January 22, 2010. In dedication to the victims of the Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp.

Within a few minutes I was put on a cattle car with about 120 men. I was enveloped with a fear that words can only hint at: it was as if I had become the fear. My father was gone, my mother was gone, my sisters were gone. I had not seen my brother in four years. My community disappeared before my eyes. I was alone.

The door of the cattle car was closed and locked. It was black. I could not turn or even lift my hand after we were herded into the car. As my eyes got used to the darkness, I could see through the slats. There was not enough light to recognize faces. Although it was so crowded that I could not move, I have never felt so completely alone. When the train started, something was shoved through the small openings on each side of the car. Because I was tall, I was able to grab what was tossed in. I didn’t know it was bread because the texture was unlike any bread I had ever held, the taste, unlike any bread I had ever eaten. It was like sawdust. I ate some and put the rest in my jacket. The first decision I made on my own was to save some bread for later. I wanted to eat the bread, but couldn’t because whatever was in it made me thirsty. This was my first encounter with the hunger of the camps. Hunger, like a good friend, was always by my side, while at the same time, was the tyrant I carried with me for the next 11 months.

Gross-Rosen entrance gate with the phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei”

People were collapsing, but it was so dark that I realized this only when I started to lose my balance and found myself standing on bodies. I had to remain upright because had I fallen, I too would have been trampled to death. It was too crowded to get up. Falling meant dying. I did not want to step on bodies but instinctively did, to maintain my balance, to save my life.

Men were moaning, whimpering, and shuddering, making sounds I had never heard. Cries of prayer reminded me of the Day of Atonement when we ask who is going to live and who is going to die. In contrast to my recollections of the past during the train ride to Auschwitz, now memory was all I had. It was what temporarily distracted me from the horror of the cattle car and the dread of the future. I was struck with the change in my perception of my past. My memories helped me to survive. My past had become a retreat into which I could escape. Only a week before, I would not indulge in even the slightest recollection.

There was no pale, so no decisions had to be made in this regard. I lost control and urinated during what must have been the night. My first reaction was that of warmth and then relief from the cold. Seconds later, I was again cold and wet. Losing control of a body function was the first of a series of surrenders.

When the train stopped and the doors opened, we were blinded by the light and assaulted by screams of “Raus! Raus!” as the SS, Wehrmacht, and Kapos ordered us to disembark.

We were at the outskirts of a village in Poland Gross-Rosen. I realized the stench on the train was the scent of death when I saw 30 or 40 bodies being pulled out of the car and loaded onto wagons. The Germans expected and were prepared to remove the bloated, misshapen corpses. There was no dignity in this world. Even in death, men were heartlessly hurled on top of each other to be carted off and disposed of callously, as if they were waste.

We lined up and were ordered to march in rows on a country road. There were thousands of us marching through the village of Gross-Rosen to the labor camp, located on the periphery of the town.

“Where am I?” ”How long?” ”What am I?” Continuously I asked myself these questions. ”What could be next?”

We marched through narrow gates with the “Arbeit Macht Frei”posted on the side. It struck me as odd to see slogans posted. The signs I was familiar with were geographical pointers. These signs seemed to be conveying a message with a thematic meaning. The numbers on our jackets were recorded by inmates clad in the same striped uniform I had just received. I wondered if I had entered some hitherto unknown kingdom. There were many similarities between this place and Auschwitz, both in appearance and in the citizenry.

We, the new inhabitants, were directed to a large open area where there were a gallows and a pole with a bell on top. I was struck immediately at how much smaller this working camp was than the place I had just left, Auschwitz. Although the camp was smaller, there were many more people assembled in the Appelplatz than there had been during the roll calls in Auschwitz. There were probably about 7,000 to 8,000 men wandering around. I searched for a familiar face. People were difficult to recognize with their shaved heads and striped uniforms. I saw a couple of people from Munkacs Adler and Schwartz. After seeing them, I did not want to recognize people. I felt ashamed and embarrassed for them and myself.

The concrete posts in the former Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp held the electrified barbed-wire.

Schwartz was short and stocky and although I did not know him personally, I knew that he was a lawyer. Two months previously, he had been a dignified well-dressed, and respected man in the community. In Gross-Rosen, he looked hideous, like a caricature of himself. A few weeks later, the folds of skin on his face would be all that was left to testify to his former corpulent self. There was a craving in him now that had not been there before. I wanted to avoid this beastly need.

Adler was a working class peer of mine. Although we had the same right to dignity and respect that Schwartz had, the reality was that it had not accured to us. It was awkward to see Schwartz dressed as I was, and in the same despondent state of being.

Time was difficult to measure. A free man uses time to order his life – when to eat, when to sleep, and when to go some where. Time has no meaning as a prisoner. When I arrived in Gross-Rosen, it was clear to me that I was a prisoner and my time was not my own. So it is impossible to say whether we were in the Appelplatz for an hour or for three. Time was not ours to control, and we did not measure it. On the day of my arrival, we remained in the Appelplatz until the inmates returned from their work in the quarry and the Messerschmidt factory.

After, we were counted. An official with handheld loudspeakers announced that everyone must remember the numbers they were wearing. From then on, we would be referred to only by number. Use of our names, would result in death. We were never given information about the future.

Before being assigned to a barracks, we were given our first meal in two days. A bowl of soup unfit for human consumption. The barracks were smaller than Auschwitz, each holding 300 or 400 men. I tried to get a lower bunk, which consisted of a wooden plank without a pillow, cover, or mattress. Exhausted after having stood on my feet for 48 hour, I fell asleep.

“Raus! Raus!” The hollering seemed louder maybe because the barracks was smaller. We were sent to the running water located outside the barracks, to splash ourselves with cold water. Once back in the barracks, we were ordered out again and given the regulation piece of bread and cold coffee by the door and counted in front of the barracks.

We were counted first as a group, then divided into smaller groups of 50 or 100. Marched to respective work areas, we passed six or seven inmates playing musical instruments. When describing this now, the image takes on a surreal characteristic. Today, when I visualize the band whose members were inmates seated in an open field playing marches as thousands of emaciated skeletons in ill-fitting striped uniforms passed by, I am struck with the absurdity and utter senselessness of such an ordeal. This recital occurred twice daily as we went to work and returned. But 50 years ago, the music was just a variation to the noise of the usual yelling and screaming and the barking of dogs. At night, there was a constant drone in the barracks with 400 men moaning from the fatigue, pain, and a sense of helplessness that permeated every minute of our existence. The noise was exaggerated due to the structure of the barracks, which did not include any acoustic buffering. Occasionally, the music distracted me from the constant hunger that was overcoming me. I never looked at the musicians and they never looked up at me or the men who passed by. There was no contact. This too, was bizarre, for music is a form of communication. To be so close to musicians without any kind of exchange seemed entirely unnatural.

A view of the stone quarry in the Gross-Rosen camp, where prisoners were subjected to forced labor. Gross-Rosen, Germany, 1940-1945.

My first destination outside of the barracks was the quarry. There we lifted stones onto wagons that were then pushed to a rock pile and emptied. This was done over and over for eight to ten hours a day. I think I worked for about three of four weeks in the quarry. There were SS men who came in periodically. People from the village were employed there but were forbidden to speak with us. The Kapos had sticks with them all the time and if I slowed down, they would beat me. If an SS man was nearby, the Kapos administered the beatings with great vigor and enthusiasm to impress their superiors. Sometimes, men did not survive the clubbing. This meant, the Kapo had an extra ration of food that day. They patrolled constantly, like vultures circling, waiting for their prey to fall.

Although we worked under virtually all weather conditions, once during a torrential downpour, it became impossible to move the wagons in the heavy blanket of mud that covered the earth. We were assembled and marched for half an hour to the Messerschmidt factory. Each of us was assigned to work with a civilian who had a bench with a vise, lathe, and other metal working tools. The man I was with spoke Polish. I was able to communicate with him because of the similarity between Slavic languages. I knew that the work inside was much easier than in the quarry. I tried to please him and be as helpful as possible.

I was assigned to the same worker as the day before, and was so relieved to be working inside, that I took off my hat and thanked him, “Dequi barzo.” This startled him, but he did not acknowledge me. It was forbidden for inmates to speak with civilian employees. So I will never know if he requested me out of kindness or because I was useful. I don’t know whether this peasant chose to work in this factory or if he too was forced. It made little difference, for choise was not an option during the war for someone from a Polish village. There was no work alternative for the village peasants if they declined employment in the German-owned factories that used either the inmates for slave labor or the so-called civilian l abor. Labor is a scarce resource in a war economy. In the sphere the Nazis created, it was absurd to judge choices made by using the ethical standards of my previous life. To this Jew, working with this man at that time meant the difference of life and death. I had begun to lose weight and strength. In the intolerable conditions of the quarry, men were not able to last working more than six weeks, if they were not clubbed or shot first. I saw more people murdered in the quarry than in any other work place I was in.

I assisted this man every day from the end of June until September 1944, in the Messerschmidt factory. I filed, sanded, cut pipes, polished metal, and did any other job he asked me to do, including cleaning and sweeping our work area. I tried to anticipate everything that he needed. I observed and attended to anything that I could do. The Polish man indicated daily to the Kapo that 83150 should return. He never knew my name. I too, did not know or dare ask him his.

A horn blew before every lunch break. The civilians ate outside while the inmates were counted and their food rations distributed. After receiving my ration, I went outside. Not every horn that roused us was for a lunch break. If an inmate was missing, we had to stop working, file outside and wait until everyone was accounted for. This disturbed the man with whom I worked. I became a scavenger, constantly on the lookout for any garbage that was discarded by the civilians. I gathered paper bags to use in the latrines, asked for the cucumber peels, radish stems, or any scrap of food not consumed by those whom I thought it safe to approach. As time went by, focussing my thoughts became increasingly difficult. I thought of nothing but how to obtain food. I realized that I would not survive, even under the improved conditions in the factory, unless I was able to supplement my meager rations. I took more risks in my approaches, not only to civilians, but also to a man wearing a German military uniform. I looked to see if anyone was watching and, without making eye contact as I passed him, I asked, “Can I have a piece of bread?” I had recognized this man and knew his lunch-break routine. Repeatedly I asked him over the course of several day, “Gehen Sie mir ein Stiick Brot?”

One day, he had a small parcel with him and as we passed each other, I slowed down in case he had something in it for me. He looked to see if anyone was watching and then dropped it on the ground. I turned, picked up the parcel, put it in the pocket of my pants, and immediately covered the bulge it made with my jacket. Inside was a piece of dry bread. He continued to show the same generosity, risking his life daily, by leaving a parcel for me.

Barracks in Gross-Rosen taken after liberation, February 13, 1945.

During the time I was in Gross-Rosen, these were the only two occasions on which I had any social contact or kind gesture was made towards me. These were shrouded, in a necessary veil of secrecy. If this contact had been recognized as an act of kindness, either I or the German soldier or my Polish work-mate would have been shot or severely punished. It was mandatory for prisoners to take off their hats when passing any man in a German uniform. When passing this German soldier, I removed my hat as I said, “Dunke Shane.” He acknowledged this with an expression of gratitude, pierced with sorrow.