Joyfully I returned to my sister. Now that we were together, I knew I would get well. But I was shocked by Miriam’s appearance. She had an empty look in her eyes and sat staring into space. She looked weak and lifeless.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her. “What’s happened? What have they done to you?”
“Nothing,” said Miriam. “Leave me alone, Eva. I can’t talk about it.”
I knew that our separation had affected Miriam badly. She had thought I was not coming back; the thought of being all alone had made her lose hope. In camp language she had become a musselman, a zombie, someone who no longer had the spirit to fight for life.
For the first two weeks while I was gone she did not go to the lab. She was kept in solitary confinement, guarded by SS at all times. At first Miriam did not know what was happening to me, but my twin must have sensed they were waiting for something. When I did not die as Mengele expected, Miriam was taken to the labs and injected with many shots that made her sick. The shots would stunt the growth of her kidneys, keeping them the size of a ten-year-old’s. I never discovered the purpose of this experiment on my sister.
However, I did learn that Mengele had planned for me to die from the disease I had been given. Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, a Jewish prisoner and pathologist, wrote and published an eyewitness account about how Mengele routinely ordered pathologists to perform autopsies on twins who had died within hours of each other, a unique opportunity to compare the effects of disease on healthy and diseased bodies that were identical in most other ways. If I had died in the infirmary, Miriam would have been rushed to the lab and killed with a shot of chloroform to her heart. Simultaneous autopsies would have compared my diseased organs to her healthy ones. If the organs held any scientific interest, Mengele would have examined them himself and sent them on to the Anthropological Institute at Berlin-Dahlem in a package marked “War Material—Urgent.”
However, I, a ten-year-old girl, had triumphed over Mengele by surviving his experiment. Now it was up to me to help my twin sister get better. I could not lose her. It was that simple. How to accomplish it was another thing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At Auschwitz-Birkenau we never knew what tomorrow would bring. Each day brought challenges for us to survive. Miriam was very sick with something besides just the incessant diarrhea of dysentery. Although everyone including me had dysentery, Miriam had given up the will to live. I had to find some way to help her to get better. Part of the reason she was so sick was the shots she had been given while I was away.
The word around camp was that potatoes would strengthen us and heal dysentery. In Auschwitz people “organized” anything needed for survival from the Nazis. Inmates viewed organizing as a victorious action. The problem was that I had never stolen anything before in my life except for one thing: a cup.
Once, on our way to the shower, as we marched in a row of five, we had approached a pile of pots and pans. I had edged from my place in the middle of the row to the outside. I leaped up, seized a cup, tucked it into the loose top of my dress, and marched on as though nothing had happened. If the SS guard accompanying us saw me, he said nothing.
Rumor was that anyone caught stealing would be hanged, just like those who tried to escape. The Nazis had made us watch these hangings before, telling us to observe closely, that this is what would happen to us if we stole or tried to get away. I remember thinking to myself, “Yes, life is so wonderful here. Why on earth would we try to escape?” I resolved to find a way to take some potatoes to help Miriam get well. I did not know what would happen to me if I dared to take potatoes, but I knew it could be death. A gibbet, the wooden frame for hanging people, stood in front of Block 11. Even if that is what awaited me if I were caught, for Miriam, the risk was imperative. I could not let Miriam die.
Other twins in our barracks were cooking potatoes at night, so I asked them where I could get some potatoes. They told me the only place to get potatoes was the kitchen, so I volunteered to be a food carrier. This meant I would be one of two children hauling soup in a huge container the size of a thirty-gallon garbage can from the kitchen at the end of the camp to our barracks. It took twenty minutes to walk there; lugging back the heavy, filled can took us even longer. The first time I volunteered I was not chosen. The next day I volunteered again and was picked along with another twin to get the daily soup, a watery liquid that occasionally had a bit of potato.
As soon as I entered the kitchen, I spotted a long metal table that held pots and pans. Beneath I noticed two sacks of potatoes. For a moment I hesitated. If I were caught, I could die, but if I did not try, Miriam would die.
I bent down and peered around to see if anybody was watching me. My heart pounding so hard I felt it in my ear canals, I reached into the sack and snatched two potatoes. Somebody grabbed me by my head and pulled me up. It was the kitchen worker, a fat woman prisoner wearing a striped scarf on her head.
“You cannot do that!” she yelled in my face.
“Do what, Madame?” My eyes were wide with false innocence.
“It’s not nice to steal. Put those back.”
I dropped the potatoes back into the sack. I expected to be dragged to the gallows immediately, but that did not happen. I almost burst out laughing with relief when I realized that my only punishment would be that scolding. I had just learned that being a Mengele twin meant that no one dared deliberately harm us as long as Mengele wanted us alive. He needed us to continue his experiments.
But I still had a worry that the kitchen worker would report my attempted crime to the blocova, our block supervisor, and I would not be allowed to carry food again. The next day, however, I volunteered and was chosen again.
This time it was easier to organize potatoes without getting caught. I was not nearly as nervous, because I knew the worst that could happen to me was a tongue-lashing.
Once I reached the sacks, I quickly grasped three potatoes from under the table and hid them in my dress. This time, no one saw. Success! That tiny cache of potatoes was one of the greatest treasures I had ever had. I could hardly wait for evening.
Any secret activities like cooking had to be done at night after the blocova and assistant supervisor had gone to bed in their little rooms at the front of the barracks. One of the twins had brought a few pieces of charcoal that she had organized during the day. We had an oven at the end of the brick bench that ran down the center of the barracks, and we made a small fire in it. Someone stood guard at the blocova’s closed door in case she woke up. Other girls stayed at the entrance of the barracks and signaled by tapping their feet if anyone was approaching. In the dark we took turns cooking.
I used my own pot and boiled my potatoes—peels, spots, dirt, and all! Then Miriam and I had our feast. We ate the potatoes without salt or butter, but they tasted delicious to us. They filled us with warmth and raised our spirits. I would have given Miriam all of the food, but I was starving and needed strength to take care of us both.
Every day after that, I volunteered to carry the vat of soup, though I was only chosen maybe one or two times each week. But with each turn, I became better at organizing. I always took more potatoes than we needed for that day. As a result, Miriam and I usually had potatoes three times a week.
Sometimes Mrs. Csengeri sneaked in at night and cooked the potatoes she had organized for her twin daughters. As soon as one person finished cooking, another took her place at the oven. We formed a little brigade and always had people posted on guard duty to make sure we did not get caught.