The Dentist Of Auschwitz (20 page)

The doors rolled open and startled us with loud bangs. “Raus! Alle raus! Alles liegen lassen!” (Out! All out! Leave everything!), the SS shouted. The cement platform was crowded with SS men, yelling and waving us impatiently out of the wagon. “Raus!” they yelled, as their dogs growled, showing menacing teeth. The word
Auschwitz
hung like a bad omen in the air. The impact shocked us. It was a ghastly sound that no one repeated. We knew that that word stood for selections and death. We knew that in Auschwitz Jews were turned to ashes. Their net was closing around us.

People began to pray. “Shma Israel Adonoi Eloheino Adonoi Aikhod. God is one. God is mighty.”

“Raus! Raus! Alle raus!” they yelled with guns in hand. After being locked in the wagons for days, we had enormous difficulty in leaving the car while in a panic. Our limbs had molded to the mass of men in the cars and would not easily straighten again. “Leave everything on the platform!” the SS yelled. I only had a coat, besides the rags I wore, and I left it, but I held tightly to my life-saving dental tools. Bedlum erupted as SS men tore into us, whipping us for no reason. A whip swung across my body. “Das auch!” a contemptuous SS man shouted.

“These are a few of my dental instruments,” I said, hoping he would allow me to keep them. Without another word he seized the box, snatched it off my shoulder, and flung it to the ground. The treasures that I had carried with me all this time, my fate and that of my father, lay scattered on the cement platform.

More prisoners in their zebra-striped suits gathered, watching us from behind the fence. We were ordered to undress and to leave our clothes on the platform. Carpenters, lawyers, shoemakers, businessmen, students, and professors—we were just plain Jews to our captors. They ordered us into the customary rows of fives. “Rechts schwenk, vorwärts marsch.”

The skies were gray and had a strange look of finality. It was a cool morning, and the stiff breeze blowing across our naked bodies chilled us deeply. We pressed together, and I held on firmly to Papa, realizing that if we were separated we would never find one another. Then the dreaded word “Selekcja!” Polish for “selection,” went like lightning through our lines and sent a bolt of fear through everyone. We knew the apocalypse was near.

We thought we knew all about Auschwitz’s horror, but we were soon to discover how little we actually did know. Each of us had been quietly evaluating his chance of survival. To escape from here, one would have to be Houdini. We had barely taken ten steps forward when our line slowed to a crawl. We now crept forward, stepping on each other’s heels. Some wept, and others tried to muster courage to appear strong and look healthy. Papa and I were several rows away from the bunch of SS men who, with flashlights in hand, were scrutinizing the naked men before them. I knew that each step took us closer to our doom and death, as the rails had predicted. A few more minutes and it will all be over, I surmised.

We were still moving and were soon to meet the group of SS men with the flashlights. One Nazi, who appeared to be the highest-ranking SS officer, wore a spiffy black uniform with a doctor’s badge—a serpent wound around a sword. He was tall and slim, with a dark complexion. His thick black hair was cut short. He left no uncertainty that he was in charge. The procedure seemed well rehearsed. As his assistants paraded a row of prisoners before him, he made mysterious gestures. Only the guards understood, and they quickly executed his orders. A blink of his eyes, a wave of his hand, a twitch of his finger—each held a clue. Some people were ordered right and others left. It soon became apparent that one line seemed more fit than the other.

Two of the five men in the row ahead of us were ordered to join the weaker line. One of them courageously attempted to persuade his judge to let him go with the others. “Look! I am strong,” he said. “I can work. I worked on laying rails for more than two years and did not skip one day.” But an SS man shoved him back in his line. A daily supply of people, demand for labor, and the availability of room in the barracks were equally important factors in determining who lived and who died.

Before our turn, a fellow captive whispered, “Lift your heads. Act strong.” The judges asked the first question of me. What was my age?

“Twenty-three,” I said.

“Occupation?”

“Dentist,” I replied.

They ordered me to the right, to join the healthier-looking group. As I stepped aside, I took my father with me.

“Halt! Nur Du!” (Only you), I heard one shout. I knew that Papa was at their mercy. They asked him his age and occupation.

“Forty-two, farmer,” he said.

My father was forty-nine then. I thought it sounded good.

But “Links!” I heard them order. I saw them push him to the left.

“It’s my father,” I said, begging them to understand.

“Nein, nur Du geh nach rechts. Dein Vater muß nach links gehen.” (No, only you to the right. Your father must go to the left.) They had condemned him to death. I tried to beg for their clemency once more. But I watched in horror as they began to select people in the next line. I was as close to tears as I could ever be in camp. They have just orphaned me, I thought.

Suddenly a commotion erupted as one man tried to escape the platform. He was quickly mowed down by gunfire. In that moment of confusion, I grabbed my father and tried to take him with me. He was frozen with fear and did not move. I tugged sharply and whispered, “Papa! Come with me.” He followed. If we had been caught, it would have been death for both of us.

I still do not understand why none of them noticed me and stopped us. It all happened purely by chance. In writing about this incident I must add that survival, all else aside, was primarily luck. Sometimes more than luck was needed. Sometimes strange things had to happen, as if one’s fate was guided by a mysterious hand.

We stood there, and each minute was an hour long. I felt as if I were standing on hot coals. We could hear praying: “O Lord, have mercy on thy children. We are truly thine and are pure in heart.” But it didn’t help. In the end, the doctors were all powerful. I held on to my father, amazed at what had happened. Seventy-five of us hopeful people were finally led away. The billows of smoke rose from the chimneys as the sky brightened. Our brothers in the other group were also led away, soon to be silenced.

After walking a hundred meters, we were loaded onto trucks and driven along a double fence, passing three-story brick buildings. We saw groups of people marching. Their clothes were dirty, and they wore striped miners’ lamps on their heads. They were on their way to work. I was struck by the paradox: the coal they mined might have been used to move the trains that carried us here. Some looked lifeless, barely dragging their feet. In front of each group walked someone in the same striped clothes wearing a black armband, a Kapo.

This camp did not look like any I had seen before. The outside perimeter was fenced with heavy wire, with barbed wire on top. Along the inside ran what seemed to be an electric line. Perched above in towers were green-uniformed Waffen SS. Their guns pointed into the camp. As we were driven further, we heard an orchestra playing and people singing. “Today Poland. Tomorrow the entire world,” they sang in German. Each refrain had a different verse and mentioned a different country. When the trucks stopped, we heard “We’re marching on England today, and tomorrow on the entire world!”

A sign at the gate read “Stop, high voltage!” Above the gate another sign read “Auschwitz,” and below it, “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work makes you free). We knew it wasn’t meant to be a promise, not even a pledge. The truth was that we were here to work until we died. In front of a small shack a conductor directed thirty musicians. The scene was grotesque. They followed his baton as if they were playing in a symphony orchestra.

Once inside, our truck turned left and stopped in front of one of the huge three-story brick buildings. A smartly dressed SS sergeant took charge of us. “Down,” he shouted, as the rest of the SS began to enforce his order. I looked at my father. He was shivering, and his face was blue. We hoped, but we still didn’t know what would happen to us.

Suddenly someone signaled to me. I looked and saw an inmate waving from the opposite side of a fence. He was staring at my boots. “You’ll have to leave them anyhow. Throw them to me,” he shouted. “I’ll take care of you with some extra food when you get to the camp. I am a Blockkapo,” he added. These were the first words I heard spoken by any prisoner in Auschwitz. It was a Kapo’s introduction.

He wore a clean suit, a dark cap, and the Kapo’s armband. I did not believe him at first. I thought he was only after my boots. But when the Scharführer ordered us to leave behind anything we still might have with us, I yielded to the inevitable. I removed the few photographs that I still had from one of my boots and threw the boots over the fence to him. In the aftermath I realized that I did not know how to find him. As it turned out, it really didn’t matter. We were not allowed to mix with inmates in the main camp anyway.

I looked at my family photographs: my mother, sister, brother, and Aunt Rachel, Uncle Shlomo, and Aunt Sara. Also I looked at the picture of Uncle Izchak, whom everyone said I resembled. There was Uncle Mordechai, Uncle Chaim, cousins Toba, Balcia, Nachme, Josef, Mayer, and Mendel. Finally I looked at my grandfather’s picture for the last time. Much later, when I remembered that August day in 1943, it was as if by my leaving those photographs, my relatives pictured there had also died at Auschwitz. We saw groups of inmates with their heads bowed low, and I decided that someday someone should tell the world what I saw. But, I thought, no epic drama could duplicate the sight that was before me. No one would be able to find such emaciated bodies to re-create the scene.

The morning mist remained. More trucks arrived. One group, also from our train, was from Lenzingen, the camp my brother had been in. They claimed to have seen him before the selection on the platform. Papa and I feared for him.

The Scharführer ordered us into the cell block we were facing. As we entered through a long corridor, we had to pass other SS men. They searched us once more, but this time they made us spread our legs and bend over. Further down the corridor, we walked through brackish fluid that smelled of kerosene or naphtha. Soon we had the same mixture showered on our heads and bodies. “Schnell! Schnell!” they urged. We ran like cornered sheep to avoid the German shepherds. Then we were led to the yard once again.

The sun shone. It had burned off the fog. Naked and wet, we were freezing. Scratches and scrapes on our bodies had reddened from the fluid, and these were painful. Next we were ordered into another building that had a sign: “Brause” (shower), which we feared most. The terrible word staring us in the face startled us. We are not safe, I thought. We are in their concealed gas chamber. “Los machen!” they yelled, and we were pushed in the door from all sides. The large metal door locked behind us with a clang. We were in a large hall. We saw the shower heads hanging down. The prisoners who were already there stood praying, perhaps for all of us. We heard another clang, and all became quiet. My father’s eyes were fixed on me. He was thinking, like me, that this might be our last moment together. My heart raced. Light rings swirled in front of my eyes. For kilometers and days the train wheels had warned me of doom and death. That promise was about to come true. I closed my eyes and stopped breathing, fearing that the deadly gas would shower down on us at any minute. A passive silence persisted.

Suddenly I felt a trickle of water. I didn’t dare to look up, afraid the miracle would stop. When I looked around, I saw that we were all still on our feet—alive. Soon the water flowed steadily, and it did not smell or taste odd. I gulped down a mouthful. Water had never tasted so good or meant as much to me. With a burst of relief, we all felt that a new life had been given to us. It was our only happy moment in Auschwitz. For Papa and me, this was the second miracle of the day.

When the water stopped, an inmate nearby said he had seen my brother in the hall. The man took me by the hand, and we both elbowed our way through the mass of wet bodies until we saw Josek. We looked at each other in disbelief. It was a third miracle! We returned to Papa, who was happy to be reunited with both his sons. Josek looked considerably thinner than he had when I had last seen him. His eyes were sunken, and he slouched. His health was delicate. This was not an asset in any camp. Now that we had found one another, we vowed to stay together no matter what.

As the doors opened, we were ordered into the next room, a large hall that was now a makeshift barbershop. It was full of inmates sitting on benches. The barbers were also inmates, but they wore clean, striped prison uniforms. They had crew cuts. “Sit. Stand. Turn around.” Each of the eight barbers ordered inmates about. I overheard one man telling of an episode he had witnessed at the railroad station. He was from Vienna, and he said he saw a man about forty-five years old tell an SS officer that he had been arrested by mistake. “I fought in the First World War for Austria and lost both my legs. I am exempt from any deportation,” the man had argued. He showed the officer his Iron Cross and his documents. The SS man, however, ripped them out of his hand and shredded them. Then he pushed the crippled man in front of an oncoming train. Another witness corroborated this story. “We all gasped,” the storyteller continued, “as the train crushed him.”

My turn came, and the barber began to clip me bald. He shook his head, pondering why so many of us managed to get in alive. “Auschwitz is full. You were lucky to escape the chimney.” Inmates used the word
chimney
as a metaphor for being gassed and cremated.
Konzentrationslager,
the word for concentration camp, was difficult to pronounce, so they called it KZ. “Only if there is a demand for workers does Dr. Mengele pass Jews into camp,” the barber said, adding, “At times they are short of gas.”

I told him that most of us were veterans of other camps, having spent as much as two years in labor camps near Poznan, where we worked building railroad tracks. Perhaps that had helped us escape death.