V Alexander - The Taster

About three hours later, we arrived at Bromberg-Ost. We gathered our luggage and filed out of the train. A few male guards stood near the platform, but I was struck by the presence of a number of SS women. One of them, a strong blonde with muscular arms, “welcomed” us to Bromberg-Ost. She explained that we would be treated well during our stay. Most of the SS women reminded me of Dora at the Wolf’s Lair. They had a creased, hardened look, displaying a typical Nazi resolve that showed in their condescending attitude and strident gait. They were so rigid it appeared they might break if they had to bend. One was prettier and younger than the others. She was more fashionable, too, wearing a tight skirt and smart leather shoes.

We stood in line to be processed. Katrina quivered behind me. The middle-aged woman in front of me whispered that this was a concentration camp for women, under the jurisdiction of Stutthof. Most of the prisoners sent to Bromberg-Ost were there for political reasons. “We have a better chance of survival here,” she said. Her words did not comfort me.

When it came my turn, my luggage and my silver wedding ring were taken away. “You will not need it,” the sturdy blonde said. I was taken to a room, bare except for a wooden bench, and ordered to take off my clothes. The pretty SS officer whom I’d seen near the platform gazed at my body as I stripped. “You are strong and well fed,” she said. “You will be a good worker.” She handed me a striped uniform jacket and a coarse skirt. “You will get more clothes when we find out what job is best for you,” she said.

The female guards then showed us to the dormitory where we would be staying—about thirty of us to the room. My bed was near the door on a two-tiered platform, a rough wooden board that stretched out from the wall about five feet. We would be sleeping together, side by side. My “pillow” was a filthy piece of flattened fabric with a little cotton stuffed inside it. An old woolen blanket was pushed back toward the wall. I probably wouldn’t need it much during the summer, but I also didn’t know how long I would be held prisoner here.

One of the guards explained the rules and regulations: We were to be in bed at nine and up at five. We would have breakfast and dinner in the mess hall. Lunch, she said, might be taken on the job or not at all depending on how well we completed our assigned tasks. She told us where the latrines were located, but encouraged us not to use them at night. The few male guards at the camp would be on watch then. There was to be no smoking, drinking or sexual activity. All work was to be completed in the name of the Reich, for “Work makes you free.”

“When I blow the whistle or knock on the door, you should fall into line and be ready to do whatever I ask,” the guard added with a flourish before she walked out the door. We newcomers were left alone with twenty others who were camp veterans. I leaned against the railing of my bed and tried to understand what had happened to me. Katrina, her head hung low over her chest, sat on the bench in the center of the room.

The room was bare except for the tiered beds and the bench. The four windows, two on each side of the cabin, were flung open so a bit of breeze filtered inside. The air was stuffy and smelled of decaying wood and unwashed flesh. The women who shared the room had little to say; there was no welcome or greeting. Exhausted by their day’s labor, they sat on the bench or crawled into their sleeping area for a nap. This hour must have been one of the few during the day they were left alone. I could easily see how they would welcome a moment’s peace. Their faces were haggard and worn by their daily trials, their hair tangled and unkempt.

The cabin sat in gloom, despite the summer’s long hours of sunlight, for it was sheltered in the deep shadows of the trees. I tried to talk to one of the other women, but she was too tired and waved me away. When she rolled over on her bed, I noticed an insignia on her jacket, a yellow triangle with the tip pointing up under a red triangle with the tip down. In effect, it formed a two-color Star of David. The badge meant nothing to me.

I sat on the bench in the middle of the room and stared at the walls. My body felt numb with shock as I tried to digest the horrible conditions I’d been thrust into. I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to flee. Suffocating feelings of loss and hopelessness filled me.

About thirty minutes later, the same guard came back and gathered us for dinner. The mess hall was not much better than our cabin, although the space was larger. Rows of crude wooden tables and benches filled the room. We entered through the front door and stood in a serving line. Our evening supper consisted of a thin soup with few vegetables and no meat served in a battered tin cup. We had one crust of bread each as well. I sat at the table with Katrina and marveled how fast and how far I had fallen—from the freshest produce and chef’s dishes created in Hitler’s kitchens to the watery dregs of camp. Even though I was hungry, I had no appetite for the soup.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Katrina.

She stirred her beat-up spoon in the broth and said, “If I don’t get out of here, I will not live through the winter.” She turned to me and her dark eyes showed the hollow look of life draining from her body. “Most of us will be dead after winter.”

I spoke sharply to her, but in a subdued voice because I did not want others to hear. “If you feel you have nothing to live for, you will die. You must be stronger than they are.”

She looked at me piteously, as if she were a cowering dog about to be struck. “How do I do that?” She looked across the room at the other sad women and then lowered her head. “How can I possibly win a battle against the SS?”

“Think of Erik. Think of him every waking hour and in your dreams. Live for him, if for no one else.” I thought of Karl and tears gathered behind my eyes, but I was determined not to cry in front of Katrina. She needed my strength. We all needed one another’s strength, but as I studied the other women in the hall I knew that finding courage would be difficult. The Nazis had created efficient ways to break our spirits.

We had not been at the table long when a guard told us to finish eating or “return to your room.”

My stomach was unsatisfied, but I took my soup to the prisoner who collected the dishes. She looked into my cup and said, “You will not last long if you waste food. Three days from now you will drink every drop.”

I suspected she was right. “Not tonight,” I said, and handed her my cup and spoon.

Katrina and I returned to the room. No guards accompanied us, but I could see it was useless to consider an escape. The camp was surrounded by a tall electrified fence. One touch and I would be dead.

My arms and legs had grown numb with fatigue. I crawled on top of the hard board that served as my bed. I fell into a dreamless pit of sleep until the morning whistle awakened me. It was time for work.

Breakfast, more like slops of gruel, had the same watery consistency as the soup from the night before. The muscular woman who had greeted us then assigned the newcomers to their jobs. Her name was Gerda and I learned she had been at Bromberg-Ost since its inception. I was assigned to tend the camp garden through the fall. Katrina was to be shipped off during the day to a nearby munitions plant. There was no time to shower, Gerda told me. I would be lucky to get one a week at the communal stall, maybe more, “if you are a good girl.”

I had a few minutes to visit the latrine before I was expected in the garden, a fairly large plot of land on the north side of the camp. I furtively said good-bye to Katrina, wished her good luck and walked to the patch of tilled soil. Roll call was taken. Three-quarters of the land was in direct sunlight, the other quarter was in shade, so various kinds of vegetables could be grown. Tomatoes and asparagus were coming to their peak. I was instructed by a guard to pick the tomatoes and clip the asparagus plants that were ripe. When I was done with that, the guard told me to hoe the ground for fall plantings.