Undying Love by Brian Hesse (ebook reader play store txt) 📖

of science. The Hippocratic oath to do no harm and respect the rights of human beings, was worth nothing more than the black and white ash billowing from the crematoria day and night at the camp. People reduced to the level of vermin entered the gas chambers broken, bleeding, and forgotten by the rest of the civilized world. They entered, some noisily protesting with their last few breaths, and some quietly accepting their fate, making peace with a God who seemed to be hiding somewhere in the shadows blind to the suffering of the chosen people. Millions would enter, and millions would exit as nothing more than fine ash rising high amid the orange glow of the crematoria’s furnaces.

       Auschwitz camp two was the site of the selections. Prisoners arrived in droves between 1942 and 1945 on packed trains like so many lambs being led to the slaughter. Here in camp two, the strong and skilled would be separated from the frail and weak. Women, children, old men, and those too weak to stand to the left, all others to the right. Germany needed slave labor to keep the gears of war oiled as young, and old, German workers were forced into the Wehrmacht to suffer on the frozen plains of the Russian front.

            Camp number three housed the forced laborers of the Reich. Many would be worked to death at the synthetic rubber factory in Monowitz.

            Anastazja was quickly awoken from her dreams by the bright searchlights, screaming of SS guards and the vicious barking of their German Shepherd dogs. Anastazja turned her half closed bloodshot eyes from the blinding white light to look at her friend Abigayle.

     “Abby, it is time to wake dear. We have arrived at the camp.” Anastazja let out a loud gasp as she looked into the grey lifeless eyes of her friend. With each passing of the search light across the occupants faces, she could see more detail of her friend’s face. Her lips were a bright purple. Her eyes were fixed on Anastazja’s, but were grey, cold, and dead. Her lips were parted as if trying desperately to whisper into Anastazjas ear. She felt a heavy sorrow as she considered the possibility that she was asking Anastazja for help but was too cold and weak to utter a single audible sound. Her sorrow grew heavier as the feeling of guilt was added to the emotional mix. The guilt of selfishly dreaming her time away as her only friend in the world slowly froze to death with her back pressed tightly against the boxcar’s splintered wall. If, she would not have saved me by pulling me close, she may have had another body behind her to shield from the deadly cold. Just as her last reserve of tears began forming in the corner of her tired eye, she was pushed violently away toward the open door by a crowd motivated to move by the promise of fresh open air, like pressurized gas in a bottle finally being released into the open space. Anastazja fell from the open door and dropped the four feet from the lip of the car to the hard cement of the platform below. Before she could stretch her stiff overused muscles in her legs and bring herself to her feet, a man in a black SS uniform began beating her on the back with a short wooden club. He was yelling something in a language, not German, but sounding more Lithuanian. She could not be sure what the man was shouting. The noise of barking dogs, screaming guards, and panicked passenger’s being forced from the cars, made comprehension impossible. Without waiting for her to comply with his incomprehensible commands, he grabbed her by the back of her long-matted hair and dragged her along the platform to a group of women huddled in a group to the right. He left her on the ground among the women, some holding young children, as if she was no longer any concern. He had the air of a man simply doing a job with the dispassion of a miner dumping a shovel load of coal into an awaiting bucket. She slowly regained her composure feeling the muscles in her legs burning and cramping under the strain She fought with all her remaining strength to remain standing for fear of another beating from the stone-faced SS guard. She turned to the other women and was horrified at the sight of the ghostly figures standing before her. She could not stretch her imagination far enough to think of these women before the war, the normal times. They looked like skeletons wearing elegant dresses now tattered and stained, and crawling with lice. Women with sunken pale faces, like rice paper covering bone. She was looking into a mirror, and this is the thought that terrified her the most. She turned away in disgust looking for some point of reference to take her away from the images that surrounded her. A flower, a sunset, a rainbow over the horizon, something, anything, that will transport her to a world devoid of human suffering and the stench of impending death. She scanned the crowd of men gathered to the right of the platforms center and rubbed her eyes hard enough to scrub away the blur of exhaustion. She focused on a middle-aged man slightly bent over and rubbing his lower back. Despite the frailness of his body and streaks of grey that ran through his thick dark hair, he looked familiar. He looked like her Aleksander. No, it cannot be, she thought to herself. I cannot get my hopes up in such a way. Just as she turned her back to walk into the crowd of women, she heard his voice.

     “Anastazja. Anastazja. It’s me, Aleksander.” Still not prepared to succumb to her hallucinations, she continued to push through the crowd of emaciated women still standing silently in shock of the strange world they entered just an hour ago. She felt a strong masculine hand grab her frail shoulders causing her blood to stir within her veins. She was determined not to receive another beating from the callous monsters who herded the other sheep into their respective groups. She made up her mind that death was preferable to living as a frightened sheep slowly being destroyed from the inside out at the hands of evil masters. She swung around prepared to claw the SS guards’ eyes out with the few remaining nails she had on her hands, the others being pulled from their roots clawing through the crowd of boxcar number three. Her head swooned dizzily as she peered into the familiar brown eyes of her Aleksander.

            “Stay steady Anastazja, we are not just pleasant hallucinations, as I first thought when I saw you fall out of the train.” He hugged her tightly as if letting go for just a moment would cause her to vanish into the cold oppressive blackness hovering over the entrance to the camp.

            “You saw that did you?” she laughed lightly into his shredded jacket displaying a faded dirt stained yellow star.

            He laughed in return, feeling the muscles of his jaw slightly cramp in shock from the sudden use. He could not remember the last time he smiled. “Yes, I did, and I hope you are Okay.”

            “I am strong my dear. I see we both wear the yellow star although we are not Jewish. We must tell each other our tale as soon as we can.” Aleksander grabbed Anastazja by the shoulders and firmly closed his grasp. “Listen my dear, there is not much time. You must tell the SS guard with the clipboard that you are skilled.”

            “Skilled at what. I am a professor.”

            “Quiet with that, he stated firmly, as he looked intently into her surprised eyes. “You must never say what you were before. That will mean certain death. You are a skilled seamstress. They have use for skilled seamstresses here. I myself am a skilled carpenter,” he laughed lightly again.

            “A skilled carpenter. You couldn’t find the sharp end of a nail, “she said laughing behind her cupped shaking hand.

            “I know, but this is what you must say, your life depends on it. Trust me my love. I will see you as much as I can. I will get word to you soon in the camp where they house the workers. Goodbye for now my love.” He hugged her tightly and kissed her gently on her lips, instantly driving away the cold and filling each other’s body with the warmth of passion. Before pulling away he whispered into her ear, “This place is not what you think. This place is hell on earth.”

True Intentions Revealed

  By the time Aleksander arrived on the platform at Auschwitz, much construction was underway within the camp. He was assigned to Jewish contingent A, responsible for the construction of a wooden addition to what was referred to as, the red house. It was late March 1942, and already reaching an uncharacteristic temperature of sixty-five degrees. Although no natural flowers or trees grew inside the camp, he would often close his eyes and imagine himself and Anastazja sitting in a beautiful field of red poppies lined with the Polish native cherry birch trees. He would transport himself for just a moment to a place of escape, a place where only he and his lover existed. This temporary escape was always cut short by a lash on his back by the SS guards whip, but still enough to sustain him for just a few more hours at a time. The work was grueling, and dangerous, inside the camp. Prisoners were always under the watchful eye of brutal SS guards. Even closing one’s eyes to escape the dismal grey surroundings of the camp was enough to get oneself shot or, even worse, tortured.

One method of torture was particularly terrifying to the prisoners of the camp, hanging torture. The prisoner had the hands tied together behind the back and forced to stand on the tips of the toes. The SS guard would then pull on the rope until he was able to place the rope on a large hook fastened to a wooden post. The prisoner would hang in this unnatural position for hours, sometimes a full day. Shoulders would pop from the sockets and ligaments would tear and finally snap like overstretched rubber bands. Aleksander never received this torture but was beaten at least three times per week. That was about average for prisoners at the camp who seldom broke any infractions. Beatings and degradation were built into the very plans of the camp. From the overcrowded barracks swarming with lice and disease, to the never-ending head counts, beatings, and lack of food, Auschwitz was a place designed to kill. The temptation to lay down and brave the inevitable bullet to the back of the head was a temptation that all prisoners shared, even Aleksander, but he had one saving grace left. An ace up his sleeve that kept him in the game as those around him perished. He sacrificed half of his already meager ration of stale bread and watery soup with another prisoner in exchange for delivering messages to his Anastazja. The couriers name was Aaron Cohen, a former Baker from Krakow Poland. Now he was an errand boy for the Nazi guards of the camp. He had access all over the camp, including the sewing department of Camp number one, the place where his Anastazja slaved each day.

            “Aaron, come here,” whispered Aleksander looking around nervously for the coast to be clear. The SS guard tasked with supervising his group today was busy smoking and talking to another guard on the far side of the red house.

            Aaron quickly walked over to Aleksander on the balls of his feet not making a noise as he sailed across the pebble strewn dirt. “I don’t know how long I can keep