Spark of Life (23 page)

It was a difficult decision. Meyer was right. Should they do any sifting and not find enough new ones, it was perfectly possible that the quota would be filled up with people from the Small camp; all the more so since the new ones were not so run down as the others.

They were silent for a long time. “They don’t concern us,” said Meyer at last. “We’ve got to fend for ourselves first.”

Berger rubbed his inflamed eyes. 509 tugged at his jacket. Ahasver turned round toward Meyer. The pale light glittered in his eyes. “If they don’t concern us,” he said slowly, “then we won’t concern anyone, either.”

Berger raised his head. “You’re right.”

Ahasver leaned calmly against the wall and didn’t answer. His old emaciated skull with the deep-sunk eyes seemed to be seeing something no one else saw. “We’ll tell these two here about it,” declared Berger. “They can warn the others. We can’t do any more. After all, we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Karel came over from the barracks. “One is dead.”

509 stood up. “Come, we’ll carry him out.” He turned to Ahasver. “And then you stay in and go to sleep, old man.”

THE BLOCKS STOOD
lined up on the roll-call ground of the Small camp. Squad Leader Niemann rocked comfortably to and fro from his knees. He was a man of about thirty, with a narrow face, small protruding ears and a receding chin. His hair was sand-colored and he wore rimless glasses. Without his uniform one would have taken him for a typical little office clerk. This was what he had actually been before he had joined the SS and become a man.

“Attention!” Niemann had a high, rather squeaky voice. “New transport, step out! On the double!”

“Look out!” muttered 509 to Sulzbacher. “Look out!”

A double line formed up in front of Niemann. “Sick and invalids out to the right!” he commanded.

The line stirred, but no one stepped to the side. The men were suspicious; they had experienced similar things before.

“On! Come on! Anyone wanting to report to the medic or have his wounds dressed, out to the right!”

Hesitatingly, several prisoners stepped to the side. Niemann
walked over to them. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked the first one.

“Sore feet and a broken toe, Herr Squad Leader.”

“And you?”

“Double rupture of the groin, Herr Squad Leader.”

Niemann went on questioning. Then he sent two men back. This was a trick to deceive the prisoners and make them feel safe. It worked. Immediately a number of new ones reported. Niemann nodded casually. “Heart cases step forward! Men who are unfit for hard work but can still darn stockings and cut up shoes.”

Again several men reported. Niemann had now collected about thirty men and realized he wouldn’t get any more. “You others seem to be in excellent shape!” he barked angrily. “We’ll just make sure of that! Right turn! On the double!”

The double line ran round the roll-call ground. Panting heavily, they ran past the other inmates who were standing at attention and each knew that he, too, was in danger. It was possible that should one of them collapse, Niemann wouldn’t hesitate to seize him as an addition. Besides, no one could be sure he wouldn’t deal with the old ones separately.

The runners passed by for the sixth time. They were already stumbling; but they had understood they were not being made to run in order to discover whether they were unfit for heavy work. They were running for their lives. Their faces dripped with sweat, and in their eyes was the desperate, knowing fear of death which no animal, only man, can feel.

Now those who had reported first also realized what was happening. They became alarmed. Two of them tried to join the line of the runners. Niemann saw it. “Back with you! Over there!”

They didn’t listen to him. Deaf from fear, they started to run. They wore wooden shoes which they immediately lost. With bare, bleeding feet they ran on; they had not been given any socks the
night before. Niemann didn’t take his eyes off them. For a while they ran along with the others. Then, gradually, when a greedy hope that they had escaped began to show in their disfigured faces, Niemann calmly walked a few steps ahead and as they stumbled close past him, he tripped them up. They fell and tried to get up. With two kicks he knocked them down again. They tried to crawl. “Get up!” he shouted in his squeaky tenor. “Over there!” They obeyed.

All this time Niemann’s back had been turned to Barrack 22. The fatal merry-go-round had continued to run. Four more men had collapsed. They lay on the ground. Two were unconscious. One of them wore a Hussar’s uniform which he had been given the previous evening; the other one a woman’s chemise with cheap lace under a kind of shortened caftan. The chamber kapo had used his sense of humor in distributing the garments from Auschwitz. There were still a few dozen other men dressed as though for a carnival.

509 had noticed Rosen stumble on, half doubled up, and then remain behind. He knew that in a few seconds he would be completely exhausted and collapse. It doesn’t concern me, he thought, it doesn’t. I won’t do anything stupid. Each man must fend for himself. Once more the lines passed close to the barracks. 509 saw that Rosen was now the last. Quickly he looked at Niemann, who still had his back turned to the barracks, and then he glanced further round. None of the barrack seniors took any notice of him. Everyone had his eyes on the two whom Niemann had tripped up. Handke, craning his neck, had even taken a step forward. 509 seized Rosen by the arm as he staggered past, pulled him close and pushed him back through the line.

“Quick! Get through! Into the barrack! Hide!”

He heard Rosen panting behind him and out of the corner of his eye saw something like a movement, then he heard the panting no
more. Niemann had seen nothing. He still hadn’t turned around. Handke hadn’t noticed anything, either. 509 knew that the door to the barrack stood open. He hoped Rosen had understood him. And he hoped that Rosen, should he be caught in spite of everything, would not betray him. He must know that he would be lost anyhow. The newcomers had not been counted by Niemann, so he now had a chance. 509 felt that his knees trembled and that his throat was going dry. The blood suddenly roared in his ears.

He glanced cautiously towards Berger. Motionless, Berger was watching the running crowd in which more and more people broke down. His strained face showed that he had seen everything. Then 509 heard Lebenthal whisper behind him. “He’s inside.” The trembling in his knees grew stronger. He had to lean against Bucher.

The wooden shoes which had been given to a number of newcomers lay strewn all over the place. Unaccustomed to wearing them, the men had lost them. Only two continued desperately to clatter on in them. Niemann wiped his glasses; they had grown dim. It was a result of the warmth he felt while watching the terror of death among the prisoners as they collapsed, dragged themselves up again, collapsed, dragged themselves up and staggered on. It was a warmth in the stomach and behind the eyes. He had felt it for the first time in 1934 when he had killed his first Jew. He hadn’t actually intended to do it; but then it had come over him. He had always been a depressed, scared person and at first he had almost been afraid to fall upon the Jew. But when he saw him crawling before him on the ground, begging for his life, he had suddenly felt himself becoming someone else, stronger, more powerful; he had felt his blood, the horizon had widened, the demolished bourgeois four-room apartment of the small Jewish clothes dealer with its green reps furniture had changed into the Asiatic desert of Ghengis Khan; the clerk Niemann had suddenly become master over life and death, power had been there, omnipotence, a
wild intoxication that spread in him and rose higher until the first blow on the softly yielding skull with its sparse, dyed hair came all by itself.… “Division, halt!”

The prisoners could hardly believe it. They had expected to be forced to keep on running till they died. Like an eclipse of the sun the barracks, the ground and the people whirled around before them. They held onto one another. Niemann put on his clean glasses again. He was suddenly in a hurry. “Bring the corpses over here!”

They stared at him. So far there hadn’t been any corpses. “The ones who collapsed,” he corrected himself. “Those who broke down.”

They staggered over and seized the prone men by their arms and legs. A whole pile of them lay to one side. They had dropped there, one on top of the other. Amidst the confusion 509 saw Sulzbacher. He was standing, protected by others in front of him, kicking a man on the ground in the shin and pulling him by the hair and ears. Then he bent down and hauled him to his knees. Unconscious, the man fell back. Sulzbacher kicked him again, placed his hands under his arms and tried to lift him up. He didn’t succeed. Now he beat desperately with his fists at the unconscious man until a kapo pushed him aside. Sulzbacher forced his way back again. The kapo gave him a kick. He thought Sulzbacher had a grudge against the unconscious man and wanted to vent his rage upon him. “You damned bastard!” he growled. “Let him alone. He’ll kick off anyhow.”

The kapo Strohschneider appeared with the flat truck on which the corpses were usually driven away through the gate in the barbed wire. The engine rattled like a machine gun. Strohschneider drove up to the pile. Those who had broken down were loaded on. A few still made efforts to escape. They had regained consciousness. But now Niemann was on the lookout; he let no one get away.
“Anyone not belonging here—fall out!” he shouted. “Those who reported sick, load on the rest!”

The men dashed off into the barracks as fast as they could. The unconscious ones were loaded on. Then Strohschneider stepped on the gas. He drove so slowly that those who had reported sick could follow on foot. Niemann walked at their side. “Your troubles have now come to an end,” he told his victims in a changed, almost friendly voice.

“Where are they being taken to?” asked one of the newcomers in Barrack 22.

“Probably to Block 46.”

“What happens there?”

“I don’t know,” answered 509. He didn’t want to mention what was common knowledge in the camp—that Niemann kept a can of gas and a few syringes for injections in one room of the experimental Block 46, and that none of the prisoners would return. In the evening Strohschneider would take them to the crematorium.

“Why did you give that man such a beating?” 509 asked Sulzbacher.

Sulzbacher looked at him and didn’t answer. He choked, as though he had to swallow a wad of cotton, and then went away. “It was his brother,” said Rosen.

Sulzbacher vomited, but out of his mouth came nothing but a trickle of greenish gastric juice.

“Well, I’ll be damned! Still here? Looks like they forgot about you, what?”

Handke stood in front of 509 and slowly looked him over from head to foot. It was at the time of the evening roll call. The blocks had lined up outside. “You were supposed to have been booked. Must go and inquire about it.”

He swayed to and fro on his heels and stared at 509 from light-blue, protruding eyes. 509 stood very still. “What?” asked Handke.

509 didn’t answer. It would have been madness to irritate the block senior in any way. Silence was always best. All he could hope for was that Handke would once more forget the incident or didn’t mean it seriously. Handke grinned. His teeth were yellow and spotted. “What?” he repeated.

“The number was taken down at the time,” said Berger quietly.

“So?” Handke turned toward him. “Are you sure of that?”

“Yes. Squad Leader Schulte made a note of it. I saw it.”

“In the dark? Well, in that case everything’s fine.” Handke was still swaying. “Then it’s okay for me to go and inquire about it. Won’t do any harm then, what?”

No one answered. “You can feed first,” Handke declared affably. “Supper. No point in asking the block leader about you. I’ll go straight to the proper place, you bastard.” He looked around. “Attention!” he snorted then.

Bolte arrived. As usual he was in a hurry. For two hours he had been losing at poker and had just struck a lucky streak. With a bored expression he glanced over the dead and went off as soon as he could. Handke stayed. He sent the food carriers to the kitchen and strolled over to the barbed-wire fence separating the women’s barracks from the Small camp. There he stood still and looked over.

“Let’s go into the barrack,” said Berger. “Someone can stay outside and watch him.”

“I will,” declared Sulzbacher.

“Let us know when he goes away. Immediately!”

The Veterans squatted in the barrack. It was better not to be seen by Handke. “What shall we do?” asked Berger, worried. “Think that swine really means business?”

“Maybe he’ll forget it again. It looks as though he were stir-crazy. If only we had some schnapps to make him tight!”

“Schnapps!” Lebenthal spat out. “Impossible! Utterly impossible!”

“Maybe he was only joking,” said 509. He didn’t quite believe it; but such things had frequently occurred in the camp. The SS were masters at keeping people in a permanent state of fear. More than one hadn’t been able to stand it. Some had run into the barbed wire; in other cases, the heart had finally given out.