek waiting outside. In the two days we had worked together, I had liked being with him and had learned a lot from his experiences. At times we sat and listened to the sound of water rushing at the spring, thinking of the magical moment when the girls had unexpectedly come upon us. Will I get to see Zosia again? I wondered. “Mr. Witczak wants me in the office,” I said to Marek.

He was disappointed. As I began to work at my new job, Witczak’s remark to me, “We pay for your work,” rang in my ears. I never thought that the Nazis would be selling people’s suffering. To hear that they were selling our labor was shocking. I opened the ledger and began to enter the names of the foremen alphabetically, along with the inmates assigned to them and the hours worked each day. Certain names on the list were of people from Dobra. I thought of our common past.

Shortly thereafter Stasia came in, her face beaming. She indicated her influence at the camp. “You know, when Mr. Witczak said he’d like to have someone to help him in the office, I suggested you,” she said. “Mr. Witczak is a good man,” she continued, making sure I got the intent of her comment. “I think you are nice, Bronek, and even though he may not show it, he too likes you. In his position he has to be careful.”

I said I understood and thanked her politely. Tadek walked by, poked his head in, and asked what I was doing there. When I said I was working for Witczak, Tadek’s look took on a new measure of respect. “I understand,” he said approvingly. Basiak, followed by Kmiec, arrived at the office, and both seemed surprised to find me there. Working with these two gave me an opportunity to get to know them. Even if for different reasons, hatred for Germany was something we had in common. That the Poles hated Germany was a long-standing historical reality, and the latest German occupation brought renewed antipathy. Both men seemed friendly.

At noon Marek waited. “I’ll be working with Witczak from now on,” I said. When I suggested that he get someone to replace me, he said that he could handle it by himself. The box the girls brought was still where we had left it. If I wanted to find Zosia, it was time for me to go. Inconspicuously I moved to the rear of the barracks. From there I crossed over a small mound. Then I couldn’t be seen from the yard. I walked the rest of the way with long strides. Zosia was sitting on a stump. She got up, and we touched hands in greeting.

“You made it,” she said warmly.

“How could you doubt that I would?” I replied.

Neither of us knew where to begin. She looked at me the way other girls my age once did. Could she possibly have a romantic interest in me? Sitting there, I tried to think of what to say. I could have said I was glad to see her. “Being here is courageous of you,” I finally ended up saying.

She began to tell me about her life. She lived in Poznan. Her father was a bookkeeper, her mother a homemaker. She was an only child. When the schools reopened, she said, she wanted to get her
matura
(high school diploma). She loved playing the piano, gardening, reading, and seeing the American movies that had by that time disappeared from the Polish screen. When I had gone to school in Kalisz, the family of one of my friends had owned the Apollo cinema. Together we often picked up reels of film from the railroad station. We were free to view them as often as we liked. Zosia and I compared movies we remembered seeing and talked about our favorite actors and actresses. Then it was time to end our meeting. Zosia knew that I wouldn’t be able to meet her in the morning. We agreed to meet at lunch the next day.

When I returned to the camp, most of the inmates were still there. No one except Marek knew where I had been. He thought it was dangerous for me to be away at that time.

“Where were you?” asked Stasia. She had something for me to eat. I didn’t expect this. With my fellow inmates eating from the kettles, how could I, in their presence, have different food? I thanked her but said, “I’ll eat with my comrades.” In time, however, hunger won out, and I occasionally accepted her leftovers.

Papa also worried when he did not see me in the yard at noon. I saw that my father’s strength was depleting quickly. His foreman, Schmerele, was certainly the woe he was made out to be. I didn’t like Papa’s situation at all. I had always known that our roles would change in time, but I had not realized it would be so soon. “How is Schmerele?” I asked Papa.

“Good,” he said. “He yells a lot, but he isn’t treating me worse than anyone else.”

“What does that mean, Papa?”

“Sometimes he gets angry, because he thinks we don’t try, but he isn’t really as bad as he seems.”

My father wasn’t one to complain, especially to me. It was just his second day there, but his usually pink-colored cheeks had turned purple, his eyes had deepened and had dark rings, and he was walking much more weakly than before. I was concerned and decided to do something. I knew that my new job brought me some influence. Kmiec and Basiak regarded me as part of their team, but I was most at ease with Stasia. I decided to ask her if she could use my father’s help in the kitchen.

The foremen made their voices heard. “Return to work!” they yelled in chorus. Marek went to the spring, and I to the office. There I found Basiak at the drafting table. Although he was past forty, his light complexion and thick blond hair made him appear much younger. He had a small, shapely nose and delicate Slavic features that complimented his good looks. His tempered disposition made him easy to talk to. A small wedding picture of him and his wife, Cesia, sat on his desk and faced him squarely as he sat working. He was recently married and childless. He promised to take me to his home someday, but it never happened. I envied him. I wasn’t much different from him, so why was I subjected to all this discrimination? Does my darker hair make me an
Unmensch
(nonhuman)? At four the whistles dutifully announced the end to our workday. What remained of the contents of the food box—some bread and a bit of cheese—Marek handed out. Before a line formed, it was all gone.

It was obvious that no one could survive on our rations. What the girls brought could not help many of us. In time I realized that my having been placed in a position that gave me an advantage carried with it rejection by the other inmates. Although I had seen the small recessed house with the sign “Piekarnia” (bakery) before, that day returning from the work camp it especially captured my interest. Would the baker possibly sell us bread? I wondered. We could find out. I remembered what Tadek had hinted to me, saying, “There must be many rich among you.”

I drew up a plan, and I wanted to share it with Marek. When I told him to come by my room later, he sensed that it was important. I didn’t have to wait long. “Did you notice that bakery on our way?” I said. He looked at me curiously.

“If Tadek will let us go in, on our way to work, one of us could see if the baker would sell us some bread.”

“And who is going to pay for it?” Marek asked.

“All of us, according to our means.”

“If it worked,” he said, “it would be really good.”

“OK. I’ll ask Tadek as soon as we leave the camp tomorrow.”

“What about the rest of the guards?”

“If Tadek allows it, I don’t think they’ll say no,” I reasoned. “You’ll go in to talk to the baker?” We decided to act but not to reveal our plan to anyone then, not even my father. We hadn’t received much more food in the ghetto, but there we didn’t do the hard work that Steineck demanded. Calories in particular were the prerequisite for endurance.

After our evening soup, which I still couldn’t swallow easily, I slid into my bunk, covered myself, and fell asleep. The dutiful bells too soon announced time to rise, and the hectic chase began instantly. In the next hour we had to wash, dress, be at the kitchen in time for rations, eat, and then report for roll call before going to work. On the road I decided to take my chances. Thinking of the many times that Tadek had let Marek go to the spring by himself, I thought he had every reason to trust us.

“Would you let Marek go into the bakery for a few minutes?” I asked, promising to make it up to him.

Reluctantly Tadek agreed. “Make sure he returns quickly,” he said.

It was a tense moment before Marek came back with two round loaves of bread under his arms, each the size of a bicycle wheel. The aroma of fresh baked bread followed him. “He will sell us as much bread as we want,” Marek said triumphantly. “Beginning next week he’ll bake twenty extra for us every day.”

Except for the money, all elements of our undertaking were in place. What bread Marek brought was quickly ripped to pieces. Of course it wasn’t enough, and inmates began to grumble. Someone said, “Tomorrow I’ll also go in.”

I feared this might lead to chaos and destroy our endeavor. I asked the man not to go and told him that our plans were to organize for everyone. Anyway, we had a few days to work it out. We knew that it was necessary to gamble in order to survive. What was safe, and how far we could go, remained open to question. At noon that day I went to meet Zosia. Our conversation was light. There was no mention of camp, Nazis, or politics. We had a more normal boy-girl relationship now. Zosia was my heroine, and she excited me. When I asked her if she had a boyfriend, she said no.

Zosia took the note I had written to my family and promised to send it at the first opportunity. In this letter I did not mention Steineck’s harsh conditions. I assured my mother that Zosia could be trusted as an intermediary.

When we parted I kissed Zosia’s forehead and cheeks. She made me feel warm inside, and I looked forward to seeing her as often as possible. When I returned to the camp, all the inmates were back at work. Unnoticed, I passed the dining barracks. Not a soul was in the office. Stasia, however, knew of my absence. No sooner was I back than she came with a plate of food. Eating scraps reminded me of our new place in this bizarre social disorder, but it was difficult to go hungry and be proud at the same time.

“Don’t let the Germans see you away from the construction site. Some, as you know, hate Jews,” she said protectively. Stasia loved playing this role. I learned that one couldn’t hide things from her for too long. It was far better to have her on your side. I decided to take Stasia into my confidence.

“Stasia, I’ve met a girl from the garden nursery whom I like,” I said. Her eyes narrowed as she grinned at me. Looking me in the face, with her colorful
kupka
(kerchief) riding up her forehead, she gave me a triumphant smile, as if to affirm that her suspicions had been correct.

“I knew there was something like that. Be careful. You know we are not allowed to fraternize with you. I don’t mean you, but with all of you.” She stopped and thought for a minute. “Some of our people don’t like Jews because they opposed Christianity. I know, Bronek, that all early Christians were Jews. And our religion was founded by one coming from Jews. To me, Bronek, even if they aren’t Christian, they are still people,” she philosophized.

Stasia regarded me differently once she could express her enmity for the German occupation. She knew I wasn’t bound by secrecy alone but by what an inmate could allow himself to say. Thus I also became her confidant and heard a lot of company gossip. She too had her secrets, for she was having an affair with Witczak.

Each day Papa’s face grew thinner and more sallow, and I knew I had to get him transferred as quickly as possible. The next day at noon, Papa waited for me at the office. Although everyone had always thought I resembled my mother, Stasia saw the resemblance between me and Papa. Later I asked her if she couldn’t use one more hand around the kitchen. “Is it your father you have in mind?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Who is his foreman?”

“He works for Schmerele.”

“For Schmerele?” she repeated, surprised. “He is an unpredictable son of a bitch. They all are,” she added. On that occasion she made it known that she was still unhappy with the potato peelers. I promised to talk once more to our people. By the end of the day she had worked it out so that Papa could start on Monday.

“As for Mr. Witczak, don’t worry. I will take care of it,” she said. My father took the news with great happiness, although neither good nor bad impacted him very much then. He had a strange kind of spiritual dignity. As the youngest in the family, I was at the center of his life. Nearly illiterate himself, he was proud of his son’s scholastic progress. For the first time, that day I had the feeling I was doing something to help my father.