Michał Behrman / Mixed Media on Paper / 60cm x 40cm / Circa July 1944 / Origin: Crematoria II, Auschwitz-Birkenau
Sturm is as anxious as I, the night of our first sitting. He cannot decide how to sit. He hangs his hands straight down by his sides, perches them on the edge of the stool, places them on his knees then clasps them in his lap. He folds his arms across his chest, but no, this will not do either, he mutters to himself. It will cover the medals that will surely come – the ones that I, or someone else, will add to the portrait later as required. The arms return to his sides. Then the legs start.
For all his posturing, his face maintains the same expression throughout, one which he presumably considers suitably military. His lips are pursed, pushed into crinkles; his chin positioned at an almost seventy-five degree angle to his neck. He stares straight down the bridge of his nose at me; his eyes, the peak of his cap, appearing almost level with his nostrils. The effect is comical. Were it anyone else, I would laugh.
Instead, I wait – what can I do? To initiate conversation with an SS is prohibited, and I am not about to take the risk that my being commissioned for this special task
somehow dissolves that rule. Yet this puts me in a difficult situation, for the young Unterscharführer’s pose is untenable; I cannot draw him as he is. Even the outline – beyond the rough arc of his shoulders, the thickness of his neck – cannot be marked out until the head is lowered. The pencil he has given me becomes slippery in my hand as the palm sweats.
I wait.
He exhales loudly – he has been holding his breath, I realise.
“Will you not begin?”
“Yes, Unterscharführer – though could I ask you to look here, if you don’t mind?” I hold my finger out to the side.
He obliges, dipping his chin and looking slightly to my left.
The outline is not so difficult, and is completed well within the assigned hour of our session. But it is when Sturm comes to assess my progress that the problems begin.
Moving from his stool to stand behind mine, he peers over my shoulder at the square of canvas, which is pinned at each corner to the wooden board propped on a chair that is serving as my easel.
“It does not look like me,” he says.
In fact it is an excellent likeness, but I play along.
“It is not unusual at this stage, Unterscharführer. Once the paint is applied-“
A sharp backhand to my temple lets me know my opinion is uncalled for. I hit the concrete floor before I have time to put my arms out to break my fall.
“It is not right,” he says.
“What would you have me change?” I reply, hoisting myself back up, trying to ignore the blood trickling from my brow where his wedding ring has split the skin.
“My nose,” he says, after considering a while. “It is too big.”
His nose is perfectly proportioned, but I make it smaller.
“And the eyes; put them further apart.”
On and on the corrections come – the hairline, the ear, the lips – each new version taking the image further from his true face. Yet he seems convinced that at any moment the picture he desires will appear, the one that I cannot see.
“Perhaps if I hold my gun,” he says, returning to the stool.
“Your gun?”
“Yes,” he says, drawing his Luger from a leather sheath at his waist. He aims it at me.
“It will make me look more authoritative, don’t you think?”
All I can see is the little black hole of the muzzle pointing between my eyes.
“I am sure it will.”
“See that it does,” he says, bringing it back to his chest where he holds it, cocked up and outwards.
At last I understand what he wants. I raise my shaking hand to the picture, steadying it against the board before continuing. This time when I re-sketch, I add not only the gun but broader shoulders, a squarer jawline and a furrow between the eyebrows. The baby fat beneath his chin is erased, as is the soft flesh beneath his lower lash line. I narrow the eyes too, so that he scowls out of the frame.
“Better,” he says, as I hold the canvas up for his approval. He stands and looks at his watch. “That is enough for tonight; return to your unit.”
“Yes, Unterscharführer.”
“You would do well to make it a good picture,” he tells me as I leave. “I am going to be a great hero someday. They might hang your painting in a gallery – think of that.”
I think of that.
“Zink of Zat!” I ape to Adir and Eliezer.
I march to the door, keeping my legs straight, kicking them up to a right angle with my body.
“That amoretz,” Adir exclaims, doubled over with laughter.
“A perfect idiot,” Eliezer agrees, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“A useful idiot,” I say.
I produce a sausage Sturm gave me from the breast pocket of my coat. They applaud as I divide it up and distribute it amongst the three of us.
“Quiet, down there!” Selig calls from the bunk above. “We have work tomorrow.”
“And for some of us it is pay day!” I retort.
We eat, sitting side-by-side on my bed, our bodies still ripe with the smell of the chlorine disinfectant we use for washing down the crematoria.
“How many days do you think you can stiff him for?” Eliezer whispers.
“Three,” I reply, “four, at most.”
“We had better make a start then.”
“I said silence!” shouts Selig.
We reconvene in the washroom. Adir brings three bowls and a smooth rock, Eliezer a small penknife and a pocketful of ashes, and I some oil and a few onion skins that I managed to buy from the kitchen workers who brought us our dinner. We say little, aware of the time; the days here are long enough without cutting into our sleep.
Eliezer hands me the knife. I crouch beneath the washroom troughs and begin scraping the rust from the faucet pipes into one of the bowls. Adir sits cross-legged on the floor, where he grinds the onion skins to pale brown powder with the rock. Eliezer, meanwhile, uses his hands to mix the ashes and a little of the oil into a grey paste.
“We’re going to need white too,” I tell them, “for the gorget patches.”
We line up on the new ramp in the centre of Birkenau. The morning is blisteringly cold, keeping our chins tucked to our chests and our shoulders up. I desperately want to stamp my feet, to walk a few steps to bring the feeling back. I am sure the rest must
too, but not one of the Sonderkommando breaks formation. In front of us, an SS walks up and down the line, issuing instructions. I try to concentrate on what he is saying, but it is hard with his back turned towards me half the time and the wind whistling by my ears. What I do hear is only what we have been told fifty times before anyway:
almost six-hundred to be processed; luggage here, here and here; separate quickly into two groups, men, then women, children and the infirm; first group to registration, the others straight to the forest; get them undressed, move the clothes; check the ovens are prepared; one woman and two children on a pallet, or one man and one child;
every fifteen minutes and do not forget the fans.
“Verstanden?” the guard shouts.
“Ja!” the group replies.
As the officer stomps back into place, I become aware of a slowly building noise, like rocks being poured from the quarry trucks: another train is coming. I lift my head as the great black beast roars into the camp, charges up to the platform and lurches to a halt. Steam gushes from beneath its belly. I close my eyes as the fog hits, trying not to stumble out of line as I splutter.
From somewhere outside this hot, hissing cloud, I hear the order given:
“Vorwärts! Vorwärts!”
The wagon doors open and people fall out, tumbling over each other like bones. All I can hear are the shouts of the guards – “Raus! Raus!” – echoing in my ears. My sinuses and throat are invaded by the stench of urine, excrement, menstrual blood, vomit and sweat. I begin grabbing at the space around me, yanking at an arm whenever I make contact until a face appears in front of me.
“What is your age?” I yell, again and again. “Where are your bags?”
As the air begins to clear, two distinct groups are formed: those who will be taken directly into the forest and those who will face selection. At the end of the ramp I observe an SS doctor who will run the latter operation. He by turns scours the group and mumbles instructions to an officer beside him holding a clipboard. Two small children – twins – stand shivering to one side of him; another guard shoves their mother back into the forest group.
Myself, Adir, Eliezer, Selig, and all the rest, stride through the confused crowds, confiscating suitcases, boxes and handbags. We bark instructions at them in Yiddish, both the official ones and those we have added in ourselves over time:
“No, join this group – you will be reunited after the disinfection.”
“Tell them you are eighteen at least.”
“Leave that here.”
“You have a trade? Make one up if not.”
“You will be fed after the shower.”
“Stand up straighter – puff your chest out.”
The prisoners look at us, bewildered and half-demented after the transport. Some won’t release their grip on suitcase handles and have to be kicked down. Others refuse to let go of their children or partners; the guards deal with them.
Amidst this commotion it is easy for Adir, Eliezer and I to engage in a further act of subterfuge. As we move the prisoners between groups we scan them for snatches of colour, keeping a running tally among ourselves.
“Green,” Adir calls, as he informs a woman he must confiscate her felt hat.
“Purple,” Eliezer says, stuffing a pair of gloves into his trouser waistband.
“Those feathers are against regulation,” I tell a man, pointing to the band around his trilby. “Brush,” I say to the others as the man joins the selection crowd.
Adir is one of those assigned to escort the crematoria group into the forest. Eliezer and I are ordered to guard the prisoners’ luggage until the Kanada Kommando arrives to claim them. We watch as the remaining prisoners are ordered to strip then are pushed into a long line. The SS doctor stands at the head of it, brandishing a conductor’s baton. He listens intently as his assistant asks the men their ages and occupations, and tells them to run a few paces. A flick of his wrist indicates whether the prisoners should go to the left or right.
“Orange,” Eliezer whispers to me.
His eyes are focused on a silk scarf, trailing from the side of a suitcase.
Sturm has changed his mind by the time of our second session.
“No gun,” he tells me.
“As you wish, Unterscharführer.”
I continue sketching the detail of his uniform, completing the buttons and the belt buckle. I will tackle the eagle-and-swastika and Totenkopf skull badges of his cap next, I decide. Then the collar and those gorget patches – SS lightning bolts on one side, a
single diamond-shaped pin on the other – and the shoulder boards with their silver trim. After that I will see about adjusting the arms to omit the gun.
“Don’t you want to know why?” the soldier asks.
I am so surprised by the informal tone of his question that I cannot remember what he is referring to.
“The threat should be implied,” he says, unfazed by my lack of response. “It should be in my expression, my demeanour. Symbolism – this is what good art is about, yes?”
I nod, still blindsided by this break from functional speech. We are almost having a conversation – though admittedly I have not said anything yet.
“I thought so,” he says, gleefully. “You see, it is not just your people who read books.”
“You have read a book – on art?” I venture, hunching over in case he goes for me.
“Well, Kurschuss has. I showed him the picture. It was he who said I should not hold my gun. He also said that if you do a good job he may commission you himself.”
Suddenly I am picturing a whole exhibition of officers, all done by my hand:
Unterscharführers, Scharführers, Oberscharführers, members of the Hygiene Division.
The thought makes my head swim. I imagine my signature in the bottom corner of each of the paintings: the only trace of a Jew left in this bold new empire.
“Besides, there are much better ways to kill than with a gun – as we know,” the young soldier adds. I could swear he winks at me before saying: “I don’t want to be out-of-date, after all.”
“No. We wouldn’t want that.”
When the session is over, I put the pencil down and push the chair-easel back.
“How are you getting on with the colours?” he enquires.
“Quite well, Unterscharführer. But some will be difficult. White is a challenge, for example.”
“You said you were equipped to do this job,” he snaps. “If the work is substandard you will be punished.”
“Punished?” Eliezer mocks. “What will he do, beat you – again?”
He takes the extra bar of soap that was today’s payment and rubs it vigorously up and down his forearms, like a surgeon preparing for an operation.
“Give you a tougher work detail, perhaps?” snorts Adir.
He takes the soap from Eliezer and bends his head under the washroom tap, scrubbing his hair with his fingertips. The water in the trough below turns grey from the dislodged ash.
Once we are all redressed, we sit in the corner of the washroom in a triangle
formation. Between us, the colours we have collected sit like an offering: scarves, hats, gloves, handkerchiefs and other human accessories.
“Not a bad load,” I tell them. “We should be able to get most of the rest of the palette from these.”
“I can get them to Lisa tomorrow via the kitchen workers,” Adir says. “She will see that they make it to the pot.”
“And when can she get the dyes back to us?” I ask him.
“Hopefully the next day.”
“White,” Eliezer says suddenly. “We still don’t have white.”
It is in the furnace room of Crematoria II that we return to the subject of where to source white.
“Maggots?” Adir suggests, grunting as he yanks a gold tooth from one of the bodies before we haul it up onto the tray.
“They come out yellow,” I reply, grabbing the wrists of another.
Adir and I swing the man up and onto the tray beside the first corpse. I start to push it into the oven, but Adir stops me.
“They want a woman with each two men today, remember? Or two Muselmänner and two children”
We find a female, cut the hair and lob her on top of the stack. We have to push the bodies down hard to get them through the small archway of the furnace, causing the woman to expel lumpen grey fluid through the mouth.
“I know how she feels,” Adir jokes, leaping out of the way.
“SS morons,” I complain. “Overstocking the ovens will only block the channels.”
“That’s why we’re emptying the ashes after every two loadings,” Eliezer responds, dragging the next body over to us.
“And they want the coke stoked every twelve minutes,” I say. “Why the big rush?”
“Something’s afoot,” agrees Adir.
“Fingernails?” Eliezer interjects, waving the hand of a young woman at us.
“Also yellow,” I say, reaching down to grab her ankles.
Once we have finished the cremations, we rake the ashes from the ovens and begin the cleaning process. Eliezer grinds the bones that did not burn fully in a large pestle, while Adir and I set to hosing the walls and floors down ahead of the chlorine
disinfection.
“Bo- a-bide!” Eliezer yells.
“What?” shouts Adir, switching off the hose.
“Bones will be white,” he repeats, looking at the contents of the pestle. “Before they’re burnt, I mean.”
“Only when first stripped from the skin,” I say. “Give them a few minutes and they turn-“
“Yellow?” Adir guesses.
“Yellow.”
Eliezer looks at me quizzically: “I don’t want to know how you kno-“
”Enough talking!” Blockführer Kurschuss shouts. “We have to do a deep clean tonight.”
“See?” Adir whispers. “They’re preparing for something.”
Kurschuss turns to me.
“Sturm wants you,” he says. “You other two – stay.”
“Think of us while you’re sitting on your arse,” Eliezer grumbles as I exit.
This time when I enter the little room, I have new tools with me. Three brushes: one of straw, a second of feather, and another of human hair. I have a palette too: a sheet of cardboard, the blobs of raw paint set out on it. Adir’s three bowls are my mixing basins, while two half-filled jam jars will wash off the brushes. I also have two small rags, for blotting and correcting errors. All of these sit on the floor, forming a circle around my feet.
Yet when Sturm appears, he does not comment on my new set-up. Not a ‘Good’, not a criticism, not a blow to the side of the head. Instead he seats himself on the stool and assumes his pose. There is something different about his face tonight: the furrow I added to my original sketch has now taken root between his eyebrows; and so, too, fine creases beneath the eyes.
“Well then, begin,” he says at last.
I oblige, mixing a little of the onion paste with water. With my straw brush, I sweep the orange-brown colour across the canvas to create the rich backdrop that I hope will offset the dull tones of Sturm’s uniform. The loose stitching of the canvas is highlighted by the wet paint; raised like Braille, it catches the light and shines. Every so often I pick up a rag and blot it over the surface, to seal the colour and soak up the excess water.
I work the grey ash mixture meant for the uniform with my fingers, to loosen it without compromising the thick texture that imitates real oil paint. It is the same colour as the fluid that erupted from the female corpse’s mouth earlier; a thought that makes my stomach lurch. I apply the colour to the picture, pressing it into the canvas
I work the grey ash mixture meant for the uniform with my fingers, to loosen it without compromising the thick texture that imitates real oil paint. It is the same colour as the fluid that erupted from the female corpse’s mouth earlier; a thought that makes my stomach lurch. I apply the colour to the picture, pressing it into the canvas