Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust (2 page)

“Welcome, Herr Obersturmführer, we
look forward to working with you.” Muller said. Christopher tried to smile back
but he couldn’t. “I’m sure you have many great ideas for the re-organization of
the accounting processes here.”

“Yes, I do.” Christopher replied,
looking down at his desk. “It seems a quiet day today so we will need to
prepare for the next shipment coming in. When is that due, Herr Rapportführer?”

“Tomorrow I believe,” Friedrich said
looking at his watch. “I should be leaving now. The men will show you to your
quarters when the workday is over. Welcome to Auschwitz, Herr Seeler.”
Friedrich closed the door behind him and Christopher looked over at his new colleagues,
his subordinates. Each had sat down at their desks and was poring through
papers and ledgers. Christopher asked where the bathroom was and walked out the
door and down the hall. Once inside the bathroom he locked himself inside the
farthest stall. The burning vomit came quickly, the first time he had vomited
in years. Afterwards he sat on the seat of the toilet for as long as he dared,
clutching his knees close into his chest.
 

Christopher returned to his desk and
sat down. He looked around the room at the others, who seemed to be working, so
he endeavored to do the same. He shuffled the papers in the corner of the desk
and laid them out to read. They were accounts of the numbers of people coming
through the camp. There were thousands coming in every week but only thirty
thousand or so workers were required to work in the local factories. There was
no way the huts in the main camp could house any more than a few thousand
workers. It didn’t make sense. The numbers didn’t add up. In the desk there were
ledgers of the amounts ‘repatriated’ back to the Reich from the prisoners,
ledgers of Reich Marks, dollars, pounds, lira, pesetas, francs, Russian rubles
and every currency that Christopher had ever heard of. There was a river of
money running through the camp, a river whose course he was to control.

Christopher’s colleagues led him down
to the mess hall after work. The portions were large, and unlike the SS
training camp, the food was actually quite good. Christopher was to share
quarters with another young officer from the camp guard itself, Franz Lahm, a
young Untersturmführer from Regensburg. Lahm was friendly and wanted to talk
but Christopher pretended to be sick and told him that he wanted to get an
early night for the arrival of the shipment tomorrow.

“Oh, come on. Come drink with us. If
you go to bed early every time there is a new shipment you’ll never stay up
with us.”

“You go ahead. It’s just that it’s my first day. I’ll meet
everyone tomorrow night, I promise.” Lahm agreed and left Christopher on his
own. Christopher was still awake when Lahm came back at around three a.m.
Christopher didn’t react as he tripped over the table in the middle of the
room. Lahm cursed as he pulled himself up off the floor and hummed a marching
tune Christopher recognized as he climbed into bed. And alone in the dark
Christopher wondered how he would find Rebecca in all this mess of chaos and death.

“Herr Seeler, time to wake up. The
shipment is coming in soon. We need to be down at the railway station in half
an hour.” Christopher felt his eyes open. It was Flick. Christopher nodded to
him and heaved himself out of bed. Lahm was gone. Christopher saw Lahm’s spare
uniform hanging on the closet door. There were tiny bloodstains on the cuffs.
Christopher got up and changed into his uniform. He looked at himself in the
mirror, looked directly into his grey-blue eyes and took a deep breath,
watching his chest expand and contract. He fixed his collar and walked out into
the hallway. Flick was waiting and nodded to Christopher, leading him into the
dull morning sun. Flick handed Christopher a ledger. On the top sheet the
numbers for the day were written in black. There was a shipment coming in from
Lodz. “Poles,” Flick said. “They should be in pretty good condition. It’s only
a short journey.” The number on the ledger said 1200. “Have you been at a
selection before?” Flick asked.

“Not as such, no.”

“We just stand at the back and make
sure that the luggage is taken care of. The Sonderkommando will be there to do
the lifting work. It’s easy.” Flick looked at Christopher through thick
glasses. “Don’t worry. They know it’s your first day here. This will be very
simple. Our work comes later.”

Christopher nodded back. “Thank you,
but I’m sure I’ll be able to handle this.” Christopher held his shaking hands
behind his back, after handing the ledger to Flick.

The train station looked like almost
any other, with signs and a timetable pinned to the wall above the platform.
There was a station house but it was dark inside and the door was locked. Other
SS men gathered past the platform, including several in white coats. There were
emaciated prisoners, much thinner and sicker looking than the ones Christopher
had seen the previous day, running around, pushing ramps and pulling carts into
place. Christopher picked out one man, slumped over so much he almost touched
the cart with his chest as he pushed it, and watched him as he ran. It seemed
impossible that he could move as fast as he did but everywhere the SS men were
shouting and the dogs were arriving, straining on the leash, barely held back
by the guards. The train arrived. It moved past the platform. Christopher
counted the carriages. The numbers were wrong. There was no way 1200 people
could fit into a train that small, built for cattle transport. The train came
to a halt and the doors slid back and immediately the shout of the SS men
intensified, drowning out all but the sounds of the dogs, snarling and barking.
Christopher watched as the Jewish slave he had been watching ran to the open
cattle truck and helped the people off the train. They were bewildered, women
clutching on to their babies, men climbing out, looking around in the few
seconds before they were running to one side or the other. Their faces were
lined and thin, their mouths clamped shut. There were children, the elderly and
even one old man who had to be carried out. The SS men were on them immediately
and as soon as the people clambered off the railroad cars they were being
hustled into separate lines, men in one line, women and children in the other.

The cars disgorged their human cargo
within a few minutes. Christopher looked at the ground but still he heard the sounds
of the women crying as they were wrenched apart from their children mixed with
the fearful cacophony of the dogs and the incessant shouting of the SS men in
both German and Polish. Christopher took a deep breath and looked down at
Flick, who seemed bored. The SS went into the train, guns drawn. Christopher
was watching again, unable to ignore the scene in front of him. Christopher’s
stomach flinched as dead bodies were thrown out of the rail cars. They landed
on the ground like loose sacks of sticks, the bones cracking as they fell, the
crimson from their wounds draining into the brown dirt on the ground. Another
shot rang out and the body of a young girl was thrown out onto the dirt, the blond
hair on her head stained by blood. Christopher was cold and a helpless panic
ran through him. Outwardly he remained taciturn. The SS guards were screaming
at the lines of people. The selection was over. There were two new lines, one
of younger, fitter looking people and then the rest, the older people and the
children. The line of younger people was maybe one or two hundred at the most
and they were marched off, back up towards Auschwitz. The rest of the people
huddled together, easily a thousand strong, and the shouting of the SS began to
die down.

The trucks arrived and the people
climbed in, helped by the same fellow prisoners who had helped them off the
rail cars just moments before. Christopher turned to Flick. “How often do
transports like this one arrive?”

“That depends. Sometimes we get
several in one week, sometimes, several in one day. That’s when the real work
begins. One time….” But Christopher was not listening anymore. It was hard to
fix on any one person in the crowd of people waiting to be loaded onto the
trucks. Christopher and Flick were standing well back, about a hundred yards
away but Christopher walked closer, completely ignoring Flick, completely
ignoring everything except the mass of people, packed together, waiting to be
taken away. Christopher stared and saw a middle aged woman, with a bright blue
headscarf that seemed to have no business in a place like this. She was holding
a baby tight to her chest. She was crying but the baby was quiet. Christopher
saw Breitner and Muller standing about twenty yards behind them, looking
through some of the suitcases left behind as the prisoners loaded them from their
carts onto trucks. Christopher looked back at Flick and waved to him, motioning
that he was walking towards Muller and Breitner. There was a line of SS men,
noticeably calmer than they had been only a few moments earlier, alongside the
column of people waiting to be moved along. The terror in the eyes of the
people had not changed however, and the dogs still surged forward if any
stepped out of line. The column of people began marching up towards Birkenau.

Christopher heard another shot from
behind him and swiveled around. There were several SS men poring through the
piles of clothing left behind.
 
“Ah,
here we are, there’s always at least one.” He heard one say as he turned a coat
over to reveal the shuddering form of a small child. Christopher saw the little
boy, no older than four and crying for his mother, from less than ten yards
away and went to walk towards him to bring him into the line. The SS man raised
his rifle and shot the child in the face. Christopher stood frozen as he
watched the SS man shoulder his rifle and drag the boy by the foot, out of the
pile of clothes and dump his limp body in front of the railroad cars with the
others. Christopher looked around at the other guards, wide eyed, expecting
something, but then caught himself, and turned around to walk towards Muller
and Breitner. He stood back, about ten feet from them, a safe distance where
they couldn’t see the look that the feelings coursing through him must have
shown in his eyes. They greeted him with a glance as he walked over.

They are expecting an order
, he said to himself,
so
give them one
. “I want all these cases loaded away within ten minutes and
all of these clothes. Is all this in order?” Christopher inquired. “Will the
rest of the prisoners be keeping their belongings with them on their journey to
the labor camp?”
 

Muller looked out of the side of his
eyes at Breitner and then back at Christopher. “No, all the suitcases are still
here, we will collect the rest of the prisoners’ belongings once they get
changed for their disinfection procedures.” Christopher held the gaze of
Muller’s brown eyes for a few seconds after he had looked away. The last of the
prisoners were leaving. “Herr Obersturmführer, you should probably go up to the
changing rooms, they’re in number three, I believe.” Muller said and
Christopher came back into the moment.

“Yes, of course. Herr Breitner, come
along with me please. I trust I can leave the procurement and cleanup of all
that remains here to you, Herr Muller.”

“Yes, Herr Obersturmführer, it will
be done within the hour.”

Christopher didn’t answer but walked
towards a waiting car that Breitner had motioned towards. He sat in the passenger
seat, with Breitner driving. Breitner followed the column of people as they
made their way up into the camp at Birkenau. Christopher saw the woman with the
blue headscarf again but then she was gone, blended into the crowd once more.
Christopher stayed silent for the duration of the short journey. The SS guards
were waiting there with the Sonderkommandos, who were all prisoners themselves
and were lined up at the side of the yard. They were at the same building that
Friedrich had shown him the day before. The SS men all carried truncheons.
 
Behind them, lurking in the background
were the officers, including Friedrich. The people arrived onto the hard ground
of the yard. They were mostly wearing dark clothes, and all carried the yellow
Star of David insignia. Christopher looked up and saw the guards in the towers
overlooking the yard training their machine guns on the crowd. Christopher looked
around, trying to hide his thoughts.

“Herr Obersturmführer, you should
meet the leader of the Sonderkommando. They will be carrying out your orders.”
Christopher nodded to Breitner and walked after him across the yard where the
crowd of people had gathered in a huge group in the center, speaking Polish and
Yiddish. The mood of the people had been lightened considerably by the behavior
of the SS men, who had been polite and calm with them as they arrived in the
yard, greeting them with smiling faces and even chatting and laughing with some
of them. There were directing the people like traffic policemen, evenly across
the yard. Christopher saw one SS man pat an elderly man on the back, and help
him along. The people murmured amongst themselves and although they had been
visibly calmed by the behavior of the SS, they still seemed nervous and
suspicious. Christopher noticed that Friedrich and the other officers had
disappeared. Breitner led him over to where the dozen or so Sonderkommandos
were lined up. At the head of the line was a tall, handsome man. “This is Jan
Shultz, head of the Sonderkommando unit working in the crematoria.” Shultz
looked down at Christopher, who nodded back, remembering not to proffer a
handshake. “These men will go through the belongings the prisoners leave behind
before turning them over to us.”