Jacob was caught off guard. “How did you know?” he asked.
“Josef told me it would be soon,” she replied. “He could see it coming. Honestly, I didn’t really think you’d come to see me again. I’m glad you did. I wanted to see you.”
“You did?” A thousand different thoughts swirled through his head, yet he was hard-pressed to understand a single one of them, much less articulate any of them to her.
“Here,” she said. “I have something for you.”
She pulled a small package from the pocket of her crisp, white nurse’s uniform. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a piece of string.
“What’s this?” he asked as she handed it to him.
“Just a little going-away present,” Abby said. “Promise me you’ll open it the first night you’re really free, okay?”
“Of course,” he said, deeply moved by her gesture of kindness. “What is it?”
“That will be the fun part,” she whispered. “Something to look forward to. Something just between you and me. But don’t open it until you’re free, okay?”
“I promise.”
“Good.”
“Thank you, Abby,” Jacob replied. “Whatever it is, I’ll treasure it and the memory of your kindness to me.”
Now it was Abigail’s turn to blush.
“You probably think I didn’t bring you anything,” he said. But to her visible surprise, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, brown leather diary.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wrap it. I didn’t think of that part.”
“That’s okay,” Abby said, taking the journal in her hands and smelling the leather. “Oh, goodness—it’s real.”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I lifted it from Canada soon after I started working there,” he said. “It was going to be a diary of everything that happened here, but I just couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t what?”
“I couldn’t write any of it down. I didn’t want to remember anything. So I started to write poems.”
“Poems? Really?”
Jacob shrugged. “I loved reading poetry growing up. My mom got me started. And after I met you, well, I started writing some of my own. They’re not very good. And no one’s ever read them. But—I don’t know—I just, well, thought I’d give them to you. Feel free to throw them away if you don’t like them. I—I’m sorry. I know it sounds kind of foolish. But . . .”
His voice trailed off. He had already said too much.
“No, it’s not foolish,” she said, looking back into his eyes. “It’s sweet, just like you.” She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. “Thank you, Jacob.”
For a moment, Jacob stared at the floor, unable to hold her gaze. But then, with an uncharacteristic flash of confidence, he looked up and half smiled. “Thank you, Abby. I’ll never forget you.”
His voice caught. He was overcome with embarrassment. He hugged her once more, then fled the room, his heart racing.
72
That night, Jacob lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.
Unable to sleep, he wanted to just think about Abby and replay their last conversation in his head again and again. But he wouldn’t let himself. Not now. He had to stay focused.
Jacob carefully reviewed his mental checklist. Had he done everything he was supposed to? Had he paid attention to every tiny detail? Had he dotted every i and crossed every t? The backpack was now in place—that was the most important thing. It was filled not only with all the supplies he had gathered but with bread and carrots and apples and even several hunks of cheese that Luc had been able to obtain over the past several days.
Most important of all, the backpack contained a metal box that was filled with all manner of details about Auschwitz-Birkenau. It contained precise maps of the camps, detailing exactly what each building was and how it was used. It contained schematic plans of the gas chambers themselves. Also in there were handwritten copies of critical documents from the records office listing all the trains that had ever arrived, where they had originated from, how many prisoners were on each train, and how many of the prisoners were sent to the left and how many to the right. There were carefully copied pages from the official ledgers detailing how many Jews had been killed and in what manner, as well as how many political prisoners had been killed and the nature of their deaths. There were three actual labels from canisters of Zyklon B gas. There was even an empty canister with its label still attached.
It had taken more than two months to collect all these materials. It had been Jacob’s idea, and he had gathered much of it himself, using Luc and Josef and Abby and their various contacts throughout the camps. They had begged, bribed, and cajoled to get every item. They hadn’t been able to pull everything together in time for Steinberger and Frenkel. But the package was ready now. The problem was they had only one. They didn’t have packages to send out with future teams of escapees. That put even more pressure on Jacob and Luc not only to get out of the camp safely but to get all the way to London and Washington. So much was riding on their escape. It absolutely had to work.
Jacob was now more certain than ever that the only way to convince the leaders of the Jewish councils in Czechoslovakia and Hungary and ultimately the Allies of what was really happening inside Auschwitz-Birkenau was to have hard evidence of genocide, not simply eyewitness accounts, as compelling as those were. Luc had been stunned when he first laid eyes on the strongbox and the complete set of treasures it contained. This was exactly what they needed, he told Jacob. Luc said he was humbled and honored to be entrusted with the task of getting this evidence to the proper authorities on the outside. It was, Luc agreed, vital that they have rock-solid proof of the terrible crimes that Hoess and Von Strassen and the others were committing—proof he could give to his grandfather, proof his grandfather could give to President Roosevelt.
They were ready. They had everything they needed. And now the day of reckoning had arrived.
As the sun began to rise and the barracks began to stir, Jacob realized he had not slept a wink. He knew he should have, and he had genuinely tried. It simply was not possible.
One way or the other, he and Jean-Luc Leclerc were leaving Auschwitz-Birkenau today.
And not by the chimneys.
73
JUNE 2, 1944
It was already six minutes after two o’clock.
Jacob was late. He was caught in a ridiculous conversation with his block senior about some paperwork the records office said was not filled out correctly, and he could not seem to get out of it. He promised his block senior he would correct the paperwork later that day. But he simultaneously insisted that he had some supplies he was supposed to deliver to some guards out on one of the construction sites on behalf of the men in their block, and he really needed to get that taken care of before they got angry.
“Supplies?” his senior asked. “What kind of supplies?”
“Gloves,” Jacob said. “Brown leather gloves. They’re very particular. So may I go now?”
“Why don’t they get their own gloves?” the senior asked skeptically.
“They’re lazy bums; what can I say?” Jacob said. “But when I took water out to the men yesterday, the guards insisted I bring them more gloves. I was supposed to take them before lunch, but I ran out of time. I really need to go.”
“Let me see them,” the senior demanded, grabbing for the package under Jacob’s arm.
Jacob froze. What was this all about? Why all the questions? Why the suspicion? And why today?
Fortunately, the package under his arm really was filled with brown leather gloves. Josef had smuggled them out of Canada for him. Actually, Josef had been willing to smuggle out items far more valuable than gloves. After all, these guards had to be mollified at any cost, especially today. But all that these Nazi thugs had wanted were brown leather gloves, so brown leather gloves it was.
Jacob tried not to imagine what wou
ld have happened if his block senior had been this nosy about the large crate he had “taken to the men” the day before. That crate had actually contained the backpack with all of their supplies. Had his block senior inquired about the contents of the crate instead of these gloves, Jacob would now be swinging from a beam with a rope around his neck. Maybe there really was a God.
“Very well, carry on,” the block senior said at last, satisfied that Jacob was telling the truth. “But get me some too.”
“Uh . . . sure . . . of course. What color?” Jacob stammered.
“Black, like the commandant wears,” the senior said. “Can you get me a pair like that?”
“I don’t know, but I can try,” Jacob lied. “Might take a few days. Is that okay?”
“Fine, just do it,” the senior ordered, then waved him off.
Jacob turned and moved quickly out the door of the barracks without pause and without looking back. Only when he was several hundred yards away from the barracks did he begin to relax. Still, he was late, and he knew Luc and Josef must be nearing panic.
Clipboard under his arm, and making sure he had the requisite countenance of a registrar—busy and bothered and harried, as usual—Jacob finally reached the checkpoint and waited for the guards to let him pass. But they, too, began to harass him. They asked at least a dozen questions about why he kept going out to the construction site when he wasn’t on a construction detail. When he said he was keeping an eye on the men in his block, on the direct orders of his block senior, they demanded to know the name of his senior and why the kapo in charge of the detail wasn’t supervision enough. They searched his package, of course, coveted the gloves, and confiscated two pairs for themselves.
There was nothing Jacob could do. There was no point in protesting, certainly not today. So he tried to be patient even though he could see the watch on one of the guards’ wrists.
It now was nearly two thirty.
Minutes went by, and the guards seemed in no mind to let him pass. Then, all of a sudden, they let him go. He hadn’t done or said anything differently. Nothing else had happened out of the ordinary. It was simply as though someone had thrown a switch and changed their minds. It was a curious moment. And then another curious thought crossed his mind. Luc was praying for him. Maybe Abby was too.
Jacob shook off the thought and told himself to stay focused. He didn’t need his head filled with all kinds of hocus-pocus today of all days. He needed to do his job and be careful about every little detail.
He passed out of the main Birkenau camp, through the double electrified fences, and onto the path to Birkenau-III. Once through, he walked as rapidly as he could for the guard hut. Though he wanted to run, he knew full well it was verboten to run outside the fences. It was an automatic death sentence, no questions asked. A few brown leather gloves would be no help in such a scenario. The best he could do now was walk briskly, so that’s what he did.
Five minutes later he arrived at the hut, knowing he was going to get an earful from the four guards who expected a pair of gloves each. Sure enough, they exploded. Two of them, anyway. The first two grabbed their gloves and put them on. The other two were livid. Jacob tried to explain what had happened, that the guards at the gate had taken some of them, but they wouldn’t listen. They ranted and raved and spewed obscenities at him, and one of them grabbed him and slammed him against the wall of the hut.
For a moment Jacob forgot about the escape mission. He began to fear for his life. He knew fellow prisoners who had been beaten by guards for far less serious infractions than this. He apologized profusely. He pleaded with the men to let him go. He promised on his mother’s grave that he would get more gloves and bring them first thing in the morning, as soon as roll call was finished. Finally this seemed to mollify them, if only temporarily.
“You will be here with the gloves first thing tomorrow, and no excuses,” one said, spitting as he fumed. “Otherwise I will smash your skull with my boot. And if you don’t show, I will hunt you down and kill you in your sleep. Don’t think I won’t. You hear me?”
Jacob nodded.
“Do . . . you . . . hear . . . me?” the guard shouted in his face.
“Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir,” Jacob replied, nodding and trembling and not entirely sure they were really going to let him go.
But they did, and he bolted out of the hut. He didn’t dare go straight to the woodpile, even though it was now almost 2:45 p.m. He was terrified that he was being watched, so he started walking along the path back to the main gate, back to the main camp. Then, glancing over his shoulder and convinced the guards weren’t watching—at least not at that split second—he ducked inside one of the newly built barracks, came out the other side, and doubled back around to the lumber pile where his friends were waiting.
He could see the intense anxiety etched on the faces of Luc and Josef. He knew they could see the fear on his face as well. There was no time to ask questions about their day, and there was no point in their asking about his. They were behind schedule and scared, and they had to get moving. So with a quick glance around, Josef scrambled to the top of the pile, just as Jacob had done for Steinberger and Frenkel. Once up there, Josef pushed aside the top few boards that created the roof of the hideout and pulled Luc up with him. They glanced around again and saw that the coast was clear, and Luc dropped into the hole and out of sight. Then Josef helped Jacob up, and he dropped into position too.
“Thank you, Josef,” Jacob said as his friend replaced the boards over their heads. “Now, remember all I told you. Take your first chance to get out too.”
“Thank you. I will—you can count on it,” Josef replied as he sprinkled dried tobacco over the top of the lumber and then jumped down to sprinkle more around the base. “Godspeed, boys. We’re counting on you.”
The words echoed in Jacob’s ears and in his heart. His dearest friends in the world were counting on them to succeed. Indeed, the entire camp was. Though almost none of the thousands upon thousands of prisoners around them knew it, their very lives depended in no small measure on what Jacob Weisz and Jean-Luc Leclerc did next.
It was a tremendous honor, yet a daunting responsibility, and Jacob didn’t dare let them down.
74
It was an odd hiding place.
It was not simply a normal pile of lumber. Yes, there were several layers of two-by-fours on top, but underneath those was a stack of six prefabricated hut sections. There were six frames, six sets of doors, and six sets of wall panels. Normally they would have been positioned in such a way that there was very little space between the various pieces. In this case, they had been arranged to allow for two average-size men to lie down side by side or to stand nearly erect in the space between the hut sections. Before arriving, Jacob had assumed it would be sufficient. But now he found it more cramped than he had expected. It was also almost pitch-black, for the only sources of light were the tiny slivers coming through a few of the narrow crevices between the boards.
Jacob and Luc had decided ahead of time that they would not say a single word to one another from the time Josef closed them inside till the moment they could be certain the manhunt had been called off. Theoretically, Von Strassen and his team could keep hunting for longer than the seventy-two hours mandated by the camp regulations, but being Germans, they went by the rule book. If the field manual said seventy-two hours, then they would conduct their manhunt for seventy-two hours and not a minute more.
That said, the next roll call would begin at seven. It would probably be around seven thirty before they were discovered missing. They figured, therefore, that the manhunt would begin at or around 8 p.m. It would continue until 8 p.m. on Monday, June 5. But though the hunt would officially be over at that point, there would still be plenty of daylight, especially with summer approaching and the days growing longer. That’s why Steinberger and Frenkel had added another few hours to their time in the hole, deciding not to leave their hiding spot until two in the morning.
> Personally, Jacob felt comfortable leaving the hideout at midnight. That would be well after everyone in the camp except for just a few night watchmen would be fast asleep. But Luc was insistent that they stick with Steinberger and Frenkel’s approach. All told, it added up to about eighty-four hours.
They would endeavor not to talk or make any sound during all that time. After all, they couldn’t really see who, if anyone, might be walking near the lumber pile at any given moment, and they didn’t dare take the risk of being overheard. So they went into silent mode.
Still, there were things they needed to do quickly, before the evening roll call began. The first task was to change clothes. Jacob had noticed the two sets of camp uniforms lying on the ground when he dropped into the hole—mementos of Otto and Abe’s stay almost two months earlier. He was glad the two had left their uniforms behind, for it gave him and Luc something relatively clean and dry to lie down on. Unfortunately, it did little to insulate the men from the ground, which was colder than Jacob had anticipated.
It was challenging to change clothes in the dark. Jacob went first. As quietly as possible, he opened the backpack and felt around for his clothes. He had positioned his set on top to minimize confusion. First, however, he pulled two watches out of the side pocket of the backpack, gave one to Luc, and put the other on his own wrist. The phosphorescent dials allowed them to see the time at any moment, day or night, and they made sure both were in sync. It was precisely 3:07. They were in business.
Next Jacob stripped off his zebra-striped uniform and removed his cap and wooden clogs and set them aside. Then he put on a black undershirt, a dark-blue button-down work shirt, and khaki trousers with a leather belt already threaded through the belt loops. Over the shirt he pulled on a thick black knit sweater and a black knit cap. Then he located the jacket Josef had found for him at Canada and put that on as well. Last of all he donned a fresh pair of clean black socks and brown leather walking shoes.