Chapter 5
Had Hauptmann Von Teich returned, as promised, things might have been better for Rachel. However, on his returning to the death camp, his car rolled over a land mine, and the Nazi captain was scattered into quite a few pieces; some small and some large.
The third Reich was fast running out of officers, what with those not being sent to the Russian front being wiped out by Hitler, himself, thinking almost everyone was in on the attack that should have taken his life. And so, to the death camp came Roberta Kappelmann, a woman with blonde hair and deathly grey eyes who was no less sadistic than her predecessors. She had crooked teeth, but a straight, short, Aryan nose, and straw-colored hair. Her chin was small and weak, and like everyone with an inferiority complex who has been given excessive power, Roberta, or Bobbi as she was unaffectionately known, fought to overcome what she believed she had to be inferior about by conducting the usual reign of terror.
On seeing Rachel, a glittering shine lit up her dead eyes. Bobbi was a lesbian, and always enjoyed comparing her body to that of other women. However, Bobbi believed in rule by absolute fear, and she knew Rachel, who had been used and certainly abused by Von Teich, might not agree to be fondled by a woman. Fear had to be infused in the girl. so the first thing she did was send Rachel back to the lager, or barracks, from which she had come.
More than half the women Rachel had come to know in the six weeks she had spent in the barracks had already been gassed and cremated. The other half took what little pleasure there was in tearing half her hair out of her head and scratching her.
That afternoon, when the women were lined up, Rachel among them, and the soldiers marched in, Rachel heard her own name included in the selection. All her efforts had been for nothing. All the struggling, the offerings of her body... all had been useless. She was going to die anyway.
She was led to a line of women who marched, single file, toward the large brick buildings with the chimneys that belched smoke. The ashes seemed even heavier as they poured down on her, that day, and she heard the sobbing and walling of the women with whom she was marching. Tightlipped, the girl clamped her teeth together. The Nazi scum might rob her of her life, but what little dignity she had left was hers. She would neither cry out nor whimper or beg. Many of the women who had attacked her for using her body to fight for her life, now marched in line with her. Most of them had stick-thin arms and bellies bloated with air. Their faces were merely skin-casings over skulls.
"Inside!" the commander of the squadron ordered, and the women walked into one of the buildings. Straight ahead was a huge, open door.
"You are all going to be cleansed," the commander told them. "Nice, clean showers, so you can wash the dirt and the lice from your bodies." And he laughed harshly. The women knew all about the shower rooms. Word had filtered back right at the beginning. They knew now, there was no hope.
They were ordered to disrobe outside, leaving their filthy grey robes on the stone floor. They did so, Rachel with all the others. She was the only female there who still looked human, much less good. Naked, feeling icy terror shiver through her entire body, Rachel entered the huge chamber with all the other women. It was stone all around, with showerheads in the ceiling. But there were no drains in the floor. Somehow she managed to move to a corner and huddled there by herself, listening to the screaming and the crying of everyone around her. They wept loudly, clinging to one another, begging, yelling, some even urinating where they stood.
The large iron door clanged shut, and there was darkness. How considerate of the Nazis to keep them from seeing each other die. The screams continued for awhile, then subsided into whimpers, and finally there were only a few muffled sobs as they waited.
Rachel listened, and then there was a hiss. The women began screaming again, and Rachel, accepting the fact that she was dead, stood there completely silent.
And then the noise stopped. A ceiling light went on, and suddenly water began cascading from the showerheads. It was filthy water, brackish and black, and it splashed all over the women. For a moment they were terrified again, screaming, afraid some kind of acid or poison liquid was being rained on them. When they realized it was water from the latrine, they screamed again, but this time with laughter. It wasn't gas. They weren't being killed... at least not yet.
Water was up to her knees as Rachel stood there, refusing to smile. Nothing had happened, yet. She wanted out of there before daring to feel any kind of hope. She knew the Nazis too well. They might still gas them, or even drown them in this turd-filled water.
A loud thunk sounded, and then the huge metal door was swinging open. The women went screaming out, running insanely, more than happy to be prodded into a line to be marched back to their lager.
Rachel was the last one to walk out. She looked at the man by the door, and said, "What happened?"
"We haff been out of gas for nearly a week," the man told her, a wicked smiled playing on his lips. "But we put the women in here, anyway. Then we let them out for a moment, and they think they will not die."
"They think?" Rachel asked.
"You are Rachel Kisselborg?" the man asked.
"That's right," Rachel nodded.
"Ja! From the look of you, you had to be her. I haff special orders concerning you. You are not to go with the other women."
"Where are they going?" Rachel asked.
"You may see for yourself," the soldier told her.
She watched and ?aw the women were not being led back to the lager. Rather their hands were being tied, and then they were marched directly into the crematorium, and there, each was bodily thrown into the roaring flames of the massive ovens while she was still alive. The horrendous shrieks were sounds Rachel would hear for many, many years to come.
"They scream for a short time," the soldier told her. "But the flames soon cut them off. It is a shame that we are running out of fuel for the ovens, soon we will be digging pits out in back and cremating the Jews by pouring gasoline all over them and roasting them alive in the pits. Still, they will burn for a long time and keep the camp warm this winter."
Rachel didn't bother to reply. The man, like all of his breed, was sick. There was no reasoning with a Nazi. Rachel realized the only way to handle them was to totally wipe them out. They were the breed in need of extermination. Yes, rather than come to understand that what the Nazis were doing was unconscionable, Rachel became more prejudiced than ever against them. In her mind, all Germans were Nazis. None of them must ever be forgiven. They had to be wiped out, along with all the others Rachel had come to hate. Before the Nazis had come to her Czech village, the Russians had marched in. They were no better. It was rumored the Russians were closer to Auschwitz than any of the other allies. And if they were the ones to "liberate" the camp, Rachel knew the Jews were just as dead.