What follows is an essay written by Rudolf Vrba, while he was still working at the University of British Columbia.
I do not know exactly how many doctors of medicine were active in the ranks of the SS-personnel in Auschwitz, but I estimate that there were between ten and twenty. Many I knew by name, e.g. Dr. Capesius, Dr. Entress, Dr. Fischer, Dr. König, Dr. Kremer, Dr. Lucas, Dr. Mengele, Dr. Rohde, Dr. Schumann, Dr. Thilo, Dr. Wirths, etc. I was a prisoner in Auschwitz, and the SS did not introduce themselves to the prisoners by name. Nevertheless, their names became known to prisoners in Auschwitz, particularly to the “survivors” or “old numbers”, i.e., such prisoners who after more than one year of captivity in Auschwitz were still alive. I was one of these few.
A Rogues Gallery of Evil
Dr. Friedrich Entress. Medical Experimentation Hanged April 30, 1947. Dr. Horst Fischer. Guillotined in Lithuania July 8, 1966
Dr. Hans Wilhelm König. Tested drugs and electroshock on prisoners Escaped justice. Dr. Johann Kremer. Medical experimentation. Sentenced to 10 years. Never served.
Dr. Franz Lucas. Prisoner selection to the gas chambers. Died 1997. Dr. Horst Schumann. Medical experimentation, sterilization using x-rays served little time. Died 5 May 1983
Dr. Heinz Thilo. Prisoner selection to the gas chambers. Committed suicide in prison. Dr. Eduard Wirths. Medical experimentation, sterilization. Committed suicide in prison
Dr. Jozef Mengele. Prisoner experimentation. Escaped justice.
Although I observed the SS-doctors in Auschwitz frequently at their “work”, i.e., during their active hours “in service”, I never had any conversation with any of them. It was an unwritten law in Auschwitz that a prisoner as a rule cannot speak to an SS-officer, but only answers questions, if ordered to do so. Addressing an SS-officer on his own initiative was frequently answered with a revolver shot in the face of the impudent prisoner. In some cases, the punishment could be much more severe. There were exceptions to these rules and some select few prisoners had indeed some conversations with the SS-doctors, but I was not one of these “favoured few”.
In the absence of any direct personal conversation with these doctors, I cannot give an explanation of their motivations or characters based on their statements about themselves. However, I saw these doctors constantly “in action”; I observed from close quarters (3-20 meters) what they were doing or saying to their colleagues or to their victims, and I could see the immediate results of their actions. In every case I witnessed, their interventions resulted in an almost immediate (1-24 hours) murder of their victims they “selected”.
My observations of the SS-doctors were made in various different settings as follows:
- Selections on the “Ramp”, where transports of “resettled” people (Jews in all cases) arrived.
- Selections in “Krankenbau”, which translated means “House of the Sick”, rather than “Hospital”. There were several (more than ten) baracks [sic] reserved for this purpose in Auschwitz and Birkenau.
- Selections on the “Blocks”, which means barracks (where officially “healthy” prisoners were living, but a more or less regular selection was performed on them to keep the slave labour reservoir in “good shape”).
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Camp selections, i.e., selections performed on the mass of prisoners in the whole camp. At these occasions many thousands of prisoners were marshalled (naked, on open camp grounds, in any weather conditions) before one or several of the SS-doctors, who “selected” from their midst the “selectees”, i.e., prisoners who were emaciated or otherwise did not make a “healthy” impression. These “selectees” were then murdered as a rule on the same day by asphyxiation in the nearby gas chambers, or alternatively, they were murdered by injection of phenol. The latter procedure was used only on emaciated or sick prisoners, usually by an SDG (“Sanitätsdienstgefreiter”), in most cases by SS-Unterscharführer Josef Klehr, formerly a shoemaker. These murders by injection amounted only to about twenty thousand victims; the number of victims killed by asphyxiation in gas chambers, according to conservative estimates, amounted to about 2 ¼ – 2 ½ million victims. During my stay in Auschwitz I myself counted the numbers and estimated 1,765,000 victims; but well over ½ million were murdered after my escape.
Methods of Observation
I was brought to Auschwitz on June 30, 1942 from the concentration camp Maidanek and was given the prisoner number 44070. I remained in Auschwitz for twenty-one months and seven days, and escaped from Auschwitz (together with my friend Alfred Wetzler, prisoner No. 29162) on April 7th, 1944; therefore, my first-hand observations are limited to this period.
At the end of August 1942 I was transferred into a special working group of prisoners; this group was called “Aufräumungskommando”, which translated means “cleaning working group” or “order-making working group”. This detonation was a typical Nazi euphemism, as the task of this group (200-800 prisoners) was nothing else then to eliminate any traces of the routinely conducted murder and robbery of the new arrivals. The crucial maneuvers of this “operation” were supervised by the SS-doctors, usually one doctor at each transport. I was “working” in the above mentioned “Aufräumungskommando” until June 8th, 1943.
The transports of the new arrivals (“resettlement transports”) to the Ramp in Auschwitz arrived in irregular intervals, sometimes 2-3 a week, sometimes as many as five transports in one day. Each transport consisted on average of 2000-3000 persons (of all ages and both sexes, i.e., families) but sometimes the individual transports were exceptionally small (1000 persons or less) or exceptionally large (up to 5000 persons per transport, which arrived in 40-60 cattlecars). In most cases the transports arrived at night, or when it was dark. Exceptionally, transports were unloaded on the ramp by daylight, and this usually was very early in the morning (e.g., 5 a.m.) or in the late afternoon.
I myself was almost always present at the unloading of the transports and at the “selection” performed at each occasion by the SS-doctors. I do not know exactly how many times I witnessed the almost identical scenario, but it was certainly more than one hundred times and certainly less than three hundred times.
Procedures on the Ramp
The Ramp was situated between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau), i.e., on a piece of ground, which belonged to neither camp and was in fact, at least theoretically, civilian territory. This was due to the fact, that the railway line, connecting Vienna to Cracow passed between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II.
From this railway line a side-line branched off, with a dead end at the perpendicular dust road, connecting Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II. Along this railway line a wooden ramp was built, about 800 m long. The distance from this Ramp to the four crematoria and eight gas chambers (capacity 1000-3000 persons each) in Birkenau was about 1-2 km. The “Aufräumungskommando” (also called “Kanada” in the prisoner’s slang) was housed, up to January 15, 1943 in Block 4 of Auschwitz I and afterwards in Block 16 in Birkenau (until June 8, 1943). However, the general procedures on the Ramp were unchanged (until a new Ramp was initiated as late as May 1944 directly in front of the gas chambers in Birkenau).
Whenever the arrival of a transport was announced (by telephone from the nearest railway station to Auschwitz) to SS-headquarters in Auschwitz, an SS-man on motorcycle arrived in the barrack (“Block”) where we (the prisoners belonging to the “Aufräumungskommando” were, and the order was given: “Rollwagenkommando antreten”. According to the size of the expected transport, 100-200 men were ordered to get up from their beds and we were marched to the Ramp surrounded by a group of usually twelve SS-men holding firearms in their hands (never on the shoulder). This group of prisoners pushed also a 4-wheel horse-cart equipped with rubber-tires, (“Rollwagen”), from which the above-mentioned name of “Rollwagenkommando” was derived.
When we arrived at the ramp, a group of about fifty SS-men with firearms in hands surrounded the ramp and the twelve SS-men, who accompanied us to the Ramp, disappeared. We were now inside of a new water-tight cordon of guards. Numerous lamp-posts along the Ramp were lit, so that there was light as in daytime, no matter whether it was summer or winter, cold or hot, rain, snow or fog.
Soon thereafter arrived a group of SS NCO’s (non-commissioned officers, usually Rottenführers, Unterscharführers, Scharführers, Oberscharführers and Hauptscharführers). All were equipped with side arms and all carried walking canes (not truncheons), as if they were suffering from a leg impediment. However, with exception of Dr. Mengele and Unterscharführer Wunsch, none of them limped.
Thereafter the SS-doctors arrived, usually in a black Mercedes car, one to four officers in each car. The doctors wore SS-officers uniforms, and sometimes, not always, they ceremonially donned a white medical coat, particularly in good weather. All of them wore white gloves and all carried bamboo walking canes in their hands.
Thereafter the signal was given to bring in the train, waiting in the dark on the railways before the Ramp, and the train was drawn into the lit circle by a steam locomotive at a funereal pace. The cattle wagons, all fastened by heavy locks, were unlocked by the NCO’s, and the doors were swung open in rapid succession all along the length of the train.
The floors of the cattle wagons were covered with luggage, on which cowered a mass of people, usually 80 per wagon, sometimes 100 and in extreme cases up to 120. These people were transported over relatively large distances (from France, Holland, Greece, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, etc.) and had already spent 2-10 days in transit with many stops on one of the side lines along the journey. They did not know that this was their last stop, as they had been led to believe that they were in process of being “resettled” to an “unknown destination in the East”. They usually had brought enough food with them, but they were given no or too little water during the journey, and as a rule they arrived tormented by thirst to the extreme.
There was only one bucket per wagon for defecation and urination of the passengers, who were forced to perform their natural functions in front of one another in hopelessly overcrowded wagons (men, women and children together), with the content of the buckets constantly spilling over the passengers and their luggage. In this hardly imaginable stage of physical and mental degradation and – above all – thirst, they arrived finally at the Ramp. All this was an important part of the procedure, as the SS on the Ramp frequently promised to give them water and hot tea if they would obey orders “at once and with discipline” and “after they stop crying and shouting as if they were in a synagogue”. These promises obviously mollified the new arrivals, who were ready to cooperate, particularly when hot tea was promised for their children, as well as a bath. They of course did not know that the bathrooms they were cajoled or driven into soon thereafter, were in fact the lethal gas-chambers. They had to die thirsty.
Immediately after the wagon doors were pushed open, the SS-NCO’s ran along the train shouting “raus, raus, alles liegen lassen, raus,” which meant to get out of the wagons without luggage. The dazed deportees were prodded to move faster by the SS-men brandishing as well as using their walking canes over the heads and shoulders of those closest to the doors as well as of those who tried to hang on to their luggage. The deportees were then marshalled along the Ramp, and organized by threatening words, shouts and/or by indiscriminate use of the walking canes into a column of five persons per row.
At the head of the column stood the SS-doctor, who inspected visually each of the arrivals, and sometimes asked questions about age or profession. He then directed the deportees, by the flick of his finger, to go left or right, sometimes indicating this with his walking cane. I frequently saw many persons (arriving from France or Greece) who could not or would not understand German. In order to save time, without slowing down the whole procedure, the SS-doctors held the walking-cane by its lower end, putting the bent upper part of the cane around the neck of the inspected deportee and pulled the cane towards left or towards right, thus indicating the final diagnosis. If the deportee did not understand this clear indication what to do, the cane was used by the doctors to strike the victims over the shoulders or backs.
If a 50 year old mother did not want to let go of her 20 year old [sic] daughter, the doctor’s cane would descend without any visible furore but vehemently upon the shoulders of both women, and as usually children were around who stared howling at such a sight, the deportees grasped the point fast and obeyed. The deportees were forbidden to talk between themselves, and this order was supervised by SS-men, who moved along the column of the marshalled deportees and swung their walking canes indiscriminately upon the heads and shoulders of those who tried to communicate among themselves. If any of the hit victims was left crouching or lying on the ground with a bloodied head, no one was allowed to approach him. Meanwhile the whole column marched past the SS-doctor who divided the deportees into “useless people” to be asphyxiated by gas (all women with children, all children under 16, all men and women over 45, as well as all persons who were evidently sick, lame, disfigured, etc.). In the haste, frequently some children aged 12-16 were considered suitable for slave labour and ended up as prisoners in Auschwitz.
Now the “Rollwagenkommando” (i.e., us, the prisoners) swung or was swung into a feverish activity, prodded on by a hail of well-directed blows from the SS-inspectors (NCO’s) whose presence was abundant along the train. First, we had to drag out the dead, the dying and the children lost from their mothers in the panic of emptying the train. We had to drag the dead and the dying by their hands only and in “Laufschritt”, Nazi euphemism for frantic running under a hail of blows to any prisoner who thought he could perform his “work” at a comfortable pace. The dragging of the dead and dying was done along the column of the deportees, at the head of which stood the party of SS-doctors. Just behind the back of the doctors lorries were parked ready, upon which the dead and the dying were thrown in together, with the petrified and sometimes howling children thrown on top of the heap. The motors of the lorries were put on high revolutions in order to drown the noise of cries of pain and despair. Meanwhile the imperturbable SS-doctors were continuing their “medical work” indicating by their finger, by hand or by cane, their diagnosis. Those diagnosed as “unfit for work” were immediately loaded onto lorries, (exactly one hundred persons in each truck) which departed with them towards Birkenau (distance about 1 ½ km), where they were unloaded in the yard of the crematoria cum gas chambers. The returning lorries were loaded with a further batch of victims, or alternatively, with luggage collected frantically by the “Rollwagenkommando”. The lorries with the luggage went in the opposite direction, not to Birkenau, but to Auschwitz-I [sic], into a separate store, where we were “working” at the time when no transports were on the Ramp.
While the SS-doctors (often in their white coats) were standing in front of the column of the deportees, a military Red Cross van arrived from Auschwitz I, passed slowly behind the back of the doctors and continued the trip to Birkenau. The appearance of the Red Cross van behind the back of the doctors always had a tranquilizing effect upon the deportees, who might have thought they were under the protection or in the presence of the Red Cross. The “resettled” deportees did not know that this International Red Cross van carried the tins of the gas “Zyklon B”, with which they were to be asphyxiated an hour or two later. Until this day I can not determine whether this manouever [sic] with the Red Cross van was designed by the SS medical personnel in order to tranquilize the “selectees” or whether it was meant to be a malicious irony.
When the selection was finished, the doctors together with other SS-officers present stood around in small groups, chatting, occasionally smoking, while observing the loading of the victims upon the lorries. When the last lorries with victims disappeared, and the few arrivees, selected for slave labour, were marched off into the camp (either Auschwitz I or Birkenau), the doctors stepped into their Mercedes and drove off. For us, the prisoners, the work continued, until the last luggage disappeared in the lorries, and these departed. We were then driven (frequently under a hail of blows by the walking canes) into the wagons, which had to be meticulously cleaned; thereafter, the wagons were inspected by the SS, to see whether all traces of the deportees (any objects, blood, excrements, rubbish, etc.) has been eliminated. If the inspection was satisfactory, the signal was given and the train departed.
We then removed all traces from the Ramp and from the surroundings of the platform where, shortly before, the arrivals stood for the “selections”. If all was found to be immaculate again, and without any traces of the transport, after the final inspection of the wagons and of the Ramp by the SS, we were marched back to our barracks, if it was still night; if daybreak had arrived, we were marched into Auschwitz I into the “stores” to “work” on the luggage, or we were kept waiting on the Ramp for the next transport, if one was announced. Between time of the arrival of each transport to the removal of the last traces, not more than two or three hours passed. When we left the immaculately clean Ramp, the smoke from the chimneys of the crematoria in Birkenau was the only visible sign of what had happened at the Ramp only a few hours before.
This procedure was quite routine, except that the SS-doctors rotated their service hours. Soon I could recognize each of them by sight (tall, small, limping, erect, more elegant than others, preference to wear white coats during selections, etc.) rather than by behaviour. I took particular notice of Dr. Thilo, who under any circumstances wore more elegant uniforms than the other doctors. The rumour had it, that he came from a patrician Berlin family. Otherwise, I could not observe any significant difference in the behaviour of the SS-doctors. They had one feature in common: they ostensibly took no particular notice of the whole routine procedure of preparation of the masses of people for their final medical inspection; it appeared that the cajoling, beating, shouting, crying, shrieking, murder and theft, which took place on the Ramp, did not reach their ears or eyes.
They were “professionally busy”. I have never seen any other expression on their faces, neither anger nor commiseration. If any of their victims tried to plead with the doctors (“to interfere with their work”), they were immediately dealt with by the two or three NCO’s, who always accompanied an SS-doctor, each of them with a bamboo walking cane in his hand, and a side firearm. The doctors also wore a revolver, but I never saw them use a firearm. This job was always done by the NCO’s in front of the doctors. There was never a misunderstanding between the doctors and their accompanying NCO’s, no comments were made from either side. They appeared to respect mutually each other’s decisions and actions and they were mutually polite and civilized to one another, each in his own way, according to his rank. It appeared as if they were all senior or junior members of one happy family, who understood their common task, in which each participated in accordance with his ability and training.
When we, the prisoners from the “Rollwagenkommando”, were not on the Ramp, we participated in the work of the “Aufräumungskommando”. Under close SS-supervision we broke the locks on the luggages [sic] of the gassed victims, and “sorted” the contents. We burned all papers, documents, books, and photo-albums. Hundreds of thousands of men’s suits and women’s clothes, blankets, underwear, minks, furs, kitchenware, baby prams, spectacles, shoes, etc. were carefully sorted into first, second and third rate quality, disinfected, packed and dispatched to Germany (“Winterhilfsfwerk” in Munich). Clothing of the fourth quality (“Lumpen”) were dispatched to a paper factory in Memel. Tins of food were sent to the officers mess to augment the war rations of the Auschwitz SS-officers. In the cosy [sic] intimacy of the SS-officers’ dining room in Auschwitz, the SS-doctors did not mind drinking the pineapple juice, which some unfortunate mother had managed to take along for her child, or eating the last “iron ration” of the arriving families of deportees. Last but not least, enormous amounts of hard currency (dollars, pound sterling, Swiss francs, as well as diamonds, gold and jewellery) were collected by us prisoners from the luggage and clothing of the deportees and dropped into a suitcase which was daily carried away by the SS, presumably to the Reichs bank. I of course saw on the hands of the SS-doctors an abundance of gold rings, gold watches, etc. The SS-doctors were always elegant, immaculate and dignified, and evidently better fed than the war rations would allow. The occasional mink coats of the arrivals were frequently converted for a warm lining of the SS-officer’s wintercoats [sic]. A bitter cold reigned sometimes on the Ramp.
I have written in this article only about the selections on the Ramp. I witnessed, of course, on many other occasions, other types of selections and I enclose a chapter from my book, where a selection in the “Krankenbau” in Auschwitz I is described. (Below)
Concluding Remarks
In 1986 a major study of SS-doctors was published by Robert Jay Lifton (The Nazi Doctors. Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. Basic Books Inc., New York 1986), which depicted many important facts about Auschwitz and about the mass-murder technology employed there. This in itself is an admirable piece of history. Unfortunately, Lifton is not only a historian, but also a psychologist and psychiatrist, and appears to be more concerned to provide a psychological explanation of the SS-doctors’ behaviour than to allow the facts to speak for themselves. Lifton never saw a living Nazi in power. Too young to have experienced the Nazi era himself, Lifton would seem to be adapting the knowledge gained from his patients in his office or in U.S. Medical Schools and Psychiatric Wards to explain the “psychology” of Nazi doctors. Lifton believes for example that the Nazi doctors had many scruples derived from their Hypocritic Oath, which they “overcame” by a form of split personality, which he calls “doubling”. For his conclusions on “doubling”, Lifton’s methodology relies heavily on the following:
- Interviews with some surviving Nazi doctors, almost 40 years post factum, and using the services of an interpreter (as Lifton himself does not speak German).
- An analysis of some of the Nazi doctors’ correspondence to their wives and friends; (N.B. The Nazi doctors were sworn to silence about their “work”, and during the war all correspondence was censored).
- Reports of some exceptionally privileged former prisoners on their “conversations” with the Nazi doctors, when the latter were not in action but in their cozy offices. It escaped Lifton’s notice, that all these double-talks took place after February 1943, i.e. after the defeat of Nazi’s in Stalingrad, when a German victory was not doubtless any more and some “alibi” for the future appeared to be useful.
All this results in truly hilarious titles of some chapters of Lifton’s book, as for example: “Healing-Killing Conflict: Eduard Wirths” (op. cit. p. 384); “Doubling: the Faustian Bargain” (op. cit. p. 417); “The Auschwitz Self: Psychological Themes in Doubling.” (op. cit. p. 418).
Today people often ask me what I think of the psychology of the SS-doctors. In my view, this question is nonsensical. When we realize what they did, there is nothing left to ask. They were deliberate and unconscionable murderers and thieves, pure and simple. They were able to contribute (by virtue of their higher education) to “improvement” (streamlining) of the process of mass murder, enslavement and theft as practised in Auschwitz. They profited by avoiding dangerous service on the battle-front, by improving their career expectations in Nazi Germany and by enjoying – directly and indirectly – the fruits of theft. I have never seen any sign of qualms or guilt feelings, even less of compassion, in their behaviour on the Ramp or in the camp. Their nefarious activities were not ended or mitigated due to their “moral scruples” but exclusively as a consequence of the crushing defeat of Nazi Germany.
ADDENDUM: A Selection in the “Krankenbau” in Auschwitz I.
Excerpt (Chapter X) from “44070 – The Conspiracy of the Twentieth Century”
(Published in 1989 by Star and Cross Publishing House Inc., Bellingham, Washington 98227-1708, U.S.A.)
By Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bestic
Not even his best friends, such as they were, would have wasted many words, describing Bruno’s medical qualifications. When it came to assessing Wiglep’s skill as a surgeon with the stick, however, he had few equals and his diagnosis of my particular illness was remarkably accurate.
Poison, caused by the beating, flared in my buttocks and legs. For four days I lay in agony which was increased by the slightest touch; and all that time Bruno, Burger, the registrar in Block Four, and the Block Senior managed to shield my presence from the camp authorities, a task which could have cost them their lives.
I was visited daily by a doctor prisoner, whom Bruno could keep supplied with drugs and on the fourth day I heard him say tersely: “If he doesn’t have an operation soon, he’ll die.”
This, of course, was putting quite a strain on the organising abilities of my more or less reluctant benefactor, but, nevertheless, he had been expecting it and was prepared. First he had to ensure that I was kept well clear of Oberscharführer Josef Klehr[1] whose hospital job was to inject with a fatal dose of phenol those who were selected for “euthanasia” by the S.S. doctor.
Stills from The World at War (1973) – Thames Television #18 Genocide
Then he had to arrange for me to receive fairly decent rations from Canada, for my strength had to be maintained at a reasonable level, if the operation was to be a success. I was, in fact, quite a little headache for him; yet he managed to arrange what, relatively speaking, was V.I.P. treatment for me in the hospital.
This I learned, however, only by degrees. At first, for instance, I did not appreciate that it was a considerable advantage for me to be allocated a top bunk, when many men have weeping wounds, or are suffering from dysentery and the discharges from their bodies are seeping through to those beneath them. Another little luxury was the fact that, when one of the men with whom I was sharing my bunk died, he was not replaced which gave a little more room. All these little privileges, I fear, were blotted from my mind by the utter nausea I experienced when first I became a patient at Auschwitz hospital.
The room itself was not too bad and prisoner orderlies tried to keep it reasonably clean with carbolic; but the overcrowding was so appalling that their task was almost impossible. Bunks rose three tiers high and there were at least three men in each of them. Poisoning, gangrene, dysentery were commonplace; and though those orderlies did their best, the stench of rotting flesh and excreta rose above the antiseptic smell of the carbolic.
I found myself sharing a bunk with a man of about forty, whose right arm was slowly disintegrating, and another, less than twenty who had typhus and dysentery and twisted constantly in delirium.
Both were Polish Jews; both were dying; and both, I say with some shame now, I found completely repugnant to me. In the narrow confines of the bunk, I tried to shrink from them, from the entire, ghastly place, in fact. I tried to close my eyes and my ears to it, to its noises that never ceased, its pitiful, frightening moans and cries in the night, to the thud of the dead, hitting the stone floor, kicked out by the living in search of lebensraum.
After a while, however, though I never got used to it all, I realised that there were peaks of courage and islands of incredible dignity in this hell of sickness. Monek, the middle-aged Pole beside me was in constant agony from his rotting arm. Yet he never mentioned it; and, when his fried on the other side of me – they both came from the town of Mlawa – began shouting in his delirium, he said to me gently: “Please forgive the boy. He’s very sick. But normally he’s such a nice lad…”
I was less tolerant, a good deal more selfish; for I still was not quite sure whether I could trust Bruno or whether my next appointment would be with “Doctor” Klehr of phenol fame; and so, when the orderlies came to take me to the operating theatre, I knew I was facing either relief from pain – or death in less than ten minutes. One point made clear to me quickly, however, was that I was in for a rough time, one way or another.
In the operating theatre, half a dozen white-coated doctor prisoners were already working on a patient. They finished the job quickly, lifted him onto a stretcher and gave a sign to the orderlies with me.
Suddenly I felt trapped. They heaved me onto the table, face downwards, tied me there by my ankles and wrists. An assistant held an ether pad over my face and I knew now that there was no escape.
“Start counting…”
“One… two… three…” Was it going to be the needle with phenol or the knife?
“Four… five… six…” Why the hell doesn’t the stuff put me out? Why don’t they give me more?
“Twenty-two… twenty-two… twenty-two…” I got stuck there somehow and now I was really scared. Supposing they started to work on me before I was out. I tried to shout to them, but no sound came; and then I felt the knife, the searing knife, bite into my leg.
It was my last memory for some time. Whether the ether finally worked or whether I fainted, I shall never know; but when I came to my senses again I was no longer on the table, but being held up in a corner, while two Polish orderlies bandaged my legs and my bottom. Though still dazed I could see that the doctors were at work already on the next patient and I remember feeling, not merely gratitude, but admiration for them, for even among the degradations of Auschwitz, most of them managed to retain their humanity and their professional integrity.
That night I slept in spite of the noise because the ether fumes were still in my head. Next morning my middle-aged friend was sitting up in the bunk, looking more composed than ever; and his young friend was quieter, too.
“How is he?” I asked. “He seems better.”
The Pole smiled gently, sadly and said: “God has helped him. He is dead.”
Suddenly I felt almost guilty. I remembered my spasms of irritation against the boy, against them both and I said lamely, inadequately: “I’m…sorry. Really sorry.”
“You mustn’t be,” whispered the older man. “I’m glad he’s dead. I knew him when he was only a child, you see. I knew his parents. I’m glad that he is out of Auschwitz and that his sufferings are over.”
I was silent, for there seemed little I could say. Monek from Mlawa, Monek who had suffered in silence beside me, had said it all with those strangely formal words of his.
“There’s only one favour I want to ask you,” he went on. “Would you mind, if we left him in the bunk until the gong sounds? Would you mind… if we didn’t kick him out, like the others?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t dream of it…”
When the gong finally went, we carried the boy gently from the bunk. Monek murmured a prayer in Hebrew, the first I had heard in Auschwitz; and I said “amen” in deference to the sincerity of his feelings rather than for any other reason.
A few mornings later, an orderly, one of Bruno’s hired helps, detailed to look after me, came to my bunk and whispered: “There’s going to be a selection. Now listen carefully. See that you’re clean – in fact go in and wash yourself now. Be very quiet and stand smartly. If anyone asks you about your health, say you’re feeling fine. I’ll see you’re standing with your back to the wall so they won’t see your wounds.”
I felt a tenseness in the pit of my stomach. Here was the next hurdle, the hurdle that followed the beating in Canada and the operation. I knew it could be the most dangerous of them all, for now my life depended on the whim of an S.S. doctor, a man who could send me to my death, if he did not like the look on my face, a judge who would order the execution of three quarters of the prisoners in hospital.
In the washroom, I cleaned myself up thoroughly. When I came out, the orderlies were preparing their patients for the big moment, shouting: “Everybody up! Off with your shirts. Come on. Hurry up! Get into lines!”
Some just lay where they were for they were too weak to move. They knew they were signing their own death warrants, because they would be condemned automatically, but they did not care. The rest scrambled to their feet, some tottering at the effort and I found myself lining up with a mass of naked skeletons, each of whom knew well just how heavily the dice was loaded against him. Some sagged, certain already that they were doing [sic] to die; yet again I could sense their spirit, their dignity, their courage.
“Achtung!” The bark came from the door, the overture that always preceded the appearance of an S.S. Officer, and the ranks shuffled, as men tried to drag themselves to attention. The Block Senior sprang into action as the doctor, followed by his entourage, entered.
“Herr Obersturmbahnführer, I report with respect that there are forty-six prisoners, members of the staff, and seven hundred and thirty four [sic] ill prisoners.”
The doctor, tall, thinnish, middle-aged, nodded curtly. He had the air of one who is about to perform a distasteful task with efficiency, of a man who, because of his high calling, his medical oaths, would stoop even to examining stinking Jews. Yet we all knew and he must have known, too, that there was no noble purpose. Here was a dismal routine and nothing more.
Behind him came an S.S. man with a note book, the Block Senior and the Block Registrar; and drawing up in the rear, like first year medical students, were the doctor prisoners, among them some of the finest medical brains in Europe.
The Herr Doktor [sic] Obersturmbahnführer was working fast that morning. He paused slightly before the second man in the first row and pointed his military cane at his chest.
Immediately the Block Senior grabbed the man’s arm and shouted out the number: “23476!” The S.S. man made a note of it. So did the Block Registrar; and No. 23476, a grey, little man who had been trying so hard to stand up straight, gazed sightlessly straight ahead. He knew that he had just been written off, literally and in duplicate.
“15923… 9467… 43118.” The cane pointed, though never touched. The numbers were called and the busy clerks scribbled. Only here and there did the S.S. doctor pause, presumably to show what a meticulous, conscientious man he was. He would gaze at a naked patient, stroking his chin, as if in deep thought. Then he would throw a quiet word over this shoulder and one of the doctor prisoners would leap to his side.
“What’s the matter with this man?”
“Phlegmona,[2] Herr Obersturmbahnführer. And dysentery.”
Another slight pause, while the Great Man pondered. Then he would record his diagnosis and the treatment to be administered with yet another stabbing movement with his cane.
He drew closer to my place in the back rows. I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, not too erect, yet not slouching; not too smart, yet not sloppy; not too proud, yet not too servile, for I knew that those who were different died in Auschwitz, while the anonymous, the faceless ones, survived.
The smart green uniform was in front of me and the grey eyes were examining me with mild interest. A quiet word and a white-coated doctor prisoner was called in for consultation.
“What’s wrong with this prisoner?”
“Just an abscess, Herr Obersturmbahnführer. He’s going back to work to-morrow.” [sic]
The scrutiny became more intense. I knew that even the most cursory examination would show that the man, a friend of Bruno’s, was lying, was covering something; but the entourage moved on and I held my breath in case they might hear it sighing from my lungs with relief.
At last the play was over and the principal actors left. Now it was time for the scene shifters to get to work, though here, too, there was a careful time table. The condemned could not be removed until their rations had been ordered, for, though they would never eat them, it would be a pity to waste good food.
So the order went down to the central stores. At noon that day we who had survived would get some extra soup and bread, the rations of men who already would be dead; and, as soon as the order had been given, the numbers of the rejected were called out for the last time.
Those who could walk lined up. Those who could not were put on stretchers. A few lay motionless in their bunks, for they had died already and would be taken away in good time by the meat waggon.
I saw Monek from Mlawa fold his blanket neatly and gather together the few pathetic possessions he had managed to secrete, just like a man who was packing for a journey. His face was quite serene and he took his place in the line without complaint or fuss. He did not say good-bye to me, not, I knew, because he was afraid that he might break down, but because he felt it might embarrass me; and he was right, for what could I have said in reply?
A brisk order and the ghastly march to Dr. Klehr began. The shambling line, wearing just their striped shirts, some with legs like match sticks, some whose limbs were bloated and running with pus, lurched away for their final injection, leaving a trail of blood and excreta behind them.
The next day my friend, the orderly, came to me with serious news.
“We’re expecting a big batch of sick,” he said. “It’d be better if you got out.”
I thanked him for the information, but I was by no means happy about the situation. All prisoners discharged from the hospital were distributed to the various commands, according to the labour demands of Jakob Fries; and I knew my chances of getting back to Block Four, where I had powerful friends, were slight.
Indeed I was right; and my posting could not have been more ominous. The Central Office had marked me down for Buna, the worst command in the camp, a place where my still emaciated condition would ensure my death within a few days.
Still I was not completely defenceless. I remained on the fringe of the camp hierarchy even though I was coming to the conclusion that Bruno was getting rather tired, repaying his debt. So I decided to see what influence I could use by bluff and name-dropping.
The sight of the hospital registrar was not exactly encouraging when I went to get my card from him, for he was obviously in a sour humour. Nevertheless I said to him more or less brightly: “I’m from Canada command and have to go back to my block. The kapo there is a good friend of mine; do you think it can be arranged?”
It was, in fact, an outrageous request, one which normally would have earned me a blow with a stick; but everyone knew who the kapo from Canada was. Everyone knew Bruno and the power he wielded.
Instead of hitting me, he glowered and grunted: “You’re for Buna. You know I daren’t [sic] change you.”
“I know it’s difficult. But I won’t forget. And neither will Bruno.”
The magic name worked again even though I had a feeling that I was taking it in vain. The Registrar grumbled off to have a sly word with the Block Senior; and when he came back, he tossed me my card for Block Four, my passport to comparative safety.
Bruno, indeed, did not exactly embrace me when I turned up. In fact he was surprised to see me and not quite sure what to do with me now that I had been landed on his doorstep.
Scratching the top of his closely shaven head, he muttered: “I can’t bring you to work with me; that’s for sure. If Wiglep sees you alive, he’ll kill you. I tell you what – go on the ramp for a while.”
The ramp, symbol of Auschwitz for millions because they saw little else except the gas chambers. A huge, bare platform that lay between Birkenau and the mother camp and to which transports rolled from all parts of Europe, bringing Jews who still believed in labour camps. Scene of the infamous selections, where a handful of workers were sent to the right and the rest, the old, the very young, the unfit, were sent to the left, to the lorries, to the crematoria, still believing that somewhere ahead lay a resettlement area.
There I worked for eight months. There I saw three hundred transports arrive and helped to unload their bewildered cargoes. There I saw in action the greatest confidence trick the world has ever known; and there I had a profound change of thought about escaping.
I was determined to get out, but no longer because I wanted freedom for myself. I wanted to warn those yet to come what lay ahead because I knew they would rise and fight, as the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto had fought. Once they knew the truth, they would refuse to walk meekly to the slaughter houses.
* * *
[1] Klehr, who in civilian life, I understand, is a shoemaker and certainly no doctor, is one of the accused at the Frankfurt trial.
[2] In English, oedema, caused by malnutrition.