The Runaway Family (11 page)

“You can and you must!” insisted Kurt. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.” He looked across at his old friend, and took in his emaciated state. They had all lost weight, the meagre diet and hard physical work had ensured that, but he saw now that Rudy was in a worse state than the rest of them. The flesh had fallen away from his face, so that his skull seemed to strain through the parchment of his skin. His arms and legs, poking from under his camp overalls, looked skeletal in the harsh light of the lamp. But it was his eyes that told Kurt that Rudy was right. There was nothing in his eyes, sunk into the hollows of his face, but a blank stare; the life had gone out of his eyes.

“It’s all right for you,” Rudy said. “Most of the time I can’t even see where I’m going. They shout ‘Tempo! Tempo! Los! Los!’ and I don’t know which way to run.”

The next day he was detailed to break up the concrete blocks from one of the demolished buildings. Swinging the heavy hammer was beyond him, and one of the guards, a sadistic bully called Schuller, grabbed the sledgehammer from Rudy’s grasp and swung it himself, smashing it down onto Rudy’s legs. With an agonised scream, Rudy collapsed, his legs useless beneath him. Blood streamed, soaking through his grubby white overalls, as he writhed on the ground with pain.

Schuller looked down at him dispassionately and said, “That is how you swing a sledgehammer.” He looked round the rest of the crew. “Why aren’t you working?” he bawled. “Does anyone else want a demonstration?” The rest of the detail turned away from Rudy, trying to close their ears to his agonised cries. Schuller looked down at him with contempt and then pointed to the man nearest to him. “You! You take him back to his hut. On the double! You’ve five minutes to be back here!”

It was Kleiber whom he’d chosen. Kleiber dropped his hammer and bent to Rudy. There was no way he could carry him without subjecting him to further agony, so he simply picked him up and hoisted him over his shoulder, his smashed legs dangling behind, his blood pouring onto the gravel. Kleiber took him back towards the ranks of huts with Schuller’s bellow of “Tempo! Tempo!” echoing in his ears. When he reached the hut he laid Rudy on his bunk. He was no longer screaming, he had passed out with the pain. Kleiber tried to straighten the damaged legs, but he could see that Rudy would never walk again.

“Poor bugger! Better off unconscious,” Kleiber muttered as he looked down at the motionless body. “Better off dead, now.”

When they returned to the hut at the end of the day, they found Rudy was indeed dead. His bed was soaked in blood, his pale face a mask of agony.

Kleiber told them what had happened. “Nothing we could have done for him, poor bugger,” he said. “He was a goner as soon as that bastard Schuller raised the sledge.”

Kurt looked down at the man whom he’d known all his life. Rudy, the teacher that all the children had loved, lying in a pool of blood with his legs smashed.

“What happens to him now?” he asked Kleiber.

“We take him out to roll call,” replied Kleiber. “Now!”

“We what?” Kurt was incredulous.

“He’s not reported dead yet, is he?” Kleiber sounded weary. “If he’s not on parade the numbers won’t tally and we’ll all be out there all night. Remember last week?”

How could they forget it? For some reason the numbers at evening roll call had been out and the entire camp had stood there for six hours under the glare of the searchlights before being allowed to crawl back to their huts for a couple of hours’ sleep before reveille.

“He’s your mate, you can carry him,” ordered Kleiber, and Kurt and Martin lifted the now stiffening body of Rudy Stein and solemnly carried him out onto the parade ground to be counted. By the next evening Rudy’s body had been disposed of, and his bunk, scrubbed for an hour by Manfred to remove the blood, had been taken by a new prisoner.

That night Kurt lay on his bunk and thought of home, aching for his beloved Ruth and his children. It was at night that he was at his most wretched. Despite the need for sleep, he found that he lay awake, in dread of what the following day would bring. Would he even survive it, or would he, like Rudy, be murdered by one of the guards? How long would he be in this hellish place? He had been called to the administration office, and a list of his “crimes” had been read out to him. Joining his local Jewish committee made him a troublemaker. Until it was clear that he had atoned for this, had renounced such action again, he would not be set free. He was sent back to his work detail with the SS officer’s words ringing in his ears.

“We’re watching you, Friedman. You’re an agitator. We’re watching you!”

It was a week later that Martin Rosen disappeared. In the morning he was at roll call, at the end of the day he was not. As the men paraded ready for roll, Kleiber was shouting at them. “Where the fuck is he? Someone must know!” But no one did, and as they lined up for roll, they knew that it would be their hut’s fault that the numbers didn’t tally. The wrath of the SS would come down on them. Pale-faced and rigid with fear, Kleiber’s platoon took their place on the parade ground.

Then a miracle happened. Roll was called but Martin Rosen’s name wasn’t. Incredulous, they were dismissed, and within minutes of returning to the hut, a new prisoner came through the door. Kleiber allotted him Martin Rosen’s bed.

“Where can he be?” Kurt muttered to Manfred as they ate their meagre evening meal. “What’s happened to him?”

“Daren’t even think about it, after what happened to poor Rudy,” Manfred said, scraping his bowl with his fingers to scoop up the last drop of the slop that had been in it.

Klaus Herman, another in their hut, looked across from where he sat. “He was in our work party this morning,” he said. “He was called to Nero’s office. Haven’t seen him since.”

Kurt gave an involuntary shudder. Nero was the prisoners’ name for the commandant. A call to his office usually meant some great punishment was about to be administered, usually in front of the full complement of prisoners. It was Oberführer Loritz’s way of reminding them all that they were at his mercy… and that he never showed any. What could Martin have done, he wondered? Was he even now being tortured in the punishment block?

“Whatever’s happened to him, he’s not coming back here,” Kleiber told them. “They’ve filled his bunk!”

What had happened to Martin Rosen remained a mystery, and that mystery was only revealed to Kurt when he too was called to the commandant’s office a few weeks later. He was working in a detail that was digging foundations for the new huts. It was backbreaking work, and was carried on with little respite, though the winter weather had made the ground rock-hard. They had stopped for the half-hour allowed for their midday meal when Kurt had received the summons. He stood up shakily. His legs felt like jelly, but he managed to walk across to the gate which led from the compound to the administrative block. He was taken to a cell, and told to stand to attention while he waited to be called. He stood, stiff and still for over an hour, wondering why he had been called. Trying to remember anything that he had done… or not done… that might have earned him a stint in the punishment block, but he could think of nothing. Not that that mattered to the SS. There didn’t have to be a reason for them to punish you, they simply did it because they felt like it, because they enjoyed it. These thoughts were no comfort to Kurt as he stood, still to attention, waiting.

At last the door swung open and at a barked order from an SS corporal he marched out and followed the man along a corridor, through a door into another part of the building, and was finally brought into an office. Here seated behind a large desk sat Oberführer Loritz. He paid no attention to Kurt at all. Simply went on writing something in a large book before him. Kurt waited rigidly to attention, as did his escort, until finally the commandant looked up.

“Who is this?” he demanded and the corporal snapped out a “Heil Hitler” before replying. “Kurt Friedman, sir. Jew.”

“Thank you, Corporal, you may leave us.”

The corporal snapped his heels and saluted again, before leaving the room.

For a long moment the commandant stared at Kurt, and Kurt, terrified of making eye contact, stared at a spot above the Oberführer’s head.

“Friedman,” the commandant said at last. “A Jew. Do you know what we want to do with all Jews, Friedman?”

Kurt hesitated for a moment. Which was the right answer? Yes or no? Which did the commandant want to hear?

“We want to get rid of the lot of you,” Oberführer Loritz answered his own question. “One way or another we want to get rid of the lot of you. Do you understand, Friedman?”

“Yes, sir.” Kurt’s voice was hardly more than a croak.

“Yes, sir,” mimicked the commandant. “I doubt it, Friedman. I doubt it. But you,” he pointed at Kurt with a pudgy finger, “you are lucky. You are going to be given the chance to leave here.”

Kurt’s head began to spin.

“To leave here provided you promise to take you family and leave Germany.” Loritz paused a moment and then went on. “Are you prepared to give that undertaking?”

Kurt gulped for air, enough air to allow him to speak. “Yes, sir.”

“And where would you go? Do you have relations abroad?”

Kurt’s mind continued to spin. He had no relations abroad, his family had lived in Kirnheim all his life, had run the grocery in Gerbergasse for most of it. No, he had no relations outside Germany.

“A cousin in America, sir,” he said, without actually deciding to say it.

Oberführer Loritz sniffed. “America is full of Jews,” he remarked. “It will be their downfall.” His eyes drilled into Kurt. “And this cousin, will he vouch for you?”

“I’m sure he will, sir.”

“And then there is the question of your property here. You own property, I understand.”

“A shop, sir,” replied Kurt, adding when this elicited no comment, “with an apartment above it.”

“Your property would be forfeit of course. You will have no need of it and it can be sold to a good honest German family.” His eyes bored into Kurt. ”And the money will, of course, revert to the state.”

Kurt swallowed. “Of course, sir.” The money might revert to the state, but much more likely to Nero’s bank account.

How would they live if the money paid for his property didn’t come to him? How would he live if he didn’t get out of this hellhole camp? There was only one way to get out of here, one way to get back to his family and try and get them to safety somewhere, and that was to agree to whatever this man said. If Kurt said anything but ‘Yes, sir’ he would be back in the prisoners’ compound and he might never see his family again.

Oberführer Loritz pulled a paper from under the book in which he had been writing, and pushed it across to Kurt. “You will sign this to say you and your family will be out of the country in three weeks, that your property will revert to the state, and that you will never return to Germany again.” He looked up at Kurt. “Do you have title deeds to this shop?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They must be lodged with the Emigration Office in Munich. Within the three weeks.” The commandant held out a pen. “Sign!”

Kurt grasped the proffered pen and signed. He had no chance to read the document he had signed. He had no idea whether he had agreed to any other conditions not stipulated by the commandant, but he knew it was his only chance of freedom, so he took it… and signed.

“One more thing, Friedman,” snapped the Oberführer. “I want to hear no slander about how this camp is run. Prisoners here work hard, but they are well fed, and rewarded for their work.” He paused and his eyes held Kurt’s. “Is that understood, Friedman?”

“Yes, sir, quite understood.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Oberführer Loritz’s voice was ice-cold. “If you are found to be spreading malicious lies about the camp and its staff, you will be arrested and returned here immediately. Immediately! Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Kurt, ready to agree to anything. “Yes, sir, I understand.”

Things moved very quickly after that. He was taken back to the Jourhaus, the building where they had all been registered on the first day, and was given his own clothes back. He changed into them, but they no longer fitted him, hanging off him like a big brother’s cast-offs.

“You look like a scarecrow,” scoffed the SS soldier who oversaw his departure. He picked up Kurt’s wallet and peered into it before handing it back to him. It was exceedingly light. Kurt doubted if he even had the bus fare home, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was to slip out through those fearsome gates and run for his life.

The gates clanged shut, but Kurt didn’t dare run; he walked away from the camp without a backward glance. He knew if he looked back one of the guards would shout at him, drag him back inside, and close those awful gates behind him. He had been allowed to leave, but even as he hurried away, he dreaded hearing his name called. It would be a game to them.

“Halt, Friedman! Where do you think you’re going?” And if he didn’t stop he would be shot in the back. Shot while trying to escape. He’d seen it happen.

Fear crawled over him as he continued to walk away. Surely this hope of release would be withdrawn; surely this was yet another cruel punishment. Let him think he was free and then, as he actually, actually began to believe it, bring him back, back into the nightmare that was Dachau.

Despite his determination to keep walking, Kurt’s panic overtook him and he began to run. Running was easy. Running was what he’d been doing for the past four months, running in the camp had kept him alive, but even as his feet pounded on the road that led to the town of Dachau, he expected the guard dogs to be unleashed, to hear them give tongue, to feel their teeth tear into him. When, daring at last to glance over his shoulder, he realised he was no longer within sight of the camp, and there was no pursuit, he allowed his pace to ease a little, caught his breath and then settled down to a steady jog.

When he got off the bus in Kirnheim, Kurt walked from the bus station, along the familiar streets of his childhood, and turned into Gerbergasse. It was late Monday afternoon, a time when people would normally still be out and about their business, but the street, though not quite deserted, seemed to Kurt abnormally quiet. Then he realised what the difference was. There were no children to be seen. No children playing in the street; no sound of little girls chanting as the skipping rope slapped the pavement, no excited shouts from boys playing football or scuffling in the dust. There was not a child in sight.