By Chance Alone (22 page)

Translation:

[Manuscript] SS Second Lieutenant (Specialist) Kirschnick!

Copy

29th January, 1943

Correspondence register no 22250/43/Bi/L

Subject: Krematorium II. State of construction

Reference: SS-WVHA telegram 2648 of 28/1/43

Enclosure: 1 Inspection Report

Head of Amstgruppen C

SS Lieutenant-General and Waffen SS Major-General

Dr Ing (Engineer) Kammler

Berlin Lichterfelde West

Unter den Eichen 126-135

Krematorium II has been completed but for minor details, thanks to employing all available forces, despite enormous difficulties and freezing weather, using day and night shifts. The furnaces have been lit in the presence of Herr Chief Engineer Prüfer of the firm responsible for their construction, Topf & Sons of Erfurt and they function perfectly. Because of the frost, it has not yet been possible to remove the formwork from the ceiling of the corpse cellar. This is of no consequence, however, as the gassing cellar can be used to this end [i.e. a morgue].

Because the wagons are blocked, Messrs Topf & Sons have not been able to deliver on time the ventilation and air extraction installations as required by the Bauleitung. These will be fitted as soon as they arrive, so that it is probable that the installation will be entirely ready for service on the 20th February 1943.

Please find enclosed a report by the inspecting engineer of Topf & Sons, Erfurt.

Head of the Auschwitz Waffen SS and Police

Central Construction Management

[Signed] Bischoff

SS Captain

Distribution:

1 SS Second Lieutenants Janisch and Kirschneck

1 Registration

For Archives

[Signed] Pollok

SS Second Lieutenant (S)

“
May G-d bless you and safeguard you. May He be gracious unto you. May He turn His countenance to you and give you peace
.”

These were the words Max's father, standing behind the wires, shared with his son before their parting. Alas, he was fully aware of the fate which so soon awaited him, having been selected for death in the Auschwitz camp. How strong must a man be to say farewell to the last living member of his family, his beloved son, with the words of blessing he had repeated every Saturday to his children in his own quiet home, over a bountiful table, in the company of his wife and his parents—his happy family.

A family acquaintance, a forester, had warned them about the Nazis rounding up Hungarian Jews, but they were unable to escape before they were arrested. It was Passover Sabbath. Religious Jews, in their traditional attire, with their traditional way of life and traditional prayers, were the most exposed to danger during this time. It was easier for assimilated Jews to dress up, to find shelter, to hide, if they happened to meet moral people along the way.

Still, standing behind the wires, Max's father added the following, which has accompanied Max throughout his entire life: “If you survive, you must tell the world what happened here. Now go.”

These were the words so often spoken by Auschwitz inmates who knew or felt that they would not survive. With these words, they shouldered their entire fate and the history of their agony upon their fellow inmates, family, and friends. With these words, they wanted to express the hope that someone—be it even a single person—would survive to testify to the tragic fate of the innocent victims at Germany's largest concentration and death camp.
Non omnis moriar.
(I shall not wholly die.)

Right after the war, suddenly alone in his now-hostile homeland, Max was for a long time unable to talk about what had happened to his relatives, his siblings, and his parents. “At that time, I could not yet fully comprehend the magnitude of the destruction of Jewish culture and people in Continental Europe, nor could I articulate the depth of my trauma or put my losses into words.”

Is it really the case that after so many years have passed, it is easier to find the right words to script the drama written in the blood of innocent victims? Could such great cruelty make any sense after all this time has gone by? Do all those people—like the survivors, from whom the SS men and their collaborators stole not only childhood but also the peace of old age—go away, as if in a mist, whilst their senseless suffering becomes a well-polished literary subject?

Certainly not. And that is why this book was conceived. Firstly, to fulfil Max's father's will—his last, sacred words. Secondly, as a testimony to share with the world. And thirdly,
so that people can truly take to heart the facts presented to them from no more than a few decades ago, written as young Max saw and experienced them.

In a sense,
By Chance Alone
is not the story of an individual life. It is the story of the millions whose stories could not be written. Together with the numerous accounts from other survivors, this book adds another perspective to the picture in its entirety. But it is only a picture, of course.

Max survived transport, selection, the hardships of slave labour, the death of his entire family, evacuation, transfers to other camps, liberation, isolation, Communist prison, and his escape to the West. He survived because more than once on his way he met people who wanted to help: the Polish surgeon, Dr. Tadeusz Orzeszko, and other doctors in attendance in Block 21; the Soviet POW, Misha, from the Melk camp; Ily, the woman who recognized his grave medical condition, and the good-natured secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Salzburg.

These were the people who made Max's father's words of hope, “
May G-d bless you and safeguard you
,” come true. And this book, written so many years afterward fulfils his father's final wish: “Tell the world what happened here.”

—Piotr M. A. Cywiński

Director, Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial

I
n the early 2000s, I recall being with Max at Queen's University for a weekend conference, training the educators and chaperones who would be travelling with us to Poland for the March of the Living.

As we were milling about the reception area, a group of Queen's students passed by. They noticed one of our staff carrying a Sefer Torah (the Scroll of the Law), the ancient Five Books of Moses handwritten on parchment, which Jewish people have read from publicly for thousands of years.

Observing the looks of curiosity on the students' faces, Max explained that during the Holocaust, the Nazis burned thousands of sacred Jewish works, just like this Torah. He also reminded the students of the quote from Heinrich Heine: “Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people.” The students were mesmerized during Max's impromptu speech and only reluctantly tore themselves away to return to their school activities.

It was then that I realized Max was a born teacher who had both the desire and the ability to share the lessons of the
Holocaust with highly diverse audiences in the clearest, most accessible manner. When Max speaks, I can see how difficult it is for him, how he sees each and every member of his martyred family before his eyes. Nonetheless, for the past twenty-five years, Max has criss-crossed this country and travelled abroad to share his story hundreds of times. Such is his unwavering commitment to Holocaust education.

In his early life, Max suffered more than anyone can imagine, seeing endless cruelty, the abandonment of all human morality, and the loss of his entire family. And yet he went on to build a new life for himself. He came to Canada, started a business, got married—he had children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren.

Despite the horrendous brutality he underwent during the Holocaust, when Max tells his story, he always expresses gratitude for the people who helped him on the way. After all the bitter experiences and tragic events of his early life, Max reminds us to be grateful for the goodness life presents, and that one can always begin anew.

And if Max can do that, considering all that he has gone through, is that not a lesson for all of us, no matter what hardships we have experienced?

Max is one of my personal heroes, and after reading his exceptional story not only of tremendous loss, but also of courage and gratitude, I am almost certain you will regard him a hero as well.

—Eli Rubenstein

National Director, March of the Living Canada

Director of Education, March of the Living International

MAX EISEN
was deported to Auschwitz in the spring of 1944. He is a passionate speaker and educator who volunteers at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, participates in the annual March of the Living event, and lectures for the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center of Canada on their annual From Compassion to Action mission to Auschwitz. He currently resides in Toronto with his wife, Ivy.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
harpercollins.ca
.

“Max Eisen's important, timely memoir reminds us that horror does not happen overnight and that no one is immune to it. Villainizing a people, an ethnic or a religious group, can lead to bloodshed and genocide, as it did during the Holocaust.
By Chance Alone
is a testimony to the human experience of needless, senseless suffering. May we learn from it.”

—M
ARINA
N
EMAT
, author of
Prisoner of Tehran

“Such were the overwhelming odds stacked against him, Max Eisen should not have survived. Chance, some good people, and not a little luck all played their part, but his dogged determination to overcome the lethal physical and mental onslaught is truly remarkable. It was a short trip to Auschwitz—a long road to recovery. Be sure that one day you will find me rowing a boat on Ebensee in his honor.”

—S
TEPHEN
D
.
S
MITH
, Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation

“Max Eisen reveals, with clarity and honesty, his personal resilience and determination to survive against impossible odds, and to bear witness to the horrors of Auschwitz. His humanity and generosity shine through in this powerful and page-turning memoir as he recounts both the cruelty of the SS guards and the kindness and daily heroism of fellow prisoners in the midst of a system designed for degradation, dehumanization, and ultimately death.”

—B
ARBARA
J.
FALK
, PhD, MSL, Canadian Forces College/Royal Military College of Canada/University of Toronto

“Of the all evils of our evil days the Holocaust is the deepest. There is nothing to place against the scale of its vast cruelty, its bestial embrace of hate and murderousness. But it is the very enormity of the Holocaust, its gargantuan horror and bottomless depredations that challenge our ability to ‘take it in,' to pierce the immense shadow of its near unspeakable degradations. We need an entrance guide to this inferno, and it is here in the memoir
By Chance Alone
, by Max Eisen, who endured imprisonment and passage through the Auschwitz inferno as a boy. Mr. Eisen's youth began in the pit of that hell, and his later life has been largely dedicated—through talks, education, and now this book—to bearing witness to the Holocaust, and insisting that it is both fact and warning. Mr. Eisen's is the account of one, and there were the millions who did not, who ‘escaped to tell' the tale, so that we can morally refresh our response.
By Chance Alone
is a story of great pathos, and told with directness and simplicity, of the sufferings and grief and fear of one boy in a terrible time and a terrible place. The story of one cannot be the story of all, but it may—I am sure this is Mr. Eisen's hope—be a means of securing an intellectual and emotional purchase on the otherwise overwhelming terrors and evil of the greatest crime of this or any other age.”

—R
EX
M
URPHY
, former host of CBC Radio's
Cross Country Checkup

BY CHANCE ALONE

Copyright © 2016 by Max Eisen.

All rights reserved under all applicable International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

FIRST EDITION

All photos appear courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted.

The quote on p. 243 is reproduced by permission from Murray Dixon,
The Rebirth and Restoration of Israel
(Ellel, Lancaster: Sovereign World Ltd., 1988).

The letter on p. 265 and its translation on p. 266 are reproduced by permission from the Thuringian Main State Archives, Weimar, J.A. Topf & Sons, Erfurt, no. 14, p. 85.

The letter on p. 267 and its translation on pp. 268–69 are reproduced by permission from the Thuringian Main State Archives, Weimar, J.A. Topf & Sons, Erfurt, no. 14, p. 98.

Afterword copyright © 2016 by Amanda Grzyb.

Postscript copyright © 2016 by Piotr M.A. Cywiński.

Note on the Author copyright © 2016 by Eli Rubenstein.

EPub Edition: March 2016 ISBN: 9781443448550

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication information is available upon request

ISBN
978-1-44344-928-1 (hardcover)

ISBN
978-1-44344-853-6 (original trade paperback)

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