I did not share my opinion with Vilmos. Let him believe whatever gave him strength and hope. Both were in short supply.
A truck carrying shovels and picks and buckets arrived, and the Kapo ordered us to start digging. I hefted my shovel and cast a furtive glance at the five SS guards who were standing about a dozen meters from the lip of the trench. A hit on the head with a shovel could cave in a skull. There were eighty of us and five of them, six if you counted the Kapo among their number. If we all acted together, we might be able to overwhelm them before they finished us off with their machine guns.
But what would be the point? Even if some of us did survive the initial battle, we would still be within the administrative area of Auschwitz. For kilometers all around, there was nothing but SS patrols, watchtowers, and the German army. Even if we managed to slip past all that, where would we go? Where would we hide? We were in Poland, a foreign country. We did not know the geography. We did not speak the language and had no contacts among the local population. We did not have civilian clothes, and our shaved heads and extreme thinness would mark us as escaped prisoners. We had no food and could not count on any assistance. The Poles were not known for their love of Jews.
Escape from Auschwitz was not impossible. There had been a couple of escapes since my arrival in the camp, and I’d heard of others that took place beforehand. But it was never the result of violent rebellion, nor a mad dash toward freedom. Rather, it was the result of trickery, planned long in advance, and likely also coordination with the Polish resistance that operated in the vicinity of the camp.
In addition, there was no guarantee that if I attacked the guards, any other prisoners would join me. We had made no such plans, and every single one of us knew that such an attack was akin to suicide. If I acted, there was every chance that I would find no one at my side. Maybe Vilmos, but likely no one else.
Still, the desire to strike a blow against our oppressors was powerful. If I was destined to die in this place, at least I would take a Nazi or two with me. My palms tingled around the shaft of the shovel, and a crazy, furious voice in my head urged me, Do it! Do it! Do it!
Vilmos, sensing my frame of mind, touched my forearm. "Let’s get to work, Adam. All right?"
I turned to look at him, my face hot, the blood humming in my ears.
"Today is not the day in which you die,” Vilmos said, his voice gentle and yet authoritative. "Do you understand?"
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I nodded twice, a wave of defeat and self-loathing washing over me. I couldn't say whether I would have indeed gone through with my mad fantasy if Vilmos hadn’t intervened. It wasn’t the first time I’d had it, and I’d never had the courage, or perhaps the naked despair, to carry it out. “All right, Vilmos," I said. "Not today."
The day grew hot, and the sun beat down on us mercilessly. It didn’t take long before I was itching with sweat and my throat was as dry as sandpaper. I was desperate for water, but there was none to be had.
Vilmos and I filled buckets with earth, and Cyuri carried them up the side of the trench. The buckets were heavy—they had to be full or the Kapo might get upset— and I could see Cyuri straining with each step. He wasn’t used to such labor, and his energy was waning fast. At some point in midmorning, he stopped and set down his cargo, dropping to his hands and knees to catch his breath.
Seeing this, the Kapo charged over and screamed at Gyuri to get up. When Cyuri didn’t, the Kapo hit him on the side of the head. "Get up, I tell you! Stand, you swine!"
Cyuri, his ear bleeding, struggled to his feet. He appeared to be unsteady and disoriented. I was afraid he might say something that would only invite more violence, so I ran up the side of the trench, grabbed hold of the two buckets, and said to the Kapo, “He’s new. Only got here yesterday. Let him go to the latrine for a few minutes, will you? I’ll carry these.”
The Kapo eyed me maliciously, and I could tell he was considering hitting me as well. But then a glint of humanity entered his eyes and he said, "Fine. All right.” He blinked, and the glint was extinguished, and he growled at Gyuri, "You got three minutes. Not one second more. And if you stop working again before lunch break, I’ll tear up your other ear too.”
Tears streamed down Gyuri’s face as he hurried off toward a nearby makeshift shack that served as the latrine. He did not utter another word until lunch, but retreated into himself, stooping more and more with each bucket load he carried.
Vilmos and I continued filling buckets and handing them over to Gyuri and other prisoners to be emptied. The work was mindless and endless. It would take weeks to finish. As the minutes dragged by with agonizing slowness, I could feel the little strength I had fade away. My muscles ached all over, my head swam, and a few times I saw dark spots dancing in my vision. The thirst was killing me. Vilmos, it appeared, was faring even worse. He was taking shallow, raspy breaths, and each time he lifted a full shovel, his stick-like arms trembled and a low groan escaped his lips. A few times he coughed as he had that morning, and it sounded as though his lungs were tearing to shreds.
We kept a lookout for the Kapo, slowing our pace whenever his back was turned. The SS guards were no trouble. They had retreated under the shade of a few nearby trees, and they couldn’t see into the trench.
At one point, Vilmos and I found ourselves relatively isolated from other prisoners, and I repeated the question I'd asked him the night before.
"Where did you get the bread, Vilmos?”
Vilmos cast a nervous look around. "Off a dead boy."
"A boy?"
"Fifteen, sixteen, maybe."
Which was a boy, I supposed, back in the ordinary world. But here, a fifteen-year-old, sixteen certainly, was a man, bearing the same hardships, subjected to the same horrors as nominal adults.
"There’s something you’re not telling me," I said. "Getting bread off a dead body is nothing special. Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday in the block?"
Vilmos looked at me, and I saw tears in his eyes. “Because the boy was murdered. That's why.”
5
“Murdered?” For a second I was confused. Weren’t all the people who died in Auschwitz-Birkenau murdered? Even those who perished from disease or starvation or hard labor? “You mean he was killed by another prisoner?"
Even that wasn’t unheard of. Just this morning we had witnessed the brutal murder of an anonymous prisoner by the Lageralteste, who, for all his power, was a prisoner himself. And there were also killings among the regular prisoners. Violent fights over bread or contraband cigarettes or better position on the bunks. Minor things in the world from which we’d been expelled, but gigantic, all-encompassing things here.
“I think so," Vilmos said. “I didn't see it happen, but I don’t think a guard killed him. A guard would have shot him.”
"How was he killed?"
"Someone stabbed him.” Vilmos raised a hand to his Adam’s apple. "Right about here." He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "It was terrible. His face..."
"Where was the body?" I asked.
"In the ditch behind the latrines."
I had discovered that spot a month after I’d arrived in Auschwitz.