A Proposal in Auschwitz
Three weeks after I arrived in Auschwitz, I still could not believe it. I lived as in a dream, waiting for someone to awaken me.
The inmates cried and quarreled and hurt one another. Their babbling sounded vaguely like the noise of a pack of animals. From my koia I looked out into the barrack as through a veil, unhappy and apathetic.
Through this concert of misery, I suddenly heard a kindly human voice. I roused myself and glanced at the top of the koia. A handsome blue-eyed man in a striped uniform leaned down from the third tier. I was surprised to see a man. This was a women’s barrack.
Since morning he had been repairing the bunks, but I had been so lethargic that I had not heard him hammering. He looked at me and said, “Chin up! What’s the matter with you?”
I stared but did not answer. So he climbed down. I saw that he was tall. His eyes were a clear, sparkling blue; and although, of course, his hair had been clipped, the stubble was brown. He was smiling. That caught my attention. How could a man smile in this camp? I had found somebody who had not succumbed to the spiritual degradation.
He continued to talk and drew me into a conversation. I learned that he was Polish and that he had been in prison camps for four years, ever since the fall of Warsaw. Laughingly, he told me that he was a carpenter. Sometimes he cleaned the latrines or worked with the road gang.
Each day thereafter he came to repair the beds. We talked and became friends. After a while I waited eagerly for his visits. I was not expecting him as a man. His was the only human-sounding voice I had heard in the camp.
The workers were allowed a recess of one hour, usually around 11 a.m., from the position of the sun. One day he told me to follow him when he left. I was indeed grateful for the invitation and went with him. Up to that time it had never occurred to me that I might leave the barrack for a moment.
I followed him closely. Finally, we reached a clearing where workers were cooking food over a fire. To my astonishment, my friend, whose name was Tadek, produced two potatoes, a rare treasure, and set them to boil in a pot. I followed his every motion with my eyes.
It was like a childhood excursion. Tadek gave me one potato. He sat down opposite me and began to devour the other. This was the first scrap of food I could keep in my stomach. Up to that moment, I had thrown up every mouthful I had swallowed in the camp.
Tadek had another surprise. He gave me a shawl. “You must wrap this around your head. It must be a terrible thing for a woman to go around without any hair,” he said.
I was overcome. I wanted to thank him, but I could not trust myself to open my mouth for fear that I should cry.
“Every day you will share my potatoes,” he continued. “And perhaps I’ll be able to ‘organize’ some other food, and a little clothing, too.”
He stood close to me. Then, as though talking to himself, he said, “It’s a strange thing, even though you have no hair and are dressed in rags, there is something very desirable about you.”
I felt his arm around my waist. His other hand touched me and began to fondle my breast.
My world fell to pieces again. I had already told him what had happened to me—that I had lost my family! Could he not understand how I felt? I wanted to be friends with the human being in him, not with his lust.
I learned afterwards that his was the finest style of lovemaking in Auschwitz. The ordinary approach was much more crude and to the point. I stood there silently, tears running down my cheeks.
He was flustered. “Don’t yell,” he grumbled. “If you don’t want it now, I’ll wait. If you change your mind, let me know. You’ll see me at work.”
The gong sounded, and he turned away.
For a parting word, Tadek added, “In the meantime, we can talk, but you get no food! I haven’t much, and with the little I do have, I must get my women. In this misery and excitement we need them more than in normal life. Women are cheap enough, but it is almost impossible to find a place where we can be safe. The Germans watch constantly, and if we are caught we pay with our lives.”
Then he was ashamed. “You don’t understand. I’m always cold and hungry. All the time they beat me, and I never know when I am going to be shot. You’re still a novice; you’ll change. In a few weeks you’ll understand.”
Every day Tadek entered our barrack and brought a package of food—not for me—for another woman. Whenever he passed he offered me the food. Sometimes we did not even exchange a word. He held out the package and I turned my head. Day after day I grew thinner, and he smiled more sarcastically as I refused his offerings. After a few weeks I could hardly walk, and frequently fainted during the roll call. But I had made up my mind not to give in.
Yet I knew I could not go on this way.
I decided to go to the washroom where I had heard that the men, congregating during the rest hour, occasionally shared their food with the women. I prayed that I would find at least one person who would have pity on me.
When I arrived, I saw the prisoners posted to watch for the guards. They pretended that they were working, for it was strictly against the rules for women to enter when the men were there.
The scene inside was demoralizing. In the back of the filthy barrack men were drinking soup from dirty tin cans they had retrieved from the garbage dump.
The place was crowded. Men and women huddled together in every corner of the room. Couples pressed against one another, talking. Others sat against the walls in close embrace. A few were engaged in black market transactions. The smell of the unwashed bodies mingled with the stale odors of mouldy food and the general dampness. The air was unendurable.
In another part of the camp another scene was being enacted. A new transport had just arrived; and the screams of the women and children, being separated in the first selection as they disembarked from the trains, rose above the conversation in the washroom. Flames from the crematory chimneys belched toward the sky.
Hardly had I stepped across this threshold than I wanted to run. But I could not. At my stomach tore a gnawing pain that was more than simple hunger.
An elderly man leaned against the wall in a corner eating from a tin can. He was horrible to look at, but perhaps that was why I felt that I could trust him. He was fifty-five or sixty years old. Not a tooth remained in his mouth. His face was pockmarked and covered with scars. On his head were steatoma. And, as though fate had not played enough tricks on him, he had only one eye.
In the brownish liquid in his tin floated two small potatoes. Potatoes! I stared at them greedily as he gnawed. But he could only eat the outside. The insides were still raw and too hard for his toothless gums. What he could not eat, he dropped back into the tin. He drank the brownish “soup,” and the potatoes remained. He glanced around him. Was he seeking someone with whom to share this princely gift? He saw me glaring hungrily. With a smile that was so distorted and horrible that I felt I would go mad, he offered me the remainder of his lunch. I clutched at his gift and began to feed. Suddenly, a woman leaped at me and snatched the potatoes from my hand. “You dirty pig!” she shrieked at the old man. “You gave the food away to somebody else?”
“Go to hell!” he replied. “I do what I please. She is younger than you.”
He flung the woman from me, threw her to the ground, and kicked her. The woman’s sobbing attracted the other occupants of the washroom. All of them, even the busy lovers, crowded around. My face flamed.
Suddenly Tadek approached. “I’m surprised to see you here, Your Highness,” he smiled sarcastically. “You held out very long. This will be better than half-eaten potatoes.” He offered me the usual package. We looked at each other. How I hated him! I seized his package and with all my strength I hurled it into his face. Then I ran. To this day, I cannot remember how I got back.
For some time after this last meeting I had no contact with Tadek. However, I did see Lilli, the woman to whom he now brought his food parcels. When, later, I worked at the infirmary my rival became a regular visitor. I spent my bread ration to buy a rare medicine for her on the black market. The medicine was to combat syphilis.