The Dentist of Auschwitz
Chapter 4 We were homesick and tired of running. We looked forward to
the day our flight would end. Kaziek, the farmer's young son,
became my daily companion, eager to show me around the village.
On September 10, just before noon, we went for a walk. We had
gone barely one kilometer when we heard the whine of a
motorcycle. It soon became visible at the top of an incline,
speeding toward us with a strange-looking soldier in the seat.
Its sidecar was empty, and there was a trail of heavy smoke and
dust. We were the only people on the road. We were frightened,
but it was too late to run.
The motorcycle stopped. The soldier shut the engine off and
paused a minute. He then raised his goggles to his forehead and
asked if we spoke German.
"Yes," I answered, lowering my eyes in fear.
"Are you afraid?"
"No," I said clearly.
"Are many Polish soldiers here?" he asked me.
"No," I responded.
"Have any gone by today?"
"No," I repeated.
He had seen no one on the road. He asked us where everyone
was. "Are the people afraid of us? Tell them that they need not
be," he said. Then this soldier reached into his bag and pulled
out bars of chocolate and German cigarettes. As he handed them to
us, he said, "This is for you," and stared at us both. I was not
prepared to see such friendliness or generosity from a German
invader and hesitated. He nodded then and repeatedly urged us to
accept, and we did. By then several other motorcycles had pulled
over to join us. Had these soldiers not been dressed in such
strange uniforms, they would have looked like the locals. Many
armored vehicles and trucks approached. It was an impressive
sight as the soldiers roared away on their motorcycles. We could
see why the Germans had won such an easy victory over us. Unlike
our army, which moved around on foot and on horseback, theirs was
fully motorized.
We ran back to the farm with the news and told everyone how
decent the German soldiers were. Everyone knew the Germans had
arrived. If this is how they all are, we said, we won't have much
to worry about. On the road German troops were steadily passing,
singing their glorious odes to the Führer.
We could run no farther. The only choice was to return as
quickly as possible to our home. The flow of German tanks and
vehicles moving east, however, made that impossible. Furthermore,
we heard that the Germans had announced a ban on all civilian
travel for the rest of the day.
The next morning we left early, and we traveled all day
without incident. On the second day, however, several German
officers stood on a hill, watching the streaming refugees. Women
and children could pass in silence, while men had to tip their
caps in wary respect. As we went by that grandstand review, an
officer shouted at us in an belligerent voice, "Look at the Jews!
They wanted to escape. Damned Jews, we'll get you now!"
Chmielinski saw our faces turn white. He knew the impact this had
on us.
"Those bastards!" he said, bristling with outrage. "Someday
we'll get even with them." Little did Chmielinski know that two
weeks later he would be arrested. Later he would return to his
family as a handful of ashes.
With heavy heart, I recalled then what our uncle Shlomo
predicted when we had talked about the Germans. He shook his
head, saying, "God help us all."
It was dusty and hot when at dusk we drove off the road and
stopped for the night under a stand of isolated trees. This
attracted others, and we soon had a lot of company. In the rumors
of the night we heard that the Soviets had been occupying eastern
Poland. That eventually turned out to be true. Those who tried to
flee to the Russians were turned back. "Go home," they were told.
"Before long we'll come to you." The 1939 "mystery agreement"
between Ribbentrop and Molotov became perfectly clear now, but no
one believed that those two long-time enemies would stay on good
terms for long. Throughout that night, thoughts of the Nazi's
ridicule and threats kept me awake. I asked myself the same
question over and over: "Are we people of a lesser god?"
Thanks to the Chmielinskis' kindness and generosity, we
arrived home safely. Although nothing had changed in our house,
the Nazis had nevertheless made their authority felt in the
village. On the second day of their occupation, the Germans, at
random, hung ten men on the gallows, while the rest of the people
had to stand by and witness it. Their aim was to discourage any
resistance. One of those executed was my best friend, Szymon
Trzaskala.
On September 27 Warsaw fell. In a way we were happy the war
was over, or so we thought. Annexing the Corridor and Warthegau
was one of the Nazis' first territorial grabs in Poland.
Otherwise, except for food shortages, little changed initially.
To win the Polish people's cooperation in repressing the Jews,
Radio Warsaw fed outrageous lies to them. Someone once said,
"Blatant falsehood, if repeated often, eventually seems to be the
truth." So it was.
Before long Polish publications, as well as Jewish ones,
were shut down. The eight-page tabloid that appeared in their
place was filled with nothing more than bulletins and stories
about the persecution of Germans in Poland before the war. It was
the Germans' attempt to justify their occupation. When all our
radios were confiscated, we knew only what the Germans told us.
The rest of the world became a remote place.
Hans Frank became the governor of Warthegau, and Herr
Schweikert was to be our county's administrator. They quickly
enacted a number of directives that restricted Jewish freedom.
The rules were sometimes so murky that anything that wasn't
explicitly allowed for us we had to assume was forbidden.
The last time our family was together for a celebration was
in December 1939. It was during Hanukkah, the miracle of lights.
But suddenly the sky reddened. It seemed as if the whole town was
afire. Terrified, we learned that the Germans were burning down
the Jewish synagogue and its two adjoining prayer houses and
destroying the Torahs. The village Jews were devastated. The
orthodox Jews rent their garments and sat shivah in mourning.
Each subsequent December reminded me of this, our last and
saddest holiday together.
Each day the governor imposed more restrictions on us. Only
six people were allowed to attend funerals, although ten were
needed for a prayer service. A new curfew barred us from the
streets between 7:00 P.M. and 8:00 A.M., and it was so
strictly enforced that some Jews were shot. We were limited in
what we could buy and where we could buy it. Since our avenues to
the farmers were cut, even those of us with money couldn't buy
much with it. Our few non-Jewish friends, those who were still
willing to help us, were prohibited from doing so. Soon all
Jewish homes had to display the Star of David, and all Jews six
years of age and older had to wear it. Not sparing us another
insult, the German word for Jew, Jude, in Hebrew-style letters
had to appear inside the star. Our own emblem was to be our badge
of shame. Then our use of the sidewalks was forbidden, forcing us
to walk in the gutters. The Germans amused themselves by driving
their vehicles at us. Bearded Jews became their prime targets.
They cut or plucked the beards or set them on fire. All our gold
and silver was ordered confiscated, and withholding any was
punishable by death. Physical brutality now occurred daily.
One December night we woke to a violent pounding on the door
and a order to open it. At first we didn't answer, hoping the
intruders would leave. They threatened to break down the door.
Because males were primary targets, Mama went to the door. "Who
are you? What do you want from us?"
"Open!" they repeated, pounding. "Weapons inspection." We
knew the inspection claim was just a thin excuse, but refusing to
open the door would bring more wrath. Mama unlocked the door and
let in what seemed to be four German postal employees. Mama
looked relieved. "Jews?" one asked. Mama didn't answer.
While three of them went roaming around the house, the
fourth asked Mama where our guns were. She shook her head. "There
are no guns in our house," she answered.
Nearby in the foyer, where Grandpa slept, one asked him the
same question. "Where are your guns?" The man peeked under the
bed and found my dental instruments in a small box. A triumphant
smile widened on his face as he lifted it up and shouted, "Was
ist da drin?"
"Those are my grandson's dental tools," Grandpa answered.
"Dental tools?" he blurted in disgust and slammed the box
into Grandpa's face. As my instruments scattered, my grandfather
shrieked.
In the meantime, another one of them had been cursing my
father. "You Jews are the cause of all evil. You wanted this war,
and you'll have to pay for it."
My father, his face white, protested quietly. "See for
yourself. We have no weapons." But his words fell on deaf ears.
Even a confession from him wouldn't have changed their minds.
They were here for one purpose, to castigate and beat up Jews.
The man then hit Papa in the head with his bayonet. When I
saw blood dripping down my father's face, I thought he had been
killed. Another German kept shooting bullets into our furniture
and mirrors. The third slapped my brother in the face. Then he
turned to me. "Auch Jude?" he bellowed, as if to assure me that I
also deserved a beating. Terrified, I pushed my body into a
corner, dropped to the floor, and pulled my knees up to my chest.
I covered my face, hoping to escape the worst.
"Leave him alone. Don't you see he is not quite there?" I
heard another say to him. I did not escape entirely. He landed
his boot on my behind, kicking me a few times. Otherwise he let
me alone.
Then they left. The nightmare was over. Josek's nose was
broken, Papa's forehead required several stitches, and Grandpa
lay bloodied in the foyer. Pola tended to Grandpa. Mama kept
placing wet towels on Papa's head and muttering, "They were just
plain post office workers." She sighed. This was too unthinkable
and too cruel. In spite of my twenty years, I was still too naive
to understand that people could carry so much hatred for others.
Then I thought of the golem story, which dates back to the Bible
and the Talmud and has been retold throughout the centuries: In a
mystical rite, invoking the Divine Name, a wise man gave
artificial life to a human body made of clay or wood. This
soulless body was then ordered to do tasks blindly. The golem was
the perfect metaphor and offered an answer to my questions. "Who
are we? What have we done? Why are we so despised?" I asked
myself. That night something changed my theory of humanity
forever. I realized that our lives had been irreparably altered.
One woman in the village admitted that she had heard Germans
asking where Jews lived. "Someone must have pointed you out," she
said.
In Poland, the Volksdeutsche, ethnic German living outside
Germany, seemed to have sold their souls to the Führer. The best
example was our long-time neighbors and friends, the Marxes. Mrs.
Marx now defended the Nazis in whatever they did. She didn't even
come to see us after that night. From that time on we lived in
fear. Each time we heard someone outside at night, we wondered if
Germans were coming to terrorize us again. This was not the first
nor was it the last time that Jewish homes were invaded at night
and people were beaten. The fear of that night terror became our
steady companion. Killing Jews was now permitted and even
encouraged.
The Racias (roundups) followed. Jews were gathered and
ordered to do demeaning labor. One day Pola was seized and taken
to the German army barracks. There she was made to clean privies.
"It's a pity that a pretty girl like you has to be Jewish," one
soldier wisecracked, as the others laughed. Pola came home
trembling. "I would rather die," she said, "than go through this
again."
Pola and I decided to escape into the Soviet-occupied part
of Poland. Although our parents weren't in favor of this, they
recognized that, in circumstances like these, everyone had to
make a personal decision. It was late December, almost New
Year's, when we left. It was cold enough for a heavy snowfall
that morning, but no snow had fallen. We removed our yellow
patches from our clothes and hoped to pass for non-Jews. To be
less conspicuous, we took only necessities. After exchanging
farewells with the rest of our family, we left. The air was raw.
A white frost blanket covered the fields, and the streams were
frozen. We trekked through the forests on our fateful odyssey.
Four hours later we reached the train station. It was the
end of the first leg of our journey. We had several hundred
kilometers to go. Pola, a light-haired brunette with non-Semitic
features, had no difficulty buying the tickets to a town near the
Russian border. Then we sat and waited for the train to arrive.
We spotted more Jews who had the same intention in the waiting
area. We didn't talk to anyone for fear of being recognized. When
the train finally arrived and we thought we had made it, we were
stunned to hear an announcement: Jews were restricted from using
the train. All others could board it. Somehow the SS men knew
that Jews were among the travelers.
A dozen of us who remained on the platform looked on as the
train chugged away and slowly disappeared. Then two SS men
collected our papers and stamped a J on them. Before returning
them to us, they issued an angry warning. "Whoever tries to use
the trains again will be shot." Our plans ruined, we felt
crushed. We had little choice but to return home.
Although our family shared our disappointment, they were
happy to have us back. Papa, as always, found a silver lining.
"Whatever happens to us, we'll at least be together," he said.
Then he added a contention he had often used. "Things are never
eaten as hot as they're cooked!"
A few weeks later one of my sister's friends returned
disappointed from the Soviet-occupied part of Poland. He warned
us not to go there. "The Russians have been rounding up the Jews
that came over and deporting them to labor camps in Siberia," he
said. We could not imagine why the Soviets were also our enemies.
It shattered our idea about Jews being seen as equal to others
under communism.
Because my grandfather was constantly harassed in the street
about his beard, he stopped going out. Removed from his friends,
he grew weak. One morning we were shocked to find him in a deep
sleep from which he never awoke. My idol was dead. We knew that
Grandpa had died because he lost his will to live. I understood
that with him gone, my life would never be the same. The
procession to the cemetery consisted of only the family, as
others were forbidden to attend. All the mirrors in our house
were covered, and we sat shivah for a week. Friends, at risk to
themselves, came to make up the ten-man prayer service. I
overheard them saying that they envied my grandfather for his
peaceful death.
A few days later Mother and I took a back road to the other
side of the village. Halfway there, I noticed a former classmate
of mine coming toward us. Like many of the others of German
ancestry, he too had joined the Nazis. He wore a brown shirt with
a red Hakenkreuz (swastika) armband. Presenting himself as a
German, he sought to demonstrate his faithfulness to the Führer.
Coming upon us, he pushed my mother, and she fell to the ground.
I was shocked. I searched his face. "Otto, why are you doing
this?" I demanded, outraged. In his eyes I saw sinister cruelty
and mercilessness. The schoolmate of yesterday was a foe today.
Then he began to use the common Nazi hate rhetoric. "You Jew
swine, you pests, you war criminals."
I could see that he knew who we were, but he showed no
remorse. He left us, still mumbling with enmity. My blood pounded
in my temples. I thought that I should have ripped the swastika
off his arm, but I was paralyzed, as if I had no command over my
limbs. Pale and humiliated, Mama could not stop trembling, but
fortunately she was not hurt. I could not comfort her. I had not
defended her, and I felt a deep guilt. This incident convinced me
how quickly people's minds could be poisoned. This was a bad
year, and the next one might be worse.
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