Chapter 37 Rosalie
THIRTY-SEVEN
ROSALIE
AUSCHWITZ I
A tunnel of papers endlessly swooshes through Weyman’s office.
I don’t know where they’re all coming from.
They fly down the corridor and take on a flight of their own when the main door opens.
Papers stick to walls; some are sucked into vents.
Others are stepped on with muddied soles.
But we’re supposed to destroy all evidence.
If there’s no evidence, will people truly question whether it happened? Where did all the innocent people go? They were taken from their homes and brought here or one of the other hundreds of camps. People are gone. They left footprints on this earth—ones that can’t disappear.
“Clean them up! Nothing can be left behind!” Weyman shouts at me before slamming his fist on his desk like a hungry ogre.
I’m the only person left to yell at. His family is gone. The other officers on the street must have left in the night. Even Celina is gone. We didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t have a chance to warn her of what was coming.
And I don’t want to peel paper off the ground anymore while we wait to be attacked.
“Heil Hitler!” a baritone voice barks from the opening of the office.
I peek over my shoulder, from down on my hands and knees, sweeping up papers. Another officer, who must be a lower rank than Weyman, waits in formal salute stance.
“Heil Hitler,” Weyman replies, seemingly bored of the gesture.
Who wouldn’t be?
“What is it?” Weyman asks.
“Orders have come in for immediate departure.”
My hand freezes on the paper I’m dragging across the floor, my pulse clattering in my head.
Weyman clears his throat then stands from his desk. “Step outside.”
The door closes and I scoot across the office toward the wall, knowing they’re thin enough to hear through.
“I didn’t see the girl,” the other officer says.
“Never mind her—the Oberführer sent these orders?” Weyman asks.
“The directives were clear, Herr Obersturmführer. Marches begin at dawn. All remaining prisoners are to be separated. The sick will stay in the infirmary. The ‘fit’ will go. SS administration from Reich headquarters in Berlin is demanding records of KB and G.”
“So, we’ve been burning ledgers and now we’re writing new ones?
Brilliant,” Weyman shouts, his sarcasm oozing with annoyance.
“Just—” The door flies open, and I spin around to face away from the wall, so it isn’t obvious I was eavesdropping.
Weyman storms back to his desk, unconcerned of my whereabouts, especially with the ghostly expression drawn into his eyes.
“We need more scribes. There are roughly eighteen thousand—” The junior officer peers over at me just as I return my focus to the papers on the ground. “And about forty-nine thousand more across the other two—”
“I don’t care about the other two. Those aren’t my problem,” Weyman snaps.
“Understood.”
I may be just a servant scraping papers off the ground, but I’m smart enough to figure out the officer’s missing words.
There are still approximately sixty-seven thousand prisoners across the three compounds of Auschwitz, and we’ve been burning ledgers of compiled registries. But now they want lists of names…
“Well, don’t just stand here. Go find more scribes! Assign them to blocks,” Weyman growls at him. “I’ll have the logs retrieved at midnight.”
That’s only seven hours from now. I scrape up the rest of the papers faster than I was moving and pull them to my chest to set them in the burn pile. The junior officer departs with a quick salute. Weyman takes in a sharp breath through his nose and leans back in his chair, the leather complaining.
“At midnight, you’ll collect the prisoner logs from every block.
Every single number needs one mark: G or KB.
” I know not to ask questions, but there must be confusion written along my face.
“G means ‘fit to march.’ They go on evacuation.” Weyman leans forward, his eyes narrowing on me as if waiting for a reaction—as if a reaction would mean something to him.
“KB means ‘too sick.’ They stay behind in the infirmary blocks.” His voice falters at the mention of KB, a hesitation, a crack in his vile thoughts—it’s impossible to read the mind of a killer.
“If a block elder or kapo hands you a list with missing letters, give it back. Tell them to complete it. At dawn, any block with an incomplete list will be ‘handled.’ Clear?”
Nothing about Auschwitz will ever be clear to me. But I understand one thing…By morning every prisoner will be sorted into two groups: those evacuating, and those being left behind.
Weyman’s words have been echoing within my head for hours, following the memory from a month ago when he held his pistol up to my head and told me “I didn’t kill your Jew. I’ve been saving that for you.”
He knew this was coming. Just not when. The Soviets must be closing in. I want to believe they’ll rescue us from the SS, but a part of me fears they won’t liberate, just take over the occupation. Those who stay here might be saved, or kept as prisoners when the Red Army arrives.
Does Weyman know if Stefan is truly still alive? He hasn’t said anything more about him in the last month. That could mean anything or nothing. I haven’t seen his name. That also means nothing.
It’s midnight when I drag my heavy feet out of the administration building, ushered by a low-ranking guard to the front gates and inside. The guard walks behind me, saying nothing, breathing heavily, groaning with each snowy mud puddle his boot sticks to.
Dogs are barking from every direction, spotlights are searching along every row and column, and the stale smoke of burning paper clings to every patch of fog.
Muffled German shouts warble through the air, likely of officers and guards arguing.
Even with the prisoners in their bunks within their barracks, the heaviness of panic and dread of what’s coming is like a storm of wind pushing against every step I take.
Block 24 is the first block in the row. The camp brothel.
Anytime I’ve been within these gates at night, I’ve seen men stumble out of those doors after earning their so-called reward for high-level labor output.
Tonight, the windows are dark, and the doors locked tight, but the women inside are still awake. I can hear the whispers.
“I’ll collect the log for this block. You aren’t permitted inside,” the guard following behind me speaks up.
He slips in and out quickly, handing me the ledger. Before I can speak, he turns away.
“Where are you go—”
“I’ll be at the main gate when you’re through.”
He’s leaving? Letting me continue alone? One look at him answers the question—uniform wrinkled, collar undone, cap dangling from his head. He’s half checked out already. This must be why Weyman gave me a signed order slip—proof of unmerited authority.
Block 23 is next, a standard men’s prisoner barrack. I open the door, finding a bare hint of light flickering from a small gas lamp close to the entrance. “Collecting ledgers,” I say quietly. Sounds of snores, moans, creaking wood, and coughing fill the thick putrid air.
“I’m—it’s just about—complete,” the scribe clerk utters, his pen scratching along the paper in quick strokes.
He reaches it over to me, his hand shaking.
“Thank you.” The words are foreign on my tongue. There is no such thing as please or thank you here. Except I’m still human. I still have a heart.
I leave Block 23 and pace toward Block 22, waiting until I’m outside the ring of the watchtower’s spotlights.
I peel open the ledger toward the back, searching for the S’s.
I pin my finger within the ledger as another spotlight approaches.
When the shadow of night returns, I go back to my place, searching down the column for “SIL.”
If he is here, anywhere, I will find him. I have the ledgers with all the names, and I won’t let someone else decide his fate. Not again.
Two more spotlights.
Two more pages.
No Silberg. No Stefan.
Block 22 is quicker than the last but doesn’t release the ledger as I pull it from his hand. “There are some missing, but don’t bother checking. They aren’t here.”
I release the ledger back into his grip. “I can’t take it from you if it’s not complete.”
“Some of the men are gone. I don’t know where they are.”
“Mark them anyhow,” I tell him.
“KB or G?” he whispers.
I swallow hard, knowing there’s only one option. “If they’re not standing here to march, they stay. Mark them as KB.”
The man shakes his head and leans back over his small wooden desk, flickering beneath his lamp. He unfolds his papers, drags his finger down the column and marks the missing with a KB.
Once I leave the block, I search the ledger the same way as before, afraid Stefan’s number might be one that was missing that I told the kapo to mark as KB, to leave behind.
His name isn’t here either.
Block 2 is standing at the door, ready with the ledger. Same with Block 14 and 3.
Still no Stefan.
Blocks 4 through 18 continue with a similar pattern to the first few, taking more time than anyone has.
Each of my searches result in smeared ink and no name.
With four blocks remaining, I move on to the next ledger, flipping the pages open to the SILs and drag my finger down the column. My legs shake from the cold, eyes struggle to stay open, and dread weighs heavily on every bone in my body.
Halfway down the page, a beam of light centers over me, blinds me.
My stomach tightens and I close the ledger as sloshing footsteps grow with the size of the light.
“Herr Obersturmführer said you should be through by now,” he says with heavy breaths.
“Looking for someone on that list, are you?” Now within reach, I recognize the man as the guard who walked me to the brothel.
My knees threaten to give out but I flex every muscle, holding myself still while quick puffs of white fog sputter from my mouth. “No, herr. I was making sure I didn’t miss—”
“Hurry it up,” he grunts, urging me forward.
He stays behind me this time, which means I continue checking for Stefan’s name.
Part of me has already accepted what was probably inevitable.
He isn’t here. He hasn’t been here in months, possibly.
The four blocks are prepared with their ledgers, telling me they’re complete upon handing them over.
The stack of almost thirty ledgers weighs as much as a dozen textbooks, the corners pinching my arms, leaving bruises as my muscles strain and tremble. The guard doesn’t offer to take even one, just follows me on the return to the administration office.
As directed, I stop outside the Schreibstube—the registry office—and push the door open, finding nothing but more chaos, too many clerks, and guards shouting to move faster as prisoners flip through each ledger to tally up numbers.
A guard grabs the stack from my arms, but I hold a firm grip around the bottom four, knowing I haven’t had the chance to search the list of names.
My mind won’t rest unless I do. The guard doesn’t notice he didn’t take the full stack, or he just doesn’t care.
I squeeze in toward the end of the table, between papers shuffling, numbers being marked, ink splattering.
No one looks up from what they’re doing.
Everyone is desperate to finish before dawn.
Frantically, I begin flipping through pages just as the rest of them are, only slowing down when I reach the S’s.
Block 9. Nothing.
Block 10. Nothing.
Block 19. Nothing.
Block 20. Nothing.
Block 21.
My finger stops in the middle of the page toward the end of the ledger, but my hand shakes. My vision blurs, inked letters sinking and rising on their lines.
Stefan Silberg | 170501X | KB
KB. Sick. Stay behind.
If he’s marked KB, they’ll leave him here as they empty the camp. Leave him with no guards or food. No heat. The Soviets could find him. Or he could be left to die.
If he’s marked G, they’ll march him into the snow to evacuate with the others. Starving and barely standing. Either option could kill him.
I pick up the pen. My hand shakes as I drag the ink through the KB, carving it into a thick, black G…“Fit” to march.