The angel of auschwitz, p.16
The Angel of Auschwitz, page 16
Hours slipped by, unmarked. Snow piled against the door as another storm moved through.
Near dusk, Gisella felt her body falter. She sat heavily on a stool and closed her eyes. A wave of dizziness swept through her. She placed a hand on her knee to steady herself.
Voices blurred around her. The air felt thick with fever, with the smell of sickness and cold and sweat frozen into cloth. She forced her eyes open. Women still needed water. Still needed cloths changed. Still needed hands to hold on to. She rose again.
A young woman near the stove collapsed. Her knees struck the ground with a soft thud. Before her body fully slumped, another prisoner caught her under the arms. A third placed a blanket around her shoulders. A fourth passed a cup of water from hand to hand until it reached them. Small kindnesses in the midst of collapse.
Gisella watched, her breath hanging in the air like smoke. She felt something tighten in her chest.
A guard shouted outside. Footsteps crunched. More bodies were dragged from the barracks next door and placed in the snow. A shovel scraped along the frozen ground.
The day thinned into night and Gisella lifted a final candle then walked to the far corner where the youngest prisoners slept. One girl lay with her arm stretched toward the edge of the bunk, fingers curled as though reaching for someone. Gisella touched those fingers lightly, then pulled a blanket higher around her shoulders.
The candle flickered. She set it down and pulled another scrap of paper from her pocket. Her fingers struggled to grasp the charcoal when she wrote another name, the letters wavering. She slid the paper beneath the same loose board. It disappeared into the dark among the others. She knelt there for a moment, breath rising slowly in the freezing air as the board settled back into place with a soft click.
When she rose, Gisella closed her eyes for a moment.
On opening them, she turned and walked back into the dimness of the ward, her steps steady, her posture straight, her resolve unbroken.
She lifted the basin and reached for another cloth. Her breath rose in the freezing air and she continued.
22
The train arrived in the half light of morning, its long line of wagons emerging from the mist like a dark seam stitched across the snow. The sound came first, a low grinding of metal and a rhythmic clatter that travelled along the frozen rails. Then the engine appeared, breath rising in thick clouds, wheels hissing as it slowed.
Gisella watched from the edge of the women’s compound. She stood near the fence, her hands inside her sleeves, her breath forming pale clouds that drifted upward and vanished. The cold bit into her cheeks. Across the yard, guards moved toward the siding in a line, their boots cutting dark marks in the snow.
The wagons stopped.
For a moment nothing happened. The train sat there, heavy and silent, as if it had always been part of the landscape. Then an order was shouted. Locks scraped. Doors were hauled open one by one.
Figures spilled out.
They fell more than stepped. Men, women, children, all in rags, many barefoot, limbs shaking in air that felt colder than stone. Some slid from the wagons to the ground and stayed where they fell. Others tried to stand, only to collapse again as their legs refused to hold them. Their faces were grey and hollow. Frost clung to their hair.
The guards shouted. Dogs barked. The new arrivals were pushed into lines with the same dull efficiency as always. Even now, even with the war bleeding out beyond the wire, the machinery did not falter.
Gisella stood very still. She watched a woman stumble, clutching the side of a wagon. A child clung to her coat, his fingers clawed into the fabric. The woman’s lips moved, too cracked to form sound. A guard prodded her forward with the butt of his rifle. She lurched ahead.
The lines formed. Men on one side, women and children on the other. The air filled with the sound of boots on snow, a rhythm so familiar that it had become a kind of brutal music. The new arrivals moved in silence. No one cried out. Their exhaustion had already taken most of their voices.
At the head of the lines stood officers with clipboards and gloved hands. Gisella recognised the posture from a distance. The slight tilt of a head. The small gesture of a hand that determined direction.
Left.
Right.
Useful.
Useless.
She did not need to see their faces to understand.
The women’s line inched forward. A girl no more than sixteen shivered so violently that her teeth chattered audibly even from where Gisella stood. Beside her, an older woman rested a hand on her arm, a small attempt at steadiness. The line moved. The girl took a step, then another.
At the far end of the yard, beyond the fence, the crematorium loomed. Its tall chimneys cast faint shadows across the snow. Even in daylight, a thin column of smoke could be seen drifting from one of them, blending with a sky that never seemed to change colour anymore. At night, flames could be seen within, painting the snow with a restless orange glow.
Inside the compound, the women of the infirmary watched in fragments. Through cracks between boards, from the narrow windows, from brief glimpses when the door opened. They watched the process repeat itself as it always had.
Lines.
Orders.
Movement.
A door at the far end of the yard, barely visible from where Gisella stood, opened. The line directed toward it moved as though in a dream. There were no screams. Only the shuffle of feet. The distant thud of that door closing when the last figure passed through.
The other line turned toward the barracks.
Work.
Delay.
A different kind of waiting.
The train remained on the siding, empty now, its wagons gaping. Snow blew into them in fine streams.
Gisella turned away. The cold had seeped so deeply into her that every movement felt muted. She walked back across the yard toward the infirmary, her shoes leaving shallow prints that filled slowly with drifting snow.
Behind her, a sharp cry cut through the air. Gisella turned. One of the new arrivals, a young prisoner from the line bound for the barracks, broke away. She stumbled, then ran, her legs unsure yet driven by a sudden surge that looked more like instinct than plan. She headed not toward the fence but across the open ground, trying to outpace the circle that closed around her.
For a few seconds, everything seemed to slow.
The girl’s breath clouded in front of her. Her arms pumped weakly. The snow grabbed at her ankles.
A shot cracked the air. The sound was flat and final, louder than the wind. The girl fell forward without a sound. Snow puffed around her body as it struck the ground. She did not move again. No one went to her. The line of prisoners flinched, then straightened. The guards resumed their positions as if nothing of consequence had occurred.
The body lay there, a dark shape in the white yard.
Gisella felt a tightening in her chest. It did not show on her face. Her breath left her in a slow release. She turned and went inside.
The air in the infirmary was fetid and close, heavy with fever and unwashed bodies. The cold still clung to everything, but it could not compete with the smell of sickness. Bunks were packed with women whose eyes shone with fever or dulled with exhaustion. Some muttered in half formed phrases. Others stared at the ceiling with unblinking eyes.
Hannah met her at the door. Her lips were blue with cold. “They are bringing more,” she said.
“Yes,” Gisella replied.
“Where will they put them?” the midwife asked. The question held no expectation of an answer.
Gisella did not reply. Space had already ceased to exist in any meaningful way. Bodies lay wherever there was a patch of floor, a corner, a ledge. The infirmary was less a place of healing now than a shelter for those whose bodies were already losing the fight.
She checked pulses, adjusted blankets, lifted heads to offer sips of water. Her fingers were so numb she could no longer feel the contours of bone beneath skin, only the pressure of movement. Cloths used for bandages had frozen stiff.
Outside, boots moved across the yard in steady patterns. Orders were shouted, then drowned by the wind.
Later, when the light had thinned further, an order came down the row.
Medical survey. Block Ten. Mengele.
Hannah looked at Gisella. A question flickered in her eyes. How many more? How much longer?
“Prepare the charts,” Gisella said.
They moved to the small table where the stained files were stacked. The paper was brittle with cold, corners curling inward as if trying to protect what they contained. Gisella picked up a sheet, the ink faint from constant handling. She altered a number here, a phrase there. Temperature slightly higher. Pulse slightly weaker. A notation suggesting infection where there was strength. A hint of uselessness where there was value.
Hannah did the same, her hand steadier than she felt.
They worked in silence.
When the door opened again, Mengele stepped inside, accompanied by two assistants. His coat was immaculate. Snow melted on his boots and left small dark puddles on the floor. He carried a clipboard, his gloves still on. “Doctor Perl,” he said.
She stepped forward. “Sir.”
“Begin,” he said. His tone was calm. Administrative. Hollow.
She handed him the first chart. He glanced at it briefly, then looked toward the corresponding bunk. The woman there lay with eyes half closed, breathing shallowly. Whether her weakness was real or carefully presented no longer mattered. He saw numbers. Lines. Judgements.
“Too sick to work,” he said. “Next.”
They moved down the row. Gisella kept her breath slow and even, her heart steady. She knew the place of every woman she had tried to shield, the ones whose pregnancies she had hidden, the ones whose strength she disguised as frailty. She guided his attention away from them with small shifts of posture, positioning herself so that his eyes fell first on those she could not save.
His questions were brief.
“How long has she been like this?”
“What treatment has she received?”
“Is there hope of recovery?”
Her answers were shorter still.
“Days.”
“Minimal.”
“Uncertain.”
He nodded each time, making notes with precise strokes of his pen.
Behind him, his assistants watched with bored expressions, occasionally bending to lift a blanket or check a mouth for signs of fever or infection. They saw bodies. Collections of symptoms. Units of labour or waste.
At the far end of the barrack, near the last row, a woman tried to sit up as they approached. The effort cost her. She swayed, almost fell.
Mengele paused. He turned his head slightly. “This one?” he said.
Gisella stepped in quickly. “Severe weakness,” she said quietly. “Barely able to stand this morning.”
The woman’s eyes met hers for a brief moment. In that glance lived more fear than any words could have carried. Gisella did not look away.
Mengele watched them both. Then he made a small note on his clipboard. “Leave her,” he said. He turned toward the door. “Continue to monitor,” he added, almost as an afterthought. Then he left, his boots tapping the floor in an even rhythm.
The air seemed to loosen by a fraction when the door closed behind him.
The women in the bunks did not cheer but the way their eyes shifted, the way their shoulders sagged, revealed a narrow band of relief. For some, the reprieve would last only until the next survey. For others, it meant another day alive.
A distant sound rose outside. The low, constant rumble that came from the direction of the crematorium. Only later, when the light finally slid toward night, did the full meaning of that sound become clear.
The day stretched on. Women coughed until their voices were shredded. Fever burned and ebbed and burned again. Food arrived in smaller quantities than ever before, a thin liquid with a few floating scraps passed from bowl to bowl. Some women refused it. Their bodies had already moved beyond hunger.
In the yard, the smoke thickened and by nightfall, the sky beyond the fence glowed orange. Flames leapt inside the crematorium. Sparks rose into the air and were torn sideways by the wind.
Gisella stood at the narrow window, watching.
The snow near the chimneys shone in shades of gold and red, a distorted beauty that made her stomach clench. Smoke poured from the tall stacks, darker than usual, heavy, curling back toward the ground before lifting again.
They were burning more than bodies.
They were burning paper. Records. Clothing. Traces. Evidence.
Behind her, the barrack murmured. Women shifted on their bunks. A few hummed under their breath, too softly to be heard beyond their own corner. Someone wept quietly, the sound held tight in her chest.
The door at the far end opened and shut with a small thud. Footsteps approached. Aron appeared at Gisella’s side, almost as if conjured by the sight of the flames.
“They brought more today,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Even now,” he murmured. He stood beside her, his shoulder almost touching hers. They watched the crematorium together, saying nothing for a long time.
“The Germans are losing,” he said at last, his voice barely more than breath.
“I know,” she said.
“The front moves closer every day,” he continued. “There are rumours.”
“There are always rumours,” she answered.
He did not argue. His gaze remained on the flames. “They are burning everything,” he said after a while. “Clothes. Documents. Lists.”
She nodded once.
“So that no one will know,” he added.
“They forget,” she said softly, “that we still breathe.”
He looked at her.
“Our memories,” she said. “They cannot burn those.”
A woman coughed behind them. The sound tore through the barrack.
Aron turned away from the window. “I must go,” he said. “They will count us.”
“Okay, stay safe,” she replied.
He hesitated. “If we live,” he murmured, “someone must speak of this.”
She met his eyes. “We will.”
He gave a short nod, then slipped back into the darkness, his figure swallowed quickly by the rows of bunks.
Gisella remained at the window.
The flames in the crematorium rose higher.
Her breath fogged the glass. She lifted her hand and rested her fingertips against the pane. She thought of the scraps of paper she had hidden under the floorboards. Names. Illnesses. Dates. Sometimes nothing more than a single line. She thought of the bodies beneath the snow. She thought of the girl who had run that morning, whose body still lay where it had fallen, half buried now by drifting white.
The flames burned on.
Behind her, the barrack groaned with the weight of its occupants. A woman muttered in delirium. Another whispered a prayer not loud enough for its words to be understood. A small hand reached from a bunk to touch the blanket of the woman beside her.
Gisella closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them again, she looked not at the flames but at their reflection in the glass. The fire appeared smaller there. Contained. Almost manageable. Her own face appeared faintly in that same surface. Hollow eyed. Cheeks sharpened by hunger. Yet still upright.
Hope and horror stood side by side in her chest, neither yielding, neither winning.
Snow blew harder. The flames roared. The smoke thickened.
Gisella took her hand from the glass and stepped back. Her breath left a fading cloud against the pane. She turned toward the ward. There were fevers to tend. Cloths to warm. Names to remember.
She walked back into the dark, leaving the window behind, but the image of the flames remained fixed inside her, bright and terrible, refusing to fade.
23
Night gathered early, swallowing the camp in a dim, frozen hush. The wind slipped between the barracks like a blade, picking up flecks of ash from the crematorium and scattering them across the snow. Gisella stepped outside only when the last light in Block Ten had faded, moving with the careful rhythm she had learned over months of curfews and punishments. Her breath rose in the darkness, a thin plume drifting above the yard. She pulled her coat closer, though the threadbare cloth did little to keep the cold from her arms.
A low sound came from the direction of the crematorium tunnels. It was the sort of sound someone made when they needed to reveal themselves without calling attention. She took a step toward it, then stopped, waiting until her eyes adjusted to the faint glow of the lamps behind her.
A figure stood at the edge of the tunnel entrance, almost absorbed by the shadow cast from the low building beside it. The lamps caught the faintest trace of movement, a shift of weight, a breath that condensed into mist. Aron. He did not step forward or lift a hand. He simply waited. It was enough.
Gisella crossed the yard slowly, the snow crunching beneath her thin shoes. Every footfall felt louder than she intended. She paused twice when a guard passed near the main gate, then continued only when the crunch of his boots faded into the distance.
The tunnel swallowed the wind immediately. The air was thick with moisture and the burnt-metal scent that clung to everything near the crematorium. Aron stood a few paces inside, his shoulders drawn inward, his face leaner than the last time she had seen him. He had lost weight rapidly and his coat hung from him.
They stood in silence for several moments. That silence was safer than speech. He inclined his head, and she followed him deeper into the tunnel, into the absolute dark where no guard bothered to look.
He stopped near a recess in the wall. Another shape waited there. A woman with sharp eyes and hands wrapped in cloth to keep them from trembling in the cold. Aron introduced her as Zofia. She gave a single nod, then stepped aside to reveal a crate pushed against the stone. Its wood was darkened with damp, the nails rusted.
