The Jewish Dog (21 page)

“I'm ashamed of nothing
,
sir.” Joshua looked Ralph straight in the eye
.
“And have no doubt – if I had to choose between a fate among the Jews in that pit or among the Germans pulling the trigger – I would choose the pit.”

Ralph's face whitened from Joshua's fearlessness as he stared down the barrel of a gun
.
I was just as astonished.

“There's another thing that you should hear before you pull that trigger
.
All these weeks that I've been taking care of Blitz
,
as you call him
,
I haven't been taking care of your dog
,
I've been taking care of mine
.
I've known this dog since he was the size of a rat
.
He was born on March 31
,
193
5
,
on the carpet of the house I was evicted from by your damned Nazi friends when I was nineteen
.
When you praised me for taking such good care of your dog
,
I felt like I didn't deserve your praise
;
this dog is as dear as a brother to me
.
I raised him from his very first day on Earth
.
He had five siblings
;
one of them died within just a few days
.
If you don't believe me
,
the dog's mother still lives with our old housekeeper
.
The housekeeper's name is Matilda Schwartzschpiln
,
and the dog's mother is Bruriah.”

When I heard my mother's name
,
my ears perked up.

Ralph slipped a cigarette out of his pocket
.
There was no doubt in his heart that the Jew spoke the truth
.
He lit his cigarette and took three deep puffs
.
The cloud of smoke that covered his face slowly dissipated
.
He gazed for a long moment at the edge of the cigarette that was slowly being consumed
.
Then he threw the butt into the pit
.
He aimed his gun at a nearby discarded bottle and shot
.
Shot and missed
.
He missed the second shot
,
too
.
The third bullet hit the bottle and it shattered noisily.

“So what is this dog's name?”

“Caleb
.
Don't ask me why
.
My little sister Reizel chose it
.
And she . . 
.
well
,
you can't exactly ask her why anymore.”

Joshua's shoulders began to tremble.

“So your name is Caleb,” my beloved trainer said
,
as he kneeled down beside me
.
“Come Caleb,” Ralph uttered my real name
.
“Come Caleb
,
let's return you to your cage.”

Joshua remained standing by the pit for a long time
.
Stars appeared in the dark sky and a silent cold wind blew between the barbed-wire fences
.
The multitude of stars made my existence seem fleeting.

Just before midnight
,
a gunshot rang through the silence of the night.

It was the last time I saw Ralph.

CHAPTER 28

R
alph was replaced by a new trainer named Sebastian
.
He had a sharp
,
hooked nose that had been broken in one of the many fights he had gotten into
.
Yellow stubble grew sparsely and in an unkempt fashion around his small mouth and clenched jaw
.
He had round eyes
,
and reeked of cigarettes and alcohol.

All the dogs in the kennel hated Sebastian
.
Even his friends were appalled by his training methods.

“Beat the dog until it bleeds
.
Let the hound fear the Germans and take its anger out on Jews.”

He would lift the new puppies in the kennel by their ears and whip them raw
.
We were afraid to bark in protest
,
for it would only anger him more and double the lashes he dealt out.

One day Sebastian entered Joshua's shack.

“Listen up
,
Jew!” he ordered Joshua
.
“From now until tomorrow afternoon
,
I forbid you to feed Blitz.”

Joshua stood and replied
,
“Yes
,
sir.”

Sebastian looked from side to side
,
his pupils dilated
.
He smelled like beer.

“Tomorrow we'll teach that bragging Miete whose dog is strongest in the camp
.
Oh
,
he'll learn that tomorrow.”

Joshua
,
who had stood so bravely at the pit of death
,
now turned white with fear.

“Sir,” he addressed Sebastian
,
shaking
,
“does the officer intend to have the dog participate in a fight?”

“Why do you ask?” Sebastian shot back
,
his long neck extending further out of his shirt
.
“Do you have a problem with that?” He rested his hand on the butt of his pistol
.
“Do you intend to rat me out?”

“No
,
sir,” Joshua replied
.
“Of course not
.
I won't tell anyone
.
I just wanted to say that this dog fights best when he's sated
.
If you want him to win
,
you have to give him good food.”

“Fights best when sated
,
eh?” His neck retracted back into his shirt
,
he let go of his pistol
,
and rubbed his hands together
.
“I'll get him a good meal!”

The next afternoon
,
Sebastian entered the kennel and instructed Joshua to put on my leash
.
He walked me to the staff housing yard and placed a platter covered with a cloth before me
.
The magical smell of well-prepared meat arose from the platter.

“Listen up!” he said to me
,
pointing at the food
.
“If you need good food to fight
,
you'll get as much as you want
.
Here
,
I arranged a fantastic meal for you
.
Last night
,
we had a party for Kurt Franz
,
and I saved this especially for you
.
I want you to eat fast and fight like a lion!” He removed the cloth from the platter and revealed the feast
.
Propped up on the tray
,
with a plum in his mouth
,
was Zanfi's head
.
I approached
,
seized by nausea
,
and sniffed my roasted friend.

Barely an hour after I finished my feast we stood
,
Mensch and I
,
face to face in the fenced vegetable patch near the German staff housing.

The bloodthirsty Ukrainians descended from the watchtowers and bet everything they had in their pockets
.
August Miete and Kurt Franz
,
who had arranged the fight
,
set the odds at one-to-ten in Mensch's favor
.
One Ukrainian named Tichowicz gave Miete two hundred Reichsmarks and five golden coins
,
betting on me.

“You'll see,” he dared joke at the expense of Joseph Hirtreiter
,
who had also come to watch the fight
.
“He'll bring all his enemies to their knees
,
just as he brought Hirtreiter to his.”

Joseph Hirtreiter thought otherwise.

“Just you wait
,
you soft-brained Ukrainian
.
You'll soon be parting with your money
,
just as this bedeviled dog will be parting with his life
.
This will be his grave.”

Mensch yanked the metal chains that were hooked onto his collar
.
He trampled the potato patch in his murderous excitement
,
and crushed the zucchini and carrots with his far-reaching paws.

Tichowicz wasn't impressed
,
and he unlatched a lavish wristwatch from his left arm.

“I'll bet this
,
too!”

I wanted to thank him for his boundless faith.

Miete assessed the worth of the watch and wrote it down.

Mensch
,
who was an experienced fight dog
,
stood ready to pounce
.
He barked continuously and prepared himself to deliver deadly bites
.
I barked back just as loudly
,
but deep down I feared that my bark was worse than my bite
.
Mensch was bigger and stronger
,
his jaws more powerful than mine
,
and nothing would ease his terrible temper but blood
.
An important fact made my bad feeling even worse – Joshua wasn't there
!
I looked in every direction
,
but there was no sign of Joshua
.
He must have preferred not to watch me die.

One of the junior SS officers ran to his room and came back with a camera
.
Mensch and I were both memorialized in our last minutes before the fight.

Sergeant Miete read out the bets and summarized the rules of the fight
:
the dog that leaves the arena alive will be declared the winner
.
He held his whistle in his hand
,
ready to mark the start of the fight
.
I had not yet decided whether I was better off fighting in the center of the arena or staying close to the fence
.
Should I try to bite his heels
,
or look for the weak points in his neck? If I had been granted a little longer to prepare for the fight
,
my chances would have been much better
.
Maybe I'd be best off biting myself to death
,
falling on my own sword
,
to become a legend throughout the canine world.

Sergeant Miete placed the whistle in his mouth
.
The Ukrainians around the fence elbowed and shouldered their way to the front.

A sharp whistle sounded.

Mensch charged straight for my neck
.
He aimed for a clean and quick conclusion
.
I barely had time to move my head
.
His fang sunk into my shoulder
.
I forced myself to remain silent
,
knowing that if he knew how much it hurt
,
it would simply fuel his murderousness
.
We rolled together
,
raising clouds of dust
.
I stretched the upper half of my body as far as it would go and managed to catch his front right paw between my teeth
.
I strengthened my grip and Mensch stumbled
.
I dragged him onto his back
.
If I hadn't been so busy surviving, I would have taken a moment to thank my brother
,
who had tried that trick on me over and over again when we were young
,
and my mother
,
who had refused to rebuke him
.
Mensch the Terrible let out a whimper of pain and retreated slightly.

“So that's what you're about
,
you son of a bitch?” his look said
.
“You can't fight like a dog
,
so you play dirty?”

I hoped his leg injury was more serious than it looked
,
but I saw no indication of a limp in his stride.

He charged again
.
This time his fangs landed deep in my throat
.
The Ukrainians sighed
,
disappointed – it was ending faster than they had expected
.
One of them made a joke about the foolish Tichowicz
.
That's it
,
I thought resignedly
.
In a moment, he will shake his head and my neck will break
.
In just one moment
,
I will meet the same fate as the black cat between Karl Gustav's jaws
.
And I
,
just like that kitten
,
would die with my eyes open
.
But I was wrong
.
He was in no hurry
.
Mensch tried to prolong his pleasure and looked at me through squinted eyes
,
trying to suck every drop of sadistic pleasure out of my desperate position
.
This is it!
I thought
.
The last moment of weakness is within reach.
I stretched out my foot and stabbed him in the eye with an extended claw
.
A whimper of pain squeezed from his throat
.
His grip loosened and he retreated to the edge of the arena with his tail between his legs
.
Blood was pouring from his pupil
.
Tichowicz began to clap
,
and shot back jokes at those who had mocked him
.
I felt satisfied
.
I had justified his faith in me
.
Even if I died
,
it would be a hero's death
.
My shoulder was in great pain
,
and the pain radiated to my stomach
.
Mensch rose and steadied himself on his four feet
.
He recovered quickly and growled
.
He had reached his limit – he was seeing red
.
The Ukrainians in the crowd were out of their minds
.
They had never seen such a balanced and well-fought match
.
Joseph Hirtreiter and Sergeant Miete cheered Mensch on
.
Tichowicz was on my side
.
“Get up
!
Charge!” he called to me
.
“Rip the vermin to pieces!”

And then
 . .
 
.
a volley of shots was heard.

“They shot Sergeant Küttner!” The shouts echoed from every corner of the camp
.
“Sergeant Küttner has been shot!” Trucks started driving
,
rifles were loaded
,
and the machine guns on the watchtowers shot long bursts of fire
.
The crowd looked around in confusion and tried to assess the situation.

A low-ranking Ukrainian with thick sideburns
,
whose fingers were covered in looted rings
,
came running and reported
:
“Sergeant Küttner
,
commandant of the lower camp
,
was found in the courtyard drowning in his own blood.”

“Who shot him?” Joseph Hirtreiter asked.

“The Jews!” answered the Ukrainian.

It was the opening shot of the prisoners' revolt
.
I would later hear the story over and over from Joshua and his friends
.
An unlucky disruption had almost ruined the whole plan
:
Oberscharführer Küttner appeared in the area of the prisoners' shacks
.
He entered one of the shacks searching for Kuba the Snitch
.
Armed with knives and Molotov cocktails
,
Joshua and his friends watched from a safe distance as Kuba
,
the oldest prisoner and a notorious snitch
,
entered the shack after Küttner and talked to him for several minutes.