Sonia came from the Ural Mountains. She had been in Auschwitz since 1943. She had come here straight from the front, one of a group of eleven nurses and one doctor—a surgeon known in Auschwitz as Dr. Lubow. They all managed to get to the area, but I do not really know how they all did it. The Russians were different from other prisoners. They were all broad, well built, and strong. Sonia was a very pretty girl, with a happy, smiling face. She was very kind. In fact, she was so good that she was somewhat helpless. It was dangerous to be too good in Auschwitz. As they say, in Auschwitz the pigs liked to feast on good people.
Sonia was a nurse on one of the blocks in the area. Orli knew her and respected her. I never heard Sonia criticize anybody and that includes Orli. But then again, Sonia really could not conceive the full range of Orli’s behavior.
“When I first came to the area,” Sonia told me, “I didn’t expect to last for a week. At every step I encountered such horrible suffering that I couldn’t bear it. I was used to helping people who were suffering. But what could I do here? It was hard for me to get oriented. From the moment I arrived on the area I admired Orli. In that sea of suffering she moved with confidence and self-assurance. She was able to decide who could be helped and who was to be sacrificed. Since you can’t help everybody, you’ve got to know who can benefit from being helped and, of those who can benefit, who is most in need. Orli always knew.” Sonia paused for a moment, as though looking for words that would express what she was feeling just then.
I remember thinking, during that interlude in Sonia’s narrative, that in Auschwitz there was nothing more important than trying to help your fellow sufferers and yet, at the same time, how immoral it was to decide whose suffering should be alleviated and whose should continue unabated. Who had given us the right to condemn or to save another? In Auschwitz there was no fairness in the merciless struggle for survival. Those with scruples died isolated and abandoned. That was the new order of the concentration camp.
“Every day at noon we went to the kitchen,” Sonia resumed her narrative. “As you know, the kitchen is far from the area, and the cans are heavy. When the Polish or French girls went to the kitchen, four girls carried the can. Vera and I went by ourselves, just the two of us. We still had our strength. You know how the prisoners mill around at lunchtime and what their faces look like.” I certainly knew. Each would tie a string around the waist of her frock, and from the string there would always be a cup dangling. They were like famished dogs on the scent of a tasty morsel. They were like predators, crouched and ready to spring on their prey.
“Those prisoners milling around,” continued Sonia, “were our plague. When they saw us carrying the cans, they would pounce from behind, open the cover, and before we could utter a word their cups would be in the soup. When we yelled they would run away, but in no time a new bunch would try the same trick all over again. By the time we got to the area the can was already half empty. I tried appealing to their consciences. ‘How can you take food from the mouths of the sick? Did it ever occur to you that tomorrow we may be carrying soup for you?’ Yelling and pleading did not help. They were hungry. That was their only argument. But when we brought a can half filled with soup, instead of one that was brimful, the result was that the sick, helpless women had to go hungry.
“Once Orli came with us to fetch the soup. ‘I’ll show you how to handle a matter like this in Auschwitz,’ she said. She was known in the camp, and I was sure that the women would not dare to reach for the soup while she was around. Hunger was too strong a stimulus to be resisted. As usual, the hungry women were waiting for us. When the first two reached for the soup, Orli jumped out and pummeled them. You know how the functionaries distribute red cheeks and black eyes. After that, nobody bothered us, and we used to arrive on the hospital block with full cans of soup. I wouldn’t condemn Orli just for that beating. It was what she told us after we had finally put the cans down on the block that bothers me. ‘That’s how you have to talk to people,’ she told us, ‘no other way. These people deserve no better.’ At that time I thought to myself: ‘Poor Orli. You really believe that in dealing with human beings a beating is the best argument’ ”