Everyone knew the system and the rules. Despite the fact that everyone was skin and bones, hunger reminding us we were still alive, we did not try to take one another’s food.
The potatoes I brought Miriam worked like medicine. She became healthier, stronger, and willing to fight for her own life. I can say, and it would not have hurt her feelings, that my sister would have died then if it had not been for me. And in turn, taking care of Miriam had helped me become sturdier and more forceful, too. Because we were twins, we clung to each other. Because we were sisters, we depended on each other. Because we were family, we did not let go.
At Auschwitz dying was so easy. Surviving was a full-time job.
CHAPTER EIGHT
As the summer of 1944 turned to autumn, things were changing. More and more airplanes roared overhead and bombed Nazi headquarters and factories. Sometimes there were two or three air raids a day. Although we had no radio or news, we realized the good guys were coming to free us. I had to keep my twin sister and myself alive until they arrived. Her life was my mission and responsibility. But conditions in the camp were not better. In some ways they were worse.
During the night of October 7th the sound of a huge explosion woke us up. Sirens wailed. Dogs barked. What was happening? Later we found out that Jews of the Sonderkommando (prisoners forced to burn corpses of fellow prisoners) had rebelled and blown up Crematorium IV in Birkenau. They had used explosives smuggled to them by a group of Jewish girls working in the Nazi explosives factory. The men of the Sonderkommando had decided they would rather go down fighting than die in the gas chamber. They wanted to take revenge for the deaths of families and friends.
Rumors circulated that as the Allied Forces—the American, British, and Soviet armies—approached, the SS would kill everyone in the camp. Nevertheless, Dr. Mengele continued his experiments, still hoping to make an important scientific discovery.
At that time we did not know that orders had come from the Nazi high command for Dr. Mengele to “liquidate” the gypsy camp consisting of more than two thousand prisoners, mostly women and children. Although Mengele had tried to preserve the gypsies for his research, he followed orders. They were taken to the gas chambers to be killed and then incinerated.
Miriam and I and all the twins in our barracks were marched from our camp to the gypsy camp, now empty. The inmates had left behind blankets and colorful paintings on the walls. We did not know why the Nazis had transferred us to their camp. It was close to a gas chamber and crematorium, and the word went around that we were next to be gassed.
On that first day, we stood outside in the cold for roll call, patches of snow covering the ground, from 5:00 A.M. until 4:00 P.M. It was the longest roll call we had ever been through because a prisoner was missing. The smells of the crematorium were thick in the air, mixing with cold and fog. My feet froze and so did my sister’s. We never found out to where the prisoner had escaped.
For the next few weeks, we stayed in the gypsy camp, living in the shadow of the crematorium with constant dread that we would be killed. We never knew why that did not happen. Maybe we were saved by orders from Berlin to stop gassing the Jews. The Nazis by then must have known they were losing the war. Maybe they wanted to hide the evidence of their atrocities.
Then in early January, 1945, the SS began to order people out of the barracks to go on forced marches. “Raus! Raus! Out! Out!” they shouted. “Everybody out! We are taking you away for your own protection.” We heard that thousands of people were now being marched deep into Germany.
“I am not going to leave the barracks,” I said to Miriam. “I am not going on any march.” I figured that the Nazis had not been particularly nice to us when they were winning the war, so they certainly would not be any nicer when they were losing it. We stayed.
To my surprise, no one came to get us. The Nazis were in such a hurry to get everybody out that they did not bother checking each barracks. Some of the twins remained with us, including Mrs. Csengeri and her daughters. At the time I did not know that many people had also chosen to stay behind.
The next morning we woke up and realized we had missed roll call. We discovered that the Nazis were gone . . . or so it seemed. We saw no guards, no SS, no Dr. Mengele.
The joy and happiness we felt! The Nazis were gone! Now we were on our own. I spent my time trying to find food, water, and blankets to keep my sister and me alive.
One of the men prisoners had cut an opening in the barbed wire so that we could walk from one camp to another. Two girls and I went to search for things, roaming from area to area. I badly needed shoes. I was still wearing the ones from home that I had on when I had arrived at Auschwitz. The soles kept flapping open. I tied them with string, but it was still rather hard to walk. Miriam’s shoes were in better condition because she had stayed in the barracks to guard our few belongings whenever I went out organizing.
The girls and I went to the place where the Nazis had kept all the clothes, shoes, and blankets they had taken from the prisoners. It was a huge building the Nazis called “Canada,” perhaps because they saw the country of Canada as a place of abundance. Piles of belongings rose to the ceiling. I rummaged through shoe after shoe after shoe, but I could not find any that fit, so I finally chose a pair that was two sizes too big. I filled the toe areas with some rags and tied them with string. At least my feet were now warm. I grabbed some coats and blankets for us and brought them back to the barracks where we bundled up.
One afternoon I went to the kitchen to organize food. A couple of kids and some grown-ups who had stayed behind were already there taking bread.
Holding four or five bread loaves in my arms, I heard the strange sound of a car. “The Nazis are gone, so whose car is coming?” I wondered. We ran outside to see. There was a Jeep-like car, and four Nazis holding machine guns jumped out and began spraying bullets in every direction.
I remember seeing a barrel of a gun pointed at my head, three to four feet from me, then I faded away.
When I woke up, I thought I was dead. All around me I saw bodies.
OK. So we are all dead, I thought. Then I moved my arms. Then I moved my legs. I touched the person beside me, but there was no movement. Her body was cold. Aha! She was dead, but I was alive!
I stood up, thankful to be alive. I thought it must have been a guardian angel that made me faint before the bullets hit me, because I did not have any time to think or do anything to save myself.
I raced back to the barracks. “Miriam?” I called as I burst inside.
There she was. “What happened?” she asked, eyes rounded with fear.
“The Nazis are back!” I said and added, “I wonder why they are back? They almost killed me!” I told her what had happened and how terrified I had been. “We don’t have any bread. I was so frightened, I just ran for my life.”
“Oh, Eva,” she said, “what if you had been killed?”
We did not talk about that “what if” anymore. We just hugged and hugged.
That same night we were awakened by smoke and heat. Flames shot down from the roof. We could feel searing heat from the flames through the barracks walls. The barracks were on fire! We grabbed our stuff and ran outside. The Nazis were back at the camp, no longer in hiding, probably trying to destroy the evidence of their crimes.
Flames reddened the sky as far as we could see. SS guards had blown up a crematorium and the building called Canada. Shirts and dresses from Canada flew through the air amidst the sparks and ashes. The Allies were attacking and bombs lit the sky. It looked like the whole world was on fire.