THE HORSE ADJUTANT
In 2011, I published my first book called The Horse Adjutant. This marks a turning point in my focus and studies. It took about four years to research and write the book. It is a significant accomplishment. The book is about Leon Schagrin, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. After the war and the creation of the State of Israel, the survivors were trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. Many started to have kids and did not want the horrors of the past to hurt their futures. As the years went on, the survivors wanted to share their stories. Leon was my mother-in-law’s neighbor. We would meet him and his wife on Passover dinners at her apartment. Leon has a very distinctive tattoo on his arm. He covered his Auschwitz tattoo with a Black Panter. Most Jews of his generation would never tattoo their bodies. He did it because anti-semitism followed him all the way to the United States. He survived the war due to a combination of luck and guile. I had no idea when I started writing just how much this story would become intertwined with everything I would do after.
The title comes from his entrance into the gates of Auschwitz; after three days locked in a train car, naked, crowded, with no facilities, and the smell of death and lime, he arrived near Auschwitz. Emaciated from a few other camps, he puffed up his chest to bring some life into his body and walked to the camp surrounded by guards with large attack dogs. Upon arrival, they were met by a medical team dressed in white coats. He watched as the others were processed, most going to the right, immediate death. When it was his turn, he did as he was told, “Turn around, stick out your tongue, tell me what kind of work you do.” He answered Kony Adjutant, Polish for Horse Adjutant. They laughed in disbelief. An adjutant is a military term for a kommandants assistant. Leon, being Jewish, could not possibly have been in the military. They asked him again, and he said, I took care of the Kommandant’s horse. They said Links, or left, which is the side for life. But Auschwitz is no place for life. The survival rate was only a few months, and he was 17.
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