Sunrise West Read Free Page A

vein: ‘I’ll never forget the morning the Gestapo arrested my father, who was a professor of sociology and a member of the Spartacus party — a Jew, yet more German than Bismarck. They apprehended him for composing an innocent little ditty:

    Everything is transient
    All things pass away,
    First goes the Führer
    Then his big lie.

    â€˜They said to my mother, who loved him dearly, “We’re taking him away to be re-educated, he’ll be back soon.” Three months later we received father’s death certificate, and his clothes. The messenger wouldn’t hand over the tiny urn with his ashes until mother agreed to share a schnapps with him. “Well,” he told her, clearly a cultured man, “did Priam not succumb to Achilles’ request that he should eat and rest before taking away the body of his slain son, Hector?”’
    Despite Raymond’s reservations, I was fond of Rudolf — though his sayings were so dangerously outlandish that they placed not only him but his listener in jeopardy. ‘ Meine Herren , noble slaves,’ he announced on one occasion, ‘no ruler can reign without the approval, or at least the acquiescence, of the people!’ No wonder they called him mad.
    Perhaps again by virtue of his beautiful mother, and probably of his uncle Kurt’s position in the service, Rudolf was admitted into the coveted ‘Canada’ block of the camp, so called presumably because, in a place where gas chambers were a way of life, where people died en masse from hunger, those in ‘Canada’ — who collected the possessions of all new arrivals, and worked in the gas chambers and crematoria — lacked few necessities. After a while, though, no doubt because they had seen and knew too much, most of them were also included in the Final Solution.
    Thanks to Rudolf, I became a frequent visitor to Block 1, that barrack of Birkenau’s privileged. One day I met two Frenchmen there who offered me a loaf of bread if I could provide them with a blanket from among those consigned the night before to the inmates of Block 8 (blankets being one necessity ‘Canada’ was short of). Next morning I stealthily brought the merchandise; to avoid suspicion I pretended to be dusting it. But when Rudolf saw me making the exchange he jumped at the two fellows.
    â€˜Murderers, thieves, ill-begotten scum!’ he cursed them. ‘Do you know what you have done? He could have been hanged for that!’
    â€˜But he wasn’t, was he!’ they retorted cynically. ‘And who are you to judge us, Crazy Man?’
    â€˜Chaff will wither,’ said Rudolf, throwing back one of his mad lines. He took me aside. ‘Look, friend, you’re not going to last at this rate. You have no number on your arm, which means that you’re just being kept in stock. As soon as there’s a shortage of fuel to keep the furnaces going, you’ll be it.
    â€˜I’ve heard a rumour,’ he persisted, dropping his voice. ‘Tomorrow a delegation will be arriving at the camp. They’ll be looking for slave-labour.’ He handed me a red lipstick. ‘Make sure you’re looking good.’
    After evening roll-call we were all transferred back to Block 5, and the following noon, under the gaze of three well-fed merchants, we stood in front of the barrack completely naked, staring at these gods of life and death. The whole proceeding lasted an hour, and was uncannily reminiscent of scenes I could recall from Uncle Tom’s Cabin .
    Raymond and I were among the ones chosen. I distinctly heard Romek mutter (I didn’t imagine it), ‘Good luck, boys!’ Soon curfew was imposed; after curfew, contact with any other inmates outside the barrack meant death. Even so, Rudolf managed to get in, and when we embraced he squeezed a silver-plated spoon into my hand. ‘Have it for luck,’ he said. ‘It still carries the aroma of