H. Adler - Panorama

Thus the new arrivals can remain in Birkenau for only a short time, for soon some men will come to visit who do not wear black-and-white stripes, not the rags of the lost ones, or the dandified rags of the collaborators or the uniforms of the conspirators, no, most of these men wear a suit and hat and a raincoat. The lost ones line up, wanting to look strong and healthy in order to keep out of the chimney’s clutches, while the one with the raincoat stands there somewhat awkwardly and controls his feeling of horror or has already grown hardened to it, whether it be because he has stood before other lost ones or because he has learned from the Conqueror what he thinks of Jews and criminals, the times being serious as they are, the dear fatherland threatened and grappling with an unrelenting battle for its very existence, while every prisoner here would fight against the fatherland or agitate if the Conqueror had not locked them up, they indeed remaining a danger, for shh, the enemy is listening and no one should speak with him. Only the most loyal of the conspirators are called to the task on behalf of the Conqueror to watch over the danger imprisoned in the camp, each weapon not sounding the whisper of the destroyer but instead a weapon is just and protects the loyal ones from straying, and the conspirators from betrayal, and so the weapon is the power of good in its avenging of evil, which the Conqueror has surrounded with electrified wire, thus securing himself against the internal enemy, who is tamed and made useful, for now he must work for the Conqueror, Arbeit macht frei , and honor his superiors, who transform his reluctance into readiness. This is why the man in the raincoat stands there, he oversees the unwilling in order to tease out their defiance and transform it into compliance with the Conqueror, who needs new weapons, because the Reich is surrounded by an external enemy, which is why the slaves must conquer the inner enemy.

Two conspirators and a collaborator, ready with pencils and lists, stand on either side of the man in the raincoat, who asks each lost one what he can do, whether it be working in the forgery, metalwork, lathe work, welding, carpentry, or bricklaying, a glance assessing the emaciated figure, the face, the legs, the hands. The lost ones can do anything that they are asked to do, for they lie, having hardened themselves against truth, since they want to escape the chimneys, the lost ones calling out, we can work in the forge and do metalwork and lathe work and welding and carpentry and bricklaying and anything you ask. The man with the raincoat stretches out his right index finger and says, him and him, they should step forward, he’ll have them, they should send them to him. Then the prison scribe goes over to those selected, each of them coming up with a name, an age, an occupation, he wanting to be named thus, aged thus, and have this occupation, the collaborators writing it all down in their lists, one of them having a pad with blue ink and a stamp, which he presses onto the lost one as a sign of his having been selected, there on his naked chest, doing it as if he didn’t know that the ink can be wiped away with one’s fingers. Then the selected are brought to a special hut so that they are ready to be called and whisked away, which can happen by day or by night, tomorrow or four weeks from now, no one knows, free wagons being seldom available, and all wheels must roll toward victory. Soon more and more transport groups are brought together in one hut, several hundred pressed together in the tight quarters, where they are chased from the right-hand side to the left and then back again, this happening several times each day, as someone yells “Into your bunks!” and “Out of your bunks!” Then the lost ones must scramble past the barricade and out again, but they must always be at the ready, which is why they have been ordered to rest in such a disastrous manner, there never being any quiet to be had, while above all they must not walk along the streets of the camp, for this is exceptionally dangerous, there collaborators on patrol will beat them, but no one is safe in the huts, either, the section elder could be in a bad mood, ordering the lost ones to clean up the place and going after them with brooms, sticks, clubs, and horsewhips, while helping out with the task is the section elder’s messenger, a fourteen-year-old darling who is fat and has rosy cheeks. He hardly reaches up to most of their shoulders, but he’s a strong little bugger and can do whatever he pleases, a brutal creature eager to deal out blows, his being well aimed, himself able to beat the strongest men, while they are not allowed to defend themselves, because the tiger is protected by the section elder, who is ready to beat down anyone that his little darling complains about.

The huts are scrubbed the entire day, for they must be clean, buckets of water hauled in and dumped upon the floor, then the dirty brown water is swabbed about with a huge broom, whereupon they start in once again, and then it’s quickly mopped so that the floor almost dries, after which no one can step on it, or you have to walk across it barefoot with your shoes in your hand, none daring to let them lie about, for they would be stolen straight off. Nothing is safe here, everything disappears, even what’s worthless and worn out is coveted, whoever can put it to use always feels needier, though it’s strictly forbidden to possess any goods in the Gypsy camp, yet things are constantly exchanged, a spoon handed down to someone else or a knife, a rag used as a handkerchief or shawl or a belt, a little piece of soap, cigarettes available as well, or perhaps a single slice of bread, or maybe two or three or even more, the camp soup also for sale, or a dab of margarine, sausage, or marmalade, a potato. Shaving is also important, it needing to happen once a week, otherwise one looks too old, though it’s not done for free, a couple of lost ones having got hold of a single blade or a half-rusted razor with a dull blade, as well as a brush and some soap, this being good enough for the customers, though the barber growls that he needs to save his soap as he scrapes someone clean, even though it’s not proper shaving soap and is so bad that it creates no foam at all, the soap and shave costing a slice of bread, the barber indicating how thick it needs to be.

Everyone in the Gypsy camp owns at least a spoon, the handle on Josef’s having worn down to such a sharp edge that it can be used as a knife to cut bread, meaning that the spoon had not been an expensive one. But on the first day, when Josef was in the hut of the old Hungarian officer, there were no spoons, meaning that no one could eat in any kind of civil manner, the first camp soup available only on the second day, the work crew sending some new arrivals to the kitchen, they needing to run along in order to escape a beating, themselves standing before the kitchen, then the kitchen capo, one of the most important collaborators, appears with his entourage, the food fetchers from all the huts soon standing ready before them, at which time the numbers of all the huts are called out, followed by someone immediately coming up and taking a full barrel, though inevitably lashes land on their backs, for no one is so fast as to avoid the anger of the kitchen capo, as he yells, “Quick, now quick, get out of here! Get out!” But the fastest of the food fetchers lets the soup slop out and burns his fingers until finally the barrel stands on the porch of the front room. Next the section elder and his collaborators are given ample portions, then cups are handed out for eating, these being cracked bowls, cups, and pots of all sizes, even washbasins and a chamber pot, numerous beaten and dented lead vessels, though hardly more than thirty such vessels are available, and so only some of the lost ones can get anything, one of the barracks workers pouring a ladleful of reddish-brown soup into a cup, at which they all need to hurry so that the next group can use the lead bowls to feed themselves. The soup had always been terrible, yet better than what Josef and his colleagues have to slosh down now, for earlier there had been bits of potato, slices of red beets, some roux, and some kind of meat, but in this poisonous red borscht nasty onions float around, glass shards, sand, bits of rag, nails, wood chips, and other garbage, one needing to be careful in order to avoid cutting his tongue or gums. But how are you supposed to eat soup without a spoon, except to open up your mouth and slurp it down like a cow and make a mess, always surrounded by greedy colleagues and mean-spirited boys from the work crews who yell, “Quick! Quick!” and who are already snatching the bowl from your hands, while on each side fists are at the ready to prevent anyone from going back to the barrel for another helping, and should anyone be suspected of doing so he is beaten on the head with a ladle until his hide is bloodied.