Rapportführer SS man Taube was famous in Auschwitz for his ability to kill a person in two motions. First he would hit the victim on the head to knock the person unconscious, and then he would put his foot on the person’s throat strangling her to death. I remember being a witness to one of his executions on the zugangen block. One night Taube was in charge of the evening roll call, and that evening there was a number missing. The sztubowe were sent scurrying through the camp to look for the lost woman while I stood there trembling with fear to think what might happen to her when they found her. It turned out that she was in the camp latrine. She could not leave the place because she was suffering from dysentery. She was not yet aware of how important a cog she was in the camp mechanism, that they were not able to finish the roll call unless she was present. She had to be there, and the sztubowe had to drag her to appear before the rapportführer. It did not matter whether she were dead or alive. When the sztubowa hauled her to the roll call area she was half dead with fright. Taube approached her slowly and then snuffed out her life with his usual technique. It took no more than five seconds for Taube to perform the execution. After the execution we were permitted to return to our blocks. All numbers were accounted for, and the roll call was finished.
No one would tell me, and I asked often, why Taube, during the roll call of the first transport of Jews from Slovakia in 1941, should have noticed Cyla and appointed her to be blokowa of Number 25, the death block. Rosina, a nurse, and Mancy, a doctor from Brati-slawa, told me stories about Cyla.
“Taube must have seen something terrible in Cyla,” I said, “something that made her stand out from the other prisoners.”
“Nothing of the sort,” the girls answered. “She was almost a child when she first came to the camp. She was barely fifteen years old; when she was on the transport with us she was still wearing a school apron. She was slim, not too tall, and she was pretty. She came from a well-to-do, middle-class Jewish family, religious and highly respected. She had no brothers or sisters. Up to the moment that Taube told her to step out of the line and stand next to him, she was a normal girl, frightened as the rest of us by what was going on around her.”
“Listen to how Taube made a criminal of her,” Mancy started telling me. “He picked her out of the roll call, while she was dressed in rags, like the rest of the zugangen. Her head was shaved and she was wearing wooden shoes. That night she did not return to our block, so we were very worried about what might have happened to her. We did not know where they had taken her or what they were doing to her. Since we were all zugangen, it was impossible to find someone who could give us any information. Those first few months in the camp we had no contacts and no organization.
“For a few days Cyla was nowhere to be found. She was not on our block, and she was not with the komando working at the construction of the camp. We were sure that Cyla was no longer among the living. We could hardly imagine anything else. The first selection of the zugangen took place a few weeks after we arrived at Auschwitz. The murderous work in the swamps, the lack of wholesome drinking water, hunger, and disease knocked even the strongest prisoners off their feet. Young girls who had been the picture of health a few weeks earlier quickly became mussulmen, incapable of doing any work. The death camp was just being built at that time. The gas chambers, the crematoria, the effektenkammer were all being erected by the hands of the prisoners. Those who were not capable of hard work had to perish. At that time the selections took place at the roll call because the death machinery was not yet in working order. On that fall day of 1941, the day of the first selection, we stood at the roll call and waited for death.
“ ‘Achtung,’ barked the blokowa. Taube walked into the roll call area, with Cyla following a short distance behind him. At first I did not recognize her. When finally I realized who she was I was so surprised that my eyes almost popped out. Could it really be Cyla? She looked so elegant and so scrubbed and she smelled so good. I looked her over, top to bottom. She wore rubbers on her feet, a beautiful rain coat, and a multi-colored silk scarf on her head. She avoided our gaze, looking straight in front of her. She walked behind the rapportführer, step for step. When he stopped she stood at his side. I was so fascinated at the sight of Cyla that I forgot about the selection. She stood to the side and waited patiently.
“ ‘Now you will stand in line and you will approach the rapport-führer,’ shouted the blokowa. The line moved slowly, everybody trying to look her best. Every few minutes Taube picked somebody out of the line and stood her to the side. Then Cyla approached with a notebook in her hand and wrote down the number. The number of those standing off to the side began to swell. But all this time Cyla kept writing down the numbers, making sure that everybody remained in place. She did everything calmly and precisely. When the roll call ended, Cyla lined the women up in ranks of four and took the chosen ones to the new block. That was how the death block was created, and from that day Cyla was functioning as the blokowa there. Today she is eighteen years old and has the heart of a criminal capable of committing murder.” That was the story Mancy told me.
Block 25 was located on field “A,” not far from the block of the zugangen. From the outside it looked like any other camp block, except that it was always bolted, and people did not stroll around there. Those who chanced to be sent there left only in the leichen-auto, the car that transported the dead. Selections were a permanent feature of camp life. There were large selections, which encompassed the whole camp, and there were hospital selections, which Mengele arranged every few months. He always managed to arrange a selection when there was some Jewish holiday. When the holidays approached, we could expect a selection. Sometimes the selections reminded us that it was actually a Jewish holiday, which we would have forgotten otherwise. Mengele, that monster in the body of an Adonis, never forgot.
In addition to the large organized selections, a day did not go by that someone was not condemned to the gas. In our infirmary the SS doctors looked over the sick people who came to the area every day. It did not take long before we were able to tell which of the sick women would be sent to the gas. For example, Dr. Koenig did not like sick people with swollen feet. Mengele, on the other hand, did not like them with sores on their breasts. Since we knew in advance who would be looking over the women, we simply concealed those whom we knew would be vulnerable. Mengele gave us the most trouble. He was so handsome that he inspired trust. He would make himself comfortable in a chair and then become engrossed in conversation. The newly arrived women would forget where they were and start describing all their ailments.
One of them might tell him, “I have been suffering from a heart condition for a long time and I simply can’t walk.” Another might say, “The camp food doesn’t agree with me, because I have liver problems.”
These women did not realize that they were signing their own death warrants. Before the doctor’s visit we would beg the women to say nothing and to pretend that they did not speak German, but rarely did anyone listen. Sometimes an SS man would write down the number of a prisoner to whom he had taken a dislike. There were times when for no reason at all, and contrary to the regular routine, several German doctors would descend on the block, look over the sick, and write down a few numbers for the gas.
All those whose numbers were listed went to the blokowa, whose duty it was to escort them to Block 25. Here Cyla received them, and from that moment forth they were nothing but meat for the oven. Strange as it may seem, the functionaries regarded those in Block 25 as dead already. I was once witness to this phenomenon. On one occasion, the clerk of one of the hospital blocks, a robust, healthy woman, took charge of the sick whose numbers had been written down during the selection. There were about thirty women in the group, all extremely emaciated. She gathered them together in the foyer, dressed only in their slips, then led them barefoot in the snow to the death block. She later explained this brutal procedure as follows: “I wanted to save myself some work. What is the point of taking them to Block 25 fully clothed, and then having to make an extra trip to the warehouse with their clothes. To them it doesn’t matter anyway.” I can still see the sad walk of those nearly naked women, holding each other up, leaving a trail of bloodstains in the snow. Beside them walked the redcheeked clerk, dressed in a warm sweater, carrying in her hand the card containing the numbers of these corpses.
They stayed on the block until there were enough of them to fill the gas chamber so that the gassing could be carried out with maximum efficiency. Sometimes it took a few days, sometimes more. They waited for death. On Block 25, which it was forbidden to enter, Cyla had a little room. In the camp there were rumors circulated about the goings-on there. In her little apartment Cyla, it was rumored, received Taube, who was said to be her lover. Taube had issued orders that the sick on Block 25 were not to receive any food, thereby conserving the gas it would take to eradicate them. The result was that Cyla received a hefty portion of provisions because the sick were still on the camp register, and she would confiscate their rations for herself. Hot coffee was brought to the block in caldrons. Cyla would kick the caldron over, letting it spill into the drains, and then shout in several languages, “Drink water!” Her shouting could be heard all over field “A.” Cyla exchanged margarine, bread, and salami for cigarettes. She would then exchange the cigarettes for luxuries that were brought into the camp by prisoners who worked outside the camp.
Cyla came to our infirmary very often. She was happy and very self-satisfied. She used to bring us chocolates, and once she even brought me a dress as a present. In spite of her cordiality I feared her greatly. To put it bluntly, she was a monster. I avoided getting into discussions with her. I remember that I once let my curiosity get the better of me, and I asked her the question that had been on my mind for a long time: “Tell me, Cyla, how can you act this way? Aren’t you afraid that the people will never forgive you?”
We were alone in the infirmary, and no sooner had I popped the question than fear overwhelmed me. But she answered me calmly: “You probably know that I put my own mother in the car that took her to the gas. You should understand that there remains for me nothing so terrible that I could not do it. The world is a terrible place. This is how I take my revenge on it.”
I did not see Cyla when the prisoners were evacuated from Auschwitz. I do not know what happened to her, but I am convinced that there can be no place for her among normal human beings.