Following my gaze and sensing my thoughts, Vilmos said, "We did everything we could for Gyuri, Adam. It wasn't our fault.”
I nodded but said nothing. Vilmos drew a chess board on the ground and filled it with the remaining pieces from yesterday's game. It didn’t take him long to defeat me. He was the far better player even in regular circumstances, but on that day I was incapable of focusing on the game.
"Another one?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Let’s start a new game tomorrow, okay?"
Vilmos nodded and busied himself with wiping out the board. Neither of us voiced what I feared—that I would not be there tomorrow.
Vilmos’s shirt had torn at the collar. I had a needle and some thread, acquired in exchange for a third of my bread ration on the camp’s black market. I sewed the collar back together, then threaded the needle into a seam in my trousers.
"Where did you learn to sew like that?" Vilmos asked me.
"My mother taught me. She said a man should not expect a woman to mend his clothes. That women might have more interesting activities with which to fill their time." Sadness squeezed my heart. “She was a special woman, my mother."
Unlike yesterday, all the prisoners survived the day. We trudged back wreathed in our exhaustion and various aches and pains. No SS doctors inspected us at the gate, yet our Kapo still yelled at us to hasten our step, straighten our backs, and walk in tight formation.
A train made up of twenty or so cattle cars squatted by the platform like some mythological monster slumbering while it digested its latest prey. The cars were open, and swarms of flies buzzed in and out of them. Hills upon hills of luggage and other belongings lined the platform: suitcases of all sizes and styles, bundles of blankets and bedclothes, sacks and satchels, various loose garments, boxes tethered with string, all lay jumbled about together. The final belongings of a plundered people, the dregs that remained after several rounds of confiscation in their country of origin. I saw a couple of empty baby strollers, a girl’s doll with one arm missing, and a single wheelchair lying on its side. Its occupant had either perished during the horrific journey to Auschwitz, or had been yanked out of the wheelchair and thrown onto a truck that had taken them and other invalids to the gas chambers.
How many people had been brought here on this train? Judging by the amount of luggage, it had to be over two thousand.
A few dozen prisoners moved among the loot, sorting the various belongings or loading them onto trucks or large carts. Several SS guards stood watch over them. All this was Reich property now. To the murderer the spoils.
And what of the people who had packed these suitcases? Those who had worn the clothes within them? Most were already dead. Some were now being incinerated in the crematoriums and fire pits. The rest, those who might be considered lucky, were living through the worst day any human being could ever experience: the first day in Auschwitz. A day in which they lost their loved ones. A day in which they were stripped of their name and identity. A day in which they became slaves.
One of the prisoners working among the luggage turned and stared at our passing column. Tears glittered in his eyes. But they didn’t spill, perhaps signifying that his sadness was a constant and unchanging emotion, one from which there was no release or respite. His work was physically easier than ours, but it brought him closer to the wholesale murder of our innocent brothers and sisters. A soul might shatter under such proximity.
Roll call was relatively short yet still an ordeal. A few times, my legs wobbled under me and I was sure I was about to keel over. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from passing out. As the count was held, a high-ranking SS officer harangued us about our supposed laziness and low productivity. He reminded us that we were not on vacation but were expected to work hard for our German masters. He called us pigs and filthy Jews and various other names. He also warned us that anyone trying to escape would be caught and dealt with harshly, and that those who stayed behind would be punished as well.
After roll call, we got our bread rations, and Vilmos and I joined a few other prisoners to eat our dinner. As was often the case, the conversation revolved around the various rumors swirling about the camp.
"The Allies have landed in France,” one of the prisoners said. "They have over ten thousand tanks.”
"The British have crossed the Rhine and are rolling toward Berlin," another claimed.
“The Russians have liberated Warsaw."
"Over one hundred thousand Nazi soldiers have died in the past week.”
"Tito’s partisans have expelled the Germans from Yugoslavia."
"Hitler has been wounded in an air raid. He might even be dead by now.”
As usual, the rumors were highly positive and as equally suspect. If all the calamities purported to have fallen upon Germany were true, why was the war still raging?
It was easy to see why these rumors abounded. They were a manufactured hope for miserable people who had none. We were almost completely cut off from the outside world. Some information did manage to trickle in, but as it spread, it became almost impossible to tell the truth from the lies.
But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe these rumors served a purpose regardless of their veracity. They made us think that if we held on for just a little longer, we might actually survive this place. Without such a belief, more people would be throwing themselves at the fences.
After visiting the latrine, Vilmos and I headed back to our block. Our Block-alteste was standing near the entrance. Beside him were two other prisoners, both functionaries, judging by their armbands. One had gray eyes and a single conjoined eyebrow. The other had a long nose and a square jaw. Both were well-fed and had an air of brutality.
The Blockalteste gave me a vicious smile. "There you are. We've been waiting for you."
12
The two men ordered me to come with them. They did not give me a minute to say goodbye to Vilmos. I scolded myself for not giving him my needle and thread, and also for eating my bread ration. Now both would be lost.
I thought of Gyuri. Maybe this was the right time to emulate him. If I were going to die, better to do so by electrocution than at the hands of some demented criminal. But it appeared my escorts had been given firm instructions to prevent such an escape. They flanked me, and each grabbed one of my elbows. Both had tight grips.
"Where are we going?” I asked them.
"You’ll see," the square-jawed man said. It was the only answer I got.
They led me to another block. Just outside, stood another prisoner functionary, this one fair-haired and long-faced, with a nasty pink scar that curved down one cheek to the corner of his mouth. The scar looked to be about fifteen years old. The age of the man who carried it was about twice as much. On his jacket was an inverted green triangle—another criminal prisoner.
"Is this him?” he asked in German.
Square-jaw confirmed that I was.
"Show me your arm,” the fair-haired man told me.
I pulled up my left sleeve and angled my forearm so he would have a clear view of my number. He studied it without expression, nodded once, and told me to step inside the block.
"Go on," Square-jaw said unnecessarily. The other escort gave me an equally pointless hard shove, and I stumbled toward the open door. The fair-haired man followed me. The two escorts didn’t.
"Wait here,” the fair-haired man told me once we were inside the block, standing near the rooms in which the functionaries lived. He knocked on a closed door, and a gruff baritone voice called out from within. The fair-haired man opened the door a bit and poked his head in. My heart was hammering so loudly that I could not make out the ensuing exchange of words. The fair-haired man retracted his head from the opening and told me to go in. He closed the door behind me.