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there room enough in block. One thousand only. You, you and also you and you, too old. Too much suffer here. I save you suffering. And you, talk too much.”
    He designates four prisoners, as well as the French officer. Right in front of us, his assistants beat them to death with their clubs, then line up the corpses outside the block.
    The assistants bring in hundreds of rusty chamber potsfull of a brown liquid that they call “coffee.” Where did they find all these chamber pots? Five men to a pot, they say. Brod, three comrades, and I, we try to control our thirst and take turns drinking quietly. In other groups, there are conflicts and shouting. Laybich writes down the numbers of the noisiest drinkers.
    â€œI like quiet,” he says. “Those who disturb the peace will be lined up tomorrow morning in front of the block, like these five.”
    We hope he is joking, but nobody feels like laughing.
    Toward the end of the day, several thousand prisoners come back from outside the camp, where they work in groups called
Kommandos
. We recognize comrades who left Pithivers one or two weeks before us. They give us some advice.
    â€œYou’ve just arrived, but you must understand all the laws of the camp before tomorrow. He who understands in twenty-four hours is twice more likely to survive than he who needs forty-eight hours.”
    â€œBeware the
Bindenträgern
(men with armbands). They belong to the staff. Their assignment is written on the band: blockältester, stubendienst, kapo. They’re former German or Polish criminals, Jewish thieves, or prisoners who choose to become killers to escape death for a while. We call them barons. e Try not to offend them if you want to stay alive.”
    â€œKeep your shoes on at night. If you take them off, you’re dead. Either someone steals them, or your feet swell and you can’t put them on again. Then you must use the camp’s wooden clogs. After two or three days, your feet are so bruised that you can’t walk anymore. You limp behind the others when going to work, so the kapo gets rid of you.”
    A guy I knew before the war says something I don’t understand: “You’re lucky. They could have gassed you.”

Chapter 11
It seems to me he is heavier than a living man
    I spend my first night in the camp. Two tiers of six-foot-wide planks run along the wall. We sleep with our feet toward the wall and our heads near the central passage, lying on our side, stacked like forks in a cutlery drawer. I am glad to lie down for the first time since we left Pithiviers. I’d be able to sleep much better if I took off my heavy boots, but that’s impossible. “If you take off your boots, you’re dead.” Now and then, all the stacked bodies turn over together to change sides, without waking up.
    Just after I close my eyes, I hear beatings, screams, and the deputy shouting.
    â€œ
Aufstehen! Aufstehen!
(Get up!) Up with you, Hirenzine! Out! Faster, faster!”
    The morning has come already.… I jump down from my bunk and run outside. I receive only one small blow on the way. A French Jew, who slept on the same plank as me, receives a shower of blows while he’s putting on his shoes.His face is covered with blood. He has delicate hands and the look of an intellectual worker. I think about my older brother.…
    Whereas five bodies were lined up in front of the block last night, we now discover thirty, set in groups of five, naked, with tattooed arms sticking out so the number is easy to read. Laybich the deputy delivers a short eulogy for them.
    â€œI gave them coffee, but they weren’t satisfied. Let this be a lesson to you, my friends!”
    â€œWhat did he say?” the French Jew asks me in a whisper. “I don’t understand Yiddish, you know. Can you translate?”
    â€œShut up, or we’ll end up the same way!”
    It is four A.M. or so. We stand up in rows of five until eight.