Chapter20

An Execution and a Miracle

The Buchenwald concentration camp was established in 1937. It was designed for detaining political prisoners, most of who were, at that time, Communists. Initially, there were only about 1,000 inmates, but the camp was expanded several times to accommodate the thousands of workers needed for the nearby armament factories. All the work provided by the prisoners was forced labor and a critical benefit in the war effort.

German Equipment Works (Deutsche-Austustungs-Werk) or DAW was an enterprise owned and operated by the SS. Prisoners worked in these plants as well as in multiple other armament facilities, the camp work-shop and the quarry. The cornerstone of DAW was the Mabiu Factory which made components for the V-2 Rocket.

By the time Anna arrived, the camp was stretched to almost 100,000 prisoners. They were stacked into quarters four times the capacity for which they were designed. Buchenwald was a sprawling facility that swept across several hundred acres. The main camp was in the northern segment and housed the prisoners in about 180 barracks. Some of the barracks had indoor plumbing and adequate heat. But most were little more than shelters with latrines. The area was surrounded by a 10-foot electrified barbed wire fence and multiple guard towers built into the fenced structure. Each tower was staffed with three military personnel, .50 caliber machine guns, and powerful search lights.

The southern section housed the SS guards and administrative personnel. Central to this section was an enormous parade ground surrounded by 18 barracks built in a semicircle. These were positioned as spokes on a wheel with the parade grounds as the center. Each barrack held 100 guards. The second story of the main gate house was the principle administration area. To the right of the administration section was the ‘bunker’ or camp jail. Cell # 1 in the bunker was the ‘death cell.’ Here, prisoners were held before execution. Not far from the bunker was a separate building housing the crematorium. Most of the work camps in Germany built the crematorium outside the camp and out of sight. But Buchenwald was different. It housed the crematorium in plain sight, serving as a constant reminder that death was always close at hand. In the basement of the crematorium was an execution chamber where men (and occasionally women) were hung from large steel hooks mounted on the walls. There was also another method for killing. A scale and height measure backed up to the wall in one corner. Behind the wall was a small room that hid the executioner. A small hole was placed in the wall and was positioned so a prisoner having his height and weight measured could be shot in the back of the head or neck. This portion of the wall was painted black so the hole went unnoticed.

Upon her arrival, Anna was taken to a holding room where she sat for two hours before being joined by three other women, each in their 30s. They were then transferred to the main camp. The first building inside the electrified fence was a small one-story structure. As they entered they were instructed to strip. Each woman was shaved, including their heads and pubic areas. They were then led into another room built with a creosote shower. They were sprayed with disinfectant, then given a uniform of striped shirts and pants. Once dressed, the women were brought to yet another room where they received a numbered tattoo on the inside of the left forearm. Anna was B-76083.

The camp was experiencing a typhus epidemic, a fact Anna discovered almost immediately. Typhus is carried by an infectious agent transmitted to the body through lice. Anna actually appreciated the effort to disinfect new prisoners.

Anna was now one of approximately 100 women at Buchenwald. The women were kept in a single dorm separated from the male prisoners by a six-foot fence. The dorm included two large rooms with multiple wooden bunks stacked three rows high. The center section held showers and toilets. The dorm also had a small kitchen and mess room. Meals were given twice a day and the women worked in 12 hour shifts that began at 6:00 a.m.

Two of the women with Anna were assigned to the camp brothel and the other was designated as cook. Anna was assigned to work in the Mibau V-2 Rocket facility. For the first time, she was grateful for the Nuremburg laws of 1935, especially the first law which protected German blood. Although it stripped her of her citizenship, it also prohibited her from engaging in sexual intercourse with non-Jews.

There was one central heater in each sleeping area. The building was not insulated and the high each day could reach the mid-60s. But night was another story. Temperatures dropped dramatically after the sun went down and each woman was given only one blanket. Some more fortunate souls had been allowed to keep their coats. But women who arrived in the warmer months didn’t get to keep theirs. Anna noted that about half the women were significantly malnourished. She was also aware of their behavior. Most stayed to themselves and used either their first names or gave none at all.

Meals were eaten quickly. Breakfast was nothing more than a bowl of watery porridge with little taste. It was not unusual to find worms in the porridge, but given their hunger, most of the women ate them without much notice. The evening meal was typically a piece of bread and a serving of turnips or another vegetable. Given her background, Anna was aware that there was almost no protein in the diet. She knew that within a few weeks, the bodies of these women, hers included, would begin to break down their own protein, thus producing the wasted, emaciated look. Lack of vitamins would lead to mouth and tongue ulcerations. Scurvy was rare in the 20th century but common in Buchenwald. Women who became too weak to work were removed for ‘rehabilitation’. Hollow eyed, they would be taken to the death room in the basement of the crematorium, hanged and cremated.

The two women who arrived with Anna and were sent to the brothel were soon noticeably pregnant. In malnourished mothers, babies are usually born prematurely. In Buchenwald it was no different – with the exception of the fact that the newborns were immediately thrown into the incinerator, alive.

As the women became more malnourished, most stopped ovulating. Anna wondered how long she could last in Buchenwald. The information from the BBC indicated the war could be over in a matter of months. Unless she became ill, she held on to the hope that she had a chance.

The day after her arrival at the camp, Anna was sent to an orientation for her work in V-2 Rocket production. The V-2 was a sophisticated weapon. It was being built from a proto-type developed by Wernher von Braun and Walter Riedel in 1936. A ballistic missile with a range of about 150 miles, it was powered by a liquid fuel engine. The fuel was a mixture of liquid oxygen, ethanol and water. The war-head was 2,000 pounds of Amatol, a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate.

The factory was located three miles from the main camp. It was a sprawling complex surrounded by an elaborate 12-foot fence. Approximately 800 prisoners were transported to the facility daily in 20 buses. Another 160 German workers were employed as supervisors and engineers. There were 100 SS guards in the plant during the day work shift. The night shift was somewhat smaller, around 50 guards.

The morning after her orientation, Anna boarded a bus with two other women and 80 men. The ride to the facility was a short one, only five minutes once they exited the main camp gate. Anne felt strange riding in the bus. She stared out into the open country feeling somewhat outside her body.

The facility she was headed toward on that morning was one of several that were being used to make components for the V-2, a rocket that had taken several years to develop. The principal developer, von Braun, received a doctorate in physics from the University of Berlin in 1934. By then, he had joined the Rocket Society, Verein fur Raumschiffarht. Von Braun was interested in sub-orbital flight, but funding was only available for military rockets. He developed a team of 80 engineers to design and test rockets. Eventually a production facility was built at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast.

The proto-type that was developed and test fired was called the A-4. The ‘rocket’ was in fact, an un-manned ballistic missile 46 feet in length with an engine thrust of 56,000 pounds and a payload of 2,200 pounds. It reached a height of 50 to 60 miles with a velocity of 3,500 mph. Since it traveled greater than the speed of sound there was no warning, no sound, only the sonic boom just before impact. It was first used in combat in September 1944, 14 months after Hitler had ordered it into production. After the first successful firing in combat, von Braun remarked to a colleague, “The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet.”

The allies became aware of the V-2 in 1943 when a test fired missile landed at Blize, Poland, and was recovered by the Polish resistance. They shared the technical details with British intelligence. Eventually a massive bombing campaign was launched against the Peenemunde facility. This slowed the V-2 production and prevented the Germans from using it during the Allied invasion of Europe. Hitler believed the rocket could give him a ‘vengeance weapon’ that would possibly lead to an early armistice. Hurriedly, a massive underground production facility was constructed named Dora, near Nordhausen in central Germany. This complex weapon with thousands of component parts cost about the same as a four-engine bomber but was much less effective. Never- the-less, Hitler was determined to use as many as could be produced.

The Mibau facility produced four components; the outer steel shell, the guidance gyro system, the liquid oxygen and container, and the warhead casing. The administrators knew Anna was a medical doctor and felt she could be of use in the manufacture of liquid oxygen, which, when added to the alcohol-water mixture, provided the propellant. Anna spent a week learning how the liquid oxygen was produced and stored. Oxygen was taken from the air and run through a condenser coil to cool it down to -183 degrees C. This was done using liquid nitrogen. It was then placed in a holding tank at three atmospheres pressure to be shipped to the underground assembly facility, Dora.

During her first week in the Mibau plant Anna was startled to find out that those in the plant were given a mid-day meal. She had seen hundreds of emaciated men on her way to the bus, but those in the plant looked healthier. Now the reason was obvious. The meal was generally a bowl of vegetable soup with meat, a meal that provided protein, vitamins and calories that others in the camp weren’t getting. She was specifically told not to mention the extra meal to anyone outside the facility. But it was clear to the prisoners that those who worked in the plant were getting an extra benefit.

Roland Montague could not help but notice the new woman. He was working in the French resistance when he and four others were caught in southern France. There were actually 10 men involved in the attempt to blow-up a German ammunition dump south of Paris near Orleans. There was a fire fight and six of his countrymen were killed. Of the four captured, three were sent to Buchenwald. The fourth was shot trying to escape.

Roland was an engineer before the war, trained in metal alloys. He was involved in the assembly of the missile’s gyroscopic guidance system, one of forty prisoners who worked with ten German engineers to assemble and test the system. For months he had been trying to work out a method to sabotage the system, but it had been impossible to do because of the extensive testing. Just before he arrived, a worker who had been suspected of sabotage was hanged.

Roland’s 18 months in Buchenwald had been a better experience than for many other prisoners, all because of his work in the V-2 plant. He was convinced he could survive the war by remaining valuable to the Germans, although he thought daily about ways in which he could possibly alter the guidance system. The only thing that brought a smile to his face was the mental picture of a V-2 aimed at London suddenly turning in mid-flight and heading for Berlin. He often thought that if he could pull it off, it would be worth the risk.

Roland felt fortunate to have been assigned to V-2 production near Buchenwald. The Germans were desperate for some way to neutralize the allied advances. The missile production was up to five per day at Dora. In 18 months, he had seen more than 7,000 men leave for Dora, none of whom ever returned. He believed they were being worked to death and then executed. There was obviously a different policy at Mibau. The plant director had apparently made a decision to get the prisoners trained and keep them alive for more production. This seemed like a sensible thing to do, and all the more since he was at Mibau.

By the third week Anna had adjusted to her routine. She worked 12 hour shifts six days a week. Sunday was a day for showers and washing clothes with the little bit of soap they were given. She had remained well. But several women had come down with dysentery. Anna knew few names but had talked on occasion to the woman who slept directly below her. Erika had been at Buchenwald for almost six years. Initially, she was not a prisoner but an employee. She had begun working as a secretary in administration when the camp opened 1937. She had a secret. Erika’s maternal grandmother was Jewish. Erika was Christian and had been able to conceal her family background for years. But a change in the camp’s leadership in 1941 brought a new commandant. He required a background check for everyone in administration. Erika’s background was discovered. The day this came to light, Erika was arrested and made a prisoner. One day she was free, the next she was not.

One evening after the meal, Anna and Erika began talking. Erika explained why she was there and how it happened. She was interested to know that Anna was Jewish. Although a Christian, Erika was proud of her Jewish heritage. She talked of the first commandant, Karl Otto Koch and his wife Ilse. Anna could lie on her stomach and look down to the bunk below. Erika was easy to talk to and began her story.

“The Buchenwald camp was opened in July 1937. I was working in Weimer and decided to apply for one of the secretarial jobs. I knew there were about 1,000 prisoners and that almost all of them were Communists. I worked for the first commandant, Colonel Koch. He joined the National Socialist Party in 1930 and the SS in 1934.

In 1936, he commanded the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin. That’s where he met his wife, Ilse. He was transferred to Buchenwald when it opened and his wife got involved in running the camp. She was barbaric. She loved to abuse prisoners. Everyone called her the ‘Bitch of Buchenwald’. I know for a fact that she had more than one prisoner killed.”

Anna stopped her. “Killed for what?”

“All I can tell you is what I heard. She looked for men with exotic tattoos. She used their skin for lamp shades, Anna. And Colonel Koch was just as bad in his own way. He liked women. He’d trade extra pay or time off for sex. I resisted him and because of that, I was never promoted or given a raise.”

The woman pursed her mouth, then sighed. “He was so cruel. He beat men…lots of them. He put them on the hanging tree.”

“What is the hanging tree?” Anna asked.

“It’s a large pine pole next to the bunker. They tie the men’s hands behind their backs and hang them by their wrists. Their weight slowly dislocates their shoulders. You could hear them scream even with the windows closed. Over time, more of the prisoners were Jewish. Some were even POW’s.”

“Do you believe both Kochs had people murdered?”

“I’m sure of it,” said Erika. “Ilse was having an affair with one of the camp medical doctors, Dr. Hoven. He murdered some prisoners by injecting them with phenol. It was common knowledge that men with exotic tattoos who were seen by Frau Koch were sent to the hospital…and they were never seen again. Before they left in 1941, two medical personal, one of the doctors and an orderly, were found dead under mysterious circumstances. There were some records though, that showed they were treating Colonel Koch for syphilis.

Well, after he left, the new commandant arrived…and my family secret was uncovered. As for the Kochs, like all SS, they should be arrested and tried for war crimes.”

The women were silent for a while.

“Erika, did you see any well-known people come through the camp?”

“Several. The one who stood out to me was Paul Schneider. He got here in the fall of 1937.”

“Who is Paul Schneider?”

“He was so great. He was a pastor, a member of the Confessing Church. That’s the one started by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And really, it was started to oppose the Nazis. He preached against the policies of the Third Reich and against anti-Semitism. He was constantly being warned about what he was doing. And he was even arrested one time, but was released. Then finally, he started excommunicating church members who violated congregational discipline by supporting the Nazis. He was arrested again. But they released him and told him he had to leave Germany. But he wouldn’t do it. He went right back to his congregation and family. Two months later he was brought here.”

“What happened then?” asked Anna.

“He started speaking out against prisoner abuse. And they put him in solitary. But he wouldn’t be quiet. He preached from his cell window almost every day. God, they beat him for that. He wore this beret. And he wouldn’t take it off to honor Hitler’s birthday. That was April 20th. A lot of the prisoners begged him to stop preaching and to stop speaking out. Then in July he was taken to the infirmary. They murdered him by injection. That part brought everybody down. It was like a cloud over the camp, so much sadness that he was gone. I actually started thinking about leaving my job here. But the Kochs left and by then it was too late for me. So here I am, a Christian with a Jewish grandmother. I’ll die here, unless the Allies come.”

The weeks dragged on. Anna began to get a clearer picture of the reality of Buchenwald. It was basically a slave labor camp. Not surprising was the Nazis’ flagrant violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions which forbade nations from using prisoners of war or the incarcerated in a forced work environment. Of the 80,000 men at Buchenwald, at least half were forced to work in multiple armament plants or in the quarry. About 50 percent of the men were Jewish. Ten percent were POW’s. The remaining were communists or criminals. The death rate from starvation, beatings and random selection killings was pushing 1,000 per month. Every week, a thousand men were lined up on the parade grounds and every tenth man was selected for extermination.

The SS officers were sometimes sadistic in the selection process. They ordered the men to number off one to ten and then called out a number. As each man realized who would live and who would die, they’d change the number and laugh.

Anna remained fairly isolated in the women’s barracks, with the exception of an hour on Sunday morning and another on Sunday afternoon. She was surprised that she had so little contact with the SS outside the Mibau factory. The supervision of prisoners was the responsibility of the ‘kapos’ or German criminals. There were hundreds of kapos left in charge of work details and discipline. The kapos reported to the SS and kept strict and sometimes brutal control of the men in the camp.

There were only 11 female guards. All worked in the women’s barracks. Women prisoners generally had more freedom than the men. They were allowed to use a walking path just inside the perimeter of the electrified fence. Anyone on the path was always in sight of the guard towers. But there was one area at the far end of the main camp where the terrain changed a bit, providing a small depression. Four of the barracks were out of sight of the guards. As Anna would soon find out, some unusual activities were taking place there.

Roland Montague had his eye on Anna from the first day he saw her. His work station on the gyroscopes was in the same section of the factory as liquid oxygen production. No conversation was allowed in the workplace, but the lunch break offered the opportunity for speaking. He had learned some German working in the French resistance and had become more fluent since his time in Buchenwald. Roland made it a point to speak to Anna within a month of her arrival. The information he had for her was important for him and could be critical for her. He had discovered that she was a physician and that she was Jewish. One Friday he made his way toward her and sat down next to her during lunch.

“Frau Doctor, my name is Roland Montague.”

Anna looked up, curious at the sudden opportunity to socialize.

“Please listen very carefully. We have little time. There is an extensive underground in this prison camp supporting and protecting almost 900 children, mostly Jewish boys. The youngest is four years old, the oldest is 15. Six hundred of them are in block-66, a large windowless barracks that is unseen by the guard towers. The other children are scattered throughout the camp and are watched over by kapos. The camp elder in charge of block-66 is Julian Richburg. He’s a Czech communist from Prague. His assistant is a Polish man, Beryl Yenzer. The children scattered throughout the camp are hidden and protected.”

Anna’s mouth dropped open. Could this be true? The Nazis went to great length to deceive their victims and others. Once a month, a concert was performed by the camp orchestra, mostly Jewish men who were musicians before their arrests. They were kept in the same barracks and allowed to practice on Sundays. Twice in the past year, the Danish Red Cross had been allowed in the camp. They were allowed to see only what the Nazis wanted them to see. On both occasions the camp orchestra played for them. Could it be that now, the Nazis were the ones being deceived?

The Germans allowed Red Cross care packages into the camp, several hundred each week. These were distributed randomly to prisoners. Anna had already noticed that many of the packages made their way to Block-66. Hundreds of prisoners and many of the kapos were determined that none of the children would die in Buchenwald. Two months previously, one of the Kapos who hated Jews had threatened to expose block-66 to the SS. His frozen body was found two days later by the electrified fence. The SS assumed he was trying to climb it. They didn’t notice his skull had been crushed because he was wearing a wool cap.

The time had passed quickly. Roland needed to tell her one more thing. He wolfed down the soup that remained in his bowl and whispered.

“A number of men in the underground are planning a breakout. Are you interested?”

Friday nights for Anna were the prelude to Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. It had been several years since she had been to Synagogue but she still thought of it, remembering the happier times with her family in Berlin. In those days, she and her best friend Erin would grill the Rabbi with unanswerable questions. Now Anna had little to be happy about. But she tried to focus on the one relief she could hold; Erin was not in a prison camp. Anna smiled to think of that. She imagined Erin to be a concert violinist and married with children.

As Anna lay in her bunk she was struck with the idea. She now had children to look after….900 boys. The excitement grew from the pit of her stomach and seemed to travel to her heart and her head and throughout her arms. She squeezed her hands shut and then opened them. It was a rush she hadn’t felt in years. She had a purpose. Even in this hell hole there was something worth living for, something worth dying for – if it came to that. It took Anna a lengthy hour before she could finally close her eyes and sleep.

There seemed to be no apparent reason for the SS to be in the main camp. Anna had not seen them in such numbers since she was first incarcerated. All of the women were ordered outside and lined-up. There were about ten officers and ten guards with machine guns. The officers were questioning each woman individually. The women, about 100 in all, were in rows of 10. When the interrogations of one row were completed, they were dismissed.

Anna was in the ninth and next to last row. In row seven, one officer began shouting.

“Don’t lie to me!” he yelled, slapping the woman so hard it knocked her to the ground. The woman tried to rise but another guard hit her with the butt of his gun. She screamed as they dragged her away.

Anna watched in silence. It appeared they were taking the woman to the bunker. But they were also headed in the direction of the crematorium. Anna bit her lip and turned her eyes away. She stared straight ahead. The women in line eight were now being questioned. Anna could now clearly hear what was being said. It was about the children. The SS had found out about the children.

Every woman was denying knowledge of any child. Anna was unsure of who actually knew of them. She herself had only learned recently of their existence, and that was because she was a doctor. There was no reason for the other women to have known.

The officers had finished with the eighth line and were moving toward hers. Did they know she knew? Had they discovered that Roland told her? Had they seen him talking to her?

Suddenly a guard stood in front of her.

“Doctor Eichenwald…it is doctor Eichenwald is it not?” Anna’s legs began to weaken.

“Yes. I am a doctor.”

“We have information that you have been told of children hidden in this camp. You have one chance to tell me about this. Where are they and how many are there?”

“I don’t know of any children.”

The officer did not hesitate. He turned his head and barked out an order. “Take her to the bunker!”

Two of the guards took her, one holding each arm. They began walking the 300 yards toward the southern end of the camp. Anna had been told it was a holding place for prisoners before execution.

There was no point in resisting. Rather than being dragged, Anna kept her head up and walked with the men. Once inside, she was led to the far end of a hall toward a large steel door. It opened to a concrete block room without windows. As the door was opened a large rat ran out of the room. Anna was pushed inside and the door was slammed behind her. The room was pitch black and she began to scream.

“No! No! Please, no!”

“Anna, Anna.”

It was Erika. She was shaking Anna’s shoulders. “You’re having a dream!”

Anna was drenched in sweat. Her nightmare over, she looked around and tried to get her bearings.

“I’m so sorry I woke you,” she said.

“Dreams here can be very frightening. It’s probably not your last.”

The only reason Anna looked forward to Saturday was the fact that it meant the next day would be Sunday. She was allowed to take walks on Sunday. But she was unaware of block-66. She had not seriously considered the prison break and now with a chance to help these boys she had dismissed the thought all together. She was very focused and found herself excited to see how she could be involved. She also was beginning to like Roland. It had been almost a year since she had experienced any positive feelings toward any man. There had been no man and no interest in anyone since Christian. This hellish time in history had been brought about by vapid, truculent men who had somehow captured control of an entire culture. It was more and more clear that evil men could so easily influence other men to become evil. Anna now believed that most men, maybe all of them, could be swallowed up by their own depravity. Yet even in the midst of this squalor, the toxic atmosphere of a Nazi prison camp, there were men of valor who were choosing to risk their lives for other human beings. Anna smiled thinking of Roland.

“Thank God for men of valor,” she whispered to herself.

* * *

By the end of 1944, more than seven million civilian foreigners and POW’s were working as slave laborers for the Third Reich. Most had been essentially kidnapped in occupied territories and deported to Germany in boxcars with little food or water and no sanitary facilities. They were forced to work in factories, fields and mines. The kidnapping operation even had a code name – ‘Hay Action’.

In western occupied territories, the SS blocked off sections of towns and seized all able-bodied men and women. Workers brought from areas of Eastern Europe were rounded up in an even more shameful way. Villages resistant to the forced-labor order were simply burned to the ground and their inhabitants carted off. All of the workers were subjected to overcrowding, inadequate food, water, clothes and toilets. And for all these reasons, diseases spread throughout the camps, which served as breeding grounds for the spread of typhus and infestations of lice.

One group of men working in the Krupp Works, maker of most of Germany’s guns, tanks and ammunition was kept in a dog kennel for six months. The men slept in a cubical three feet high, six feet wide and nine feet long. They entered by crawling on all fours just like the canines for which the kennels were built.

Among the unusual stories coming from the occupied countries in the West, those coming out of Denmark were the most extraordinary. This was especially true of the great Danish physicist and Nobel laureate, Niels Bohr. His father was a devout Christian and a professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen. His mother was Jewish and came from a wealthy Danish banking family. Bohr had been awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the structure of the atom. He was the first to propose the theory that the chemical property of an element was determined by the number of electrons in orbit around the nucleus. In 1943, Bohr received a coded message from James Chadwick in England inviting him to move there to work on nuclear fission. At the time, Bohr was skeptical of the application of atomic physics. He also felt a higher calling to aid in the protection of exiled scientists who had come to Denmark seeking refuge from the Nazis.

The Germans were dependent on Danish agriculture for food stuffs and needed the cooperation of the Danish government and indeed the entire population. A delicate memorandum of understanding existed between the Nazis and the Danish government. The Danes would continue to supply needed agricultural products in exchange for continued self-governance and the security of the 8,000 Danish Jews, most whom lived in Copenhagen. As German occupation became more egregious, there was less cooperation from the Danish farmers. Finally, things came to a head. Hitler ordered a takeover of the Danish government in Copenhagen. His real malevolence concerned his anger that the Danish Jews had escaped the ‘Final Solution’ of the Third Reich.

In early September of 1943, Bohr learned from the visiting Swedish Ambassador that the Danish Jews were in danger of being arrested. The following day an anti-Nazi woman working at Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen saw orders from Berlin directing the arrest of Bohr. That night the Bohrs walked through the darkened city to a seaside suburban garden and hid until they were picked by a small boat. They were transported to a waiting fishing boat off the coast, then taken through mine fields to safety in Sweden.

The next day Bohr learned the Nazis planned to arrest all Danish Jews remaining in Denmark. He rushed to Stockholm and worked through bureaucratic channels to gain asylum for the 8,000 Danish Jews. In the interim, the Danes had taken the initiative to hide more than 7,000 Jewish people. Within days asylum was granted and almost all of those being hidden were taken across the Oresund to safety.

The Germans did not give up easily. Although Sweden was officially a ‘neutral’ country, Stockholm was crawling with German agents. It was evident that Bohr had played a pivotal role in the rescue of the Danish Jews. On October 2nd the offer of asylum was broadcast on Swedish radio. Hitler was furious. He sent a communication to agents in Sweden to find and eliminate Bohr immediately.

British intelligence was aware of the risk to Bohr. The next day, a telegram was sent to him by Lord Cherwell, the English physicist who had been appointed by Churchill to be the principal scientific adviser to the British government. The telegram asked Bohr and his family to come to England as soon as possible.

Bohr was the first to go. The British flew diplomatic communiqués back and forth to Stockholm on an unarmed twin-engine Mosquito bomber. It was a light, fast plane capable of flying at altitudes high enough to avoid German anti-aircraft batteries located on the Danish and northern Norwegian coastlines. The flack usually reached 20,000 ft. The Mosquito could take a single passenger seated in the bomb-bay. Bohr was fitted with a flight suit and a parachute. He was given flares to use in case the plane was hit. If that occurred, he was instructed to parachute into the North Sea and use the flares for rescue.

As the flight took off and the great Danish physicist was secure in the Mosquito bomb bay, a problem arose no one could have foreseen. Niels Bohr had an enormous head. His flight helmet with earphones simply would not fit. As the pilot climbed to

25,000 ft., out of range of the German anti-aircraft guns, he radioed for the crew to start oxygen, but Bohr could not hear the order. He soon lost consciousness. When the pilot got no response, he realized there was a problem. As soon as the plane cleared the coast of Norway, he dropped down and crossed the North Sea at low altitude. By the time the plane touched down in Scotland, Bohr was fully conscious, none the worse for wear.

A week later, Bohr’s family, including his 21-year old son, Aage, followed. Bohr and Aage, a budding physicist in his own right, toured British scientific facilities and learned that the arduous effort at nuclear fission had shifted to the U.S. and was centered at Las Alamos in northern New Mexico. Now Bohr had gained an understanding of what was happening, an understanding that only his brilliance would allow. So the Danish theoretician headed a team to the U.S. Aage would later conclude that the work on atomic energy had progressed much faster than his father could have imagined. In the words of Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb, “to Bohr the enterprises in the United States seemed completely fantastic.

* * *

On Saturday night Anna had trouble going to sleep. This was uncommon for her. The weather had been unusually warm for February in central Europe. Anna lay awake with her eyes open. She knew she could share with Erika what she was going to be doing on Sunday. But she decided against it. Erika would find out soon enough. Anna went over the instructions Roland had given her and finally drifted off to sleep.

Sunday’s breakfast was the usual porridge. Anna finished it quickly. The first hour for walking came at 9:00 a.m. The daily census count would come at 6:00 p.m. All female prisoners had to be accounted for each afternoon.

About 30 women were going to walk today. The sun was shining, and the temperature rose to 40 degrees. The perimeter walkway was a little more than a four-mile loop. The women had one hour to complete it. Fifteen minutes per mile was a brisk pace, too much for all but the healthiest women.

The section of the path that remained out of sight of the towers was one section about half a mile in length. Anna began the walk with Erika and another woman. As they progressed the first mile, Anna shared briefly the information about block-66 and the children. The plan was for Anna to enter the block and remain until the afternoon walk. As it turned out, Erika had heard of a place in the prison where children were being kept, but she had no idea where it was.

The women made their way around the perimeter speaking in casual conversation. But all the while, Anna kept a sharp eye out for the barracks. Suddenly they were out of sight of the guard towers. She had been told to look for three medium sized pine trees as a tip off to the barracks location. There it was, a long flat-topped building that had no windows. There were four large roof canopies spaced equidistant from one end to the other. There was a set of double steel doors and multiple smoke stacks were scattered along the rooftop. Smoke was rising lazily from each.

Anna broke off from her two companions and quickly approached the steel doors. She knocked and a moment later, one of the doors opened slightly, then half way. A large man with a dark beard wearing a blue wool cap stood looking at her. Then he reached an enormous hand out and took her by the arm.

“Please,” he said.

Beryl Yenzer gently pulled her inside and closed the door, locking it with a large steel dead bolt. His accent was heavy. In mellifluous German he spoke quickly.

“Thank you for coming. We’ve been expecting you.”

He was a massive man, several inches taller than Anna. Yet his nature was that of a gentile patrician. She learned later that he had been headmaster of a Yeshiva in Poland.

Yenzer led Anna down a dark hallway into a small office lit by a single bulb on a cord. The walls were concrete. In the center of the room was a large oak desk with one chair and a wooden bench sat against the wall. He motioned her toward the bench. “Please sit down. Can I offer you some hot tea?”

Anna shook her head.

“As Roland mentioned, we are part of a clandestine network of men, mostly Jewish, who are protecting 900 children. Six hundred of them are in this block.”

“Six hundred children are here?”

“Yes. You’ll see shortly.”

Julian Richburg was a precise man, a Jewish Communist who was brought to Buchenwald after his arrest in occupied Czechoslovakia in 1942. He was a thin, balding intellectual who had been a bank president. After the invasion of his country, he joined the resistance. At the time of his arrest the execution of men in the underground had stopped. The Germans were more interested in slave labor by that time and even execution of Jews had slowed. This was a change in policy that was being kept even from Hitler. It was in the camp that Richburg had met Beryl Yenzer, who had served in the resistance in Warsaw.

Richburg was a man of extraordinary organizational skills. He and Yenzer soon realized that many Jewish young men were being hidden in the camp. With at least 80 percent of the prisoners being Jewish, organizing to protect the boys was a common cause. In time, they had been able to bribe about 20 SS officers to cooperate with them. As the war dragged on, many German officers felt defeat was simply a matter of time. They began to see life after the war, life after the Third Reich.

The prison administration had no idea of block-66. Their concern was supplying men for the armament factories. The SS who had accepted bribes were also vulnerable to being exposed. In a strange way it was Richburg who had the upper hand, at least where the children were concerned. The entire effort was supported by many of the kapos who saw a chance to do something noble for a change.

The story had now unfolded as Anna listened. “May I see them?” she asked.

“Of course.”

Anna was escorted through a narrow hallway that led into an enormous area some 200 yards in length. It was well lit. There in front of her were young boys ranging in age from four to 15. They had been organized into six ‘squadrons’ each with a 15 year old squadron leader. The majority of the boys were 10 years old or older, but 23 of them were under 10 years old and six of them were under the age of seven. The youngest boys were in the same squadron. Each squadron had been named after a bird of prey….the eagle squadron, hawk squadron, etc. Each squadron slept in the same area and ate together. In the center of the living space was a large open area for games and recreation. Surrounding the recreation area were bunks stacked three high. The kitchen and mess hall were on one end of the living area and the toilets and showers on the other. Each of the boys except those under five had a ‘buddy’ to look after him. Buddies looked after each other and reported any problems to the squadron lieutenants of which there were five in each squadron.

Every morning after breakfast was ‘sick call’. This was followed by ‘school’ which was three hours of reading, math and science. Beryl supervised the school which involved the older boys teaching the younger. After Beryl went underground, his entire family was murdered; his mother, father and three sisters were all killed at the Treblinka death camp. Now Beryl’s mission was focused on saving the children. On Friday mornings, he taught Hebrew classes and on Saturday they held ‘Synagogue’. The afternoons were for free time, competitions and recreation. Fifty boys were significantly ill. These were the children who would be brought to Anna.

She was still trying to absorb all she was hearing and seeing. It amazed her that an underground effort and culture of this magnitude was in existence here, especially given the fact that the purpose of its existence was to save the lives of Jewish children in a country dedicated to killing all Jews. Anna believed all life was sacred and her singular focus as a physician was to save lives and relieve suffering. As she progressed deeper into the citadel of block-66, she began to sense that it represented something almost enchanted, a safe haven from the death that surrounded it. The entire block was evocative of a Jewish home - except there were no mothers and fathers.

She was escorted to the center of the large complex where a table and a chair had been set up. using blankets draped from the ceiling, a makeshift exam room had been fashioned. The 50 boys were waiting to be seen. All activity had stopped, and all eyes were on Anna. It had been many months and for some, almost a year, since they had seen a female. A number of healthy boys suddenly felt disappointment that they had no malady that could provide them the chance to have contact with the beautiful doctor.

Many of the boys had upper respiratory infections and common colds. An eight-year old had an abdominal mass that Anna believed might be a kidney tumor. She could do nothing for him. Many of the boys had varying degrees of malnutrition.

After sizing up their medical conditions, Anna spoke with Julian about how the problems might be addressed. The Danish Red Cross was delivering care packages to the main camp on a weekly basis. They had some items only adults could use, such as coffee and tea. But some of the packages had dried fruit and chocolates. Anna stressed to Julian he should gather as many of these packages as possible for the children.

The last child brought to Anna was Eric. He was carried in by his squadron leader, Martin. Eric was near death. He was four years old and had been in block-66 for about two months. Little was known about him except that he had been significantly malnourished when he arrived. He would not eat nor speak. It was reported that he had witnessed the murder of his parents by the Gestapo. When the officers had turned to deal with him, he was gone, and it was unclear how he had come to Buchenwald.

Beryl had decided to call him Eric. Mostly because Beryl’s late father’s name was Eric. The child had curly black hair and dark eyes that showed no emotion. His legs were swollen, as was his abdomen. His cheeks were sunken and there were multiple sores in his mouth. Anna had never seen a child in such poor condition, but she recognized it from her medical studies. Eric had Kwashiorkor.

Anna took him in her arms. He rested his head on her chest as his legs dangled lifelessly over her lap. His form of malnutrition was the most severe. With no protein or caloric intake, the body essentially uses its own protein causing severe muscle wasting. Finally, the immune system shuts down and cannot protect the body even from normal bacterial flora in the mouth. Tongue and mouth ulcers develop which make eating painful and difficult. Eventually, these children become listless and anorexic.

As Anna held Eric she asked his squadron leader to get Julian. Anna rocked him back and forth as she contemplated how to save him. Julian arrived in minutes.

“Can we save him?” he asked.

Anna looked into the eyes of this fragile little piece of humanity.

“I think we have one chance. Call Beryl. I need both of you to hear my instructions.”

Beryl arrived and Anna began.

“We need someone to get to the camp infirmary and steal a stethoscope.” “What’s that?” asked Beryl.

“A stethoscope is what a doctor uses to listen to the heart.”

“Yes, the heart. I know what to look for.”

“I need cooking oil and a large syringe, also from the infirmary. And can we get salt?”

“Yes!” said Julian.

“Good! I want you to clean his mouth sores three times daily with warm salt water. Two other things. Can we get eggs and milk…cow or goat, it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course,” Julian said, having no idea how he was going to get it.

It was almost time for Anna to leave. One of the squadron leaders was looking out for women making their afternoon walk. He saw them.

“They’re coming,” he said in a loud voice.

“Notify me through Roland when you have what we need. I’ll be back.” With that, Anna got her coat and disappeared out the door.

The following Monday and Tuesday were routine work days. Anna was at work before 6:00 a.m. for her usual 12-hour shift. She saw Roland but they did not speak or make eye contact. Anna performed her work routinely but could not stop thinking about Eric. She knew he could not last another week. His kidney and liver function would start to shut down and he would die in a matter of days. She had held him for less than half an hour, his eyes listless and his body rail thin. But in that time he had become for Anna, her country’s chance at redemption; if she could just save Eric. Although it would not bring back the tens of thousands of Jewish children who had been gassed or starved or killed in some other way, it was a start, a new beginning. The soul of Germany had died. Men were still dying daily at the hands of the SS. She wondered why the life of one four-year-old child could matter so much. But it did.

On Wednesday she got what she was waiting for. Roland walked past her during lunch and without looking at her, quickly spoke.

“They have what you have asked for.”

“I’ll be there tonight,” she replied quickly.

Anna had the routine in the women’s barracks down pat. Two female guards worked in 24-hour shifts. They generally stayed to themselves in their quarters, played cards and smoked. The barracks doors were locked but could be opened from the inside. They would not re-lock unless completely shut. Anna’s plan was to leave her exit door slightly ajar so she could get back inside.

After supper she lay down in her black topcoat and covered herself with her blanket. The guards had completed their evening count. Anna had told Erika what she would be doing. The night was overcast and the weather had turned colder with a few snow flurries. There were four guard towers between the women’s barracks and block-66. Anna’s plan was to hug the fence because the flood lights from the towers were aimed at the men’s barracks. In contrast, a person in a dark coat walking close to the fence would be difficult to notice. If she were noticed she would be shot as an escapee.

Anna waited 30 minutes after she saw the light go out in the guard’s quarters. The women in the barracks were sleeping except for Erika. Anna got up, walked quietly to the rear door and pushed it open. She placed a small pebble at the bottom to prevent the door from completely closing.

The cold wind hit her face. She hugged the side of the building until she reached the end. Now the first guard tower was in view. Getting from her barracks to the fence would be the greatest risk. The floodlights prohibited her from seeing inside the tower. She stood for a moment and then was ready to make her move. Suddenly she froze. There were two guards on the walkway apparently making evening rounds. They had stopped to talk with the guards in the tower. Their backs were to her and she saw they might be distracting the men in the tower. Suddenly, as if some force compelled her, she darted across the walk to the fence. If she was going to be seen, she’d know it immediately.

She held her breath. But the guards continued talking. They were all laughing at something one of them had said. The guards on the walkway moved on into the cold, night air. Anna stayed about 50 feet behind them, hugging the fence as if stalking them. She moved at their pace. She no longer noticed the cold.

The men in block-66 were waiting for her. As soon as she knocked softly on the door, Beryl opened it.

“Do you want something warm to drink?” he asked after pulling her inside. “Later. Where is he?”

She followed Beryl to the interior of the block, shed her coat and without thinking, handed it to Beryl. It had been more than two years since Anna had functioned as a doctor. It was as natural to her as breathing.

Eric looked unchanged. She took a small flashlight and looked into his mouth. The ulcerations appeared less angry. The warm salt solution was helping. She took the stethoscope and disengaged one of the rubber tubes. She then covered it with cooking oil and inserted it into Eric’s nose and down his esophagus. When she thought it had reached his stomach, she took the earpiece of the stethoscope with the remaining tube placed into her right ear. She looked at Julian.

“Gently blow into the tube,” she said, handing it to him. “Good!”

The tube was in his stomach. She took a string and double looped it around the tube, then tied it around Eric’s head. She looked at Beryl.

“I need the syringe, milk and eggs.” When she had them she continued.

“Every three hours around the clock, I want you to give him one raw egg mixed with four ounces of milk.”

She took a cup, broke the egg into it then filled it with milk. She attached the syringe to the tube and slowly poured the mixture into the syringe, holding it up. Gravity delivered it into his stomach.

“He’ll need the tube feeding around the clock without fail,” she said, looking at Julian. “And he’ll need someone with him at all times to see he does not pull the tube out.”

“Done,” said Julian. Anna turned to go.

“By the way, where did you get the milk and eggs?”

Julian looked at Anna admiringly. “If I told you, you would not believe me.”

“Fair enough,” she said. Then she did something unexpected and unplanned. She walked over to Julian, put her arms around his neck and hugged him. She did the same to Beryl. Afterward, both men walked with her to the door.

“God bless you, both,” she whispered. “God bless you.”

The next few days were uneventful. Erika and Anna spent significant time talking hopefully about Eric. Anna anticipated that two weeks of forced feeding would be necessary before he would be able to eat on his own. As his nutrition improved, his ability to fight infection would improve. Anna had made it clear to the men of block-66 that all of the boys needed vitamins, but especially the younger ones.

The following Sunday Anna had to restrain herself to keep from running to block-66.

“Slow down!” Erika finally said softly. “They’re going to see you and they will know you are up to something.”

Anna slowed her pace. By the time she reached the block she was almost afraid to go inside. Would he be better? Would he be alive?

Beryl met her at the door. She was afraid to ask so she simply said, “How are the children?”

“Better. Improving.”

Anna’s heart was pounding. “Where is he?”

“Come with me.”

Eric was sitting in a chair by the exam area waiting for Anna. He still looked frail and swollen but he was supporting himself and actually had expression in his eyes. After just four days of the high protein feedings his body was drinking in the nourishment as a suffocating man would gulp for air. He was not only getting protein and calories but minerals from the goat’s milk. Anna was thrilled with what she saw. Later, she learned the men had gotten him some vitamins from the same source as the milk and eggs.

Sick call that day was down to about 25 boys. The increase in Danish Red Cross packages was improving the overall situation. Before leaving, she instructed Julian and Beryl to pull the feeding tube from Eric on Wednesday. This would give him a full week of feedings. As she left she was already anxious for her next visit.

For more than a year, a number of men in the camp underground had been working on an escape plan. Most were Jewish and two were from the French underground; Roland Montague and Pierre Oberaud.

All of the men working on the plan worked in the V-2 facility except for Ehud Katz and Chaim Nussbam. They both worked in a SS armament plant that made explosives, including artillery shells and hand grenades. This plant was heavily guarded and carefully monitored. In all, there were nine men working on the project. All lived in the same barracks. All had been in Buchenwald for two years and all were in reasonably good health.

The motivation behind the plan was due to several factors. They had witnessed the continual random killing of men. Eleven months earlier, two young men in their 20s had killed a guard with a knife and attempted to blow a hole in the electrified fence using a hand grenade taken from the guard. They were caught and hanged naked upside down by their ankles for six hours on the parade ground. About 2,000 prisoners were marched out to the area to watch as they were shot in the head as an example. None of the men planning the escape expected to die in camp. They were not motivated by fear, but by a desire to create turmoil. If they could get to Allied lines, all the better.

In the latter days of January 1945, something occurred that pushed their plan into action. Late one afternoon, some 700 prisoners arrived from Auschwitz. As the Russians were closing in on Poland, the Germans had begun evacuating the death camps. In early January, 60,000 men from Auschwitz were sent to various camps in Germany, some on forced death marches, some by train. Three thousand men were marched to Buchenwald with little food or clothing, all of them Jewish. Along the way, hundreds fell by the road from exhaustion. They were all shot and left by the roadside. In the final few days of the march, 10 men escaped into the forest around Weimer. The guards did not bother to chase them. It was becoming obvious that the Nazis were not going to allow their death and concentration camps captured full of prisoners to testify to their horrors. The men from Auschwitz who did escape told of enormous pits of dead bodies that were being burned to destroy evidence. There were an estimated 80,000 men in Buchenwald. The men in the underground were beginning to wonder if the Germans intended to try to kill them all before the allies came.

The head of the escape committee was Pierre Oberaud, a Frenchman who had been a police lieutenant before the war. After the fall of France, he had worked in the resistance. He was caught in December 1944, when a paid informant turned him over to the Gestapo. Now his goal in life was to escape and return to deal with the informant.

The men of barracks-12 were well organized and had come into the camp with skills. One of the men was an electrical engineer. Another had been a mathematics teacher.

Barracks-12 was located on the perimeter of the camp, only 24 feet from the electrified fence. For more than a year, the men had been digging an escape tunnel under the walkway and under the fence. They worked every night in three hour shifts with three men to a shift. They had a pulley cart on wheels for moving the soil and progressed further into the tunnel at a rate of about a foot every four or five days. The major challenge they faced was disposal of the dirt. It was moist and had a significant clay component, so the tunnel needed only a moderate amount of shoring.

The tunnel was eight feet below ground. The men who worked in the armament plant walked to work and dispersed the dirt along their one-mile walk. They would fill their pockets and drop handfuls of soil every 100 feet or so. Other men got rid of soil when cleaning the latrines. One of the men worked as a gardener close to the administration building and proved most helpful at disposing of the dirt.

The tunnel had been finished for more than a month. They had taken the tunnel to within one foot of the surface, 30 feet outside the fence. Their exit sight would deploy into a clump of trees if their direction was accurate. Now they needed the right time to go.

The break came when a Jewish locksmith was asked to repair the main door of the arms storage area in the south camp section. This was a separate building, a window-less concrete bunker. The walls were two feet thick and steel reinforced. The door was solid steel, four inches thick. It was built to withstand a direct hit in a bombing raid. The lock was a complex double key lock mechanism. One key was kept by the arms quartermaster for the entire camp and one was kept in the SS commandant’s office. Because of this double lock system, security for the arms cash was never a concern. The lock mechanism was dismantled by the locksmith and he took it to a workshop to rebuild. While there was no lock, the bunker required 24-hour guards. A SS sergeant stayed with the locksmith while he worked on the mechanism but paid little attention to what he was doing. The work was tedious and took two days to complete. As he re-mastered the keys, he made two sets, all unnoticed by the sergeant. When the mechanism was reinstalled he left the duplicates hidden in his workshop.

The arms quartermaster met the locksmith at the bunker. The repairman got a brief glimpse inside and noted boxes of ammunition, explosives and hand grenades. There were rifles and pistols, but they appeared to be locked in separate vaults. The rebuilt lock system functioned well with the double key mechanism. The duplicate keys were safely hidden. The locksmith, a man from Warsaw named Martin Lazar, would pass the information to Roland by an intermediary.

When Roland received the news the following day, he convened an urgent meeting of the escape committee and set it for midnight. The kapo for block-12 knew of the plan but had not yet decided to stay or to go.

Some 30 men in block-12 were aware of the tunnel. They had decided not to be involved in the attempt but to take their chances staying in the camp. They believed the escapees would be tracked down and shot. They were also aware of something the Germans called ‘collective responsibility.’ In the past, escape attempts had led to severe punishment or sometimes even killing if it was believed that others may have had knowledge of an escape plan. The SS would interrogate everyone in block-12. Anyone who admitted to knowledge of the tunnel would be punished, tortured or killed. This practice kept the escape attempts at a minimum. Everyone knew the more men who attempted to escape, the greater chance of being caught. So it appeared the original nine who dug the tunnel would be the ones to go.

The tunnel entrance was in a small storage room adjacent to the showers. These were used only on Sundays. The nine men gathered at mid-night. Pierre Oberaud informed the other seven of the keys to the arms bunker.

“We have been given a stroke of good fortune,” he said. “We have been furnished duplicate keys to the arms bunker. We can get in and get grenades and explosives but not guns, which may be best anyway. We don’t want to get into a shoot-out with the guards. The SS does inventory once a week so we have only a few days to steal and use the explosives.”

Moshe Unger, the electrical engineer, stepped in. “We will steal a case of hand grenades providing we can get the detonator pins. They may be kept separate from the actual explosives.”

“We’ll create a diversion by blowing up a guard tower,” said Roland. “We need to be in the tunnel when the explosion goes off. And our plan is to try to kill all of the tracker dogs.

“How will that be accomplished?” asked Karl Reinhardt, the mathematician.

“Moshe has an idea to rig a delay action detonator for each grenade,” replied

Roland. “Men in block-16 are next to the kennel. There are five tracker dogs in separate pens. We have saved chocolate bars to bring them into the open pens. Then we’ll kill them with the grenades. The kennel explosions must be coordinated with the guard tower explosions.”

“We can be several miles into the forest before they know we are missing and with no dogs to track us, we can make it,” said Pierre.

“The locksmith is Martin Lazar,” Roland explained further. “We owe everything to him…literally everything. The SS will go immediately for him. When he hears the explosions, he will take a cyanide pill.”

“Why?” interrupted Pierre. “He can come with us.”

“He is 60 years old and has no family left,” said Roland. “They killed his wife and son in Poland. He has nothing to live for. It was his choice. This is his way of fighting back. They took his life when they gassed his wife and son.”

Pierre finished the meeting solemnly.

“We will get the grenades in the next two days. The following night we will go.” The underground in Buchenwald prison was extensive, probably in excess of 400 men. Since the prison was run by kapos, as long as the work was done and there were no uprisings, things went smoothly. It had been more than two years since any major problem had come up and more than three months since a man had been put on the hanging tree. When the prison was quiet, the only guards visible were those in the towers. That was about to change.

By this time, there were 80,000 prisoners in a facility designed for 20,000. Because of the enormous overcrowding the kapos could not keep track of all the prisoners, nor did they try. Consequently, if careful, resourceful men could get many things such as flashlights, money, cigarettes, and even knives. The major problem for the underground was that scattered among the barracks were informers who would gladly trade information for improved living conditions, extra food or a night in the brothel. There were barracks where Danish and Belgian POW’s were kept with more humane living conditions. Informers sometimes tried to get transferred into those blocks. But informers were considered traitors and when discovered, they were killed. Being an informer was a dangerous game.

Karl Reinhardt was playing this game. He was a Communist from Hamburg who had been a Soviet sympathizer. He was suspected of being a soviet espionage agent but had not been convicted. When he entered the prison in July of 1943, he made a deal with the SS to feed them information but only information considered of major importance. He was anti-Semitic and was suspected by the underground of being a traitor. He lived in block-13, next to the block of the tunnel. He was unaware of the tunnel but knew something unusual was in the air. Two underground men also lived in block-13 and were watching Reinhardt.

The lock to the arms bunker had been repaired on a Tuesday. The following day the duplicate keys were in Roland’s hands. That night, two men from block-24, next to the arms bunker, let themselves in and took a case of hand grenades. They were relieved to find that the firing pens were in the case in a separate compartment. Arms inventory was done each Sunday and there was no risk the grenades would be discovered missing until they were used. Over the next two days the one dozen grenades made their way to the men who would plant them. Five would go to the men living next to the kennels and the remaining seven to the men adjacent to the guard house tower. Karl Reinhardt suspected that an escape attempt was imminent, but he had no details. He asked another man in block-13 casually if something was ‘going on’. The reply was, “Why do you ask?”

Immediately Reinhardt understood he was suspected of being an informer. He lost his composure and tried to run out of the barracks to get to a guard tower. Five men blocked the door and quickly stuffed a rag in his mouth. He was dragged to the shower area where another man was waiting.

“This is what we do to traitors,” he said with an ugly grin, then quickly plunged a knife into the informer’s heart. Later that night, Reinhardt’s body was dragged out of the barracks and placed under a remote barracks. He would not be missed until the following evening when he did not show up for census. It took three more days of searching before his frozen body was found.

Soon, it was evident that the effort to place a delay on the firing pin would not work. The detonation pins were spring loaded. Once pulled there was a 20-second delay before explosion. Placing the explosives would not be a problem at the kennels but might prove to be a more difficult issue for the guard tower. The men attacking the tower would have to run in the open to escape, and if not successful in taking out the tower, they could easily be caught in machine gun fire. A number of men would be risking their lives for the escape of nine. None of it made sense except as a way of venting their hatred of the Nazis.

Friday, the following day, was escape day. Roland had not talked with Anna or even seen her for several days. He made a point to sit by her at lunch. As they were finishing, he looked at her.

“I will not be seeing you again,” he said with a whisper.

She looked up, startled. Then she understood as she caught his faint smile. Without speaking she took his hand in hers briefly before he stood to leave.

Anna watched him go. She had enjoyed knowing this charming Frenchman whom she really didn’t know at all. Her thoughts raced back 16 years to the time her father had taken the family to see Charles Lindberg land in Paris. She was charmed by Frenchmen then and by Roland now. This evil war had brought her in contact with many extraordinary and courageous people.

At midnight everyone was in place. Five men were at the kennel, each with a chocolate bar and a grenade. Four men were hidden beneath the guard tower. Two would throw their grenades into the elevated tower hut and two would set the remaining three at the base of the tower. The nine-man escape committee was in the tunnel, plus one. The kapo had decided at the last minute to join them.

Each man at the kennel made a commotion that brought the dogs out into the individual dog runs. One shepherd barked briefly before smelling the chocolate. As the dogs got busy with the chocolate bars, each man dropped his grenade over the fence into the dog runs, then ran. The kennel explosions occurred almost simultaneously and rocked the quiet camp. Martin Lazar, the courageous locksmith, quickly swallowed his cyanide tablet and was dead in seven minutes.

The four men at the base of the guard tower then went into action. Two lobbed their grenades up toward the machine gun nest. At the same time, the three grenade pins were pulled at the tower base. One of the thrown grenades crashed through the glass into the gun nest, the other came quickly to the ground. All of the men began to run as the grenades demolished the tower and killed all three guards in it. The multiple explosions in rapid succession brought all the flood lights on.

In less than 3 minutes all of the men were back in their barracks. The escape committee plus one had made their way through the remaining soil and out to freedom. They ran about a mile into the forest and then split into three groups of three, three and four. The two Frenchmen and one German went west, the other two groups northwest and southwest. Each man had buried his prison garb and put on stolen clothing. By day light they were already 10 miles from Buchenwald.

The section of the camp with the exploded guard tower was a mass of confusion and SS troops. The entire camp went immediately into lock-down. The SS commandant personally took charge of the investigation. The escape tunnel was discovered about 4:00 a.m., meaning the escapees had a four-hour head start. All of the tracking dogs were dead. Without them, the escapee routes could not be found. Approximately 100 troops were dispersed to search for the prisoners. They were in armored vehicles and on roads. The prisoners were in the forest on foot. It was going to be difficult to find them.

There were approximately 100 men in each block. Those in block-12 were out on the parade ground within two hours. The commandant lined them up by tens. They were surrounded by about 40 soldiers.

“I want details of this tunnel!” shouted the commandant. “Who dug it? Over what period of time? Every detail. You have one minute to comply. Then I will kill one man each minute until I get answers.”

No one spoke. The men in block-12 understood that they were in control. As long as they did not break, they were in control. They were willing to give up their lives for this principle.

After one minute, the first line of men was ordered to turn around and kneel. The commandant proceeded to shoot one man in the back of the head each minute for 12 minutes. No one spoke. It appeared he would have to kill all of them and have nothing to show for it. Disgusted, he turned to his adjuvant. “Pick out five and get some information from them. Torture them!”

By chance the five chosen knew nothing of the tunnel. They were tortured but had nothing to give up.

Within a week, the commandant was relieved of his command and his deputy was moved up. The deputy had been the head of all of the SS security in the armament factories and the outlying camps of which there were almost 70. He was now in command of all of the 1,800 SS men at Buchenwald and the armament facilities. He was an unusual man for an SS Colonel, and he had no intention of bringing a reign of terror down on the prisoners in Buchenwald for doing what he knew any man would try to do.

* * *

Because of the lock-down, Anna did not get to go to block-66 that Sunday. She could get no word of Eric and would simply have to be patient. In the evenings she talked with Erika who assured her that the little boy was likely improving. It was nearing the end of February and spring was around the corner. What the women did not know was that the Allies had taken Hamburg and Hanover to the west and were only 100 kilometers from Weimar. So spring was coming and the Allies were as well.

The following Sunday the lockdown was lifted. It had been almost a month since Anna had placed the feeding tube in Eric. He had improved initially but she had not seen him in two weeks and she was apprehensive as she walked along the perimeter.

“He is fine….I’m sure of it,” said Erika as they approached block-66.

Anna smiled but did not speak. She moved on and made her way to the door, where she knocked gently. One of the squadron leaders met her. She greeted him and briskly walked to the central area’s exam room. Beryl Yenzer walked up and before he could say hello Anna immediately asked about Eric. Beryl smiled.

“I think he is looking for you.”

She turned around. Eric was walking toward Anna with a smile on his face. He was still very thin but his face was starting to fill out a bit and his dark eyes sparkled. Anna dropped to her knees and the boy put his arms around her neck. He held her tightly.

“Eric, you look so much better. Are you also feeling better?”

“Yes.”

“Is your mouth better?”

“Yes.”

Anna laughed. “Can I hold you for a moment?”

“Yes.”

She held him in her arms for a long minute. It felt as if she were holding a miracle in her arms. She rubbed her hand along his shoulder to his wrist and noticed the tattoo on the inside of his left forearm, B-6130. She was hoping this would be his only scar from Buchenwald. She was more determined than ever to do all in her power to bring all of the boys safely through the war. There were obviously more resources available than she could have imagined, and she planned to use them all.

In the afternoon she met Erika on the walkway with a broad smile. Erika returned the smile.

“So, I take it things are going well with the children.”

“Very well. Eric is significantly improved, and I think out of danger, thank God. He is such a charmer. I wish you could have seen him.

“I will, and it may only be a matter of weeks!”

The new commandant had spent little time in the actual camp during his tour as deputy commandant. His duties had been in the DAW (German Equipment Works), the sprawling enterprise to make arms for Germany and money for the SS. During his first week, his orientation revealed many of the atrocities he had heard about but had not seen. He interviewed the doctors who were doing medical experiments and learned of the results of poisoning subjects with various substances and performing autopsies before sending them to the crematorium. He toured the camp and viewed thousands of starving men. Except for those working on the V-2 project at the Mibau facility, fully 25,000 men were near death, emaciated men who looked back at him with hollow eyes. The sanitation was squalid. The kapos would not use the latrines and were given access to the indoor toilets. He came across a building that had once been a horse stable. It now held over 200 starving men who had nowhere to go and nothing to do.

The new commandant was a soldier, a distinguished colonel who had fought bravely and honorably for his country. He had been wounded on the Russian front and there would be no more combat for him. By the time he had taken in the horror that was Buchenwald he was deeply depressed. There was no honor left in Germany. Now orders were to evacuate the camp before it was over-run by the Allies. But how to do it? And where were the prisoners to go? There was no place to hide thousands of starving prisoners. Most of the men were so starved and sick they could not scream. But the crimes of the Reich would scream. They would be heard from this camp and they would be heard by the world.

His thoughts harkened back to 1933, when he had decided to join the Nazi party. Expectations were high for the German Volk and there was great excitement in the air. He was disturbed by the 1935 Nuremberg Laws that deprived Jewish men and women of their citizenship. Then in November, 1938, things turned very ugly with Kristallnacht…. ‘The Night of Broken Glass’ when 1,000 Synagogues were burned, 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed and 30,000 Jewish men arrested. He knew then that it would not end well. But he was a soldier, not a politician and 10 months later Germany invaded Poland. Now the end was near.

The following week, the second week of March, he received a classified communication from SS headquarters in Berlin. It was marked ‘urgent’ and signed by Himmler. It read as follows:

March 13, 1945

From Obekommando der SS

To: Commandant Buchenwald Camp

-Orders for immediate execution of prisoner

Anna Eichenwald

-Confirmation to SS headquarters required.

General Heinrich Himmler

The commandant sat in his chair trying to absorb what he had read. “Colonel, shall I have the order carried out?” asked his adjuvant.

“No. I will execute the prisoner myself today at 5:00 p.m.”

March 14th was a routine day for Anna. She was counting the three days until Sunday when she would return to block-66 for a visit with Eric and to evaluate more sick boys. She did not even mind the grueling 12-hour work days making liquid oxygen. She had something to look forward to and in fact, since her loss of Christian, something to live for. The days were passing quickly. Spring was in the air. Within the next two weeks the fields and meadows that could be seen through the electrified fence would begin to burst forth in color.

In mid-afternoon something unusual happened. A SS car pulled up to the main entrance of the Mibau facility. The driver was the adjuvant to the commandant. The commander of Buchenwald was in the front seat. The rear seat was occupied by a sergeant and a lieutenant. The sergeant and lieutenant got out of the car and went into the plant. They inquired about Anna’s work station. The presence of the SS brought ominous quiet and a palpable apprehension. The supervisor led them to Anna’s station. She had not noticed the two.

“Anna Eichenwald?” asked the lieutenant. She was startled but turned to face them. “Yes, I am Anna Eichenwald.”

“Come with us!”

Anna collected her coat and started to ask where they were taking her and why. Then she decided it must be related to her caring for the boys. She felt she could defend her involvement in block-66.

She was placed between the two soldiers in the rear of the car, which sped away. The commandant said nothing. As the car turned to the north, she realized they were going away from the camp entrance. Her heart began to race.

“Where are you taking me?”

The lieutenant did not answer. After another moment she repeated the question. “Where are we going?”

“Silence!” he said harshly.

It took Anna only a very brief moment to realize she was facing the end of her life. She sat perfectly still sandwiched between the SS lieutenant and his sergeant. The dark gray sedan with the white swastika on the door belonged to the Commandant of Buchenwald Prison, and the Colonel in the front seat was apparently that man. Initially when placed in the car she had demanded a reason, but she got only silence. She wanted to scream, but she was now finding it hard even to breathe. Night was falling and the horizon was fading into black. Through the window she watched the cold landscape grow increasingly dim. They were taking her in the opposite direction from the prison. Heart pounding in her chest, pellucid thoughts raced through her mind. She would not see her parents again; she would not see Eric again.

The end would be quick. As a physician she knew the bullet from the German Lugar would explode into her brain with unbelievable violence, much as the Nazi Reich had exploded with violence onto her country twelve years earlier. It was very cold, and she began to shiver. The landscape was becoming more remote. Her lifeless form would freeze quickly…..slowing, at least for a time, the decay that would follow. She thought back to a similar cold day in Berlin when she was officially confronted with the nightmare of Hitler’s new Germany. So much had happened. She had always believed it would end differently.

The car traveled for six or seven minutes along the country road, then turned off onto a narrow side road that was obviously little used. After another half mile the car stopped. The lieutenant opened his door.

“Get out!”

He took her arm and pulled her out. Anna now knew she was to be shot. She felt weak as the adrenalin of fear poured into her system. She was having trouble standing. The Commandant got out of the car and turned to the lieutenant.

“I will do this. You wait in the car.” The lieutenant started to argue.

“Sir, I…….”

“Wait in the car,” the commandant said again. Anna was looking down. Her legs were trembling. “Walk ahead of me,” the commandant said. They moved away from the car.

“Dr. Eichenwald, listen very carefully. I am Ernst Bishoff. Twelve years ago, I was shot in the chest in a Communist riot. You saved my life. When I tell you, stop and get on your knees. I will fire my pistol very close to your head. Immediately fall over. Twenty minutes after we are gone walk back to the main road and follow it north about 10 kilometers. You will come to a farmhouse. They will help you.”

They walked another 20 paces.

“Stop and drop to your knees,” he commanded.

He drew his Lugar and put a bullet into the chamber.

“I am the one who supplied the goat’s milk and eggs for the boy. We are not all evil men.”

He raised the pistol and fired once. Anna immediately slumped to the ground. It was easy to do, as she could no longer stand on her weakened legs.

The following morning the lieutenant sent a communication to SS Berlin headquarters reading:

Anna Eichenwald eliminated……bullet to the head.