Towards the end of our quarantine the Kappos told us the SS would be coming to sort us out for different work units. Everyone became very nervous as we realized that our fate was about to be decided.
During the next early Appel a group of five, smartly uniformed officers arrived at the camp. They were quite polite to us as they walked up and down the rows of standing women, calling out the names of different work units to a Kappo who took note of each prisoner’s tattoo number and the work unit to which she had been allocated. It was very efficiently organized. Unfortunately, we had no idea what the code names represented or to what kind of work we were being sent. We only knew that some units were more desirable than others.
I stood facing straight ahead, looking as bright as I could, feeling the SS coming nearer until they were in front looking me over. Quite suddenly, I did not feel afraid. I looked them squarely in the eyes as the senior officer called out ‘Canada’.
I knew this was an elite work unit because everyone in our compound said they wanted to work there. Completely innocent of the ways of camp protocol I blurted out, ‘Can my mother come too?’
The Kappo stared at me in disbelief, but the German officer seemed amused.
‘Which is your mother?’ he asked in a very reasonable tone.
I turned and pointed Mutti out to him. I watched him stroll up to her and, just as a buyer of a horse would look over the animal, turn her around, move her head from side to side and examine her from all angles. Then he nodded and said, ‘Yes! Why not?’
Mutti and I exchanged relieved glances. We felt that we were beginning to get the hang of manipulating our fate rather better than we had thought possible.
At that point there was a commotion outside the camp. We could hear dogs barking wildly and sounds of shooting. Someone had attempted to escape. We could hear SS running backwards and forwards shouting instructions to each other. Kappos were summoned and we were left standing in our rows. Within the hour, gallows were erected and all of the inmates were summoned to witness the hanging. It was to be an example to us. The escapee, who was a slightly built woman with a shaven head, was dragged forward. She was dishevelled and her feet were bare. Her hands were bound behind her back and there were bloodstains on her dress. Mutti tried to stand in front of me so that I should not see what was going on. But although it was happening before me and although I was forced to look I did not really see it. None of us saw the hanging. We were forced to look – but we did not see.
Even after this, there was always someone trying to run away. Each morning after Appel when prisoners were taken outside the camp to various places of work, the desire to escape was very strong. Armed guards patrolled with their dogs ready to chase and pull down anyone moving out of line. I really believed that no one could ever get away.
I was afraid most of the time, but occasionally hope rose inside me despite our awful situation. After being allocated to work units, six of us were taken to one side and given the privilege of wearing a striped prison dress. Then we were lined up with 400 or so workers allocated to ‘Canada’. As we walked through the gates I was uplifted by the sense of freedom.
‘This is quite an adventure!’ I whispered to Mutti.
We left the camp preceded by a little band playing marching music. We were all dressed alike, but presentably, so that farmers in their fields would not think we were badly treated. However, they must have been aware of the armed guards and dogs that accompanied us, seen our shaven heads and the gaunt, strained faces of the older inmates. Too many of us appeared half-starved for them not to be aware that something horrible was happening to us. But, as most people do when confronted by things they don’t want to know about, they turned the other way.
The sun beat down on our bald heads as we marched along towards the sorting camp that was known as ‘Canada’ – a slang name given because this was the land of plenty. It was a huge, open compound, encompassing many sheds and covered areas erected to house the spoils brought in from the trains that shunted prisoners to their deaths. Each morning lorries collected all the remaining personal possessions of the condemned from the railway platform and dumped them here to be sorted by work parties like ours.
We could see huge piles of clothing, great mounds of shoes waiting to be sorted and one heap, taller than my head, of metal and glass. As I drew nearer I saw it was made up of thousands of pairs of spectacles. It still did not dawn on me why they were no longer needed by their owners.
Mutti and I, with dozens of others, were put into a massive shed where we were each given a pair of scissors. We had to undo the linings of fur coats – hundreds of them – to look for any hidden jewellery, gold, money or anything else that might be there. We found so many things hidden away that, at first, it was a bit like opening a pile of presents.
We would exclaim loudly over items we discovered especially if we came across biscuits or sweets. We grabbed and ate more or less what we wanted and no one stopped us.
We worked in a relaxed atmosphere, because everyone was eagerly searching for and finding many items of value. Some older inmates kept back small pieces of jewellery, like diamond rings, which they dug into the ground under their feet, hoping they would be able to retrieve them later. It all seemed very enjoyable until I suddenly thought of the people who had kept such precious things in their fur coats, and particularly when I came across photos of babies and their smiling parents. Sometimes these were the only ‘precious’ items hidden away and it made me very sad.
As I gazed at a photo of a Barmitzvah boy surrounded by his smiling, loving family the shed seemed to spin around me and I was hit by the enormity of what I was doing. Suddenly I knew that none of these people would ever see each other again, only in heaven. I was paralysed by the horror of it and at the same time angry that I had allowed myself to enjoy something so hideous and ghastly.
Every evening the workers returned to the barracks to stand for hours at Appel to make sure no one had succeeded in escaping during the day. Inevitably, separation from loved ones, starvation and dehumanization were completely unbearable for some women. I am sure they realized in their hearts that escape was futile but they made one last-ditch effort to be free before sacrificing their lives. Sometimes they would run out of the marching line outside the camp and be shot in the back or brought down by the dogs and torn to pieces. Or, when they were back inside the camp, they would throw themselves against the barbed wire which was highly electrified. They would scream horribly as they burnt to death on the wire.
Imprisonment was something one had to bear for oneself. If we had been given a chance to survive the conditions I should have looked on it as an exciting challenge but I realized that, just like a bull in a bullfight, we did not have a fair chance. The system was designed to kill us all. But my will to live was strong and I had made a pact with myself that I would try to overcome every challenge.
On returning to camp from ‘Canada’ we suffered the indignity of being physically searched in case we tried to smuggle anything back. We had to open our mouths, take off our shoes and occasionally we had to strip completely. Despite this, people at the camp begged us to smuggle food back for them. Mutti and I often risked discovery and somehow managed to secrete a biscuit or sweet for Franzi and one or two of our friends.
Minni too made a request.
‘Fritzi, be a darling,’ she sighed. ‘I have such a yearning for a silver spoon. Can you try to bring one back for me?’
Minni came from a wealthy family in Prague and detested having to use the rusty spoons and chipped mugs considered good enough for the inmates of Auschwitz.
Mutti raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. ‘It’s risky,’ she said, thinking it over. ‘But I have an idea that might work.’
It took some days before I found a beautifully patterned silver spoon that I knew Minni would appreciate. On Mutti’s instructions I slipped it under the instep in my shoe – just like my supports! We felt so daring. My pulse was racing as we entered the camp. I was ready to brazen it out somehow. But luck was with us. The search that evening was cursory and quick and I was able to walk into the camp without detection. When we handed her the spoon that evening Minni was delighted and we were all pleased with ourselves for having been so clever. Subdued though we were by the hideous regime, we had proved that we had not given up. It was an important victory.
Afterwards I reflected that it had been the most stupid thing to do because we three had such privileged positions. If we had been found out, as some were, we would have been severely punished. It could even have cost us our lives.
6 June 1944 D-Day
The Kappos must have suspected me because soon after the spoon incident I was transferred away from Mutti to another sorting hut. This time it was the bedding department where piles of beautiful hand-made patchwork eiderdowns were stacked along one side of the wall. We were instructed to search over every square inch of each one with our fingers and if we felt anything other than soft down we were to tear them apart and retrieve any hidden items sewn inside. We found lots of cigarettes neatly stitched into separate patches, the eiderdown hiding the bulk of the packets. There were gold watches, purses filled with gold coins, precious jewellery and important medicines that people could not live without and had hidden in their quilts for safety.
We were allowed half an hour’s break in the middle of the day for food, which was black bread, with cheese or jam confiscated from the latest batch of incoming prisoners. If we wanted we could sit outside in the sun to eat. One lunchtime I was squatting by myself, my back against the barrack wall munching my ration and idly watching a group of male prisoners passing on the other side of the barbed wire when I suddenly recognized a familiar figure. It was my father!