I Shall Live (24 page)

Soon the work commandos began returning to the camp, and we were ordered to line up for the evening
Appel
(roll call). We lined up on the
Appelplatz
(the roll-call plaza) in columns, called “blocks,” five deep. Each block, consisting of prisoners from one barracks, was supervised by an SS man and a couple of Ukrainians, who ran around making sure that all the prisoners were out of the barracks and the latrine. They were barking out orders to line up in precise ranks behind one another so there would be no mistake in the count.

The minute I saw the SS man in charge of our block I knew he was a sadist. I don't remember his name, but after more than forty years
I can still see his face. He was a stocky man with thin brown hair, bulging eyes, and a cruel, mad-dog expression. One of the prisoners standing two rows to my left was a tall young man with a gaunt face. The SS man came from behind and noticed that he wasn't standing exactly in line with the prisoners in front of him. He grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around, and punched him in the face. Weakened by hunger, the young man fell to the ground with a thud. He looked up at his attacker, his eyes full of fear, afraid to get up. This seemed to enrage the German still further, and he began kicking his victim, aiming at the groin. The Jew howled with pain, trying to protect his testicles with his hands. The SS man pulled out his gun and screamed at the prisoner in a high-pitched voice, threatening to shoot him if he continued to use his hands to protect himself. Almost beside himself with pain and afraid of being shot, he took his hands away, and the SS man immediately kicked him again in the groin. On reflex, the prisoner brought his knees up, his body curled. In a frenzy the German ran around him, viciously kicking him in the back and head, continuing to kick him even after the man had stopped moving. His fury spent, the SS man walked away.

I was so mesmerized by this spectacle that I forgot all caution and kept staring at the now lifeless victim. Strangely, there was no sign of blood. Bencio Fink, who was standing next to me, whispered, “Don't look—or you'll be next.” I was trembling, my fists clenched, aching to tear the beast apart limb from limb. But of course before I got anywhere near him I would be shot, and my brothers and sister would be tortured and killed. I felt utterly helpless.

Meanwhile, the SS man in charge of the roll walked from block to block carrying a pad and counting the number of prisoners. When he came to our block our SS man pointed to the prisoner lying on the ground to make sure he was counted. The numbers must have checked out, because the commandant signaled that the Appel was
finished. Our
Blockälteste
ordered two other prisoners to carry the body on the ground to the camp hospital. I don't think the prisoner survived the kicking; I never saw him again.

Depressed by the incident, on the way back to the barracks some of us from Hrubieszów asked the others whether this was a common occurrence. “You think that was bad,” they told us; “that was nothing compared to what went on before Feix was transferred.” They said that Feix used to hang prisoners naked, head down, and beat them with bunches of barbed wire until the flesh was torn all over their bodies, while repeatedly kicking them in the head. After Feix had satisfied his sadistic urges he left, ordering the Ukrainians to stand watch and make sure no one tried to help his victims. A few begged the Ukrainians to shoot them, but the guards refused. Screams and moans were heard in the nearby barracks all through the night. Many died after a few hours; those who survived until the morning Appel were shot.

Another of Feix's amusements was to visit the hospital, where he would get the sick and weak out of bed and order them to run and dance. Those who couldn't move fast enough to suit him he would line up against the wall and shoot.

Back at the barracks after the Appel, two prisoners came in lugging between them a huge container of soup. This was our dinner. We lined up, and one of them would dip a big ladle into the can and pour its contents into our
menashka
, as we called our soup dish. Even before I got my ration I could see the soup was mostly water, but not until I tasted it did I realize why almost everyone in the camp was starving. It was nothing but salty water, with a few cabbage leaves in it and one or two little pieces of turnip. It tasted so bad I spat out the first mouthful. A
Musulman
(this was the nickname, in Yiddish, for prisoners who were in the last stages of starvation and had lost all capacity to resist and will to live) immediately came over, looked
at me with sad eyes, and gestured to me to pour my soup into his empty
menashka
. Horrified, I did. After each prisoner had got his portion of soup, there was some left over. Pushing, clawing, and shoving, a line immediately formed to get seconds.

I asked one of the prisoners about the other meals. “What other meals? All you get here is a slice of bread and coffee in the morning, and once every few days a bit of margarine. If you want to eat anything during the day, you save a piece of the bread. Make sure it lasts you until supper.”

Those of us from Hrubieszów had brought bread from Jatkowa, so we had some of it for supper. But it would last only for a couple of days. We had to find a way to get extra food, or we would soon become Musulmen ourselves.

My brothers and I discussed ways of exchanging our money for food. We had to be extremely careful; some of the prisoners were thieves and informers. But before long several prisoners who were “dealers” in bread and other commodities discreetly approached us; it was known that many of the survivors from the small towns had brought valuables with them. The way this worked was that every morning each Stubenälteste received one loaf of bread for every ten prisoners in his barracks, and he simply cut the bread into eleven pieces instead of ten, which gave him four extra loaves of bread. These were sold by the “dealers” for gold or other valuables. Some of the Ukrainian guards also sold food and other commodities to the prisoners.

It was a relief to know this trade existed; we realized how lucky we were to have that package of gold and money. Now we had to find a way to hide it. Thieves were especially active during the night, when the prisoners were sleeping, exhausted by beatings and hunger. We decided the safest way was to divide the money among ourselves and sew it inside our jackets and pants.

Soon they would lock the barracks door for the night, so I went to use the latrine next to it. It was a big room with two long ditches, each about four feet wide, that were filled with feces almost to the level of the floor. The prisoners had to squat down on a thin wooden plank thrown across the ditch and empty their bowels into it. But there were feces everywhere, all over the planks and the floor as well as in the ditch. Many of the prisoners couldn't control their bowels from diarrhea, and had to relieve themselves before they could reach the planks; others were just too sick to care. Beatings from the latrine supervisor had no effect.

I tried to step around the feces, but it was impossible. When I finally reached a plank I was so unnerved that my bowels clamped shut. I was about to leave when a prisoner from Warsaw who was next to me said, “Better give it another chance; you can't leave the barracks at night, and you don't want to walk around tomorrow with your pants full of shit.” I tried for a few more minutes, but it was no good; I was too tense. I was afraid that one of the Musulmen nearby might lose his balance and drag me down with him into the ditch. After leaving the latrine, I rubbed my shoes in the dirt to clean them off as best I could. The visit to the latrine left me very depressed.

Before going to sleep, my brothers and I talked about our impressions of our first day in Budzy
ń
. Things were very bad here, but we were still alive. We had some money, so at least we wouldn't starve for a while. And time was marching on. We had heard during the day that the teacher's report of the Allied landings in Sicily was true. And there was always the chance of an unexpected German collapse at the front; Hitler could be assassinated; who knew what might happen?

Many of the prisoners were being trained to work at a Heinkel factory about four kilometers from the camp. Heinkel was an airplane
manufacturer, and the Budzy
ń
plant had been set up to make wings for the planes. It looked as if this was a productive labor camp, and to that extent it was a safer place than Jatkowa, where we were living on borrowed time. Here at least our work was really needed. If we could only hang on, maybe—just maybe—we had a chance.

The barracks door was locked, the big central light put out, and I climbed up to my bunk. The remaining lights were very dim. Making sure nobody was looking, I carefully sewed two or three gold coins and a twenty-dollar bill into my jacket and pants and promptly fell asleep.

I was awakened by a sharp whistle. At first I couldn't remember where I was, then I opened my eyes and saw the bunks and prisoners. Budzy
ń
. I put on my pants and got down from the bunk. Men were standing in a line to use two washbasins at the side of the barracks. I was near the end of the line. There was a long wait, even though many, especially the Musulmen, didn't bother to wash. Finally my turn came, and I washed my hands and face with a little piece of smelly dark soap. Then began the customary pushing and shoving to get in line for the distribution of bread and “coffee.” Most prisoners wanted to be at the head of the line, fearing that there might not be enough bread for everybody. The Stubenälteste and a couple of helpers stood behind a table on which were placed about three dozen loaves of dark, presliced bread. Next to the table was a large kettle of coffee. Each prisoner was handed a slice of bread and a ladleful of the coffee. Some of the Musulmen would grab their portion of bread and devour it all at once in quick, agitated gulps, leaving themselves with nothing to eat for the rest of the day except for the evening soup. It was very depressing to be near them. For one thing, they smelled terrible, from a combination of feces, sores, and sweat. Many had a feverish look in their eyes; they seemed to see through you, without seeing you. Most were so
weak they couldn't lift their feet off the ground, and walked in a shuffle. I noticed that subconsciously I was avoiding them, and that made me feel embarrassed.

At about five-thirty we started forming for the morning Appel. I made a point of getting into the center of the block in order not to attract the attention of the SS man in charge. This morning, though, he seemed in a somewhat better mood. Aside from a few random blows with his truncheon, he left us alone.

The Appel count went smoothly, and after it was finished the various work commandos started to form at the gate. I was assigned to a group that was working at a construction site, building a warehouse for the Heinkel factory.

As we marched through the gate we were counted again by two SS men. There were ten “blacks” (Ukrainian police in black uniforms) guarding us. We marched in rhythm to a black calling out,
“Eins, zwei, drei, vier
[one, two, three, four]
links, links
[left, left].
Eins, zwei, drei, vier.”
It was funny, the way these henchmen of the SS tried so hard to emulate their masters, even in the language, which they distorted ludicrously. They were for the most part a brutal, illiterate lot who in normal times would be the dregs of society. They were happy to do the SS's dirty work for them even though the Germans were openly contemptuous of this riffraff, whom they considered, like all Slavs, as Untermenschen (subhumans). Yet we were wholly at their mercy; they could kill any one of us at any time without reason, at the slightest whim and with complete impunity. Almost all of them were big, strong, sadistic bullies who enjoyed beating and kicking us.

After we'd been marching for a while, the leader of the blacks shouted,
“Juden—singen!”
(Jews—sing!) Only a few prisoners responded, but without any coordination, not even being sure what to sing. The Ukrainian became furious and again screamed,
“Juden—
singen!”
To make his point, he started striking prisoners at random with his rifle butt. Finally one of us had the sense to call out the name of a popular Polish song, and at first thinly, with a few scattered voices, then more strongly, with many more joining in, we sang. This time it sounded much better, and the Ukrainian smiled broadly. “You see, you can sing; all you Jews need is a few good blows to the head.” Some of the prisoners lagged behind the column, unable to keep pace, and the guards beat them mercilessly. Others who were in better physical shape tried to help the weak ones.

At last we arrived at the work site, and a German army engineer divided us into groups and told us what to do. Felek and Sam were with me, and so were Bencio Fink and Richie Krakowski. (Fred had been told to stay in camp and work in the hospital.) My job was to unload bags filled with cement and stack them in piles. They weighed about a hundred pounds each, but I was twenty years old and still in good physical condition, and didn't have any difficulty doing it. The German engineer was a nice fellow and didn't bother us much, but a few of the blacks “encouraged” us from time to time by hitting those they thought were moving too slowly.

Then it was lunchtime. I gave a piece of my bread to Bencio, and we sat down to eat it. Many of the prisoners had no bread left, and watched with hungry eyes those of us who were eating. After fifteen minutes or so the guards ordered us back to work. Time dragged. My back started to hurt, but soon I had finished unloading the cement. I spent the rest of the day doing odds and ends.

At the end of the day the Ukrainians ordered us to form a column, and we started marching back to the camp. This time they didn't make us sing, and I wished they had; it was easier to march to a tune. When we arrived back at the camp, they counted us again at the gate. Other work details were arriving from the other sites, and we all lined up again on the Appelplatz.