“We used to have to take the corpses out with canes,” he told me one time, “because they were so intertwined. Entire pyramids of bodies, people climbing on top of one another, clawing each other to get away from the gas.
“They used to tell us it was a quick death, but everyone knew it wasn’t. The screaming in the chamber would go on for fifteen or twenty minutes. They used to put a little glass window in the doors so the doctors could look in and watch.”
My grandfather, Aleksander, had told me about his time in the Sonderkommando, the “Corpse Units” of the National Socialist concentration camps. He had been arrested in Poland, simply because he had been a leader in his field and an intellectual with a history of supporting Polish nationalism. This had raised red flags, and during a round-up of the intelligentsia, my grandfather had also been arrested and tortured by the Gestapo. They had made him sign something he never got to read, and then he had been moved to the prison and, eventually, to his new job.
“The day it happened,” he said, “my friend Bartek and I were on duty. Our job was to lead the people towards the chambers without alerting them or causing a riot. The Sonderkommando all used lines like, ‘Don’t forget where you put your clothes, because you’ll need to come back to them,’ or, ‘Tie your shoes together for convenience to make it easier to find them when you come back.’ We always emphasized how they would come back after their shower. But I never looked them in the eyes when I said it.” He stared out the window for a long moment at this, his mug of coffee steaming in front of him. I knew not to interrupt him. He often talked to me about his experiences. It seemed like he wanted to draw a poison out of his memories, and letting him talk seemed to help him do it.
“So the chamber was packed, as always,” he said, “Eight-hundred people smashed into a tiny area, like sardines. To get the last ones in, the SS would often beat and bludgeon people. The claustrophobia must have been horrifying, the lack of air, the packed chamber like a massive coffin. By the time they slammed the door closed, there wasn’t an extra inch of space into the entire chamber. In fact, after they opened the door, their bodies would often still be standing, because there was simply no room for them to fall down.
“Except for the middle of the chamber, of course. There, people lived longest, and they tried to escape from the gas. We would see infants and small children at the bottom of the human pyramid, smothered and stampeded. The stronger ones would be at the top, having climbed over the bodies of others to try to get some air at the top of the chamber. The gas did have a tendency to fall, depending on the temperature and humidity.
“When they opened the doors, Bartek and I walked in along with the other Sonderkommando. We used long canes to pull the bodies apart. At first, a Sonderkommando would treat the bodies with respect, but after tens of thousands of bodies, you just started throwing them like bags of potatoes. It was our job, after all.” He said this with an ironic misery, his eyes misty.
“Bartek and I would then pile the bodies on carts to be brought to other teams of Sonderkommando. One team, which we called the dentists, would rip the gold teeth out, so they could melt it down into bars and send it back to Germany. Another would shave all the remaining hair off the corpses. They had shaved them when they first got there, but any remainder would make the crematoria reek of burning hair.
“Bartek and I were moving our carts of corpses up the lift elevators when a commotion suddenly broke out in the nearby medical barracks. They called it a medical barracks, but in reality, it was mostly a place where doctors experimented on people, and where the sick were often given lethal doses of phenol intravenously. This also wasn’t a quick death, as the person would begin to get agonizing cramps and a burning sensation before devolving into unconsciousness.
“I had no idea what was going on. At first, I thought the SS were trying to prevent a prisoner escape, or perhaps someone had already escaped and they were in an uproar. It looked like someone had kicked a hornet’s nest. I saw government vehicles speeding in with fully-armed troops. The guards surrounded the gates of the camp, a thick ring of black-suited soldiers.
“I saw a doctor running out of the barracks with blood covering his white lab coat. His eyes looked wild, and he screamed something in German to the soldiers. He kept screaming it over and over: ‘die Wolfin, die Wolfin,’ he said.
“Most of the Sonderkommando, including myself, knew at least some German. It was, after all, the administrative language of the National Socialist state, and the Germans never deigned to speak to us in our own languages, unless they were torturing us or trying to get information.
“By this time, Bartek and I had paused, a cart full of emaciated, naked corpses lying in front of each of us. The doctor ran past us, not noticing us, his eyes wild. He continued to scream gibberish in German, speaking so fast I could barely understand anything except two words: ‘the girl’ and ‘the wolf’.
“‘What in the hell do you think this is about?’ Bartek asked me, his blue eyes wide and uncertain. I just shook my head, feeling numb. I hadn’t felt much of anything in months, to be honest. I had closed myself down emotionally, psychologically removed myself from the present. I saw much of this as if it were happening to someone else. It was my mind, I think, trying to protect me. Even now, looking back, I feel like I’m telling someone else’s story sometimes.
“A torrent of gunfire erupted from the medical barracks, and then a woman ran out, a nurse. Her face looked like a mask of gore. One eye hung limply from its socket, and her entire left cheek hung down, a flap of skin revealing the teeth beyond, like some sort of grotesque half-smile.
“In her remaining eye, I saw mortal terror and fear. Seeing it coming from our captors loosened something inside of me. Bartek felt the same way. We left our carts of dead and turned to run.
“At that moment, something tore its way out of the barracks. As I saw what it was, I began running with all the energy that my starving body could provide.
“It was a girl, or at least, it had been. She looked no older than twelve or thirteen, and she wore a striped uniform soaked in blood.
“Her arms and legs lengthened before my eyes, forming long claws that erupted from her fingers. Her mouth had formed into a strange rictus grin, with drops of blood falling from her sharpening teeth. Stringy black hair seemed to grow from her head, and her eyes turned yellow, with slitted, demonic pupils gleaming in the center, emanating a bloodlust and fury I had never seen before.
“The SS guards and soldiers had streamed in the front gates by this point, running at her and shouting orders. Automatic rifles began to fire, and Bartek grabbed my hand and pulled me down to the ground just in time. I heard bullets whizzing over my head, smashing into the crematoria’s chimneys and the surrounding barracks. I knew they weren’t shooting at me, but so many soldiers had opened fire that the entire area had turned into a shooting gallery.
“I looked back and saw bullets ripping into the girl’s body. Gore blossomed from her chest, blood and flesh exploding out of the exit wounds, covering the bare dirt around her. With a roar, she jumped on top of the barracks, leaping twenty-feet in the air. To my amazement, I watched the wounds healing before my eyes. I wondered what kind of strange medical experiment this was that could produce such an effect.
“Bartek shook me, telling me, ‘We have to run, we have to get out,’ but I just stayed there, shell-shocked. He slapped me, pulling me up and towards the gas chamber.
“‘We can barricade ourselves inside the chamber,’ he said. I gasped.
“‘I’m not going to lock myself in there!’ I shouted, waves of anxiety rising in my chest. I had images of the door slamming closed and Zyklon B being poured through the vents. I shuddered. But we kept running towards it, not knowing where else to go.
“As we got inside the crematoria, the window smashed inwards, and I saw the girl had followed us. She had completely transformed by this point. Her skin looked yellow and papery against her long, wolfish frame. Tatters of the blood-stained uniform still clung to her body. I saw no marks from where the bullets had struck her.
“She ran forwards at us, lashing out with a clawed hand. Bartek pushed me just in time, and I fell, the claw missing my face by a fraction of an inch. I began to crawl away, looking back as Bartek began to cry out in terror.
“I looked and saw him backing away from her, his hands raised, pleading.
“‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,’ he kept saying. In a blur, she leaped forward, ripping at his throat, the bloody rictus grin still plastered across her face. A torrent of blood rushed out from the gaping wound, soaking the front of his body. She opened her mouth wide and drank the spouting arterial stream, sucking at it as she held up his body with her clawed hands.
“When she was done, she threw it aside and looked down at me. I had begun to rise, to jump up and begin to run when she tackled me from behind. I felt a searing pain in my back as her claw connected, leaving deep gouges. I felt something sticky and warm flowing down my back, soaking into the rips in my uniform.
“At that moment, a dozen SS men ran in the front door and began shooting. I was on the floor after she clawed me, which turned out to be lucky, as the bullets went over me. Hissing and spitting blood, I turned my head at the last moment to see the girl galloping away from me on all fours, her freakishly long arms giving her a loping stride. She jumped back through the shattered window she had come in. The SS men all ran out after her, and I found myself alone with Bartek’s body.
“I got up and found the rest of the prisoners confined to their barracks with armed guards watching each of the groups. The guards had left the front of the camp in a hurry and I saw the gates stood wide open. With blood pouring down my back, I began to creep through the shadows of the camp, checking the watchtowers and the front gates for people. They had all joined in the pursuit or were with the confined prisoners in their barracks, and they had apparently forgotten about a lone Sonderkommando like myself. I finally made my way outside. I didn’t see a single other prisoner or guard in the front.
“But when I looked back, before I left for the final time, I saw the girl leaping over the razor-wire fence as countless soldiers pursued her.
“‘Good for you,’ I said to myself. ‘Good for you.’”