"One, two, three... twenty-three -- I was to be the twenty-
fourth one. Oh, Hashem, King of the Universe, how can I ever
thank You and repay You for letting me live? I pledge to do
all I can to deserve to be alive."
These were the thoughts of my late husband z'l as he
stood in front of the Auschwitz barracks in the new red dawn,
the frozen white snow in front of him desecrated by the
bright red blood of his friends.
It was towards the end of January, 1945, and he could clearly
hear the shelling of the fast approaching Russian artillery.
The camp was already evacuated except for the few hundred
half-dead inmates in the `Rewir,' the so-called hospital, who
had been left there to die. The guards deemed it a waste to
put a bullet through them. Perhaps they were just forgotten.
In any case, they had been written off.
My husband was in Auschwitz, in Birkenau, the whole time. Day
after day, they were taken to work in Monowitz in the
infamous Buna factory. By December 1944 he was so extremely
weak from the hard work and deprivation that he knew he could
not survive for much longer. He had hoped that the Russians
would free the camp shortly but knew that he had to do
something to stand a chance of surviving until they
arrived.
He reasoned that the only option he had was to smuggle
himself into the `Rewir.' There he would lie and thus
conserve energy and he might just make it until the Russians
came. Not that being there was without its risks -- there was
only one way, straight to the crematorium. However, the A-
mighty can send help in the most hopeless situations and this
help appeared in the person of the Rewir's overseer, a
Hungarian Jewish doctor. He saw my husband's desperate fight
to stay alive and informed him before each `selection.' The
doctor told him to try and disappear each time to a different
barrack and return again after the `selection.' This is how
he survived until the end of January when the camp was
liquidated, except for those who were left there to die.
Suddenly, there was quiet. No guards, no S.S. around
anywhere. Out of the approximately 300 Haftling (inmates), a
small group formed who could still move themselves and they
decided to look around for food to bring back to their inert
comrades.
Their search led them first to the barracks of the S.S.
Meanwhile, night fell and the first free evening was
intoxicating. They searched from room to room and got
somewhat scattered and separated in the process. My husband
came upon a room with a closet and quickly started to search
for food but instead, came upon a stamp album packed with
stamps.
Since his earliest years, he had been an enthusiastic stamp
collector; he had left a valuable collection behind in
Kiskoros, his home town in Hungary, from where he was
deported. But he had never before seen such an extensive and
beautiful collection of rare stamps, all arranged and lined
up with the greatest of care and precision. Whoever had
collected it, or looted it, must have been a real expert.
He was alone in the room, all quiet around him. Overwhelmed
with excitement, he just sat and stared, totally absorbed and
fascinated, forgetting everything else.
Suddenly, the stillness was shattered by movement and
commotion outside. The familiar German command rasped and
echoed through the night: "Los-los -- quick, march."
Shots rang out: one, two, three... twenty- three.
My husband instinctively bolted into the closet, still
holding the stamp album, not daring to breathe and too
terrified to think. Who knows how many hours? It seemed like
an eternity. He stayed there until the rumbling of the
departing vehicles faded into the distance and silence
descended once again on the camp.
He cautiously emerged from his hiding place to the first
light of daybreak and froze in horror at the sight of his
murdered friends in the snow. All those in the `search party'
had been shot. The faithful servants of the Third Reich, the
camp police, had come back to comb the area and to shoot all
that moved. Even when defeated and retreating, they could not
allow any Jews to survive.
Next to the bodies were the few sacks of onions and carrots
they had found and intended to take back to keep the others
alive. My husband took it upon himself to do the work single-
handed. He felt that Hashem had granted him life for this
purpose. He couldn't carry the sacks by himself, but slid
them along across the snow, one by one, and thus got the food
to the Rewir to feed the sick and starving people there.
In the few days between the S.S. leaving and the Russians
arriving, my husband not only kept the food supplies going
but also tirelessly fed those too weak to feed themselves. He
begged and implored everyone to take food and stay alive. He
forced food between their rigidly locked lips and encouraged
them all to hold out until the Russians came.
Those left behind to die in the Rewir -- survived.
The Russians arrived and the rest is history. In fact, it is
now a 58-year-old history.
Postscript:
When we sat shiva in Bnei Brak for my husband, two men
came, one from Netanya and the other from Haifa, to express
their condolence. Survivors of the Rewir, they recounted how
he had helped them stay alive.
I dedicate these lines to my dear husband's memory.
Felix (Yechiel ben Yehuda) Klein, Haftling No 16255.
