Guards at the back blew on their hands and lit cigarettes. “What’s going on?” someone whispered. “Typhoid,” someone else whispered. “Not again,” another said. “Yes,” still another said. “I work for one of the camp doctors. It’s typhoid all right.” So the talk went as the truck crunched over piles of frozen slush, skidded this way and that, and got up enough speed to rush through the Jourhaus gate, where the guards waved us across the roll-call yard, made bright as day by the floodlights. There the trucks slid to a stop, and we were bullied out of them and into formation. Men not dressed as warmly as I was began to shiver and softly stamp their feet. The guards shouted for silence and, with their leashed dogs bounding and snarling, herded us into two groups. I was resenting all the shouting, pushing, and cursing, the goddamn dogs, but I knew it was a luxury to get mad; the general population went through this several times a day. Who were we to get uppity when we all knew that a prisoner who let anger show got the crap beat out of him—and that was the mildest punishment!
Then we were trotting in formation up the steps into the kitchen in the Wirtschaftsgebaude. It was deliciously warm inside and smelled of food. We looked at each other and smiled. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. The prisoners who were wearing Holtzpantinen, wooden shoes, slipped, regained their feet, balanced themselves carefully, and continued to skate along the tile floors that were fast becoming wet and dangerous. Soon we were lined up before the long row of sparkling stainless-steel food containers hooked above ovens. Each container had a number, and they were huge! I wondered how many men it took to carry one. My group was broken down into three smaller ones, and mine was sent to stand before the container marked “29.” Twenty-nine! That was way at the end of the camp, the last block on the east side, if this was for Block 29! There were twelve of us, and I could now see that we would use long wooden handles to carry the container. These were six inches square and rounded at the places where they had to be held. Our eyes flashed and flickered from one face to the next. Six of us on each side, but could we lift, let alone carry, that huge, hot kettle of food?
“Bereit … heben …! Heben!!” Down along the ovens men were grabbing hold, fear and panic already plain on their faces. We, too, grabbed the handles at the command to lift, and tried to force the container up and away. It didn’t move. In shock, we glanced at each other once again. I was sweating from fear and too many clothes. Up the line, out of the corners of our eyes, we saw the SS start down, beating, punching, kicking, and suddenly men who only a moment before couldn’t lift their containers freed them from their places above the ovens, and began staggering toward the doors. As the guards approached, we got our vat off its hooks and began sliding, skating, stumbling toward the doors being held open by the guards. They popped us with their clubs as team after team scampered out and steam leaped from the containers into the night sky. There were only two steps to climb down, but they might have been twenty feet apart as we maneuvered down, wheezing, whining, and panting. Behind us, as we gained the ground, we heard a cry, more cries, of anger, despair, and fear, then shouts followed by the bang of metal on the concrete steps, and soup came washing down under our feet, but we hadn’t stopped. The dropped container banged once or twice more and then its sound was lost among the curses and screams of men, and the barking of dogs.
Before us we saw, and behind us we heard, these curious beasts shuffling and clomping and moaning, all the legs and the bright metal containers reflecting the lights of the ’Platz where we were slide-skating toward the ’Strasse, a guard at each end of the pole. We struggled to hold the container high enough to keep it from bouncing on the ice and snow. It seemed to take an hour to cross the roll-call square. My legs trembled. Someone behind me was crying (I was the second man on the left pole) and someone else kept saying, with each step or slide, “Oh, oh, oh.” The men at the front and rear positions were easy targets for the guards. It helped not to look up, to just somehow in the dark feel the steps of the man in front of you and match your own to his, to find your own music to struggle to. So unless we caught one of the blows, we only heard them land, followed by the muffled reactions of the prisoners. “Ow!” “Oh!”
There seemed to be three teams in front of us, judging from the SS shouts and curses and the reactions to them, but most of the teams were behind us. Our efforts, the dying heat from the containers, and our fear brought the sweat to our bodies like sheets of warm water. Our clothes would freeze on us. I called my legs back from going off on a solo. We couldn’t stop to wipe away the sweat. I tried not to feel or think. I felt the weight biting down in the side of my neck, then my shoulder. I felt we’d gone another hour, but when I glanced up, I saw we were just passing the canteen! The first building after the square! My heart flew away and my stomach fell to my knees. I’d never make it. By the time we got between Blocks 1 and 2 I’d be dead.
“Stop!” one of the guards in front called. “Set it down. Change sides! Hurry! Hurry! Useless pieces of shit. You! Move, nigger!” In a frenzy we scuttled around, lifted the container and struggled off again. I felt a little better. We were gaining on the team carrying the container for Block 30, one section of which had become another Revier. I looked around and saw that the “30” team was letting their container slide along on the snow, and as much as the guards were beating them, they still couldn’t get it up. We shuffled and skated past them.
Behind us, panting and groaning and singing, we heard a group of Jews. I wondered how many men were on their poles. Surely they had come from their block, 15, because if they didn’t get their own food, no one else would get it for them. The guards wouldn’t let that happen.
There is no mistaking the sound of a club against a human skull, and the “30” team in back of us was getting more than its share of clubbings. Fear and pain, fear of pain, will make a man do almost anything. It wasn’t long before we heard the “30” team right behind us, and the “15” team not far behind them. We switched again between Blocks 3 and 4, and in the dim lights of the block entrances, I saw tears, sweat, and snot on the faces of the men in my team. My heart was pounding in my ears; it felt like it would tear loose. We lurched forward again and somehow we seemed to have found each other’s rhythm; I could feel the coming together, like a bunch of musicians. The crunch and wheezing of the teams behind us seemed to be falling away. Then we were changing at the Punishment Company block, 7, and starting up again. On the next change, between 11 and 12, I looked behind. Some teams had reached their blocks; others continued down the middle of the ’Strasse.
The crematorium smell shifted to our direction, and that may have goaded us on, for the next time the guards said to change, we just kept going, fueled by the momentum of our pace and by the fact that we were midway to 29. I wondered about the men who did this twice a day. Now there were breathless whispers among the team. “C’mon, pick it up. Faster. Aren’t you as tough as the guys who live here? What are you, Kaminfutter, chimney fodder? Show a little courage. Don’t be a Señorita. C’mon, put your back into it, we’re more than halfway there.” We were sounding like horses that had been at the plough too long. We encouraged, coughed, panted, prayed, talked to ourselves. But our container was now bumping and scraping the ground, and each time it did, in fright, we forced it back up and struggled on. We strained to see the block numbers. We switched between Blocks 23 and 24 in the section called Moscow and Warsaw.
The north watchtower loomed tall and white before us. Was the guard pretending, fixing us in his sights, pulling the trigger? There was then the point at which we knew we were going to make it, being so close to the tower. I could feel a surge of power along the pole as we leaned toward 29, moving to our right. Block 25 crept backward, then 27, and we were at 29, where the block leaders were waiting and the prisoners who were able, weakly waved their enamel bowls and beat them with spoons. We struggled up the steps, through the doors and into the building, which stank of shit and vomit. We set down the container and fell to the floor beside it.
/> We had done it!
About 400 of us hauled food for three days and then, because the SS feared we might contaminate the families we worked for, we were carefully examined and sent home. Gangs of new prisoners from other camps and Russia replaced us.
Saturday, April 18, 1942
New and bigger signs have gone up in the latrines:
Nacht dem Abort, von dem essen
Hande waschen, nicht vergessen.
After the latrine, before eating,
Wash your hands, do not forget.
The prisoners hardly have time to do anything—wash, shit, or eat. Work, yes; everything else is Schnell! Avanti! Rasch! Ein biss rascher als sonst! Wenga! Wenga! Hurry, hurry, faster, a little bit faster.… So shit gets in the water and everyone gets sick.
The Langes were glad when I was finished carrying food. I noticed they didn’t get too close to me for a while, which was fine with me. The canteen stayed closed, so I did things around the house.
The fertilizer truck has just left a small pile of gray ash for mixing in the soil. The past couple years I haven’t been so squeamish about shoveling it. Now I just whisper to it, “Who were you?” Or “Who were you guys?”
I’ve begun the spring cleaning, taking time out to lay in my bed and look at old magazines when the Langes aren’t around. Anna’s down in the dumps. I talk to her in English, but she’s not interested anymore. So I say, “Inefay ithway emay. Uckfay ooyay. Itchbay.” She doesn’t know if she should smile or get mad; I smile so she should know what I said was harmless. She’s got something on her mind besides the war, the big-shot partners, and all the scheming and hustling.
Dieter Lange was right, of course; I will not be moving my rusty-dusty from Dachau to any other camp. He visited Laufen and Tittmoning. Says they are filled with people who are naturalized citizens of the U.S., Canada, England, and South American countries. He found an American Negro in Tittmoning, a painter. There are a few colored men there. Dieter Lange pulled out a piece of paper and read, “Josef Nassy. From New York. He had been living in Brussels when the war caught up with him. The commandant over there likes him. Helps him get his painting stuff.”
“Oh?” I said.
“No, no,” Dieter Lange said. “He’s married to a Belgian woman.”
“You’re married, too.”
“Shut up, Cleef. Don’t be smart with me.”
I shut up and wondered what kind of life this Nassy was having. Dieter Lange explained that the men in those camps had problems with their passports or were resident aliens when the Germans took over. “But their status is being honored,” Dieter Lange said. “There are even Jews there who aren’t headed for—you know—the East.”
There was something like a little hole in our talk then. I knew there was stuff he’d heard about what was happening in the East, besides the war, and he knew there were things I’d heard. The prisoners weren’t the only “pieces.” The SS guards, too, were moved from camp to camp as the need arose, or as some, especially the officers, felt their careers could be improved in another camp. Rumor said the new camps in the East offered the fastest chance for promotion, and jokers like Eichmann, Loritz, Remmele, Zill, Hoess, Koegel, and others had gone far up the ranks when they went to them. Maybe Dieter Lange was like me in this case. I’d heard a lot of stories about what the Germans did and were doing, but the stories coming in on the grapevines through prisoners being transferred from camp to camp were the kind that, if you believed, you also had to know the train had gone off the track carrying you with it.
Dieter Lange shook his head. I wasn’t going to say anything unless he did. Something like this was so dark and bloody that whatever words you used to describe it were just the introduction to a composition that could never be finished. Dieter Lange shook his head again. He said he didn’t understand why Winkelmann wanted to go East. But Winkelmann was old for a captain. In the East he might get ahead fast, if nothing happened to him first.
Sunday, May 17, 1942
The Winkelmanns have left. Dieter Lange said he told Winkelmann not to let himself get caught by the Russians because they were doing to the Germans what the Germans were doing to them. Winkelmann said don’t worry; he wasn’t going to the front, but to a camp in Poland called Auschwitz, a big place with many smaller camps attached to it. There were important things going on there that should warrant quick promotion, Winkelmann said. Dieter Lange said he just grunted when Winkelmann told him that. When Dieter Lange, Winkelmann, and some others went into Munich for a farewell party, Anna, Ursula, and me had one of our own. Now I think I will miss Ursula. With her around I learned things I never knew, couldn’t even imagine.
Fri. July 17, 1942
Goebbels had said that he was going to get even with the British for bombing Germany by punishing the Jews. There can’t be a person in Germany who doesn’t know what’s already being done. Radio London said Americans bombed German bases in Holland on the Fourth of July. To which Dieter Lange said, “Hmmm, hmmm.” It’s more dangerous than ever to listen to London, but naturally, Radio Berlin is saying only good things or that things are not as bad as we may hear. You have to listen to the outside to know what’s really going on.
Haven’t seen any of the colored prisoners in a while. Dead or transferred?
New camp rule: Only German prisoners can beat other German prisoners. Well. All the camp police are German. The block leaders, seniors, secretaries, capos, and so on are mostly all German, too. Like Uhlmer in the canteen. He’s handling all the whorehouse passes for Dieter Lange—but I still handle the money at the end of the day. Next in line come the Austrians, then the Poles, who could make good Germans (Eindeutschungfähig). Same old shit. Everybody sticks together except colored people, and they don’t because everybody else makes sure, one way or the other, that they can’t.
Anna started moping around after Ursula and her husband left. Feeling sorry for herself, I guess. Also, she’s back exploring the joys of the wine closet, and I don’t mean just the wine.
Sunday, August 23, 1942
It was very pleasant today. Everyone strolling around the camp, spazierganger. Here and there church services, the Catholics, the Protestants. Why not? There are 2,000 priests in this place. How many ministers I don’t know. The priests and ministers both are called by the SS Kuttenscheisser—robed shitheads. (Prisoners with dysentery are called shitters—Scheisser.)
On days like this the Russians walk around and whisper about Der Rasche Gang des Onkel Josef, while they hunt down and exchange Kippen, cigarette butts. That means Stalin’s Red Army is beating the shit out of the Germans.
There are a couple of places in camp called Interessengebiet, where the prisoners go to barter. Cigarettes and tobacco are the main forms of exchange. I don’t know who decides the rate of exchange or how or why. It does no good to argue that last week the rate was lower. When the food hits rock bottom—like now—with turnip and beet tops and dandelion greens and one piece of bread served day after day after day, the canteen does good business—if the inmates have money, of course. Then there’re the bartering places for those who don’t. Today the Valuta is:
1 loaf of bread = 30–50 cigarettes
1 dead cat (Katze) = 20 cigarettes
1 small dog (Hund) = 30 cigarettes
portion of soup = 5–6 cigarettes
suspenders = 3 cigarettes
1 slice of a sausage = 1–2 cigarettes
Blocks 15 and 17 are being cleaned out again, which only means that Jews are going East to make room for more Jews coming from the West—France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg.
Thursday, Nov. 26, 1942, Thanksgiving Day back home
Oh-oh! Oh, boy!
I just got my paper out of Dieter Lange’s storage because he’s going to clean out everything that’s not in cans or jars. Just in time, too. He’s now moved all the boxes and canned goods out to Anna’s father’s farm. I think they plan to bury stuff, including the gold teeth.
He’s keeping the dried
meat because there are food shortages in camp, and this time they’re bad. They seem to be bad everywhere. A train transport from Danzig rolled into camp with 600 prisoners, Poles and Russians. There had been 900 when it started out. A ten-day trip. No food. Six corpses chewed down to the bone. Bad? It’s worse than that. And Dieter Lange has heard that scrip will replace money in the camp. That word came from his big shots, he said. “Who the hell can use paper play money?” he said.
There are other things going on. In July the Americans had bombed Holland. Eighteen days ago they landed in North Africa! And the Russians have surrounded the German army at Stalingrad and are killing the soldiers and starting an attack of their own! Hitler said on the radio: “We knew the fate that awaits us if we lost, and for this reason we have not the remotest idea of a compromise. We have always had the Jews as internal enemies and now we have them as external ones.” Got news for that joker. It ain’t only Jews lookin’ for his ass; it’s the whole damned world. So what does the great leader do in return? Why, he takes over the rest of France.
And Anna drinks.
And Dieter Lange drinks. They drink and talk, him and Anna, about the idea they had while in Paris.
“We would go to France and from there to Portugal. Spain was out. Franco might have sent us back, but Portugal is neutral. Now France is out. We would have had Anna’s father send us whatever he could make on the sale of things, you know.…”
“No,” I say. “I don’t know. What was supposed to happen to me?”
I drink, too, and get so mad my blood bubbles like spit on a hot stove.
“That’s why we didn’t do it,” Anna says, the lying bitch.
“Yes,” Dieter Lange says. “That’s why.”
Lies, all lies. I have the feeling that they want to climb on my good side and stay there. I think about the time off they gave me after hauling food during the last typhoid epidemic, the good word they put in for me with Dieter Lange’s new partners. There is something more than sex now and music (which I’m not playing too much of) and watching Uhlmer and Lappus; it’s my being American, colored but American, and maybe, if push comes to shove, I could put in a good word for them. Yeah, I would. In a pig’s ass.
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