THE CAMP looked as though it had been through an epidemic: empty and

dead. Only a few “well-dressed” inmates were wandering between the

blocks.

Of course, we first had to pass through the showers. The head of the

camp joined us there. He was a stocky man with big shoulders, the neck of

a bull, thick lips, and curly hair. He gave an impression of kindness. From

time to time, a smile would linger in his gray-blue eyes. Our convoy

included a few ten- and twelve-year-olds. The officer took an interest in

them and gave orders to bring them food.

We were given new clothing and settled in two tents. We were to wait

there until we could be incorporated into work Kommandos. Then we

would be assigned to a block.

In the evening, the Kommandos returned from the work yards. Roll call.

We began looking for people we knew, asking the “veterans” which work

Kommandos were the best and which block one should try to enter. All the

inmates agreed:

“Buna is a very good camp. One can hold one’s own here. The most

important thing is not to be assigned to the construction Kommando ...”

As if we had a choice ...

Our tent leader was a German. An assassin’s face, fleshy lips, hands

resembling a wolf’s paws. The camp’s food had agreed with him; he could

hardly move, he was so fat. Like the head of the camp, he liked children.

Immediately after our arrival, he had bread brought for them, some soup

and margarine. (In fact, this affection was not entirely altruistic; there

existed here a veritable traffic of children among homosexuals, I learned

later.) He told us:

“You will stay with me for three days in quarantine. Afterward, you will

go to work. Tomorrow: medical checkup.”

One of his aides—a tough-looking boy with shifty eyes—came over to

me:

“Would you like to get into a good Kommando?”

“Of course. But on one condition: I want to stay with my father.”

“All right,” he said. “I can arrange it. For a pittance: your shoes. I’ll give

you another pair.”

I refused to give him my shoes. They were all I had left.

“T’ll also give you a ration of bread with some margarine ...”

He liked my shoes; I would not let him have them. Later, they were taken

from me anyway. In exchange for nothing, that time.

The medical checkup took place outside, early in the morning, before

three doctors seated on a bench.

The first hardly examined me. He just asked:

“Are you in good health?”

Who would have dared to admit the opposite?

On the other hand, the dentist seemed more conscientious: he asked me

to open my mouth wide. In fact, he was not looking for decay but for gold

teeth. Those who had gold in their mouths were listed by their number. I did

have a gold crown.

The first three days went by quickly. On the fourth day, as we stood in

front of our tent, the Kapos appeared. Each one began to choose the men he

liked:

“You ... you... you...” They pointed their fingers, the way one might

choose cattle, or merchandise.

We followed our Kapo, a young man. He made us halt at the door of the

first block, near the entrance to the camp. This was the orchestra’s block.

He motioned us inside. We were surprised; what had we to do with music?

The orchestra was playing a military march, always the same. Dozens of

Kommandos were marching off, in step, to the work yards. The Kapos were

beating the time:

“Left, right, left, right.”

SS officers, pen in hand, recorded the number of men leaving. The

orchestra continued to play the same march until the last Kommando had

passed. Then the conductor’s baton stopped moving and the orchestra fell

silent. The Kapo yelled:

“Fall in!”

We fell into ranks of five, with the musicians. We left the camp without

music but in step. We still had the march in our ears.

“Left, right, left, right!”

We struck up conversations with our neighbors, the musicians. Almost all

of them were Jews. Juliek, a Pole with eyeglasses and a cynical smile in a

pale face. Louis, a native of Holland, a well-known violinist. He

complained that they would not let him play Beethoven; Jews were not

allowed to play German music. Hans, the young man from Berlin, was full

of wit. The foreman was a Pole: Franek, a former student in Warsaw.

Juliek explained to me, “We work in a warehouse of electrical materials,

not far from here. The work is neither difficult nor dangerous. Only Idek,

the Kapo, occasionally has fits of madness, and then you’d better stay out of

his way.”

“You are lucky, little fellow,” said Hans, smiling. “You fell into a good

Kommando ...”

Ten minutes later, we stood in front of the warehouse. A German

employee, a civilian, the Meister, came to meet us. He paid as much

attention to us as would a shopkeeper receiving a delivery of old rags.

Our comrades were right. The work was not difficult. Sitting on the

ground, we counted bolts, bulbs, and various small electrical parts. The

Kapo launched into a lengthy explanation of the importance of this work,

warning us that anyone who proved to be lazy would be held accountable.

My new comrades reassured me:

“Don’t worry. He has to say this because of the Meister.”

There were many Polish civilians here and a few Frenchwomen as well.

The women silently greeted the musicians with their eyes.

Franek, the foreman, assigned me to a corner:

“Don’t kill yourself. There’s no hurry. But watch out. Don’t let an SS

catch you.”

“Please, sir ... I’d like to be near my father.”

“All right. Your father will work here, next to you.”

We were lucky.

Two boys came to join our group: Yossi and Tibi, two brothers from

Czechoslovakia whose parents had been exterminated in Birkenau. They

lived for each other, body and soul.

They quickly became my friends. Having once belonged to a Zionist

youth organization, they knew countless Hebrew songs. And so we would

sometimes hum melodies evoking the gentle waters of the Jordan River and

the majestic sanctity of Jerusalem. We also spoke often about Palestine.

Their parents, like mine, had not had the courage to sell everything and

emigrate while there was still time. We decided that if we were allowed to

live until the Liberation, we would not stay another day in Europe. We

would board the first ship to Haifa.

Still lost in his Kabbalistic dreams, Akiba Drumer had discovered a verse

from the Bible which, translated into numbers, made it possible for him to

predict Redemption in the weeks to come.

WE HAD LEFT THE TENTS for the musicians’ block. We now were entitled to a

blanket, a washbowl, and a bar of soap. The Blockdlteste was a German

Jew.

It was good to have a Jew as your leader. His name was Alphonse. A

young man with a startlingly wizened face. He was totally devoted to

defending “his” block. Whenever he could, he would “organize” a cauldron

of soup for the young, for the weak, for all those who dreamed more of an

extra portion of food than of liberty.

ONE DAY, when we had just returned from the warehouse, I was summoned

by the block secretary:

“A-7713?”

“That’s me.”

“After your meal, you’ll go to see the dentist.”

“But ... I don’t have a toothache ...”

“After your meal. Without fail.”

I went to the infirmary block. Some twenty prisoners were waiting in line

at the entrance. It didn’t take long to learn the reason for our summons: our

gold teeth were to be extracted.

The dentist, a Jew from Czechoslovakia, had a face not unlike a death

mask. When he opened his mouth, one had a ghastly vision of yellow,

rotten teeth. Seated in the chair, I asked meekly:

“What are you going to do, sir?”

“T shall remove your gold crown, that’s all,” he said, clearly indifferent.

I thought of pretending to be sick:

“Couldn’t you wait a few days, sir? I don’t feel well, I have a fever ...”

He wrinkled his brow, thought for a moment, and took my pulse.

“All right, son. Come back to see me when you feel better. But don’t wait

for me to call you!”

I went back to see him a week later. With the same excuse: I still was not

feeling better. He did not seem surprised, and I don’t know whether he

believed me. Yet he most likely was pleased that I had come back on my

own, as I had promised. He granted me a further delay.

A few days after my visit, the dentist’s office was shut down. He had

been thrown into prison and was about to be hanged. It appeared that he had

been dealing in the prisoners’ gold teeth for his own benefit. I felt no pity

for him. In fact, I was pleased with what was happening to him: my gold

crown was Safe. It could be useful to me one day, to buy something, some

bread or even time to live. At that moment in time, all that mattered to me

was my daily bowl of soup, my crust of stale bread. The bread, the soup—

those were my entire life. I was nothing but a body. Perhaps even less: a

famished stomach. The stomach alone was measuring time.

IN THE WAREHOUSE, I often worked next to a young Frenchwoman. We did

not speak: she did not know German and I did not understand French.

I thought she looked Jewish, though she passed for “Aryan.” She was a

forced labor inmate.

One day when Idek was venting his fury, I happened to cross his path. He

threw himself on me like a wild beast, beating me in the chest, on my head,

throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me with ever

more violent blows, until I was covered in blood. As I bit my lips in order

not to howl with pain, he must have mistaken my silence for defiance and

so he continued to hit me harder and harder.

Abruptly, he calmed down and sent me back to work as if nothing had

happened. As if we had taken part in a game in which both roles were of

equal importance.

I dragged myself to my corner. I was aching all over. I felt a cool hand

wiping the blood from my forehead. It was the French girl. She was smiling

her mournful smile as she slipped me a crust of bread. She looked straight

into my eyes. I knew she wanted to talk to me but that she was paralyzed

with fear. She remained like that for some time, and then her face lit up and

she said, in almost perfect German:

“Bite your lips, little brother ... Don’t cry. Keep your anger, your hate,

for another day, for later. The day will come but not now ... Wait. Clench

your teeth and wait ...”

MANY YEARS LATER, in Paris, I sat in the Métro, reading my newspaper.

Across the aisle, a beautiful woman with dark hair and dreamy eyes. I had

seen those eyes before.

“Madame, don’t you recognize me?”

“T don’t know you, sir.”

“In 1944, you were in Poland, in Buna, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but...”

“You worked in a depot, a warehouse for electrical parts ...”

“Yes,” she said, looking troubled. And then, after a moment of silence:

“Wait ... [do remember ...”

“Tdek, the Kapo ... the young Jewish boy ... your sweet words ...”

We left the Métro together and sat down at a café terrace. We spent the

whole evening reminiscing. Before parting, I said, “May I ask one more

question?”

“I know what it is: Am I Jewish ... ? Yes, I am. From an observant

family. During the Occupation, I had false papers and passed as Aryan. And

that was how I was assigned to a forced labor unit. When they deported me

to Germany, I eluded being sent to a concentration camp. At the depot,

nobody knew that I spoke German; it would have aroused suspicion. It was

imprudent of me to say those few words to you, but I knew that you would

not betray me ...”

ANOTHER TIME we were loading diesel motors onto freight cars under the

supervision of some German soldiers. Idek was on edge, he had trouble

restraining himself. Suddenly, he exploded. The victim this time was my

father.

“You old loafer!” he started yelling. “Is this what you call working?”

And he began beating him with an iron bar. At first, my father simply

doubled over under the blows, but then he seemed to break in two like an

old tree struck by lightning.

I had watched it all happening without moving. I kept silent. In fact, I

thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What’s more, if I

felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father.

Why couldn’t he have avoided Idek’s wrath? That was what life in a

concentration camp had made of me ...

Franek, the foreman, one day noticed the gold crown in my mouth:

“Let me have your crown, kid.”

I answered that I could not because without that crown I could no longer

eat.

“For what they give you to eat, kid ...”

I found another answer: my crown had been listed in the register during

the medical checkup; this could mean trouble for us both.

“Tf you don’t give me your crown, it will cost you much more!”

All of a sudden, this pleasant and intelligent young man had changed. His

eyes were shining with greed. I told him that I needed to get my father’s

advice.

“Go ahead, kid, ask. But I want the answer by tomorrow.”

When I mentioned it to my father, he hesitated. After a long silence, he

said:

“No, my son. We cannot do this.”

“He will seek revenge!”

“He won’t dare, my son.”

Unfortunately, Franek knew how to handle this; he knew my weak spot.

My father had never served in the military and could not march in step. But

here, whenever we moved from one place to another, it was in step. That

presented Franek with the opportunity to torment him and, on a daily basis,

to thrash him savagely. Left, right: he punched him. Left, right: he slapped

him.

I decided to give my father lessons in marching in step, in keeping time.

We began practicing in front of our block. I would command: “Left, right!”

and my father would try.

The inmates made fun of us: “Look at the little officer, teaching the old

man to march ... Hey, little general, how many rations of bread does the old

man give you for this?”

But my father did not make sufficient progress, and the blows continued

to rain on him.

“So! You still don’t know how to march in step, you old good-for-

nothing?”

This went on for two weeks. It was untenable. We had to give in. That

day, Franek burst into savage laughter:

“T knew it, I knew that I would win, kid. Better late than never. And

because you made me wait, it will also cost you a ration of bread. A ration

of bread for one of my pals, a famous dentist from Warsaw. To pay him for

pulling out your crown.”

“What? My ration of bread so that you can have my crown?”

Franek smiled.

“What would you like? That I break your teeth by smashing your face?”

That evening, in the latrines, the dentist from Warsaw pulled my crown

with the help of a rusty spoon.

Franek became pleasant again. From time to time, he even gave me extra

soup. But it didn’t last long. Two weeks later, all the Poles were transferred

to another camp. I had lost my crown for nothing.

A FEW DAYS BEFORE the Poles left, I had a novel experience.

It was on a Sunday moming. Our Kommando was not required to work

that day. Only Idek would not hear of staying in the camp. We had to go to

the depot. This sudden enthusiasm for work astonished us. At the depot,

Idek entrusted us to Franek, saying, “Do what you like. But do something.

Or else, you’ll hear from me ...”

And he disappeared.

We didn’t know what to do. Tired of huddling on the ground, we each

took turns strolling through the warehouse, in the hope of finding

something, a piece of bread, perhaps, that a civilian might have forgotten

there.

When I reached the back of the building, I heard sounds coming from a

small adjoining room. I moved closer and had a glimpse of Idek and a

young Polish girl, half naked, on a straw mat. Now I understood why Idek

refused to leave us in the camp. He moved one hundred prisoners so that he

could copulate with this girl! It struck me as terribly funny and I burst out

laughing.

Idek jumped, turned and saw me, while the girl tried to cover her breasts.

I wanted to run away, but my feet were nailed to the floor. Idek grabbed me

by the throat.

Hissing at me, he threatened:

“Just you wait, kid ... You will see what it costs to leave your work ...

You’ll pay for this later ... And now go back to your place ...”

A HALF HOUR BEFORE the usual time to stop work, the Kapo assembled the

entire Kommando. Roll call. Nobody understood what was going on. A roll

call at this hour? Here? Only I knew. The Kapo made a short speech:

“An ordinary inmate does not have the right to mix into other people’s

affairs. One of you does not seem to have understood this point. I shall

therefore try to make him understand clearly, once and for all.”

I felt the sweat running down my back.

“A-7713!”

I stepped forward.

“A crate!” he ordered.

They brought a crate.

“Lie down on it! On your belly!”

I obeyed.

Ino longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip.

“One! ... Two! ...” he was counting.

He took his time between lashes. Only the first really hurt. I heard him

count:

“Ten ... eleven! ... 9

His voice was calm and reached me as through a thick wall.

“Twenty-three ...”

Two more, I thought, half unconscious.

The Kapo was waiting.

“Twenty-four ... twenty-five!”

It was over. I had not realized it, but I had fainted. I came to when they

doused me with cold water. I was still lying on the crate. In a blur, I could

see the wet ground next to me. Then I heard someone yell. It had to be the

Kapo. I began to distinguish what he was shouting:

“Stand up!”

I must have made some movement to get up, but I felt myself fall back

on the crate. How I wanted to get up!

“Stand up!” He was yelling even more loudly.

If only I could answer him, if only I could tell him that I could not move.

But my mouth would not open.

At Idek’s command, two inmates lifted me and led me to him.

“Look me in the eye!”

I looked at him without seeing him. I was thinking of my father. He

would be suffering more than I.

“Listen to me, you son of a swine!” said Idek coldly. “So much for your

curiosity. You shall receive five times more if you dare tell anyone what

you saw! Understood?”

I nodded, once, ten times, endlessly. As if my head had decided to say

yes for all eternity.

ONE SUNDAY, as half of our group, including my father, was at work, the

others, including me, took the opportunity to stay and rest.

At around ten o’clock, the sirens started to go off. Alert. The Blockdlteste

gathered us inside the blocks, while the SS took refuge in the shelters. As it

was relatively easy to escape during an alert—the guards left the

watchtowers and the electric current in the barbed wire was cut—the

standing order to the SS was to shoot anyone found outside his block.

In no time, the camp had the look of an abandoned ship. No living soul in

the alleys. Next to the kitchen, two cauldrons of hot, steaming soup had

been left untended. Two cauldrons of soup! Smack in the middle of the

road, two cauldrons of soup with no one to guard them! A royal feast going

to waste! Supreme temptation! Hundreds of eyes were looking at them,

shining with desire. Two lambs with hundreds of wolves lying in wait for

them. Two lambs without a shepherd, free for the taking. But who would

dare?

Fear was greater than hunger. Suddenly, we saw the door of Block 37

open slightly. A man appeared, crawling snakelike in the direction of the

cauldrons.

Hundreds of eyes were watching his every move. Hundreds of men were

crawling with him, scraping their bodies with his on the stones. All hearts

trembled, but mostly with envy. He was the one who had dared.

He reached the first cauldron. Hearts were pounding harder: he had

succeeded. Jealousy devoured us, consumed us. We never thought to admire

him. Poor hero committing suicide for a ration or two or more of soup ... In

our minds, he was already dead.

Lying on the ground near the cauldron, he was trying to lift himself to the

cauldron’s rim. Either out of weakness or out of fear, he remained there,

undoubtedly to muster his strength. At last he succeeded in pulling himself

up to the rim. For a second, he seemed to be looking at himself in the soup,

looking for his ghostly reflection there. Then, for no apparent reason, he let

out a terrible scream, a death rattle such as I had never heard before and,

with open mouth, thrust his head toward the still steaming liquid. We

jumped at the sound of the shot. Falling to the ground, his face stained by

the soup, the man writhed a few seconds at the base of the cauldron, and

then he was still.

That was when we began to hear the planes. Almost at the same moment,

the barrack began to shake.

“They’re bombing the Buna factory,” someone shouted.

I anxiously thought of my father, who was at work. But I was glad

nevertheless. To watch that factory go up in flames—what revenge! While

we had heard some talk of German military defeats on the various fronts,

we were not sure if they were credible. But today, this was real!

We were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks, it would

have claimed hundreds of inmates’ lives. But we no longer feared death, in

any event not this particular death. Every bomb that hit filled us with joy,

gave us renewed confidence.

The raid lasted more than one hour. If only it could have gone on for ten

times ten hours ... Then, once more, there was silence. The last sound of

the American plane dissipated in the wind and there we were, in our

cemetery. On the horizon we saw a long trail of black smoke. The sirens

began to wail again. The end of the alert.

Everyone came out of the blocks. We breathed in air filled with fire and

smoke, and our eyes shone with hope. A bomb had landed in the middle of

the camp, near the Appelplatz, the assembly point, but had not exploded.

We had to dispose of it outside the camp.

The head of the camp, the Lagerdlteste, accompanied by his aide and by

the chief Kapo, were on an inspection tour of the camp. The raid had left

traces of great fear on his face.

In the very center of the camp lay the body of the man with soup stains

on his face, the only victim. The cauldrons were carried back to the kitchen.

The SS were back at their posts in the watchtowers, behind their machine

guns. Intermission was over.

An hour later, we saw the Kommandos returning, in step as always.

Happily, I caught sight of my father.

“Several buildings were flattened,” he said, “but the depot was not

touched ...”

In the afternoon, we cheerfully went to clear the ruins.

ONE WEEK LATER, aS we returned from work, there, in the middle of the

camp, in the Appelplatz, stood a black gallows.

We learned that soup would be distributed only after roll call, which

lasted longer than usual. The orders were given more harshly than on other

days, and there were strange vibrations in the air.

“Caps off!” the Lagerdlteste suddenly shouted.

Ten thousand caps came off at once.

“Cover your heads!”

Ten thousand caps were back on our heads, at lightning speed.

The camp gate opened. An SS unit appeared and encircled us: one SS

every three paces. The machine guns on the watchtowers were pointed

toward the Appelplatz.

“They’re expecting trouble,” whispered Juliek.

Two SS were headed toward the solitary confinement cell. They came

back, the condemned man between them. He was a young boy from

Warsaw. An inmate with three years in concentration camps behind him. He

was tall and strong, a giant compared to me.

His back was to the gallows, his face turned toward his judge, the head of

the camp. He was pale but seemed more solemn than frightened. His

manacled hands did not tremble. His eyes were coolly assessing the

hundreds of SS guards, the thousands of prisoners surrounding him.

The Lageralteste began to read the verdict, emphasizing every word:

“In the name of Reichsfiihrer Himmler ... prisoner number ... stole

during the air raid ... according to the law ... prisoner number ... is

condemned to death. Let this be a warning and an example to all prisoners.”

Nobody moved.

I heard the pounding of my heart. The thousands of people who died

daily in Auschwitz and Birkenau, in the crematoria, no longer troubled me.

But this boy, leaning against his gallows, upset me deeply.

“This ceremony, will it be over soon? I’m hungry ...” whispered Juliek.

At a sign of the Lagerdlteste, the Lagerkapo stepped up to the

condemned youth. He was assisted by two prisoners. In exchange for two

bowls of soup.

The Kapo wanted to blindfold the youth, but he refused.

After what seemed like a long moment, the hangman put the rope around

his neck. He was about to signal his aides to pull the chair from under the

young man’s feet when the latter shouted, in a strong and calm voice:

“Long live liberty! My curse on Germany! My curse! My—”

The executioner had completed his work.

Like a sword, the order cut through the air:

“Caps off!”

Ten thousand prisoners paid their respects.

“Cover your heads!”

Then the entire camp, block after block, filed past the hanged boy and

stared at his extinguished eyes, the tongue hanging from his gaping mouth.

The Kapos forced everyone to look him squarely in the face.

Afterward, we were given permission to go back to our block and have

our meal.

I remember that on that evening, the soup tasted better than ever ...

I WATCHED Other hangings. I never saw a single victim weep. These withered

bodies had long forgotten the bitter taste of tears.

Except once. The Oberkapo of the Fifty-second Cable Kommando was a

Dutchman: a giant of a man, well over six feet. He had some seven hundred

prisoners under his command, and they all loved him like a brother. Nobody

had ever endured a blow or even an insult from him.

In his “service” was a young boy, a pipel, as they were called. This one

had a delicate and beautiful face—an incredible sight in this camp.

(In Buna, the pipel were hated; they often displayed greater cruelty than

their elders. I once saw one of them, a boy of thirteen, beat his father for not

making his bed properly. As the old man quietly wept, the boy was yelling:

“If you don’t stop crying instantly, I will no longer bring you bread.

Understood?” But the Dutchman’s little servant was beloved by all. His was

the face of an angel in distress.)

One day the power failed at the central electric plant in Buna. The

Gestapo, summoned to inspect the damage, concluded that it was sabotage.

They found a trail. It led to the block of the Dutch Oberkapo. And after a

search, they found a significant quantity of weapons.

The Oberkapo was arrested on the spot. He was tortured for weeks on

end, in vain. He gave no names. He was transferred to Auschwitz. And

never heard from again.

But his young pipel remained behind, in solitary confinement. He too

was tortured, but he too remained silent. The SS then condemned him to

death, him and two other inmates who had been found to possess arms.

One day, as we returned from work, we saw three gallows, three black

ravens, erected on the Appelplatz. Roll call. The SS surrounding us,

machine guns aimed at us: the usual ritual. Three prisoners in chains—and,

among them, the little pipel, the sad-eyed angel.

The SS seemed more preoccupied, more worried, than usual. To hang a

child in front of thousands of onlookers was not a small matter. The head of

the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was pale, almost

calm, but he was biting his lips as he stood in the shadow of the gallows.

This time, the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS took his

place.

The three condemned prisoners together stepped onto the chairs. In

unison, the nooses were placed around their necks.

“Long live liberty!” shouted the two men.

But the boy was silent.

“Where is merciful God, where is He?” someone behind me was asking.

At the signal, the three chairs were tipped over.

Total silence in the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting.

“Caps off!” screamed the Lagerdlteste. His voice quivered. As for the

rest of us, we were weeping.

“Cover your heads!”

Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer

alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third

rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing ...

And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life

and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at

close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red,

his eyes not yet extinguished.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking:

“For God’s sake, where is God?”

And from within me, I heard a voice answer:

“Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows ...”

That night, the soup tasted of corpses.