I Have Lived a Thousand Years (11 page)

If you cried out in pain, the lashings would double. In time we learned to stifle even our whimpers. In time we learned to endure in silence.

Our work consists of
Planierung,
straightening the hilltop
with spades and shovels in preparation for construction. The work was very difficult in the beginning. When we first arrived in the hills, we were exhausted from the mountain climbing alone. And that, at the start of a twelve-hour workday.

Now that we’ve become somewhat acclimatized, the work is much more bearable. The bruises on our hands have turned into callouses. Our backs got used to bending without pain. Digging, shoveling, and wheelbarrowing became endurable. If only we could stop to rest for a few moments from time to time!

Yesterday an older woman a few feet from me stopped to rest her arms. Instead of taking the trouble of administering the whip, the young assistant picked up a piece of rock and slung it at her. The rock slashed a deep, bloody gap in the elderly lady’s head, and she collapsed unconscious. The boy, taken aback, ran over to the stricken inmate, then turned apologetically to his master. The
Kapo
admonished with a devilish chuckle, “You missed, you stupid
Junge!
She’s only fainted. You should’ve struck her dead!”

At noon we have half an hour rest when we receive our cooked meal. It’s a bowlful of pottage, or cabbage soup with grain.

This morning the food arrived early. As it stood for hours in the sun, it became putrefied and alive with worms. I noticed a long, white worm wiggling in Mommy’s spoon as she lifted it to her mouth. I shrieked with horror. Mommy was startled; she looked at me with astonishment. “What happened?”

“Mommy, there’s a worm on your spoon! Look, Mommy, there are hundreds of worms in your bowl! And in mine! Look!”

“Nonsense! These are not worms. Eat, and leave me alone.”

“But Mommy, these are worms. Live worms. They crawl. Look.”

I pick one of the swarming insects out of my bowl and place it on the ground. It begins crawling. Then I pick another. It, too, begins crawling.

Mommy looks at me with helpless despair. “What are you trying to do? What is your objective? Tell me, what do you want of me?”

I do not understand. I wanted to save Mommy from a horrible fate: disease, or death. Or simply from the horror of swallowing worms. Instead, she is furious with me. My mother, the finicky lady who had been reluctant to eat in restaurants, and even in friends’ houses, for fear the vegetables, or hands, were not washed thoroughly enough; who baked, not only cookies and cakes, but even our daily bread at home, for fear the flour in bakery goods had not been carefully sifted, now is glaring at me.

“I can’t leave this food. I am very hungry. Do you want me to die of hunger?” Her voice is beyond recognition. Her facial expression is beyond recognition as she goes on, “And there are no worms in it! Say no more of it!”

As Mommy continues eating I turn my bowl over, spilling its contents on the ground, and run. I sit on a boulder at a distance, and begin to cry. My God. My dear God, is this actually happening?

A
LIEN
H
EROES

PLASZOW, JULY 1944

One hot day in July, about three weeks after our arrival, our lunch is interrupted by an unusual sight. We are working in the
Planierung
commando that day, digging and leveling the hilltop right above the camp. We are sitting on the slope and eating our soup directly overlooking the camp’s main square, when large covered vans appear.

Men and women in civilian clothes descend from the vans, and are roughly herded into the SS command barrack. The civilians are well dressed and have an air of independence about them. Like people. Not like camp inmates.

One of the men makes a defiant gesture as an SS man jostles him forward with the point of his gun. The civilian, a tall man in a gray trench coat, turns and jostles the German. A shot is heard and the civilian in the trench coat collapses. Then he stands up and starts to run. Another shot. The civilian tumbles. A third shot levels him prone on the ground. The civilian begins to crawl, drawing a line of red in the dust. The German soldier goes wild. He discharges a barrage of bullets into the crawling figure, then starts kicking him uncontrollably. All the other civilians are jostled and shoved at gunpoint until they disappear behind the door of the SS command barrack. The single figure in the gray trench coat remains lying in the dust in the center
of the square, a pool of blood ever widening about him.

We go on eating our soup. There is no time to pause: This is Jacko’s commando, the
Kapo
under whom there is no talking, no stopping for rest, and barely enough time to finish your soup.

The windows of our Block face the windows of the SS command barrack, and in the evening we can see the interrogation. The civilians are brought into the room of the commandant one by one, and questioned. They are severely beaten in the course of questioning. The shouts of the SS and the shrieks of pain keep us awake all night long.

At the morning
Zählappell
in the main square I chance a surreptitious glance toward the flagpole, where the civilians, about sixty people, are lined up. This morning they look more like rag dolls than people. They are haggard, disheveled, and stand in a scraggly formation like doomed souls. The only human emotion visibly animating them is fear.

From time to time I watch them as I work from our site on the mountain. I see them being marched to a barrack off the square. What will they do to them?

Then about ten people are marched out into the square, and lined up against the center wall opposite the flagpole.

One SS man does the shooting. Like target practice, he fells the civilians, one by one.

The next row of ten is shot by another SS soldier. Against the same wall the next ten are lined up. In order to reach the wall they are obliged to step over the bodies of the first ten victims. I see a young woman, also in a gray trench coat, fall on the body of a man she is about to step over, and remain lying draped over the body until a German soldier hauls her
to her feet and thrusts her against the wall. He shoots her along with the others.

Row after row, the firing squad concludes its task and marches off. The bloodied bodies remain scattered about the square. Suddenly, one body, a man, begins to crawl in the direction of the departing Germans. One of the German soldiers notices it, and turns. At that moment, the condemned victim hurls himself on the soldier and tackles him to the ground. The other soldiers rush to their comrade’s aid and free him from the grip of his profusely bleeding attacker. The wounded civilian is finally felled by bullets discharged from three German guns simultaneously.

The indifference of my fellow inmates is shattered for the rest of the afternoon. At the risk of grave punishment, we keep glancing down at the prone bodies in the central square of the camp below us.

This was my first direct encounter with death. Or was it? What we had just witnessed, and its aftermath—dead bodies strewn in the dust, gray, indifferent, colored by pools of blood—was this death? Or was it something else, something much more inexplicable?

Toward the evening, as we approach the camp, my throat tightens. I am apprehensive about having to pass the blood-soaked bodies on our way to
Zählappell.
Will there be a smell? I have heard that corpses decompose fast in the heat. These corpses have lain in the sun all day.

To my great relief, by the time we reach the camp the corpses have been cleared away. The square is empty except for the large pools of blood. After
Zählappell
we are ordered to carry pails of water from the well beyond the last barrack and wash and sweep away the blood.

Touching the blood with my broom creates a curious bond with the fallen victims. Grief, compassion, and fear—successfully repressed on the mountain—now well up in an overwhelming tide. I can barely control my nausea.

Who were they, these men and women in elegant trench coats with dignity intact? Who were they and what had they done to be crushed so ruthlessly, so cruelly? What did their last defiant gesture mean?

Oh, how I hurt for them. How I hurt for these alien heroes. For the futility of their heroism. How I hurt for the futility of it all.

What is death all about? What is life all about?

T
HE
U
PRISING

PLASZOW, JULY 1944

In mid-July a diarrhea epidemic sweeps the whole camp. In a few days it reduces us to raglike dolls barely able to walk. I am dizzy, and Mommy keeps encouraging me to breathe deeply and walk erect. I have violent abdominal cramps. The pain is unbearable. The routine continues, however.
Zählappell,
march to work, twelve-hour workday. On the verge of collapse, we carry on.

Until one day. It is a cold, rainy day, and by early afternoon we are drenched to the bone, digging the heavy, soggy ground with heavy, wet shovels. A sudden downpour sends us scampering for cover under nearby barracks on stilts. While we huddle under the dripping planks, a team of SS officers headed by Camp Commandant Goetz arrive to survey our work. Their indignation fills the air with shrill tones and the barking of dogs. The
Kapo’s
henchmen wield whips under the barracks, and in moments we are back on the job. Shivering miserably, we fail to comprehend. We have committed sabotage. Sabotage witnessed by Commandant Goetz and his staff!

At the evening
Zählappell
the dreaded news is announced. At dawn, we will be decimated, the punishment for sabotage.

We have heard of decimation. Our fellow inmates from
Poland mention the word frequently enough. In earlier years, the entire camp, or a barrack, or a commando, would be decimated for every minor infraction. The inmates of the guilty unit would be lined up at dawn, face a firing squad, and every tenth by an SS officer’s count would be shot. No one ever knew where the count would start and who the tenth would be until the moment the shot rang out. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and . . . ten .... Shoot! Sometimes they would start counting in the middle of the row. Sometimes at one end, then switch directions. You never knew if you would be tenth. Not until the last moment.

Now it is our turn. Our commando would be lined up at dawn and ... It cannot be true!

“It’s true all right,” said Felicia. “You’ve committed sabotage. SABOTAGE! For sabotage they usually shoot the entire commando. You got off easy. Only decimation.”

Decimation, my God. I may be the tenth. Or Mommy. My God, what if Mommy?!

I am unable to swallow even a spoonful of the evening soup. For the past several days I have not eaten more than a spoonful or two. The diarrhea has depleted my appetite. I have been constantly thirsty. Now I cannot swallow at all. Mommy keeps pleading, “Eat. You won’t be able to go on if you don’t eat.”

Go on? We are to be decimated at dawn. One of us will surely turn out to be the tenth. . . . Go on? Where? If Mommy dies, I die. Oh, God, let me be tenth!

I weep hysterically. When I have to go to the latrine, I insist that Mommy come along with me, and when she has to go, I insist on going with her, so that we should be together
every moment of the night. Every moment left to us. We spend the night holding each other in the bed or walking to the latrine. The diarrhea epidemic is still going strong.

This is a new experience in terror. I am terrified of dying. I am apprehensive of the sensation of the bullet penetrating my body. Of my blood flowing. I keep seeing my bullet-ridden body in the dust, my blood coloring red the gray dust of the square. . . . Yet I am even more terrified of seeing my mother shot. The thought of her falling into a red pool of blood convulses my insides. I have a steady pounding in my temples. A sense of strangulation in my throat, my chest. A slow pain creeping upward from my bowels.

There is a soft murmur from the bed above. The girls from Guta are reciting the Psalms. The chant of the doomed. They have a small prayer book from somewhere, and have managed to hide it. They say evening prayers daily. Sometimes they loan the prayer book to Mommy and she also says the prayers.

Mommy whispers to them, “Please, say it a little louder. So we can follow along.”

The murmur is louder now. Mommy and I are able to repeat the verses in Hebrew after them. The pounding in my temples subsides.

In a pause between passages I can hear muffled sobs. Almost all our barrack belongs to the
Planierung
commando and is involved in the sabotage. Soon we realize that the entire barrack is awake. One by one, all the girls join in reciting the Psalms. The sobbing grows silent.

Furtively I keep glancing at the window. It is still dark. Thank God.

The first feeble shafts of dawn begin filtering into the
barrack. The reading stops abruptly. A hush stifles even our breathing.

“Read on,” someone calls. “Read on until they come for us.” And the two little skinny sisters from Guta read on while the light turns brighter, and brighter. The chill morning breeze sends shivers through the bunk beds. The reading of Psalms emanates through chattering teeth.

It is bright morning now, and no one comes for us. What time can it be? They must have decided to shoot us at the regular
Z
ä
hlappell.

“It’s six-thirty. Time for
Z
ä
hlappell,”
calls Felicia the
Block
ä
lteste.
But her voice is not savage. It is tired and sad. She must know something. No one dares to ask questions.

Slowly, heavily, we file out of the barrack.

The morning glare is blinding. A strange brightness envelops the barracks, the square. I tremble with the terror the cool breeze stirs on my skin. We huddle, Mother and I, in an embrace of rhythmic shivers on
Zählappell.
Soon the SS will arrive.