The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas (18 page)

Early one morning, as the inmates milled about aimlessly in the courtyard or passed the time in their barrack rooms, an order came over the loudspeaker. Women and children were to assemble by the gate. No transport awaited them, but the announcement was ominous. The camp’s families duly gathered, accompanied by confused fathers who stood with them, and Michel loitered to one side ready to seize any opportunity during this unusual procedure that might divert the attention of the guards.

The cowed, apprehensive crowd listened as an officer made an announcement. Children were to be separated from their parents and bused to orphanages operated by Jewish philanthropists or Quakers. A low moan of anguish went up, and some of the mothers began to scream. A convoy of buses pulled into the courtyard. Men and women who had lost the will to fight for their own lives suddenly rallied and began to struggle with the guards. In the confusion Michel saw that the door to one of the buses was open and unwatched. He made his way towards it, planning to climb aboard and hide among the children. ‘But I was beaten to it by another prisoner who succeeded in doing exactly what I wanted to do. The moment was quickly gone. I was bitterly disappointed by my failure to take the one opportunity of escape that had presented itself.’
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Parents who understood their own fate tried not to pass on the heartbreak to the little ones, even though they feared they would never see them again. Many of the tots clung to their mothers and had to be physically separated. Parents stared at their children as they were herded on to the buses, trying to fix an image to last an eternity. As they drove away an eerie silence fell over the camp.
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That night, Les Milles sank to a new level of misery. Parents lay on their straw mats and sobbed, adding new force to the Siren Song. ‘I remember the sight of children torn from their mothers and fathers as the most emotionally painful of my life. It tears into me.’

Renewed energy came from the unexpected pleasure derived from a friendship with one of the new arrivals. In conversation it came out that the two men were not only from Lodz but had been born in the same hospital on the same day. The coincidence created an instant bond, and Michel was eager to impart the benefit of his experiences in the camp. He told his new friend about his companions from the logging camp, and how they had succumbed to the Siren Song. He explained the seductive nature and danger of the phenomenon, and told the story of the man running to the guillotine. The man listened attentively, visibly impressed by all he heard. He vowed to remain vigilant against the insidious onslaught of hopelessness.

‘At last, I thought, I have found someone. My new friend was a remarkable young man - intelligent, strong, determined to resist unto death. We agreed to stick together and do everything in our power to avoid deportation. And if we were deported we vowed to escape from the train. I felt stronger now, knowing at least I had a friend and ally.’

The men were constant companions for a couple of days, until circumstances separated them little by little. A week passed. Word came from the woman in charge of the Quakers in Marseille, who was a regular visitor, that another deportation was imminent, although no date was given. Michel sought out his friend to warn him. ‘He turned towards me with a vacant stare. He no longer wanted to speak to me. He was gone.’

Feeling more forlorn than ever in the knowledge that he was utterly alone, Michel forced himself once again to plan to avoid the next transport. The passageway, risky and difficult as it was to reach, and horribly uncomfortable on arrival, still seemed to be the only hiding place. But he wanted to lessen the risk of being spotted as he jumped from the barracks window to the roof of the shack, and needed to pick his time carefully. ‘If only I had known exactly when the transport would arrive!

‘One morning I had a strange feeling deep in my belly that this was the day.’ He walked to the window and looked down at the shack. It was early, and there were few people about - the timing was perfect.’ “Okay,” I said to myself, “this is the moment!”’

But then he hesitated. A voice within asked,
What if the transport is not scheduled for today?
The memory of the extreme physical discomfort of the interminable hours in hiding was very fresh. He wanted to limit his time cramped beneath the conveyor belt to the minimum, and could not bear the thought of another day and night - or even longer - in the passageway. He stood at the window debating the issue with himself. He decided against immediate action and turned away.

He headed for the stairs and was about to go down when the camp’s loudspeaker system sounded. This time everyone was ordered to stay inside the building and to stand by their beds. Guards immediately sealed the exits and prepared for a systematic room-by-room inspection. ‘It was a devious change in procedure and I knew I was caught. Now there was no way out. I cursed myself for not following my original premonition. The moment of flight had passed. Like everyone else I was supposed to return immediately to my assigned room and stand next to my assigned straw mat. The problem was, I did not exist.’

Since disappearing from the first transport, he was still wanted by the authorities and realised that the new tactic of locking people inside the building was aimed at trapping him and any others like him. He no longer had an assigned place anywhere where he could take up position and stand beside a straw mat. He moved quickly through the building searching for a possible haven. Guards had already taken up position at the doors at the end of each massive room as three camp officials entered calling for Michel Kroskof.

The officials walked over and Michel stepped forward as if he were the prisoner in charge. ‘Michel Kroskof? No, I don’t know,’ he announced forcefully.

The official nodded and moved further into the next room while the guards moved from room to room calling for Kroskof.

A prisoner on the other side of the room who had seen the exchange came across. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, confronting Michel. ‘What the hell are you doing here? You don’t belong in this room - get out immediately! I’m in charge here!’

The man was a prisoner like all the others, and would be deported along with them, but he had been put in charge of the room and took his duties seriously. The affront to his power, and the terror of reprisals, created genuine rage. ‘Please keep your voice down!’ Michel said, attempting to sound deadly and accommodating in the same breath. ‘Don’t attract the guards’ attention - just keep your voice down!’

‘Don’t tell me what to do. I’m responsible here and you have to go immediately.’

‘You’re right - but please keep calm.’

‘I don’t care about calm,’ the man spat. ‘Get out of here!’

‘Okay, okay. Just give me three minutes and I’ll be gone.’

The prisoner seemed somewhat pacified that his pitiful authority had been recognised. ‘Okay,’ he said, relenting, ‘but I want you out of this room.’

Michel walked slowly away, desperately racking his brains for a plan. He contemplated leaping from the window, or crawling along an outside ledge - wild ideas with no hope of success. He saw a blanket hanging as a curtain in a corner at the far end of the room and made towards it. And when he was certain neither the guards nor the room leader was looking in his direction, he slipped behind it. The curtain created a private area containing a small table, a couple of chairs and a field bed with cardboard boxes beneath it. He crawled under the bed and concealed himself behind the boxes as best he could. Slowly, the building emptied. The rooms were cleared and the inmates were moved outside and herded into the cattle cars. The silence of the grave fell over the barracks. A train whistle blew.

Michel lay hour upon hour without moving. He drifted off into a rocky half-sleep until he heard the sound of boots making their way across the room towards him. His first thought was that someone had seen him slip behind the curtain and the room leader had betrayed him. The voices of the guards grew louder and louder and the curtain was pulled aside.

Michel could see the boots of what appeared to be three guards. They were not searching for anyone but eager to relax after a hard day’s work. Two of the guards took the chairs, while the third sat heavily on the bed. The mattress pressed down, squeezing Michel to the floor. He tried to control his fear by taking short, even breaths. Wine was opened and cigarettes lit. One of the men took out a pack of cards and they began to gamble. There was laughter, and glasses were drained and refilled. ‘Characteristically, the guards seemed entirely unmoved by the fate of the human beings they had just packed into cattle cars.’

The men played cards and drank for hours until two of them finally stood. They said goodnight and made their way out of the room. The third pulled off his boots, collapsed on to the bed and was snoring loudly within minutes. Michel lay below him, desperate not to fall asleep and give himself away.

The next morning he remained beneath the bed long after the guard had gone to his post. The noise of building work came from the courtyard. Finally, he ventured from his hiding place and moved carefully among the Non-Deportables. He looked out of the window. The noises that he assumed to be construction actually came from demolition: the passageway between the two buildings no longer existed. Once again luck had intervened to save him. If he had been able to reach the previous hiding place beneath the conveyor belt he would have been caught. ‘How long could I continue this game of cat and mouse?’

His continued presence now threatened the Non-Deportable elite. It was declared camp policy that anyone withholding information or assisting Michel Kroskof would be severely punished, usually by the withdrawal of Non-Deportable status. A number of the Non-Deportables with whom he had become friendly over the weeks now began to avoid him. ‘It placed my few remaining friends in a difficult position. I became a non-person. No one wished to see me. They turned their backs whenever I approached. No one would talk to me. Nobody would shake hands or even look at me. I felt like a leper - worse, like a ghost! I had to sleep wherever I could without attracting attention. But no one reported me. A few pointedly left scraps of food for me, but even these would not glance in my direction.’

Late one night he heard two Non-Deportables, who worked in the hospital, discuss one of the patients, who was also a Non-Deportable. A certain Sam Fischer had been granted a rare one-day pass to go into Marseille the following morning and visit a consulate.
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Passes were valid from three a.m. and were picked up from guards at the gate. The sad truth, the men said, was that the patient was so sick he was unlikely to be able to present himself to the guards at the gate to pick up the pass, let alone go into town. ‘Imagine - a sick guy in the hospital getting a pass!’ one said.

Michel moved to a quiet corner. He set to work on his internal identity card with a razor, carefully scraping his name from it and trying not to destroy the paper beneath. He lettered in the name of Samuel Fischer and slipped it back into its cellophane case. The result was the product of a desperate man rather than a master forger, and even Michel had to admit it could not hope to pass anything but the most cursory inspection. But behind the cellophane it looked convincing, and he was prepared to gamble that blasé guards would treat him with the usual disdain shown all inmates.

If he made it beyond the gate he hoped he might have at least five hours before the alarm was raised. He thought it unlikely that a sick man would drag himself from his hospital bed in the early hours of the morning, and hoped to have at least until eight o’clock - and it was possible that Fisher was so ill that he might not pick up his pass at all.

At three a.m., Michel screwed up his courage and walked down the stairs to the building’s exit. All doors to the building were now locked at night and prisoners needed permission to go out to the latrines. Desperate for a prop, he bummed a cigarette and inhaled deeply, trying to remain calm as he approached the guards with studied nonchalance.
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‘Where are you going?’ one challenged him lazily.

‘I have a pass.’

‘Okay, come on,’ the guard said, and began to walk towards the gate.

Michel pulled deeply on his cigarette.

‘This one’s here for his pass,’ the guard announced to his colleagues at the gate. He turned, and began to make his way back to the main building.

‘Name?’ the guard at the gate demanded.

‘Fischer, Samuel.’

Michel held out his ID. One guard looked for the pass, while a second took the ID and inspected it. Michel asked questions about the time of the first bus into Marseille and where to catch it. His heart was beating so fast he thought it would show through his shirt. The guard merely seemed to check his likeness against the photo before handing the ID back with the precious pass.

‘Bonne nuit,’
Michel said, as the gate was opened and he walked out into the dark. He had an hour’s brisk walk ahead of him to get to the main road, where he could catch the bus. The night air of Provence smelt good to a free man.

After walking for ten minutes or so he saw the silhouette of a woman approaching the camp.

‘Sam?’ The call came through the dark, tense with pleasure. ‘Sam?’ As she hurried towards him she realised her mistake. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you were somebody else.’

‘Are you looking for Sam Fischer?’