Malka Adler - The Brothers of Auschwitz

Suddenly a rising-falling siren. Bombs fell close to us. The distance of my house from the road. I ran zigzag to the bunker. A concrete structure dug deep underground. At the opening to the bunker were sacks of sand. Prisoners were stepping on one another because of the narrow opening. I fell on the prisoner in front of me. We both fell on the floor. His pants were wet. I managed to get by him and crawl into the bunker. Frightening darkness. I advanced along the ditch with small steps. Prisoners’ shouts in the distance behind me grew fainter. And the whining of airplanes. A few minutes went by, and then a short siren. I knew, they were calling us to come out.

I wanted to get out quickly.

I couldn’t see anything. I felt the walls and they were rough and cold. I dragged my feet, I felt as if I were walking through mud. I turned left, I passed another wall, a strange silence, I didn’t understand where all the prisoners were, where they’d gone. My heart began to beat frantically, I went back, pressing my hands on the concrete wall and changed direction again. I walked on, straight I think, and couldn’t find the way out. After a few steps I stood still. The same. Darkness, silent as a graveyard. I realized I was stuck alone in that shitty bunker. A hot needle pricked my ribs, entered the heart, dropped to the belly, settling in my backside. I felt my backside getting warm, swelling. My legs began to tremble. I grabbed the walls, shouting help, help me get out, I can’t get out on my own, where are you, help.

I began to run through the ditches like a blind man with an open ass.

I held fast to my ass so my wound wouldn’t open up anymore. I ran from side to side, to no avail. I hit walls, got a blow to the head, got up, continued running. My clothes were wet with sweat. My mind screamed, you’re lost, lost, this will be your grave. You will crumble in the darkness, and no one will know. I stopped. My breaths sounded like a running herd, lost. I closed my mouth, pressed my nose. Stretched my neck. I heard the sound of sirens. Without people. I didn’t understand what had changed. Had the bombs maybe killed the prisoners and guards and I was the only one left? No. I stuck to the wall. Slid down until I was sitting. My forehead was burning. I covered my face with the palms of my hands and waited to die.

I felt a tickling warmth in my fingers.

I opened my fingers a crack. A large blotch of light hit my brain. Right in front of me stood my mother. She had on a scarf and a dress with an apron. Mother smiled at me as if from out of a picture. I wept, Mama, Mama, I’m going to die. The weeping increased, I called louder, Mama, help me to get out, Mama. Mother smiled and then German voices disturbed us. Irritated voices that weren’t far away from me.

The light disappeared. I jumped to my feet. I heard Germans running, shouting. And then I saw light. The way out was right in front of me. I hid my face under my arm and left the bunker. Prisoners were standing in two rows opposite the opening to the bunker. My place in the row was empty. I approached them with bent knees.

A Kapo thug fell on me.

A large, fat Kapo hit me in the face with his fists, kicked my leaking ass. I fell. I ate earth mixed with blood. The Kapo didn’t stop. He kicked me in the belly, ribs, head and back. I lay there without moving. I stopped breathing. The Kapo stopped. Kicked me again in the pelvis, turned and walked off. The Kapo’s kicks paralyzed the right side of my body. I got up slowly, couldn’t straighten up. I saw through a mist of blood. I ran crookedly to my place in the line. Don’t know how I survived. I was young, I was strong. Stronger than Hitler.

The transition from Camp Buchenwald to Camp Zeiss was difficult.

Winter. Rain. Lightning. Storms. When I was in Buchenwald in Bloc 8, I ate well. I slept in a bed with sheets, I showered, there was light at the window.

At Zeiss I lived the life of a rat. There was darkness and damp. I wrapped pipes with steel wire for twelve hour shifts, at least three or four meters deep. Every day. I had no gloves. My hands were full of cracks. Every crack broad as a ditch. After a few weeks my skin was as hard as the sole of a shoe.

For the first few weeks I ran the distance from the camp to the factory. I still had strength in my body from Bloc 8. Then I stopped running. Barely managed to walk. Hard work didn’t scare me, it was the hunger that was scary. In the morning they gave us hot water that tasted like coffee. At noon soup with bits in it I didn’t know, but I still ate it. In the evening a piece of bread with cheese or margarine. That’s it. I was sixteen and I could easily have finished off a calf for lunch, but I finished off a little water with a few tough bits from the top. I felt the hunger was devouring me from inside. My hunger was full of eyes like the angel of death. Sometimes when my body ached I could see it in the darkness of the factory.

At Zeiss there were aerial bombings, mainly when they were handing out water with tough bits.

We just got out of the earth and the planes came, boom. Boom. Boom-boom. They made a terrible noise. The poured down on us everything they carried in the belly and disappeared. The Germans made us go into a huge, open pit. In this way we lost even the little water with the few bits and ran to a pit full of pipes and steel. The guards entered after us. The bombs hit six-inch pipes. Pieces of steel flew up, circled above our heads and boom landed on the ground. Like an enormous cannon shooting spears. Steel pieces split open a prisoner’s head next to me. He fell without a sound. Jets of blood mixed with mud and soot sprayed us black. The SSmen also got sprayed. I saw SSman collapse with a huge hole in his belly. There was nowhere to run. I contracted my body to the size of a pin and lowered my head as much as I could. I heard the terrible weeping of wounded prisoners. There was no one to save them. The planes threw more and more bombs at us. I saw my end coming. I refused to die with a piece of steel in my head. Beside me was a young prisoner, maybe twenty years old. His ears stuck out and there was a bulge in the middle of his nose. I shouted into his ear, I’m getting out of here, want to come.

We ran into the open field. The field was colored white. My face burned from the cold and the wind. My nose dripped and dripped. I stuck a striped sleeve to my nose so it wouldn’t fall. I beat on my legs. The earth was as hard as asphalt and I couldn’t hear a sound, just waves coming and going in my ears. I was hungry. I got on my knees and scraped at a layer of ice. I prayed, maybe something was growing there, maybe. I dug with my hand. I found cabbage roots deep in the earth. The boy who came with me also got down on his knees. We began to dig like madmen. We found more roots. We collected a large pile. They were frozen. I began to shout, you want to kill us with hunger, but we will live, we will live. I wiped my face. We found a tin. The boy had matches in his pocket. We looked at each other and together pulled down our trousers. Peed into the tin. We put the roots inside and warmed them with matches from below. We ate roots in hot urine. We ate the entire pile. It tasted as good as mother’s food. I felt full and whispered thank you to the sky. It was black, evil. The planes disappeared. My eyelids were heavy. I wanted to sleep standing up. As if I was resting in my village after a meal. As if I was fixing something in the yard and in a minute I’d be going inside. I see my family. Father Israel would talk about the market, about a rather good deal. Mother would ask, did you bring my buttons? And she’d take a heavy pot from the fire. Avrum would want to know a little more about the business. Sarah would be writing in her book. Dov would help mother with the dishes, and I? I don’t remember anything about me. As if there were no war in the world and no trains to the crematorium, as if the world were alive without Hitler.