Padlocked, page 31
Max wiped the sweat from his brow, even though the winter weather chilled the room. Their indoor heat had been intermittent for months, to the point where they all wore coats and mittens while they worked.
Max had attempted for hours to get through to Berlin to confirm the orders, but phone lines were spotty at best and nonexistent at their worst. Especially in Poland, where the Armia Krajowa, or Poland’s Home Guard, was rising like termites in a decaying woodshed, they never knew if the trains could run, the phone lines were operational, or the roads were blocked. Their process seemed to be “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” so they were joining with the approaching Red Army to hinder the Nazis at every turn.
Finally, he’d sent word to the camp commandant to confirm the orders. To Max’s astonishment, he did. He also informed him of procedures underway in the camp, which involved marching thousands of prisoners from Auschwitz-Birkenau to other camps that were not in the Red Army’s direct line of assault. He seemed to believe that the Nazis would still prevail. However, Max had begun to feel like a bug who would inevitably get squashed in the Allies’ pincer movement.
A month ago, he hadn’t even known what a pincer movement, or double envelope, was. Today, he knew precisely. It was an established military tactic in which the enemy attacked from multiple sides, crushing the opposing army in the middle. In this case, the pincer movement consisted of the Western forces rolling over Western Europe while the Red Army moved in from the east. Day after day, they’d heard media reports of the Allies’ advance to reclaim all of France and Belgium, pushing the retreating Nazi Army all the way back to Germany. In the meantime, the Red Army had taken Belarus and Hungary. While reports of the Western advance were understandably distressing, reports of Soviet atrocities on German soldiers and civilians were shockingly horrendous.
He frantically sent a message to the camp requiring Agata’s presence. He had to know what had happened to his mother and whether she was being marched under guard to another camp. He no longer wished to think about the chimney, which continued to belch black smoke. Many buildings were streaked with the stuff, as if Oświęcim were a coal town, but now the source sickened him.
Max carried another box from the file cabinets and placed it upon a dolly. He had grown unaccustomed to physical labor. Only a week ago, he would have ordered the records disassembled and removed. While Nazi privates, or Waffen-SS, carried out his orders, he would have retreated to a nearby bar for a few drinks.
However, with the Red Army advancing, the German Army was astonishingly in retreat.
The official word was that they were needed in Germany to protect the country from another pincer movement aimed at Berlin. That would have had the troops leaving in an orderly fashion for the west. It did not make sense to Max that they were fleeing in every direction. Desertions were shockingly common. Even camp guards were retreating. Katarina had been one of the first, and Max had no idea in which direction she’d gone. With every guard absent from duty, he received a phone call or a message if the lines were down, requiring him to fill the empty position immediately. Fill it with who? He wondered. Civilians, even those who had supported the camps from Oświęcim and Będzin, were running away like refugees, ripping off any swastikas that had once identified them as proud, loyal Nazis.
Max bounced the dolly down the broad marble stairs of the administration building, at any moment convinced he would lose control and the boxes would fly down the remaining stairs into an unruly heap at the bottom. And at this point, he was beginning to care less. The only reason he was still working even as his own building had emptied was a total confusion as to where he could go. Even if he commandeered a vehicle, there was no petrol. He would be forced to leave it stranded somewhere along the way, and he couldn’t imagine himself walking with a band of ragtag refugees.
He miraculously reached the bottom step. He paused while he wiped more sweat from his brow. The stench of smoke and burning paper was nearly overwhelming, and when he stepped outside the building with the dolly, he was forced to cover his face with his sleeve. A scant few civilians from his office remained, and they quickly grabbed the boxes and heaped them onto the pyre.
“How many more?” one asked. Georg was an older man with bad knees and weak lungs. His eyes appeared positively rabid as he stared at Max. Despite their frantic work, none of them could adequately process their present circumstances.
“Hundreds,” Max answered.
“Hundreds of files?” He leaned on a pitchfork he’d been using to stir the flames.
“Hundreds more boxes.”
“We’ll never make it. The whole German army has pulled out.”
“Then, fuck it,” Max answered. “Let’s leave the rest and get drunk.”
“Where?” Georg asked. He paused alongside Max and peered at the surrounding courtyard. “Everybody is gone. The booze left before they did. Who knows what the hell we’ve been drinking?”
“I don’t care what it is, as long as it dulls my senses.”
Georg tossed the pitchfork onto the ground. “We’ll have to break in.”
“Hell, they didn’t even lock the doors, from what I heard,” Max said as they started across the courtyard. “Why bother? The Reds would just break the windows anyway.”
They glanced back, but the other civilians had abruptly disappeared. Max paused for a moment as his eyes scanned the courtyard. He had deduced that they were obscured by the massive bonfire when a movement caught his eye. He grabbed Georg’s arm and pointed.
Dozens of tanks were rolling into the city’s center. With years of Nazi occupation, he knew the telltale lines of a Panther or Tiger I, but these were neither. These were lighter vehicles, and they were surrounding the courtyard, their weapons pointing directly at Max and Georg.
Max whirled about, intent on running, but the rumble of tanks had formed a complete circle. One soldier raced in his direction, a machine gun held in his hands as he shouted in Russian. They stood motionless, trying to decipher the command, as another soldier appeared behind him.
“Hands up!” the second soldier bellowed in German, then in Polish. “Hands high!”
Max catapulted his hands into the air. He caught a glimpse of Georg doing the same thing as the older man urinated across his pants. Max quickly looked away and back toward the approaching soldiers.
In the next moment, he was hurled to the ground, his face scraping the pavement. His arms were wrenched behind him and tied so tight that he thought his shoulder blades were going to be ripped out of him. One of the soldiers kicked him viciously in the side, causing him to empty his bladder alongside Georg.
The first soldier yelled in Russian while he continued kicking him.
“How many?” the second translated, pointing to the buildings.
“I don’t know,” Max managed to puff out.
He was kicked again with steel-toed boots. “How many? How many?”
“Twenty,” Max answered, when in truth the number could have been two or two hundred.
He was kicked dangerously close to the pyre as soldiers fanned out along the courtyard. The smoke was overwhelming, and the heat intense. Yet, as Max attempted to crawl away from the flames, a soldier propped his heavy boot on his back, crushing him down to the pavement. Max’s face was unnaturally shoved to the side, and he caught a glimpse of the guard above him as he lit his cigarette and then tossed the lit match onto Max’s back. Then a man in a tailored uniform appeared alongside the soldiers. He wore a distinctive cap that was unlike the Nazi helmet. As Max struggled to peer upward, his eyes went to the bright red band and gold insignia, the red braiding on his collar and cuffs, and the team of men standing behind him that appeared to be his assistants.
“I can help you,” Max managed to croak.
The officer chuckled. “You don’t appear to be in a very helpful position.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Max said. He spoke quickly. “I was forced to work with the Nazis. I am not German; I am Polish. I am a victim here. But my job was to staff the concentration camp. The guards will attempt to hide among the prisoners; I’m sure of it. But I can identify them for you.”
“Lift him up,” the officer said.
Two privates lifted him to his feet by grasping his elbows held behind his back. He cried out in pain, and when he was standing once again, it took a moment for him to gather his thoughts.
“What concentration camp are you referring to?”
Max nodded toward the horizon. “Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a slave and death camp.”
“A what?” The officer grimaced as though he found Max’s statement hard to believe.
“There are factories there to support the Nazi war effort. You’ll want to shut them down, and I can show you exactly where they are and what they manufacture. The workers are slave laborers, mostly Jews, but also some prisoners of war and political prisoners. There are Soviet prisoners there,” he added for good measure, though he had no idea if any were actually there.
“Put him in my vehicle,” the officer ordered.
Before the privates could comply, Max hurriedly added, “But that’s not all. They’ve been exterminating Jews, prisoners of war, and undesirables—nearly half a million Hungarians just this past summer, and a million Jews.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he retorted. “It is easy to check out your story, and lies will only make your captivity more difficult for you.”
“I am not lying,” Max insisted. “And I can point out the guards who committed the murders.”
43
Agata, January 27, 1945
Agata stepped outside her door to the sound of distant artillery and plumes of black smoke on the eastern horizon. She’d received an urgent message from Max Kursell requiring a meeting with her in town, but she’d been unable to comply for the past several days. An anxious energy clung to the camp while the Nazis fought the Red Army to the east and the Americans in the west, pinning them in place.
The camp had grown ominously still. Over the past week, any prisoners who could walk were ordered on a march into Germany’s interior over two hundred miles away, where another camp would continue to work them on behalf of the Nazi war effort. The obvious fact that most of the prisoners would die on such a long, forced winter march seemed to escape those who ordered it, or they simply didn’t care.
The guards expressed their confidence in the superior German forces' ability to repel both the Soviets and the Americans, as well as any other potential adversaries. Yet many of those not tasked with guarding the prisoners on their march abandoned their posts shortly after, leaving only a skeleton crew behind.
Elsa was too weak to travel, and Agata did not know whether it would prove a blessing or a curse. Everyone had been moved to barracks closer to the crematoriums, presumably so a smaller contingent of guards could more easily control them. They consisted of the weakest prisoners who had dwindled to flesh-covered bones and nothing else. Some crawled, others used canes or makeshift crutches. Some, like Elsa, were confined to sleeping in their bunks. Even extra food could not pull Elsa out of her malaise, and Agata feared she was giving up.
Agata stepped into the narrow road and looked toward the front of the camp. The absence of any guards in the guard towers struck her as an ominous sign. With her heart beating faster and more frenetically, she continued toward the front courtyard. It was eerily silent. Even birds had always stayed away from this place as if they sensed the evil here. It was now well known in town and throughout the prison population how the crematoriums were used. In the absence of many of the guards and prisoner workers, the bodies were piling up behind those buildings. Yet even vultures stayed away, flying well beyond the borders, perhaps understanding that this place held a human depravity beyond anything recorded in history.
As Agata drew nearer to the gate, she was surprised to find it closed and padlocked. Terror began to sweep through her as she realized they had all been locked inside.
“Agata! Agata!” The voice startled her, and she whipped around to find Elfriede, another female guard, nearing her. When Agata first began working at Auschwitz, Elfriede appeared to be in her early 30s, but now her hair had turned a mottled gray, and bags under her eyes made her appear much older. When she spoke, it was with a snappishness. “You are needed.” She stopped for a brief moment to catch her breath. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she added in an accusatory tone. Before Agata could respond, Elfriede pointed toward the barracks. “Get everyone out. No one is to stay behind. Line them up at Crematorium II.”
“Even the sick ones?”
“Everyone. No exceptions. They are all to be killed. Orders from the top. Anybody left behind will be shot.”
A massive explosion rocked the ground, and Agata and Elfriede both teetered, throwing out their arms in attempts to steady themselves. “What was that?” Agata breathed as debris and acrid smoke filled the air.
“They are destroying the crematoriums. Number two is the last in operation. When all the enemies of the state are killed, they will destroy that one, too.”
The reference to the prisoners did not escape Agata, yet she knew that no words she might have spoken would have made any difference in that moment. She felt a strange sensation in her heart, as if it were hardening.
“Hurry!” Elfriede ordered as she clapped her hands. “We are all to move quickly!”
Agata rushed toward the first inhabited barracks. As she opened the door, she found a small contingent of women. It was a miracle that they were still moving, as each one appeared to be more dead than alive. “Form a line outside,” Agata ordered. “No exceptions. If anyone is too ill to walk, carry them, drag them.”
As the women began to shuffle, Agata rushed to the next building and gave the same order. She found Elsa as still as she had been when she first discovered her over a year ago. “Carry her,” she ordered two nearby women. “Keep her at the rear.” She met their eyes as she spoke. There was recognition in them; despite their deteriorating physical conditions, their souls were strong. They understood. Somehow, they understood.
When the lines formed in front of the two barracks, Agata ordered them to move toward the crematorium. Although they had been repositioned in the last weeks, there was still distance to cover. Looking around, Agata could see no other guards. “Move slowly,” she ordered. “Pass the word down the line. Leave space between you. Move as slowly as possible.”
Then, she moved into the next barracks and the next, until a long line of emaciated skeletons somehow managed to put one foot in front of another. When one faltered, others stumbled to their aid. As Agata watched, one woman was partly carried and partly dragged by two others, as they put her in between them with her arms over their shoulders, her head lolling forward.
“God help us,” Agata breathed. She walked back through the barracks, checking every bunk. Inside one, she saw these words scratched into the wall: “If there is a God, He will have to beg me for forgiveness.”
A moment later, she reemerged. Elsa was about halfway up the line, a tiny bag of bones too weak to stand on her own. As she made her way toward her, Elfriede returned. “Anke has ordered you to the crematorium.”
“I have never worked there,” Agata breathed in horror.
“We are all doing things we have not done before today,” Elfriede hissed. “Anke wishes to speak with you. I’d hurry if I were you.” Her eyes were narrowed as she spoke, and her hand went instinctively to her baton as though she intended to treat Agata like a disobedient prisoner.
Something clicked inside Agata. Calmness settled over her, despite the urgency and the frenetic activity. This was ending. The Nazis were not winning, as they’d all been told. If they had been, they would not have been ordered to abandon the camp. They would not be blowing up their own carefully constructed buildings and facilities. Instead, they would be opening the gates to Allied prisoners of war.
This was ending, and it would end with these people, these final survivors, in line outside the crematorium.
The stench as she reached the ovens was so overpowering that she fought to keep from fainting. The skies were filled with smoke so black and roiling that she’d never before experienced anything like it, and she prayed she never would again. It was a mixture of chemicals and building materials smoldering as the explosions continued around them, intermingling with the constant reek of dead bodies. From the male side of the camp, she could see the last of those prisoners ordered into another line converging on the other side of the same crematorium. She quickly scanned the line, but did not see Piotr.
She entered the building to find the lines snaking inside. The hallway was wide and immaculate, as though she had entered a hospital. The floors appeared recently cleaned and waxed, and the walls were pristine, despite the vast numbers that had come through. Many of the people in line were praying, their bodies rocking.
Elfriede ordered those nearest the shower doors to strip despite the frigidity of a building without heat. As Agata hesitated, Elfriede hissed, “Around the corner. Stop dawdling.”
Agata hurried away from Elfriede and found Anke in another corridor at the door to the shower room. Her eyes were as cold as ice, and her lips were pursed in an odd, half-up, half-down manner as she stared at Agata, unblinking. Agata had barely reached her before she spoke.
“You are not German,” Anke spat, “and your name is not Agata Heinrich.”
Shocked, Agata stopped in her tracks. “It is—!”
“You are not from Fürstenwalde, and Henri and Herta Heinrich are not your parents. There is no Henri Heinrich, and Herta never had a daughter named Agata. Herta Heinrich claims not to know you.”
