Primo (2005) Movie Script

It was my good fortune
to be deported to Auschwitz
only in 1944,
that is, after the German
government decided,
- owing to the growing scarcity
- Of labor,
To lengthen
the average life span
of the prisoners destined
for elimination.
I had been captured
by the Fascist Militia
on the 13th of December, 1943,
as a member
of a small partisan band
affiliated with the Resistance.
During the interrogation,
I preferred to admit
to the status
of "Italian citizen
of Jewish race."
I believe that any admission
of my political activity
would have meant torture
and certain death.
I was 24, with little wisdom,
no experience,
and a tendency,
encouraged by the life
of segregation
forced on me by the racial laws,
to live in an unrealistic
world of my own.
I was at first sent to
the detention camp at Fossoli.
Then, on the 21st of February,
1944,
we learned that all the Jews
without exception,
would be leaving the next day.
Our destination? No one knew.
We should just prepare
ourselves for travel.
- The following morning,
- We were taken
To the station at Carpi.
Here the train
was waiting for us,
with our escort
for the journey.
And here we received
the first blows.
It was so new and senseless
that we felt no pain,
only amazement.
How can one man hit another
without anger?
Here, then,
before our very eyes,
and now under our very feet,
- was one of those
- Transport trains
That we'd often heard about
exactly like this,
detail for detail:
goods wagons,
doors securely locked,
holding a cargo of men,
women, and children.
Only this time, it is us inside.
We had learned of our
destination with relief.
Auschwitz,
a name without significance
for us, at that time.
Some thought it was Austerlitz,
the town in Bohemia,
but at least it implied
some place on this earth.
The train traveled slowly
with long, unnerving halts.
Through the air slit,
we saw the tall, pale cliffs
of the Adige valley
and the names of the last
Italian cities
disappear behind us.
At noon on the second day,
we passed the Brenner Mountains,
the frontier with Austria,
and everyone stood up,
but no one said a word.
During the daytime
our nerves, our fear,
somehow made it all tolerable...
The hunger, the thirst,
the violated modesty,
because of the absence
of toilets.
But the hours of darkness were
like never-ending nightmares.
Again and again
sleep was interrupted
by noisy and futile arguments,
curses, cries,
kicks and punches
delivered blindly.
And then someone
would light a candle
and its little flicker
would show a strange human mass
spread over the floor,
sluggish, aching,
rising in sudden convulsions,
collapsing again.
Through the slit, the names
of Austrian cities:
Salzburg, Vienna,
Then Czech.
Finally Polish names.
On the evening
of the fourth day,
the cold became intense.
The train ran through
interminable black pine forests,
climbing perceptibly.
There was a long halt
in the open country.
Then we started up again,
very slowly.
Then stopped again
for the last time,
in the dead of night,
in the middle
of a dark, silent plain.
By the light
of our last candle,
- and with the rhythm
- Of the wheels
And every human sound
now silenced,
we waited for what would happen.
- It's sudden.
- The door opens with a crash,
And the dark echoes
with that curt, barking noise
of Germans in command.
A huge platform appears
before us,
lit by reflectors.
Beyond it, a row of lorries.
Then everything
goes silent again.
Someone whispers a translation:
"Climb down. Leave your luggage
alongside the train."
In a moment, the platform
is swarming with shadows.
A dozen SS men stand around,
faces blank.
- At a certain moment
- They suddenly move among us,
And with quiet voices,
begin to ask questions
in bad Italian.
"How old?"
"Healthy or ill?"
"Job?"
And depending on the reply,
they point
in two different directions.
PRIMO:
very silent,
Everything is still
silent as an aquarium,
or certain dreams.
We expected something
more apocalyptic,
but they're behaving so calmly,
so reassuringly.
They're just like people
doing everyday jobs.
One of us dares
to ask for his luggage.
They reply,
"Luggage afterwards."
Someone else doesn't want
to leave his wife.
They say,
"Together again afterwards."
Many mothers don't want to be
separated from their children.
They say,
"Good, good, stay with child."
In less than 10 minutes,
all the men who are fit
or professional specialists
have been grouped together.
What's happening to the others?
We can't work it out.
We see them for a moment,
an indistinct mass
at the other end
of the platform,
and then the night swallows
them up, purely and simply.
- - We're loaded onto a lorry.
The lorry races off
at full speed.
It's pitch black in here.
Are we unguarded?
Should we jump out?
- Too late.
- There is a guard with us,
A German soldier
bristling with weapons.
He switches on a pocket torch.
We're expecting
shouts and threats,
but instead he starts asking us,
very courteously
in German and in pidgin,
if we have any money
or watches to give him,
since we won't
be needing them anymore.
This isn't an order or a rule,
- just the small
- Private initiative
Of our Charon.
It makes us angry.
It makes us laugh.
It brings some relief.
The lorry stops.
A gate.
Above it, a sign, brightly lit:
"Arbeit Macht Frei."
Work makes you free.
The image still comes
in my dreams.
We're herded
into an enormous, empty room.
Poorly heated.
We have a terrible thirst.
We've had nothing to drink
for four days.
We see a tap,
a dripping tap.
Above it a card,
"Wassertrinken verboten."
It is forbidden to drink.
Nonsense. This card's a joke.
They know we're dying of thirst,
- so they put us in this room,
- With this tap,
And "Wassertrinken verboten."
I ignore it and drink.
I spit it out.
It's tepid, sweetish,
stinking like a swamp.
Hell must be like this:
A big empty room,
a tap which drips,
but you can't drink from it,
us tired, standing,
waiting for something to happen,
which will certainly
be terrible.
But nothing happens.
Nothing continues to happen.
Just
time passing.
The door opens,
and an SS man enters,
smoking.
Looks at us slowly.
Asks, "Wer kann Deutsch?"
One of us, a man named Flesch,
steps forward.
He'll be our interpreter.
The SS man makes a long,
calm speech.
Flesch translates.
We must form rows of five,
with intervals of two yards
between man and man.
We must undress
and make a bundle
of our clothes.
We must take great care
that our shoes
are not stolen.
Stolen by whom?
Why should our shoes be stolen?
And what about our documents,
our watches,
the things in our pockets?
Flesch translates our questions
to the German.
The German smokes
and looks through him
as if he's transparent,
as if no one had spoken.
I've never seen old men naked.
Mr. Bergmann wears a truss
and asks Flesch
if he should take it off.
The German answers
in a serious tone,
pointing at someone else.
Flesch translates.
You can tell the words
are bitter in his mouth.
"The officer says, yes,
take off your truss and you'll
be given that of Mr. Coen."
Ah. The German sense of humor.
- Now four men burst in
- With razors,
- Soap brushes and clippers.
- They wear striped trousers
- And jackets,
With numbers sewn on the front.
We ask many questions,
- but they just
- Catch hold of us like sheep
And in a moment
we're sheared and shaved.
Without hair
our faces are weird,
quite comical.
They've cut off
all our body hair too.
We are more
than stripped bare now.
We are as naked as worms.
Another door is opened,
and we're herded
into a shower room.
- We're locked in.
Here we are now,
naked, sheared,
and alone.
We slowly start to speak.
Everyone has questions,
no one has answers.
If we're going to have a shower,
- does that mean that they're
- Not going to kill us?
But why do they keep us
standing here?
Why give us nothing to drink?
Hunger exhausts
but thirst enrages.
As we're walking up and down,
talking, talking,
the SS man suddenly returns.
Flesch translates,
biting back his words again.
"The officer says
you must be quiet,
this is not
a rabbinical school."
The SS man goes.
We are silent.
Does this mean it's morning?
We can hear the dark,
still camp waking up.
Suddenly water gushes out
from the showers.
Boiling water.
Oh, five minutes of bliss.
- Then suddenly
- We're being chased again,
And shouting people
throw striped rags at us,
and shoes with wooden soles.
And now we're out in the open,
in the icy blue snow of dawn,
barefoot, naked,
our clothing in our hands.
And now we're in another hut,
and finally we're allowed
to get dressed.
When we're finished,
everyone stays in his corner.
We dare not lift our eyes.
There are no mirrors,
yet our reflection
is here in front of us.
A hundred bald white faces,
a hundred sordid puppets.
Nothing belongs to us anymore.
They've taken away
our clothes, our shoes,
even our hair.
If we speak
they will not listen,
if they listen,
they will not understand.
Think of the value
of your smallest possessions,
the possessions which
even a beggar owns.
A letter, a photo,
just a handkerchief.
These things are part of us.
It's inconceivable
to be robbed of them.
Think of this.
And then you can fully
understand the term,
"extermination camp."
Hour after hour,
this first long day
of limbo passes.
It's sunset before
they finally drive us
out of the hut again.
Will they give us
something to drink now?
No.
They lead us onto a big square
in the center of the camp,
and arrange us,
meticulously, in squads.
We wait for another hour.
Then, near the gate,
a little band starts playing.
That song.
So well-known,
so sentimental,
so strange here.
We look at one another,
and start sniggering.
Maybe all this is just
some colossal farce
in the Teutonic style.
Then we see
other squads appearing,
returning from somewhere.
Squads of puppets,
like us, but stiff,
made of bones without joints,
walking with a hard,
unnatural gait,
strictly in time to the band.
When the last squad has arrived,
they count us,
and they recount us,
for over an hour.
Finally, it's dark by now,
but the camp is brightly lit
by lamps and reflectors.
Finally,
a German voice bellows,
"Absperre."
And the squads break up.
We wander among the crowd,
searching for a friendly face,
a guide.
Two boys are seated
against the wall of a hut.
They seem very young.
Sixteen, maybe.
One of them asks me,
in German,
where we come from.
"Wir sind Italiener," I reply.
I want to ask him many things,
but my German
is very limited.
I try.
"How long here?"
He answers, "Three years."
I'm shocked. He must have
arrived as a child.
Still, it means
that some survive here.
He asks what my work is.
"Ich Chemiker."
He grins.
"A chemist is good."
So. There's hope.
He asks where
my mother is now.
I explain as best I can.
She's fled from home,
she's in hiding.
He understands.
He gets up,
approaches,
and embraces me timidly.
The encounter is over.
I'm filled with an odd,
calm sadness.
It's almost like joy.
- I've never seen him again,
- That boy,
But I can't forget his face.
The serious
and gentle face of a child
who welcomed me
into the house of the dead.
We've been baptized.
The operation
was slightly painful,
extremely quick.
But now we'll
carry this here till we die.
I am
Only by showing this
can I get bread and soup.
Several days passed,
and quite a few blows,
before we got used to
showing it promptly enough.
Weeks were needed
to learn its sound
in the German language.
Hundert Vierund-siebzig
Funf Hundert Siebzehn.
And at first,
while the habits of freedom
still made me look
for the time
on my wristwatch,
my new name appeared instead.
One-hundred
and seventy-four thousand
five-hundred
and seventeen.
We are the high numbers,
the novices.
We learn the rules
of the Lager,
the camp,
as quickly as possible.
Never ask questions,
always answer "Jawohl,"
always pretend to understand.
We learn to scavenge,
anything useful.
Wire to tie up shoes,
rags to wrap round feet,
waste paper to pad jackets
against the cold.
We also learn,
that everything can be stolen.
In fact, is automatically stolen
if you look away for a second.
- So when you go to the latrine
- Or washrooms,
Take everything along
and while you wash your face,
hold your belongings
tightly between your knees.
And we learn the art
of sleeping
with our head on a hard bundle,
our jacket wrapped round
everything we own,
from food bowl to shoes.
Ah.
Shoes.
Death begins with your shoes.
Your wooden-soled shoes.
At first they're like
instruments of torture.
After a few hours marching
you already have painful sores.
These quickly become infected.
And then you're forced to walk
with a kind of shuffle,
as if dragging
a convict's chain.
This is the strange gait
of the army which returns
each evening on parade.
If the sores get worse,
your feet swell,
- and the more they swell
- The more the friction
With the wood
becomes unbearable.
Then only the infirmary is left,
but to enter the infirmary
with a case
of "dicke Fusse"...
Swollen feet.
Is extremely dangerous,
since it's well-known to all,
especially the SS,
that there's no cure
for that complaint.
Not here.
In the Lager,
the average life expectancy
of a high number
is about eight weeks.
If you last longer,
it's because
you've mastered two things.
One, you've learned
to obey orders
in a language
that you don't understand.
Two,
you have a pair
of shoes that fit.
And then there's
the Auschwitz hunger.
It's unknown to free men.
It makes you dream
cruel dreams at night,
and settles in
all your limbs by day.
You and hunger
become the same thing.
Already my body
is no longer mine.
My belly is swollen,
my limbs emaciated,
my face hollow.
Some of us have yellow skin,
some grey.
When we don't meet
for a few days,
we hardly recognize one another.
Someone I seek out constantly
is Alberto.
We're about the same age,
we're both chemists,
we have the same build,
we even look alike.
- In fact,
- People get us confused,
And we're just known
as "the two Italians".
But I'm not adapting
as well as Alberto.
No one is.
He understood
before any of us
that existence
in this place is war.
He fights for his life,
yet he makes no enemies.
He knows who to avoid,
who to cultivate,
who to corrupt.
But...
And this is what
makes his memory
still so dear to me.
He himself
never became corrupt.
I always saw,
and still see in him,
the rare figure of the strong
yet peace-loving man,
against whom the weapons
of night are blunted.
No, honestly,
- I don't feel
- That today's companion,
My work partner,
will turn out to be an enemy.
He is Null Achtzen.
He's not called anything
but that, Null Achtzen.
Zero Eighteen,
the last three figures
of his number.
I think even he's
forgotten his real name.
When he speaks,
when he looks round,
it's like he's empty inside.
Like the slough of certain
insects you find on river banks,
just held by a thread
to the stones.
As we come back,
again from the store,
hands empty of the last load,
feet dragging,
there it is,
the stack of cast-iron supports,
the Kapo,
the chief of our commando,
with his whip.
Two other prisoners
lift a support
and put it roughly
on our shoulders.
This time it's my turn
to walk in front.
The support is heavy
but very short,
and I keep feeling
Null Achtzen's feet
tread on mine.
He's unable to walk in step,
and the load is badly placed,
something isn't right.
A cable to step over,
the store in sight,
just a few more paces,
but I can't take this.
I shout, I start to turn,
just in time to see Null Achtzen
throw down his end.
I land on the ground,
blind with pain.
A corner of the iron has cut
across the back of my foot.
For a moment
everything's blank and giddy.
Then the Kapo arrives.
I receive only two blows
to the head,
the kind that do no real harm,
simply stun.
He makes me stand.
So the bone isn't broken
so the incident is closed.
He leaves.
I dare not take off the shoe
to see the damage.
The foot would swell,
and I wouldn't get
the shoe back on again.
During the return march
I can't really keep up.
Luckily, there's no
roll call this evening
so now I'm back in the hut.
Because of the march
the pain is very bad again,
along with
a strange feeling
of humidity.
I take off the shoe.
It's full of blood.
Congealed into the rags
I use as a foot pad.
Tomorrow, instead of work,
I'll have to go to Ka-Be.
Ka-Be is the Krankenbau,
the infirmary.
And so, in the morning,
after reveille,
I join a long queue
in one corner of the square,
all the others
presenting themselves
for examination today.
Someone comes and collects
my things for safekeeping:
bowl, spoon,
beret, gloves.
When he's gone,
the others laugh.
I've just been robbed.
Didn't I know
I should hide my things
while in Ka-Be,
or better still,
trade them?
They look at my number
and shake their heads.
Only a high number
could be so stupid.
They count us.
We wait.
They make us undress.
They take our shoes.
We shower.
We wait.
An SS man walks past,
doing a brief survey.
They count us again.
We shower again.
We wait.
We wait.
To judge by the sun,
it's now about 2 p.m.
We've been on our feet
for 10 hours,
naked for six.
At last, a doctor.
The examination
is very fast.
He says,
A hundred yards away
is Block 23.
Inside they give me
a long shirt,
and I'm assigned
bunk number 10.
It's empty.
A miracle!
For the first time
since I entered the Lager,
I have a bunk to myself.
Within moments,
I'm fast asleep.
The life of Ka-Be
is a life of limbo.
Reveille is at 4 a.m.,
as always,
and you have to rise and wash,
but there's no hurry
and little severity.
When the bread
is distributed at 5:30,
they can hear,
far from the windows,
in the dark air,
the band beginning to play.
The healthy comrades
are leaving for work,
marching like automatons.
Their souls are dead,
and the music drives them
like the wind drives
dead leaves.
At the departure
and at the return,
the SS are never absent.
Who would deny them the right
to watch this choreography?
It is their great creation,
the dance of the dead men.
They are engraved in my mind,
those innocent songs.
- They are the last thing
- About the Lager
I will ever forget.
I have two neighbors
in the next bunk.
One is Walter, a Dutchman,
civilized and well-mannered.
- He sees that I have nothing
- To cut my bread with,
So he loans me his knife.
I ask, "What are you
suffering from, Walter?"
"Organic decay."
The worst type of disease,
he tells me calmly,
because it can't be cured.
And it's very dangerous
to enter Ka-Be
with a disease
that can't be cured.
I still have confused ideas
about this kind of danger.
Everyone talks of it,
but indirectly,
by allusion.
I ask Walter if it's true
what one hears of selections,
of gas, of crematoria.
- Suddenly Walter's neighbor
- Wakes up.
- "Crematoria?
- Who's talking of such things?
Can't a sleeping man
be left in peace?"
He is a Polish Jew.
His name is Schmulek.
He tries to speak German
but really only has Yiddish.
"So der Italianer
doesn't believe in
the danger."
He points to my number:
Do I see
174516 other prisoners
in the camp?
"Where are the others?"
"Perhaps transferred
to other camps?"
Schmulek shakes his head
and looks at Walter.
He doesn't want to understand.
But destiny ordered
that I would understand
and soon enough.
That evening,
the door of the hut opens,
and two SS men enter.
The officer has a switch
in his hand.
- He speaks
- To the chief doctor,
- Who shows him
- The register,
Pointing here and there.
The officer makes
notes in a book,
and then begins to walk,
nonchalantly,
between the bunks.
You can hear his steps
as if the hut is empty.
Now he is looking
at my neighbors,
Walter and Schmulek.
He brings out his book.
I can see it all clearly
from above.
He draws a cross
beside Schmulek's number
and moves on.
I look at Schmulek,
but then see Walter's eyes,
so I ask nothing.
The next day,
two groups of patients
are led out.
- The first are those
- That have recovered,
And they've been
shaved and showered.
The second leave
just as they are,
with long hair,
without a shower.
And no one gives them
messages for comrades
in the rest of the camp.
Schmulek is among this group.
So in this discreet
and composed manner,
without display or anger,
a massacre moves
through the huts of Ka-Be
every day.
After 20 days in Ka-Be,
when my wound
was practically healed,
I was discharged.
To my great displeasure.
You leave naked again.
You're given new clothes,
new shoes.
You have to try to adapt
to these very quickly,
just like at the beginning.
Your trousers are falling down,
your shirt has no buttons
and your shoes hurt.
This is how I am
when the nurse,
after endless
administrative rites,
finally assigns me
to my new hut:
Block 45.
But I am in luck.
This is Alberto's block.
My friend Alberto.
Alberto and Primo.
"The two Italians."
We now enter into
a tight bond of alliance.
Every scrap of food
that we find,
outside the ration,
we will divide this
into two
strictly equal parts.
Here in the Lager,
each of the Haftlinge,
the prisoners,
is alone.
Ferociously alone.
But we will conduct
an experiment,
a chemical experiment in a way.
Is there not
more strength in two?
At the moment,
in this place,
our only purpose
is to reach the spring.
We care about
nothing else.
In the mornings,
while we wait endlessly
on the roll-call square,
the rising of the sun
is always a big topic.
Today a little earlier
than yesterday,
today a little warmer.
In a month,
the cold will call a truce,
and we'll have one enemy less.
This morning the sun rose
bright and clear
from the horizon of mud.
It's a Polish sun,
cold, distant, white,
barely warming the skin,
but when it dissolved
the morning mist,
a murmur ran through
our numbers.
said old Ziegler.
"The worst is over."
When we marched off to work,
the sun was quite high
and the sky serene.
Later, we could see
the mountains,
the Carpathians,
and to the west
the town of Auschwitz,
with its steeple...
A steeple here?
And all around
the barrage balloons.
For the first time
we noticed
that on either side
of the road,
the meadows were green.
Green.
- We look around
- Like blind people
Who've recovered
their sight.
We look at each other.
We've never seen each other
in sunlight.
Someone smiles.
If it was not for the hunger...
But at midday,
another surprise.
In our work hut,
we find a wonderful pot of soup,
11 gallons of it.
It's from the factory kitchen
where the civilians work,
perhaps abandoned
because it tastes slightly off.
Templer looks at us
triumphantly.
This is his work.
Templer is our Kommando's
chief "organizer."
That's the Lager word for fixer.
And he has a wonderful nose
for leftovers
from the civilians.
During the course of today,
thanks to him,
we will have
six pints of soup each.
What more could one want?
Today is a good day.
When Templer's turn comes,
- it is agreed
- That he should have 10 pints,
And taken from
the bottom of the pot.
- For Templer is not only
- A good fixer,
But an exceptional soup eater,
and for a special reason.
He can empty his bowels at will,
and this allows
amazing gastric capacity.
Of this gift,
he is justly proud.
To the accompaniment
of handshakes and applause,
he enters the latrine,
- and comes out
- A few moments later,
Beaming and ready.
Everyone cheers.
A voice calls out,
"You sure you made
enough space for the soup?"
At sunset, the siren
of the Feierabend sounds,
the end of work,
and we are all satiated,
at least for a few hours.
No quarrels arise,
the Kapo feels no urge
to whip us,
and we are able to think
of our mothers and wives,
which we don't usually do.
For a few hours,
we are able to be unhappy
in the manner of free men.
- The day they announced
- The formation
Of Kommando acht und neunzig,
A chemical Kommando.
About 15 Haftlinge gathered
in the gray of dawn
on the roll-call square,
Alberto and I among them.
The new Kapo
was a very short man
wearing a green triangle:
a criminal prisoner.
He made a speech
in the crude German
of the barracks.
"So you are the chemists.
"Well, I am Alex.
- "And if you think,
- Being intellectuals,
"you can make a fool of me,
a Reichsdeutscher,
"a German of the Third Reich,
"well, I'll show you.
"Yes, and if any of you
- "are applying
- For these positions
"without proper qualifications,
"don't think
you'll fool anyone.
"An exam, ja Ihr Intelligenten,
"a chemistry exam before
the honored triumvirate
"of Doctors Hagen,
Probst und Pannwitz.
"And now, meine herren,
forward march."
Although I never think of this
for more than
a few moments a day,
I know that I'll end
in the selections.
I know that I'm not made
of the stuff of those
who survive them.
I'm too
civilized.
I still think too much.
I use myself up at work,
all of myself.
But if I can become
a specialist,
I might still save myself.
And I can become a specialist,
if I can just pass
this chemistry exam.
It'll be in German, obviously.
That will be hard.
A verbal exam, I presume,
in front of
these three Aryan doctors.
Who will certainly see
our filthiness,
smell our odor.
An office.
A real office.
Shining.
Clean.
Ordered.
I would leave a stain
on anything I touched.
There's only
one examiner present:
Dr. Pannwitz.
Tall, thin, blonde.
Hair and nose like
all Germans
ought to have them.
He finishes writing
and looks up.
Looks straight at me.
- From that day
- I've often thought about him,
Dr. Pannwitz.
What was he really like
as a man?
- How did he
- Fill his time?
I mean, outside of
the Germanic ideology.
When I was free again,
I wanted to meet him.
Not out of revenge.
Just curiosity.
For that look
was not
between two men.
If I could explain completely
the nature of that look,
which seemed to come through
the glass of an aquarium,
between creatures who
live in different elements,
different worlds,
I would also be able
to explain succinctly
the great insanity
of the third Germany.
Over in the corner,
- that other
- Zoological specimen, Alex,
- Yawns and
- Chews on something
While the exam begins.
"Wo sind Sie geboren?"
Pannwitz addresses me
as "Sie," the polite form.
Yet, damn him,
- he doesn't make
- The slightest effort
To speak a simpler
kind of German.
I tell him that I was
born and raised in Turin,
and I took my degree there
in 1941.
As I speak, I have
the clear impression
- of not being
- Believed.
Of not even
believing myself.
It's enough to look at my
dirty hands covered with sores,
my convict's trousers
caked with mud.
Yet I am he.
The B.Sc.
From Turin.
But now,
as I continue to speak,
it becomes easier to believe.
- My knowledge of
- Organic chemistry
- Even after
- So long a break
Responds with unexpected
ease and lucidity.
And even more,
this sense of
elation.
This excitement
warm in my veins.
I recognize it.
I remember it.
It's the fever
of exams.
My fever, my exams.
It's that spontaneous
mobilization
of all my faculties
and knowledge.
My friends at university
used to envy this.
It's over.
The excitement fades.
I stare at the fair skin
of his hand
writing down my fate
on a white page.
The symbols are
incomprehensible.
Alex steps
back into the picture.
"Los, ab."
For a moment I grope around
for a suitable formula
of leave-taking.
But in vain.
I know how to say
"to eat," "to work,"
"to steal," "to die,"
in German.
I even know how to say
"sulfuric acid,"
"atmospheric pressure,"
"short-wave generator."
But I do not know
how to address
a person of this importance.
To get back into the main camp,
you have to walk over an area
littered with crossbeams
and metal frames.
Alex catches hold of
a steel cable
to climb over one obstacle
and then curses:
"Donnerwetter!"
His hand is black
with thick grease.
Without hatred,
without sneering,
without even thinking,
he wipes his hand...
Both the palm
and the back.
On my shoulder.
He would be amazed,
poor brute, Alex,
- if someone told him
- That today,
On the basis
of that one action,
I judge him.
I judge you, Alex.
And you, Dr. Pannwitz.
I judge you.
And all the others like you,
big and small,
in Auschwitz and everywhere.
I judge you.
We've done an exam
but it brings no results.
We're not surprised.
Not particularly disappointed.
"When things change,
they change for the worse."
This is one of the proverbs
of the Lager.
But then one day
in June 1944,
I was detailed
- with two of
- The civilian workers
Stationed here.
Bricklayers.
One of them,
tall, a bit stooped,
with grey hair,
spoke to me and I thought
I was dreaming.
He'd spoken in Italian
and with a
Piedmontese accent.
In speaking to one another,
we were committing a crime.
But we spoke anyway
and found out that he,
Lorenzo,
was from Fossano.
And I have relatives in Fossano
and Lorenzo
knew them by name.
I don't think we
said much more to one another,
then or later.
Not because of the prohibition,
but because Lorenzo
hardly ever spoke at all.
The story of my relationship
with Lorenzo
is both
long and short,
plain and enigmatic.
It's almost like a fable.
In concrete terms,
he brought me some soup
on the sly
every day for six months.
The soup had
extra nourishment:
plum pits,
salami peel,
once the wing of
a sparrow.
I shared the soup
with Alberto, of course.
And without it,
we would not
have survived.
The Lager daily ration
supplied us with
about 1600 calories a day,
which is not enough
to live on while working.
Lorenzo's soup
added another four,
five hundred.
Alberto and I
were amazed by Lorenzo.
In the vicious and degraded
world of Auschwitz,
a man helping other men
out of simple altruism?
This was unimaginable.
It was alien.
He was a savior
sent from heaven.
But an odd savior.
Catholic, yet not a believer.
Silent, morose,
often smelling of wine.
Yet I believe that it is
really due to Lorenzo
that I am alive today.
Not just for his material aid,
but for constantly
reminding me,
just by his presence,
his natural and plain manner
of being good,
that there still existed
a just world outside our own.
Something still clean and whole.
Something
difficult to define.
But something
worth surviving for.
Yesterday the sun went down
behind a confusion
of dirty clouds,
chimney stacks and wires.
And today it is winter.
We know what this means
- because we were here
- Last winter.
And the others will soon learn.
In the next few months,
October to April,
seven out of 10 will die.
And those that don't
will suffer minute by minute
all day, every day.
Just as our
Auschwitz hunger
is not that ordinary feeling
of missing a meal,
so our way of being cold
has need of a new word.
Only a new, harsh language
could convey what it's like
to work all day in the wind
with the temperature
below freezing,
wearing only shirt,
underpants,
cloth jacket and trousers.
And winter
means something else too.
Selekcja.
That hybrid
Polish and Latin word.
At first
it's heard once, twice.
Now many times.
Now in every single
conversation.
"Selekcja."
Today is
a working Sunday.
Arbeit Sonntag.
We work till midday,
then return to the camp
to shower,
to have our weekly
haircut and shave,
to get the dustings
for skin diseases and lice.
Yet somehow everyone
in the washrooms,
in the huts, in the yards...
Everyone knows that Selekcja
will be today.
The news comes, as always,
surrounded by rumor.
"It's already happened
in Ka-Be this morning
"and it was 50%
of the patients.
"At Birkenau,
the crematorium chimney
has been smoking
for 10 days now."
- The young
- Tell the young
- That only the old
- Will be chosen.
The healthy tell the healthy
it will only be the ill.
"Specialists
will be excluded.
"German Jews will be excluded.
Low numbers will be excluded."
You will be chosen
and I will be excluded.
It's early afternoon.
The kitchens are working.
The distribution of bread
is starting up.
Maybe we were wrong.
Maybe this is just
a day like any other day.
But then...
At dawn this means reveille,
but if it rings during day,
it means blocksperre.
Enclosure in huts.
- Our Blockaltester,
- The block chief,
- He knows his business,
- All right.
- When we're all in,
- He locks the door,
Hands everyone their card
with number, name,
profession, nationality,
orders everyone to strip
except for shoes,
- and then
- To wait like this,
Naked, card in hand,
for the commission
to reach our hut.
They're coming.
- The Blockaltester
- And his helpers
Drive us into the Tagesraum,
the quartermaster's office,
The room's not large.
When the drive is over,
a human mass
is jammed inside.
Filling every corner.
Putting such pressure
on the wooden walls
they creak.
You have to hold up
your nose to breathe.
You must be careful not to
crumple the card in your hand.
Or, worse, lose it.
There's no time,
no room to be afraid.
The feeling of warm flesh
surrounding you
is unusual and reassuring.
The door opens.
Ahead is a stretch of ground.
Then another door
back to the dormitory.
Between these two doorways
stands the arbiter of our fate:
an SS subaltern.
To his right, the Blockaltester.
To his left, the quartermaster.
Each of us,
as he comes out naked,
must run the few steps
between the two doorways,
hand his card to the SS man
and return to the dormitory.
In a fraction of a second,
with a glance at
your front and your back,
the SS man
will judge your fate
and pass your card
to one side or the other.
And this will mean
life or death.
- It's my turn.
- Like everyone,
- I try to run
With a brisk and elastic step.
Try to hold my head high.
My chest forward,
my muscles contracted
and conspicuous.
I hand over my card.
I run past.
Out of the corner of my eye
I try to look over my shoulder.
I think my card
went to the right.
We're allowed
to get dressed again.
- No one knows
- His own fate yet,
- Because no one
- Knows yet
- If the
- Condemned cards
- Were on the left
- Or the right.
- By now, there's
- No longer any point
- In sparing
- People's feelings.
So we all
crowd 'round the oldest,
the most wasted-away.
- If their cards
- Went to the left,
Then the left is certainly
the side of the condemned.
- It takes
- 3 or 4 minutes
To do
a hut of 200 men.
An afternoon
for the whole camp.
- But even
- Before it's over,
We know that it was
the left.
This was the schlechte seite.
The bad side.
There are, of course,
some irregularities.
Rene, for example,
so young and robust.
He's ended on the left.
Perhaps because of
his slight stoop.
Perhaps
just a mistake.
One shouldn't be surprised
by any mistakes.
The examination is
so quick and summary.
- The crucial thing
- For the Lager is not that
The most useless
prisoners be eliminated,
but that free space
be created quickly
according to
a certain percentage
that's already been fixed.
Everyone is scraping
the bottom of their bowls
with their spoons.
A confused,
metallic clatter.
The end of the day.
It lapses into silence.
And then I hear old Kuhn
praying aloud
with his beret on his head,
rocking backwards and forwards,
backwards and forwards.
Kuhn is thanking God
because he's not been chosen.
Is he out of his senses?
Does he not see Beppo the Greek
next to him?
Beppo, who's 20 years old
and is going
to the gas chamber tomorrow
and knows it
- and lies there
- Staring up at the light
Without saying anything,
without even thinking anymore.
Does Kuhn not realize
that next time
it'll be his turn?
Does he not understand
that what happened here today
is an abomination,
which no prayer, no pardon,
no apology,
nothing in the power of man
can ever wipe clean again?
If I was God,
I would spit at Kuhn's prayer.
This morning as our Kapo, Alex,
is dividing up the squads
as usual,
he says,
"Dr. Pannwitz has communicated
"to the Arbeitsdienst
"that three Haftlinge
"have been chosen
for the laboratory.
"169509, Brackier,
"175633 Kandel,
"174517,
Levi."
For a moment my ears ring,
and the Lager whirls round me.
There are a couple of Levis
in our Kommando.
But Hundert Vierund-siebzig
Funf Hundert Siebzehn
is definitely me.
I have been chosen
to enter the paradise
of the laboratory.
Alberto's the first
to shake me by the hand.
I have a ticket from
the Arbeitsdienst in my pocket,
saying that I am now
a specialized worker,
I have the right
to a new shirt and underpants,
and I must be shaved
every Wednesday.
No one can boast of
understanding the Germans.
The temperature in here.
The thermometer reads
65 degrees Fahrenheit.
We enter the laboratory,
we three chosen ones,
timid, suspicious,
bewildered.
Like three wild animals
slinking into a big city.
It is, incredibly,
a laboratory
like any other laboratory.
A lab.
The smell makes me reel back
as if from the blow of a whip.
That faint aromatic smell.
For a moment,
the large semi-dark room
at university,
my fourth year,
the mild air of May in Italy,
all of this comes back to me
with a kind of violence.
And instantly vanishes.
I'm under shelter,
I'm warm, no one beats me.
I can steal and sell soap
and petrol
without risk.
When I want to go out I only
have to ask our supervisor,
Herr Stawinoga,
who never says no
and never questions
me if I delay.
He calls me "Monsieur,"
which is ridiculous.
And then there are
the girls.
How long since
we saw girls?
Here are three young Germans.
They have smooth, rosy skin,
beautiful clean clothes,
long blond hair.
Faced with these girls,
we feel ourselves
sinking into the ground.
We know what we look like.
We see one another all the time,
and sometimes even see
our own reflection
in a clean window.
And then there's our smell,
of course.
The girls call us
Stink Juden.
They talk among themselves,
these girls,
about the rationing,
their fiancs, their families:
- "Are you going home
- On Sunday?"
Asks Fraulein Meyer.
"I'm not, traveling
is so uncomfortable."
"Oh it is," says another.
"But I will go home
for Christmas."
"Christmas?"
Exclaims Fraulein Meyer.
"Only a few more weeks
and Christmas again."
"Yes," says the other.
"Hasn't this year flown by?"
This time last year
I was a free man.
I had a name, a family,
an eager mind, a healthy body.
Today I am not even alive enough
to know how to kill myself.
If I spoke better German,
I would try to explain
all this to Fraulein Meyer.
- But she would certainly
- Not understand,
And if she did
she would flee from me.
Hasn't this year flown by?
Tonight, as we return from work,
they march us
onto the big square.
Is there to be a roll call?
No.
In the searchlight, we see
the profile of the gallows.
A raucous German voice
rises out of the sudden quiet
and speaks for a long time,
angrily, into the dark air.
Finally the condemned man
is brought into the searchlight.
Last month one of the crematoria
in Birkenau was blown up.
- None of us know
- Exactly what happened.
But there was talk
of the Sonderkommando,
the special Kommando attached
to the gas chambers and ovens.
Somehow, a group of these men,
although slaves like us,
had found it in
themselves to act.
The man in front of us
this evening
took part in some way.
- At the end of the German's
- Speech,
Which no one followed,
he bellows,
"Have you understood?"
- "Jawohl!"
Who answered this?
Everyone and no one.
It's as if our resignation
took body and became
one big collective voice
above our heads.
But now each of us,
alone in ourselves
clearly hears
the shout of the doomed man.
It's a shout that pierces right
through all our barriers
of inertia and submission.
"Comrades,
I am the last one."
I wish I could say
that from the midst of us
just one voice rose,
or just a murmur,
or just some tiny sign
of assent.
But nothing happened.
- We remained standing there,
- Bent and grey,
Like cringing dogs.
The trapdoor opened,
the body wriggled horribly,
the band began playing again,
and we filed past the scaffold.
The SS watched us pass
with indifferent eyes.
Their work was finished.
It was said the Russians
were getting nearer.
Well, they could come now.
There were no longer
any strong men left among us.
The only one was hanging
above our heads.
As for the rest of us,
even if we've finally
learned how to adapt here,
to find food,
to resist the fatigue
and the cold.
And even if we return home,
the Germans have succeeded.
To destroy a man is difficult,
almost as difficult
as to create one.
It has not been easy or quick,
but the Germans have succeeded.
When Alberto and I
got back to the hut,
we couldn't look at one another.
That morning
at the end of December,
when Lorenzo handed
me his mess tin,
it was bent out of shape,
and the soup had pebbles
and grit in it.
He told me,
almost as an apology,
that the civilian camp
had been hit in an air raid.
A bomb had fallen close to him.
It buried the mess tin
and burst one of his eardrums.
But he had the soup to deliver,
and anyway had to come to work.
He knew that the Russians
were going to arrive,
and he was afraid of them.
"The barbaric Asiatic hordes,"
according to German propaganda.
And he fled Auschwitz
soon after.
The Russians were certainly
getting closer,
only 50 miles away,
rumor said.
When, on the 11th of January
1945,
I fell ill with scarlet fever,
and was once more
sent to Ka-Be.
I had four peaceful days.
Outside it was snowing
but the room was heated.
I was given strong
doses of sulpha drugs.
I was hardly able to eat,
didn't want to talk.
On the fifth day
the barber came.
One of the Greeks.
When it was my turn
I forced myself to get up.
I asked him
if there was any news.
He stopped working,
winked dramatically,
and made a sweeping
gesture towards the west.
"Tomorrow everyone is leaving."
Alberto and I had often
discussed this possibility.
The evacuation of the camp,
and the dangers which
might accompany it.
In the afternoon,
the doctor came, another Greek.
He said that all the patients
who could walk would be given
shoes and clothes,
- and they'd leave
- With the healthy prisoners
On the evacuation march.
He was unusually cheerful.
He seemed drunk.
We asked what would
happen to the rest of us.
He thought the Germans would
leave us to our own fate.
No, he didn't think
they'd kill us.
We weren't convinced.
His very cheerfulness
was worrying.
Now Alberto comes to my window,
defying the prohibition,
to say goodbye.
We've been inseparable.
For six months we've shared
a bunk and every scrap of food
that we've found
outside the ration.
He's very happy tonight.
Everyone is who's leaving.
Something great and new
is about to happen.
A force surrounding us
that isn't Germany.
We say goodbye
through the window.
- Not many words
- Are needed.
We've already discussed
our affairs countless times.
And anyway, we won't be
separated for very long.
All the healthy prisoners
left during that night.
About 20,000 of them.
And they vanished.
Except for very few.
They vanished during the
Todesmarsch that followed.
The Death March.
Alberto was among them.
Meanwhile we remained
in our bunks,
alone with our illnesses,
and our inertia,
which was stronger than fear.
For us began a series of days
outside the world and time.
January the 18th.
The heating plant
has been abandoned.
In our hut some warmth
lingers on,
but hour by hour it fades.
And outside it's five degrees
Fahrenheit below zero.
During the night we hear
the roar of airplanes
and another
bombardment begins.
Nothing new.
Except this is closer.
The camp itself has been struck.
A nearby hut
is burning fiercely.
Dozens of patients arrive,
crying for shelter.
It's impossible
to take them in.
They keep trying, begging and
threatening in many languages.
We have to barricade the door.
They drag themselves elsewhere,
barefoot in the snow.
Some trailing long bandages.
The whole terrible scene
brightly lit by flames.
And then we notice
something else.
The towers are empty.
The Germans are gone.
Today few speak of providence.
But in that moment
some memory
of biblical salvation
swept like a wind through us.
January the 19th.
Two Frenchmen,
Arthur, a farm worker,
and Charles, a school teacher
agree with me that we have
to go out and search
for a stove and fuel
and food.
What we see outside resembles
nothing I've ever known.
The Lager, barely dead,
is already decomposing.
No water, no electricity.
Broken doors
slamming in the wind.
Loose iron sheets
screeching on the roofs.
Ashes from last night's fires
drifting high and far.
Grey, skeleton-like patients
are dragging themselves
over the frozen soil
like an invasion of worms.
Some of them have found
potatoes and are roasting them
on the embers
of the bombed craters,
glaring about
with fierce eyes.
We hurry to the kitchens.
The potatoes are almost finished
but we gather what we can,
- and also find
- What we're most hoping for:
A cast-iron stove.
We load this onto a wheelbarrow
and steer it back to our hut.
When the stove is lit
and starts to spread its heat,
and the potatoes
are coming to the boil,
something relaxes in us all.
Towarowski,
a young Franco-Pole stands
and proposes that everyone
offers a slice of bread
to us three who've been working.
And it's agreed.
Just a day before,
such a thing
would've been inconceivable.
The law of the Lager says,
"Eat your own bread
and if possible
steal your neighbor's."
So
A human gesture
between us again,
the first one.
The Lager really is dead.
January the 21st.
We've been watching
the Wehrmacht in flight,
passing by our windows.
Armored cars,
tiger tanks
camouflaged in white,
Germans on horseback,
Germans on bicycles,
Germans on foot.
It looked like
it would never end.
But with sunrise today
we realize that the plain
is finally deserted
and lifeless,
white as far as the eye can see,
lying motionless
under a flight of ravens.
Deathly sad.
I feel so weak again.
My scarlet fever
is far from over.
I want only one thing:
To stay in bed,
under my blankets,
and abandon myself to sleep.
But it really would be a pity
to give in now.
January the 23rd.
Our potatoes are finished.
But we've heard that an
enormous trench of them
lies just outside the camp.
A section of the barbed wire
has already been opened.
Charles and I step through,
into the wind of the plain.
Charles says,
"Dis donc, Primo,
on est dehors."
Yes,
it's exactly that.
For the first time
since my arrest,
I am free.
Further on,
we find the treasure:
Two long ditches
filled with potatoes,
these covered with layers
of soil and straw
to protect them from the cold.
An old man,
a Hungarian prisoner,
has been surprised here
by death.
He lies on the ground like
the personification of hunger,
face and belly in the snow,
hands outstretched
toward the potatoes.
Well, nobody will die
of hunger anymore.
January the 26th.
It is Somogyi's turn.
A Hungarian chemist,
on the upper bunk,
aged about 50,
suffering from both typhus
and scarlet fever.
Today he gives way to delirium,
and this goes on
for a long time.
Caught in some terrible
last dream of slavery,
he begins to murmur "Jawohl"
with every breath,
regularly, like a machine.
"Jawohl."
"Jawohl."
"Jawohl."
Until you want to shake him,
suffocate him.
I've never understood so clearly
how laborious
the death of a man is.
Eventually I sleep.
The place is pitch black
when I wake again.
Silence.
Somogyi is finished.
He's somehow found the strength
to throw himself to the floor.
I think I heard the thud
of his hips and head.
Well, we can't carry him out
now.
Nothing for it.
Go back to sleep.
January the 27th.
Dawn.
On the floor,
the shameful wreck
of skin and bones,
the Somogyi thing.
We have no clean water
to wash ourselves,
so we dare not touch him
till after we've cooked
and eaten.
The living are demanding,
the dead can wait.
It's midday when we
finally carry him out
to the common grave.
He's very light,
and since the pit is full,
we overturn the stretcher
onto the defiled snow.
Charles takes off his beret.
I regret not having one.
And while we're standing here
the Russians arrive.
Four soldiers on horseback,
slowly appearing between
the grey of the snow
and the grey of the sky.
Four men armed,
but not against us.
Four messengers of peace.
They're very young,
with rough boyish faces
under heavy fur hats,
perched on their
enormous horses.
They don't greet us,
they don't smile.
They seem overwhelmed,
not just by compassion
but something else,
something that seals their lips
and keeps their eyes fixed
to the scene around them.
It's shame.
We know this shame.
It's the shame that swamped us
after the selections,
and every time we had to watch,
or submit to some outrage.
It's the shame
which the just man feels
at another man's crime.
A feeling of guilt that
such a thing even exists.
This is why few of us
ran to greet our saviors,
few knelt in prayer.
Charles and I remained
standing beside the pit
overflowing with
discolored limbs,
while others began to
break down the barbed wire.
And then we returned
with the empty stretcher
to break the news
to our companions.