Read Online A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Elie Wiesel, Thomas Buergenthal - Free Book Online

arrival by wiggling my finger at the top of my head. I got a big kick out of performing this service and
     probably saved many a prisoner from a beating.
    In the evenings, I would tell my mother and father what I had been doing that day as Fuss’s errand boy. On one occasion, I
     mentioned that I could hear the radio broadcasts Fuss listened to in his office. He usually had the radio on quite loud, and
     when I sat in the corridor near his door, I had no trouble hearing everything being said. Once I even heard Hitler speak;
     I was sure that it was Hitler because the person sounded just like my father when he put on a Hitler imitation for our closest
     friends. That was a very dangerous thing to do, and my mother always warned him that someone might denounce him to the Gestapo,
     but my father seemed to relish doing it. My report about the radio broadcasts prompted my father to suggest that I listen
     very carefully, try to memorize as much as possible what I heard, and report to him in the evening all I could remember. That
     became my regular assignment. Thereafter, whenever I had a chance, I would listen to Fuss’s radio and sometimes also to what
     he and his visitors were talking about. One day, I thought I heard that Mussolini had been captured by partisans. Since I
     knew that Mussolini was Hitler’s friend, I could barely wait to tell my father all about it. For a while, no one wanted to
     believe me, but then the news was confirmed by some Polish workers who were regular employees at Henryków. From then on, my
     reports on what was being broadcast on German radio were eagerly awaited. But our joy over Mussolini’s capture was short-lived,
     for we soon learned that he had been rescued by the Germans.
    The perimeter of the Henryków factory was guarded by soldiers who were, we were told, Tatars. They must have gone over from
     the Soviet side to the Germans when taken prisoner and were serving in German auxiliary units. They were not heavily armed,
     which apparently prompted some young men in our barrack to believe that it would be easier to escape when the Tatars were
     on duty. One night, some of these prisoners cut through the barbed wire fence. The Tatars, who always struck us as less committed
     to guard duty than their German counterparts, nevertheless spotted the attempted breakout. They shot and killed one of the
     escaping prisoners on the spot and captured the others. We were, of course, awakened by all the shooting and screaming. The
     next morning, the Tatars turned the prisoners over to the Gestapo, who drove away with them. Some days later, after gallows
     had been erected in front of our barrack, the prisoners, badly beaten and barely able to walk, were brought out. We had to
     line up and watch the hangings. The prisoners were ordered to stand on chairs under the gallows while the Germans forced an
     equal number of inmates, standing on ladders, to pull the nooses over the hoodless heads of the condemned prisoners. I could
     see that the hands of one of the inmates were shaking violently as he struggled to put the rope over the prisoner’s head.
     The prisoner turned and kissed the man’s hand, said something to him, and slid his head through the noose. The Gestapo officer
     in charge of the execution saw what had happened and furiously kicked the chair out from under the prisoner. It was obvious
     to us that the valor of the condemned man had robbed the German officer of much of the pleasure he must have expected to derive
     from his death. As I watched this horribly tragic scene, I was gripped by a curiously perverse sense of Schadenfreude, for
     it was only on very rare occasions that we could claim to spoil the pleasure the Gestapo appeared to derive from tormenting
     us, and this was one such occasion.
    The bodies of the prisoners were left hanging for a few days near the entrance to the barrack as a warning against further
     escape attempts. There were to be other executions in Henryków.