This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

The inmates of Auschwitz build a soccer field and begin to play every evening. From the field, prisoners can see the women’s camp and the incoming freight trains. During one game, Tadek looks up and notices that there is a train full of people arriving. When he looks again, later in the game, he notices that none of the passengers are left, commenting, “Between two throw-ins in a soccer game, right behind my back, three thousand people had been put to death” (84). Tadek sees a seemingly constant procession of two lines of people in Birkenau. One leads to death in the crematorium and the other is for those who survive and go to the camp. One night, Tadek steps outside and hears the voices of those who are walking, followed by screams. He is horrified and shakes uncontrollably.

Near the men’s camp, there is a barrack in the women’s camp that was never fully constructed. As the camp fills up, they begin to place women in the unfinished barrack, which holds about thirty thousand women. Tadek and the other men call the unfinished barrack the Persian Market. One of the women prisoners, and Elder, pays the Kapo—either with gold or with her body—so that the Tadek and the other men will finish construction. As they tar the roof, install plumbing and electricity, and build bunks, the women crowd around the men. Some of the women have sex with the men. They also ask the men to give them useful things that they cannot procure on their own. At first the men give them everything they have, but eventually they stop bringing anything with them. Some women also beg for news of their loved ones. Tadek remembers a woman named Mirka, a Block Elder who hid a child in the barracks so the baby would not be killed. Mirka pleads with the men for help because the child is sick and might die. Tadek shrugs and walks out but is struck with the thought that he hopes to have a child one day.

Tadek befriends another woman, a Block Elder with red hair, who asks Tadek if he believes in an afterlife and if he thinks that evil people will be punished. Tadek isn’t sure but explains, “I think that for those who have suffered unjustly, justice alone is not enough. They want the guilty to suffer unjustly too. Only this will they understand as justice” (90). The woman explains that she tries to protect the women in the barracks, telling them to hide when they’re sick or pregnant instead of seeking medical attention, but they refuse to listen. She tries to improve their moods by asking dancers and singers to perform for everyone. They also beg for her to write to the family members who they were separated from, certain that they are in other camps. Tadek watches as she interrupts the girl who is singing and announces to the women that their loved ones aren’t at another camp. They’re dead, and they are all breathing in the smoke from their bodies.

Over time, conditions at Auschwitz and Birkenau slowly improve as the Germans start to lose the war. In the first few years, there was more killing and beating of the prisoners; sometimes they would be forced to stand for up to two days for roll call. Over time, they began to have more privileges, but the conditions seem worse for the women than for the men. The women didn’t work, so they were fed less than the men. Any women who were deemed too thin, too big, or unattractive were gassed. Periodically, a woman from the S.S. would inspect the barracks and offer any ill or pregnant woman the option to go to the hospital, promising care and better food but sending them to the gas chambers instead. The men begin to spend a lot of time in the Persian Market with the women. Meanwhile, the trains run constantly, and the two lines of people keep walking by, looking at the inmates with pity and sometimes throwing bread or jewelry to them. There is a band playing upbeat music at the gate of the camp, and the inmates wonder how many people they have watched walk to their deaths, how they could possibly gas so many people, and if they would ever run out of new victims.

The S.S. soldiers treat the incoming people kindly, so they follow without question to their deaths. Tadek watches one older man who falls behind, jogging to catch up, and laughs a little at the man rushing to the gas chamber. The men begin to work on the roofs of the warehouses in the camp, and they can see the gas chambers and the crematoria, watching as the naked victims are sealed in and their bodies hauled into the fire in an endless daily cycle. The sick are simply shot or burned alive. A new camp opens up, also without finished construction, which the men call Mexico. The last summer, Tadek remembers that the trains slowly stopped coming as Warsaw rises up. Several escapees from the camp are caught and executed. Transport trains start taking people elsewhere, and Tadek remembers things in flashes and images.