The Fighter Read online

  I remember my brother Albert, when he was still Anschel, looking for potatoes day and night. I try to put myself in his frame of mind. Where would he find food in this camp? Why, it’s obvious: he would go hang around the kitchen and see what happens. As a Yiddish proverb says: “Whoever works in the beehive can hope to lick some honey.”

  I borrow a broom from a kapo’s servant. I enter the dining hall without asking anybody’s permission and begin to sweep. A Polish cook opens the window that separates the dining hall from the kitchen:

  “You, Jew, what are you doing there?”

  “I’m sweeping.”

  “Yeah? Okay….”

  He closes the window. I come back every evening after working in the mine. The cooks get used to me. They call me the sweeper. They give me some soup. They ask me whether I can bring up eggs and onions from the mine in exchange for a shirt. I promised myself never to carry eggs again, but I need this relationship with the cooks, so I bring back two eggs and two onions.

  They give me work washing dishes. This is easy, because the prisoners lick their soup to the very last particle. I just have to rinse the bowls. There are so many of them that I ask Gelber and Brod to help me. Brod isn’t too eager.

  “Do you remember I was a cook in Pithiviers? This idea of yours, I tried it in Auschwitz. I managed to spend one day in the kitchen. I had hoped to be able to eat a little more than the others. All the cooks were Polish political prisoners, guys who had built the camp in 1940. They didn’t want any Jews in the kitchen. I hid in a corner and left with only a few bruises. Another Jew was less lucky. They tripped him when he was carrying a barrel of soup. The heavy barrel fell on him and broke his arm. He was good and ready for block seven.”

  “Here, too, the cooks are Polish, but they treat me right, I tell you.”

  Brod and Gelber are so hungry they can’t afford to be picky. They decide to come along. It turns out that Brod was right to distrust the Poles. They ask us to carry steel vats containing fifteen gallons of soup to the digging kommando. We have to load the vats upon a horse cart, then unload them at the work site. This is a very dangerous job. I go to the head cook and protest.

  “The place is at least three miles away. Look at the lids. The rubber ring is cracked on this side and altogether missing here. The ride will shake the vats and spill the soup. They are full to the brim when we start out, so the kapos will surely notice that some soup is missing when we arrive and beat us.”

  “Hey, you Jews, do you want to work in the kitchen or don’t you?”

  I try to think up something.

  “Could you give us some of the wax paper you wrap margarine with?”

  “All right, but don’t count on finding anything left to lick!”

  I roll the margarine paper to make a new gasket, which I insert to replace the rubber ring of one of the lids. I lock the iron fastenings on both sides of the vat. We shake the vat to check that the soup doesn’t leak anymore. It works!

  With this invention, we earn the privilege of being tolerated in the kitchen—a place usually forbidden to Jews. We carry vats every day when we’re back from the mine. The cooks give us soup, slices of dried sausage, plum jam. Nobody would call me fat, but at least I’m not starving. One big advantage is that I don’t have to exchange clothes for food at the bottom of the mine, so I don’t live in fear of sudden searches anymore.

  Brod’s mood lightens so much that he begins to crack jokes again. Having found a tiny morsel of meat in his soup, he asks me whether I know the story of the Jew who orders a steak in a restaurant. “He looks at his plate and begins to weep loudly. The innkeeper hurries to his table: ‘Anything wrong, sir?’ Still sobbing, the Jew says, ‘When I think that for this tiny piece of meat, they had to kill a big cow!’”

  Our two Polish miners are amazed when they see us working better every day. They think of Jews as merchants, unfit for manual labor. They don’t understand that we’re able to work more because we’re better fed. In any case, they respect us and treat us as friends. We have become “their” Jews. Often, anti-Semitic Poles make an exception for some Jews they know personally.

  The specter of death is no longer perched on my shoulder like a familiar bird. It still flies by now and then, just to show it hasn’t gone away altogether. For example, the SS camp commander drinks too much vodka and wants to have fun. He wakes us up in the middle of the night for winter Olympics: running in the snow with a snarling dog at our heels and other sports.

  “Faster, you shit buckets,” he shouts. “I’ll make you run till you’re good and ready for the gas!”

  After these nights, many comrades become Muselmen. Dutch or Hungarian Jews come from Auschwitz to replace them. The miners complain.

  “We worked hard at training our Jews, and now you send us these clumsy fools who don’t even speak Polish!”

  The camp commander is afraid of the mine’s director, who is his superior in the SS hierarchy, so he organizes these sport events less often.

  Danger lurks inside the block, too, like in Auschwitz. The block senior and the deputy don’t strangle twenty prisoners every night, like Laybich (prisoners coming from Auschwitz told me other thugs killed him, after breaking his arms and legs), but they know how to turn a man into a Muselman with a good beating. Although I’m an old number, a Jawischowitz veteran whom the kapos know and respect, I must remain as careful as on the first day—or maybe even more—if I want to keep the meager privileges I’ve acquired. A new deputy, Mandelbrot, wants to hit me with his club because I bring extra soup for the block from the kitchen.

  “I didn’t order any soup. Go throw it away outside!”

  “I’ll bring soup when I want to. You’d better mind your own business.”

  “Oh yeah? We’ll see….”

  “Come closer and I’ll knock you right down!”

  I’ve taken so many blows that a few more won’t make much difference. If I let him boss me around, I’ll lose my authority. Mandelbrot is taller than me and has a club, but I’m confident I can handle him. I’m taking a huge risk, of course. I’m gambling that the block senior will take my side. He is a German who arrived from Auschwitz not long ago. He was starving. He became my assistant in the kitchen and I fed him. Belonging to the higher race, he didn’t stay in his lowly position long.

  The deputy hesitates. He wonders whether I’m bluffing or some higher power protects me. I seize the opportunity and send a direct hit to his jawbone that breaks two of his front teeth. Instead of retorting with his club, he goes to the block senior and whines. A few minutes later, I hear the German’s loud voice.

  “Where’s the Hirenzine who hit you? Don’t worry, he won’t try that again!”

  Here he is, whip in hand. Mandelbrot points at me. This is a critical moment. In the camp’s hellish world, you gamble your life nearly every day. If I lose my bet, I die….

  The block senior laughs.

  “So it’s you, my cook? Give me a piece of sausage, ha ha!”

  I hand him a piece of dry sausage. He cuts a slice for himself and one for me. Still laughing, he turns around and hits the deputy so hard that he knocks him down for the count.

  Chapter 23

  The Red Army is trouncing the Germans

  No German goes down to the bottom of the mine. The Polish miners meet in the round chamber where the tunnels start from. They bring German newspapers, which I translate for them. I even draw maps on the ground. They call me Professor.

  “They’re stuck before Moscow, in front of Leningrad. But in the south, they’re moving ahead. They want to capture the Caspian Sea’s gas fields. The Russians hold on to the city of Stalingrad, on the Volga River. The Germans have been trying to capture it for months.”

  I’m playing a dangerous game. An informer could hide in the crowd and denounce me for turning the news into “communist propaganda,” a crime punishable by death.

  One day, toward the end of the 1942–43 winter, I read in the paper that “the cheating Bolshev
iks, instead of accepting a fair fight, attacked us from behind in a cowardly manner…. They’ll regret this low blow…. Our revenge will be grim….” I shiver from head to foot.

  “This means the Russians have surrounded them. This is the beginning of the end.”

  Soon, all the prisoners know that the Red Army is trouncing the Germans in Stalingrad. Will we be able to hold on until the end of the war? Will we see the Germans defeated? Every other week, an SS doctor checks our buttocks and sends fifty comrades to the gas. Whereas Polish Jews, protected by the miners, find food and withstand the sport sessions, most Dutch and Hungarian Jews become Muselmen after a month or two.

  As if death were afraid we’d try to escape its clutches, it tries to catch us inside the mine. One night, while I’m working with a different team, I see a Polish miner tumble to the ground in front of me. I know what it is—a gas pocket! It may not be the same gas as in the gas chamber, but it sucks the life out of you just the same. I pull the miner out by his feet just in time. He seems to resent that a Jew saved his life.

  Serious accidents happen every week. My old miner warns us:

  “If you hear a kind of thunderous rumble, drop your tools and run to the nearest concrete shelter.”

  I think accidents happen even in well-kept mines. In ours, of course, nobody cares about the safety of Polish and Jewish Untermenschen.m Eventually, the thunder rumbles. Even before I’ve heard anything, the old miner rushes toward the shelter—which is not too far, luckily.

  “Hurry up! Follow me!” he shouts.

  The steel pillars that hold up the tunnel’s roof fall down one after another behind us, as if some giant were knocking down bowling pins.

  One gangway has collapsed. Our old miner leads the rescue team. Four men are missing: two Poles and two Jews, one of them my pal Brod. We knock on the venting tubes; they knock back. We dig as fast as we can. The earth that obstructs the gangway contains huge rocks, which we must break down with pickaxes. We install new steel pillars. The mine’s technical director, a Pole, comes down and compliments the old miner for his speedy reaction. We reach the four men. The two Poles and one of the Jews are wounded. Brod, who was protected by a large rock, is unhurt. When we find him, he is fast asleep! We call his name. He wakes up and smiles.

  “Bonjour, Maurice.”

  “Were you actually sleeping? I can’t believe it.”

  “Why not? I shouted for a while, but nobody answered. I thought: ‘Either my hour has come and I’m going to die, or it hasn’t come and I’ll live. Let’s wait and see!’ No other deep thought entered my mind, so I fell asleep.”

  “The Eternal placed a rock above you to protect you,” Gelber says. “This means that your hour hadn’t come.”

  I find this way of reasoning perfectly stupid.

  “Your Eternal lets millions die in Auschwitz and he decides to save our dear Brod? This doesn’t make sense. The Eternal said: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but mothers can’t help strangling their own children in the gas chamber. Brod was lucky, that’s all. There’s no more to say.”

  I guess we’re jealous. What with night shifts in the mine, midnight sport sessions in the camp, wake-up calls at dawn, we don’t sleep much. Brod managed to sleep at least two hours under his rock!

  Chapter 24

  Your son is the same age as my daughter

  The earth rotates around the sun, undisturbed by the terrible pain human beings inflict on each other. The days become longer, the air warmer. We live as if outside time. Except for Sunday, our days are all alike. What is today’s date? We left Pithiviers on July 17, 1942. Have we already spent one year in the camp?

  The SS mine director loves making speeches. “You’re just lazy Jews…. If you don’t work harder, I’ll send you back to Auschwitz, all of you….” Toward the end of summer, instead of threatening us yet again, he brings us incredible news.

  “I’ve pleaded on your behalf with the authorities. You’ll be allowed to send a postcard to your family. You can even hope for an answer.”

  Have Rachel and Élie been caught? Are they still alive? Do they still live in our apartment? Maybe they’re pretending they’re not Jewish. In that case, a postcard coming from Auschwitz would put them in danger. I send the card to our landlord, a decent Frenchman whom I know and trust. If they’ve been taken, I’ll still get an answer from him. I try out some sentences in my head: “I’m in good health. I work in a coal mine. How are my wife and my son? I hope everybody is okay.” I must reassure her without alarming the censors who will read the card before it is sent. I have to write in German, because of the censors. I hope the landlord will find someone to translate it.

  Brod, Gelber, and I discuss this postcard business while we bring the soup vats from the kitchen to the digging kommando.

  “They know they’ve lost. The Russians will crush them. They have decided to stop murdering people. They want to look their best when the time comes for them to be judged.”

  “You’re either a hopeless optimist or a real fool, Gelber. After what you’ve seen in Auschwitz, do you think they’ll just stop on their own?”

  “Wisniak is right. Some guys who just arrived from over there have told me that they’re gassing entire trainloads of Jews. As defeat is drawing near, they’re hurrying up. Time is short, so they’re working twice as fast.”

  “Then why do they let us write postcards?”

  “Maybe the director appreciates our work, after all. We work so much that he is able to double his output. They still hope to beat the Russians. They need the coal for their war factories.”

  “Hey, Brod, do you think the director is a special kind of SS? He’s just like the rest of them. If they really wanted to exploit the Jews’ labor for their war effort, they wouldn’t exterminate them in the first place. I’ll tell you what I think. People in France are wondering about all these Jews who were deported to so-called work camps. Why have they never sent any news? This postcard business is just another deception.”

  “One thing for sure is that nobody’s going to write about women and children being gassed as soon as they step off the train. No doubt our cards will help support German propaganda.”

  Toward the end of 1943, as we must endure the frozen breath of winter once more, I change blocks again. I’ve already spent close to one year in Jawischowitz. Whenever I change my shift in the mine, I have to work with a new Polish team and move to another block. Bill, my new block senior, is a bloodthirsty brute whom all the prisoners fear. His deputy has heard that I’m tough, so he wants to crush me. Soon after my arrival, he puts me on sentry duty after the night call. The block is always guarded at night against thieves. If an SS walks by, the sentry must stand at attention and shout the number of prisoners inside the block. The deputy chooses someone he wants to punish or test. It is hard to stay awake, but if you fall asleep you risk a beating and a one-way trip to the gas. To keep my tired body from sinking into sleep, I pace back and forth and count my steps. I see a shadow in the night, a dark outline coming toward our block, pitching and tacking like a listing sailboat. It’s the ferocious Bill! I stand to attention instantly and I shout the number of prisoners. He sneers.

  “All right, all right!”

  His sinister grin sends shivers down my spine. I’ll bet he is racking his vodka-soaked brain for some exciting new form of torture to try on me.

  “Don’t worry…. I can see you’re scared…. Go and wake up my deputy.”

  “I’m here, Herr Blockältester!”

  The deputy is ready to grovel in front of his master, like a dog who knows he made some bad mistake.

  “Who posted Wisniak here? Is it you?”

  “Yes, Herr Blockältester….”

  “On your knees, shitbag, and turn around!”

  He gives him a vigorous kick in the ass.

  “Herr Wisniak should not be on night duty! Do you understand?”

  I don’t like this. Such a sudden vodka-tinged affection seems highly suspect to me. When Bill
wakes up in the morning with a dreadful headache, he’ll see me differently. He’ll punish me for presuming to be his friend. What’s more, the deputy will make me pay for the kick he got because of me.

  Bill turns toward me.

  “Do you have a wife, Wisniak?”

  “Yes, Herr Blockältester.”

  “Call me Bill…. Do you know that your son, Élie, is the same age as my daughter? Let’s go and drink a toast to our kids!”

  My heart knocks wildly in my chest. If he knows the age and the name of my son, it means that a letter arrived from France. Rachel and Élie are alive! I feel so elated that I am able to swallow a glass of a nauseating vodka that someone brought up from the mine.

  The next day, as soon as I come back from the mine, I hurry to the camp’s office. Rachel has sent not only a letter, but also a parcel. The commander’s secretary, Karl Grimmer, is a German condemned for fraud. He is a very unusual German: he doesn’t hit us or call us shitbags. He tells me I’m fortunate.

  “The parcel is nearly empty, Herr Wisniak, because the Auschwitz postmen took their share, but at least it made it here. The postmen probably thought you were Polish, like them, because of your name. Your comrades are not so lucky.”

  It is true that I have a Polish name: wisnia means a cherry tree.

  “If you want,” he adds, “I can write in your file that you’re a Mischling (a half blood), born from a Catholic father and a Jewish mother. You never know. It could save your life someday.”

  This favor never helped me, as far as I know, but it stands as proof that there was at least one humane German.

  Chapter 25

  Herr Remmele is a boxing fan

  The Polish miners talk about Christmas, then the New Year, so we know that the year 1944 is beginning. The German papers that we read in the round chamber become less precise. According to Karl Grimmer, the secretary, the Red Army is advancing slowly but steadily. They recaptured Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, and are moving toward the Polish border. The English and the Americans have forced the Germans out of North Africa. They landed in Sicily and have already reached Naples.