The Commandant of Lubizec: A Novel of the Holocaust and Operation Reinhard (28 page)

They cheered and talked about loading up the car.

Back in the death camp, the prisoners were also making plans. They huddled in the dark and whispered about timing, and ammunition, and gasoline.

19

C
louds rolled overhead as prisoners ran into the Rose Garden.
Achtung
, a guard shouted, and they took off their smelly hats in one fluid motion. Eight suicides were dragged out of the barracks and their bodies were swung into a wooden cart. The iron springs creaked with each thump. The belts they hanged themselves with were still around their necks, and from the central guard tower happy polka music played out. The sun warmed the air as a sworl of blue appeared on the horizon. It felt warm. Pleasant. The prisoners lined up for their daily ration of bread and lard. Crows cawed from the barbed-wire fence.

Zischer looked around and realized storks would soon be flying back from Africa. Spring was on its way. Life was returning to Poland.

We know from various reports that March 15, 1943, was unseasonably warm, and in the days leading up to the escape attempt the temperature averaged a balmy 15°C (60°F). Huge banks of snow were melting and the Rose Garden became a soupy mixture of water, sand, and gray snow. Boots sank into the sloppy mess and it was very difficult to walk, let alone run. Socks had to be wrung out. All of Lubizec trickled with brown water, and every now and then, huge sheets of snow slid off the barrack roofs—they woomped to the ground. After enduring subzero weather for so long, it must have been almost tropical for the prisoners to experience such heat again. Jackets were unbuttoned and they did away with their scarves. They no longer needed to blow into their hands or worry about frostbite. They stopped dreaming about fireplaces and hot-water bottles. They turned their faces to the sun.

The executions in the Rose Garden seemed like a hundred years ago because so much killing had happened since then. Life (or in this case, death) had moved on. Chaim Zischer and Dov Damiel had to remind themselves it wasn’t that long ago they were forced to lie on the ground and listen to bullets crack into skulls. At night, some of the men in Barrack 14 whispered about what they’d like to do to Birdie. It was a powerful elixir, talking about such things—it filled their muscles with magic and their faces glowed whenever they imagined him kneeling on the wet ground.

“I’ve got you now, Birdie.”

Then they pulled the imaginary trigger. He was resurrected through fantasy and they fired again, and again, because they wanted to keep him endlessly dying.

“It was a pleasant daydream,” Chaim Zischer later said.

More than anything, the prisoners wanted the world to know they weren’t going to their deaths passively, and even if an escape failed, even if they never made it beyond the barbed wire, perhaps they could destroy the engine that pumped carbon monoxide into the gas chambers. An escape attempt, even a poor one, meant the machinery of death might be slowed down for a few days. They didn’t know what lay beyond the trees, and they didn’t know who they could trust outside Lubizec, but it was a worth a try. Anything was better than doing nothing.

It was therefore decided that the newer prisoners shouldn’t know about the plan beforehand because someone might betray them for a roasted chicken or the promise of oranges. The men in Barrack 14 began to speak in code, and they let secrecy be the order of the day. Once the fighting started, maybe others would join in.

They hatched a plan.

They shook on it.

They said, “Good luck.”

It started when Avrom Petranker asked to sharpen three knives. He walked across the soggy ground and went to a toolshed near the gas chambers. Sebastian “SS” Schemise came from the other direction
and took out his pistol. He held it playfully, at a sloppy and carefree angle. The bolt was oiled and ready for use.

“What’re you doing here, friend?”

“I need to sharpen these.” Petranker held up the knives and explained that a cow had been bought from a nearby farm. He was ordered to butcher the animal but the knives were too dull.

Schemise curled a long finger as if to say,
Let me see them
. He ran his thumb along one of the blades and looked doubtful.

“Make it quick.” He dropped the knife point first into the ground. It stood for a moment before it fell sideways into the soupy sand.

“You a kosher butcher? I’d be interested in seeing that dying art.”

Petranker shook his head—“No, sir”—then kneeled down for the knife. He backed away into the shed and let his eyes adjust to the dark. He waited to see if Schemise was following him but, no, he wasn’t. Tools hung on the wall, and around each of them was a white silhouette to mark where they should go. In this way, the guards could tell at a glance if something was missing. Everything around him was covered in grease and sawdust.

Petranker reached for a sharpening stone that was gritty and smelled of oil. He began running it against a blade. A grinding metallic scrape filled up the shed.

It took half an hour to make the knives glisten, but he was pleased to see blood rise up from his thumb when he touched the blade. He reached for some needle-nose pliers and began to sharpen a notch that could be used for snipping wire. He tested it on a coil of barbed wire and smiled when he heard a soft
clip
. He tried it again. Success! He opened his coat, reached for several screwdrivers, and then stuffed them into his pockets. A hammer was snugged behind his back, gunlike. It fit neatly beneath his belt.

He jogged past a group of naked women on their way to the gas chamber and hid everything behind an enormous sack of hair. He still wasn’t used to the smell and he felt something tart rise up in his throat, like rancid butter. He gagged and covered his nose. He spit on the floor a few times to clear his mouth.

When he ran back outside, the engine was clattertapping at
full speed. There were muffled screams for help from inside the gas chamber, and he knew that, soon, he would be dragging those bodies to the Roasts. He would have to grab wrists and ankles. He would have to pull, and tug, and yank.

While Petranker waited outside the chamber with the other prisoners, he glanced at Zischer. They looked at the gritty wet ground that swallowed up their shoes, and they tried not to think about what was happening behind the metal door. There was banging and yelling.

“Mommy, help me!” a child screamed.

They had already seen such terrible things that morning—haunting, lingering things—but it was no different from any other morning in this “Garden of Evil,” as the prisoners were now calling Lubizec. Here, each sin was polished to a high shine. There were tears and screeching and deep-lunged wailing and stunned looks of disbelief. The world became a blur of wickedness and things that once seemed hideous—like when one of the guards, Christian Schwartz, hit a child so hard he broke her arm—became instead commonplace and unremarkable. And now that same child was dying in a gas chamber. In this garden of evil created by man, sin was bitten into hour after hour. A great serpent hissed out poison and still the trains kept on coming.

The shouting slowed behind the metal door as hundreds of hearts stopped beating.

Zischer readied himself for the hard work of pulling gold teeth. He glanced at Petranker and there was a brief nod between them that said,
Yes
.

It had taken several days but each man had gathered the things he needed, not only for the escape but also for the uncertain future that lay ahead of them. Dov Damiel stuffed a shaving kit, soap, some money, and several diamonds into a pillowcase. David Grinbaum had a razor, a toothbrush, a compass, and some ruby necklaces. Avrom Petranker had a can opener and four watches. Moshe Taube had these things plus a pair of boots.

When the gas chamber door was thrown open, banging and
vibrating against the opposite wall, the men dragged out the bruised bodies. Zischer saw the girl with the broken arm and he bowed his head.

Soon, he told himself. Soon.

They waited until dusk because they wanted enough light for the escape, but they also wanted enough darkness to hide in the woods. And so, after many long hours of anxiety—and after 2,057 souls had been snuffed out on the 2:00 p.m. transport—inky night was at last poured onto the land and the electrical lights near the gas chamber flickered on like spirits. The camp was quiet. At rest. Almost peaceful.

It started when Moshe Taube took in a lungful of air and yelled up to the heavens in Hebrew, “THE END OF THIS WORLD BEGINS NOW!”

This set everything into motion. Damiel and Petranker took out the knives hidden in their coats and they charged at the guard closest to them. It was so unexpected and fast that SS
Unterscharführer
Christian Schwartz didn’t shout for help. He dropped to his knees and was shocked to find that he had been stabbed five times in the belly and once in the shoulder. He looked at the dark blood dripping like molasses on his hands and, when he tried to speak, only a low gurgling came from his lips.

Damiel and Petranker reached for his pistol and dragged him against a wall. They bound him with rope and stuffed an oily, sawdusty rag into his mouth. Instead of shooting him, which would draw too much attention to their position, Petranker spat on the Nazi. He dragged a tarp over the dying man and spat again. He kicked once, twice.

Then the two prisoners set off for the gas chamber. They felt a strange sense of power wash over them as they ran through the sloppy sucking sand.

The gas chamber stank of chlorine and the walls were damp. Petranker flattened himself into the dark while Damiel stepped outside to find another guard. He approached Gustav Wagner, who
was busy trying to light a cigarette. He had a face like an anvil and he wore strong aftershave.

“Sir,” Damiel said, snapping off his cap. “The drain in Chamber #4 is plugged. I’m sorry, sir, but could you come and look?”

Wagner shook his head. “Do I look like a plumber?”

“I don’t know how to unblock the drain, sir. The next transport is due tomorrow and I don’t want things to slow down.”

“You Yids. So fucking useless. Okay, show me.”

They stepped into the building and Damiel pointed to the center of the floor. “It’s plugged with something. Hair maybe or—”

Before he could finish his sentence there was a tremendous flash of orange. His ears rang and Wagner crumpled to the floor. The smell of cordite hung in the air and this made the escape real in a way the knifing had not. Petranker pounced on the fallen body, he smashed the man’s opened skull into the floor a few times, and then he patted the dead man’s hips. He held up a pistol.

“Here. Take this.”

Damiel took the gun with both hands and couldn’t believe he was holding such a powerful thing in Lubizec. It seemed dreamlike. The metal was cold and its weight felt like an extension of his fist. All he had to do was point at something he didn’t like and pull the trigger. It was simple. A hammer would snap down and the life in front of him would drop. His face hardened when he thought about this, and the two men stuffed the pistols into their coats. They walked out the door.

Prisoners were busy dragging bodies towards the Roasts and the guards shouted for them to move faster. Damiel and Petranker slipped around the back of the gas chamber and breathed heavily; they knew they’d run into at least one guard because no one was allowed behind the gas chambers—that’s where the engine was. It looked like a swollen sea creature with monstrous tentacles, and it was always guarded by the SS because they worried about acts of sabotage. It was the SS who made sure the spark plugs fired properly, and it was the SS who made sure the gears were well oiled. They checked belts and hoses once a week; they guarded it like a loved one. A shadow paced beside the monstrous engine.