Prisoner B-3087 (18 page)

they took us by traIn. they packed us In
again, so tightly we could do nothing but stand, and
gave us no food or water for the trip. People died all
around me, just like before, but now I hardly took
notice of it. I had been surrounded by death for so
long, seen so many men die before my eyes, lived with
so many dead bodies piled and stacked and strewn
about like so much human firewood, that I almost
couldn’t care anymore. Almost. I closed my eyes on
the train, trying not to see the death all around me,
but I knew it was there. Sleep was my only refuge from
the horror, the thirst, and the starvation, so I retreated
there, dozing on again and off again as the train shuddered and creaked on its way to a new camp.

I had long since stopped hoping that each new camp
would be better. Each was no better or worse than the
last. They were all different rooms in purgatory, each
different but each the same, and the Nazis made it all
the more nonsensical by shuttling us around from one
to the other, as though it made any difference.

Planes flew over the train, so low just their passing
shook the cars, and we heard the patter of bullets. A
bomb exploded so near the tracks we could feel the
heat from it. The train stopped, and for a moment I
had a vision of a bomb falling right on us, killing us
all. And for a moment I wanted it to happen, the way
Fred had so long ago. Anything, anything that would
get me out of this nightmare.

But the planes went away and the bombs stopped
falling, and the train started to move again. I couldn’t
have told you if I was more disappointed or relieved.

When the door to the train car finally opened at
Gross-Rosen, our new concentration camp, bodies fell
out. We left even more bodies in the cars. Those of us
who had survived the trip, who had survived camp
after camp after camp, shuffled into Gross-Rosen
without fear or expectation. Nothing the Nazis could
do could surprise any of us now.

They gave us our barrack assignments and put us
right to bed. I sank into a deep stupor. First thing the
next morning we were put to work right away, with no
more time to recover from our torturous train ride
like at Bergen-Belsen.

On the train, I had wanted a bomb to fall on us to
put me out of my misery. But now that I was back in
camp and it was the awful business as usual, my old
instinct to survive kicked in again. If it was a game,
then I had my own part to play; the Nazis would try
to kill me, slowly, randomly, teasingly, and I would
resist. I would work. I would survive. If the Nazis
were going to play their game, so was I.

The Nazis had needed more workers at GrossRosen for the war effort. They still believed they could
beat the Allies, even though we’d heard that the Russians had taken Warsaw and that Dresden was in
flames.

“Any day now,”
prisoners whispered amongst one
another,
“the Allies will be in Berlin, and we will be
set free.”

Today we built more barracks. As I worked, I told
myself there would be another world after this one. A
bright, shining, beautiful future, where I didn’t wear
blue and gray stripes, where I ate three full meals a day,
where I wouldn’t work until I passed out. Where I could
have friends again. Where I could have family again.
Where I could laugh again. That world existed, I knew.
I couldn’t reach it now, not yet, but soon. If I survived.

So I worked. Not so hard I would die, and not so
little I would be punished, as Moshe had told me so long
ago. I put my head down and worked, day and night,
day and night. Worked to live.

“You there,” a
kapo
said to me one day. He stopped
me with the end of his club, poked into my chest. I
raised my eyes to him, the first time I’d looked up in
days, maybe weeks.

I blinked. I had no idea what he was talking about.
Dully, I looked down at the ragged, dirty shirt I wore.
The top button was missing. I hadn’t even noticed.

“I don’t know,” I said. My voice surprised me. It
was nothing more than a croak. I hadn’t spoken a
word to anyone for days. I licked my lips and tried
again. “I must have lost it.”

Twenty lashes. I was going to be flogged for the
“crime” of losing a button. I closed my eyes. I was too
tired to cry, too exhausted to even feel angry.

At roll call, I was pulled out of the lines and marched
to a wooden “horse” — a polished, bark-less log with
four wooden feet — and laid over it with my bare back
facing up.

Crack!
My back erupted in pain as the first lash hit
me. I jerked on the log, almost falling off, but I grabbed
on tighter. If I fell off, it would only be worse for me.

“One,” I said in Polish.
“In German!” the soldier said. “We’ll start again.”
Crack!
I closed my eyes to the pain. How would I

ever survive twenty lashes when two hurt worse than
anything I had ever felt before?
“
Eins
,” I said.
Crack!
“
Zwei
.”
Crack!
“
Drei
.”
Crack!
“
Vier
.”
Crack!
“
Fuenf.”
Crack!
“. . . Sechs.”
Crack!
“. . . Sieben.”
Crack!
“. . . Acht.”
Crack!
“. . . . . . Neun.”
Crack!
“. . . . . . Zehn.”
Crack!
“. . . . . . Einzehn?”
The Nazi soldier tutted. “No, no, no. It is
elf
. Did
they teach you nothing in your Jewish schools before
the war? I will teach you. We’ll begin again.”

I remember very little after my lashes were finished. I
couldn’t even tell you how many I eventually had —
many more than twenty, that was certain. When they
were finished with me, I was dragged back to the barracks and dumped onto one of the shelves, where I
passed out.

That night I had a dream. I was in a beautiful green
meadow. Yellow wildflowers grew here and there, so
tall they swayed in the light summer’s breeze. In the
distance a brook burbled happily along, and a great
tree beyond it spread its branches wide. I sat in the
grass and listened to a cricket chirp nearby, totally at
peace.

But then a dark cloud appeared on the horizon.
Lightning flashed, and thunder rolled over the hills.
“No,” I said, not wanting my perfect afternoon disturbed. But the storm kept coming.

Lightning split the air near me, and —
krakoom!
—
the thunder knocked me down. The earth shook
beneath me. The ground cracked and opened. I tried
to grab something to stop my fall, but my hands
clutched only air. I fell into a deep, black abyss lined
with tree roots and rocks, and they struck me as I fell.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
I counted
them in German as I fell
—
eins
,
zwei
,
drei
,
vier
,
fuenf
—
Thoom!
Something exploded near the barracks, shaking me
out of my dream. I raised myself up on my elbows — I
had to sleep on my stomach, because my back was too
raw with pain. There were prisoners packed in all
around me — roll call had long since ended, and it was
the middle of the night.

Thoom!
The barrack rumbled again as another bomb fell
close to the camp. Everyone was awake now, every
prisoner, and we watched the roof and waited without
a word, waited to see if one of the bombs would fall on
us and kill us all. But no. The bombs fell all through
the night, and soon we all went back to sleep. Raining
death was no reason not to sleep. Not when there was
work to be done tomorrow.
As I laid back down on my stomach, my bloody
back still screaming in agony, I remembered my
dream. I told myself I would not fall down the hole. I
would climb out again. The Allies were getting closer,
and I was going to be there to welcome them when
they got here.