The Butcher of Treblinka | Close To The Bone Publishing

(A reimagining of a classic fairy tale)

Part One

My name is Grethel Kovač. I am eighty years old. I was born in a horse-drawn caravan in nineteen thirty-six in Bukovina, Romania. My brother, Hansel, was born in the same gaily painted wagon a year earlier.
+++++We were Roma, living in a kumpania of ten other families. My father, Ivailo Kovač, was a tinker, and my mother, Eldorai Dukar, was an herbalist and fortune teller. We had a wonderful traditional and nomadic life, and few children attended school because of our migratory nature. Although all Roma, whichever country they came from, spoke Romani, the children, from an early age, learned to speak other European languages, taught by their parents or by the phuri dai, the senior woman in a kumpania. By the age of seven or eight, Hansel and I spoke reasonably good German.
+++++In nineteen-thirty-three, a megalomaniac named Hitler had decided that the Jews and any non-Aryan ethnic group should be exterminated. By nineteen-forty, Heinrich Himmler was sending thousands of Roma – ‘gypsies’, he labelled us – to the extermination camps that had sprung up across Germany and Eastern Europe.
+++++Our Voivode, leader of the kumpania, fearing for all family’s lives, decided it would be safer if the families dispersed and disappeared, reducing an otherwise easy target for the Nazis. With much trepidation and tears, we went our separate ways. Apart from our souls, we left behind everything that identified us as Roma, including our fine carthorse, his polished brasses and harness, and our beautiful carved and decorated wagon. We even stopped speaking our ethnic Romani and conversed in German.
+++++Papa took us, on foot, deep into the Carpathian Mountains to seek sanctuary. We endured years of the constant fear of capture. We moved constantly, and although we knew how to live off the land, we endured years of fear, hiding and hardship. We travelled over mountains and through forests, under rain, sun and snow. Even in our hiding places, we heard whispers of the Nazis’ cruelty and barbarity towards the Roma.
+++++In the winter of nineteen forty-four, our mother succumbed to an incurable sickness and died. Although deeply saddened by her demise and deprived of her love, amid the grief and sorrow, we determinedly pushed on,
+++++When the war finally ended, we entered Hajnówka, a town on the edge of the Białowieża Forest. During the conflict between the Soviets and the Germans, Hajnówka suffered massive aerial bombardments, leading to almost total destruction. But Papa found, among the ruins, one intact basement in a bombed-damaged house. We all lived in the same bare space, sleeping upon thin, chicken-feather mattresses with threadbare blankets to cover us.

***

In this first year, Papa met – and then married – Annaliese. While she was not cruel to us children, our new stepmother showed no real love or care. Honestly, I never understood what my Papa saw in Annaliese compared to our beautiful, olive-skinned, dark-haired mother or why he married so quickly. Still, I suppose the ravages of war took their toll on everyone in many different ways, and maybe she was just there when my father needed a woman’s comfort, and she was a man’s.
+++++The conflict had been over for one year, but a great dearth still lay over the war-torn land, and the resulting deprivation would continue for many years. Papa earned a little money in his trade of tinker, but at other times, he was reduced to scavenging. We and our stepmother went begging, but there were many mendicants in the town. Hunting was banned in the protected forest, so we foraged along its verges, seeking edible plants, fungi and berries. Amid a harsh winter, this became a sore trial, and all food sources became scarce. We were constantly cold and hungry.
+++++One night, I awoke to the sound of our stepmother’s whispering.
+++++“What shall become of us, Ivailo?” she said. “We are starved and can hardly find enough food for one, never mind four! We shall all perish!”
+++++“I know, Annaliese! I constantly give this thought,” my father said, “but I can see no solution.”
+++++“You listen to me now, Ivailo,” said Annaliese. “Hansel and Grethel are babies no longer; they’re big enough to leave home and fend for themselves.
+++++“But they are my children! My flesh and blood!” said Papa.
+++++“Ha! Flesh and blood will turn to rot and bones if we all die of starvation!” said Annaliese. “And the grim reaper will care not of relationships!”.
+++++“I suppose you have the right of it,” our father replied.

Part Two

“My dearest children,” said Papa, squatting before us. “We are in a terrible state, as you know, and there is just not enough food for us here in Hajnówka. We four together cannot survive. Even scavenging and foraging will not sustain us. You must leave this house and find a way to fend for yourselves.”
+++++I broke down, clutching at my father’s shirt.
+++++“Go now,” Annaliese said sternly, forcibly uncurling my fingers from Papa’s clothing. “Go, and do not return!”
+++++“You heard your stepmother. You must leave now!” Papa said, and I could hear sorrow belying the false severity in his voice. He walked away, his shoulders slumped in resignation.
+++++“You must go to Białowieża,” said Annaliese, opening the door to usher us out. “You may have a chance there, for it is a much larger town, maybe with more possibilities.”
+++++“But, in that case, why don’t we all go there together?” I cried.
+++++“Because I am unwell and cannot travel,” she said, her voice lowered.
+++++“Ha! I, too, am unwell and cannot travel,” I said, throwing a scowling look at her, “my sickness is hunger, and Białowieża is so far. I don’t have the strength to walk so many miles!”
+++++“You may save time and many miles of walking by heading south, directly through the forest,” she said, “instead of following the road around it. Although it is prohibited to enter by the new law, I don’t think anyone would mind two young children walking through the forest, do you?”
+++++I did not answer. Fearing I would say more to our glowering stepmother, Hansel pulled me away.

***

Białowieża Forest. I could almost taste it in every drawn breath, a green rotted taste that cleaved to my tongue. Giant trees, unbelievably tall, towered above us, all vying for heavily contested space, and, in places, their thick verdant canopies overlapped and meshed like an overarching roof, blocking out all but the faintest wavering spurts of green-tinged sunlight. The sculpted rib-like roots swept out at their bases like the lichen-clad, flying buttresses of ancient abandoned churches, in the caverns of which we slept at night, curled up like twin embryos in the womb of our thin blankets, surrounded by the stink of decomposing vegetation, the sounds of night creatures, and the forest’s dark secrets.
+++++During the daytime, we picked and ate berries and mushrooms to sustain us as we walked. From the sun’s position, Hansel could tell which direction Białowieża lay. But our progress was hindered by impenetrable walls of brambles, the thorns clutching at our clothing like witch’s claws, or we were turned aside by impassable swathes of nettles that stung like wasps when touching our skin.
+++++We were so often forced to deviate from our route that, one evening, Hansel said, “I have digressed so far from the way, Grethel; I am sorry. We are completely lost.”
+++++But at that very moment, as the gloaming encroached upon us, we came suddenly into a clearing. There, in the middle, stood a cabin. At first glance, it appeared to be ramshackle, made of blackened logs and timber planks, with a sway-backed roof of wooden shingles. If it were not for the smoke curling up from the crooked chimney and the sliver of light shining through the cracks of a window shutter, we would have thought the cabin was abandoned.
+++++We approached tentatively. Hansel knocked on the wooden door.
+++++The door creaked open, and yellow light flooded out, along with the mouth-watering smell of freshly baked bread.
+++++Despite the cabin’s dilapidated appearance, the woman appeared not so, with her distinctive Forester garb and a polished shotgun held casually under one arm.
+++++“What have we here?” said the woman.
+++++“Excuse us, madam,” said Hansel, glancing warily at the shotgun. “We don’t wish to trouble you. We are starving. We are on our way to Białowieża to seek work, but we have become lost.”
+++++“Well, I cannot offer you any work, for I am a forester and work alone. But I can help with your hunger. What are your names?” she asked.
+++++“I’m Hansel, and this is my sister, Grethel.”
+++++“So, Hansel and Grethel, my name is Dorethea Marszalek. Come inside. I have just prepared food, and you are welcome to share it.”

Part Three

The name ‘Dorothea Marszalek’ was merely an alias; for the Forester’s real name was Irma Eiermann, and, during the war, she had been a member of the Nazi SS and worked as a guard at the Treblinka extermination camp, built north-east of Warsaw, near a village of the same name. Treblinka operated as part of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Final Solution.
+++++After the war, when news reached us that up to two thousand Roma were murdered in its gas chambers, we felt almost guilty for surviving the terror.
+++++Untersturmführer Irma Eiermann was the dominant overseer of the prisoners. Because of the abject cruelty she had visited them, she grew to be the most feared female guard there.
+++++Beatings, shootings, gassing, and burning of Jews and other ‘sub-humans’ in the crematoria’s ovens were carried out daily by Eiermann and the other guards in the death camp. Still, undoubtedly, Irma Eiermann was the most terrifying of all the guards, for her cruelty extended far beyond the routine killing. She was a sadistic and fanatical paedophile.
+++++She relished the locomotives’ hissing steam, the cattle cars’ clanging, and the soldiers’ harsh shouts and blown whistles. The cracking of whips and the barking of the vicious guard dogs were like music to her, for all they heralded the arrival of new batches of prisoners… and prey. She watched every boy pulled out from the overcrowded and stinking box cars, routinely selecting the least skinny one for her special treatment in her private quarters.
+++++At gunpoint, Eiermann would force her victim to strip, then, with leather restraints on his wrists and ankles, she would tie him to a bed. She would then sexually assault the boy in every sadistic way imaginable. Her laughter – and the boys’ shrieks of pain – drifted and diluted among the cacophony of screams and chaos outside as, with her free hand, she masturbated herself with the long ebony handle of her whip.
+++++Finally, would use the thong of her whip as a ligature to asphyxiate the child before shoving the body into a cast-iron oven to be incinerated. Sometimes, when the door to the oven was slammed shut, her victims were still alive.
+++++There were rumours – true, as it turned out – that Eiermann indulged in cannibalism, feasting on her victim’s roasted flesh. The remains of the corpse were then incinerated and converted to ash to be strewn, along with that of countless others, on the road outside.
+++++Feared by prisoners and Kapos alike, Eiermann was nicknamed ‘The Butcher’.

***

As the war ended and victorious Soviet troops pushed into Poland, liberating the camps, Irma Eiermann evaded the rounding-up of Nazis. With expertly forged Polish identification provided by ODESSA, she secured the position of a Forester in the Hajnówka sector of Białowieża Forest. It was an easy transition, for as a young girl, Irma had hunted deer and wild boar alongside her father in her homeland of Bavaria and was at home in such an environment. She wore a man’s traditional hunter’s dress; a beige wool hat with a boar’s tail cockade, a brown checked jacket over a green waistcoat, and calf-length leather boots.
+++++Treblinka camp was liberated and destroyed, but Eiermann’s extreme paedophiliac tendencies remained an unstoppable addiction and obsession.
+++++In the post-war ruins of Hajnówka, half-starved people, widows and widowers, the elderly and infirm – and orphaned children – all scrabbled for a living. It was here that Eiermann hunted.

Part Four

“Thank you for your kindness,” said Hansel as we entered the cabin.
+++++“My pleasure,” the woman said. And then, as if to herself, “It will save me a trip into Hajnówka.”
+++++I didn’t understand the meaning of her last words, but the smell of freshly baked bread made my mouth water, and all other thoughts were chased from my mind.
+++++In the kitchen stood a black cast-iron stove with a huge oven. A pot of stew gently simmered on the stove’s hot plate.
+++++She served us rabbit stew in clay bowls, accompanied by hunks of fresh bread.
+++++“Białowieża is still very far,” said Marszalek. “You can go no further tonight, for you would become even more lost than you are now. You may stay here.”
+++++When our bowls were wiped clean with the last swab of bread, the woman said, “Grethel, you will sleep in there.”
+++++I tentatively approached the door indicated and pushed it open. The hinges groaned in protest.
+++++“In you go,” the woman said, “and get a good night’s sleep, for you will need to be refreshed for tomorrow.”
+++++I entered, but to my utter shock, she slammed the door shut, locking me inside. I banged on the panels with both fists, squealing for Hansel.
+++++But all I heard was the metallic ‘cluck-click’ of a gun being cocked and the Forester shouting, “Stay where you are, boy, or I’ll blow your fucking head off!”
+++++Hansel muttered something, and Marszalek said, “Don’t speak! Or I’ll kill your sister. Do you understand?”
+++++There came footfalls, shuffling noises and a door opening. “That is where you sleep, boy,” I heard the Forester say, “and if you make a single fucking sound, I will shoot Grethel!”
+++++I fell silent, even trying to conceal my sobbing, fearful of what the woman might do if she heard. As had become a recent habit, I cried myself into an exhausted and troubled sleep.
+++++The following morning, my bedroom door squealed open, “Wake up, gypsy brat!” the woman shouted. I screamed in fright.
+++++“No one can hear you!” Marszalek said. “Now, fetch firewood, girl. Don’t even think of running off. If you do, I will shoot your brother in the head!”
+++++“What… who are you?”
+++++“Who am I?” the woman said, “I am the Butcher!”
+++++She smiled at me, “Does that scare you? It should do. In a previous life, I was a Nazi guard at Treblinka death camp.”
+++++I shivered in fear, for the mere name of Treblinka was horror enough to paralyze one with terror.
+++++“I was Untersturmführer Irma Eiermann, but the Butcher is what they called me there!”
+++++“What do you want from us?” I cried.
+++++“I am keeping your brother like a chicken in a nest until he is fattened up.”
+++++“I don’t understand,” I said, “What do you mean?”
+++++“I want a nice fat boy for a change,” she said. “He’s all skin and bones. I had enough of those skeletal brats in Treblinka. Even the orphans in Hajnówka are too skinny! Hansel will become a fat, juicy chicken, ready for roasting!”
+++++I screamed at this, but the woman stuck the gun barrels in my ribs. “Now, you gypsy brat! You’re going to cook some rabbit for your brother. Do it, or you will be next on the fucking menu!”
+++++It was no use protesting; I had to do as ordered.
+++++The Butcher sat down, with the gun resting across her knees, as I stood stirring the cast-iron pot. Once the rabbit was nicely stewed, the Butcher said, “Now fill a bowl with lots of meat for your brother.”
+++++Then, prodding me with the shotgun, she forced me not into another bedroom, as I expected, but out through the back door. I burst into tears when I saw my brother in a small cage.
+++++“Dear God, pray help us!” I cried, “If we had all starved to death in Hajnówka, at least we should have died together.”
+++++“Spare me your lamentations,” said the Butcher; “they are of no avail. Now feed your brother. I want him stuffed!”
+++++This routine was repeated day after day. I was forbidden to speak a single word to my brother under threat of punishment or death, so Hansel had no idea what fate awaited him.
+++++Each night, following a day of wretched slavery and a bowl of rabbit remains and bones, I was locked in my room.
+++++I had learned many skills from our Roma way of life, and improvisation came naturally to me. Whenever I cooked a rabbit, I extracted some fat, secretly wrapping it in my handkerchief. Each night, I rubbed the fat into the spindles of the door hinges until the door opened with no sound of protest.
+++++The Butcher had, by now, locked the shotgun away in a gun cabinet. She knew I’d never abandon Hansel or run away, for I would be lost. She now carried a whip of supple hide to coerce or punish me. The ebony handle bore a silver SS Death’s Head on the pommel.
+++++On the eleventh evening of our captivity, I overheard the Butcher say to herself, “Hansel is fat enough. I can wait no longer. Tomorrow, I shall feast.”

Part Five

That night, from under my headscarf, I removed a hairpin from my hair and gently picked the door lock. I opened it slowly. In the firebox, embers glowed, giving enough light.
+++++With the same hairpin, I unlocked the gun cabinet. I took the shotgun and a box of cartridges and laid them on the table. I loaded the gun and sat… and waited.

***

At first light, the Butcher stepped out of her room, yawning and stretching. She froze mid-stride, her arms raised in her final overhead stretch. For there I sat, and, in my small hands, was the shotgun, pointing directly at her.
+++++I cocked both hammers with a satisfying sounding, ‘cluck-click, cluck-click.’
+++++I stood and worked my way around the table. The Butcher’s eyes tracked my every movement like a viper about to strike a rat. The shotgun never wavered from her.
+++++“Move over there, to the stove,” I said, indicating with a tilt of my chin.
+++++Her face transformed into a mask of pure hatred, but she slowly edged toward the stove. When she was in front of the open oven door, I said, “Stop there!”
+++++I smiled at her, “Now, listen very carefully. I am famished. I cannot recall what roasted meat tastes like. So, why don’t you climb into the oven?” I waved the shotgun at her.
+++++She threw her head back and laughed. “Foolish little girl!” she said. “Even if I thought of obeying your ridiculous order, which I do not, I would never fit in that oven!”
+++++“You are right, not all in one piece.”
+++++I pulled a trigger. The shot blew her left arm off at the shoulder. She screamed.
+++++I could hear Hansel shrieking, “Grethel!”
+++++The next shot destroyed the Butcher’s right knee. She collapsed directly in front of the stove. I walked over and watched her writhing in a pool of blood, spitting venom through froth and clenched teeth. The Butcher screamed in agony, and then suddenly, her yammering stopped, and she fell still and silent.
+++++Hansel’s yelling had now turned to wracking sobs.
+++++I rushed outside, “Hansel, she is dead!” I said, freeing him from the cage. We fell into each other’s arms, hugging and crying.
+++++As our heartbeats slowed and reality returned, I said, “She had terrible plans for you, Hansel. So awful that I cannot bring myself to speak of them,” I paused, “so I shot her.”
+++++Hansel stared at me with a look of amazement and gratitude.
+++++We entered the cabin and began probing all the cupboards and drawers, looking for anything of use or value to take with us.
+++++To our great astonishment, we found a leather bag full of gold. It was not jewellery or ingots; to our perplexity, it was hundreds of gold teeth and fillings.
+++++“We can now go home. The gold will cure all our ills.” Hansel said, and then, “I smell burning!”
+++++Sparks, or embers, had fallen from the firebox. The Butcher’s black silk robe was aflame. The silk burned at a very high temperature. The wooden floor beneath her body suddenly combusted. Flames squirmed up the wall and licked hungrily at the bone-dry rafters. They burned fiercely, roaring like a tortured dragon. The fire spread so rapidly that we ran from the cabin, scampering across the clearing towards the tree line.
+++++“May the Butcher’s soul burn in Hell!” I yelled.
+++++“The Butcher?” Hansel said as we disappeared into the forest. When I told him who the Forester really was, he shook his head in amazement.

Part Six

After many days, we escaped the great forest and returned to the house. When the door opened, we threw ourselves at our father, wrapping our arms around his neck.
+++++After much hugging and kissing, Papa said, “Your stepmother is gone. I found her absent when I returned from foraging afar. I doubt she will ever return.”
+++++Hansel and I jumped for joy.
+++++Then we related to Papa our astonishing tale.
+++++Opening the leather bag, Papa was overwhelmed. We took the gold to a family of Jews who Papa knew in Hajnówka. They had escaped the terrible fate of other Jews and were recently returned to the town.
+++++After hearing the whole account, The Jewish elder, a Rabbi, spoke to Hansel and me. “This gold is all that remains of countless victims of Treblinka. We shall never know their names. Eiermann must have removed it from Treblinka when she and the other Nazi guards fled. It was to be her nest egg, and you children have prevented her from benefitting from it,” the Rabbi said.
+++++He grasped both my hands. “Grethel, you alone have rid the world of the most terrible darkness and replaced it with light. I beg you to feel no guilt about your actions, for God will smile upon you.”
+++++He turned to Papa, “In Warsaw, trade is beginning to come alive again. With your permission, I shall convert this gold into cash. We will honour the dead by helping the thousands of poor and destitute of this town and the displaced persons who sought shelter here return to their homes.”
+++++And that is what happened. With our share of the new-found wealth, we returned to Romania, where Papa had a beautiful wagon made. He purchased a fine horse with all the trappings, and we joined a newly gathered and formed kumpania of Roma.
+++++And we all lived happily ever after until the end of our days.

[Image Credit : Photo by William Warby on Unsplash]

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