I did not see them. Had I, then there would have been girls I knew, those I had been to school with and more who had come with their fathers to my father’s shop. They came in a larger transport — I do not know it for certain but the rumour said they arrived by train and were then separated. Old men and young, older women, who were mothers and grandmothers, and all the children were sent ahead of them into the Tube, or the Himmelstrasse as it was called. Three hundred Jewish girls were kept back.
It was said that they were put into storage, as meat would be put into a refrigerator. After the rest of the transport, their relations and friends, had gone down the Tube, the band had played, the fraudster in the white coat had led, the Ukrainian bastards had driven them on, the doors had closed and the engine had started … they were put aside.
We did not know then why three hundred young Jewesses remained in the Tube. We were not fools. If a man or woman lives as close to death as we did, then the sense that interprets events will rear. We did not know, but we had opinion. All the talk that evening in our barracks hut, among those who had only the intention to live another week or another month, was of the Jewish girls who were in the Tube, in the area that had been cleared of the suitcases and travel bags that were normally left there. I believe those girls would have trusted, thought there was truth in what they were told because the kitchens in our section were ordered to produce bread and soup for them. It was the first time that food had been taken to those who had entered the Road to Heaven. They would have slept with the comfort of trust.
The following day — it was 11 February: I cannot say how we registered the date of each day of the week, each month of the year — although we did not know, the opinions grew, flourished and fattened. We were taken off our usual work. The sorting of jewellery and money and clothing was stopped. The tailors and bootmakers were taken from their benches. The laundry was given more people to help and the best uniform of each German was brought for pressing and starching, their boots for polishing. I was among those women who were escorted to the SS quarters, the Swallow’s Nest, and others went to Commandant Reichleitner’s office, which they called the Merry Flea, and we had to clean and scrub the floors until they shone. The capos would not say what was expected but, of course, we realized a visitor of the highest importance was expected. The men used pine branches to brush the sand of the compound where the snow had been cleared. I remember that it was bright, sunny, and there had been a heavy frost, but we had not had snow for more than ten days. There was bitter cold, and ice hung from our huts, but in the Swallow’s Nest a fire burned, so it was good to work there. I do not believe that any of us — I did not — considered the cold in the shed where the three hundred Jewish girls were kept.
And another night passed. We shivered in our bunks, we held each other for warmth, and another dawn came.
It was 12 February. I was with those who were taken again to the Swallow’s Nest to do more cleaning, which was ridiculous because the rooms could not have been cleaner. I saw, through a window on the first floor high enough to have a view over the fence with the pine branches, that policemen on horses rode round the edge of the camp. All the Germans were excited, and nervous, and they shouted at us, and the capos hit us if we looked up from cleaning the floorboards.
We were being led back to our compound when the train came. The outer gate was open. It was possible to see through it, when he got out of the carriage. Then we were in our compound, and it was impossible to see more. The image of him was frozen in my mind. He wore a long open leather coat, spectacles without rims, and he was saluted with a forest of raised arms. An older woman knew, Miriam Bloch. She had survived because she was the finest seamstress in the camp. She had seen him. Miriam Bloch said he was Heinrich Himmler.
Because Miriam Bloch had identified him — Heinrich Himmler — we now knew why three hundred Jewish girls from Wlodawa had been kept back from the transport. They had been in the baggage shed for two days and nights. Did they still trust in the lies they had been told? Were they still calm? We were now at our normal duties, but we listened. That day I worked in the section that sorted clothing. There had been a Dutch transport a week before, and the clothes worn by Dutch Jews were superior in quality to those of Polish, Ukrainian and Belarussian Jews. The clothing of the Dutch would be shipped to Germany for issue to those who had lost their possessions in the bombing. The capos were fierce and had whips that day; we were told we might be inspected and might not, but if we were visited by Heinrich Himmler we should not look up, should not speak, should carry on with our work.
He did not come to us.
We listened.
There would have been time for coffee to be served to Himmler and his party in the Swallow’s Nest, and time for him to walk along the path cleared of snow to reach the Himmelstrasse, and time for the procedure to be explained to him by the commandant. More time while the liar in his white coat gave his speech on the need for delousing Jews, then began to lead them — the three hundred Jewesses — down the Road to Heaven. Perhaps, even then, most believed him and trusted his words. More time while Heinrich Himmler watched as their hair was cut, as the three hundred Jewish girls stripped naked, as they shivered in the cold, then began to run after the trotting white coat, with the guns of the Ukrainians behind them, inside the narrow width of the Tube towards the doors of the chambers. I think they would have used three, and I think Heinrich Himmler would have strode forward quickly after them so that he saw the doors opened and the girls forced in, the doors slammed shut and the bolts pushed home.
We listened. Some, afterwards, said they had heard the singing of the girls, the prayer of despair. I did not. I was collecting silk blouses when I heard the engine of Gasmeister Bauer switched on, and I had started to cut off the labels from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Eindhoven when the geese began to squawk, and then there was quiet.
Before leaving on his train, Heinrich Himmler stayed to dinner in the Swallow’s Nest. We heard later that he had offered his congratulations to the officers, and that he had promoted Commandant Reichleitner to the rank of Hauptsturmführer and Deputy Commandant Niemann to Untersturmführer. And he left us. We lay on our bunks in the barracks and heard the train pull away. Had he smiled when he first saw the Jewish girls?
I did not cry myself to sleep that night, 12 February, in the knowledge that — for a demonstration of the efficiency of the process — three hundred Jewish girls from my own town, Wlodawa, many of whom I would have known, had been put to death with fumes from Gasmeister Bauer’s engine. I was alive. I would face another day. I could hate and loathe. I survived, and they did not, to see the light of dawn seep into our barracks’ windows. And that day there came a new rumour. It said that the Germans had suffered a defeat in battle against the Russians, at the city of Stalingrad, and that they were in retreat … But I had no trust and did not believe that another would save me — only myself. I was, as we all were, alone.
‘Where is he?’
Adrian pointed down the length of the shadowed street.
Dennis said, ‘Third doorway from the far end, this side.’