The Dentist of Auschwitz
Chapter 3 Throughout the summer of 1939 the threat that Germany would
invade Poland intensified. Since Dobra was only about 160
kilometers east of Germany, we had good reason to be concerned.
My parents, who remembered the First World War, feared war more
than the threat from the Germans. Their war experiences hung over
them like a bad dream. I was not quite twenty, though, and I was
more intrigued by war than scared.
Josek had served two years in the Yellow Cavalry of the
Polish army. Consequently, as war hysteria began, he was recalled
and moved with his unit to the Polish border. September 1, 1939,
came, and the tense waiting ended, for Hitler's armies crossed
into Poland and the Second World War began. Many people enlisted,
and although it was against my mother's wishes, I also tried to
join up. However, the draft age in Poland was twenty-one then.
The recruiting officer sent me home. "We'll call you when we need
you," he said. Perhaps he already knew that fighting the well-equipped Nazi armies was senseless.
The next day the nearby mental hospital released all its
patients, and hundreds of the insane paraded through the village,
creating unbelievable scenes. One man mimicked Napoleon Bonaparte
and claimed his armies were coming to fight the Germans. Another,
marching as if on parade, saluted everything in sight. A pretty
young girl, who seemed perfectly normal at first, suddenly burst
into a confused tirade. It was pitiful and grotesque to see them
all wandering the streets, staring off into the distance. When
the Germans arrived, they put them against a wall and executed
them.
On September 3 the Nazi armies were just thirty kilometers
away. They would soon be marching on the village. Our retreating
soldiers vowed to take a stand and fight at the Warta River, the
most logical place to resist the German advance. Our parents
remembered a similar situation in the First World War, when our
village changed hands several times. We prepared to leave. Just
before we left, Josek appeared. "Our battalion," he said, "had
only rifles and lances. We were forced into a chaotic retreat."
On Monday, September 4, we decided to leave Dobra. Our
truck, an old Peugeot, seemed only to run when we did not need
it, so to be safe Papa hitched two horses to a wagon and tied a
third to the rear as a spare. After we packed the most essential
provisions, clothes and valuables, blankets and bedding, we were
ready to leave.
Grandpa refused to come with us. He did not fear German
soldiers. "We fought them in the last war. Soldiers are soldiers.
They won't harm an old man," he said calmly. And so we left him
behind and entered a congested trail of war refugees.
The road was packed with horse-drawn vehicles. Some families
even took their cows to provide milk for their children. There
were few automobiles, for the army had confiscated them. Our
horses were long past their prime, so we walked on foot behind
the wagon at each hill. After an hour of slow travel, we heard
the sound of approaching airplanes. At first we believed they
were Polish. As they came closer, however, we clearly saw that
they were not. Their unusual heavy roar and their black cross
insignias were enough to tell us that they held the enemy.
However fearful we were, we knew that they could see that only
civilians were on the road.
When they glided down, we thought it was just to see if we
were innocent civilians. We were sure they would not harm us
then. Yet to our surprise, they fired at us, creating a mass
panic. On the right was the Warta, on the left a field. Only a
few trees lined the roadside. We were trapped, with nowhere to
run. Since the vehicles followed one another only centimeters
apart, every salvo of bullets took a toll. Our three animals rose
and whinnied in alarm and tried to tear themselves free of the
wagon. After the assault, the bombers rose up and departed,
leaving death and destruction behind. Strewn about were dead and
injured people and animals and wrecked wagons. This was my first
taste of war. What followed convinced me of the validity of my
parents' concerns.
A few kilometers farther on we were spotted by two other
German planes. Since there were no Polish airplanes to fight them
off, we knew what to expect. We had good reason to be frightened.
On the right of the road an embankment ran down to the river.
Suddenly an army unit passed us on the left, pushing us onto the
slippery, grass-covered embankment. Papa jumped down and gripped
the horses' reins close to their mouths to steady them. "Out of
the way," people shouted, jockeying for space. At that point
Mama, Pola, Josek, and I were walking behind the wagon. Suddenly
Papa yelled, "Untie the horse in the back!" Just as my brother
did, a bomb fell into the river, and an explosion drenched the
road. Our wagon was pushed further to the side, and gravity
pulled the horses and wagon down into the river. The Warta
parted. After a gigantic splash, the water churned, foamed, and
sent our belongings and valuables to the bottom of the river.
Large waves rolled away in a circle and then dissipated. Only
ripples covered our property and the grave of two horses. We had
nothing left except what we wore and the horse Josek held on to.
The Stukas departed, and we were stunned and horrified. People
who had seen what had happened streamed by. They were frightened,
and everyone just wanted us out of the way.
Papa suggested that we go to his brother's home in Uniejów.
"We'll stay there until the war is over," he said.
Uncle Chaim, Papa's older brother, was a very orthodox and
extremely pious Jew who often neglected his family. He and his
wife and nine children lived on the edge of poverty in a small
apartment. Toba, his oldest daughter, had lived with us for
years. But in the months before the war she had returned home.
When we arrived at Uncle Chaim's, the apartment was empty.
Like most people in Uniejów, they had realized that our army
couldn't stop the Germans. They too were probably heading
eastward. We could not turn back; we had to go on. Dragging our
one horse farther made no sense. We left it grazing in a field,
and bedraggled, despondent, and hungry, we left Uniejów.
Outside the town we heard Papa's name being called. It was
Mr. Chmielinski. A few years back he had bought Herr Heller's
bankrupted estate. My father had had lots of dealings with him
since. It was an unexpected miracle. "Wigdor! What are you doing
here?" he yelled. "Is that your wife and your children? Come on,
we will take you with us," he shouted, unable to stop for us in
the traffic.
His tall, spacious wagon, pulled by stalwart Belgian horses,
was a stark contrast to our scanty rig. We jogged along next to
it long enough for him and his son, Karol, to help us up. Then
Papa explained our dilemma. Chmielinski and his wife sat in
front. Mama and Papa sat on the same seat facing the rear. The
rest of us sat on the bench in the rear with Karol. We are more
comfortable now, I thought.
When the traffic thinned out, Chmielinski pulled the wagon
off the road so the horses could feed. He hung bags filled with
oats on their necks and spread hay on the ground. Then the family
shared what they had with us--home-baked bread, butter, and milk--with a hospitality that was easy to accept.
The Polish soldiers that passed us along the road didn't
resemble an army anymore. "Where are the Germans?" we asked.
"Keep going, keep going," they replied. Although it was
getting dark, we took their advice. Chmielinski set the horses
off at a brisk trot. With fewer army vehicles crowding the road,
we made better time.
Karol was a good-humored young man of twenty-seven who had
been studying at Jagiello University in Kraków. He liked to talk
about Marxism, pacifism, and Hitler. The falling dusk and the
rhythmic sway of the wagon made me drowsy, and before long I was
sound asleep.
It didn't seem that I had slept long when I awoke to a
familiar sound. I looked to the west and saw two dots on the
horizon. The roar grew louder, and the dots grew bigger, until I
could see the much-feared Messerschmitt. Chmielinski turned the
wagon into a field that had already been harvested, and we
climbed out. People ran, frenzied, slipping, staggering,
desperate, but there was no place to hide. The roar was deafening
as two bombers, side by side, circled above us. Suddenly I heard
the bombs whistle. I dropped to the ground. The explosion sent
earth flying, leaving huge craters behind. Terrified by the
noise, the horses, sniffing blood and the odor of death, rose up
on their hind legs. Although we were civilians and there was
nothing military in sight, the Germans kept blasting their
machine guns.
Finally, simply because they were out of ammunition, they
flew off. I stood up, shaken. My heart was pounding. Above a
wrecked wagon and a dead horse hung a bloodied jacket with part
of an arm still in it on a telephone pole. We were all scared,
and we thanked God that we had survived. There had been wars
before but none like this. This wasn't war, people were saying.
It was cold-blooded murder. "This is the result of the new
terrible weapons," Karol mumbled, shaking his head.
As we continued moving east, the sun rose high. It baked us
in an unusual September heat. We came across dozens of dead
animals and wrecked vehicles. The smell of carrion was
everywhere. I could not shake off my memory of the arm dangling
from that telephone pole. After a few kilometers we stopped, and
when Papa tried to buy provisions for zlotys, he discovered that
what was plentiful just a few days before had all but
disappeared. Although our friends' food was almost depleted, they
continued to share with us what they had.
We had a few hours' relief from the bombings, but soon the
familiar roar reminded us that the Germans ruled the skies. We
now knew what to expect, and when the wagon pulled off the road
we swiftly ran for cover. I followed my brother into some dry and
thorny bushes. We flattened ourselves, to be as obscure as
possible. The planes came as before. Swooping down, they covered
the area with machine-gun fire and dropped bombs. But their guns
did the most damage. I checked myself after each salvo to see if
I was hit and bleeding.
Not far from us, someone lay slumped over. We went over, and
we could see blood trickling from his right temple. A bullet had
ended his life. A woman in her middle forties came screaming,
"It's Stasiek. My God, it's Stasiek!" Two men were behind her.
There was sadness and sorrow and much sympathy, but people were
afraid. All knew they could be next and tried to get away. The
cries of "Stasiek!" rang in my ears for a long time.
I understood then why my parents had so feared war. It was
on this day, in the middle of a Polish field under a sky filled
with the rapid fire of airborne machine guns, that I lost the
illusion that war was an adventure. As we continued on, we passed
Lodz and drove on eastward toward Warsaw. We had decided not to
stop before dawn. We knew now that daytime travel was dangerous,
and from here on we would move only by night. Living off our
benefactors became increasingly embarrassing. Besides, their food
was nearly gone. We agreed that we would stop in the next village
and again try to buy provisions.
Dark clouds hung in the sky, threatening rain, but as the
sun came out they dispersed into another sunny morning. We knew
it wouldn't be long until the planes returned. We feared the next
bombing, concerned that eventually we would have casualties. But
we had to go on. We were near the Kampinoska barrens. The village
of Kampinos was dead ahead. We stopped at the first farmhouse. No
doubt, a land baron carried weight, and Mr. Chmielinski's status
was the reason for the remarkable greeting we received. The
exceedingly hospitable peasant allowed us to move not only into
his yard but also into his barn. He kept chattering in a dialect
that was difficult for us to understand. When he realized that we
could hardly follow him, he began gesturing with his hands.
His wife had just milked their cows. She came from the
cowshed with their two children--a girl about eight and a boy not
over fourteen. They both peeked shyly at us. The plopping of the
warm milk in the woman's pail stirred our hunger. Thanks to the
bread, butter, eggs, and milk, which we bought from this family,
we had our first warm meal since leaving home.
After the long night on the wagon, it was comforting to get
down and stretch our legs. But before long the Stukas came again.
God, will this never cease? I thought. This time, though, the
planes--on their way to Warsaw, no doubt--just passed by.
The next morning we heard that the German troops had been
advancing rapidly. Poland could no longer offer them any
resistance. What remained of our army could not stop the advance.
Rydz-Smigy's bravado, "Not one button will we surrender!" now
rung hollow indeed. For us to run any farther east seemed
useless. With the farmer's hospitality assured, we decided to
stay. The German planes headed toward Warsaw no longer fired upon
us. They flew back and forth as if on a regular airline route.
In the next forty-eight hours we heard rumors that the
Soviets had declared war on Germany. Great Britain and France
were already at war with Germany, but we wondered where they
were. Was declaring war just a political ploy? It was no longer a
question of whether we would fall into German hands, but when.
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