The Commandant of Lubizec: A Novel of the Holocaust and Operation Reinhard by Patrick Hicks

had existed before the Nazis stormtrooped their way across Poland and shattered lives apart as easily as if they were smashing a mirror to the ground. These men sometimes held up broken fragments of their past and turned them around in their minds. They talked of love, and wives, and sons, and grandfathers, and lighting candles on the Sabbath. And whenever the burden of this loss washed over them to the point where they needed to close their eyes and breathe deeply or risk bursting into sobs, that’s when they stuffed another chunk of crust into their mouths.
    They chewed. They swallowed. They ate.
    It was common for a man to chuckle at something his wife had said and it was equally common to watch this same man bow his head and study his frayed shoelaces. It was dangerous to think too much of the past because it crippled you, it sapped your will to live. Whenever this happened, the men of Barrack 14 nudged each other and passed over ribbons of dried meat.
    “Eat,” they said. “Eat.”
    They distracted one another with talk of meals they once enjoyed. Apricots, roasted potatoes, beef cuts the size of a fist, pierogi, ice cream, pączki, blueberries, mushrooms, salmon, pickled red cabbage, chocolate, candied oranges, gefilte fish. They licked their lips. They created dreams together and whispered words into the candlelight to keep the hallucination going. Shadows flickered and danced on the walls.
    “Green beans.”
    “Butter on warm bread.”
    “Jelly. A jar of it.”
    “Tomatoes.”
    “Yes. Large ones that’re red and juicy. The kind where seeds dribble down your chin when you bite into them and they make that
crunch
. I can almost hear that crunch.”
    “My wife used to make green tomato relish,” said one man. His voice cracked. “I’m never going to eat that ever again now. She’s gone. Just gone.”
    A man nudged this prisoner who was wandering too deep into the past. “What else would you eat?”
    “Her relish. I only want her relish. It was so tangy, so sweet. I never appreciated it until now but …”
    “What would you put it on?”
    “Chicken, I guess.”
    “Tell me about the chicken. Forget the relish.”
    These husks of men who had been rounded up with their families and pushed into railcars, these men who tried to care for each other, they imagined a world without barbed wire. They dreamed of escape.
    Chaim Zischer and Dov Damiel found themselves among these shadows in late September 1942. They didn’t know each other before they were shoved into Barrack 14 but now they were forced to share a bunk.
    Years later, in 1983, for the fortieth anniversary of the rebellion and escape, Chaim Zischer was asked about his time in Lubizec. The Israel Broadcasting Authority traveled to New York and interviewed him in his apartment. In the video, Zischer sits in a green leather chair and, just behind him, is a massive bookcase that has many titles about the Holocaust as well as a number of framed photos of his grandchildren. A mug of coffee steams next to him. He leans forward and pushes a wisp of gray hair away from his forehead. Liver spots dot his arms and he looks strong, healthy. His eyes are little flames.
    When the interviewer asks about his first day in camp, Zischer glances down and clears his throat.
    “All of us, we all saw Guth give that speech of his near the train, and then …” He pauses and starts over. “First, they robbed us ofeverything. Suitcases, money, clothes, wedding rings, watches. Everything. An SS guard tapped my shoulder with the snout of his pistol and told me to start stacking suitcases. My wife and son were carried away into the Rose Garden with the rest of the crowd but I, I was forced to stay behind. I was told to stack suitcases. It was the last time I would see my family.”
    Zischer goes on to explain that his wife was wearing a pink coat and he watched this color shrink away. Her form turned through the gate that said WELCOME, and then she was gone.
    “It was the