A guttural cough rolls through him as he tries to stand. A guard shifts his weight from foot to foot in the snow, preparing another threat, I’m sure. I need Stefan to stand up.
How many seconds do I have before the SS decides for me? I tuck the clipboard under my arm as he makes it to his feet. He’s unsteady and shivering as I take his wrist in my hand to check his pulse. His skin is stone cold, the flutter beneath my fingers slow and weak.
My shoulders shake from an invisible weight.
If I mark him as “unfit” I send him to his death. If I mark him “fit” I buy him a day, but maybe just one. Another day of forced laborissurviving. I’ll keep him alive for as long as this pencil is in my hand. I will make it look like I’m following orders, but I will bend them. Every checkmark that keeps Stefan alive is an act of resistance—a fight so small I pray no one notices, but big enough that it could save him.
I pull the clipboard out from under my arm and checkmark him as “fit.” “Still fit for work,” I call out to Weyman, keeping the hesitation under my tongue.
“Interesting choice,” Weyman says. I don’t want to turn around and look at him, see his expression. His words are enough to leave me in a puddle of dread. But he shrugs and flicks his hand. “Let’s see if she’s right. Take him to the work line.”
A guard snags Stefan by the arm and jerks him forward to start a new line.
I return to the beginning of the row. Weyman steps up beside me and leans his head down toward mine, his breath against my ear. “You will be precise,” he murmurs. “Administration sees the numbers.” He straightens his coat, his knuckles stretching against his leather gloves.
He’s painting me as a villain—a reflection of the person he is, but I bite back my words and say nothing.
I have rows of men waiting for me to decide their fate. But when I’ve finished making my way down them, I hesitate. I don’t know what Weyman will do with me now that selection is complete for the day. In the main Auschwitz compound, there were never ending lines of people arriving by train. I stood by Weyman’s side for hours upon hours, never having to wonder what we would be doing next.
His hawk-like stare finds me now, and he curls two fingers inward, motioning for me to join him. I don’t want to. I don’t want to inhale the same air as this man. But my body doesn’t hesitate, reacting out of fear and complicity. Each step costs me a breath. I’ve already lost a fight I never had a chance to win.
When I reach his shadow stretching sharply across the snow, he doesn’t say a word, just starts walking. And I fall into step behind him. We pass by the rows of men I’d condemned with nothing more than a checkmark. Some are still coughing, others quiet, maybe unknowing of their looming demise. It’s clear some know exactly what comes next. Unlike Stefan who is likely trying to figure out if he’s capable of surviving another day.
Weyman stops abruptly, and I almost walk into him.
I pinch my fingers against the cuffs of my flimsy coat, bending the tips of my nails.
“It’s essential,” he says after a pause, his voice indistinct against the wind, “to note what your decisions yield.”
My stomach drops.
There’s more behind his words—a lesson he wants to teach me. Yet, he doesn’t say anything more. He continues walking and I follow until we reach the guarded gate where a gray truck and a tarp-covered wagon waits, the engine sputtering on rotation.
Weyman’s pace slows again as we approach a line of men, waiting to be released into the industrial square. These are the group of men who faced selection today—ones I had just confirmed are still “fit” for work. Stefan included. The image of hope still lingers through some of their glassy eyes as they stare toward the steel scaffolds. Two guards close in on the line of laborers. One with a clipboard, the other, a pointed finger, counting shivering heads.
Another prisoner falls. But I know it’s not Stefan this time. He’s at the front of the line.
These poor men are just standing here with locked knees, waiting to begin their day of labor.
The prisoner catches himself at his knees. He presses his pale hands into the coarse snow to push himself back up to his feet. His hands break through the nearly frozen snow, soaking his sleeves up to his forearms. His breaths grow heavier, more erratic as if he’s fighting for his life. The guards are eyeing him as if he’s a Sunday afternoon roast. One of the guards lifts the butt of his rifle, ready to swing it into the man’s back just as he’s about to push himself upright.
“Wait,” Weyman calls out, staring down at his gloved fist. “Let’s not forget that it’s procedure to assess those who fall.”
My eyebrows pinch together with confusion.
“I already marked him…”
Weyman cranes his neck to the side, lowering to my eye level. The fog from his stale breath brushes my face as he says, “Then you won’t mind doing it once more.”
Once more, for Weyman’s entertainment, or is it to torture this man more?
My feet are so cold through the thin leather of my boots that they might be solidly frozen into blocks of ice, and I can’t figure out how to move. Weyman doesn’t care. He doesn’t straighten his posture or say another word. His expression is unwavering. He just continues to stare at me. He’ll stare until I figure out how to move.
I manage to step to the side and forward, away from Weyman and toward the man who stopped trying to stand back up. My boots slip in the slush puddle in front of the man who is still on his knees, afraid to move. I try to crouch down to his level. His number, written in thick black ink along a badge on his chest. The 9’s look like g’s. I thought so the first time I saw his number earlier too.
Earlier, I ignored his measly dry cough, hoping it was likely just due to the freezing temperature. Now, he stares at me, trying to speak with just a look in his sallow eyes. I see pleas and fury. Again, I’m his only chance, to keep him marked as “fit”, but I know I’m not truly a chance at all.
His mouth opens. There’s something the man wants to say, and I wish I could tell him not to utter a word because it will only make this situation worse, but he must not notice the anguish blurring my eyes. “Please, miss, I can stand up. I slipped, that’s all. You almost just slipped too.” A short, shallow cough murmurs from his lungs.
