by Pliss, Todd
The back of the transport van was unlocked and the five prisoners were removed from it under the watchful eyes of armed guards. They were led through a small guarded entrance and into the prisoner holding area.
The Gestapo private who had driven the transport van approached SS Lieutenant Kramer with papers that needed to be signed. It was a routine that both men had been through many times.
“How many this time?” Kramer asked and then took a deep drag on his cigarette.
“Six,” the Gestapo private answered. He held out a clipboard with official Reich sealed papers attached to it.
“What the hell is happening?” Kramer wanted to know. “I’m receiving twice as many as I usually do.” He snatched the clipboard from the Gestapo Private and signed the papers.
The Private said, “The Reich Defense Council ordered that the camps be filled to capacity so there will be enough labor to work in the armaments plants to prepare for Japanese aggression.”
“Those damn Japs. They think they own the world. They already have some of the most productive land around.” Kramer took another drag on his cigarette. “I say we blow up the slant-eyed fuckers.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” the Gestapo Private agreed. “It should be done for the good of the Reich.” He then asked, “Where are these prisoners being sent to?”
“Hollenburg.”
The Gestapo private boisterously laughed,
“I would not want to be in their shoes.”
The compact prisoner holding area was crowded with an uncomfortably large number of prisoners, most of whom appeared to be thin and weary looking men and women. A small number of children were also present.
Once inside with the other prisoners, Wayne’s feet and hands were unshackled. If a prisoner did attempt to escape, he or she would make good target practice for any one of the numerous armed guards keeping watch on the compound.
A female prisoner, Linda, watched Wayne curiously. Linda was in her late twenties and had black hair that ran down to her shoulders and dark brown eyes. She wore ragged clothes and no makeup, but was an attractive woman anyway.
Wayne noticed Linda and glanced back at her. He had sensed that she was glaring at him, but he also felt that everybody else in the compound was optically checking out the newest prisoners who had arrived on that night.
The expression on Linda’s face, though, was what made her stand out to Wayne more than anybody else on that miserable day. She had a look of possessing a great emotional strength and an “I’ll beat any situation attitude”. Wayne observed that the other inmates all had a blank and sad defeated look on their faces.
Wayne found a vacant spot on the hard concrete ground and sat down. He could do nothing but wait. He closed his eyes and, surprisingly, considering where he was, fell asleep.
Except for a rotating searchlight, the night was dark and quiet, until the sound of a child’s wails broke the silence.
Wayne awoke to the sound of the crying three-year-old girl. It was an awful, hysterical cry that pierced the still night. Wayne got up in the dark and walked towards the crying child. It only took Wayne a few seconds to reach the source of the cries. The child was being held by her mother, a frail woman in her thirties.
Wayne kneeled down and asked the mother, “Is the child sick?”
The mother, with worriment, responded, “For three days now, Jessica has been with high fever. She’s been shaking and vomiting.” She began to sob. “I don’t know what to do. They’re going to take Jessica away from me; I know it. They’re going to take my daughter from me.”
“Nobody is going to take your daughter. Everything is going to be fine,” Wayne tried to reassure her. He said out loud to the other prisoners, most of who had been awaken by the child’s persistent wails, “Does anyone have any penicillin? Or some water at least?”
None of the other prisoners answered. Wayne, in fact, seemed to be the only person who bothered to try and help the situation. From the dark shadows where she sat, Linda watched what Wayne strove to do. The child’s wails became unbearably louder.
The mother hugged Jessica and stroked the child’s back. Jessica continued her crying.
“Jessica, you are going to be okay.” Wayne said to the child. “All you have is a little fever. You just have to rid it...”
The brilliant searchlight froze on the three of them.
Without Wayne seeing, the mother placed her hand tightly over Jessica’s nose and mouth, suffocating the innocent, beautiful child. Jessica stopped breathing.
An SS guard came to see what the noise was about. He was not happy about having to take the trouble to leave his guard post. He warned, “One more cry out of the child and I will personally take care of it myself.” He headed back to his post.
The searchlight was shifted to a different area.
Wayne looked into Jessica’s face. The child was dead. He put an index finger up to her tiny nose to make sure. He verified the young girl’s condition. Wayne looked into the mother’s eyes. The mother wore such a hollow, blank stare that Wayne knew from his gut feelings that she did. Wayne could not look at the small corpse again. He turned and walked away.
Wayne sat down alone in the darkness and wept.
Linda approached him. “You going to be okay?”
“For God’s sake, she was only a child,” Wayne spoke with tears rolling down his cheeks.
Linda sat down next to him and put her arm around him in a supportive gesture.
Wayne cried, “A poor, defenseless, little girl. What happened? What the hell did she die for?”
Linda had already been incarcerated in the prisoner holding area for four days. She said, “Two days ago another child, an infant, was ill and wouldn’t stop crying. An SS man came for the baby and its mother. And then, a few minutes later, from the other side of the fence, two gun shots were heard.”
“It’s so horrible,” Wayne said. “How can humans be so inhumane to one another?”
“They’re not human. They don’t have normal human feelings. They’re trained to be Nazis, not boy scouts,” Linda said. “I haven’t introduced myself.” She put her hand out. “I’m Linda.”
“Wayne,” he shook her hand. He had stopped weeping and regained some of his composure.
“So, what’s your story, Wayne? Where’d you get picked up?”
The last thing Wayne wanted to do was make small talk with another prisoner.
“I’d rather be by myself right now,” he said sheepishly.
“I think it would make you feel better if you had somebody to talk to,” Linda said compassionately. He didn’t respond.
“Well, if you need an open ear...” she got up to leave.
Wayne rapidly sifted his situation through his mind. This woman might be of help to him, he thought. A feeling of loneliness overcame him, in addition to the feeling of desperation that already accompanied him. Wayne had a feeling as if he was the last sane person left on the planet. “I’m sorry, Linda. Please sit down. I can sure use that open ear,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Linda sat down again close beside Wayne. It was a very cold night. She put her arm around Wayne. “Do you mind?” she asked him.
Her body heat felt good to him too. “No, I never mind when a pretty girl wants to put an arm around me,” he said with a slight chuckle, but it was impossible for him to feel any tinge of elation being in the situation that he was currently in.
Linda asked him once again, “So, where did they pick you up?”
“NYU.”
“NYU?”
“Or the Center of Aryan Studies. Whatever the hell they call it now,” he said.
“What were you doing down there?”
“I’d rather not get into that now,” Wayne said irritably. The lack of sleep was also taking its toll on Wayne’s mood.
“I didn’t mean for you to jump down my throat,” Linda said.
“Sorry about that,” Wayne apologized. �
�I’ve been through a hell of a lot lately.” He then asked, “Where are you from, Linda?”
She replied, “The ghetto. Need I say more?”
“Where was your ghetto?”
“Does it matter where any of them are? Mine was not too far from here.” Linda had grown up in and had always lived in a ghetto because she was of Polish blood.
“Why did you leave your home?”
“Home?” Linda said. “Is that what you would call that rat hole? The Germans live in homes, not us. Four days ago, I was picked up in a Gestapo raid on the ghetto. The same with most of the other people in here.”
In the Reich, persons with unpure Germanic bloodlines or other subhumans like homosexuals or disabled people were obliged to live in ghettos. The ghettos were bleak and dispiriting sites. The ghettos contained no luxuries or necessities of twentieth-century life. No running water. No plumbing. No electricity. No sanitary conditions. Tuberculosis was wide spread. Some of the ghettos were relatively small, with populations of fewer than 50,000. Others were in themselves the size of small cities, with populations swelled above half a million. No ghettos, however, were located on pre-war native German soil. The Reich Ministry of the Interior decided long ago that such a thing would be undignified for Germany.
Wayne questioned, “Do you know what’s going to happen to us?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Linda said. “The rumor is that the Germans need more slave labor and that’s where we come in. That is probably why they continue to let us live.” She removed a stale piece of bread from her pocket and whispered to Wayne, “I have bread with me. You want to share it?”
“No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Linda bit into the hard bread. “But it ain’t going to last.”
Wayne fell asleep before Linda finished consuming the bread, using her shoulder as a pillow. Linda soon also dozed off as well.
That night, Wayne dreamed of happier times in his life. He dreamed of Camp Summit where he spend his childhood summers. He and his bunkmates went kayaking and got into trouble for tipping over the boats. Those days in Camp Summit were some of the happiest days of Wayne’s life.
Wayne has jolted back to reality as morning set in. At dawn, a loud siren pierced the air, waking up the sleeping inmates of the prisoner holding area.
SS men entered the compound, followed by SS Lieutenant Kramer, who carried a megaphone with him. The SS men went around and kicked or hit with a club any prisoners whom had not yet woken up to their satisfaction, which meant standing in place at attention.
SS Lieutenant Kramer put the megaphone up to his mouth. He said, with his gravelly voice amplified, “All you swine, up! Form two columns. Now.”
The prisoners dutifully followed Kramer’s instructions, helped along by the numerous SS men present. Linda got in line behind Wayne.
“Swine, march out!” Kramer ordered the prisoners.
The men, women, and children that made up the prisoner population walked in measured steps out of the holding area. They were led about half a kilometer by SS men to a train station and given the command to halt in front of an old German passenger train.
The train doors were opened and Wayne could see that it was already crowded. Those people appeared to Wayne to be much like the people he had spent the night with in the prisoner holding area; they wore the same blank and sad defeated look on their faces.
SS men directed the prisoners into the train cars in no apparent order, but did keep them moving as rapidly as they could. When a woman, as she was about to step up onto the train, slipped, an SS man picked her up and shoved her into the train compartment.
The musty, old train had been gutted of any seats or railings. The windows had been blackened. The Gestapo made sure the prisoners received no amenities at all, including breathing space. The prisoners had been packed on the train like sardines in a can. The train doors were closed and locked and the train began to move.
Wayne and Linda sat on the floor next to each other. Everyone was strangely quiet, even the children. Jessica’s mother, who was present in the same compartment as Wayne, sat there, with her knees pulled up to her chest, staring blankly into space. After about half an hour into their journey, something must have snapped in her head.
Suddenly, she cried out, “My baby! Where is my baby! Jessica! Please someone help me find my baby...”
The persons in the woman’s train compartment originally tried to ignore her, as people usually do on the streets when they happen upon a drunkard mumbling to himself. The prisoners looked the other way.
The woman’s frantic cries became louder and louder, turning into screams. “SOMEONE’S TAKEN MY BABY, SOMEONE’S TAKEN MY BABY! DEAR GOD, WHERE IS MY BABY? PLEASE SOMEONE, HELP ME FIND...”
Something had to be done for the sanity of all of the people on that train compartment. A tall, burly prisoner, who looked better fed than any of the other prisoners, removed his shoes from his feet, as well as his socks. He got up, and clumsily stepped over the passengers, until he was at the hysterical woman. He proceeded to gag the woman’s mouth with one of his socks and bind her hands together with his other sock. The train compartment became silent once again. The burly prisoner went back to his cramped corner and put back on his shoes.
Wayne felt sorry for the woman, but had agreed with the actions taken by the burly prisoner. It was too crowded, hot, and uncomfortable on that train, and to let that woman rant on would have surely made the other passengers go insane also. Wayne felt as if he was almost at that point himself.
The train stopped two more times to pick up more prisoners, who were crammed into the already much too tiny space for the passengers who had been present on the train to begin with. It took hours for the train to reach its destination. The wheels of the train squealed as the air brakes were applied. Wayne nudged Linda awake.
The train doors opened up to reveal armed SS men standing on the platform.
“Unload the train,” an SS Captain yelled into a megaphone. He looked so proper in his shiny black polished boots and black cap and black uniform with the SS insignia on his collar. He carried a leather crop in his hand for good measure.
The prisoners began disembarking from the train. Wayne made it a point to pause to ungag and untie Jessica’s mother. She had sat placidly since being restrained and Wayne felt that she had been through enough.
The SS Captain yelled instructions to the newly arrived prisoners via his megaphone. “Form two lines,” he directed. “One male, one female. Males to the left. Females to the right. Anyone who causes a problem or delay will be shot like the dog they are.” With their kicks and other coercions, the SS men made sure the prisoners obeyed the SS Captain’s command without the slightest procrastination.
Wayne and Linda were forced to separate. “I will get in touch with you as soon as I can,” Wayne promised her. “Do the same?”
“I will,” Linda said. An SS man came and pushed her into the female line before she could say anything else.
With the two long lines formed, the SS Captain commanded, through his megaphone, “Females, march out left. Move it.”
The women began to move. As Linda passed Wayne, she gave him a long stare goodbye. Wayne had a feeling that she was growing attached to him in a way that he was not quite comfortable with. That would be the least of his problems.
“Males, march out right,” the SS Captain ordered.
The men moved out in the opposite direction of the females did. As they moved out the SS men struck and belittled the men.
Wayne was still not aware of where he was being taken. He had the feeling it was going to be some kind of prison, but when he saw what it actually turned out to be, his jaw dropped.
The male prisoners reached the big iron gates of their destiny, Hollenburg. Wayne had seen enough pictures and documentaries in history classes to know what the place that stood before him was.
Hollenburg was a concentration camp.
Wayne thought about how
from the outside, where he was standing, the camp looked like it was straight out of the 1940’s. Just like the ones he had seen in the black and white footage in those World War Two documentaries. As Wayne had always pictured a concentration camp, Hollenburg appeared no different. A barbed wire fence encircled the camp. Catwalks connected tower posts that contained armed SS men. A large sign at the entrance read: Hollenburg. Another sign at the entrance also contained a favorite Nazi lie: “Work liberates”. Wayne thought about the lunacy of a concentration camp in 1995 on what should have been American soil. And he was about to enter it.
As the prisoners neared the entrance of the camp, they were made to stop at a large table set up with files and typewriters on it. SS clerks sat behind the table, busily shouting and pecking away at their manual typewriters at the same time. Wayne’s turn came to step up to the table.
“Name?” a shifty-eyed SS clerk shouted with intimidation.
“Wayne.”
“Wayne what?”
Wayne had to think fast about what to say next. If he gave his real last name, then the SS would know he was Jewish, if they did not know already. Should he try and hide that fact? Where he was being admitted, would it make any difference anyway? Wayne decided not to take the chance of being caught fibbing. He answered, “Goldberg.”
“Height?”
“Five foot, eight inches.”
The SS clerk typed Wayne’s information onto a file card. “Weight?”
“A hundred and seventy-five.”
“Hair color?”
“Black.”
“Eye color?”
“Brown.”
“The name of the whore that spat you into the world?” the clerk wanted to know of Wayne.
With that question, Wayne wanted to punch the clerk. It was part of the Nazi strategy to demoralize the prisoners, Wayne knew. He would have to bear it, at least for the time being. He responded to the clerk, “Phyllis.”