. . . Five . . .
The interval between one blow and the next seems like an eternity. As if they were lightning, my thoughts cross in my brain. Why doesn’t he beat me? What is he waiting for? Does he indeed perhaps intend to finish me off with a shot to my neck???
Eight . . . Twelve . . .
Confused thoughts. Fear . . . Everything is already burning and pinching. Don’t scream . . . And yet one would like to scream . . . Perhaps it would even be better to scream; then they might perhaps stop the beating?
Sixteen . . . Nineteen . . .
No! One may not scream. A few, who showed any weakness, were killed. One has to be stronger than one really is.
Twenty-two . . .
Still three . . . two . . . one blow!
“T w e n t y–f i v e!”
In this shout my entire pain discharged. But it sounded triumphantly!
I had not screamed, not even once.
Kurt Pennewitz let go of my hands.
“Now you’ll have to report the reception of the punishment to the Lagerführer,” he again whispered to me.
The feet which I pulled out of the rack were very heavy. It was difficult to place them together while standing to attention. But they closed nevertheless . . .
“Prisoner 8214 is reporting obediently to have received the punishment,” I was able to say in one breath.
“Pull down your pants!”
The camp physician cast another glance at my behind.
“Okay. Bend your knees!”
After a quarter of an hour, I found myself in the cell of the Camp Bunker. It was the custom that the convicted prisoner was given three days of a more intensified arrest.
The stony floor cooled my burning buttocks wonderfully.
2
On the morning of the fourth day, the key rattled in the lock of the door. I got up and stood at attention.
When the door opened, a beam of light fell into the cell, which gave the broad-shouldered Private First Class (SS-Rottenführer), Gerlach, the appearance of a silhouette.
“Come!” . . .
On the stairs I was overcome by dizziness. Three days without any food or drink in a dark, moist cell which lacked any flow of air whatsoever had made me weaker than I thought. Only now, under the influence of the fullness of light and air, I felt how my muscles were shaking; with every step my knees gave in, it began to buzz in my ears, and a single cramp tightened my body.
I was unable to muster the strength to climb a few steps. Desperately I tried to hold on to the banister so that I would not fall down. Gerlach, who until now had been busy with the closing of the door, stood suddenly beside me . . .
“What is the matter?” His voice sounded terribly hostile. “Should someone perhaps help you?”
At that moment, when I saw his immense shoulders and his giant claws, I clearly remembered how I had witnessed some of the scenes in which he had badly mistreated the prisoners. I turned my eyes away from his unusually large, mirrorlike, polished, and studded boots, and I controlled myself. Fear proved to be stronger than weakness. With regained vitality, I climbed the rest of the stairs and walked through a door, into the corridor, and then I stopped.
“Into the Schreibstube!” he ordered.
The third door had a small sign marked Schreibstube.
Gerlach entered and, shortly thereafter, the clerk of the SK, prisoner Groell, came toward me.
With compassion, he looked at me . . .
“Are you a new arrival?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
I told him my story. Understandingly, he nodded his head.
“The most important thing is not to draw attention to yourself . . . You should always take care not to be the first or the last . . . And at work,”—he cast a significant glance at me— “you know how it is: Eyes and ears open! . . . ”
He then took my personal data and assigned me to barrack-room number five.
“Report to the barrack-room senior!” (Stubenälteste).
Room number five was located on the first floor. I noticed that some prisoners were sitting in one corner. I approached them.
“Pardon me . . . I am a new arrival. To whom shall I report?”
“Reporting to Saint Peter would be best . . . ,” responded one of those sitting there. He was a young, sturdy and strongly built lad with a beautiful but somehow strangely cheeky face . . . That was the Stubenältester in his very own person, the Ukraine, Bogdan Komaruicki. I learned later that he was the terror of the entire Company, a terrible sadist and degenerated human being.
“I will be going there, but in due time,” I responded coldly. “But in the meantime, I am not in a hurry . . .”
“Shut up and don’t talk so much . . . With us here such a kind doesn’t live too long . . . How did you get caught?”
Once more I related my “offense.”
“Phi . . . ,” he waved his hand in refusal. “A weak organization. Do you have any cigarettes?”
“No, I have nothing. A while ago I was released from the Bunker . . .”
He reached into the cupboard.
“Here you have little wheels and thread . . . You should sow one little wheel into your blouse beneath the number, the other into the trouser . . . In a quarter of an hour you report to me.”
“Yes, Sir!”
In the afternoon, I was already marching in some line of five toward the gravel pit where the SK was working. The column stopped on the spot. Foreman (Kapo) Johny yelled loudly:
“New arrivals, step out!”
Six of us stepped out. Two Germans, one Pole, one Czech, and two Jews.
We were scrutinized from top to toe.
Johny gave a brief “welcoming speech”:
“You are in the Punishment Company (SK) . . . The good times are over. Here you will be sweating away your fat with which you have fattened yourself in the Camp . . . If you are obedient and diligent, then you might perhaps avoid the chimney. . . Reinhold!” he yelled at last.
A young chap with a green corner stepped out of the line.
“I
