I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree (13 page)

I missed Dick terribly. Our meetings had been the one thing to look forward to each day. Without him I was often depressed. The pain in my back and abdomen had not gotten better, and I was afraid it would only be a matter of time before the foreman reported me for poor work performance. But he left me alone.

We had been in Wieliczka several months when rumor had it that Polish workers had arrived to replace us. Within a few days' time we were put on trucks to be transferred to the next camp, presumably Plaszow. As Dick had indicated in his note to me, this was not a good place to be. But I was not prepared for what awaited me. The place was huge.
Wooden barracks extended for miles, and I could only guess how many prisoners it might take to fill them. Once inside, I saw skeletons who resembled human beings walking from one end of the barbed-wire complex to the other chanting, “Bread, a piece of bread. Have mercy on me!”

Other prisoners in striped uniforms took us into a barrack where I was told to kneel so they could cut off my hair. Swiftly, my shiny black hair fell to the floor. My hands went up, touching the uneven stubble. I kept thinking,
Mama and Papa would not be able to recognize me now
, forgetting again that Papa was no longer alive and God only knew where Mama was.

We were herded into a large shower chamber next. All my belongings had to be left on a bench.
Not my pictures
, I vowed.
No, I will hold them in the palm of my hands
. I didn't believe they would give me my clothes back, especially the warm boots Dick had procured for me; but the pictures, the pictures had to stay with me always.

And so it was. When I emerged at the other end of the chamber, I was issued different clothes—a fancy evening dress and wooden shoes too big to walk in. The odd combination made me smile in spite of the horror of the situation. But my initiation into Plaszow was not complete yet. My forearm had to be tattooed. I quickly changed lines to be in Dr. Mosbach's. I was so happy to see him again.

“Suck this out as soon as I am finished,” he whispered. “But first you must memorize the number. Your name no longer matters, it will be your number that will get you food and a bunk to sleep on.”

I followed his advice and sucked on my forearm until there was no trace of the tattoo.

I joined other women wandering along the barbed-wire fence. Shouts of recognition evoked laughter from some and tears from others, but I could not find Dick among the men on the opposite side. The curfew whistle signaled that it was time to go to the barracks. I quickly found
my way to my assigned bunk in one of the women's barracks and soon fell asleep.

Another whistle awakened me. For a moment I didn't know where I was. In a fit of panic I ran to the entrance dressed in my evening gown and wooden shoes.

“Going to a ball?” the
Blockälteste
mocked. “Why didn't you have your hair styled more fashionably?”

“Oh dear God,” I moaned, putting my hands on the uneven stubble that had once been a head of hair.

And that's how I went to work—dressed for a ball and accompanied by Ukrainian guards.

•   •   •

The work site smelled of burned flesh. Was this another mass grave, only much larger than the one in Budzyn?

“Hard to take, isn't it?” a girl standing next to me said in perfect German. “By the way, my name is Eva. What's yours?”

Eva was tall and slender and very attractive. She had an infectious laugh and the same charm Fella had had. I liked her immediately.

“Can you believe this?” I said. “I am dressed in a ball gown to cover up evidence of mass murder. Has the world gone mad?”

We had to stop talking. The Ukrainian guard came around handing out rakes. He was a mean-looking man.

“Anyone too lazy to work can tell me now. We'll take care of it right away. There is plenty of room left in those pits.”

His instructions were to smooth out the earth, make it “nice-looking,” he said. “Then no one will know the difference.”

I was so happy to have found Eva. She was a few years older than me. Originally from Stettin, she knew Dr. Mosbach and his family well. She even knew Eugen, the
Judenrat
policeman from Belzyce. They had been deported together. And it turned out that Eva, too, had worked for Untersturmführer Liebholt
and his mistress. Fräulein Liselotte had had no complaints about Eva's work.

“I'm glad to have found someone who speaks German,” she said. “Let's be friends.” We shook hands and smiled.

The work was not too difficult, but the site and the smell of burned flesh were far worse than hard work. Both of us wondered how many pits there were to be found in the different camps and how human beings, prisoners like us, came to end up this way. Would it be our turn soon?

As the day wore on and the guard wandered away I had the courage to look over to where the men were working. I recognized some of the Budzyn men, and it gave me hope that Dick would be among them. When a few of the male prisoners crossed the women's path, I thought I heard a familiar voice.

“I . . . can't take it anymore.” The voice was barely audible. “No lilac tree.”

Before I could answer, Dick Hillman was gone.

From then on I saw him walking by every day. He worked the night shift, I the day shift. Sometimes our eyes met. He seemed infinitely sad, dejected, no longer the charismatic young man I had known. How I wished I could cheer him up.

He seemed to shrink from week to week. Every time the inspection whistle sounded, I was afraid he would be the one selected to die. The dreaded inspections took place often. Shrill whistles would puncture our sleep, rousing us at all hours of the night. Each time I made myself stand erect to give the appearance of being healthy. I even pinched my cheeks to make them look red before walking naked through the center of the barrack for inspection. Eva pricked her finger and would rub the blood into her cheeks. I lived in fear of these inspectors, knowing they could condemn me at their whim.

Dick had clearly lost his will to live. His
eyes gave him away. And here I was, in constant pain and unable to digest the little food I was given, yet I was not ready to give up.

One of the male prisoners slipped me a note one morning, but it wasn't until nightfall that I was able to take it out of my wooden shoe and read it.

Little one, Our dream of being together one day is fading rapidly. I can't fight any longer. If only I could hold you in my arms once more
.

I wept as I read Dick's note over and over, wondering what had set off his deep depression. He had risked his life so many times to help others. He was used to hunger and sickness. How could this have happened to him?

I walked over to Eva's bunk to share my sorrow with her. She was good at consoling and counseling and approved of my plan to hold Dick to his promise.

And that's what I did. The following day I slipped a note to one of the Budzyn men, asking him to give the note to Dick.

What has come over you? You made me a promise. I am not releasing you from it. Come to the fence on Sunday
.

When Sunday came, he was there. I saw tears in his eyes.

“I promised you to stay strong while we were apart,” I said. “I expected the same from you. What happened?”

“I wish I could be like you now. At times I fear I have lost my mind.” Even his voice was listless.

“It was you who warned me that things would get tougher.”

“It's not the harsh conditions. My state of mind has to do with the work I do and losing so many of my comrades. We made it through five difficult years, and now . . . they are dead!”

I remained quiet so he could get it all out.

“Do you know what I do all night long? I violate the dead. I lift their corpses out of the pit, take gold teeth out of their mouths, then toss their bodies into the fire.”

I could barely breathe. I was stunned.

“They give us double rations of bread for this work, but who can eat? What if some day I recognize one of the corpses? I don't know what I will do then!”

I wanted to scream,
What kind of world is this?
Instead I told him, “You can't give up. I won't let you!”

I knew of the beatings and hangings that went on. I had seen them too often already. But I didn't know about mass graves of these proportions or of violating the dead by removing their gold teeth. . . . All I could think of was that the world had gone mad.

Dick was still standing near the fence. “There is a rumor going around,” he said. “A man by the name of Oskar Schindler is taking
eleven hundred Jews out of here. If only we could go with them.”

I was about to ask him the details of this plan, but footsteps approached and a burly Ukrainian guard loomed nearby, ready to strike Dick with his truncheon. We both fled.

“Yids!” The Ukrainian laughed, chasing Dick until he disappeared in the crowd.

Searchlights revolved like spinning wheels, as if setting the stage for an evening of entertainment. But the situation was far from entertaining.

Loudspeakers blared orders for prisoners to undress. Another one of the feared inspections was taking place. My heart beat faster and faster. Would I pass this time? I joined the line of naked women being inspected by white-gloved SS officers.

“Move sideways . . . bend down . . . turn around,” they shouted as they touched our naked bodies with their riding whips. One of them carried a ledger in which he wrote down numbers and names.

When it was my turn, nothing was written down. I had passed. For now I was safe. But too many numbers were recorded that night, and the atmosphere was somber. Thank God, Eva's number had not been written down.

I worried about Dick and whether he had passed. The conversation we'd had at the fence came back to me. He talked about a man who was taking eleven hundred prisoners away from here. I had forgotten his name. If only we could go with those prisoners, away from this awful place. I fell asleep dreaming of leaving Plaszow.

Loud voices coming from a lower bunk awakened me.

“You stole my bread, you thief!”

“Listen to her,” another responded. “She is going mad. She ate her bread, and now she is blaming me.”

“Give me back what you stole,” the girl called Riva said. She sounded like a wounded animal.

The curtain to the
Blockälteste's
cubicle parted. Dressed in a flimsy nightgown, the
Blockälteste
rushed forward, followed by a man.

“Who is responsible for this?” The woman's thundering voice echoed through the barrack.

“Give them hell, Jadwiga,” the man said. “We'll finish another time.”

“Wait for me, Stanek,” she pleaded, but he was already out the door.

Infuriated, Jadwiga turned on the women. “How dare you, you sluts! I won't stand for it.”

Before anyone realized what she was about to do, she bashed the two quarreling inmates' heads together. The act was so chilling that many of us screamed in horror.

“Get them out of my sight,” Jadwiga shouted. “Out! Out!”

From that night on I behaved like a sleepwalker. Everything I did was done mechanically. The consequences of the argument between
the two women had caused me to shut out all emotions.

I stayed that way for days, till late one afternoon, just as the sun was about to set, I heard shots coming from a nearby hill. At first I thought the shots were directed at us—the workers with whom I was clearing the area of stones and debris. In a strange way I felt relieved that it would soon be all over for me. But I was wrong.

Amon Goeth, pushing his fat, burly body up the hill, held a pistol in each hand, shooting wildly into a group of people ahead of him. The women were dressed in coats and hats. They had to be new arrivals. No one in Plaszow dressed like that.

Our overseer saw how deeply the shooting affected me. I stood there with my body shaking, unable to stop. To let me know that in some way
he
was in control of my destiny, he called out, “You there! You are not working fast enough. If you need a rest, go up that hill.
Commandant Goeth is waiting for you.”

Somehow I made it through the rest of the day.

One evening many days later, while loitering near the barbed-wire fence, I saw Dick on the men's side. He looked much better than the last time I had seen him.

“I am so happy you survived the last inspection,” I said. “I worried a lot.”

“I am better now,” he said. “And I have great news.”

“Tell me quickly.” I was anxious to hear what the good news might be.

“The last time I saw you, I started to tell you about a man named Schindler who is taking people out of here.” Dick motioned me to come closer. He didn't want others to hear what he had to say.

“This man operates a factory outside the camp. Many Jews work for him—they have been since they were deported here to Plaszow from Kraków. Here is the thing: In order to
protect his workers from another deportation, possibly to Auschwitz, he is moving his factory to a small camp in Czechoslovakia.”

“Goeth wouldn't let him do that.”

“You're mistaken. This man Schindler has powerful connections that go beyond Amon Goeth. He is determined to do this. He has even drawn up a list of people to go to this camp.”

“But why are you telling me this? This list is not going to help us.”

I had not seen him so animated in a long time. He even smiled. “Untersturmführer Liebholt will be the commandant of this Czech camp. He insisted that fifty of the Polish prisoners of war here be included. And he also named three women. One of the women is your friend Eva.”

“She got on that list?” I said with a slight twinge in my voice. “And you, are you one of the fifty prisoners of war?” I was on the verge of tears. Not that I wasn't happy for Dick and
Eva, but I would be left alone in this awful place.