Chapter 72

October swooped down on Buchenwald like a famished crow, gobbling up all the summer flowers. Within weeks, the green leaves of the red beech trees faded to brown, curled, and drifted to the ground.

Every day more prisoners were killed or died. Every day new ones arrived. Every day Harlan wondered why he hadn’t yet gone mad.

By then the soldiers were calling him Jesse Owens, after the black American track-and-field athlete who’d gone to Berlin in 1936 and had embarrassed Hitler by winning four Olympic gold medals.

Harlan hadn’t seen Lizard since the day they’d first arrived. He feared Lizard might be dead, prayed that he wasn’t. When Lizard shuffled past him in the mess hall one afternoon, Harlan couldn’t hide his joy. He leaped off the ration line, caught Lizard by the arm, and pulled him to his chest in an awkward hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

Sapling thin, Lizard’s complexion had taken on a gray tint. Not only that, it was if he had molted—his skin was so thin, it seemed transparent.

Lizard blinked at him.

“Hey, man, it’s me, Harlan.”

Lizard swayed, blinking again. “Oh, yeah, yeah,” he mumbled sluggishly.

Harlan cast a puzzled glance at the yellow star on Lizard’s shirt. As the question formed on his tongue, a soldier came charging toward them.

“Weitergehen!” His demand soared above the din of metal spoons scraping the bottoms of metal bowls.

Harlan shook his friend’s arm. “Lizard, you gotta hold it together, man. You hear me? You gotta hang on, brother, you hear me?”

Lizard’s head bounced. “Uh-huh. Hold it together.”

Watching the swiftly approaching soldier, Harlan pushed Lizard toward the door and rejoined the line.

* * *

One morning Harlan woke, glanced out the window, and spied a large object at the center of the square covered with a black tarp.

What is that? Where did it come from?

No one had answers.

They lined up as usual, waiting for the day’s cruelty to begin.

After two hours, the wind picked up, thrashing the tarp. The sound was annoying, but the sight of it—black canvas flailing like the devil’s cape—was even more unnerving.

Three hours later, an officer ordered the tarp removed. The four prisoners charged with the duty did fierce battle with the weight of the covering and the wind. Just when Harlan thought Mother Nature would win, the tarp came flying off, revealing the horror beneath.

He’d seen it in Westerns and depicted in comic strips. Just looking at it made him gasp for air: the gallows was large enough to hang four men at one time.

* * *

Ilse, astride her horse, appeared just after noon. The prisoners had had neither breakfast nor lunch. Waving away the helping hands of soldiers who rushed to assist her, Ilse skillfully dismounted the beast in one fluid move.

She circled the gallows, admiring the workmanship, head nodding with satisfaction, her fingers stroking the red bauble on the end of her riding crop like a good luck charm.

On the platform, her boots clomped across the wooden floor, reverberating inside the prisoners’ rib cages. Ilse gave each beam a sturdy shake and tugged roughly on the looped ropes. She did all of this with a cheerful smile on her face.

Ilse summoned a soldier and spoke to him in a whisper. The prisoners strained to hear but were unable to catch a word.

The soldier then turned and signaled to the guard in the watchtower. A second later the sirens began to wail.

Back on the ground, Ilse strolled casually from one prisoner to the next, whacking her jockey whip against her thigh.

The sirens continued to howl.

Twenty minutes, thirty, forty-five.

Finally, Ilse raised her whip into the air, and the sirens fell silent. “That one,” she said, aiming her whip at the unlucky soul.

Harlan craned to see who it was, but from his vantage the man’s face was unrecognizable.

The prisoner was dragged from the line and thrown onto the gallows’ steps. He lay there, still as death, until a soldier brought his boot heel down on his head. Shrieking, the prisoner grabbed his head and flopped around like a fish until the soldier pulled him onto the platform and ordered him to stand behind the middle noose.

Ilse calmly followed, her jockey whip tucked securely beneath her arm. Sliding her free hand through the noose, she splayed her fingers, waggled them at the prisoner, and then laughed in a high-pitched titter that raised the hairs on Harlan’s neck.

Another soldier, carrying a chair, jogged up the stairs and placed it before the poor soul.

Harlan held his breath, waiting for the man to spring up and fight for his life. But the man did nothing. He just stood there, shoulders hunched, head lolling like a weight on his neck.

The soldier grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at his fellow inmates.

It was Lizard.

“No, no, no,” trickled from Harlan’s mouth.

“Eins . . . zwei . . . drei!”

The soldiers lifted Lizard onto the chair, slipped the noose over his head, and pulled the knot. Lizard’s knees buckled, the rope cut into his Adam’s apple. His eyes bulged—gagging, he clawed savagely at the rope, locked his knees, and held his weight on his tiptoes.

Ilse circled, smiling, pleased with his struggle to survive. Minutes later, she hopped off the platform, mounted her horse, and rode away.

One hour. Two. Three.

“Hold on, Lizard, hold on,” Harlan chanted.

The sun moved west, dragging long, dark shadows across the prison grounds. The temperature plunged; prisoners rubbed their arms, shivering.

Lizard held on.

A woman crumpled to the ground; her husband threw himself protectively over her unconscious body. The soldiers beat them both and dragged them away.

At six o’clock Ilse returned on foot, adorned in a sweeping burgundy dress embroidered with purple running vines.

On the platform, she rounded the chair, gripped the backrest, and gave it a little shake.

Lizard wobbled. Harlan inhaled so abruptly the air made a whistling sound down his throat.

Laughing with childish glee, she shook the chair again, this time with vigor. Lizard rocked forward, wheezing. The arteries in his neck bulged, his face reddened, and his eyes dripped water.

With each rattle, the chair slid backward a little bit more, until his toes balanced on the edge of the seat, his eyes looking as if they might explode from their sockets. Harlan wrapped his arms around his shoulders, dropped his chin onto his chest, and closed his eyes.

Ilse pulled the chair away. Lizard’s feet paddled the air and then wilted.

* * *

They left his body there for weeks, rotting away in full sight.

The birds roosted on his head, night animals gorged themselves on his flesh, insects laid eggs in his ears.

Finally, in late November, when the chilly north winds rolled over the hills, undressing the trees, scattering leaves, the prisoners were ordered to take down what remained of Lizard.

Days later, December arrived bearing soft snow.