The Commandant of Lubizec: A Novel of the Holocaust and Operation Reinhard Read Free Page B

outside, the prisoners who built the gas chambers were all lined up and shot.
    Sometime the next day
SS Hauptsturmführer
Odilo Globocnik called Guth and congratulated him personally.
    “You are a credit to us all,” he said. “When can you begin?”
    Lubizec became a death camp on July 4, 1942, and Guth decided it might be fun to play some American big band music as the first train rolled in. He found a record player and put on Glenn Miller’s “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” to commemorate what he called Germany’s own version of Independence Day. The guards stood on the newly constructed platform next to the tracks—the smell of sawdust was strong in the air—and they waited as a black cloud of soot plumed up from the horizon. It looked like a foaming geyser of oil as the train passed over the rails until, at last, it hissed to a panting, complaining, shrieking, stop.
    It was one of the hottest summers on record and the guards mopped their foreheads with handkerchiefs. They drank water from canteens and laughed. They tapped their feet to the swinging music.
    When the doors finally clattered open, the people inside were saturated with sweat. The men had taken off their shirts and many of the women were stripped down to their undergarments. A layer of damp coated everyone and deep inside the oven-hot cars were several infants that had died of thirst. What happened next is horrifyingly familiar to anyone that has studied a death camp. The victims were ordered off the train and promised a cold showeras well as plenty of pumpernickel bread. Guards made announcements about how they were in a transit camp and that they would be resettled to a “Jew village” a few kilometers down the road. There was a murmur of relief.
    It is good to pause here and remind ourselves that these 726 souls were not merely statistics. They were mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, and grandchildren. They each had a story. They were each packed with memory. They were each a vital part of the universe itself. But when the guards raised their clubs they were driven into oblivion.
    As we continue on with the story of Lubizec it is easy to become numb to its horror because the brutality of the place pushes us towards finding a coping mechanism, towards wrapping a shell around our hearts, and this often means it can be easier to imagine a faceless mass moving into the gas chambers instead of individual people with individual lives. But these people could have been our family members or neighbors. On that muggy day in July, they were all scared, worried, and nervous—as anyone would be—so rather than view these 726 souls as unknown characters lost to history, it would be better to imagine our own families on that wooden platform. Our parents are there. Our siblings too. All of our loved ones are soaked with sweat and terror. We glance around at each other and wonder about this strange new place called Lubizec.
    “Where are we?”
    In front of us is a handsome man in a uniform. His copper-blond hair is cut short and his boots are polished to a high shine. “Welcome to Lubizec,” he says. “My name is Commandant Guth.”
    And then? Then we are herded into the camp.

2
LIFE IN A DEATH CAMP
    L ubizec was divided into two separate areas. It was bisected across the middle by a large fence that had twigs and leaves woven into it and this “natural curtain,” as Guth called it, split the camp into zones of life and death. Camp I consisted of long wooden barracks for the prisoners that were intentionally built without running water, heat, or flooring of any kind. The barracks were designed to be as uncomfortable as possible and they were stuffed full of triple-layered bunks. Instead of mattresses, hay was used. A few puny windows were added to let daylight in and roll call took place in front of these buildings. Although the ground was stamped hard from use, stubborn tufts of grass grew up