That little cap maker machine

THAT LITTLE CAP MAKER MACHINE for Samuel and Sylvia Try as I might, I can’t forget the little sewing machine that accompanied me through the last days of the war, all the way from Radom, my place of birth in east-central Poland, to Vaihingen an der Enz, a farming village turned slave labour camp amid the forests of southern Germany, where it was dumped unceremoniously, abandoned forever Nowadays I, Sheva Lansky, am living out my last years in Caulfield, a leafy, spacious suburb of Melbourne, that still retains a sizeable Jewish population, though very few of the original post-war immigrants. Which explains why I have been requested by the Jewish Museum to put on record my personal experience of the Holocaust.

From the time I was a young child in knickerbockers, I was trained to make teller caps. It wasn’t long before I became an accomplished and dedicated craftsman. You had to be smart to grub out a living during those dreadfully dark days of the Depression and World War II to offer some contribution to our down-at-heel family, no matter how meagre. Most men wore hats then, so at least my modest job seemed secure. Until the local cap maker was unable to pay me back some money he owed.

Instead, he handed over a cap maker machine. Small and handy, it was easily portable, and, as I quickly discovered with my nimble fingers, easy to work.

When the German army invaded my country in September, 1939, Jewish life changed savagely over night. A crowded ghetto was rushed up for about 40,000 hard-pressed Jews. At first I carried on making caps at home for the locals in exchange for a bite to eat. In August, 1942 almost all but a few thousand Jews were deported to the extermination camp at Treblinka, a farming village in north-eastern Poland set in the heart of forest: ancient white cottages with rooves of thatch and wooden Catholic churches in miniature and the single-lane bridge for horse-drawn carts and those sinister trains of steaming death. In less than two hours of their arrival, deportees were gassed to death and their bodies promptly disposed of. Among the dead were my parents and my three sisters. My younger brother Berek and I managed to duck into the so-called ‘small ghetto’. Such was my good luck, which continued when I found odd jobs in the ammunition factory on the outskirts of Radom.

Eventually plucking up courage, I dared speak to the senior prisoner, Lageralteste Friedman, explaining that I could run up caps for the SS soldiers. In charge of the Radom ghetto were the supervisor, SS Obersturmfuhrer Siegman and Schaarfuhrer Hecker, the Rapportfuhrer, responsible for administrative duties. I was called into their office a few days later and promptly ordered to make tellermutzen (special flat top caps) for the SS. I was given a box to store materials that doubled as a seat while I was sewing. My task was extremely precise: the caps had to fit perfectly, otherwise ...

The German military put great emphasis on the sharp cut and élan of their uniforms, including their headgear, which lent these blue-eyed, blonde-haired physical specimens a terrifying intimidating aspect, giving them extra height and leanness, an

assured sense of authority and ruthless efficiency. I trembled at the prospect of making some stitching error or even haplessly falling out of favour.

One day Lagerfuhrer Siegman called me into his office, ordering me to make ‘eine schone Mutze’, a splendid cap for the Obersturmbanfuhrer from Lublin. As I was about to measure the size of this visitor’s head, he curtly turned away. I bumbled on about how necessary it was to ascertain the exact measurement. Reluctantly, not without some awkward fidgeting and fussing, Siegman permitted me to take the measure. Naturally, I took great care to fit the top cap perfectly. Later, when I delivered it, with no little trepidation, half a loaf of bread was lying on Siegman’s desk. After keeping me waiting for some while, the Obersturmfuhrer motioned me over. ‘Take that away!’ he barked impatiently, not glancing up, as if begrudging.

It wasn’t long before Radom was converted into a concentration camp. I kept my head down and my nose clean, quietly running up these caps until the final liquidation. Then all we remaining Jews were pushed and prodded out of Radom.

First, we hobbled along by foot, then were herded into a cattle train, until finally we reached Auschwitz. Little did we know what this name would signify. Nowadays, its very sound sickens me with pitiless blasts from hell.

With me all this while, the little head of my machine and a bit of fabric that I discreetly carried.

In Auschwitz, the women and children, the elderly and infirm were hustled off the trains, screamed at, abused, threatened and struck before being driven away in trucks.

Following a rigorous inspection, our group of men continued our journey in the trains.

A question was frequently thrown at my younger brother: ‘How old are you?’ Berek would stand on tiptoe and mutter, ‘Fifteen, sir.’

Thankfully, the young lad was granted permission to join us, having spent a frightening night on a cattle train. When we departed from Auschwitz next morning, we had no idea where we were heading or what was our intended purpose. Peering out through streams of grey mist and steam from our rattling engine, we caught glimpses through the double-barbed wire of heavily armed guards staring back at us. beneath the towering concrete of watchtowers and embedded searchlights.

Shunted into Vaihingen, we were affronted by two barracks, no kitchen, no facilities, no nothing. There were, however, prefabricated sections for barracks, which we were commanded to assemble at once. Every morning for roll call we would stand outside on parade, before being fed a small portion of bread and hot coffee water. On starvation diet, I was sent outside the camp to work for twelve hours a day in the quarry, carrying stone, rubble, sand and grit. The most urgent task was to repair the damage to the Luznik Arms factory to satisfy the desperate but unrealistic demands of the German military. Many of our stick-thin prisoners were sick and dying – there was just the one filthy, stinking latrine for the original two thousand prisoners – others fell into the mire of faeces or dropped dead from exhaustion and withering cold or were carried off by the typhoid epidemic. Mortality rates were horrendous.

A few weeks dragged by, then one bitter morning Oberschaarfuhrer Hecker took a headcount of prisoners. As he was passing by me, I made so bold to address him.

‘I am the Mutzenmacher,’ I blurted in a voice made hoarse by fear and lack of drinking water. ‘I can make you some splendid caps.’

Turning, with a contemptuous sneer, he looked me up and down, then with furrowed brow nodded slowly, as if weighing up the consequences.

To my astonishment as well as great relief, both of which I tried not to show, he ordered me to go to the Schneiderwerkstatte. Standing over me, he grabbed my ear and twisted. ‘I hope for your sake you are a good honest worker.’

There, at least, I was warm. From time to time I was tossed some extra scraps of bread by the least callous of the SS men.

One time, though, disaster struck! The special curved needle of my little cap machine broke. I couldn’t find the right-sized replacement needle to fit the machine. I grew frantic, then an idea hit me. I found some steel nails lying about.in dark, dusty corners. I took a lidful.of water and a stone and started to sharpen and shape the nail to create a new needle. When I finally achieved the right shape, my hands were bleeding. I bore away with a small, sharp, pointed nail to create a thin hole and threaded the cotton through. I kept manipulating with my fingers and the nail, but I was highly nervous. I knew that my life depended on repairing the machine. Such was my relief and joy when at last a copy of the original needle gradually emerged.

In the struggle, I’d completely forgotten about my injured fingers and the tell-tale drops of blood.

Always at the back of my mind, though, this under-sized machine had a complicated stitch, so would it work? Miraculously, it did! I was helpless with excitement, unusual and unwise sentiments to reveal in a labour camp, feelings that I was compelled to conceal.

I continued plying my craft, somewhat mechanically then, until the last few survivors were bundled out of Vaihingen like dirty washing to another unknown sink-hole.

Vague rumours of a French force closing in were whispered about. In the panicky rush, exhausted and feeble, I left my little cap maker machine behind. Somehow we eventually stumbled into some camp called Dachau, our last destination. We fervently prayed that it wouldn’t take long for Allied soldiers to free us emaciated wretches from further starvation and put us out of our misery.

Even now, some seventy years later, I find myself still conjuring up the memory of that little cap maker machine.

Michael Small July 20-August 12, 2016