My Dear Otto

PART 1

THE NAZI HELL

The winch travels up and down, bringing countless victims. Like an

enormous slaughterhouse, piles of people lie and wait for their turn to be removed.

Thirty hellish maws are now blazing in the two large buildings

and swallow the countless victims. It won't take them long and five

thousand people, five thousand worlds will be devoured by the flames.

The ovens, they flicker like stormy waves. The fires were lit a long time

ago by the hands of barbarians and murderers of the world, who hope to

banish the darkness of their gruesome world with its light. The fire burns

boldly and quietly. No one interferes. No one extinguishes it. It continually

receives countless victims, as if the ancient martyred people had been

especially born for it. 

Will you, the great free world, ever see the great flame? Will you, man,

sometimes at dusk, stop in your tracks and lift your eyes high towards

the deep blue heavens, which are overcast, aflame – you should know,

man, that this is the fire from hell, which burns here incessantly. Maybe

your heart will warm itself from their fire, and your hands, cold as ice,

will come here some time and extinguish the fire. And maybe, your

heart will fill with courage and boldness, and grow wings to change

places with the victims facing the fire, the hell, which will remain here

forever, burning, and consume here in its flames those who kindled it.

From the Yiddish manuscript buried in the Auschwitz crematorium

written by Zalman Gradowsky, murdered on October 7, 1944 in the Sonderkomando revolt.

1

Berlin.

Kurt Gluck emerged into the world after a traumatic birth in Berlin in the spring of 1928. His mother died from uncontrollable bleeding of the uterus. The doctors worked very hard to keep the baby alive after extracting him from his mother with the use of forceps, resulting in a weakness of the left side of his body. It was clear from the beginning that the child had some neurological damage and later a developmental retardation became evident. His mental handicap was not only due to his cerebral injury at birth but was also exacerbated by the lack of stimulus and early interactive experiences. For his first two years Kurt remained in hospital. His father Jacob Glick, broken by the loss of his wife, poured his life into his work rather than face the difficulties of raising a handicapped son. When Kurt was released from the children’s hospital his father placed him into a government institution for handicapped children.

Much of the time the children were isolated and there was scarcely any formal kind of education. This social deprivation affected Kurt’s capacity to interpret the significance of people’s behavior around him. Kurt grew up with a limited capability of expressing his own feelings into words. As one doctor explained to his colleagues, Kurt’s body became his mouth.

Meanwhile Jacob Gluck became interested in the rise of communism. He was unfortunate enough to be attending a socialist meeting late one night in the summer of 1933 when the location was surrounded by the Sturmabteilung also known as the S.A. The first to leave the meeting were set upon by a large group of S.A. using a plethora of metal bars and wooden staves. Some managed to break through the cordon with only a single blow to the body or head and run away into the night. A few that remained inside the hall decided to try the fire exit at the back of the building that lead to a narrow alleyway; Jacob was one of these men.

At first it seemed that the S.A. had not thought to cover the rear of the building but as they rounded the corner of the alley it was clear that they had run into a trap. The S.A. attacked Jacob Gluck and his comrades with a savage lust. Jacob was unlucky enough to lose his footing as he was dealt a vicious blow across his back with a pick-axe handle. He did not manage to get to his feet before he was beaten and kicked to death. The incident did not even make it onto the broadsheets of the city’s newspapers.

News of Jacob Gluck’s death was delivered to his brother, Otto Gluck, via Berlin’s close-knit Jewish community. It was only then that Otto had to come to terms with the fact that he was now the only living relative of the handicapped Kurt. Otto took it upon himself to meet his nephew at the children’s hospice every week. Otto’s attempts at informing his nephew of his father’s death were met with no obvious signs of understanding. Kurt had shown far more interest in the red carnation on the lapel of Otto’s jacket.

In July of 1933, the same month that Jacob was murdered, only six months after Hitler seized power in Germany, the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases came into effect. This gave the government the right to sterilize men and women with congenital feeblemindedness, schizophrenia, manic depression, hereditary epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, hereditary bodily malformations, as well as severe alcoholism.

With this law in hand the health authorities primarily scanned the files of the Jewish handicapped children in government hospitals. It did not take long before the name of Kurt Gluck showed up on the authority’s records. Being orphaned meant that the case for sterilization was rapidly approved without the knowledge or consent of Otto, his guardian.

*****

I haven’t done this many children before… said Dr. Günter Koch as he trailed his index finger down a list on the wall clipboard.

Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it, Günter. They are speeding up the neutering of the retarded children in the city, replied Dr. Horst Schumann as a nurse helped him into a white surgical coat.

Please, Horst. Do not believe for a moment that I am against working on children. I believe that removing these tumors from our society is not only necessary but in a hundred years we will also be seen as the forefathers of a perfect Aryan race.

Well said, Doctor Koch. And with any luck we should be able to finish early today.

That would be good. Marlene and I are having dinner with Dr. Gerhard Wagner this evening and I do not want to be late.

The head of our Medical association? Well, Günter, we are flying high, are we not? Please be sure to put in a good word for me. I am a zealous believer in the program.

Of course I will, my dear Dr. Schumann. I am sure we will be given enough work to last us a while yet, chuckled Dr. Koch as the nurse dressed him too.

I was thinking that using massive radiation could be a more convenient way to sterilize these unworthy children, said Dr. Schumann.

Maybe someday, Horst. Let’s start with the girls. Afterwards we can deal with the six boys; an even split of three vasectomies for each of us.

Would you care to wager on who will finish first today?

You have become confident, my friend. Shall we say two hundred cigarettes? challenged Dr. Koch.

Done! We will work at full speed and I hope to be the faster. said Dr. Schuman.

2

The drive in the back of the truck is fun. I like the sound of the engine. It feels like we are going very fast. I can see everything racing away from me as I look out of the back. We stop and they let down the tail so we can climb out. We are made to hurry and a man in white clothes shouts at us. I am scared. I am not being bad but they are angry with me anyway. I follow the other children into the building.

They order us to take off our clothes and underwear, to put them in a bag and to dress in a white tunic. Then they make us sit in a line on chairs and wait in a small room that is painted white and green. The floor is made from stone. The place almost smells the same as our children’s home… but there is a difference. It is a sweet smell but it is not nice like the smell of chocolate or honey. It is difficult for us to sit still and we are shouted at by a tall blonde woman in a white coat and white skirt. One by one the children are taken through the swing doors at the end of the room. It is not long after this that I can hear crying in the distance, above the noise in the room. I sit very quietly and count the squares on the floor. The sweet smell becomes stronger every time the swing doors open and another boy or girl is taken through it. It is hard to breathe now. I curl up into a ball to make myself smaller.

*****

I’m the last one. I remain alone with the tall blonde woman in white. She looks at me with cold blue eyes. There is no feeling there. Where is my dear uncle Otto? He’s good to me. I feel they are doing bad things to the children here. One by one, the children are taken to the next room and then I hear every one of them crying.

What are they doing to them? We have not even been naughty. I feel they will make me cry too. I can smell that all the people with white coats don’t like me.

"Nurse, bring in the next one." I hear a voice from the other room.

The tall blonde woman in white grabs my arm. It hurts. She makes me frightened and I want to escape but she will not let me go. I shout at her and she slaps my face.

It stings and makes tears come from my eyes. I try to stop her but she puts her arm around my neck. I cannot breathe and she slaps me across the head. She pushes me inside the other room.

The whole room is made of shiny white squares from the floor to the ceiling. In the middle of the room is a high bed. A big man in white comes to help the blonde woman and they pick me up and push me down on the hard bed. They are tying my hands to the side of the bed with straps. I kick my legs as hard as I can but they pull my legs far apart and tie them too. There is a bright light shining down in my face and blinding my eyes. I hear their voices talking and I see the head of a man above me covered with a white cap and a white mask. I see he is also wearing a white tunic. But it is his hands that make me want to scream. I notice blood on his white gloves. His blue eyes stare at me, but not in a nice way.

"What a nice looking boy we have here. What’s wrong with him?" he asks.

"A retarded six year-old Jew. Four years in a public children’s hospice." the nurse replies.

"My God. What a waste of time and money for a retarded Jew. There must be a better way to be rid of them. Let’s get this done quickly. I have two hundred cigarettes to win."

I see the knives on the table next to me. I am scared and I want to leave but the woman in white holds me down and I feel her fingernails digging into my skin. She feels bad towards me and bored also. Another man, leans over me and blocks out the light. He is holding a mask in one hand and pushes it over my mouth and nose. The smell is very strange and I try not to breathe because it feels bad. The sweet smell enters my nose and I try to move my head but it is held and I cannot stop the man. I feel sleepy and, and...

I open my eyes and everything is blurry. My body is full of pain. There is a burning throbbing coming from around my balls. I hear the masked man saying I am okay. I want to say to him I don’t feel okay but I cannot talk. They pick me up and put me on a bed with wheels.

"What’s his name?"I hear the masked man say to the woman while they push the bed out of the room.

"Kurt," she says.

3

Otto Gluck was horrified to be casually informed by the administrator of the Berlin Hospice for Children that his nephew had been forcefully but legitimately sterilized under Hitler’s Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseases. Otto realized that he would have to find somewhere safer, somewhere run by the Jewish community. He was Kurt’s only relative in Germany. Most of his own family was living in Poland. Otto discovered a small Jewish-run care home for children in a village near the outskirts of Berlin and put Kurt there. Otto continued to work in a department store and spent every waking hour trying to earn enough money to pay for Kurt’s care.

Life in Berlin was becoming increasingly fraught for those without proof of pure German descent. The hatred of the Jew had become commonplace. Otto’s own identification papers showed his Jewish descent and his Polish origins. With the country in the iron grip of Nazi power, the animosity towards the Jews, Gypsies and foreigners spiraled out of control. Every day he heard the stories of beatings, rape, abuse and disappearances. Otto realized that the only way he was going to stay safe in the city was to live next to where he worked and to never walk the streets at night.

He moved into a tiny apartment in the Scheunenviertel District and walked the hundred paces from his apartment to the department store, forever dreading the sound of boots and the thuggish jeering of the Brown Shirts, the breaking of glass and the roars of drunken laughter. Otto watched with a mounting sense of trepidation as many of his friends and acquaintances fled Germany to other European countries, Palestine, or the United States of America. The warning words of a friend echoed in Otto’s ears: If rich and powerful Germans are losing their lives at the whim of Hitler, without judgment or due process, then what rights have we at the very bottom of German society?

As many Berliner Jews did in 1937, Otto decided to leave Germany and return to his relatives in Kielce, Poland. Otto took one suitcase of possessions and secreted his money about his person before taking a bus to the village where Kurt was being cared for. Kurt panicked when he was told he was leaving with his uncle. He did not want to go. A kindly nurse advised Otto that when Kurt became agitated only the sight of flowers could calm him. Otto gave Kurt a Christmas Rose to placate him. There was something in the natural geometry of the petals, carpel and stamen that appealed to his sense of order. Otto explained to Kurt that they would travel to another country called Poland. Kurt nodded but remained staring at the flower.

After two days of travelling in the freezing conditions of late December 1937, they arrived at the Polish border. After a long day of bargaining and bribing the soldiers at the checkpoint they were allowed to cross the barrier. It took less time for the Polish guards to allow their entry into Poland. After they noticed a note of one hundred zlotys in Otto’s identification documents, the guards took the money without saying a word. As Otto held Kurt’s hand and walked through the barrier he felt that at last he could breathe easily. They had done it. They were safe now; away from the Nazi monster.

*****

We were not the only ones travelling and the German men in uniform made us problems crossing the border with me because I am not his son, my uncle Otto said. They asked him lots of questions and he showed them many pieces of paper. My uncle was scared. I could feel it.

Then suddenly we were in Poland. I knew this because everyone spoke a funny language that I did not understand. It still took us a long time to find my auntie’s farm but when we did I was very happy. When we first arrived to the farm I was very tired. We did not sleep very well in the last days. I was allowed to sleep in a nice bed. Uncle Otto tells me that we are safe in our new home and the people who live here are our family. He tells me they are related to me and my papa but I don’t understand what he is talking about. I can feel that he wants me to nod my head so I do and he seems happy. He pats my head. There are some children here too. Not as many as in the children’s house in Germany. There were lots and lots there and I want to see them again. I ask my uncle but he tells me it is too dangerous to go back to Germany. He tells me that people there do not like us and they want to hurt us. I ask him if we have been naughty and he laughs and tells me it is not our fault; it is Hitler’s fault. I do not know who this Hitler is but everyone is talking about him these days.

Three of the children here make fun of me and laugh. They are tall like me. They throw snow balls when we are outside or they whisper and giggle when we are indoors. They have many places to hide in the farm and I do not know where they go. My auntie gets very angry with them but they are only nice to me when there is a grown-up around. There is one child I like very much and he likes me. He is much smaller than me but he likes to play with me and I like to play with him; we laugh a lot. The older people are happy that we play together.

It is very cold here because of the wind. My Auntie Sara has made me a nice jumper and some gloves. When I am very cold she rubs my hands in hers and blows on them. She smells different from my uncle; it is a warm smell. She says it is very sad that I never had a mama and she hugs me. We go to the barn each day where all the animals are staying for the winter. It is very close to the house because we have to make sure they stay safe. My auntie also tells me there are foxes and wolves that might come in the night to gobble them up. This makes me scared. When I have helped her collect the eggs from the chickens and the milk from the cow we go inside. The kitchen is always warm and smells of food and wet clothes drying near the fire. I like the farm.

My uncle is helping my auntie and her husband with chopping wood and fixing things, but he says he is not made for this kind of work and that he needs to find a job in Kielce in a shop like he used to work in, when he lived in Berlin. My uncle Otto says he will have to go to stay in Kielce to find work and he will stay there with Zalman, his cousin. He will come back before every Shabbat.

When he walks away I cry.

When the weather becomes warmer I help my auntie in the garden. She says I am a very good boy because her children are naughty and they never help her in the garden. All of them except the smallest go to school so I do not see them in the day. This is good for me because they are still being mean to me and they like to make me cry sometimes, when they have nothing to do. Auntie beats them but that makes them angrier with me. Auntie tells me I have a special gift with plants. She says I have good hands. I do not know what she means but I am happy when I am putting little plants in the soil and I can watch them grow bigger and bigger. Auntie tells me that if I know everything about plants then I will never starve and in this day and age it is a very good skill to have. I smile because she smiles at me.

4

Otto Gluck felt a guilty pleasure in his new-found freedom as he reached Kielce. His guilt stemmed from leaving Kurt back in the farmhouse with his sister to look after him. However, Otto managed to produce a number of reasons why it was the best solution for Kurt; he would be better cared for by a woman, he would be amongst children his own age, there was space, security and animals, and mainly the plants for Kurt to grow. What life would Kurt have in a city where Otto would be at work all day? He would get lost, feel alone, and it would be too much to ask of his cousin’s hospitality where he would be staying. All in all it was the right choice and Otto would be sure to visit Kurt every Shabbat.

Otto was amazed at the bustling Jewish community that had expanded and thrived in the town since he left fifteen years before to try his luck in Berlin. There were thousands of Jews walking in the streets without a jolt of fear. It was breathtaking after the palpable dread that had eaten away at the Jewish community in Berlin. Rows upon rows of Jewish bakers, butchers, and fruit and vegetable shops lined the streets. He would surely find work here in this bustling town amongst the tailors and leather workers.

After spending a little of his saved money warming himself in a tea house he thanked the waitress in Yiddish and went to find his cousin’s apartment in Radomska Street. The two room apartment was on the top floor, small, but neat and clean. His cousin’s wife, Rachel welcomed him in and immediately fed him a warming broth. She was a stout lady with a kind heart and worked part time in a bakery across the street. She informed Otto that his cousin would be back from work later in the day and they would discuss his job prospects then. Otto helped Rachel assemble the fold-out bed in the kitchen-living room and dragged a small chest of draws from the bedroom so he could unpack his clothes.

His cousin Zalman welcomed him warmly when he returned home. He was a short, round man with an infectious smile and generous wit. He worked in a shoe shop near the train station and helped out most evenings in the synagogue. He believed that Otto’s skill working leather and his own contacts in the synagogue should guarantee him finding a job. After a substantial dinner Otto accompanied Zalman to the synagogue where he met many of the elders and other tradesmen from the town.

Upon hearing that Otto had come from Berlin he was questioned at length about the conditions of the Jewish people living there and the real and perceived threats of the Nazi regime. He was given names of people he had never met; were they okay? Was there any hope for the rise of communism to counter the threat of the fascists? Otto did his best to answer their questions but he did not want to reveal the true depth of the suffering that was going on there. He did not want to be the one to bear ill tidings. Otto was finally offered a job working in a leather factory the other side of the railway where he would cut leather in preparation for the shoe shops in town. The pay was not great but it was a start. Otto and Zalman left the synagogue to return home, walking the street at night without a glimmer of fear.

Otto worked hard and spent the rest of his time helping his cousin in the synagogue. Otto realized that if he wanted to get ahead in the town then he would have to meet as many people as possible in the hope of new opportunities. On the last Friday of February Otto finally hitched a ride out of town to the farm.

Kurt had settled in well with the family although the older children still made fun of him. Kurt helped his aunt with the animals and played with their youngest son. Otto brought some money to Sara and a few hard-boiled sweets from the town to give to the children. The whole family gathered for the Shabbat evening meal and they were joined by their neighbors. They were an elderly couple with a daughter, Malka, in her mid-twenties. Malka had been widowed in the first year of her marriage three years before. Otto engaged her in polite conversation while other members of the family nudged each other under the table and smirked behind their napkins.

*****

The sun is shining every day now and my plants are growing very well in the ground. My Auntie Sara tells me we have very good earth here and that it is important for the flowers and vegetables to grow. She takes some soil in her hands and tells me to smell it. I can smell how thick the soil is; how dark it is. I have helped them plant in the fields during spring and now everything is green. Today we do not work because it is Shabbat but my auntie tells me that a farmer’s work is never done and even God does not mind if we feed the animals because it would be cruel to leave them hungry.

My special job is to feed the chickens and the geese and to see if any of them have laid eggs. I am scared of the geese because they get very angry; if you turn away from them they sneak up on you and bite your bottom. I always take a walking stick with me that is left by the front door of the farm for this very reason. The chickens sleep in the barn and I know all the places they hide when they lay their eggs. I have to be very careful not to break any eggs as this makes my Auntie Sara angry.

The barn is nice and cool because there is shade and the sun cannot come inside. I can see some of the chickens have gone into the hayloft to lay their eggs. I leave the stick on the ground and climb the ladder slowly because it is dangerous. I like the soft sound of chickens when they are sitting. It makes me feel safe. When I am at the top I crawl across the hay to find the chickens. Then I hear a noise below me. It sounds like a girl laughing. It is a happy laugh, not a mean laugh. Then I hear my uncle Otto talking in a low voice. I cannot hear what he is saying. Then I hear a moaning sound. I stay very still and try not to make any noise. I do not want to make my Uncle Otto angry. I crawl very quietly to the edge of the loft because there are more noises now coming from my uncle and a girl. I peep over the edge and I see my uncle playing with Malka. It looks like they are wrestling like the other children do but this is different because the woman has her shirt open and I can see all of her legs. They are wrapped around my uncle’s white bottom. He is pushing and pulling and this reminds of the seeing animals playing together. I feel funny inside my stomach. Quite soon they both make more funny noises and then they stop wrestling and start whispering. I crawl back a little bit and wait until they leave the barn. When I look down at my shorts there is wetness there. I don’t understand. I put my hand in my pocket and remember that I already had one egg inside my shorts. Auntie will be cross with me.

*****

Otto returned every Sunday to the town. As the weeks turned to months, fear grew in Poland of an impending war. Posters were placed around the town of Kielce warning of German spies and offering courses in self-defense. Parks were dug up to install anti-aircraft batteries and people began to store extra supplies of food. People with relatives in other cities further east began to pack and those with relatives abroad also left their material lives behind in order to save themselves. Many had joined committees set up in order to send Jews to Palestine but the British were only allowing twelve thousand immigrants a year due to protests from the Arab population. It was impossible not to feel the rising tension, waiting for the dam to break; it was only a matter of time.

Otto played with the idea of leaving Kielce and heading further to the east to Tluste. Luba lived there, his older sister. Even if the Germans invaded Poland they would never get that far. If they tried anything England and France, and maybe Russia, would stop them before they crossed the Dniester River. Nevertheless he wasn’t sure that the war would break and he didn’t want to leave Malka behind and disturb Kurt’s successful adaptation to his new environment.

5

September 2nd 1939.

The day after the German invasion of Poland, the lethal drone of heavy bombers filled the sky above Kielce. The far away noise of shells exploding sounded like thunder, at first sporadic, then becoming constant. Very little could be seen through the cloud cover and ground mist but the noise was enough to send a spike of fear through every living being. By mid-afternoon, Otto decided to borrow a bicycle from his cousin with his small case fastened to the shopping basket at the rear and pedaled his way to the farm. The main road was crowded with clouds of dust churned up by the Polish army racing