Outcasts (25 page)

Five days later, the Fourth Ukrainian Division of the Soviet army, led by Commander Ivan Petrov, entered Nagyszollos. Not a single shot of resistance was fired; the army was gone. Petrov instructed his deputies to pick the highest point in the region and set up their command post. In very short order, Sergeant Gouzov told his superior officer that they had found the perfect spot with a great view of the surrounding region. As Petrov was driven up to the massive house on the hill, he saw that some of his soldiers were already going through the rooms, pilfering the contents. Two soldiers walked out carrying rolled-up Persian carpets on their shoulders, others were stuffing silver bowls into their knapsacks. Many of them were gleefully showing off bottles of wine. When they saw Commander Petrov arrive in the jeep, the men scattered.

Sergeant Gouzov met Petrov in the yard and reported that the house was empty of inhabitants. He said that, in the basement, they had found over two hundred bottles of jams and pickled vegetables, crates of dried fruits, and over four hundred litres of bottled wine. There was still meat in the smokehouse. Gouzov also reported that the overseer, Mihaly Hunzelizer, a Rusyn, was living in the basement. Hunzelizer told them that the owners, a high-ranking colonel in the Hungarian army and his family, had left the country and were not coming back.

As he walked up the front steps, Commander Petrov saw a dog lying motionless on its side with a full bowl of food next to him. "What happened to the dog?" he asked.

"We don't know for sure, sir," replied his sergeant. "The dog was like that when we got here."

"You might as well bury him," ordered Petrov.

Commander Petrov was pleased to have such pleasant surroundings for his command centre. He knew they would be stationed here for a while. As he went inside the house and looked up at the two-storey entranceway, he thought, "Yes, this will do quite nicely."

Petrov and only a few of his deputy commanding officers knew that this part of Hungary would soon become annexed to the Soviet Union. He had been sent here with specific instructions to quash any resistance to the Russian occupation and make sure the consolidation of the region into the Soviet empire went smoothly. One of the first things that had to be done was to change the name of the town to Vinogradiv.

Within a few days, a group of able-bodied men and women volunteered to help rebuild the destroyed bridge over the Tisza. Petrov wrote in his official report that the population of the region was "docile and compliant, totally exhausted by the war."

chapter 19 | january 1945

B
Y
J
ANUARY 1945,
G
ERMAN
military troops were being pushed back by unrelenting pressure from American forces from the west and Russian forces driving them from the east. The pounding of Russian artillery could already be heard from Auschwitz-Birkenau. The SS was ordered to empty the concentration camps and to destroy evidence of the atrocities committed there. The plan was to march prisoners to territories and areas still firmly under German control.

The SS ordered a mass evacuation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 18, 1945 in the middle of the night. The walls of the last crematorium still standing, crematorium #5, were dynamited. The barracks containing the loot of Commando Kanada were set ablaze, but the mountains of clothing, housewares, and carpets were so heavily packed that it would take weeks for them to completely burn - time the SS didn't have.

The "death marches," as they came to be known, were haphazard and chaotic. No one knew where they were going or how to organize such a mass evacuation. Those remaining, Suti among them, could sense the panic in the voices and actions of their captors. When they heard they were being ordered to march out, those who could tried to grab what few blankets were left, wrapping them around themselves as flimsy protection against the cold. Others tore strips out of pieces of blankets to bind their hands and feet.

The first group were marched out in columns of five. Suti was near the head of the five- to six-kilometre-long line of barely clad, emaciated survivors who trudged along in the snow-covered countryside. Most had no protection from the cold, and they were given nothing to eat or drink.

Rumours swirled around the camp like small brush fires.

"We are being sent to a place called Gross-Rosen."

"The camp guards had orders to shoot everyone who couldn't march."

"The Americans are coming to bomb Auschwitz."

Hedy, in a desperate panic to find her younger brother, searched for Dzeidjic. She found him with two of his men, their noses buried in a list of typed names. They were counting, verifying, and counter-checking names on a long list.

As Hedy approached and called Dzeidjic's name, he looked up anxiously, but when he saw it was Hedy, a look of relief crossed his face.

"I can't talk now," he mumbled, "but I sent the kid ahead earlier with the first group. Bad things are going to happen here. I wanted him to get out of here quickly."

"What have you heard?" Hedy pleaded.

Dzeidjic looked uncertain, insecure somehow.

"Go back to your barracks. I'll come to find you later."

With that, he abruptly turned and returned to working on the lists.

Kapos and guards counted then recounted everyone in their barracks. Hedy and Aliz stood in line for what seemed like hours. One of the guards, who they nicknamed "Burly" because of his thickset, stocky build, came toward them, counting the women in each row as he proceeded. Hedy focused on his chunky hands and fat fingers as she started hearing the numbers he called out:

"Nine hundred ninety. Nine hundred ninety-one. Nine hundred ninety-two."

Hedy quickly did a head count of the inmates between Burly and themselves.

"Nine hundred ninety-five."

They had to stay together, no matter what, Hedy thought.

Hedy pushed Aliz ahead of her; Burly pointed to Aliz, counted "one thousand," and yelled, "That's another one thousand that can head out."

Hedy grabbed Burly's arm and pleaded, "Please, sir, that's my sister. Please don't separate us."

Burly barely looked at her, completely oblivious, yelling to someone up at the front, "Move them out, it's a full group."

"Please let me go with them - I'm begging you," Hedy pleaded in tears.

But Burly had already turned and gone to organize the count somewhere else. A guard was placed at the end of the line, preventing Hedy from simply joining Aliz and the departing group.

Hedy's world collapsed. How was she going to survive now without her sister? How was she to go on?

She was overcome with sheer and utter desolation.

A
FTER ABOUT FIFTEEN TO
twenty kilometres of walking, Suti realized he didn't have the strength to go on. He was starving, and with the temperature ten degrees below zero, the cold was biting at his extremities. Although he, along with the other prisoners, had begun to eat the snow from along the roadside, he was still desperately thirsty. He felt he couldn't take another step.

Suti collapsed by the side of the road. When he did, he felt his legs become paralyzed; they would never allow him to stand up again. He curled his legs underneath him and lay on his side, gently placing his head on the snow. Closing his eyes, he envisioned his mother's tender face before him. It became eerily silent around him, except for the soft crunching of the snow of those who were still walking past.

Suddenly he heard boots crunching on the icy snow toward him. Suti opened his eyes.

A rifle-toting SS guard was stomping in his direction. Although Suti realized he was coming to shoot him, he felt he couldn't and didn't want to move. The SS guard came up to within a few inches of Suti, looked directly down at him, and kicked him.

"March! You are too young to die!" the guard shouted.

Suti didn't know where the strength came from or why the SS guard didn't shoot him, but he jumped up and started running.

H
EDY REALIZED SHE HAD
to be at the front of the next group of women leaving the camp -the one that was directly after her sister's group. They began their march an hour later in the bitter, January cold.

Please God, she prayed, let me find Aliz. I can't survive without her. She repeated these few lines of her prayer over and over again until her senses became inured to the cold and the pain.

After about a dozen kilometres, the winter light diminished and they were ordered into an enormous barn for the night. There, Hedy's heart jumped as she saw some women from the previous group. Aliz must be here, Hedy decided. Determined as ever, she made her way through the groups of women as they lay on top of straw bundles, numb from the day of walking and the freezing cold. On the upper level of the barn, on one of the furthest straw piles, Hedy was overwhelmed to find her sleeping sister. She crawled in next to her, wrapped her arms around her, and cried herself to sleep, grateful to have found her sibling, and feeling like a whole person once again.

A
FTER WHAT SEEMED LIKE
an endless two to three days of marching, stopping at barns to rest a few hours, they ended up at a railway station where they were unexpectedly ordered into boxcars. No one knew where they were heading. Occasionally, the doors were opened and they were handed some containers of water or a watered-down version of soup. The train stood for hours without movement. Then it moved for an hour or so, then was halted again. This went on for days. Suti was sure that even the commanders of this death march didn't have any idea where they were going anymore. The fighting was moving closer, and they frequently heard bomber aircraft flying overhead.

At one point during the journey while the train was standing for hours at a station in the town of Tichau, Russian planes flew overhead and riddled the train with machine-gun fire.

Crammed in as they were for hours on end, Suti was standing next to and occasionally talking with a Jewish boy named Walter from Prague when the shooting began. His friend fell silent. Suti spoke to him, but he didn't answer. Walter had been hit by a single gunshot to the head. No blood came out from his head - the pumping of his heart stopped immediately. Shortly afterward, the authorities simply opened up the boxcars and the dead bodies were thrown out.

When the transport arrived to the train station closest to Mauthausen in Austria, they were taken by trucks up a hill to the concentration camp. The relatively short (three-hundred-kilometre) journey by foot and by train took thirteen days (from the eighteenth to the thirtieth of January).

Emaciated, with practically nothing to eat during the two-week journey, Suti felt frozen right down to the marrow of his bones. As soon as they arrived, they were sent to the showers. Suti was certain he knew what this meant. The only time groups of prisoners were sent to the showers at Auschwitz-Birkenau was to be gassed. But, by this time, he didn't have the strength to even think about death. Resigned to his fate, he followed along as they were herded into the showers.

To their disbelief and surprise, though, it wasn't gas that came out of the shower heads, but water. Warm refreshing water! After the nightmare of their journey, the warmth of the water revived their chilled bodies and they started to feel somewhat human again. Awestruck, they could hardly believe this strange and unexpected twist of fate as they received clean, disinfected clothing and were assigned to their barracks.

In Mauthausen, the blocks were built differently from Auschwitz-Birkenau. Wing A and Wing B were in the same building - the same block but on different ends - the block altester and block schreiber were in the centre of the block.

The block altester assembled everyone twice daily for
zehl appel
. On the A side, the block altester wanted a certain round number. If it happened to be two hundred, and there were 195 already assembled, he would yell over to the B side and get the missing number of inmates to come over. The numbers had to be consistent, at least on the A side.

On this particular day, five men were called over - and ran over from B to A. Among them, Suti, stunned, recognized his father, Vilmos. He was much thinner and seemed much older than the last time he had seen him. Overcome by the emotion of seeing his father again, Suti yelled. Vilmos froze, reaching out his arms, before even seeing where the familiar voice was coming from.

"My son, my son, I've found my son!" Vilmos cried out.

Just then an SS guard wandered by and noticed the silence of the assembled group. He looked at Vilmos, who explained again, without any hesitation, that he had found his son.

The astonishing reply of the SS guard: "Well, go and hug your son."

Vilmos and Suti embraced in a tearful reunion that touched all the assembled. As Suti put his arms around his father, he realized he could feel his ribs. Still, it was amazing to be reunited with him again.

Vilmos and Suti remained in Mauthausen together, spending their days completely occupied with the constant gnawing feeling of hunger in their stomachs. The other activity was the never-ending task of removing lice from their bodies and clothes.

On March 12, 1945, less than two months before the collapse of the Third Reich, the last constructed concentration camp, Gunskirchen, was opened. That same day was Suti's fifteenth birthday. Gunskirchen was built from the logs cleared right out of the forest. Built because of the overcrowding at Mauthausen, Gunskirchen consisted of six or seven huge hangar-type structures assembled out of the freshly cut tree trunks. Long and wide, each hangar had a few doors but no windows. The floors were hardened mud. Suti and Vilmos, both suffering from typhus, were herded into one of these hangars. There were two or three thousand men in each hangar with barely room to sit or lie down.

On the last day before they were liberated in early May, an SS guard came into their hangar and tried to get their attention. By this time the inmates sensed that changes were imminent - there was a lot of noise in the hangar and they barely paid attention to the guard. The SS guard took out his revolver, pointed it at the inmate sitting directly next to Suti, and shot him in the forehead, killing him instantly. Bits of blood and brain spattered onto everyone around him, including Suti. The killing silenced everyone. Then the guard yelled something unintelligible and left. The next day all the guards simply vanished.