The Auschwitz Violin Read online

  Daniel was quick to reply:

  “Carpenter, cabinetmaker.”

  It was a half-lie. The answer had risen from deep within the recesses of his mind; only later would he reason it out. It was as if someone had dictated it to him. In those days, when persecution had grown more inexorable than ever, you had to walk a tightrope in order to live, but Jews were marked and were—like many others—poor funambulists. He was well acquainted with those who spun the destiny of his people: the murderous Waffen-SS officers, monsters disguised as men, impeccably dressed—unless bespattered by blood—well groomed, often quite cultured men who probably loved their dogs and music, family men no doubt. From their serene (or fanatical) eyes and delicate, heinous hands hung a thin thread: life or the illusion of it. For these Christians, these goyim—he thought in a flash, as he heard the question—the ancient commandment “Thou shalt not kill” did not exist. The question was never posed to his mother. Reduced to a mere husk of her former self, she had died in the ghetto early on. Her Jewish doctor could do nothing; the word tuberculosis was mentioned, but Daniel always assumed that his mother had died of hunger or grief.

  What could a luthier, a violin maker, do in hell? “Carpenter” had seemed like a good answer at the time, even to the official who registered the information with an approving nod. Always a need for one. But after a few harrowing months, which had seemed more like years, Daniel was no longer certain. At least his occupation meant he was released from the “windowed cell” after only a brief stay, and now he was out in broad daylight. The cell had only one tiny window, so the days had been spent in semidarkness. The officials spoke of regulations, but no one ever knew how long confinement would last.

  Daniel was conscious of the advantage he had over most prisoners: he worked inside, now that the greenhouse was almost completed. He was putting the finishing touches on a bottle shelf in the cellar. He had heard snatches of conversation about more odd jobs around the house; maybe he would be fortunate enough to be assigned to one.

  If I’m falling asleep, he thought, it must be because I’m not eating enough and I’m compensating for the lack of food with sleep. It was still dark when the prisoners rose at half past five, ready to begin work at six forty-five. Others had only a half-hour rest at noon, but those who worked in the Commander’s house or office had an hour, provided the job had been done according to the officer’s demanding, erratic liking. The afternoon shift continued until half past six, stopping in time for the meager supper, then the extremely long roll call and night, with never the hope of a more benevolent dawn.

  On Sundays, however, those working at the Commander’s house began their day later. Having spent his Saturday nights either out late or engaged in his little orgies at home, Sauckel wanted no early-morning noise, no disturbances. These small advantages—cloaked always in the fear that they could end in an instant—were the only positive thoughts Daniel conceded. Never allowing himself to think beyond the moment, ignoring even the shooting pain that occasionally ravaged his body. Never allowing himself to miss Eva, who was perhaps dead, or recall that they would be married now if it hadn’t been for the war. Not remembering their introduction according to the community customs, or her last embraces, or how warm her lips had grown after the first weeks of their formal relationship.

  His weakness was so acute today that the idea of feeling desire struck him as something from another life, another person. Only his rage kept him from collapsing; he didn’t want to become a spectacle for the Führers, the kapos, the vicious horde of hyenas. Against his will, he found himself thinking of the first weeks of confinement in Dreiflüsselager and the secret encounters with female prisoners—the furtive, rapid contacts at night behind the compound wall. Soon, however, men and women were separated by an electric fence that the prisoners had installed themselves. Daniel was young and lively by nature, but he had so little stamina that it had hardly mattered to him.

  He was hungry again. The noon meal could only momentarily salve one’s hunger, never resolve it. Perhaps the cook would save him some crumbs today; she had risked it a few times when the Commander was reading and relaxing after lunch. Five hours of work with only chestnut water and a piece of rye bread had brought him to the brink of collapse.

  The workers were standing in the foyer about to leave when three golden apples (or was it a mirage?) suddenly rolled along the floor, accompanied by loud laughter. The Commander was amusing himself by kicking the apples as the four workers scrabbled around on their knees trying to seize them. It didn’t hurt Daniel’s pride to crawl in pursuit of the apple; the humiliation lay in making fun of his hunger. A huge black boot hovered over his hand, threatening it, but then withdrew, kicking the fruit farther away. Daniel was finally able to grab hold of an apple. It wasn’t snatched from him, nor were the dogs set loose when he sank his teeth into it. Clearly, the Commander had risen in a good mood. A girl’s voice called to him from upstairs. It was no longer a secret: an attractive prostitute must have satisfied him. Perhaps the workers would have two or three calm days. Perhaps.

  The afternoon dragged on slowly, despite the memory of the golden apple. That night, after the days spent in the confinement cell, the wooden bunk felt almost soft to Daniel. His fellow inmates—lice-infested, like him, to a greater or lesser degree—provided a warm, familiar reassurance.

  This time they woke him up. He couldn’t be allowed to oversleep again. No one would be able to save him then from the terrifying “aggravating circumstances” and the menacing scrutiny of Dr. Rascher. His body still ached from the whipping, but his sleep was deep and free from nightmares—maybe because he felt the comforting presence of those around him.

  The barracks “secretary” roused him from a far different world. In his dreams he had found himself in his orderly workshop, amid the familiar, pleasant smells of wood, glue, and varnish—not the fug that permeated the barracks. Upstairs, his mother was humming as she cooked, and the aroma of delicious food filtered down to him. His senses overflowed with well-being: the sun gilded the wood like a warm sunset, like aged gold that had been dyed red—even blue, curiously enough. His collection of steel luthier’s knives gleamed with a cold brilliance.

  The sweet-smelling wood—beautifully grained plates and flitches—lay ready to be used for violins and violas. Time and air would slowly dry the wood. He had learned from his father to use only wood that had been cut for at least five years. Good mountain spruce and maple, trees where birds had nested and the wind had sung. Where a bow would come to sing. In his dream all the equipment and all the tools sparkled like gems, which in effect they were: the modest jewels of his craftsman’s crown. In his dream Daniel was making a viola and had reached one of the most delicate steps: placing the sound post—the anima or soul as the Italians called it—the tiny piece of fine-grained spruce that went inside the instrument. He was on the verge of positioning it just beneath the right foot of the bridge, very carefully, absolutely straight, completely vertical. But something was the matter. His hands broke out in a sweat as the sound post slipped out of place. It was too far away, useless now. He would have to begin all over again. But the viola began to fade.

  Hands were shaking him, waking him from his dream. The viola had been left soulless. A bad omen, Daniel thought. It wasn’t just the dream, however. He didn’t have to search far for the bad omen. It lay before him, directly in front of him: dawn. The beginning of a new day at Gehenna, the Three Rivers Camp.

  Dark dawn was breaking, like an old blanket thrown across the shabby bed of the suffering, a harbinger of the gray, faltering daylight that awaited them. No nightmare, he thought, could possibly be worse than the cruelty that surrounded them, pervaded them, as inescapable as the air they breathed. He felt powerless, defenseless as a newborn child. He had been consigned into the hands of incomprehensible hatred, forsaken by everyone. Even God.

  He had heard his father speak of exiles and pogroms that had occurred during his grandfather’s life, but his own chi
ldhood and adolescence had been peaceful. He recalled his happy Bar Mitzvah party and his older brother’s. The harmony had been broken only by his father’s illness and death. Perhaps that was why the storm had taken them by surprise. Engrossed in the work he loved, he had not noticed the threatening signs and blackening clouds; they had nothing to do with him or his people, he thought. When tyranny first made its appearance, he had worn the yellow Star of David, unaware that it would become a ticket to death, like the marking on a tree to be axed. He awoke to the unfamiliar, brutal reality the day his workshop was looted. Not far away the venerable neighborhood synagogue was being consumed by flames. As a child he had often accompanied his father to celebrations there, and had always felt protected under the long paternal prayer shawl, the tallith. After that, his people found themselves more deeply mired in the turbid waters that were sucking them under.

  Daniel had been released from the prison cell two days before, yet for some reason this day seemed more interminable than the previous one. A profound weariness was rising in him, a sense of impending fatality and desperation. He recognized the signs: he had seen fellow lager inmates grow ill, letting themselves sink into death. They now lay beneath the surrounding hills. He was younger than the ones who had embraced death, and he tried to cheer himself, hoped for the strength to continue struggling another day. He felt completely drained when he reached the barracks, and had no wish to talk, only to rest.

  The inmates who worked outside of the camp or in the quarries always returned to the barracks later than Daniel, utterly exhausted. A surprise, however, waited for him that night—a glimmer of hope. New slave laborers had arrived to replace the dead. One of the newcomers assigned to the bunk beside him was Freund, a mechanic who had once lived on the same street as Daniel—you could almost have called him a friend. Daniel could read in Freund’s eyes the shock and grief he felt upon seeing how gaunt and wasted his old neighbor had grown.

  They wept as they embraced each other; tears flowed easily when you were exhausted. As Freund began to talk, Daniel was filled with a sense of joy for the first time at the Three Rivers Camp: Eva was alive and relatively well. Freund had seen her when he was repairing a machine at the Tisch factory, the one that manufactured military uniforms. This was the “paradise” that had generated the rumors in camp. The news was true: Eva had enough food. All the workers had good rations of rye bread paid for by the factory owner himself, and they often found it coated with margarine, or butter!

  The two friends whispered to each other in the dark, Freund plying Daniel with details, trying his best not to dishearten him. At first Eva had been sent to a different camp, one that bore a terrible name; he didn’t know how much she had suffered, but she had survived and wasn’t far away.

  “If I could just escape and see her …”

  “Don’t even give it a thought,” Freund warned. “It would be your death.”

  Daniel had witnessed many summary executions of prisoners after real or supposed escape attempts. The guards were fast with their rifles, and none of them—not any of the Nazis, not the Commander himself—thought twice about shooting prisoners down.

  “Hey, how about letting me get some sleep,” an inmate grumbled.

  “I’ll tell you more tomorrow, if we’re still alive,” Freund whispered.

  The short conversation left Daniel wide awake. He was not inclined to fantasize, but he couldn’t help imagining Eva, seated at the sewing machine, her tiny hands moving the cloth forward, her beautiful legs tirelessly pumping the pedal. More than that, he imagined her plump lips, not pressed against his but open as she licked the creamy butter on the rye bread—thick, heavenly slices that would keep her alive, make her dark eyes sparkle again. He wasn’t envious: the vision had assuaged his anguish. The following day he worked hard, filled once again with a desire to live.

  The afternoon seemed especially long, the evening endless. He anxiously awaited the arrival of night and more news from his friend. This time they kept their voices lower as they exchanged information about the two families, a long list of obituaries.

  “Your little niece, Regina, is safe!”

  A German official had helped smuggle children out of the ghetto in clothes boxes, Freund told him, until he was discovered and sent to the Russian Front. As far as he knew, the little girl was at the house of a former client of Daniel’s, not a Jew but a kindhearted goy, a German from the Sudetenland.

  “Yes, of course I know Rudi,” Daniel replied. “He’s married to a distant cousin of mine.”

  “They’re living outside Krakow,” Freund told him, “at the grandfather’s place, and they’ve passed her off as their niece. All of them have Aryan documents.”

  As the three-year-old niece of a pure Aryan, Regina was the one with the best chance of survival. That is, if the ones posing as her relatives could fatten her up—she’d almost starved in the ghetto.

  Maybe she’ll be safe, Daniel thought. I’m sure she will be. Lord, how he hoped so!

  You could hear the rain outside. Everything would be covered in mud, but it wouldn’t be as cold, he thought, as he fell asleep, listening to the metallic clamor of rain pelting the flimsy barracks roof.

  Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron.

  —PSALM 107:10

  Rascher’s refusal to use a woman prisoner of Nordic appearance in experiments to raise the body temperature of prisoners frozen in tanks of ice water—1943

  Four women have been placed at my disposition for use in raising prisoners’ body temperature by means of animal heat; they were sent from the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

  One of these women shows very Nordic racial features: blond hair, blue eyes, the shape of her head and body. She is 21 and ¾ years old.

  When I objected to the fact that she had volunteered for the brothel, she stated: “Better to spend six months in the brothel than six months in camp.” She offered strange details about the R. camp, which were confirmed by the other women and the guard who accompanied them.

  I find it repugnant to my racial sensitivity that a girl with decidedly Nordic features would offer herself as a prostitute to ethnically inferior prisoners. With the proper assignments, perhaps we can lead her back to the right path. I refuse to use her in experiments for these reasons and address this report to the Commander of the camp and to the assistant to the Reichsführer SS.

  —Dr. S. Rascher

  The greenhouse was finished, as far as Daniel’s job was concerned, and the shelf almost filled. Now it was the gardeners’ turn to comply with the Commander’s whims. Daniel slept very few hours that night, worrying where he would be sent next. It might be the carpenters’ shop again; they had chosen him for the job at the Commander’s house because of the quality of his carpentry. But he could also be assigned elsewhere, to a place where far greater physical exertion would be required. Everything depended on Sauckel’s needs or wishes. From what Daniel had overheard, he believed that new projects were brewing, but there was no telling. Perhaps the Commander was tired of seeing them around his house. The work had been carefully inspected, and apparently they would not be sent to the quarry if the results were deemed satisfactory.

  Nothing, however, was mentioned that day, and the four inmates were ordered back to the carpenters’ shop. This was fine with Daniel, better to go unnoticed, better not to have your number called. On his way to the workshop, he spotted three prisoners he knew—musicians—all clean and well dressed, heading toward the pavilion, and realized that a party was planned.

  Midafternoon, Dr. Rascher entered the shop, accompanied by an unfamiliar colleague. The prisoners continued their work as they had been taught to do, never looking up or greeting the officials. Nor did the visitors say anything; they merely observed the men sawing, planing, gluing. But Daniel was nervous. He could feel himself being observed, him alone. He cut his hand but made no sound. The last thing he needed was to injure himself, he thought, as he made an effo
rt to continue working, his eyes fixed on the wood. Despite the cold, drops of sweat began to accumulate above his forehead, dampening his shaved head. At last, the silent doctors relieved the prisoners of their oppressive company.

  They were heading to the Commander’s house no doubt, invited to the concert and party. The Monster enjoyed good music and good wine. Occasionally, he even played the violin, and not badly. The musicians had mentioned that he played relatively well, though without much feeling. The party would probably continue until late; some pretty girls would be invited.

  Later that afternoon Daniel was absorbed in his work finishing a window frame when a heavy hand touched his shoulder:

  “You, over to the Sturmbannführer’s place.”

  He scurried there as fast as he could, consumed by anxiety. What could the Commander want? Not much apparently: a churlish assistant pointed to a minute defect on one of the doors. Daniel had no trouble repairing it. In the distance he could hear the superb music being played by the trio. Then, suddenly, the Commander shouted. Some strange impulse compelled Daniel to enter the room. The lights, the aroma of delicious food, the smell of tobacco, fear: all of it made him dizzy, and he stopped short for a moment. But he soon realized what had caused the outburst. The problem was the violin in the hands of the fear-blanched musician, Bronislaw, a man he knew well. The young soloist had been well respected before he’d become the object of Sauckel’s accusing finger and Rascher’s grinning face. But Daniel did not withdraw. No, he would not provide the spectators with cruel amusement. He stood at attention, saluted, and in a thin voice said: “It’s not his fault, sir. The violin has a crack on the top plate. I can fix it.”

  The Commander looked at him in astonishment but seemed pleased at the idea that the instrument could be repaired.