It was fall 1944. On that cloudy day the roll call dragged on endlessly. Every few minutes we would look through the wires only to see columns of tired women. Rapportführer Taube, who had taken over the roll call that day, was running from one block to the other, checking and counting. The SS women ran in his footsteps, terribly nervous. Apparently not knowing what else to do, the blokowe kept calling out, “Achtung!” The women braced themselves for the worst. Later, all the blokowe were called to the rapportführer and issued some sort of order. They quickly returned to their blocks and, with the clerks, wrote down the numbers of the women who were standing in columns. Every prisoner feared that most of all.
“Why are they writing down the numbers?” we wondered. “Are all the prisoners designated for the gas?” In Auschwitz you could expect the worst every minute. Here you walked arm in arm with death.
Having written down the numbers, the blokowe ran to give them to Taube. Right after that the sirens started wailing. For us the wail of the sirens was the most beautiful music we could hear in the camp, because the sirens sounded only for two reasons: when a prisoner escaped or when an “enemy” plane was spotted overhead. The sound of the sirens in this instance meant that a prisoner had escaped. No sooner had the roll call ended than the whole contingent of SS men and their dogs started on the hunt.
The next day we discovered exactly who had escaped. Mala, a Jewess from Belgium who worked as a läufer in the camp, had escaped from the women’s section. Her boyfriend, who was a Polish political prisoner, had escaped from the men’s section. For a few days the fugitives remained at large. Among the women in our area there was a holiday atmosphere. Since Mala was a member of the anti-Fascist movement, we figured that, if she escaped, she would spread the news of what was happening in this Hell. Now, every time we met we would greet each other with the same questions: “How is it with Mala? Is she still free?” What pleasure her escape gave us! I remember waking up at night, watching the rats running around near the oven, and thinking of Mala. What was she doing right now? How happy she must be now that she had torn herself away from this Hell and saw free people all around her.
Everyone in the camp knew Mala. She had been a läufer for several years. She was fluent in several languages, and I found her particularly pleasant because she spoke Polish very well. She told me that her parents had emigrated from Poland to Belgium after World War I, and since they always spoke Polish to each other she had learned to speak their native language. In the camp Mala was a kind of überläufer, if that is the word for it. She had earned the respect of the other läufers. They listened to her and believed her. She was willing to undertake even the riskiest tasks, and she always brought them off.
When I met Mala in January 1944 she was twenty years old. She was a tall girl, very agile, with long, blond hair and a pleasant face. She was courageous almost to the point of madness. There was no assignment too difficult for her to carry out. She was able to pull out of the office file identity cards of women who were designated to be gassed and replace them with the cards of women who had died long ago. With her skill and daring, she had managed to save the lives of many women. She knew about everything that was being planned in the camp. She brought us news about new transports and about plans for deportations. She listened to the radio and brought us news about the situation at the front. Sometimes she even managed to steal a German newspaper for us.
I remember how she came bursting in with the joyous news about the capture of Lublin by the Russian and Polish armies. She was always happy and had a sunny disposition. The word in Auschwitz was that it was her radiant spirit that had kindled her great love for Tadeusz. I never discussed the subject with her, but I always believed that her great pride, courage, and belief in people were all the result of her grand passion.
Now Mala and Tadeusz were together and free. We knew that the Germans would not give up the search easily. If they did not find them in the camp area they would look for them in the cities. They must not do anything careless. Their struggle for life and freedom was not over yet.
At the end of October, three weeks after their escape, we were informed that Mala and her boyfriend were once again in the bunkers of Auschwitz. They were caught in Katowice, where they were terribly beaten and then brought back to the camp. The prisoners who brought us the laundry told us that they had been put in the bunkers and that the SS men were trying to pry out of them how they had managed to escape and the names of those to whom they may have revealed the secrets of Auschwitz. It was not difficult for the SS to figure out that they could not have escaped without help and that there must be some organization operating in the camp. They wanted Mala and her boyfriend to give them the names of those who had helped them and of those who belonged to the organization. They were taken out for interrogation a few times a day, and each time they were beaten inhumanly. Would they be able to stand the punishment? Would they break down?
The whole camp was talking about it. This pair became a fascinating symbol for all of the inmates. Their love affair, their courageous flight, and now their torment had all the elements of the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, set in Auschwitz. Like the Greek heroes in the face of unyielding fate, we were completely helpless to do anything about the death that surely awaited them. We did not know, yet, just what kind of bizarre execution the SS were cooking up for them, but we did know that anyone who tried to help them would also surely die with them.
Day to day we waited for the finale of the tragedy to take its course. It was a cold and misty night. The komando was returning from work to the camp. Roll call usually took place right there in front of the blocks, and only after that would the women come to the infirmary to have their wounds dressed. This October night it was different. The komando did not go to the blocks. They crowded everybody close to the gate, dividing field “A” from field “B.” There they set up a mock tribunal. At the last moment a gallows was erected. They ordered the women to each side of the gate. The blokowe and sztubowe were already there. Then came Ilse Koch, commander of the camp, accompanied by several SS men.
We stood in the doorway of the infirmary waiting for the heroine of the bloody celebration. We knew who was going to be hung. We did not have to wait long. Mala walked slowly, erect, escorted by two SS men, one on either side. In front of the trio walked another prisoner, clearing a path for them. “Mala, Mala”—a whisper issued from a thousand lips like a single sigh. She smiled faintly. “Mala, Mala,” I whispered in despair. Slowly she came closer and closer to the gate, drawing nearer to death with each step. She stood at the elevation next to the commander of the camp. Use came forward and started to make a speech.
This was the first time that the death of a prisoner had been set up in so ceremonial a fashion. Mala, standing behind the commander, slowly pulled a razor out of concealment. She started to cut her veins. All the SS men were so busy staring at Use, so engrossed in her words, that they did not see Mala cut the veins on one hand and then, with bloody palm, start to cut the veins in the second arm. The prisoners gave her away. One enormous sigh was heaved from their collective breasts. In a fairy tale, where good always triumphs, that sigh should have destroyed the platforms that Use Roch and the SS men were standing on.
Ilse stopped the speech, turned around quickly, and saw the victim who, at the last moment of her life, dared to defy Use’s will. She pounced on Mala in an attempt to tear the razor out of her hand. Mala measured out a blow on Use’s huge cheek, leaving the bloody trace of her palm on Use’s face. The SS men disarmed Mala, and the blokowe chased the women back to the blocks. Use Roch never got to finish her speech.
Mala was not hanged. The SS men brought her staggering to the infirmary. She slowly sank to the floor, blood gushing from her veins. Instinctively, the girls moved in her direction. They wanted to save her. What for? So that she could die a second death? She was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, almost unconscious.
They would not let her die peacefully in the infirmary. A minute later an SS man came running with a prisoner from the sonder-komando who was pushing a wheelbarrow. They threw Mala into the wheelbarrow and quickly rushed off toward the crematorium. Her bloody hands were dangling over the sides of the wheelbarrow, and her blonde head did not fit in the wagon. That was the last time I saw Mala.
The prisoners told us later that when they brought Mala through the gate dividing the men’s camp from the women’s camp, the corpse of Tadeusz was hanging on the gate. “Goodbye, my love,” whispered Mala with dying lips. Use wanted Mala to be thrown into the oven alive. That was to be her revenge for the aborted ceremony and for the slap that Mala had delivered in front of all the women. But the SS man who worked in the crematorium did not carry out her orders. He shot Mala with his own hands and then threw her body into the oven.
That is how Mala and Tadeusz died. Unfortunately, I do not remember their last names. The lovers of Auschwitz. Beautiful, brave, tragic in their loving and their dying. Their love and death could become the theme of a tragedy written in a barbarous age.