The Dentist of Auschwitz
Chapter 15 At eight in the morning on January 11, 1945, we were each
given half a kilo of bread, two squares of margarine, and a
generous portion of marmalade. The guards searched each barracks
and destroyed whatever they thought had any value.
It was a dry and cold day. The snow blew around, and some of
the roads were partly covered. We were arranged in fives, as
usual, yet for some reason we were kept standing in one place.
"We are waiting to meet up with Buna and the other camps around
here," Hermann said. Finally, near midnight, we were separated
into units of one hundred and left Fürstengrube. One SS guard
with a rifle marched about every ten meters beside us. My brother
and I were in the second row. Srulek Lipshitz, the electrician,
and Willy and Viky Engel were with us. The Kapos and the much-feared Oberkapo Wilhelm Henkel were just ahead of us. The sound
of our boots echoed loudly in the silent night. Many military
vehicles were passing us, also headed west.
Suddenly we heard a loud bang, as if a firecracker had
exploded. We were puzzled. A few minutes later we passed an
inmate lying dead on the road with blood trickling from his head.
We had found the source of the noise. Soon Josef Hermann came
along the lines with a warning: "The guards will shoot anyone who
doesn't keep up with us." A few minutes later someone staggered
and fell. We looked on in horror as a guard shot him. Before long
so many lay dead on the road that we had to walk carefully to
avoid stepping on the bodies. At about four o'clock in the
morning we came to another group of inmates. They came from Buna.
It was still dark when we were ordered to stop at a big
farm. The barn was open, and we were told that we would stay
there the rest of the night. My brother and I dug ourselves into
the straw; my dental tools lay beside me. My eyes shut, and I
quickly fell asleep. When it was barely daylight the Kapos flung
their whips and yelled, "Eintreten!" The guards seemed to be in a
big hurry. We took our positions in the same rows and left
without being counted. Then we learned that we were going to
Gleiwitz, a city about seventy kilometers further on.
It had snowed overnight. The snow was heavier and more
difficult to walk in. Our shoes got wet, and our feet froze.
There were more inmate executions along the road. In the light of
day we could clearly see that those who had barely begun to fall
behind were shot and left on the snowy road. The killers were not
embarrassed. It was routine now. At midday we were ordered to
stop at the side of the road. Though the sun shone brightly above
us, it failed to bring warmth to our line of half frozen, hungry
nomads. I had saved a few scraps of bread and ate them in very
small bites. After nearly three more hours of walking I felt
weak. Everything looked fuzzy, and my knees buckled. "Josek, I
can't," I remember saying to my brother as I weaved and
staggered. He gripped me by my arm and asked Willy, who was on my
other side, also to hold on to me. The three of us slowed down,
and we kept falling back until we were in the very last row.
The other inmates recognized me. "It's Bronek, the dentist.
He'll be next." I was barely dragging my feet, and my head bobbed
up and down. Three guards were behind us. Though fully aware of
the consequences and though I tried hard, I stopped thinking
about what threatened me. I just wanted to be left on the ground
to rest.
"Berek," my brother kept encouraging me, "move." Josek and
Willy practically carried me. "Berek, it isn't far. We'll stop
behind this hill," Josek urged me on in panic. But we did not
stop there, and then I really felt defeated. My brother unfolded
the blanket that I had carried away from Fürstengrube and draped
it around my shoulders.
"Just leave me," I begged him and Willy. But they kept
holding on to me, insisting that we would surely stop at the next
farm.
Suddenly Schmidt came by us on his motorcycle. "Was ist los
mit dem Zahnarzt?" (What is wrong with the dentist?), he asked.
"He is too weak to walk anymore, Herr Lagerführer," my
brother answered him.
"Hold on, dentist, I'll send the Lagerältester over," I
heard him say as he sped away. A short time later he came back
with Josef Hermann on the rear seat, and I soon felt something
being pushed into my mouth. It was vodka. Although it burned my
mouth and throat, I swallowed it and took a few more sips.
Suddenly I felt my legs grow stronger, and this enabled me to
walk until we stopped at the next farm. There I sank to the snowy
ground.
"Stand up and wait a few more minutes until we're counted,"
my brother said. That, I sensed, was my salvation, but it was too
big an effort for my buckling legs. Josek helped me up and wedged
me between a wagon and its wheel that were next to us. With that
support I got through the roll call, and then we got food for the
first time since leaving Fürstengrube. We were to stay overnight
in the barn.
I remember someone shaking me. I opened my eyes, and my
brother was staring at me. "Get out, or they'll kill you," he
said, tugging on me. At first I didn't know where I was. In my
hazy memory I recalled the previous day. I couldn't believe that
I was still alive and was petrified at having to march yet
another day. But feeling remarkably stronger, as if new life had
been breathed into me during the night, I left the barn.
Several inmates were missing. The guard's bayonets jabbed
deep down into the piles of straw. "Raus!" they yelled, to scare
them out. Soon three prisoners covered in straw emerged and were
kicked into the lines. More threats followed, and when no others
emerged from the straw, Pfeiffer yelled a warning: "I'll give you
one more chance before I burn down the barn." That failed to
bring them out. We counted and found that twelve were still
missing.
That morning we got bread, butter, and coffee and left
without the twelve escapees. Pfeiffer did not burn the barn down
as he had threatened. That was the largest group of inmates I
knew of ever to escape. It was another frosty day, and as we
moved out the killing began again. It seemed as if we were on a
unrelenting pilgrimage of death. At the next settlement was an
old stone church with a slate roof and copper spires. In front of
it were large heaps of snow. The guards grinned at pretty girls
who watched us being dragged through their town. To them we
probably did not look human. Outside the town one sign read
twenty-eight kilometers to Gleiwitz. We hoped this death march
would finally end there. Schmidt, with Josef Hermann behind him
on the motorcycle, kept circling us. At noon we stopped to rest.
The fields looked peaceful buried under deep snow. Because this
region was now swarming with Waffen SS troops, we wondered if the
twelve inmates who escaped earlier could elude them. Knowing how
far we had still to go, Josek kept checking on me.
When we neared Gleiwitz, it was already dark. There the
foundries, mills, and railroads were still intact. Some
smokestacks emitted heavy, dark soot. We were led through the
center of the town amid a large convoy of military vehicles,
which passed us. Eventually we came to a large group of
prisoners, who were enclosed behind an eight-meter-high wire
fence covered with an iron roof that was normally used to store
coal. Two railroad tracks ran to the inside. The prisoners came
from the Deutsche Werke, an iron foundry outside Gleiwitz. Some
inmates from Fürstengrube had arrived before us. The remnants of
coal were everywhere. We each received a bit of bread, coffee,
and a small sausage. We remained there through the night.
Early the next morning we were ordered to board open cars
ordinarily used to transport cattle. It was an inescapable irony.
In the August heat we were driven in closed cars. The cars were
about two and a half meters high and about five and a half meters
from front to rear. A guard was posted at each end. Only forty of
us fitted into one car, but by pushing and shoving, the guards
got another twenty people in. I clutched my bag against my body
with barely enough room to stand. "Wie viele Stücke hast Du?"
(How many pieces have you got?), a Croatian guard asked a
Ukrainian guard. They could not communicate well. Counting and
recounting, they finally agreed. Then the locomotives started up,
and with whistles blaring they began to move us west, away from
possible liberation, deeper into Germany.
At first the cars moved slowly, bouncing and swaying. One
locomotive pulled, and another pushed, as the many wagons snaked
up and around the town. It had snowed again, and the skies were
still heavy with winter clouds. Soon a couple of tin cans
appeared, and the prisoners lowered them down with twine to scoop
up some snow. "Don't eat the snow, because you'll be more
thirsty," Dr. Seidel cautioned. But the thirst prevailed, and no
one heeded his warning. The cans went down and came back up with
snow, and everybody devoured it. My brother found enough room to
lower himself and sit down. Suddenly he jumped up, for someone
was urinating on him. We even lacked a pail in our car.
At night our thirst increased. After a while the locomotive
slowed and pushed onto a dead track. By then one prisoner was
dead, and another was close to death. A guard ordered them thrown
off the cars. Then he went by the cars and asked how many more
were dead. "There is no room for half dead," the Unterscharführer
said. "Throw them out." Soon they were hurled out and fell to the
ground with a thud. Those near death died. The men who had died
while we were moving were piled up and tossed off the wagons at
each stop. Sometimes we could see bodies flying out of the cars
while we were moving. We were often shuttled between stations to
let the priority trains move by. Then came the tugging backward
and forward, after which we stopped on a track leading to
nowhere. We thought that this trip would only end when all of us
died.
Light snow began to fall, and then it became heavier and
snowed throughout the night. The snow melted on the blankets we
had carried with us, and the water froze and turned them stiff.
We had not been given food or water all day, and despite Dr.
Seidel's warning everyone took his turn at the snow.
As the trains slowed on the third day, Dr. Grosh, who was in
our wagon, began to behave very strangely. He climbed on top of
others and yelled, "Let me go to my wife and daughter. They need
me now!" I urged him to calm down, but he was unstoppable and
wrestled free. He had gone insane. The turmoil got an SS
sergeant's attention. He came over and fired a shot at Dr. Grosh.
He slumped back into the wagon dead. His body was flung out of
the car. I hoped his wife and daughter would never learn of his
tragic ending. Josek must have had the same thought. "Papa was
lucky to have died when he did. He would never have survived this
trip," he said. So many prisoners were dead by then that we had
much more room in the cars.
There were two Greek Jews from Salonika on our wagon. Since
none of the rest of us spoke Greek, they huddled together,
strangers among us. Though the cold of the open wagons was
freezing us to our very souls, there was one advantage over the
closed cars. Here the smell of human waste dissipated, and we
could discard the excrement.
We hadn't received food in two days. Our mouths were dry
with a searing thirst. Finally, at about nine at night, each of
us got 250 grams of bread and a ladle of ersatz coffee. Our train
stopped again. This had become routine. Our transport halted at
least four times each twenty-four hours. Dr. Seidel was now among
the dead.
Before dawn we came to Buchenwald. "Jedem das seine" (To
each his own), a sign above the gate proclaimed. Although the
sarcasm was hard to comprehend, it hardly mattered. We no longer
saw such words as an affront to our lost dignity. We hoped that
this tortuous trip was at an end, even if we were to go into
another camp.
We were kept in the cars another night. Then at midmorning
the gates opened, and we were ordered to leave the cars and enter
the camp. After the many days on the train, we could hardly walk.
The guards were impatient and pushed the weak with rifle butts,
as if they were shoveling coal.
Buchenwald seemed very disorganized. The inmates did not
look much better than we did. Their faces were dull and gray and
matched the dark stripes of their prison clothes. We were led
into a huge unheated hall. We were given the usual soup of
turnips with bits of potatoes in it. The food and close quarters
warmed us up. The ugly structure outside the windows reminded us
of Birkenau's gas chambers. Overhead, the Allies were more active
here, but they had not yet dropped a single bomb.
It was rumored that in a few days we would be transferred to
a satellite camp of Buchenwald, called Dora-Mittelbau. It was a
terrible camp, the Buchenwald inmates said. We left Buchenwald
and marched for four hours. We passed a few German towns,
including the city of Blankenburg, and then we went east. Here,
too, with the war near an end, the German people seemed not to be
affected by our condition as we marched past them.
Hauptscharführer Max Schmidt, Lagerältester Josef Hermann, and
all Fürstengrube guards and Kapos came with us. After ten more
kilometers we came to Dora-Mittelbau. It was like other camps,
only this one stood among trees without a fence around it.
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The Death March