Spark of Life (20 page)

“If they do search, they’ll search everyone,” said Werner.

“No, not us who slacked. And there are also a few more who collapsed on the road. Stick the things into my shirt.”

Werner exchanged a glance with Lewinsky. “Don’t worry, Goldstein. We’ll get through all right.”

“No, give them to me.”

Neither of them answered.

“It doesn’t matter much if I’m caught. For you it’s different.”

“Rot!”

“It has nothing to do with self-sacrifice or talking big,” said Goldstein with a distorted smile. “It’s just more practical. I won’t last much longer anyhow.”

“We’ll see about all that in time,” answered Werner. “We’ve still almost an hour to go. When we get to the camp you’ll move back into your former line. If anything happens we’ll give you the things. You’ll pass them on immediately to Muenzer. To Muenzer, you understand?”

“Yes.”

A woman on a bicycle passed by. She was fat and wore spectacles and had a cardboard box in front of her on the handle bars. She looked aside. She did not want to see the prisoners.

Lewinsky glanced up and then stared ahead. “Look,” he said. “Over there. That isn’t the tree-felling gang.”

The black mass in front of them had come closer. The labor gang wasn’t catching up with them, but the others were coming toward them. Now they could also see that it was a long line of people who were not marching in an orderly column.

“A new batch?” asked someone behind Lewinsky. “Or is it a transport?”

“No. There aren’t any SS with them. And they’re not marching in the direction of the camp. These are civilians.”

“Civilians?”

“You can see that for yourself. They’re wearing hats. And there are women among them. Children, too. Lots of children.”

Now they could be seen clearly. The two columns were fast approaching one another. “Pull into the right!” shouted the SS. “Hard to the right! The right outer line into the ditch! Get on!”

The guards ran along the column of prisoners. “Right! Move! To the right! Keep the left of the road clear! Anyone falling out of line will be shot!”

“These are bombed-out people,” Werner said suddenly under his breath. “They’re from the town. Refugees.”

“Refugees?”

“Refugees,” repeated Werner.

“I believe you’re right!” Lewinsky screwed up his eyes. “These are actually refugees. But German refugees.”

The word ran in whispers through the column. Refugees! German refugees!
Des réfugiés allemands
. It seemed unbelievable, but it was true: after years of victories in Europe and driving people before them, they now had to flee in their own country.

There were women and children and older men. They carried packages, bags and suitcases. Some had small pushcarts on which they had loaded their luggage. They walked out of step and sullenly behind one another.

The two columns were now quite close. It grew suddenly very quiet. All that could be heard was the scraping of feet on the highway. And without a word being said the prisoners’ column suddenly began to change. They had not communicated with one another by so much as a glance; but it was as though someone had shouted a soundless order over the heads of these dead-tired, emaciated, half-starved men, as though a spark had inflamed their blood,
roused their brain and pulled their nerves and muscles together. The stumbling column began to march. Feet were lifted, heads raised higher, faces became harder and there was life in the eyes.

“Let me go,” said Goldstein.

“Nonsense!”

“Let me go! Just till these have passed!”

They let him go. He reeled, clenched his teeth and recovered. Lewinsky and Werner pressed their shoulders against his, but they didn’t need to hold him up. He walked, pressed close between them, alone, his head thrown back, breathing heavily, but he walked alone.

The shuffling of the prisoners had now changed into something like a regular step. A division of Belgians and French and a small group of Poles was among them. They, too, marched with them.

The columns had reached one another. The Germans were on their way to outlying villages. They had no train connections because the railroad station was destroyed, and they therefore had to walk. A few civilians with SA arm bands directed the column. The women were tired. A few children cried. The men stared ahead of them.

“This is how we fled from Warsaw,” whispered a Pole behind Lewinsky.

“And we from Liége,” answered a Belgian.

“And we from Paris.”

“No, it was worse. Much worse. They chased us very differently.”

They had hardly any feeling of revenge. Nor hatred, either. Women and children were everywhere the same, and as a rule it was more often the innocent than the guilty who were hit by disaster. Among this tired crowd there were no doubt many who had neither consciously intended evil nor indeed done anything to justify their fate. It wasn’t this the prisoners felt. It was something quite different. It had nothing to do with the individual person;
nor had it much to do with the town; nor even much with the country or the nation. It was rather something like the feeling of an enormous impersonal justice that sprang up the moment the two columns passed one another. A world crime had been committed and almost succeeded; the laws of humanity had been overthrown and almost trampled to death; the law of life had been spat upon, whipped and shot to pieces; robbery had been made legal, murder worthy of reward, terror had become law—and now, suddenly, in this breathless moment, four hundred victims of arbitrary power felt it was enough—that a voice had spoken and that the pendulum of time was swinging back. They sensed that it was not only countries and nations that would be saved; it was the law of life itself. It was that for which many names existed—and one of them, the oldest and simplest, was God. And that meant: Man.

The refugee column had now passed the prisoners’ column. For a few minutes it had looked as though the refugees were the prisoners, and the prisoners free. Two open vans drawn by gray horses and filled with luggage formed the rear of the column. The SS ran nervously up and down the prisoners’ column on the lookout for some kind of sign, some word. Nothing happened. The column continued silently to march on, and soon the feet began shuffling again, the tiredness returned and once more Goldstein had to place his arms around the shoulders of Lewinsky and Werner—and yet, when the black-red barriers of the camp entrance appeared, with its iron gate adorned by the old Prussian motto
To Each His Own
, everyone suddenly saw these words, which for years had been a terrible mockery, with new eyes.

The camp band was waiting at the gate. It played the Fridericus Rex March. Behind it stood a number of SS-men and the second camp leader. The prisoners began to march.

“Legs high! Eyes right!”

The tree-felling gang had not yet arrived.

“Halt! Number!”

They numbered off. Lewinsky and Werner watched the second camp leader. He rocked from the knees and yelled: “Body inspection! First group, step out!”

With cautious movements the wrapped weapon parts were slipped backwards into Goldstein’s hands. Lewinsky suddenly felt the sweat pouring down his body.

SS Squad Leader Guenther Steinbrenner, keeping watch like a sheep dog, had noticed a movement somewhere. Striking out with his fists, he forced his way through to Goldstein. Werner compressed his lips. If the things had not reached Muenzer or Remne by now, all was lost.

Before Steinbrenner got to him, Goldstein fell down. Steinbrenner gave him a kick in the ribs. “Get up, you dirty cur!”

Goldstein made an effort. He got to his knees, raised himself, moaned, suddenly foamed at the mouth and collapsed.

Steinbrenner saw the gray face and the rolling eyes. He gave Goldstein another kick and deliberated whether he should hold a burning match under his nose in order to bring him to. But then he remembered that a short while ago he had boxed a dead man’s ears and made a fool of himself in the eyes of his comrades; that sort of thing mustn’t be allowed to happen a second time. He stepped back, growling.

“What?” the second camp leader asked the gang leader in a bored tone. “Aren’t these the ones from the munitions factory?”

“No. This is only the clearing gang.”

“Oh, I see. Then where are the others?”

“Just coming up the hill,” said the gang leader.

“Well, all right. Then make room. These blockheads here don’t have to be inspected. Buzz off!”

“First group, to the rear! On the double!” ordered the gang leader. “Attention! Left turn! March!”

Goldstein got up. He staggered, but he succeeded in staying with the group.

“Did you throw it away?” asked Werner almost soundlessly as Goldstein’s head was close to his.

“No.”

Werner’s face relaxed. “Certain?”

“Yes.”

They marched in. The SS no longer paid any attention to them. Behind them stood the column from the munitions factory. They were being thoroughly searched.

“Who has it?” asked Werner. “Remne?”

“I have,” Goldstein said.

They marched to the roll-call ground and took up positions.

“What would have happened if you hadn’t got up again?” asked Lewinsky. “How could we have taken it from you without anyone seeing?”

“I’d have gotten up in any case.”

“How?”

Goldstein smiled. “I wanted to be an actor once.”

“You faked that?”

“Not all of it. The last part.”

“The foaming at the mouth, too?”

“Those are school tricks.”

“All the same, you should have handed it on. Why not? Why did you keep it?”

“I explained that to you before.”

“Look out,” whispered Werner. “SS coming.”

They stood at attention.

THE TRANSPORT ARRIVED
in the afternoon. About fifteen hundred men dragged themselves up the hill. Among them were fewer invalids than might have been expected. Whoever had broken down on the long road had been promptly shot.

It was a long time before the men were admitted. The accompanying SS who handed them over tried to smuggle in a few dozen dead whom they had forgotten to deduct. The bureaucracy of the camp, however, was on its guard; they had every single body presented to them, living or dead, and accepted only those who had passed the entrance gate alive. This caused an incident from which the SS derived great pleasure. While the transport was standing before the gate, a few more people had caved in. Their comrades tried to drag them along, but the SS gave the order to double march and they had to leave a number of invalids to their fate. About two dozen lay there, strewn over the last two hundred yards of the road. They cawed and gasped and squeaked like wounded birds or just lay there with frightened, wide-open eyes, too weak to scream. They knew what to expect if they remained behind; during
the march they had heard hundreds of their comrades die from a bullet in the neck.

The SS were quick to see the joke. “Look at them begging to get into the concentration camp!” shouted Steinbrenner.

“Go on! Go on!” yelled the SS-men who had delivered the transport.

The prisoners tried to crawl. “Tortoise race!” exulted Steinbrenner. “I’m backing the baldhead in the center!”

On widespread hands and knees the baldhead crept forward over the glistening asphalt like an exhausted frog. He passed another prisoner whose arms kept doubling up and who continued painfully to raise himself without moving any further. Every crawling man held his head stretched out in a peculiar way—pressing towards the gate of rescue and at the same time listening in dread for the sound of bullets behind him.

“Go on, forward, baldhead!”

The SS formed a double line. Suddenly two shots rang out in the rear. They had been fired by an SS squad leader belonging to the escort. Grinning, he stuck his revolver back in its holster. He had only fired into the air.

The shots, however, had struck mortal fear into the prisoners. They thought the two furthest in the rear had been shot. In their panic they made less headway than before. One man gave up; he stretched out his arms and folded his hands. His lips prayed and great beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. A second one lay down, quiet and resigned, his face in his hands. He lay down to die and then didn’t move any more.

“Sixty seconds to go!” shouted Steinbrenner. “One minute! In one minute the gate to paradise will be closed! Whoever is not in by then has to stay outside!”

He glanced at his wrist watch and moved the gate as though about to close it. A moan from the human insects answered. The SS
squad leader of the escort fired another shot. The crawling became more desperate. Only the man with his face in his hands didn’t move. He had given up.

“Hurrah!” shouted Steinbrenner. “My baldhead has made it!”

He gave the man an encouraging kick in the behind. At the same time a few others had passed through the gate, but more than half of them were still outside.

“Thirty seconds to go!” shouted Steinbrenner in the tone of a radio time-announcer.

The rustling and scraping and wailing increased. Two men lay helplessly on the road striking out with their arms as though about to swim. They no longer had the strength to get up. One of them cried in a high falsetto.