I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree (14 page)

He nodded. “Guess who else is going?”

I was impatient now and somewhat envious.

“Liebholt asked for you by name!” It came out like a bombshell.

“He asked for me by name? How could that be?” I exclaimed. “I worked for him and his mistress in Wieliczka. It didn't work out too well. Liebholt was ready to throw me out a window.”

“I can only tell you what I heard. Your name, Eva's, and mine are on a list of people that has been drawn up. There is one man who controls this so-called list. At the moment he is one of the most powerful prisoners. People are trying to buy their way on it.”

“What if he tries to sell our places? Who could stop him from doing that?”

“Don't forget it is Liebholt who asked for us. Who would challenge him?”

I still could not comprehend why this
man Schindler was going through so much trouble to save eleven hundred prisoners. Dick tried to explain that it had started out as a business and that the Jews he was now trying to save had made him rich. He saw how decent and loyal they are and how the Nazis would destroy them if he didn't do something to help them.

Could this be true?
I wondered. I dared not raise my hopes.

I ran to find Eva so I could tell her the news. She was stunned.

“I told you that I worked for him and his mistress in Budzyn. I know he likes German-speaking servants in his house, and I got on rather well with Fräulein Liselotte because she loved the way I brewed coffee. But I never thought he would help me in any way. Oh, Hannelore, isn't this wonderful?”

I agreed that the news was unbelievable, but I confided to Eva that I'd had a very different experience in the Liebholt household.

Hannelore
(top)
and Dick
(bottom)
on Schindler's list
.

Lice became our newest enemy. They crawled around in the straw-covered bunks, and escaping them was impossible. Almost all of us had lice in our hair, clothes, and body crevices.

But something far more dangerous than lice invaded the camp too: scarlet fever. I succumbed to the disease shortly after it broke out. In spite of feeling sluggish and feverish I continued to go to work. My condition didn't escape the overseer. There was no point in telling him I was ill or in asking him to please understand why I couldn't work faster. He was only interested in showing the SS guard how tough he was on the prisoners.

“You are not working fast enough,” he shouted at me.

He was about to use his club when Eva stepped in front of me. “Leave her alone. Can't you see she is sick?”

Eva had put herself in danger defending me. The overseer could have hit her, even clubbed her to death. I was deeply touched by her courageous act. Despite the harshness of our lives there was still goodness in people.

Toward the end of the day I was barely able to walk. After the prisoner count was done, I was unable to stand in line for the precious piece of bread. I crawled up to my bunk in a feverish and delirious state and spoke words no one could understand. The women asked me repeatedly to be quiet, but I was unable to stop my rantings.

When the morning whistle sounded, I could not lift myself. I remained on my bunk. The
Blockälteste
discovered me soon enough on her rounds through the barrack.

“Why aren't you at the place of assembly?” she screamed.

“I can't . . . get up,” I replied. “I am sick.”

“That's what they all say. It's laziness, if you ask me.”

Barely able to lift up my head, I looked into the woman's cold eyes and said, “I . . . am . . . sick!”

“By God, you are,” she shrieked. “You have red spots all over your face. It's scarlet fever! Get out at once! You're contaminating my barrack.”

Even in my weakened state I had enough sense to leave before the
Blockälteste
reported me. Shuffling across the barrack, I fled in the direction of the infirmary, stopping every time I felt a dizzy spell coming on.

“Dr. Mosbach,” I pleaded once inside. “Tell Dr. Mosbach it's Hannelore. I am sick.”

“She is crawling with lice,” the attendant said to a coworker. “Let's get her clothes off and burn them.”

Without protest I let the attendants drag
me to the shower. The water lulled me into unconsciousness. Afterward I had no idea how I'd gotten from the shower into the ward, but I did hear Dr. Mosbach's voice: “Hannelore, you have scarlet fever.”

The next days were spent in a state of semiconsciousness, and I was not aware that SS men accompanied Dr. Mosbach on his rounds. After I regained consciousness, he made me understand how urgent it was for me to get out of the infirmary.

“They asked many questions,” he said. “Only after I assured them you're going back to work did they lose interest. But the truth is you're far from being well and should not be going back to work so soon. I have to choose between the dangers, so I am sending you to the barrack of a
Blockälteste
I've come to know. She'll give you light duties. But before we release you, we will have to drain your left ear. It's infected.”

Later that same day SS officers entered the
infirmary. Patients were pulled from their beds. Barely able to walk, they offered no resistance. All I could hear between the shouts of the SS men was wailing and weeping. I looked on in disbelief and realized how close I had come to sharing the same fate had Dr. Mosbach not assured them I was going back to work.

The next afternoon one of the SS men came back to the hospital. Knowing that the SS must not find me here, Dr. Mosbach instructed Hyman, an orderly, to stuff me into the nearest closet. It was hot inside; nonetheless, I pulled the bedsheet tighter around myself. Something in Hyman's eyes concerned me. The night before, when he had drained my ear as Dr. Mosbach had instructed him, he had that same look in his eyes. He told me how pretty I was and put his hands under the covers. I caught him in time and told him if he ever did that again, I would tell the doctor.

I must have blacked out from the heat in the closet, for when I came to, I was still in
there, with Hyman standing over me, fondling my breast. “Stop!” I cried. “Stop immediately.” He gave my breast one last squeeze before letting me out.

Knowing I had to leave at once, I dressed myself in the clothes Hyman had thrown on my bed.

Dr. Mosbach told me that arrangements had been made. I was to stay in barrack eight for the time being. The
Blockälteste
knew what to do. “Go quickly,” Dr. Mosbach said.

I touched the sleeve of his white coat. “I owe you my life.”

When I arrived at barrack eight, a woman came out from behind the curtained-off cubicle at the entrance. “Are you the one the doctor sent?” I nodded. “Keep out of sight as much as possible. If a
Kapo
or SS man comes in, pretend you are cleaning.”

I moved to the rear of the barrack, where I found a footstool to sit on. I fell asleep almost immediately. Someone tapping my shoulder
woke me up. The
Blockälteste
stood over me holding a small enamel pot. “This is for you. The doctor's wife sent it. Go on, eat. Get some meat on your bones. You look like a
Musselman
!”

Nothing had ever tasted so good, and I scraped the pot until there wasn't a morsel of food left.

The women returned from work in the late afternoon, and the barrack came alive with chatter. To my surprise Eva was among them. I knew barrack eight was where she lived, but in my fatigued state I must have forgotten. I didn't let Eva hug or kiss me for fear I might still be contagious, yet it was obvious how happy we were to see each other.

“Thank God you're alive,” she said. “The infirmary is a dangerous place.”

When it was time to go to the place of assembly, the
Blockälteste
held me back. “You stay here.”

I again retreated to my little footstool and daydreamed about Dick. Did he know I had
been in the infirmary? Was he still in Plaszow? If only Fella were still with me . . . She would know what to do.

It was very quiet in the barrack, so when I thought I heard some movement coming from one of the upper bunks, I turned. But no one was there. Moments later the rustling of straw caught my attention. A board was being lifted, and a small hand emerged first. Then the head of a little girl popped up for just a moment. Before I could get another look, the board went down again. I understood what was happening. Someone had devised a hiding place underneath a bunk to keep a child alive.

Later, when the women returned from the head count, I watched a young woman go over to the place where the board had been lifted. I was certain she was the mother of this child.

During the night I heard the usual outbursts: “Take your feet away . . . I can't breathe. . . . Get away from me.” I was used
to it and usually went right back to sleep. Not this night. So many thoughts went through my mind. Where was Dick? Was it really true—that there was a list of people who would be able to leave Plaszow?

“I don't believe Oskar Schindler will get us out of here,” Eva said the next day. “The group of women who have been working for him for some time swear it's true, but it seems impossible to me.”

“Dick believes it,” I said.

No one had seen Dick. Even Eva couldn't find out where he might be.

When I felt stronger and there was new talk of transports leaving Plaszow, I went back to my own barrack. Some of the women who worked for Schindler were now there. They regarded me as an outsider because I hadn't been working among them in Schindler's factory. So all my inquiries about where the Schindler men were fell on deaf ears. Part of it was because of the language
barrier. I didn't speak Polish, and only a few of the women spoke German. But by now I understood some Yiddish, a universal language among most Jews. I believed the women resented my being on the list. They would have rather had one of their friends or relatives take my place.

I went to the barbed-wire fence as often as I could and called across to the men's side to see if anyone knew a man named Hillman. No one had seen him. I feared he had already left.

One time, when I was trying to find out about Dick, I heard a scream. It took only a second to realize that a man had flung himself onto the electrified fence to end his life. His body twitched, and then the hissing of burned flesh filled the air. Through tears I recited the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead.

During the following weeks many transports left Plaszow. Inmates spoke in whispers about camps called Auschwitz, Mauthausen,
Gross-Rosen, and Bergen-Belsen—names I was not familiar with, yet I was filled with fear of ending up in one of them rather than the one promised. But the so-called Schindler women still seemed optimistic.

The quiet of the night was interrupted by the sound of boots and barking dogs. The door to my barrack was yanked open by SS men shouting orders. One of them proceeded to read names off a list, names of the Schindler women, the ones who worked for this man. And then my name was being called: Hannelore Wolff. Two hundred ninety-seven women had worked for Oskar Schindler in his factory right outside Plaszow. Now three more names were being included among them, the three that Untersturmführer Liebholt had requested.

Shouts of joy filled the barrack. “We are going to Oskar Schindler's camp!”

I too got caught up in the excitement of the moment. I grabbed my meager possessions, a metal soup bowl and wooden spoon, and followed the others walking toward waiting cattle cars. Eva joined me. She had been brought over from barrack eight with more of the Schindler women. I grabbed her hand, squeezing it hard. “Eva, now I believe it. We are going to Oskar Schindler's camp.”

Even when the iron bar was placed across the door of the cattle car, it was not as traumatic as it had been on previous journeys, nor were the crowded conditions inside as horribly bad. After all, we were going to a place where life would be better.

The train was going fast, and when it came to a curve, we fell over one another. Normally there would have been outcries. Not now, for the atmosphere was one of hope. Soon the women began to sing Polish songs of freedom and love, none of which I understood. But I caught the excitement and hummed. After
many hours without food or water we all grew weary. Added to our discomfort was the stench from a pail used as a toilet. It had overflowed. The stench became unbearable.

By now I was so hungry that I started to eat a small piece of bread I had saved. I felt guilty eating it, knowing all eyes were on me. But it wasn't only hunger that nagged at us; our thirst was unrelenting too. We started to fight among ourselves. Too much room for one person, too little for another. Standing near a crack in the wall was a prize—one could get some air to breathe.

After agonizing days and nights of rattling and jousting, the train came to a halt. All of us breathed a sigh of relief. We had been pressed against one another for too long, and now it would finally end. Strangely enough, the doors remained shut. Day turned to evening; darkness fell. Not a sound could be heard from the outside.