Upfall

Hertzburg raised his whip again. This time Sandler charged him. Sandler was as tall as Hertzburg, but not as broad, and he was malnourished, while the Kapo l1ad a decent diet. Hertzburg struck Sandler with his whip handle. Sandler saw stars and stumbled, but managed to grab onto Hertzburg‘s left leg. He drove into it, lifting the leg off the floor a few inches. Hertzburg struck Sandler again, but the younger man seized his advantage with savage desperation and levered the Kapo's leg high enough to knock him off balance, and into a nearby bunk. This was enough for Burstin, who disliked Hertzburg anyway. Burstin smashed his own whip handle into Hertzburg's eye, producing a ferocious howl from the big man. Suddenly, as if awakened from a daze, several more prisoners jumped onto Hertzburg, pummeling him with their fists and elbows, and knocking him to the floor. With several men now atop him Hertzburg struggled in vain. A Sonderkommando punched him repeatedly in the head until the Kapo lost consciousness. Then the man grapped Hertzburg's head, and unimpeded by the Kapo‘s thick but now slack neck, bashed it into the floorboards until a dark puddle of blood pooled underneath.

Sandler got to his feet, dazed and unsteady from the ordeal. He leaned on a bunk and wiped his bloodied face with a filthy shirt sleeve.

When he looked up into the gloom he saw that the other men in the barrack were now staring at him—even Burstin and the other Kapo. Sandler was now effectively in charge of the barrack.

Sandler shook out the cobwebs, trying to think. "Pry out these floorboards!" he ordered, and a dozen men fell to the floor and began beating and clawing at the floor, using the handle of Hertzburg's whip and the few pieces of metal and wood they‘d collected to hack at the planking. At the front of the building several more men tore at the loosened board through which Sandler had first caught a glimpse outside. Sandler turned to Burstin and two men stared at each other a moment. They knew that once the barrack was breached they must break out or die, and that either way quick death was the overwhelming likelihood.

Sandler over the din of tearing wood, shouts and sobs. He shouted in Polish and then in German: "Once we are through everyone must get out of the building and run! Kill any Germans in your way and run!"

Some men nodded, most ignored him, a few shouted encouragement. Sandler, adrenaline surging through his body moved to the front of the building and kicked at the partially torn out wooden slats until one, and then another cracked. Sitting on the flour, he, Burstin and five or six other men now kicked steadily until a gap was opened in the wall, enough for a man to slip through. Sandler looked through the hole and saw Schnabel and the other two SS sergeants still huddled by a gas chamber.

Schnabel turned toward Sandler and raised his pistol. The SS man fired several rounds but Sandler ducked back into the building. The bullets missed, but a man next to him, fell back groaning with a wound to his chest. Sandler lay on floor and looked out again. He saw Schnabel fumbling to reload his pistol twenty meters away. The other two SS men just squatted next to Schnabel, apparently frozen with fear. Sandler rolled out of the gap in the building, followed by Burstin.

From beneath the building several other Jews appeared, having wrenched out the floorboards.

"At them!" yelled Sandler. The prisoners, dressed in their stained rags, surged across the open ground toward Schnabel, and the SS gasmen.

From the forester's tower Ilan and Bolander watched the barrack building come apart and several ragged Jews emerge into the sunlight. The snipers had already shot every visible German and Ukrainian in the gassing complex, but guessed that several remained hidden within or behind the camp buildings. Bolander saw the flash of a weapon and a Jew fall. Through his scope he saw part of a melee between the Jews and several SS men who had remained hidden behind the building.

Another Jew fell. Then he saw couple of Jews drag the body of an SS man across the ground while others kicked at it. Ilan nudged Bolander and pointed to a German running for the covered way while trying to reload his pistol. Bolander had the better angle.

Sandler had just grabbed the dying Magdeburger pistol and run out into the open space by the Himmelgang. He was about to take a shot at the fleeing Schnabel when the German collapsed, hit in the chest by a sniper's bullet. Sandler looked up toward the forester's tower and saw a pair of dark figures. He put two and two together and hoped he was right. Not knowing what else to do he waived toward the distant snipers. One of them waived back. Sandler fell to his knees and cried.

Bolander radioed Yatom. "Camp 3 is in friendly hands."