Prisoner B-3087 (9 page)

They were big rocks, and it was a big pile. The rocks
were heavy and rough, and we were given no wheelbarrows or gloves. The rocks had to be moved from
one side of the assembly field to another, and the Nazis
yelled at us and beat us if we were too slow or if they
thought we were carrying a rock that was too small
for us. I put my arms around another stone and lifted,
my back crying out in pain. The rock tore and scraped
at my skin as I cradled it to my chest and staggered
across the yard to dump it in the new pile. Then I did
it again. And again. One of the other men stumbled
and collapsed, and the guards fell on him with sticks and
clubs. I hefted another rock and kept working while I
tried not to let the Nazis see how afraid I was. They
were like Amon Goeth’s dogs — they could smell fear
on you, and they liked nothing better than to attack
when you were at your weakest.

By midday, my arms and hands and chest were so
raw and bruised I couldn’t have gone on, but by then
we were finished. I would have dropped to the ground
but I knew I would just be beaten for it, so I stood
with the others, wobbling on my shaking legs while
I waited for the guards to tell us what new task
awaited us.

“Good,” the SS officer in charge of us said. “Now
move it back.”
I blinked stupidly, not understanding at first. We
had just worked all morning to move this pile of stones
across the camp, and now the Nazis were changing
their minds? The other prisoners and I looked at one
another to see if we had heard right.
“I said move this pile back to where it was!” the SS
officer yelled. He moved through our group, hitting
us with a stick until we moved. “You will move it
to where it was, and then you will move it again!
Now work!”
Such was life at the Trzebinia concentration camp.
I had been transferred there after a short time mining salt at Wieliczka. Wieliczka had been hard, but
Trzebinia was worse, because at Trzebinia the Nazis
played games. The Nazis were making us work just to
work. This was all a game to them, like a hand of cards
or playing soccer. We were the ball, to be kicked
around for their sport.
My arms shook as I picked up the same stone that I
had just carried across the compound, but not from
weariness this time. From fury. I fumed as I hefted the
stone and trudged back across the muddy compound.
But they wanted me to be angry. They wanted me to
say something, or frown, or mumble curses at them.
They were watching me for it. Watching all of us. Like
schoolyard bullies, they wanted to provoke us, and
then they would beat us as punishment.
At Trzebinia I worked all day moving piles of rocks
back and forth, digging holes six feet deep and then
filling them back in again. I ate watery broth and
week-old bread once a night and passed out on a
wooden pallet with no mattresses or pillows or blankets. I was an animal to them, a pack mule. But beasts
were never treated so poorly. Working animals were
expensive. They had value. I was a Jew. We were lower
than animals. They could kill as many of us as they
wanted, and there would always be another trainload
of us to take our place.
But as angry as I was at the Nazis, I was even angrier
at my fellow prisoners. How could we take this abuse
so quietly, so meekly, with our heads bowed and a quick
tip of the cap to our killers? Yes, the Nazis had clubs
and guns, but there were far more of us than there were
of them. If we turned on them all at once, we could
overcome them. We were not animals to be led to the
slaughter! We were thinking, feeling human beings!
One day, in the middle of hauling rocks again, I vowed
not to be killed without a fight. My father, Uncle Moshe,
the Jewish elders, they were all wrong. We shouldn’t be
trying to survive, we should be trying to
win
. Instead
of waiting for the British or the Americans or the Russians to save us, we should be saving ourselves.
I’m not going to let them line me up on the edge of a
pit and shoot me
, I told myself.
I will fight back. I will
kick the Nazis in the shins. I will run. I won’t go like a

At roll call that night, someone else had the same
thought. One of the Nazis struck him with a club, but
instead of taking the beating meekly the prisoner
raised his arms and grabbed the stick. He wrestled it
from the shocked officer’s hands and struck him with
it in the head, knocking his Nazi hat into the muck,
striking his raised arms again and again.

Yes! Yes
, I thought.
It begins here. Together we can
take them all!
I looked around anxiously to see if anyone else felt as I did, if anyone else would take up the
charge, but everyone had their heads down. No! This
was our chance! If we fought together —

Crack!
I jumped at the sound. With the fiery spark
of a pistol, it was all over. The prisoner who had fought
back crumpled to the ground, dead from a bullet to
the brain, and the assaulted officer was hurried away
from the assembly grounds. The camp’s soldiers appeared
in force around the edges of our lines, pointing rifles
at us, and the camp commandant hurried out from his
cozy office. When he heard the report from his officers, he turned on the prisoners.

“You!” he cried, pointing at a boy who had been
standing right next to the man who fought back. “You
were a part of this plot to escape!”

Guards grabbed the boy and dragged him to the
front of our lines, where the Nazis had built a gallows
for hanging prisoners.

“And this man,” the commandant said, pointing
into the crowd. “And this one. And him. And him.
And him.”

He was picking people at random now in his fury,
punishing innocent people for the dead man’s effrontery. I shrank back. I recognized the boy and two of
the other men from my barrack. Like me, they couldn’t
even have known who the dead man was.

“I’m innocent!” the boy my age sobbed as they
dragged him up onto the gallows and put the hangman’s noose around his neck. “I never tried to escape!
I promise! I’ve done everything you asked!”

I shook with helplessness and rage, but also with
fear. This is what fighting back earned you. More
abuse. More death. Half a dozen Jews would be murdered today because one man refused to die without a
fight. To fight back was to die quickly and to take others with you.

This was why prisoners went meekly to their deaths,
and why I knew, despite my resolution to fight back, I
wouldn’t. To suffer quietly hurt only you. To suffer
loudly, violently, angrily — to fight back — was to
bring hurt and pain and death to others.

“Please!” the boy cried. “I never tried to escape. I’m
innocent!” He looked out on all of us, those of us with
the courage to look up from the ground. “Remember,”
he begged us. “I did nothing.”

The hangman kicked the chair out from under him,
and the boy’s body jerked as his neck was broken.
I kept my head held high and watched, vowing
never to forget.

my work detaIl was on Its way to the
quarry to break more rocks one morning when
another
kapo
came to speak to ours. The two
kapo
s
talked for a moment, and our
kapo
ordered us to stop.
I kept my head down, but tried to look around with
my eyes to see what was going on. Something different was happening, and different was never good. Our
kapo
kept us standing there without saying anything
else for a long time. What was happening? Why had
we stopped? Were we in trouble? Were we going to be
killed? The other prisoners had to be asking themselves the same questions, but of course none of us
spoke. To speak was to invite a beating. We would be
told our fates when our captors decided we needed
to know.
“Turn around,” our
kapo
said at last. “March.”
We headed away from the quarry, which would

have been a relief if I thought we were going someplace better. We passed a place where prisoners were
shot over the pits they had dug for themselves, and I
said a silent prayer of thanks. But then we passed the
barracks, and the main gate. We were being marched
to the depot. A train waited at the side rail, but it didn’t
have passenger cars. It was fitted out with cattle cars.
We were to be transported like livestock.

We were herded up a ramp into one of the cattle cars
under the whips and clubs of the
kapo
s and SS officers.
I was one of the first ones inside. The car was empty
and looked recently washed, but it smelled of urine
and vomit and excrement. I reeled back, but there was
nowhere to go.

“In! In!” the guards yelled at us, and I was pushed
up against the far wall. More and more prisoners were
forced into the car. They packed so many of us in I
was crushed between three other men and the wall,
but it was like that for everyone. I couldn’t even raise
my arm. I felt trapped again, like I had felt under the
floorboards and down in the salt mine. I couldn’t be
here. I had to have space. Air.

“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe!” a man at the other
end of the car started to scream, giving voice to my
panic. “Let me out! I need to get out of here!” He kicked
at the wall of the cattle car. “Please! I can’t take it!”

Crack!
An SS officer shot the man through the wall
of the cattle car, and he no longer had to worry about
not being able to breathe. If I panicked, if I broke, I
would suffer the same fate. Instead I worked my way
toward a ventilation grate on the wall of the train car
and pressed my face up against it, breathing in the
fresh air from outside. My heart still raced, but at least
I could breathe.

We stood squeezed into the train car for half a day
while the Nazis loaded more prisoners into other cars.
We had no food, no water, and no way to go to the
bathroom. Soon I understood why the train car had
smelled so bad, and would only smell worse before
this ordeal was through.

Late in the afternoon the train lurched and we were
away. None of us knew where we were going. I hoped
it would be better than Trzebinia, but by now I knew
not to dream. False hope only made things worse.

It was cold along the wall of the cattle car. Wind
whipped through the spaces in between the car’s
wooden slats, making me shiver. But at least I had air.
The prisoners in the middle complained of it being too
hot and too close, and of not being able to breathe. So
I shivered while I sucked the freezing air into my
lungs, and I didn’t complain.

As the train made its way to wherever we were
going, I watched the landscape slide by. Plaszów,
Wieliczka, Trzebinia — they had all been right around
Kraków, my home. Now I was truly leaving home and
seeing the outside world for the first time. I had never
imagined it would be under these circumstances.

I saw snow-covered fields. Farmhouses with electric lights burning in the windows. Forests. A river. A
busy road with cars and trucks. After all my time in
the work camps, it was strange to see people in the real
world, eating dinner and going to school and watching movies. But that was the world for non-Jews. My
world was concentration camps and salt mines, starvation and cattle cars.

The train slowed, and the other prisoners began to
stir. Were we at our final destination? Did anyone recognize where we were? I watched through the grate as
a little train station slid into view, but I couldn’t make
out the name on the station sign. I could see people
though, regular people.
Polish men carrying briefcases. Polish women pushing strollers. A child in a blue coat pointed at our
train, and her mother turned her away. Two boys
waited with their parents beside a stack of luggage.
They were going on a trip. Maybe on vacation.
“They’re going to turn you into soap, Jews!” one of
the boys yelled. He couldn’t have been much older
than five or six.

“No,” his older brother said. “They’re taking you
to the gas chambers!” The boys scooped up snow
from the platform and threw snowballs at the train.
One of them exploded on the grate near me, and I was
showered with slush and ice. I was angry until I realized the snow was water, and that I was dying of thirst.
I licked what I could off my face and my shirt.

The train lurched and we were off again, the boys
taunting us and throwing more snowballs at us as
we left.

“And you wanted to escape,” a man near me whispered to another man. “You wanted to run off into the
woods and fight. But do you see? Do you see what
the rest of them think about us? These people would
sell you back to the Nazis for a sack of potatoes and
then toast you at the dinner table.”