56 pages • 1 hour read
Olga LengyelFive Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1947A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 26-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 26 Summary: “Freedom”
The inmates are marched down Auschwitz road. The night is filled with the sounds and bright explosions of Russian artillery; the prisoners are excited that liberation seems imminent, but they soon begin to struggle with exhaustion as the march continues. Those who fall back are shot. Lengyel infers that they are not the first column of prisoners to march that way, as they pass hundreds of corpses.
Lengyel escapes from the column the next morning at dawn, running with her friends Magda and Lujza, hearing the crack of guns as they run.
They run into a church and a man points out a house where they can hide. They hide on a stable roof and then are housed in a nearby Polish family’s home. A German soldier comes into the kitchen and asks Lengyel who she is; she pretends to be a friend of the family and then has to socialize happily with a group of soldiers, all while hiding her revulsion.
Lengyel’s wrists are bound by the Germans; she is taken with them on their retreat. Other women who are tied up in the cart die on the journey. Eventually, Lengyel manages to chew her way through the ropes binding her wrists and escapes at night when the German soldiers are passed out; she has to strike one over the head with a bottle, either killing or badly injuring him.
Lengyel runs to the village, hiding among houses. A local woman points her to the other side of the icy river; the village on the other side is about to be liberated. Lengyel swims across the freezing river and watches the incredible sight of the village being bombed.
Russian soldiers arrive and the villagers—who are hiding in nearby caves—return.
Chapter 27 Summary: “I Still Have Faith”
Lengyel shares that she wrote her memoir to honor the many who died in horrific conditions at the camps; their suffering deserves to be known. Furthermore, she sincerely hopes that these horrific events will never be allowed to be repeated in the world’s history.
Lengyel recalls the events of December 31, 1944, when thousands of children were marched through the snowy, freezing night, beaten to death if they fell behind. Most died of exhaustion or exposure. Lengyel is forcibly involved in this event. She carries the body of Thomas Gaston back to camp after he is beaten to death.
Although Lengyel remembers moments where people are debased by the Nazis and made to act like animals, she also remembers people who went to their deaths with dignity and bravery; she finds hope in these memories.
Chapters 26-27 Analysis
In this section, Lengyel further explores the closely connected themes, Cruel and Degrading Treatment at Auschwitz-Birkenau and The Mass Genocide Committed by the Nazis, which claimed the lives of so many. The Nazis’ motivation to kill as many prisoners as possible is illustrated in the pace of the marching column, and the soldier’s lack of hesitation in killing any who fall behind, as is illustrated in the death of Dr. Rosza, an elderly woman who falls behind because of exhaustion: “A sharp crack echoed. Dr Rozsa lay dead in the road” (148). Later, Lengyel reflects on the decision to march with no food or water at a punishing pace, attributing it to the Nazis’ order to prevent the inmates from surviving: “Their orders were, that in the event of a Russian surprise, the six thousand prisoners were to be killed at once so the Russians could not liberate any of them. I saw that we were truly marching to death” (147-48). This explains the mass of corpses on the road; Lengyel counts “one hundred and nineteen corpses [...] within a twenty minute walk” (148).
In the final chapter, Lengyel comments on the death marches involving children, which were used as a strategy to kill as many children as possible through exposure to cold, exhaustion, and starvation: “That was the device which the ingenious Germans employed to ‘solve’ the children’s problem, the problem of the innocents of Birkenau” (155). Lengyel describes laying down the body of Thomas Gatson, knowing that “big, horrible rats were waiting for his still-warm flesh” (155). The description evokes a sense of tragedy that an innocent child suffers this fate, and the boy functions as a symbol of so many other innocent children who died at the hands of the Nazis.
In these chapters, Lengyel conveys the sensory experience of the impending Russian invasion; Lengyel describes the sounds and sights of the incoming Eastern front: “Shots rang out in the distance. The firing of big guns became louder; the detonations seemed to be closer and echoed with rapidity! Intermittent bursts of rockets lit up the skies” (147). Tension increases through the progressively louder and more destructive bombing—until houses right in front of Lengyel are destroyed. Finally, the text conveys a release of tension when the Russian liberators arrive: “[T]hey had brought us the greatest gift that life can give—liberty” (153).
