A few minutes later a smartly dressed SS officer marched in, smoking a thin cigar. He stood in the center of the room and, in a brief perfunctory speech, informed them that they were now prisoners of war. ‘Heil Hitler,’ he said, and turned to leave.
Lubji took a pace forward and smiled as the officer passed him. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said. The officer stopped, and stared with disgust at the young man. Lubji began to claim in pidgin German that they had made a dreadful mistake, and then opened his hand to reveal a wad of Hungarian pengös.
The officer smiled at Lubji, took the notes and set light to them with his cigar. The flame grew until he could hold the wad no longer, when he dropped the burning paper on the floor at Lubji’s feet and marched off. Lubji could only think of how many months it had taken him to save that amount of money.
The prisoners stood shivering in the stone hall. The guards ignored them; some smoked, while others talked to each other as if the naked men simply didn’t exist. It was to be another hour before a group of men in long white coats wearing rubber gloves entered the hall. They began walking up and down the lines, stopping for a few seconds to check each prisoner’s penis. Three men were ordered to dress and told they could return to their homes. That was all the proof needed. Lubji wondered what test the women were being subjected to.
After the men in white coats had left, the prisoners were ordered to dress and then led out of the hall. As they crossed the courtyard Lubji’s eyes darted around, looking for any avenue of escape, but there were always soldiers with bayonets no more than a few paces away. They were herded into a long corridor and coaxed down a narrow stone staircase with only an occasional gas lamp giving any suggestion of light. On both sides Lubji passed cells crammed with people; he could hear screaming and pleading in so many different tongues that he didn’t dare to turn round and look. Then, suddenly, one of the cell doors was opened and he was grabbed by the collar and hurled in, head first. He would have hit the stone floor if he hadn’t landed on a pile of bodies.
He lay still for a moment and then stood up, trying to focus on those around him. But as there was only one small barred window, it was some time before he could make out individual faces.
A rabbi was chanting a psalm — but the response was muted. Lubji tried to stand to one side as an elderly man was sick all over him. He moved away from the stench, only to bump into another prisoner with his trousers down. He sat in the corner with his back to the wall — that way no one could take him by surprise.
When the door was opened again, Lubji had no way of knowing how long he had been in that stench-ridden cell. A group of soldiers entered the room with torches, and flashed their lights into blinking eyes. If the eyes didn’t blink, the body was dragged out into the corridor and never seen again. It was the last time he saw Mr. Cerani.
Other than watching light followed by darkness through the slit in the wall, and sharing the one meal that was left for the prisoners every morning, there was no way of counting the days. Every few hours the soldiers returned to remove more bodies, until they were confident that only the fittest had survived. Lubji assumed that in time he too must die, as that seemed to be the only way out of the little prison. With each day that passed, his suit hung more loosely on his body, and he began to tighten his belt, notch by notch.
Without warning, one morning a group of soldiers rushed into the cell and dragged out those prisoners who were still alive. They were ordered to march along the corridor and back up the stone steps to the courtyard. When Lubji stepped out into the morning sun, he had to hold his hand up to protect his eyes. He had spent ten, fifteen, perhaps twenty days in that dungeon, and had developed what the prisoners called ‘cat’s eyes.’
And then he heard the hammering. He turned his head to the left, and saw a group of prisoners erecting a wooden scaffold. He counted eight nooses. He would have been sick, but there was nothing in his stomach to bring up. A bayonet touched his hip and he quickly followed the other prisoners clambering into line, ready to board the crowded lorries.
A laughing guard informed them on the journey back into the city that they were going to honor them with a trial before they returned to the prison and hanged every one of them. Hope turned to despair, as once again Lubji assumed he was about to die. For the first time he wasn’t sure if he cared.
The lorries came to a standstill outside the courthouse, and the prisoners were led into the building. Lubji became aware that there were no longer any bayonets, and that the soldiers kept their distance. Once inside the building, the prisoners were allowed to sit on wooden benches in the well-lit corridor, and were even given slices of bread on tin plates. Lubji became suspicious, and began to listen to the guards as they chatted to each other. He picked up from different conversations that the Germans were going through the motions of ‘proving’ that all the Jews were criminals, because a Red Cross observer from Geneva was present in court that morning. Surely, Lubji thought, such a man would find it more than a coincidence that every one of them was Jewish. Before he could think how to take advantage of this information, a corporal grabbed him by the arm and led him into the courtroom. Lubji stood in the dock, facing an elderly judge who sat in a raised chair in front of him. The trial — if that’s how it could be described — lasted for only a few minutes. Before the judge passed the death sentence, an official even had to ask Lubji to remind them of his name.
The tall, thin young man looked down at the Red Cross observer seated on his right. He was staring at the ground in front of him, apparently bored, and only looked up when the death sentence was passed.
Another soldier took Lubji’s arm and started to usher him out of the dock so that the next prisoner could take his place. Suddenly the observer stood up and asked the judge a question in a language Lubji couldn’t understand.
The judge frowned, and turned his attention back to the prisoner in the dock.
‘How old are you?’ he asked him in Hungarian.
‘Seventeen,’ replied Lubji. The prosecuting counsel came forward to the bench and whispered to the judge.
The judge looked at Lubji, scowled, and said, ‘Sentence commuted to life imprisonment.’ He paused and smiled, then said, ‘Retrial in twelve months’ time.’ The observer seemed satisfied with his morning’s work, and nodded his approval.
The guard, who obviously felt Lubji had been dealt with far too leniently, stepped forward, grabbed him by the shoulder and led him back to the corridor. He was handcuffed, marched out into the courtyard and hurled onto an open lorry. Other prisoners sat silently waiting for him, as if he were the last passenger joining them on a local bus.
The tailboard was slammed closed, and moments later the lorry lurched forward. Lubji was thrown onto the floorboards, quite unable to keep his balance.
He remained on his knees and looked around. There were two guards on the truck, seated opposite each other next to the tailboard. Both were clutching rifles, but one of them had lost his right arm. He looked almost as resigned to his destiny as the prisoners.
Lubji crawled back toward the rear of the lorry and sat on the floorboards next to the guard with two arms. He bowed his head and tried to concentrate. The journey to the prison would take about forty minutes, and he felt sure that this would be his last chance if he wasn’t to join the others on the gallows. But how could he possibly escape, he pondered, as the lorry slowed to pass through a tunnel. When they re-emerged, Lubji tried to recall how many tunnels there had been between the prison and the courthouse. Three, perhaps four. He couldn’t be certain.