Peter Leonard - Back from the Dead

It was 7:30. He stuffed the Palm Beach clothes, including the blue blazer, into the shopping bag, and dropped it into a trash bin on his way to a Chinese restaurant he’d seen earlier. It was across the beach road from the shopping center. Hess went in, moved past the hostess through the loud dining room to the crowded bar, found a seat between a frail, heavily made-up woman in her seventies and a grey-haired guy about his age, took off his cap and ordered a Macallan’s neat.

The bartender, in a Hawaiian shirt, said, “You two guys brothers?”

Hess glanced to his right and met the gaze of the man next to him. He looked older from this angle, but there was a definite resemblance. He could have been related, Ernst’s cousin or older brother.

“Max Hoffman,” the guy said, hint of a German accent, offered his hand.

Hess said, “Harry Levin.” They shook, manly grips from both of them.

Hess said, “You’re German. I can hear the accent.”

“Born in Berlin. Five generations. What about you?”

“Bavaria,” Hess said. “Schleissheim, just north of Munich.”

“Maybe we’re related after all.”

Max Hoffman set his drink down and placed his left hand flat on the bar top, and now Hess could see the faded vertical sequence of numbers tattooed across the top of his forearm. “You were at Auschwitz,” Hess said, knowing it was the only camp where the Nazis tattooed prisoners. More than four hundred thousand inmates had been assigned serial numbers.

Max nodded. “We were rounded up and packed into a cattle car. Rode three days without food, water or bathroom facilities. Arrived May 12th, 1942.” He sipped his drink. “The door opened and I saw the electric fence and the towers and a line of SS guards with machine guns, standing next to the train. I stepped over the bodies of those who had died during the travel, climbed out of the car and stood in a long line, walking toward a man in a white physician’s coat, standing on a platform, a German shepherd sitting next to him. The man studied each of us with detached indifference, directing the fittest among us to the right and those who were going to die in the gas chamber to the left. I found out later he was Dr. Mengele. With his arms outstretched, wearing the white medical coat he looked like a white angel. The Jews in the camp called him the Angel of Death.” Max Hoffman paused. “There was a putrid stench in the air. I said to Wineman, a friend who was in front of me, ‘What is that awful smell?’ A guard standing nearby heard me and said, ‘Your parents.’ I was strong in those days. I had been an athlete. I wanted to grab the guard and break his neck.” Max Hoffman picked up his drink. “I was there till the 26th of January, 1945, the day Russian troops liberated us.”

“How old were you?”

“Twenty-eight when I got out.”

“I was at Dachau,” Hess said. “November 1942 till I escaped in May of’43.”

Max said. “How’d you do it?”

“The Nazis said we were being transferred to a sub-camp to work in a munitions factory. It was believable, prisoners were transferred all the time. And I wanted to believe it. Any place had to be better than where I was.” Hess sipped his whisky. “Fifty of us were packed into the back of a truck and driven a few kilometers from the camp. When the truck turned into the woods I knew the real purpose of our journey. SS guards in kubelwagens were following us, but there was a stretch where we lost sight of them and I jumped off the back of the truck.”

“That took guts. How old were you?”

“Sixteen.” Hess took a swallow of whisky. “I followed the truck to a clearing, stood behind a tree and watched the SS guards direct prisoners to a pit that had been dug. Twelve at a time were brought to the edge and shot in the back of the head, the velocity of the rounds blowing the bodies into the hole. More trucks came and more prisoners were executed. At some point the SS murderers started drinking schnapps to calm their nerves. Late in the afternoon when it was over many of the guards were drunk. But someone saw me. I was brought to the edge of the pit, hit on the side of the head with the butt of a carbine and thrown on top of bodies, some still alive, and burrowed down under the dead while the guards were shooting at me.” That was Hess’ recollection of what happened to the real Harry Levin. He could see Max hanging on every word. Hess finished the whisky and signaled the bartender. “A refill?”

“I better,” Max said, “if I am going to hear any more of this.”

“Another round,” Hess said to the bartender, then glanced at the Jew. “I awoke hours later, feeling the weight of the bodies on top of me. I couldn’t see or breathe. The pit had been filled in with dirt. I clawed my way out. It was dark. I ran to a farmhouse and hid in the barn.”

“Where was your family?”

“Killed by the Nazis.”

Max Hoffman shook his head.

The bartender put fresh drinks in front of them.

Hess picked up his whisky, waited for Max to pick up his and clinked his glass. “To us, the survivors.”

“I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Max said. “How can we celebrate our lives when so many others have died? It’s arrogant. Any way you look at it, we were lucky.”

“You’re right.” Hess hadn’t considered it from a Holocaust survivor’s point of view. But then, how could he? “To the six million who were murdered.”

The Jew gave him a sympathetic nod.

“What about you, Max? What else happened?”

The Jew drank some of his drink that looked like a Manhattan, staring into the glass as if the answer were floating next to the cherry.

“I was in the Sonderkommando .”

“What was it like to be so close to death every day?”

“Worse than you can imagine.”

“But at least you were well fed.”

“Well fed? You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Better than the others, and you had your own quarters.” Hess was enjoying himself, but had to be careful not to go too far.

“What are you saying?” Max’s face was flush with anger. “You think it was special treatment? Let me tell you how special it was.” He paused, glancing down at the bar. “We were outcasts, isolated from everyone, hated, despised. I remember looking across the yard at the Jewish girls, wishing I could talk to them. The Nazis were very clever to put us in charge of the gas chambers and the ovens, making us their accomplices.”

The Jew drank his drink. “We planned the division of labor based on the size of incoming transports. The Jews would arrive confused, agitated, exhausted after spending days packed in a cattle car. We would take them to the undressing hall, try to keep them calm as we searched for valuables. Deceiving our own people, telling them they were going for a shower as we led them to the gas chamber.”

Hess said, “How did you know when they were dead?”

“When the screaming stopped.” Max took a breath. “There were fingernail scratches on the walls and ceiling.”

“What choice did you have?”

The Jew met his gaze but didn’t answer, paused for a few seconds and said, “We had to carry the bodies out and pull the gold teeth from their mouths with pliers. Then we sheared off the women’s hair. Later it was washed and stuffed in sacks and used to make clothing.” The Jew paused again. “You still think it was special?”

“Forgive me, Max.” It was getting good. Hess had struck a nerve.

“And we were the stokers,” Max said. “Operating the furnaces, sliding bodies into the ovens. We would be covered with ashes. I couldn’t get the smell of death out of my nostrils.” Max cleared his throat, pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled.

“One day I picked up an emaciated body, a woman that looked familiar. It was my wife, Faga.”