Panorama (61 page)

Two conspirators and a collaborator, ready with pencils and lists, stand on either side of the man in the raincoat, who asks each lost one what he can do, whether it be working in the forgery, metalwork, lathe work, welding, carpentry, or bricklaying, a glance assessing the emaciated figure, the face, the legs, the hands. The lost ones can do anything that they are asked to do, for they lie, having hardened themselves against truth, since they want to escape the chimneys, the lost ones calling out, we can work in the forge and do metalwork and lathe work and welding and carpentry and bricklaying and anything you ask. The man with the raincoat stretches out his right index finger and says, him and him, they should step forward, he’ll have them, they should send them to him. Then the prison scribe goes over to those selected, each of them coming up with a name, an age, an occupation, he wanting to be named thus, aged thus, and have this occupation, the collaborators writing it all down in their lists, one of them having a pad with blue ink and a stamp, which he presses onto the lost one as a sign of his having been selected, there on his naked chest, doing it as if he didn’t know that the ink can be wiped away with one’s fingers. Then the selected are brought to a special hut so that they are ready to be called and whisked away, which can happen by day or by night, tomorrow or four weeks from now, no one knows, free wagons being seldom available, and all wheels must roll toward victory. Soon more and more transport groups are brought together in one hut, several hundred pressed together in the tight quarters, where they are chased from the right-hand side to the left and then back again, this happening several times each day, as someone yells “Into your bunks!” and “Out of your bunks!” Then the lost ones must scramble past the barricade and out again, but they must always be at the ready, which is why they have been ordered to rest in such a disastrous manner, there never being any quiet to be had, while above all they must not walk along the streets of the camp, for this is exceptionally dangerous, there collaborators on patrol will beat them, but no one is safe in the huts, either, the section elder could be in a bad mood, ordering the lost ones to clean up the place and going after them with brooms, sticks, clubs, and horsewhips, while helping out with the task is the section elder’s messenger, a fourteen-year-old darling who is fat and has rosy cheeks. He hardly reaches up to most of their shoulders, but he’s a strong little bugger and can do whatever he pleases, a brutal creature
eager to deal out blows, his being well aimed, himself able to beat the strongest men, while they are not allowed to defend themselves, because the tiger is protected by the section elder, who is ready to beat down anyone that his little darling complains about.

The huts are scrubbed the entire day, for they must be clean, buckets of water hauled in and dumped upon the floor, then the dirty brown water is swabbed about with a huge broom, whereupon they start in once again, and then it’s quickly mopped so that the floor almost dries, after which no one can step on it, or you have to walk across it barefoot with your shoes in your hand, none daring to let them lie about, for they would be stolen straight off. Nothing is safe here, everything disappears, even what’s worthless and worn out is coveted, whoever can put it to use always feels needier, though it’s strictly forbidden to possess any goods in the Gypsy camp, yet things are constantly exchanged, a spoon handed down to someone else or a knife, a rag used as a handkerchief or shawl or a belt, a little piece of soap, cigarettes available as well, or perhaps a single slice of bread, or maybe two or three or even more, the camp soup also for sale, or a dab of margarine, sausage, or marmalade, a potato. Shaving is also important, it needing to happen once a week, otherwise one looks too old, though it’s not done for free, a couple of lost ones having got hold of a single blade or a half-rusted razor with a dull blade, as well as a brush and some soap, this being good enough for the customers, though the barber growls that he needs to save his soap as he scrapes someone clean, even though it’s not proper shaving soap and is so bad that it creates no foam at all, the soap and shave costing a slice of bread, the barber indicating how thick it needs to be.

Everyone in the Gypsy camp owns at least a spoon, the handle on Josef’s having worn down to such a sharp edge that it can be used as a knife to cut bread, meaning that the spoon had not been an expensive one. But on the first day, when Josef was in the hut of the old Hungarian officer, there were no spoons, meaning that no one could eat in any kind of civil manner, the first camp soup available only on the second day, the work crew sending some new arrivals to the kitchen, they needing to run along in order to escape a beating, themselves standing before the kitchen, then the kitchen capo, one of the most important collaborators, appears with his entourage, the food fetchers from all the huts soon standing ready before them, at
which time the numbers of all the huts are called out, followed by someone immediately coming up and taking a full barrel, though inevitably lashes land on their backs, for no one is so fast as to avoid the anger of the kitchen capo, as he yells, “Quick, now quick, get out of here! Get out!” But the fastest of the food fetchers lets the soup slop out and burns his fingers until finally the barrel stands on the porch of the front room. Next the section elder and his collaborators are given ample portions, then cups are handed out for eating, these being cracked bowls, cups, and pots of all sizes, even washbasins and a chamber pot, numerous beaten and dented lead vessels, though hardly more than thirty such vessels are available, and so only some of the lost ones can get anything, one of the barracks workers pouring a ladleful of reddish-brown soup into a cup, at which they all need to hurry so that the next group can use the lead bowls to feed themselves. The soup had always been terrible, yet better than what Josef and his colleagues have to slosh down now, for earlier there had been bits of potato, slices of red beets, some roux, and some kind of meat, but in this poisonous red borscht nasty onions float around, glass shards, sand, bits of rag, nails, wood chips, and other garbage, one needing to be careful in order to avoid cutting his tongue or gums. But how are you supposed to eat soup without a spoon, except to open up your mouth and slurp it down like a cow and make a mess, always surrounded by greedy colleagues and mean-spirited boys from the work crews who yell, “Quick! Quick!,” and who are already snatching the bowl from your hands, while on each side fists are at the ready to prevent anyone from going back to the barrel for another helping, and should anyone be suspected of doing so he is beaten on the head with a ladle until his hide is bloodied.

Josef thinks about the Gypsy camp and sees it as both the darkest and the lightest time of his life, he having openly resisted such destruction, which is why he doesn’t feel the kind of misery that he sees in others’ eyes, but instead he feels defiant and strong before the final end, and he can bear the pangs of hunger and the incredible weariness, he having remained locked up within himself, as others have done as well. For instance, there is little Jossel from Lodz, almost a child in years, but one who feels that all is lost, though he faces it stoically and wants to learn a great deal from Josef, asking him about Spinoza’s
Ethics
, after which Jossel recites some Yiddish
poems, since he can’t write them down, because there is no paper or pencil, but nonetheless he knows them by heart anyway:

Thus Jossel recites his poem, though he also brings a slice of bread, insisting that Josef take it. Almost ten years older than Josef is Mordechai, who knows that his wife is hidden away somewhere with Taubele, his young daughter, no chance of any henchman finding those so well hidden away, both of them having fake papers while living with reliable people, evil having no chance to hurt his loved ones while they are in such safe confines. As it is allowed to ponder such things here in the quarantine, Mordechai speaks about what is written in the
Sayings of the Fathers
, namely what Akavia ben Mahalalel said: “Observe three things, and you will not fall into sin: know from where did you come, where you are headed, and before whom you will lay yourself one day in order to give your account and be judged. And from just where did you come? From a miserable drop of nothing. Where are you headed? To a place full of dust, mold, and worms. Before whom will you lay down to account for yourself and be judged? Before the King of Kings, before the Holy One, may He be blessed!” Josef should consider well that, above all, such consummation is possible, above all, there is good counsel to keep, above all, and even if it is done silently, one can still lift oneself in prayer, Mordechai saying that indeed there is mercy in their being able to come to the huts and stand inside next to Josef in order to talk and exchange ideas, none of that is pointless, even if they don’t survive this test. “Yet why shouldn’t we survive it?” says Mordechai, receiving a smile in return. “That they give us slippers made from holy prayer shawls shows how foolish they
are, for we end up walking at ease within them, for in such shawls we cannot be harmed as long as we pray!” There are other men in the huts who lose themselves in timeless questions, it being easy to think on the meaning of life here, there are no limits to the moment, time having been stripped away, the only thing to do is to wait, and when there is nothing to look forward to, then everything is easy. What still exists cannot be found in one’s surroundings, they are of no help to the spirit, each having to depend on himself, one’s perceptions seeming more true than ever before, as alone a person considers his true worth.

On a narrow planted strip between the huts, where otherwise there is nothing but sticky excrement that turns into a filthy sty when it rains, some flowers are growing, which Josef marvels at, it seeming a sign, as well as the chain of mountains to the south, namely the Beskydy Range, a minimum of two days of strenuous hiking away, gray-blue they stretch away, the
foggy
, damp air above the passage in between not allowing the mountains to appear any closer or lighter in color. The mountains are pure, and there it must be pleasant, closer to home, even a part of the homeland, and there you would have no idea of the Gypsy camp and the chimneys, those seeming part of an evil tale that cannot be true, no, none of that is true, simply invented by evil-minded vermin who smear the pure name of the Conqueror, oh no, those supposedly murdered are in fact alive, and the dead simply slumber and are not murdered, what strange ideas others have. Woe to those, however, who dare to violate the everyday with such mad visions of innocent children thrown into the fire whose leaping flames are oil-fired and fed by living bodies, no, those are all lies, the conspirators have never done that, and whoever did happen to do that did so against the will and without the knowledge of the Conqueror, no, nothing more about such horrors, for not even the most unforgiving enemies in Russia or America would believe it! It’s understandable that a genuine opponent of the Conqueror would not see him as a benefactor, but instead they hate him, they who reside in the Beskydy Range, as well as in subjugated lands such as here in Birkenau, but the Conqueror also has his merits, he is not guilty and means well, he not having promised his own people that much, but giving them something, namely work, fuel for winter, Volkswagens for his autobahn, and the power of a thousand years of joy. Who wants to smear the
Conqueror by saying there are flaws in his Reich? He knows nothing of them, he is kind and gentle, he can’t even kill an animal and eats only vegetables, he loves the silent glory of the untouched Alps, where he watches over the good of the people from his mountain retreat.

Josef imagines all of this and sees as well the chimneys smoking before him, hearing the screams of those choking on the gas, the screams of the departing intended for this world, other screams breaking into praise, as amid the moment of death they say the name of the One who is the only One. Josef’s thoughts must wrap themselves around the death rattles, as he sees how the blood runs from the eyes, from the nose, from the mouth, he sees how body after body writhes and stretches and rears up and screams, screams, screams, as long as they can scream, and how their screams seethe, how they sink together, the Zyklon gas having already exterminated them. It’s important to guard those crystals, they’re expensive, use them sparingly! That’s why the dusty purveyor of death is slowly transported in sealed and protected lead containers to the killing grounds in a car on whose sides and roof an insignia is painted that some still hold as holy, though through this misuse it is forever put to shame, the insignia being that of the Red Cross of the Geneva Convention. An accomplice takes the murderous cargo from the car with its red cross, and soon he is atop the roof with a mask on his face, opening the tin can and dumping its contents down into the narrow shaft. In this the cowardly hero has simply done his duty, the victims decimated, a single heap of lifeless bodies. Josef sees the lost ones who are part of the special command, themselves used to the goings-on inside the circle of murder, everything the same there, today the dead, tomorrow the living, and to it all music flutters and whistles and tweets, “Play something lovely, really lovely!” Each morning and evening this music can be heard at least once, as out of the neighboring D-Camp the lost ones march out to or back from work, marches pressing them on, pleasant marches, audible all the way out to the beetle grove and birch woods that are just beyond the plain where the lost ones’ camp is located. This area used to be a hinterland that few people knew before the most loyal ones under the accomplices settled in where the borders of three kingdoms meet. Among the hecatombs, hardly anyone knows the name of the place, the accomplices having earmarked it as a place for extermination to which the victims were sent from many countries
in endless trains. For three years it has gone on, and there is no end in sight.