Outcasts (23 page)

The sisters developed ways of coping with daily life inside the concentration camp. The two became inseparable - they shared everything. At night they snuggled close to each other, comforting each other merely by their physical presence.

Aliz had one leg that was shorter than the other: this disability caused her to limp. Physically, it was much more exhausting for her to keep up with the rest. Hedy balanced out her sister's physical ailment with her zest and energy. If at four-thirty in the morning Aliz was too exhausted to get out of bed for
zehl appel
; it was Hedy who willed her strength into her sister and pulled her to her feet.

The lager they were in contained thirty-two barracks, with one latrine in the middle. The toilets consisted of a cement hole, and there was no paper, no soap, no privacy wall. The length of the first dress Hedy received extended all the way down to her ankles. She tore strips off of her long cotton dress and used these bits as toilet paper. As the days passed, the hemline of the dress got shorter and shorter.

Within a few months, their menstruation stopped. Hedy thought it must have been something - a drug - they added to their food that suppressed their monthly cycle. Hedy didn't know how they would have coped with that.

Once a month, they were taken for an
entlausung
(delousing bath). Ordered to strip and throw all their shoes, dresses, and underwear into a pile, they were assigned new clothing from piles of over-washed, over-bleached, and threadbare clothing. They stood in single file and were handed a bundle of clothing - whatever they were doled out is what they had to wear for the next month. On one such occasion, Hedy was handed a dress that did not cover her left breast - the fabric was completely ripped away. Realizing she had to wear this dress for the foreseeable future, Hedy managed to find a discarded piece of cloth to cover the gap, and somehow tied it to the rest of the dress so it wouldn't come apart.

If Hedy was handed a better pair of shoes, she passed them on to her sister. A shoe without proper support only made Aliz's limp more pronounced. Sometimes Hedy was assigned a pair of shoes that were mismatched. These things didn't seem to matter. In Hedy's mind, these were all challenges, all obstacles to be overcome by ingenuity and determination.

Hedy and Aliz were frequently selected to work in the Essen-Commando, a group that helped distribute the daily rations. If either got one more carrot or bit of soup, they shared it. As there were no utensils or dishes to eat with, four or five women shared a bowl of soup, counting the spoonfuls for each, making sure each spoonful was distributed equally. A discarded soup can was considered a great treasure, as it was immediately transformed into a highly prized eating utensil. If Aliz got a piece of a radish or potato in her soup, she wedged it between her teeth until Hedy bit the other half off. Hedy always reciprocated her sister's generosity. The bread was the size of a brick: at first they divided it among six, then eight, then ten. By the end of this game of division, each was left with a quarter of a slice each.

Between the mind-numbing activities of their daily routine,
zehl appel
, and talking about how famished they were, some women organized impromptu gatherings when and where they could, to tell stories they recalled from books and recite poetry. Often Hedy took the initiative. She remembered that as a young girl she couldn't comprehend why they had to memorize so many poems by rote. Now she was grateful for the many hours she spent learning poetry as the poetry recitations and the songs they sang at home with their parents all came flooding back, providing the only escape from the present environment of dread and boredom.

Among all the poetry, storytelling, and singing they all shared, Hedy's favourite piece was Sandor Petofi's "
A Rab
" ("The Captive").

I battle for you, freedom
My arms and legs in chains.
Light, I crave after you
As a mole, existing underground.

When will freedom's hour strike?
When will the happy hour be
When I breathe from freedom's air again
And you will shine on me, oh bright sunshine?

And hope sustains him that he will someday be free
Despite the time that marks half his life
Hope that the other half of his life
Will be spent in sweet freedom.

But each time she recited it, anyone who heard it was in tears - the poem reminded them so much of their own situation and how they had to somehow gather the strength to survive. At the end of the poem, after so many years of hoping, craving after freedom, just as they remove the shackles and unlock the prison cell, the captive dies of a broken heart.

Despite the tragic end of the poem, everyone kept begging that Hedy recite it, over and over again. She became convinced that reciting a brilliant piece of poetry or discussing a classic work of fiction brought their intelligence to the forefront and reminded them that they were still thinking, feeling human beings. The storytelling sessions kept their humanity intact.

The singing and poetry also seemed to transport her back to Nagyszollos and her mind became full of memories of Tibor. She still saw his face clearly in her mind's eye, his deep, emotion-filled, brown eyes, so full of love the last time she saw him. But the memories evaporated once she looked down at her dress, felt her hairless head, or smelled the putrid air around her.

Blokkova
was the title of the prisoner in charge in the female barracks. In their barracks it was mainly Jewish women from Slovakia who were in these positions of power - they supervised the newly arrived Hungarian Jewish women. Hedy and Aliz quickly learned to avoid the cruel ones, those who meted out harsh punishments for no reason and were consistently looking for new ways to taunt them, verbally and physically. Although they knew exactly what it felt like to arrive to this place and be stripped, shaved, and humiliated, they seemed to have nothing but disdain for the newly arrived group. They spewed an endless litany of cruel, disparaging remarks.

"Why are you crying? Do you want your mama? Well she's not here and no one else is going to help you get out of here." The Slovak women arrived almost two years before the Hungarians, which seemed to be another reason for their deep resentment and hatred.

"You were still dancing and sleeping in comfortable beds at home when we were already dying in here!"

One Slovak Jewish blokkova named Judit was an exception; she treated them with kindness. Of average height and weight, with an oval face and deep brown eyes, Judit looked plain, but she had a lovely cream complexion and a kind demeanour that intimated a background of education and civility. She didn't yell or scream like the others, but when she spoke, she did so with an authoritative voice and commanded respect. Judit was one of the few who protected and cared for the women in her barracks. It was only later that Hedy and Aliz realized how her invaluable instructions saved their lives on more than one occasion, especially in times of the selections.

The word
selections
itself evoked dread, and was mentioned only in whispered tones; it was synonymous with annihilation. These selections were usually quite arbitrary, and no one knew when they were coming, or who was targeted, or on what basis they would be selected. Everyone understood that those selected or sorted out were automatically sent to the gas chamber.

On one occasion, when the inmates from every other block were outside of their barracks, Judit imposed
blokk sperre
, or lockdown, for no apparent reason, forcing all the women to stay incarcerated in their barracks for many hours. It was only later, when they were released, that they learned that, while they were confined to their barracks, SS officers had implemented such a dreaded sorting.

When no advanced warning came of the sorting, and Judit was unable to lock them inside the barracks for their own protection, she coached them on how to avoid getting selected.

"Hold your skirts above your knees and show them a bit of thigh - that way it won't be as obvious that you've lost a lot of weight. They will be too busy looking at your legs. Act like young, energetic women," she cautioned them. "Run, don't walk. Run so fast that Mengele won't have a chance to pick you. Pinch your cheeks. Smile!"

Judit coached them on how to run like a pack of gazelles, protecting each other from being selected. She organized the group so that the youngest, most agile would sprint on the outside, thereby protecting the weaker, thinner, older on the inside.

When camp commanders asked for volunteers for work brigades, the inmates frequently had no idea whether it was to go to work, or be sent to the gas chamber. It was a life and death lottery. Sometimes members of the work brigade received a bit more food, sometimes they didn't.

By the fall Hedy and Aliz were assigned to a work brigade that went to construct a drainage ditch to the Vistula River. It was back-breaking, exhausting work and their daily rations were not increased, but by working Hedy and Aliz hoped that their chances of survival would probably be better than if they stayed in the barracks. Each morning, as they walked down the Lagerstrasse to be led out of the camp, Suti and Kapo Dzeidjic walked along the inside the fence, saying goodbye, in effect escorting them as they headed off to work. Dzeidjic and Suti stayed at the fence as long as they were within sight of Hedy and Aliz. No matter how exhausted they were in the morning, the two sisters acted energetic, and smiled and waved at the two of them, comforted by the fact that Suti also had someone looking out for him.

B
UT THE FEELING OF
being protected melted away for Suti one day in September when a sudden selection was implemented, targeting the younger teenaged boys. Those who were under the designated height were selected out. Dr. Mengele was there, personally supervising this selection. It was a quick movement of his finger that was the final arbiter of life and death.

Before Suti could fully comprehend what was happening around him, he had been selected, along with many hundreds of others. Suti and the others were taken to empty barracks, where they were locked up. Emptying barracks for a specific reason took a matter of minutes: the guards simply entered and ordered everyone out.

The young boys and teenagers knew instinctively that this meant the end. The next step was inevitably the gas chamber.

Suti was shocked and dazed. Everything had taken place with such incredible speed. His protector, Dzeidjic, wasn't around when the selection took place. No one from the Dzeidjic group saw Suti being taken away. It would be hours before his sisters would return from their day labour on the Vistula River.

The barracks were packed with hundreds of boys. Suti looked around and estimated there were at least 699 boys - he being the seven hundredth.

It was the eve of Yom Kippur 1944, the Day of Atonement, the holiest of all Jewish religious holidays. Some of the boys began to recite the
Kol Nidre
- the prayer of contrition and consolation that is the climax of the holy service. The prayer spread through the group. Within minutes, they were all praying together. All except one.

Suti couldn't and wouldn't pray to a God who he believed had abandoned all of them. God did not exist. Ever since the day when he howled at the heavens, soon after entering Auschwitz, he relinquished his faith in God.

The others saw Suti's atheism as the cause of their own condemnation. Two boys from Nagyszollos - Sanyi Lebovics and Chayim Teitelbaum - challenged Suti. "Why won't you pray with us?" they demanded. "Your arrogance will cost us our lives. It's the Day of Atonement. If you don't pray with us we'll all be condemned!"

"
Szégyeld magad Weisz Sanyi
!" (Shame on you Sandor Weisz!)

Suti was unmoved, simply staring at the door.

No living boy could convince Suti of the existence of an immortal God.

This was the scene on that eve of Yom Kippur - minutes turning to hours, hundreds of wailing, crying, praying children and teenagers crowded into the cramped corridors of the death barracks, muttering, chanting, whispering psalms and prayers for deliverance. All except one.

Suti fought his way through the dense crowd, trying to find a place to stand at the nearest point to the entrance so he could see anyone entering or exiting the barracks.

Trying to fight back the overwhelming feeling of panic that was creeping into his body, Suti saw Janek, one of the men who worked in the brigade run by Kapo Dzeidjic, enter the barracks. Janek headed in the direction of the block altester's room for dinner. He was alone.

In a panic, Suti yelled to Janek - from about a metre and a half - as loud as he could. "It's me, tell Dzeidjic I'm here! Please tell Kapo Dzeidjic I'm here!"

Janek looked, recognized Suti, mumbled under his breath that he would tell Dzeidjic, and proceeded into the block altester's room, closing the door behind him. Suti had little choice but to wait patiently while Janek and the other workers ate their dinner. After what seemed like an interminable length of time, the door opened again and Janek came out. Suti whispered (as loudly as he could), "Please don't forget to tell the kapo about me." His heart pounded loudly as the words came out of his mouth. No matter how hard he tried to control it, his voice was quavering.

When Janek left, Suti hardly noticed the desperate teenagers around him anymore. A numbness descended upon him. There was nothing he could do but wait.

An hour later, just as Suti convinced himself that all hope was gone, Janek returned with another man. Dzeidjic's assistant never even glanced at Suti as he went directly to the block altester's room once again and closed the door. After a short time, the visitors opened the door and came back out. Janek walked directly toward Suti, pointed to him, and yelled in an angry tone, "You are coming with us, now!"

The room fell silent and everyone seemed to hold their breath in shock as Suti was grabbed and taken out of the barracks.

The men took Suti directly to an empty barracks where Dzeidjic was standing in the middle of his small working group. Everyone around him was sitting. Suti looked at Dzeidjic, hardly able to speak. Dzeidjic gave him a steely look, put his finger to his lips as a signal to be quiet, and pointed to the upper bunk at the farthest end of the barracks.