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Authors: Sharon Peters
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prisoners, about placing machines in the salt mines there, presumably to extract minerals. Once the men had been unloaded, however, functionaries discovered that the mines were impossibly wet. No work could be done.
The prisoners remained there for four weeks awaiting further assignment. Officials somewhere, unhappy about the idleness of so many men, decided to make use of the time by formally imprinting their status upon them. Each man was given a tattoo, a hastily needled primitive-looking KL, standing for Konzentrationslagerâ concentration camp in German.
On August 1, they were loaded into boxcars again. As always, they had no idea where they were going. This time, though, they knew that it was as likely to be a death camp as a labor camp.
Four
The men were crammed eighty to a boxcar in the late afternoon, shoulder to shoulder, so tight against each other that no one could move or change position. It was broiling hot, and the boxcars became steamy and fetid, reeking of sweat and bodies too long unwashed. The engine was hauling so many cars that it never picked up much speed; the train just ground into a slow, numbing rocking motion. It was nauseating, this combination of heat and stench and swaying, and many of the men vomited, sliming the floor. They couldnât last long like this, and they prayed the journey would be short.
It was not.
As the sun rose high in the sky late the next morning, heat radiated from the roof and sides of the car. No food, no water. Not even a bucket in a corner where a man could relieve himself. By afternoon, almost a full day after theyâd started, bladders and bowels could no longer be denied. A man with a makeshift knife spent hours scratching and digging a hole they could use as a toilet, but it was almost impossible to maneuver their way to the hole, and some passed out making the effort.
The train stopped to take on water and coal for the engine a few times, and during those brief pauses the doors opened, allowing a slice of fresh air to drift in. One bucket of water was thrust forward for the eighty men to share. It wasnât enoughâjust one sip per man.
On each side of the car, just below the roof, two narrow, grated windows served as a peep crack to the outside. The men who stood near them described the scenery for the men close enough to hear. The summer colors were beautiful: verdant green fields, lush trees, flowers abloom in yellows, lavenders, and reds. When the train passed through towns, the watchers reported, they could see people staring back at the human faces peering out at them. Those people probably knew or suspected where the train was headingâif not the precise destination, then the sort of place it was. And they didnât stare for very long.
Moshe stopped sweating. His body had no fluid left to release. He could almost sense his organs shutting down, one at a time, even though such a thing was impossible to feel, he knew. He was certain he was on the brink of becoming delirious. Maybe he had already reached that point, he thought, but was too close to death to recognize it.
Several men died standing up. Their bodies simply stopped working after months or years of deprivation, this final assault of prolonged dehydration, heat, and hunger one they could not fend off. Each time the train stopped and the men shifted a little, the corpses lost the support from the live men stuffed up against them, and they dropped to the floor.
After three nights and two days on the train, having crossed the border into Germany along the way, though the men didnât know this, the train slowed and then halted again.
There was something different about this stop, they realized as soon as the doors screeched open. A long column of guards stood at attention, watching them, and a camp, much larger than Budzyn, loomed in the distance, nestled among towering evergreen trees and jagged rock faces.
As they seeped out of the cars, blinking hard in the
The prisoners remained there for four weeks awaiting further assignment. Officials somewhere, unhappy about the idleness of so many men, decided to make use of the time by formally imprinting their status upon them. Each man was given a tattoo, a hastily needled primitive-looking KL, standing for Konzentrationslagerâ concentration camp in German.
On August 1, they were loaded into boxcars again. As always, they had no idea where they were going. This time, though, they knew that it was as likely to be a death camp as a labor camp.
Four
The men were crammed eighty to a boxcar in the late afternoon, shoulder to shoulder, so tight against each other that no one could move or change position. It was broiling hot, and the boxcars became steamy and fetid, reeking of sweat and bodies too long unwashed. The engine was hauling so many cars that it never picked up much speed; the train just ground into a slow, numbing rocking motion. It was nauseating, this combination of heat and stench and swaying, and many of the men vomited, sliming the floor. They couldnât last long like this, and they prayed the journey would be short.
It was not.
As the sun rose high in the sky late the next morning, heat radiated from the roof and sides of the car. No food, no water. Not even a bucket in a corner where a man could relieve himself. By afternoon, almost a full day after theyâd started, bladders and bowels could no longer be denied. A man with a makeshift knife spent hours scratching and digging a hole they could use as a toilet, but it was almost impossible to maneuver their way to the hole, and some passed out making the effort.
The train stopped to take on water and coal for the engine a few times, and during those brief pauses the doors opened, allowing a slice of fresh air to drift in. One bucket of water was thrust forward for the eighty men to share. It wasnât enoughâjust one sip per man.
On each side of the car, just below the roof, two narrow, grated windows served as a peep crack to the outside. The men who stood near them described the scenery for the men close enough to hear. The summer colors were beautiful: verdant green fields, lush trees, flowers abloom in yellows, lavenders, and reds. When the train passed through towns, the watchers reported, they could see people staring back at the human faces peering out at them. Those people probably knew or suspected where the train was headingâif not the precise destination, then the sort of place it was. And they didnât stare for very long.
Moshe stopped sweating. His body had no fluid left to release. He could almost sense his organs shutting down, one at a time, even though such a thing was impossible to feel, he knew. He was certain he was on the brink of becoming delirious. Maybe he had already reached that point, he thought, but was too close to death to recognize it.
Several men died standing up. Their bodies simply stopped working after months or years of deprivation, this final assault of prolonged dehydration, heat, and hunger one they could not fend off. Each time the train stopped and the men shifted a little, the corpses lost the support from the live men stuffed up against them, and they dropped to the floor.
After three nights and two days on the train, having crossed the border into Germany along the way, though the men didnât know this, the train slowed and then halted again.
There was something different about this stop, they realized as soon as the doors screeched open. A long column of guards stood at attention, watching them, and a camp, much larger than Budzyn, loomed in the distance, nestled among towering evergreen trees and jagged rock faces.
As they seeped out of the cars, blinking hard in the
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