“Soon, Helga, very soon.”
In Auschwitz, everyone is obsessed with leaving, getting out of there and leaving that place behind forever. The only dreams, the only demands of God are to go home.
There is someone, however, who is moving in the reverse direction, someone who is returning to Auschwitz. Against all logic, against all wisdom, against all good sense, Viktor Pestek is traveling in a train toward O?wi?cim, at the edge of which the biggest extermination camp in history has been built.
On May 25, 1944, Viktor Pestek reverses his journey of six weeks earlier: After he and Lederer had walked out of the Lager gate, they had caught a train in O?wi?cim, according to their plan. The Czech, dressed as a lieutenant, had pretended to fall asleep as soon as they took their seats, and none of the patrols that swept through the train had dared even think about bothering an SS officer who was peacefully sleeping on the way to Krakow.
Once they had reached their destination, and without even leaving the station, they immediately caught a train to Prague. Viktor remembers that moment of hesitation when it came time to get off at Prague’s huge main station. He particularly recalls the look he and Lederer exchanged. It was the moment to abandon the relative safety of the train compartment and launch themselves without any defenses into a place full of watchful eyes. Pestek’s instructions had been clear: head high, eyes front, a disagreeable expression, and no stopping.
The waiting room in the station had been overrun with Wehrmacht soldiers who looked at their black SS uniforms with a mixture of respect and distrust. The civilians hadn’t even dared raise their heads to give them a glance. No one had dared to address them. Lederer had suggested that they head for Plzen, where he had friends. Once there, they hid their SS clothes and found refuge in an abandoned cabin in the woods on the outskirts of the town. Lederer had cautiously started to reach out to his contacts so they could get false documents for the two of them and for Renée and her mother. That had taken several weeks. What they didn’t know was that the Gestapo was hot on their heels.
For this return to Auschwitz, Pestek is wearing civilian clothes and carries a duffel bag, his SS uniform perfectly folded inside so he can put it on for one last time.
From his window seat, Viktor goes over the plan he has executed thousands of times already in his head. He took a sheet of paper from the camp office with the Katowice Command Headquarters stamp on it and prepared an authorization to collect Renée and her mother. It was common for the Gestapo to order prisoners to the Katowice detention center for interrogation. A pickup was organized, the prisoners were taken to the guardhouse at the camp’s entrance, and a car from Katowice Headquarters collected them. Many never returned.
Viktor knows the procedure well. He knows which code words are used. He will make the call requesting that the two prisoners be made available for the Gestapo. And a member of the SS will go in a car to collect them up from Auschwitz–Birkenau. It will be Lederer, with the stamped authorization Viktor prepared before their escape. His fellow fugitive speaks perfect German. He’ll pick up the women, collect Viktor in a spot nearby and then—freedom.
Lederer left one day earlier to meet with his Resistance contacts, who will provide them with a car. It must be dark and discreet. And German, of course.
Viktor’s only doubt occurs when he tries to imagine Renée’s reaction once they are free. He won’t be an SS officer, and she won’t be a prisoner. She’ll be free to love him or reject him because of his previous life. She has said so little during their meetings that he realizes he knows very little about her. But that’s not important to Viktor: They have their entire lives in front of them.
The train draws into the O?wi?cim station very slowly. It’s a gloomy afternoon. He’d forgotten the dirty color of the sky above Auschwitz. There aren’t many people on the platform, but he spies Lederer sitting on a bench reading a newspaper. He was afraid the Czech would pull out at the last minute, but Lederer told him Viktor could count on him, and there he is. Nothing can go wrong now.
He gets out, happy to be so close to Renée. He pictures her smiling at him and tugging at one of those curls until it reaches her mouth. Lederer gets up from his bench to walk over to him. But two columns of SS guards beat him to it, almost bowling him over as they run onto the platform, machine guns at the ready.
Victor knows they’ve come for him.
The officer in charge blows stridently on his whistle and shouts. Pestek calmly sets his bag on the ground. SS soldiers yell at him to put his hands in the air; others shout at him to keep still or they’ll kill him right there. It seems chaotic, but it’s precisely executed. Contradictory orders are shouted out to confuse and paralyze the suspect. He smiles to himself sadly. He knows the procedure for an arrest by heart; he’s carried it out himself many times.
On the platform, Lederer slowly retreats. They haven’t noticed him, and he takes advantage of the commotion caused by the arrest to slip away. As he walks off, trying to stay calm, he curses the heavens: The Resistance is riddled with informers. Someone has betrayed them. He finds an unchained motorbike in town, gets on it, and doesn’t look back.
Viktor Pestek is taken to the central quarters of the SS. They will torture him for days. They want to know why he came back to Auschwitz; they want information about the Resistance, but he knows nothing about them, and he says nothing about his relationship with Renée Neumann. He will remain in jail until he is executed on October 8, 1944.
26.
Margit and Dita are sitting at the back of the hut. The afternoons have grown longer, and it’s even starting to get a bit hot. It’s a sticky heat in Auschwitz, stained with swirls of ash. The girls’ conversation has tapered off. Their friendship has reached a point where moments of silence don’t bother them. An old friend suddenly appears.
“Renée! It’s been a long time!”
The blond girl gives a faint smile at the reception. She tugs down a curl and chews it. Hardly anyone has treated her kindly in recent times.
“Did you hear about Lederer’s escape with a first officer of the SS who didn’t want to be a Nazi anymore?”
“Yes. It was that Nazi you used to tell us about, the one who used to look at you.…”
Renée nods her head very slowly.
“It turns out he wasn’t a bad person,” she tells them. “He really didn’t like what was going on in here. That’s why he deserted.”