Auschwitz_ A Doctor's Eyewitness Account - Miklos Nyiszli [47]
One day, the week prior to its shipment, I was in my room and saw a half dozen silk pajamas—a natural supplement for the recamier—waiting to join the package. They were of fine imported silk and would certainly have been unobtainable on the outside, where ration tickets were needed for even the most essential items. The KZ also had its ration system, a much better one than that in force throughout Germany, for it furnished those who used it with any item they desired. In the undressing room the goods were there waiting to be taken. It only took one point per item, a point of flame from the Ober’s gun, sending a bullet into the back of the owner’s neck.
In exchange for these “points” the SS officials received jewelry, leather goods, fur coats, silks and fine shoes. Not a week went by without their sending some packages home.
In the packages that had been sent one found, besides the luxury items already mentioned, tea, coffee, chocolate, and canned goods by the hundreds, all of which were also obtainable in the undressing room. Thus the Ober had conceived the idea of having a recamier constructed and sent home.
As I watched, day by day, the final phases of its construction, an idea began to take shape in my mind. Little by little the idea transformed itself into a project. In a few weeks the Sonderkommando would be a thing of the past. We would all perish here, and we were well aware of it. We had even grown used to the idea, for we knew there was no way out. One thing upset me however. Eleven Sonderkommando squads had already perished and taken with them the terrible secret of the crematoriums and their butchers. Even though we did not survive, it was our bounden duty to make certain that the world learned of the unimaginable cruelty and sordidness of a people who pretended to be superior. It was imperative that a message addressed to the world leave this place. Whether it was discovered soon afterwards, or years later, it would still be a terrible manifesto of accusation. This message would be signed by all the members of number one crematorium’s Sonderkommando, fully conscious of their impending death. Carried beyond the barbed wires of KZ in the recamier, it would remain for the time being at Oberschaarführer Mussfeld’s home at Mannheim.
The message was drafted in time. It described in sufficient detail the horrors perpetrated at Auschwitz from the time of its founding until the present. The names of the camp’s torturers were included, as well as our estimate of the number of people exterminated, with a description of the methods and instruments utilized for extermination.
The message was drawn up on three large sheets of parchment. The Sonderkommando’s editor, a painter from Paris, copied it in beautifully written letters, as was the custom with ancient manuscripts, using India ink so that the writing would not fade. The fourth sheet contained the signatures of the Sonderkommando’s 200 men. The sheets were fastened together with a silk thread, then rolled up, enclosed in a specially constructed cylindrical tube made of zinc by one of our tinsmiths, and finally sealed and soldered so as to protect the manuscript from air and humidity. Our joiners placed the tube in the recamier’s springs, among the wool floss of the upholstering.
Another message, exactly the same, was buried in the courtyard of number two crematorium.
XXI
I HAD BECOME USED TO SEEING A TRUCK enter the crematorium gate every evening about seven o’clock, carrying 70 to 80 men and women on their way to be liquidated. Coming from the barracks hospital, they represented the KZ’s daily selection. Prisoners for several years, or at least for several months, they were fully aware of the fate awaiting them. When the truck entered the courtyard the walls resounded with the screams and cries of the damned. They knew that at the foot of the crematory ovens all hope of escape dissolved.
Not wanting