Later that morning, a thunderous rendition of “Alouette” sounds throughout Block 31. Avi Fischer conducts the choir with his habitual cheerfulness, and the children, no matter their age, delight in singing the song that has become Block 31’s anthem. Dita joins the chorus. They are all caught up in the acoustic vibration of the music. Practically all of the 360 children in the hut empty their lungs to form a single voice of many parts.
When they have finished, Seppl Lichtenstern announces that it will soon be the Passover Seder meal and that the leaders of the children’s barrack are working hard to make it a momentous occasion. The children clap, and some even whistle enthusiastically. Rumors have been rife that the block chief has spent days trying to get hold of enough ingredients on the black market for the celebration. It’s the sort of news that makes the day-to-day more cheerful and provides an air of normality for the children. Another rumor that has spread through the camp with the speed of light is about the escape of an inmate called Lederer. That was why they had to have the second roll call and why they’d ordered that the heads of all male prisoners, including boys, be shaved. The Kapos kept yelling out the word hygiene, but it was all about spite. Luckily for Dita’s thick head of hair, the women were spared.
But what does it matter?
The Germans are particularly irritated by this escape because they say Lederer got away thanks to the collaboration of an SS guard who has deserted. Nothing could rile them more. Any rope, no matter how crude, will do to hang him. Margit told Dita that the guard in question is the one who used to meet Renée, but Renée’s not talking to anyone. Not about this, not about anything.
And at this stage, thank God, they haven’t been caught.
Fate is fate. Dita is walking along the Lagerstrasse, eyes and ears alert for any sign of Mengele. But the person she spies is a high-ranking prisoner whom she’d occasionally seen on the other side of the fence. Dita has spent weeks racking her brains, trying to find a way to meet him, and now here he is, walking by himself with his hands in his pockets. He’s wearing trousers that look like jodhpurs, as if he were a Kapo. But it is the registrar of the quarantine camp, Rudi Rosenberg.
“Excuse me…”
Rudi slows down but doesn’t stop. He’s very focused on his own plan. There’s no going back anymore. The itch has become unbearable. Dead or alive, he has to get out of here. He can’t wait any longer. The day is set, and there are only a few loose ends to tie up to do with supplies. The ball is rolling, and he can’t allow himself any distractions.
“What do you want?” he answers grumpily. “I don’t have any food to give you.”
“That’s not what I’m after. I worked in Block Thirty-One with Fredy Hirsch.”
Rosenberg nods but keeps on walking, and Dita has to quicken her pace in order to keep up with him.
“I knew him—”
“Don’t kid yourself. Nobody knew that man. He didn’t allow it.”
“But he was brave. Did he say anything to you that would explain why he killed himself?”
Rosenberg pauses briefly and looks at her with a tired expression on his face.
“He was human. You all thought he was a biblical patriarch, a legendary Golem, or something like that.” He sighs dismissively. “He had created this aura of a hero. But he wasn’t up to it. I saw him; he was a man like any other. To put it plainly, he couldn’t take it anymore. He snapped, just like anyone else would have. Is that so hard to understand? Forget him. His moment is gone. Just focus on how you’re going to get out of here alive.”
Rudi, visibly out of sorts, brings the conversation to a close and walks off. Dita thinks about what he has said, and his hostile tone. Of course Hirsch was human; he had his weaknesses, as she well knows. He never said he wasn’t afraid; of course he was. What he did say was that you had to swallow your fear. Rosenberg is one of those people who knows many things—everyone says so. He has given her sound advice: Just think about yourself. But Dita doesn’t want to be sensible.
April has brought warmer temperatures, and the biting cold of winter has eased. The rain has turned the Lagerstrasse into a quagmire full of puddles, and respiratory illnesses have increased with the damp. The cart that picks up the dead in the camp each morning is full of bodies overcome by pneumonia. Cholera takes many of them, too, and even typhus. It’s not a sudden overall increase in deaths like in an epidemic, but a steady trickle.
April has brought not only a flood of water to Birkenau, but a flood of transports, too. There are days when up to three trains crammed with Jews arrive, spilling water and people onto the new platforms inside the camp. The children in Block 31 become unsettled; they want to go outside to see the trains arriving and wonder at the mountains of suitcases and packages piled up on the ground. Boxes and boxes of food, which they stare at greedily, their mouths watering.
“Look, a huge cheese,” shouts a ten-year-old boy called Wiki.
“And scattered over the ground … is that cucumbers?”
“My God, a box of chestnuts!”
“Oh, you’re right. It’s chestnuts!”
“If only the wind would blow just one chestnut over here! I’m not asking for much—just one chestnut!” And Wiki starts to pray quietly: “God in heaven, just one chestnut. Nothing more!”
A little girl of five with a grubby face and hair like a scrubbing brush takes a few steps forward, and an adult hand grabs her by the shoulder so she won’t go any farther.
“What are chestnuts?”
The older children laugh as they look at her, but then they grow serious. The little girl has never seen a chestnut. She’s never tasted a roasted chestnut or the typical November chestnut cake. Wiki decides that if God hears him and the wind blows over a chestnut, he’ll give half of it to the little girl. You haven’t lived if you don’t know what a chestnut tastes like.