by Eddy de Wind
Outside now and then in the daytime. It was good to be between the blocks, but the September sun turned the place into an oven in the afternoons. There was one good thing about going outside: Hans was in a room full of Poles and Russians he couldn’t exchange a single word with; Dr. Benjamin and he were the only Jews, and their fellow prisoners were hostile toward them. But outside you met people from the other quarantine rooms. There were Czechs and Austrians, and the most beautiful thing was that you could always find someone who was prepared to explain to you that the war could only last another three months at most.
And then, after three days, the great feast: a package from Friedel with a couple of slices of bread with jam and margarine. In quarantine they just broke the bread into pieces. This bread had been sliced neatly and made into a sandwich prepared by a woman’s hand, his wife’s.
She was so close, a thousand feet at most, but there were guards on the doors and if they caught him it would mean a real thrashing. It was a chance you could take, but it could also lead to a report to the SS and that would mean a punishment detail, which was something he couldn’t risk. And so he lived with the tension of inactivity, waiting, bread and blows, boredom and longing.
After a week things changed.
It was hot between the blocks, very hot. A sliver of shade was hugging the side of Block 13 and only expanding slowly, because time passed slowly on that endless, scorching sunny day.
Crowded into that sliver was half of Central and Eastern Europe. The other half couldn’t fit into the shade and was squatting against the sunlit wall of Block 12, or lying stretched out in the dust, pointing every which way. Sleeping with their hats on their faces, naked torsos filthy from a grimy mix of sweat and sand.
Hans preferred the heat of the sun to the body heat of the men crammed into the shade. He was strolling along with Oppenheim, who was giving an exposition on his favorite theme: the end of the war in relation to the petroleum shortage.
Then a loud voice: “Everyone with wooden shoes fall in.” Hans hesitated. He was one of the few with shoes. All of the others had gone straight to quarantine from disinfection. They were still wearing sandals. His hesitation proved disastrous because the Blockältester, who had yelled the order, was right there. He dragged Hans along, spewing out curses, because he had seen him trying to slink off.
Altogether there were fifteen men, mostly Poles—coarse, sturdy young fellows, still well fed from home. They marched in twos to Block 1, where there were wagons. They were given straps that were wired to one of the wagons and had to use them to haul the wagon to the gate. The Blockältester, who was supervising them, announced: “Häftling 27903 mit 15 Häftlingen zur Strassenbau.”
So that was it: roadworks. The SS man noted the Kommando down in a book that lay on the counter of the Blockführerstube. Then they continued on their way.
Hans smiled when he thought of the day of his arrival, a week ago now. All that human machinery pulling wagons. Now he was pulling one himself, a small cog in one of those fifteen-cog machines, and if he didn’t pull hard enough for a moment he would immediately get a kick from the Pole behind him.
“Dalej, dalej!” cried the Poles; “Davai, bystro!” the Russians; “Los, Schweinehunde!” the Blockältester, and if an SS man happened to be passing, he shouted it twice as hard and hit whoever was closest with his stick—on the back or on the head, it didn’t matter where, as long as he demonstrated what an enthusiastic Blockältester he was.
It was like that everywhere with the Nazis. The SS yelled at everyone, including the Blockälteste, the Blockälteste yelled and lashed out—at the Poles too, and they in turn chose the weakest to yell at. The weakest were Hans and a Polish Jew called Leib.
They didn’t say anything in reply. Hans could feel that the Poles were shouting to release the tension from being shouted at themselves. The Führer shouted at his generals. They could bear it because they in turn got to shout at their officers. And the officers shouted at the soldiers. Like a billiard ball that stops rolling when it hits another ball, the soldiers calmed down again after beating the prisoners and shouting at them.
The Blockältester hit the Poles and the Poles hit Hans. The Führer’s blow had reached Hans, where it couldn’t do any more harm because Hans was powerless.
He was also powerless when they arrived at the pile of gravel. They were meant to load the gravel in two gangs, but he was always the dupe because when it was time for the gang to be relieved there was never anyone to take his shovel. It made sense: 15 = 7 + 8. Eight of them worked and seven were there to relieve them, so the eighth didn’t have anyone to relieve him and the eighth was always Hans. He complained to Leib, who said something to the others in Polish. They laughed, but nothing happened.
They dragged the wagon back and forth many times, picking up gravel outside and carting it back to the camp, where others from quarantine were already at work spreading it on the streets. Hans was wet through. His hands were blistered from the shovel and his feet were chafed where the edges of the wooden shoes scraped over his bare skin. After being pushed to the front so many times by the Poles, he went over to the SS guard next to the pile of gravel. But he didn’t get a chance to complain; the mighty Sturmmann did not wish to be disturbed. Hans took the slap in the face with gritted teeth and the work carried on as before, with shoves from the Blockältester and mocking from the Poles.
When they entered the camp after the sixth trip with the fully loaded wagon, all of the other Kommandos had already returned. The prisoners were already in roll-call formation in front of the blocks. From all sides people were yelling at them to hurry and raising their fists in menace, so they dragged the wagon half running, with every SS man they passed still managing to land a few telling blows.
Panting, they reached the quarantine block, left the wagon, and ran upstairs. In the corridors the others had long since lined up for roll call. Curses were coming at them from all directions and all the room orderlies were hitting them. As if it was their fault they’d been forced to work so long!
The roll call was very slow. The SS man had long since come and gone and they were still standing there waiting. Hans felt dizzy. His heart wouldn’t stop racing. His throat stayed choked shut and his grazed feet were burning so badly he had tears in his eyes. And if he squatted for a moment or tried to lean on the bunks behind him, there was always a “comrade” to immediately give him a poke so that he jumped back to attention.
After roll call, fetching bread, which again meant seemingly endless lining up. Then the bread and the coffee. A little bit of jam smeared on the bread. He licked it off. He drank the coffee, but couldn’t get the bread down his throat. Later… After he’d been able to lie down for a while… His appetite would come back then. He undressed in preparation and lay down on the bed. Sleep came over him as salvation, liberation from the strap that had bound him to the wagon. The shovel had been taken out of his hands at last. All pain was stilled and longing hushed because he had sunk deep into the dark pool of unconsciousness.
Suddenly a yell, a shock: “Alles aufstehen!”
What was happening? Pure confusion as thoughts formed again from the fathomless depths. Was that Mother calling? Was there a fire? Was he ill? Running a fever? He could hardly move. Then his mind cleared. The Russian he shared his bed with was giving him a good shaking. “Foot inspection!”
What? Now? Exhausted and miserable, he had been overwhelmed by sleep and hadn’t washed. Now it was the middle of the night and his feet were dirty. But this time he was in luck. The SS man was drunk and couldn’t see straight. He walked past Hans, who was allowed to lie down again half an hour later and went back to sleep immediately.
He wasn’t rested at four o’clock that morning. All of his muscles, the skin over his whole body—pain everywhere. He hoped he wouldn’t be put to work again. But it was a vain hope. No sooner were they lined up than the room orderly came in with a note. He had the detail’s numbers and Hans had to go out again.
Hans held up under it. He kept working even though his back seemed about to burst open, even though the shovel in his hands seemed to be made of glowing lead. It was the only correct attitude, because when the Poles saw that he wasn’t giving up, they gradually became a little more accommodating and now and then one of them even took his shovel from him. But that was hardly an advantage, those few minutes of rest, because when he had to start again he was so stiff that every movement used up two or three times as much energy.
Still, he got through that day too, and the next day and the fourth, and the days passed without too many incidents. A blow, a snarl, cursing. But who counts any of that? Or the exhaustion and pain, only increasing, what did they matter? The grazes on his feet started to fester. The Sanitäter put some Sepso on it—an iodine surrogate—but what would that help? His eyes were inflamed from the sun and the sand, but so what?
The one time he did report to sick parade in the morning the Sanitäter laughed at him. “For a few miserable little scrapes like that?”
And then the hunger! Constant hunger! What, after all, is a single ration of bread and a liter of soup a day? And what kind of soup! Water with some beets in it, or chopped turnips. Now and then, one and a half potatoes per liter of soup and they were always at the bottom of the kettle, which the room orderlies reserved for themselves and their friends. Sometimes you could get your hands on another liter through a friend or good fortune, but it was better not to eat it. It was definitely better not to eat too much soup because now, after one or two weeks, all of the old prisoners—in a camp, that means between forty and forty-five—had edema of the legs. What would become of him if he got edema, with these wounds? They would never heal!
On the fifth day, as they were dragging the fully loaded wagon: the incident! There on the left, women coming down a side street. They were ordered to stop the wagon fifty yards from the intersection to make sure none of the men came into contact with the women.
Hans held his breath, peering intently. Then, losing all self-control, a cry: “Friedel!” He threw off his strap and ran toward the women. But he had only gone a step or two when someone grabbed him. It was Leib, the Polish Jew, who brought him back to his senses.
“Du Idiot, they’ll beat you till you can’t even stand up anymore!”
Hans said he didn’t care.
“They’ll beat her too.”
That convinced him. Nervously he looked at the Blockältester, who was supervising the work but hadn’t noticed anything. He had walked ahead a little to watch the girls.
Still, Friedel had seen him and waved from the distance, cautiously, with a slight movement of one hand. It seemed to him that she was trying to say, I’m still here. Do you think of me sometimes? And he answered, Oh, I am so tired, too tired to think of you.
But you have to think of me, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to stick it out.
That was true and he waved back cautiously, as if to signal that he’d understood, that she was right, and that he would keep on fighting with her image before him.
Even harder days came. The weather changed, turning colder. At first it was a relief. His skin didn’t smart as much, his muscles felt a little more supple and he didn’t get out of breath as quickly as in the heat. But then the rain came. His clothes offered no protection: a linen coat and an undershirt. He was soaked to the skin.
But that wasn’t the worst. After two days of rain there was nothing left of the road. The entire route to the pile of gravel was a succession of ponds and mounds of muddy clay. The water was over their ankles. Their shoes got sucked down into the mud and the wheels sank in gunge up to the axles.
But they had to keep the wagon moving. And if it got stuck in the mud with its load of gravel, the Blockältester’s stick knew what to do. And if the Blockältester wasn’t able to rage hard enough to get the wagon loose, an SS man who was better at it would come along. He’d wade through the muck in his boots and give the closest man a kick that sent mud flying around everyone’s ears. Then they’d grab the spokes of the wheels and tug and twist, and the Sturmmann would bellow and lash out, and the Blockältester would laugh to show how much he admired the Sturmmann’s energetic approach. And so they got the wagon moving again after all. Because although the men were wet and tired, one or two weeks hadn’t been enough to fully deplete their energy reserves, and when they had to, they could. They all had scrapes and lumps from the blows they’d received, but so far none of them had been really hurt.
But they knew that wasn’t something you could rely on. Just yesterday they had seen the Blockführer, the SS man in charge of the blocks, hit a Gypsy boy so hard his whole cheek burst open. He hadn’t been standing straight enough. After the roll call they’d had to take him to the Krankenbau.
You heard about people being beaten and wounded almost every day. That was why Hans and the other men put in even more effort. Faced with the furious SS man, and with everyone in equal danger, a sense of solidarity arose after all. The Poles encouraged Hans, and Hans did his best to help the Poles. They no longer felt the pain from the blows, only grim determination. They would get the wagon out! “Hau ruck! Hau ruck!”
Fifteen pairs of arms succeeded where two horses would have certainly failed. But at this stage they were still strong, they still had energy reserves. What would it be like in a week, in a month? Hans worried in bed at night. He felt ill. He had taken off the wet undershirt but a fever made him shiver under the one small blanket he had to share with two others. Despite the warmth, despite the many people crammed in together, he was shivering. What would he be like tomorrow?
The Poles, who had already been there for several weeks, often received packages from home. The Russians often got food from friends in the camp; nobody was as skilled at “organizing” as a Russian. Even if ten SS men were standing near the kitchen, a Russian wasn’t scared and always managed to filch a bag of potatoes. And he always managed to make a concealed fire to cook them. But nowhere was there as much comradeship as among the Russians either, because that same Russian always had a friend in quarantine to share his booty with.
But who looked after Hans? Or the handful of other Dutchmen in quarantine? He had already noticed that the Dutch weren’t held in high regard in the camp. Whether Jews or non-Jews, the Dutch were seen as weak and lazy.
Maybe they were right. The Dutch are calm and businesslike. They’re not used to being overzealous, using underhand practices to pursue their goals or letting themselves be rushed along. And why should they be zealous about this drudgery? It was either pointless, in which case zeal was insane, or it was a war industry, and then laziness was an obligation.
But as a result almost none of the Dutch prisoners had a position where they could organize anything. Not one worked in the kitchen block or the storerooms and, with the possible exception of Leen Sanders, the few who had anything showed precious little community spirit.
Friedel did manage to smuggle in a few more packages of bread for him. Again they felt like a blessing beyond any he’d ever received before. But how could that help with this hunger, with this work? How much longer could he last?
After three weeks: the surprise. It was still very early, and Hans was nibbling the small slice of bread he had saved from yesterday for the third time, when the block clerk came into the room. He called out numbers. Including Hans’s.
Four of them stood together in the corridor and, after the Kommandos had left, they went to the Krankenbau. There was already a whole group of prospective Pfleger in Block 21.
Hans got into a conversation with a little old man. At first sight he looked fat, but on closer inspection you saw how swollen he was. The “fat” was all water; on his forehead he had a large boil. His name was Cohn. H
e was a dermatologist and had been working in a roadworks Kommando for a month already. This was the third time he had had to come to see the Lagerarzt and he was sure that he would be turned away again this time too.
Hans was feeling more optimistic and his instincts were correct. A few short questions about his training and so on, and then he felt that it was going to be all right. Back to the Krankenbau after all, another chance after all. The wagon, the gravel, being overworked, spending entire days in the rain—all that was over. And despite his rough hands—he couldn’t even write a note anymore—despite the wounds on his feet, despite his back, which he could neither bend nor stretch, he returned to Block 28 and the admissions ward full of courage and fighting spirit.
Can you imagine that you can also get bored in a concentration camp? Hans was bored. There was no work for them in Block 28. They had to wait until they were assigned to the different hospital blocks where Pfleger were required.
Hans wouldn’t have minded getting some rest—lying on his bed until late in the morning; going out into the autumn sun in the afternoon—but that wasn’t possible either. After all, the principle of a concentration camp was Bewegung: Even if there wasn’t anything to do, you had to keep moving at all times.
Getting up in the morning to the sound of the gong, washing and dressing, and then, when the work gong rang three quarters of an hour later, starting work. The room orderlies mopped the floor. You weren’t allowed to help because then the room orderlies wouldn’t have any work left and would get put into who-knows-what kind of heavy outside Kommando.
Then, cleaning windows again. Armed with a piece of newspaper or some other kind of scrap paper, you began at six in the morning. At noon, when the soup arrived, you had cleaned two windows. If you did it too quickly you had to make them dirty again and start over—woe betide you if the Blockältester or an SS man came near and you weren’t industriously cleaning. A snarl and a blow was the least you could expect, but they could also tell you that they had no use for a lazy Pfleger and that you had to go and stand “next to the bell” the next morning. That meant falling in outside the blocks the next morning at the second gong. You had to go and stand under the gong to be assigned to a different Kommando.