LANGENSTEIN CAMP

IT’S A GONG, NOT A BELL, A PIECE OF TRAIN RAIL THAT HANGS FROM A RACK that looks like a gallows, someone having struck it hard three times with a truncheon, followed by many quick blows and one last hard blow! Bong-Bong-Bong-zingzingzingzingzingzingzingzingzing-Bong! It’s awful music that sounds from the darkness, a miserable sound, gloomy, there in the night, the hut dark, the room murky and cold, full of a horrible smell. The gallows music dies away and again there is silence, no, not complete silence, there is heavy breathing, a whistling throaty gurgle, forty bodies stretched out dead to the world, neither asleep nor awake, simply lying there, time having abandoned them, neither living nor dead, though one can also say that many are alive and some are indeed dead, it being hard to make out in the darkness who is dead and who is alive. Nothing else is here, only bodies, and the room is made of wood, above, below, all four walls made out of wood, the wood is planed bare, it looks reddish brown in the light, clearly new wood that not so long ago was still in the forest, there where the trees had been felled, soft, thin boards cut from their trunks. There is also a door that cannot be shut, it has no latch and no handle, a door that is never open and never closed, instead moving with each gust of air, hanging on rusty hinges as it squeaks with the weaker and squeals with the stronger gusts of air. There is also a window, a simple frame with six small panes, for indeed the panes are set in the frame and are not broken, there also being a light, a bulb hanging from a wire, while above the socket that holds it there is even a tin shade.

Nothing else is here, no nails on the walls, no stools, no table, no bench, nothing, nothing at all, no beds, no straw mattresses, nothing but the bodies of the lost, clothed in rags of many colors, a few blankets scattered about, under which are bodies, as well as caps, ragged pieces of cloth without shape, a couple of tin bowls, some spoons, perhaps some other possessions gathered from the rubble and rubbish, otherwise nothing else, except fear, layer upon layer thickly packed together, living fear manifest within dried-up and evaporated bodies consumed by hatred and despair, though most of all fear, which will not die, even when they are whipped, as a sneer transforms itself into sleeplessness, and hope arises amid the decay, though perhaps hope cannot eradicate decay but instead struggles against fear. From outside there is a glimmer of light, while in a wide circle around the huts a network of barbed wire stretches through which electricity flows, cement pillars holding up the wire as it quietly runs along, separating fear from fear, since everywhere there is fear. There is no longer any difference between inside and out, fear cannot be checked by the wire, fear is on this side and that, as well as in the wire itself, powerful lamps attached to the concrete pillars that light up the night and stand there in the stillness of their own light, a light that shines on no one, nor does anyone think it real. But this light has a protective quality that cannot be destroyed by fear. It conquers fear as the light shines on the armed young men who crouch in the watchtower without rest. Yet there is no fear of attack, no one wants to defeat the fear inside, that which is well hidden away, no one wants to diminish it. The weapons in the tower are not aimed outward in order to protect fear from external threat, but instead peer inward so that the fear here remains constantly the same fear, the light illuminates fear, and those saddled with fear remain the enemies enclosed by the Conqueror with barbed wire in order that none flee, as they might be all that he has left to save him, since the Conqueror stands afraid and in dire straits. He has lost almost everything he has fought for on all fronts, everything now destroyed and laid to waste, and fear knows that the despot has gambled it all away, although he still has a hold of the fear he has robbed from almost every country, and since these countries are already freed of the Conqueror the fear hauled off from them waits behind the wire, hears the train rail struck, sees the wretched blood of life mixed with decay, feels the festering abscesses and the oozing streaks caused by the whip, tastes the bitter saliva and smells the corrosive dust of the stones, all of them knowing that it is the end, time long ago having dissolved, though now the end is near.

Now the sirens sound, from near and far they sound, an oscillating wail, slowly it gathers from below and climbs high, then sinks down once again and is muffled, then it swells once again and repeats again and again, then voices call out, “Douse the lights!” Then it’s even darker in the room. As the lights on the concrete pillars go out there is even more night, everyone asleep and gurgling in his sleep, no one stirs inside the lockdown of the cold that holds sway over an endless weariness, nothing else but weariness. Josef, however, strains to listen, still under the blanket, only his head sticking out when the iron rail was struck, and now he is completely awake, never a heavy sleeper, only getting a few hours, lengthy sleep never possible here, though Josef himself doesn’t completely utilize the shortened time that is reluctantly granted them, something drawing him awake while the others try to catch another couple of minutes, themselves insatiable and risking a beating as they sleep on into the day watch, which was long ago forbidden, long ago, that’s what their couple of stolen minutes are, since every moment stretches out endlessly and no one knows what day or night means here.

Josef doesn’t want to be woken if he can avoid it. He wants to wake up when he needs to, he wants to live, and nowhere is sleep more like death, when the bodies are packed as close as they are here, as they try to protect one another and not freeze, the nights bitterly cold, although it is already the end of March. Perhaps it’s not always so cold, but here it is cold, here inside the wire, where fear lives, where three or four of the lost are lumped together, sharing two or three blankets between them, as long as they are not stolen, for when that happens a great hue and cry rises, as nowhere are human possessions guarded more jealously than in the lost ones’ camp. But they are not possessions, they are loaned goods, and whoever thinks of property in the real world as anything other than loaned goods soon learns here that any possession is only borrowed, one cannot watch over it and guard it, it is simply surrendered, a thousand hands grabbing after every crumb and scrap, no scratched-in or painted-on name and no list making possessions safe from a neighbor’s reach, for here it’s a free-for-all, and there is no protection and no guards. Whatever serves the needs of the lost behind the wire functions as an act of grace, something that can lapse at any moment, for grace is not a possession to which any of the lost have a right, though the lost don’t know that, they upon whom hangs the intense pain of the threat of it all going on forever and who only want it to end, which is why their misery is so intense.

To Josef’s right lies Étienne, who was a cameraman in Paris and is a couple of years younger than Josef, while to the left lies Milan, the small dark-haired son of a murdered doctor from a small city in Banat who can’t be any older than sixteen. The majority of the lost are Jews from many different countries, but divided among the huts are members of many different nationalities—Poles, Ukrainians, French, Belgians, Dutch, Germans, Czechs, and other Slavs, Balts, as well as Spaniards, Italians, Norwegians, and others. Most of the lost are young, often no more than children barely over fourteen, the majority between twenty and thirty, some between thirty and forty, Josef at thirty-five being one of the older ones, though some are indeed beyond fifty. But the lost are ageless, for certainly they are not young, though they are not old, either, as the lost are of no time or era that other people will discover in later centuries, while agreed-upon laws have lost their meaning, knowledge and culture have become pointless because everything they represent is different from what can be learned or demonstrated here. The lost remain outside legal designation and analysis, every attempt at understanding is pointless, because everything about life behind the wire is strange and ungraspable, language incapable of expressing the nature of the lost in a way that would be comprehensible to those on the outside. The lost themselves don’t know this, for they have a language, many languages in fact, derived from languages that people out in the world would understand, though behind the wire these languages are diminished, expressing but little and shrunk to meager phrases in which hardly any of the artful structures from which they were derived can be felt, an abject language, the words hard, snarled and barked out, even when whispered, the language never forming chains of linked sentences, the conversations of the lost never flowing, either hinting at something or grasping at something, otherwise given over to screams, leaping flames, and spasms of pain.

Among the lost, normal forms of outward appearance have become meaningless, because decay is formless, and the lost have been condemned only to decay, all their hair cut off, scraped from their bodies with blunt instruments, the lost stripped in Birkenau, their shoes and clothes lying about like thick heaps of dung on the cold concrete floor. It’s a huge hall in which the lost stand naked and freezing, two heavily armed conspirators rummage through the clothing, digging into pockets, looking for money, for watches and jewelry. A band of collaborators scurry about, themselves also a part of the lost, yet appearing nearly as powerful as the conspirators, nothing but rats disguised as humans, rummaging through the belongings of the living, and when the rats find what they’re looking for they take it away, they surround the naked and scream at them with incomprehensible sounds, the sounds of greed and thievery, and whenever the rats spot a picture of a wife or mother or children in the hands of the lost they snatch it away and scoff, the lost allowed to keep only a belt that is bound about the naked like a penitent’s cord, some having glasses that they are allowed to keep as well.

The rats swing truncheons with which they wale away at the naked, and the rats bellow out that this is no sanatorium, threatening to punish anyone who has hidden anything, for everything will be found, and punished, anyone who has hidden something in his mouth or in the folds of his body, it will be punished, all of it a crime, it will be punished, every possession is a crime. Then the naked learn that among the lost there is no such thing as equality, because the collaborators are powerful, the other lost ones powerless, the Conqueror’s conspirators distant and with an exalted air about them, though the lost are made aware of it only from time to time, otherwise the collaborators take care of things for the conspirators, making sure to herd together and control the endless waves of the nameless. The lost are scolded as they are driven into the next room, there they are stripped of their hair by four Greek Jews, themselves also among the lost, crouching on stools and shooting unintelligible words back and forth, the rats saying “Klepsi” to them, which means to steal in Greek. The naked must kneel down in front of the Greeks, who scrape off the hair on their heads, the skull naked and bloody, then the naked have to raise the right arm, the left arm, as the Greeks shave the armpits, the naked standing as the Greeks shave the pubic hair and the buttocks. Then the naked are shooed onward, stumbling into the shower room, where they are pressed together in close bunches under the showers, warm water beneficently pouring down upon them, though there is no soap here to wash with, only water, which flows for a while, the naked driven farther on until they arrive at a threshold and they have to wade through the reeking grayish-brown lye, striding past a lost one who holds a sponge in one hand soaked with the same cold solution, running it over the raw privates of each naked one and then over the skull, irritating and burning the skin like liquid fire.

The naked now stand in a cold hall, the bodies still damp from the showers, but there are no towels, the naked having to form rows as, without a care for shape or size, ragged shirts are tossed to them, dirty trousers and jackets often damaged and ripped, trousers and jackets with blue patches and made of gray striped material. In clothes made of the same material, the collaborators run about in “zebra stripes,” though for ages there have been none available to the naked, the Conqueror’s weavers incapable of fulfilling the endless demand, though from the repositories of the death factories the worst rags have been selected from a limitless supply of clothes that once belonged to the hecatombs of nameless murdered people, miserable trash still able to be utilized for the Conqueror’s marvelous deeds and relief work, as now the mottled zebras are fitted out with the plunder of the murdered victims, after which a brush is dipped in rust-red varnish and circles and crosses are smeared on the trousers and jackets. Foot rags cut from soft, warm wool of the prayer shawls of murdered Jews are also thrown to the naked. Then shabby caps made out of zebra cloth are tossed in an arc to the naked. The last element of the wardrobe is the shoes, the soles made of wood, the black uppers of rough material. The naked have to dress quickly as they try to make the stuff fit them, some of it too short and too tight, other parts too big and too long, though that is preferable, while best is to find someone sensible with whom to trade clothes in order to look respectable. The naked barely finish dressing before being driven out of the hall under the threat of blows, as they stand in the dreary October cold of the year 1944, realizing at last that they are lost, though there is no time to reflect on this as they are bellowed at by angry voices that want to bring order to the misshapen heap, though it is not done with screams but rather with clubs and whips. Finally around a hundred of the lost stand in rows of four, then are led away from this cursed place which is called a sauna, the Finnish word for bath.

An armed conspirator and some collaborators proudly decked out in their snazzy garb accompany the lost along the length of a sandy path, on the edge of which stand some withered pines followed by nothing but crunchy gravel, to the left an open field where some building is under way, to the right concrete pillars that loom and are bound together by electrified wire, in between the covered watchtowers lifting up, behind them a camp for the lost, immense and bleak, every now and then an entrance, a wooden hut standing nearby, the word OFFICE legible on it, yellow and black letters on a sign spelling out the odd words SHH—THE ENEMY IS LISTENING! The entrances lead to separate parts of the camp, “F” written above the first entrance, which is called the sick bay, on the next the letter “E,” the Gypsy camp, now only a reminder of the former inmates, who in large part exited the camp through a chimney, as a collaborator explains. Here the surge of lost ones remains standing, a collaborator hurries over to the office window, where he stands stiff as a board, then marches them off through the open gate. They move across a courtyard, then they arrive at some larger huts, then move along a road that runs through about thirty huts painted green, stretching back from the camp road almost to the edge of Section E, the huts standing one next to the other, always one to the left and to the right, and behind them wire stretched from pillar to pillar, each part of the camp remaining separate from the rest. The lost are not led to these huts right off, but instead they must stand in the far field, a gathering place where they wait a long time, though in the camp of the lost there is no time, or nothing but time, since it’s all the same, whatever happens, or time is a tight net thrown over the lost, and each strand of the net cuts into life. There Josef gathers his wits and decides that he must hang on, he can’t let himself wither away, and yet he doesn’t yet know what such a proposition entails, what he even means by it. Suddenly he is driven into a hut along with his fellow marchers, the number 13 labeled on it, first through an entryway, then he sees a small room to the left and right, but immediately he is pressed into a long room that takes up almost the entire hut, someone suggesting that in old Austria, and later in Poland, these were the horse stalls of an army garrison. A waist-high brick wall forms the middle axis of the room, right and left of it there runs a narrow passage in front of triple-decker wooden bunks, upon which a couple of red horse blankets lie, though there are no straw mattresses, paltry light pressing through small, glazed portholes in the roof, such that it is twilight within during the day, perhaps lighter at night when the two lightbulbs are turned on. At the end of the hut there is another entryway with an exit, the floor everywhere consisting of nothing but packed-down earth.

In this hut and for many days to come, existence is reduced to this warehouse for humans. To get away from here, that is Josef’s only wish. Although he has managed to steer his little ship through fateful seas, a feeling still compels him to do everything he can to get away from here, and yet he knows for sure that this place of sickness can only lead to another place of sickness, while in the end Josef is still determined that it shouldn’t happen here in this near-grave which they call quarantine, whose destruction still presses through the chimneys that run day and night, where the flames are not lit to celebrate the sacrificed lives of the murdered but which nonetheless eerily exalt them, despite the will of the murderers, such that Josef senses this destruction much more as an eternal repose that wipes away all urge to fight back, an uneasy prospect of that indolent state in which the thinking being is robbed not of the justification for his existence, but rather of the ability to possess and reflect upon it, even when the inquisitive spirit poses endless questions otherwise unfit for grown-ups, questions of youth, with which one seeks to strip a secret of its secret, because the questioner has no idea that the question itself—though empty of insight—contains the answer, since the deepest questions have no answers other than more questions. This insight is lost upon the inmates of the waiting station, for here there is only a life of relinquishment, where even life itself is relinquished in much the same way that the sum total of all possessions are relinquished, a life of nothing more than inner reserves, in many ways a pure life, though pure rather than virtuous, for it is not a life lived in accordance with human nature, which does not feed on memories alone, but rather one that lives for discoveries that cannot be replaced simply by hopes and dreams.

The lost in Barracks 13 are not left on their own for very long, for two collaborators appear and yell out a speech to initiate the lost into the secret workings of the place, forcing them to sup from the shrieks that will soon fill their future. They who have been robbed of everything are pressed to turn in any hidden goods, threats demanding gold and jewels, the cowed ones searching around among their rags as if there were something to find within them, though the poor souls have nothing, and therefore can give nothing. With bit-off words the lost are exhorted to embrace cleanliness, hard work, and obedience, then they are dragged out in front of the barracks and told to form two rows that run the length of a wall, one of the collaborators telling them that he used to be a Hungarian officer, but he means well and isn’t holding anything with which to beat anyone. He says that things are hard here, which is why you shouldn’t make them harder, you just have to learn to take care of yourself, but the will to do so must be flexible, for indeed a hardheaded will here only leads to trouble, there being many ways to die, whether it’s hunger, exhaustion, illness, cold, the only other way out of this camp being through the many methods of beatings and degradation, there also being the bullet and the gallows, while the chimney is always at the ready. All of this is a good reason to take care never to attract attention, to learn how to take a hit, to trust in your luck, but never let yourself fall to the ground like a Muslim, for you’ll end up passing through the chimney, the only hope left being to remain strong, though this path to possible rescue is seemingly narrow, but indeed there have been men who for years have clung to it after having decided to last it out, and even if they are the lucky ones that doesn’t mean others are unlucky, for no one can afford to believe that who doesn’t quickly go up the chimney. At this one of the lost calls out to ask what all this is about the chimney, for he keeps hearing about the chimney and doesn’t know what it means, someone else yelling out, “The gas chamber! The gas chamber!” The lost one looks on puzzled, and then the collaborator says to the rows, that’s the marmalade factory, and no one can work there, the people who work there are special commandos and cleared out every three months, while whoever wants to stay on here has to find a way not to stand out. Then the Hungarian goes silent, perhaps worrying that he has said too much already.

A Polish collaborator arrives, clearly having drunk a good deal of schnapps, swaying and reeking, his face red and swollen, he yelling that it’s not cold, it’s a beautiful day, the sons of bitches are in luck, they should pull themselves together, they are just a lazy bunch of garbage that have never had to work, but now they must stand at attention. Everyone has to stand there without moving and look straight ahead, the Pole yelling that he’ll teach them how to keep in line, and they’ll thank him for it, for he’ll explain what “Hats off!” and “Hats on!” means, for if your hat is on your head, then as soon as you hear the command you yank it off as fast as you can with your right hand, and the moment you hear “Hats off!” the hat should be yanked off and pressed flat against your pant leg, while on the other hand if you hear “Hats on!,” then immediately you put your hat on your head, making sure to keep your hand up there in a salute, though when you hear “Hats off!,” then it has to be pressed against your leg quick as lightning. The Pole explains all this in detail, which only confuses the lost, but he knows how hard it is, which is why he yells, “Attention!” And then “Hats—off!” And then “Hats—on!” He is proud of how well he does this, and now he practices “Hats off!” and “Hats on!” with the lost for an hour or more, anyone who doesn’t do it well getting a slap and then having to do it by himself, sometimes having to step forward as well. The Pole also explains that whenever “Hats on!” is shouted the hat should in no way sit elegantly atop the head but instead should just sit there and not fall to the ground, but how it looks doesn’t matter, and when you’re no longer at attention is the time to fix your hat. As they practice, the Pole talks to them, making little jokes, yelling out “Hats—on!” to the lost, who already have their hats on their heads, and when almost all of them rip them off, he chuckles with satisfaction, though he’s not happy to just laugh it off, for his pleasure soon leads to blows, he being just as amused when he yells out “Hats off!” to the men with their heads exposed and most of them put them on. The longer this goes on the more the lost become confused, getting more tired and longing for rest and feeling hungry, though they know already that they will get nothing to eat today, they’re a bunch of bellyachers who don’t know anything about the camp yet, for even if they do want to eat they haven’t done any work and have to first learn how to put on and take off their hats right.

So the first day creeps by, the lost moving around in groups, the wind blowing, a collaborator showing up now and then to shout a command for the lost to come out of their huts and stand in the yard, all of them showing up. The new ones don’t know what it’s all about, nothing really happening, maybe one group having to take a step forward or backward now and then, then all having to turn around and head back in, later all of them having to stand there forever, some of them kneeling. Then suddenly before the group there appears a band of musicians, lost ones with instruments, well-fed boys who look like a military band in an operetta, with their black-and-white striped pants and their dull, heavy boots, over which they wear padded dark-blue jackets, on the backs of which a small white felt strip is sewn, Polish officer caps sitting on their heads. A conspirator arrives and asks the band to play, demanding waltzes and marches, a schmaltzy, merry mix of sounds as you might hear at a fair, though the conspirator can’t stand listening to all that noise and demands, “Play something good, something really good!” He stands so close to the horn players that they have to blow straight into his ear, he almost pressing his head into the horns and trombones. As the lost ones freeze in the chilly wind and yet must not move a step, the musicians break into a sweat as they are relentlessly commanded to play a march until the conspirator yells, “Enough!” and this afternoon’s concert in the Gypsy camp is brought to an end.

The lost ones march back to their huts, which the new ones are happy to do, first because it feels good to finally move, and second because they hope they’ll be allowed to get some rest in their huts, but then they have to line up against the wall where they had earlier learned the art of what to do with their hats, someone saying that it was time for roll call, and if it comes out right, then they will be allowed to go to their huts. Thus they have to stand there some more, though they are allowed to move a bit where they stand, yet no one is allowed to step out of line, while leaving is out of the question, there being nothing to eat or drink, except for what one might have stashed in his pockets. Then throughout the Gypsy camp, as well as within each section, steadily stronger and yet monotone voices yell, “Every-one-out-roll-call!” Everywhere the lost ones gather before their huts, the collaborators coming out of their offices, both elders and clerks, the entire staff, all of them strong young men, some of them splendidly decked out, most of the collaborators here being Polish or German, most having been stuck here for years and feeling right at home, hardly having anything to do with the lost ones anymore, though their world has become familiar, they know of no other any longer, this being the way things are. One must understand that within this world they remain in command by spreading terror in order to live a life on the margins of life, the dangers here having evolved such that they are hardly more than the dangers that surround and threaten any existence anywhere. The lost ones have it even better, for the dangers are no longer unknown or hidden but instead openly here, moving among the huts, living atop the watchtowers, bullets being cheap, circulating through the electrified wire, just one step and it flows through you, one hanging in the barbed wire who is left there undisturbed, as cutting off the current will do nothing to help drag down the cramped body.

And here all around the camp are the death factories, choking down bodies and burning on unimpeded, because the Conqueror needs the sacrifice of degraded lives, telling them, go on, you lost ones, go on, let yourselves be selected by the tall handsome man who is a doctor, wait for him, strip the rags from your body, look, he’s coming, he’s a hardworking man, he comes after you in your barracks, he has good eyes, he’s a good judge of the flesh, he assesses your worth and decides your fate in the name of the Conqueror and all of his conspirators, never doubting the everyday order of things, the Conqueror having released it from mere contingency, by which death or life is dispensed through the blind will of nature, whereas the Conqueror handed over the natural order of things to the control of his conspirators, he whom they call the Great Benefactor giving commands, while their loyalty is their glory, the handsome doctor before you here also being one of his loyal followers as he chooses you, selects you, and judges whether you are ready for the harvest of death. Eternal justice is embodied within him, made manifest in the immediate surround from out of the ungraspable beyond, you now being tested, not questioned, not heard, not touched, only silence and acceptance available to one, as all are told, nothing is going to happen to you, you are free, as you have never been before, for you stand before the judgment of the Conqueror in the stillness, you don’t need to think of anything, though you indeed are afraid, but there’s no reason to be afraid, you can give in, you can hope, you want to hold your head high, you still want to serve the Conqueror in your drudgery, you don’t feel ready for your death and don’t want to be separated from life, but patience, the handsome doctor is loyal, he will visit you again, and by then you will be tired, you won’t want to live any longer or save yourself, you will stand naked, your flesh melting and hanging slackly upon you, your gaze cloudy, you no longer able to stand erect. Today, however, you have not yet let yourself go, you are still too proud, arrogantly you believe in your own worth, you think defiantly only of yourself, you don’t think about the Conqueror’s transport, to which you’ve been assigned, and which will be dispatched at his discretion when he makes known his resolution through his conspirators. You pull yourself together, you put on a peaceful face and stand up, you brace yourself, the eyes of the handsome doctor rest knowingly on your feeble appearance, he saying nothing, not even waving once, you already past him, it having taken hardly three seconds, the handsome doctor doesn’t have time to busy his eyes with yours, he has to care for millions, and he knows how worthless you are, he has a pretty good idea, you alone still considering your existence worth something, but this means nothing to him, it being beneath him to encourage you in your vanity. It is prudently arranged that the doctor cannot spare any time for you, and, besides, he really wants to serve the Conqueror slavishly and selflessly, because the doctor is weak and can be human, but the wisdom of the Conqueror has already decided to do away with the love of one’s neighbor and of humanity in general, which is why he gives his conspirators hardly any time to do their work but instead only that needed to get the work done. That’s the way it is, and not a word about it!

But the handsome doctor has not bothered about you, never once having shifted his gaze, and you have been passed by, you once more are wearing your rags and wander back to the huts, where you stand among the lost ones, everyone quiet and appearing not to breathe, pressed to the cracks between the boards until everyone has passed by the doctor. Nothing else appears to have happened, he turning away and heading off to other huts in order to ordain the living as dead, who are then separated out and wait until enough are gathered together, no one wanting to waste the precious poisonous gas, the Conqueror’s conspirators economizing in order to better serve his glory, though even up until the day of sacrifice the doomed are given very little earthly nourishment, for hail to the Conqueror, the loyal followers don’t want to do him harm by wasting precious goods! Stripped and hardly sheltered from the elements, the doomed are loaded into trucks, their tired feet not having to walk much farther, the conspirators striking the doomed from the rolls, order always maintained, the doomed trucked once more through the camp toward one of the temples of murder made of concrete, the doomed unloaded between the flower beds of the front garden, then pushed or dragged down some steps into the dressing room with the reassuring sign announcing THIS WAY TO THE SHOWERS. See, here you will wash up, your soul has grown dirty, you need a good scrubbing, but now you will be clean, you will sanctify yourself in order to meet your salvation, while you can thank fate that you don’t have to disrobe, because you have been brought here naked, just like from your mother, you not having to wait in the dressing room like those from the arriving trains, who are dressed for the city and are led in unwittingly, men and women, old folks and children, healthy and sick ones, none having a clue about their sacrifice and thus unable to ready themselves. You, however, can gather together, you have grown strong from the duress of the camp, even if you’ve only been here a few days, as you stand before the steel doors, look, how this is a shrine into which you are being led, you are precious, we want to keep you secure, you shouldn’t run away, just go on in, go with the others, just as thousands and thousands have gone before you and will follow you, go, it’s so easy, just go. You see indeed how easy it is, there is not a trace left here of those who have already entered, so go and wait until the shrine is full so that one can seal it for good. Then the lights will go out, then your mortal being will be consumed, it won’t take long, soon salvation will follow, the shrine is opened, then a special command of lost ones who serve as the lowest peons of the Conqueror haul the mortals from the shrine who cover his earth with their bloody eyes and noses and mouths, filthy and piled up in clumps so thick that the bodies often cannot be separated, the special command having a hard job to do for the Conqueror, since carrying out the murdered isn’t easy. They are then schlepped over to the roar of the furnaces, but first the gold is pried from their mouths, for the Conqueror needs the gold with which the sacrificed haughtily decorated their teeth, and when it’s time the hair of the women is cut off, for the Conqueror needs the locks that bedecked the bodies of his victims, after which each body is quickly burned, though only that which the Conqueror no longer needs is burned, ashes, horrible ashes, these the Conqueror can use to bless the accursed earth of his thousand-year realm with the victims of his sins and the power of their salvation.

What has not been turned into ashes climbs the powerful flames rising from the chimneys, the flames flaring up strong and lambent, billowing up and wrapped in smoke, the camp filled with its stench as they burn without cease through the night, and since flame entangles with flame, and ashes are mixed with ashes, you are one with the others, you no longer feel the painful separation that all creation feels, you are released, the Conqueror has finished with you. Yet you still resist him, still you are crippled by fear, there being nothing but fear for the lost one who calls the Conqueror a fiend, condemning him, refusing to recognize him as humanity’s greatest benefactor, as he has declared himself to be. No, he cannot be that, every living being must condemn him, but condemnation is useless as long as he exists and goes about his work, even if you turn your own land into a wasteland of burning and explosions, for that does not drive away chaos but only increases it. Yet all such thoughts are fruitless, they simply drift off when the lost ones stand amid the dung or dust while awaiting the roll call, they always having to be gathered, none allowed to escape from the conspirators, which is why one speaks of prisoners and not of the lost when Josef and some of the others express sympathy for them, though it’s not appreciated. For they are minors, children of the world without a clue to what is happening to them, which is why they are brought together so that the section leader can count them, they themselves needing to do nothing and not needing to know that they are being counted, though they always have something to complain about and remain stuck there amid their unnameable fear, everything being unnameable to them, because they hunger for names. In the quarantine of the Gypsy camp no one has a number, there is no sign by which they are known, all they have to do here is wait until they are sent to the slave camp, which is where the Conqueror wants them, so that their powerless hands can hand him his power. In the slave camp the lost ones are granted numbers by which they are known, which they then sew into their shirts and pants, the numbers also written down in books, in which the prisoners’ scribe writes down their names and other details that each lost one tells him, the scribe taking it down completely on trust, no one able to check what is there. In the Gypsy camp, however, the lost ones are no more than a part of a larger number, and whoever ends up remaining is tattooed with a blue number on the inside of his arm, though in the Gypsy camp the stay is usually brief, often just a matter of days or hours, and seldom longer than four to six weeks.

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.

Josef thinks about the Gypsy camp and sees it as both the darkest and the lightest time of his life, he having openly resisted such destruction, which is why he doesn’t feel the kind of misery that he sees in others’ eyes, but instead he feels defiant and strong before the final end, and he can bear the pangs of hunger and the incredible weariness, he having remained locked up within himself, as others have done as well. For instance, there is little Jossel from Lodz, almost a child in years, but one who feels that all is lost, though he faces it stoically and wants to learn a great deal from Josef, asking him about Spinoza’s Ethics, after which Jossel recites some Yiddish poems, since he can’t write them down, because there is no paper or pencil, but nonetheless he knows them by heart anyway:

Thus Jossel recites his poem, though he also brings a slice of bread, insisting that Josef take it. Almost ten years older than Josef is Mordechai, who knows that his wife is hidden away somewhere with Taubele, his young daughter, no chance of any henchman finding those so well hidden away, both of them having fake papers while living with reliable people, evil having no chance to hurt his loved ones while they are in such safe confines. As it is allowed to ponder such things here in the quarantine, Mordechai speaks about what is written in the Sayings of the Fathers, namely what Akavia ben Mahalalel said: “Observe three things, and you will not fall into sin: know from where did you come, where you are headed, and before whom you will lay yourself one day in order to give your account and be judged. And from just where did you come? From a miserable drop of nothing. Where are you headed? To a place full of dust, mold, and worms. Before whom will you lay down to account for yourself and be judged? Before the King of Kings, before the Holy One, may He be blessed!” Josef should consider well that, above all, such consummation is possible, above all, there is good counsel to keep, above all, and even if it is done silently, one can still lift oneself in prayer, Mordechai saying that indeed there is mercy in their being able to come to the huts and stand inside next to Josef in order to talk and exchange ideas, none of that is pointless, even if they don’t survive this test. “Yet why shouldn’t we survive it?” says Mordechai, receiving a smile in return. “That they give us slippers made from holy prayer shawls shows how foolish they are, for we end up walking at ease within them, for in such shawls we cannot be harmed as long as we pray!” There are other men in the huts who lose themselves in timeless questions, it being easy to think on the meaning of life here, there are no limits to the moment, time having been stripped away, the only thing to do is to wait, and when there is nothing to look forward to, then everything is easy. What still exists cannot be found in one’s surroundings, they are of no help to the spirit, each having to depend on himself, one’s perceptions seeming more true than ever before, as alone a person considers his true worth.

On a narrow planted strip between the huts, where otherwise there is nothing but sticky excrement that turns into a filthy sty when it rains, some flowers are growing, which Josef marvels at, it seeming a sign, as well as the chain of mountains to the south, namely the Beskydy Range, a minimum of two days of strenuous hiking away, gray-blue they stretch away, the foggy, damp air above the passage in between not allowing the mountains to appear any closer or lighter in color. The mountains are pure, and there it must be pleasant, closer to home, even a part of the homeland, and there you would have no idea of the Gypsy camp and the chimneys, those seeming part of an evil tale that cannot be true, no, none of that is true, simply invented by evil-minded vermin who smear the pure name of the Conqueror, oh no, those supposedly murdered are in fact alive, and the dead simply slumber and are not murdered, what strange ideas others have. Woe to those, however, who dare to violate the everyday with such mad visions of innocent children thrown into the fire whose leaping flames are oil-fired and fed by living bodies, no, those are all lies, the conspirators have never done that, and whoever did happen to do that did so against the will and without the knowledge of the Conqueror, no, nothing more about such horrors, for not even the most unforgiving enemies in Russia or America would believe it! It’s understandable that a genuine opponent of the Conqueror would not see him as a benefactor, but instead they hate him, they who reside in the Beskydy Range, as well as in subjugated lands such as here in Birkenau, but the Conqueror also has his merits, he is not guilty and means well, he not having promised his own people that much, but giving them something, namely work, fuel for winter, Volkswagens for his autobahn, and the power of a thousand years of joy. Who wants to smear the Conqueror by saying there are flaws in his Reich? He knows nothing of them, he is kind and gentle, he can’t even kill an animal and eats only vegetables, he loves the silent glory of the untouched Alps, where he watches over the good of the people from his mountain retreat.

Josef imagines all of this and sees as well the chimneys smoking before him, hearing the screams of those choking on the gas, the screams of the departing intended for this world, other screams breaking into praise, as amid the moment of death they say the name of the One who is the only One. Josef’s thoughts must wrap themselves around the death rattles, as he sees how the blood runs from the eyes, from the nose, from the mouth, he sees how body after body writhes and stretches and rears up and screams, screams, screams, as long as they can scream, and how their screams seethe, how they sink together, the Zyklon gas having already exterminated them. It’s important to guard those crystals, they’re expensive, use them sparingly! That’s why the dusty purveyor of death is slowly transported in sealed and protected lead containers to the killing grounds in a car on whose sides and roof an insignia is painted that some still hold as holy, though through this misuse it is forever put to shame, the insignia being that of the Red Cross of the Geneva Convention. An accomplice takes the murderous cargo from the car with its red cross, and soon he is atop the roof with a mask on his face, opening the tin can and dumping its contents down into the narrow shaft. In this the cowardly hero has simply done his duty, the victims decimated, a single heap of lifeless bodies. Josef sees the lost ones who are part of the special command, themselves used to the goings-on inside the circle of murder, everything the same there, today the dead, tomorrow the living, and to it all music flutters and whistles and tweets, “Play something lovely, really lovely!” Each morning and evening this music can be heard at least once, as out of the neighboring D-Camp the lost ones march out to or back from work, marches pressing them on, pleasant marches, audible all the way out to the beetle grove and birch woods that are just beyond the plain where the lost ones’ camp is located. This area used to be a hinterland that few people knew before the most loyal ones under the accomplices settled in where the borders of three kingdoms meet. Among the hecatombs, hardly anyone knows the name of the place, the accomplices having earmarked it as a place for extermination to which the victims were sent from many countries in endless trains. For three years it has gone on, and there is no end in sight.

First the victims are gathered together in each country, all of them not being able to come here at the same time, exhaustive plans needing to be worked out, for the most loyal of the conspirators have many worries, it all needing to go faster, always faster, there being so many obstacles to overcome in order to get the lost ones onto the trains, it requiring epic battles with the army, with the railroad administration, with the opposition of the church, with the hatred of the saboteurs, with the ignorance of the stubborn, with the recalcitrance of the Italians, with the mawkishness of the Germans. Not everyone knows about the Conqueror’s plans for extermination, he cannot make it public and explain it such that every last dimwit is assured that murder isn’t taking place here, and mercifully not in any mass manner, and so the Conqueror must hide it all, the people cannot know the truth, everything is secret and almost invisible, but not everything can remain hidden, and that’s what leads to difficulties that make the most loyal of the conspirators groan. The victims have no idea where they are being brought, nor do many of the collaborators know as they help round up the lost ones and load them onto the trains, for while it’s clear that the lost ones are being sent off to work, and thus have to be resettled, most don’t know the name of the place to which they are being taken. In France it was called Pitchipoi,^* the children robbed of their parents having coined the name, such that whenever a train left from there for the east, both large and small said it was headed to Pitchipoi as goodbyes were said, hope and sadness mixing together among those leaving as well as those remaining behind, everyone believing that the journey will be easier than staying, it won’t last much longer, the Conqueror will be defeated, then they will return from Pitchipoi, everyone will celebrate and they will be celebrated, then the brotherhood of all mankind will arise, the Conqueror, however, having to appear before a court of the people, in which they will raise the brazen charge, “Why didn’t you let us stay in our houses? Why did you drag us off to Pitchipoi?”

That will certainly be the last trial that humankind will hold, for it will be followed by eternal peace, which can already be clearly seen as it expands, it being seen whenever the iron rails ring and clatter, Pimmm-Pimmm-Pimmm-tititititititittititi-Pimmm! Peace is at hand when one’s gaze reaches out toward the Beskydy Range, whose gray-blue waits in the distance, ourselves already on the threshold of freedom, the furnaces that consume their victims today extinguished forever, no one yelling “Hats off!” and “Out of your bunks!,” no roll call taken, no section elder reporting, “Section 23 present with 327!” Then all of this will be just a phantom, it never having existed, just the spawn of a disturbed mind, there never having been a Conqueror, not even a war, people were not chased into slaughterhouses but simply remained at home and went about their peaceful business, it having been a golden age then as it will be again. Josef does not despair completely, a confidence having been granted him, although reason would seem to rule out any positive expectation, yet his trust is not completely destroyed, it is still there and has even strengthened somewhat in the camp of the lost, though he’s somewhat ashamed to admit it, but he still wants to maintain it and believe in it, it being a thick coat that protects his wounded nakedness, he not totally lost even when he is surrounded by filth and vermin when he lies with Milan and Étienne under a blanket, for perhaps it’s even worse in Mordechai’s quarters, where there is hardly anything to take one’s mind off how things are in the Gypsy camp.

Josef’s group waits for fourteen days under the smoke clouds of the chimneys, their imminent departure often postponed and rescheduled, but then it’s announced that several groups will be transported together. Then the lost ones are shoved once again into the baths, though it’s not a large sauna but instead a small one in the Gypsy camp, the lost ones having to stand outside for many hours in the rain, all of them freezing in their rags, until finally they are pressed into the rooms, commanded to take off everything in the front room, until they are left with only a pair of shoes that they carry in their hands, while everything they have accumulated in the camp, except that which they can always carry on their person, has to be abandoned, spoons and cigarette butts, all of it yanked away from them under the threat of blows. The naked are herded with heckling calls into the sauna, nothing visible except steam and murk, an ear-shattering noise ripping through the room, everyone wailing and thrashing about, Josef never having witnessed such bellowing in Birkenau, everyone senselessly lashing out at everyone else, senselessly shoving one another around, all without reason, even without intent, no one even wanting to blame the other. Finally the showerheads are turned on, the water is too hot and burns their naked skin, though most are happy, it’s the first shower they’ve had in weeks, despite each hut being outfitted with a latrine that doubles as a washroom, though no one would think of using it as such, for you can only stand it there for a while and only on the rare occasion, there being hardly enough time to wash your hands and face, as in general there are too few wash-stands, the water pressure is poor, and there is no soap or towels. In the small sauna the lost ones can scrape the dirt off their skin with their fingernails, their backs and limbs turning red from this and from the hot water, though there’s no way to dry off, so they all stand there barefoot on a cold stone floor with their shoes in their hands, the water dripping from their heads and shoulders. The lost ones continue to scream without ceasing, even though they still have no reason to, it perhaps being the horror of it all that is indeed abysmal and continually gives rise to new terrors, the room seeming ready to burst with the chain of screams that continue without end. To the collaborators it all seems so stupid, for they are just trying to do their job, and with horsewhips they flog the naked, who want to avoid the blows, thus causing each to trample on the other, the floor slippery and painful for anyone who falls, while if care isn’t taken they can be trampled, the blows bringing no end to it all, but rather only worsening the puzzlement and confusion of this carnival, which takes on its first bit of orderliness the minute one of the conspirators appears and waves his pistol about. Then clothes are handed out, which goes about the same as it would in the big sauna, as plunder is taken from them with their having no choice in the matter, though the clothes they are given are not the same as what they had on before, because after bathing and disinfection in the Gypsy camp they don’t get their stuff back, but instead the lost ones get something better, the working slaves destined soon to be transported receiving underwear and winter coats, which is more than what they had in quarantine, even though it’s no better in quality. Josef is somewhat lucky to get a miserable pair of shoes made of torn linen, none of the stuff is made from the wool of a prayer shawl, instead a narrow pair of leggings and stained pants are made from thin cloth, which was once brown, though he does get a good green vest, the black jacket having no doubt been part of a good suit, while the hand-sewn winter coat was once quite fine, Josef reading on a sewn-on silk strip the name and address of a Jewish tailor in Lodz.

They are not allowed to dawdle while dressing, “Hurry! Hurry!” shouted at them continually, as if the train were already waiting for them above on the ramp, where each of them arrived sometime in recent weeks, but there appears to be no train waiting anxiously, for next the lost ones are forced to stand and wait for hours more in front of the sauna. Then they file into rows and the entire group marches to the yard, where the prison scribes appear with their lists and begin to count the number of lost ones in each group, counting them again and again, two groups missing a couple of men, Josef’s group having one too many, which causes a lot of squabbling and complaint, though neither gentle talk nor threats seems to work, the numbers don’t add up, and so each one has to be asked who he is and which group he belongs to, though in the chaos of the Gypsy camp it simply isn’t possible to maintain such control, the names of the lost ones often falsely given or written down wrong, no one having any papers, for all their possessions were taken from them by force in the big sauna. Thus it takes over two hours before the count is right for each group, too many having snuck in, for they want to get out of the camp, some of them beaten as a result, but then sent on without further punishment, they even allowing some to be exchanged between different groups so that fathers and sons and brothers can stick together, until finally the groups are formed, everyone takes a breath, though once again it is announced that the journey has been postponed, everyone back in the huts.

It turns out this doesn’t mean that Josef’s group is to return to the same huts they were in before, instead they are led to the gate of the E-Camp, where they stand for a long while, threatened all the while with severe punishment if anyone dares to try to take anything out of the Gypsy camp but what they’ve been fitted out with already, though after the plundering that occurred in the small sauna hardly anyone has anything, nor do most of them want to risk a flogging for it, only here and there someone allowing a spoon or a knife to drop to the ground. Then the group is counted more than once by the helpers and the accomplices, and along with sections D, C, and B they are led off to A-Camp, where their marching ends at a barracks where the section elder appears and takes charge of the group. With his scribe he stands before the lost, playing with his riding whip as he sticks one cigarette after another into his clever and inscrutable face, introducing himself as Pinks, there no longer being anyone like him in the A-Camp, for the lost ones need not stand still while listening to him, as he is a good father and treats the men—which is what he calls the prisoners, as do others—with solidarity and compassion, there being no one who can force him to kill anyone in his barracks, which is part of his goodwill, though they should inscribe on the inside of their forehead that here they are not in the Gypsy camp, here different rules apply, here only good men live who also want to work, no riffraff, for here one has to keep everything and himself clean, for if you have a louse and are such a pig, then you will be tossed out of your lodgings and will get twenty-five lashes on your naked ass, thus no one should even dare to wear his boots inside, and the blankets must be cleanly folded and remain on the bunks, no one can take them, here they are to live like gentlemen, nothing will be stolen from anyone, but if someone pinches something, then Pinks will have nothing to do with him, only good people will be allowed to live under him, and the culprit will be relegated to the shit command that takes away all the shit they produce because they eat too much, Pinks ready to close his speech by saying that each should know that Pinks is fair, and if the new ones behave and he hears no complaints about them, then he is like a father and has a soft heart, but when anyone doesn’t obey, then his heart is hard, while he will repeat again that this is the A-Camp and not the Gypsy camp, and so off with you, you all look tired, the men should be in their huts, and so the staffers show them to their places.

The setup of the hut is no different from those in the Gypsy camp, but it really is much cleaner, everything painted white, the bunks fitted out with tin plates on which numbers are written down. Josef’s group stays only one night in the hut, but that’s enough to get to know some of the inhabitants. Pinks comes by again with a cigarette in his mouth, and once more during the night, acting out his role as father as he speaks with each of them for a short while or even longer, though sometimes he has to reveal his hard heart and takes someone out to beat him with his belt. The regular inhabitants of the hut are used to how things work in the camp, most of them experienced lads, hardened and tough, the uninitiated having a hard time understanding their talk, it being a thick accent full of cussing, though the boys are unbowed, most of them seeming strong and fresh, while what’s going on around them doesn’t seem to disturb them, though many are good-natured, tossing potatoes and slices of bread to the guests, obviously being well nourished themselves, having bacon and tinned foods in supply, chocolate, as well as good clothes and woolens, leather gloves, and their exquisite boots standing underneath their bunks. All of this is the booty from possessions of the newly arrived lost ones, this only a small part of the untold thievery that doesn’t benefit the collaborators and the regular lost ones, but rather the conspirators, whose most loyal members need to be compensated a little for the great service they provide the Conqueror, though no matter how hard they try the most loyal ones couldn’t possibly keep the measureless amount of stolen goods for themselves, and so they have to be a little honest and distribute on behalf of all conspirators a good amount to the general public for its own use. This is why huge storehouses have been built here, which are referred to as “Canada,” they being full of gold and jewels, clothes and shoes, bedding and handbags, watches and perfumes, children’s clothes and toys, all of which had been quickly and carefully packed by the clueless, they who had readied themselves for the journey to Pitchipoi, since for such a journey they took their very best things, often carrying their most expensive items in the hope of using them to trade for necessities or to save for future times, only to have everything taken away on the ramp or in the room where they disrobed before entering the gas chambers, or remaining behind in the big sauna, where after a while they end up in the storehouses, albeit not as items recorded as tremendous losses. Instead, announcements are made that say the wares have been confiscated as stolen or fenced goods, the will of the Conqueror having been fulfilled, for which many people are thankful, though often they have no idea what they should be thankful for, since the countless owners of all these goods have long since been consumed by the flames.

The next day Josef’s group is transferred from the A-Camp to the D-Camp, which means that they will likely not be transported soon, though it could also mean that it will be today for sure, but many doubt it, no one knowing what to believe. This also gives rise to a shower of hope that Germany is no longer able to use trains to transport prisoners, the Russians already having reached Krakow and perhaps ready to break through any day, meaning that they are preparing to empty the camps. This news, which means so much to the lost ones, also makes them realize that the present situation in the camp is markedly improved since earlier times, they having already experienced the worst of what they’d seen, there having been hardly any transports from the west in more than six months, many of the conspirators having become nicer or at least more careful, supposedly having been warned against listening to German-language radio out of England and threatened with punishment if they did. In any case, the improved relations with the lost ones is a good sign of a quick end to the war, the Conqueror’s days numbered, his enemies not even allowing him a chance to catch his breath, while also having overrun the fatherland’s western border, a thousand planes crisscrossing by day and by night, as Germany is transformed into a single mound of rubble, the Resistance also beginning to hurt it, the lost ones needing to stay confident, for the hour of liberation is at hand. Nonetheless, many turn away from such far-reaching hope as they look at the charged barbed wire and upward at the weapons at the ready in the watchtowers.

The day moves on wearisomely, time seeming fragmented, they having to file in again and again, after which the lost ones are led back into the barracks, then back out again, so it goes, over and over, roll call occurring as evening descends, all of them then suddenly pressed into an overflowing hut and ordered to get into their bunks. One bunk is meant to hold six men, but now twenty-five to thirty have to squeeze in, no one allowed to disrobe, though that is a ridiculous order, for the lost ones have no room to rest, screams traveling through the cool, damp, muggy air, which are then smothered, at one time “Sleep!” ordered, then “Everyone get ready to march!” Then someone finally says, “Everyone go to sleep!” The light is put out, the air in the hut grows heavier, then suddenly there is light, capos and staffers and who knows who else barging into the room with long sticks and beginning to aimlessly lash out at the lost ones and the bunks, yelling as they go, “We’ve had enough of you bums! The sanatorium is closed! Time for the pigs to come out! Out with you. Out! Get up, you weary sheiks! You miserable idiots! Rotten pigs! Money-grubbers! Assholes!,” the Polish and Ukrainian curses following one upon another in a hellish uproar, and so on, and so on. That they finally leave is good, but first they have to pass through hell before they go, everyone has to leave the hut through the front door, no one allowed to stay behind, the collaborators lining up on the way out, such that everyone must pass between them, at which they hit the unprotected heads and bodies of the lost with their sticks. Finally everyone is gathered together outside and quickly counted once again, after which they begin to move on their own feet like a slow waltz toward the main camp road, picking up speed as they climb the ramps that serve as a narrow passage, garish arc lamps lighting their way, prison scribes hastily counting off the travelers shuffling through and calling out numbers, the count needing to be right, each lost one getting a loaf of bread, a hunk of margarine, and a slab of sausage, though many leave empty-handed.

Hurry! Hurry! Get in! Though no one really worries about whether the lost can reasonably fit into the cattle wagons, it being dark everywhere, the chaos churning the people into a teeming brew, sixty men to a car, there being no room to tuck away bodies and limbs, though slowly they push against one another, many wanting to remain comfortable and thus pressing at a neighbor, but finally all of the lost ones manage to gather together and the loading of the train cars is done. A long train has been put together, in each wagon a bench for the guards, and after they climb on the lost ones have to shove even more tightly together, the guards and their bayonets are from the army, two soldiers for each car, they also having machine guns at the ready. Finally the train pulls away, the journey lasting through the night and into a cool autumn morning, the countryside shimmering in the sunlight, the day beautiful, the journey passing through Silesia, where beets are harvested, fields tilled, on and on, the train stopping rarely, then traveling through the hills, soon after the mountains, it all looking much like Bohemia, home must be nearby, happy conjectures about where they are headed shared, Josef also beginning to feel hopeful, these appearing to be the flat lands, and indeed the train enters the plains and stops for a while. When the journey starts up again, hopes sink, Bohemia is not the final destination, though the landscape is beautiful, it being a pleasure to just look at the landscape, though only a few of the men have an eye for it, most of them having ceased to say anything, for they are hungry and tired and anxious, as the train passes through Waldenburg, the high mountain with its snowy peak looming above, Josef pressing nearer to a crack in the siding in order to get a better view of the forest, pressing as if he might spring into the picture itself in order to escape into the countryside, though such thoughts are fleeting and bring no hope. They have already passed Hirschberg, Görlitz soon disappearing into the twilight. The long-silent soldiers in the car now talk in a friendly manner, asking for songs to be sung, Yiddish and Polish or Russian folk songs, doleful wise men mixing painfully with the knocking sounds of the train rolling into the distance, a second long night during which sleep is hardly possible. The unrest among the lost ones begins to climb, many showing no mercy toward their fellow travelers as they elbow them in the ribs, though finally this night passes and they find themselves in western Saxony, passing through Wurzen, Leipzig soon following, though the journey circumscribes the city limits, after which it stops, three wagons separated, this being Josef’s group, which believes it has reached its final destination.

This, however, turns out not to be true, and the journey continues, the lost ones growing ever more hungry and tired and anxious. A Slovak Jew, a doctor, begins to talk in a confused manner, he having lost his bearings, as Josef and two others talk to him and try to calm him down, the journey crawling forward, the train stopping often, though later they reach Halle, then finally Eisleben, night falling again, a third night spent on the train, the lost ones feeling very down, as vainly some try to keep up the others’ hopes, the disturbed doctor from Ružomberok now talking senselessly and continuously. The train has stopped again as he begins to thrash about and launches into a blaring tirade, even the German soldiers want to quiet him down, but nothing can control the madman as he screams about how the liberation has come, enough with the murder and oppression of innocent people, the revolution is here, the hour of reckoning and revenge, and whoever doesn’t lift a hand to help is a coward and a traitor, the hangman needs to be hanged, victory is certain if everyone takes a stand. The mad doctor then lunges at a soldier and tries with his bare hands to strip him of his weapon, the other soldier shooting him, though he doesn’t want to kill the disturbed man, and so he shoots him in the foot, the wounded man screaming all the louder, knowing that it’s the end for him, but before he dies he curses Adolf Hitler, the destroyer of the people and the murderer of millions, cursing as well Josef Tiso, that dog of a priest who sold out Slovakia to Hitler and delivered the Jews to his slaughterhouses. Then some shots ring out from a machine gun in the car, the prisoners anxiously pressing against the walls, bright lights flash, the dying man is yanked away and put out of his misery with a single shot, after which the soldiers alert the transport commandant and are quite up front about it all, insisting over and over that, no, it was not a mutiny, the others were reasonable and quiet, only this one had gone crazy. Then the commandant begins issuing threats, the first being “We should kill them! The entire carload!” Some prisoners, meanwhile, have to take care of the dead man, which forces them to squeeze together even more, the corpse stretched out in the middle, which otherwise would have remained free, though if anyone were to say a word he would be killed without warning, the soldiers in the car standing, the journey pressing on in fits and starts throughout the night, the machine guns trained on the lost ones, who are silent and sit there motionless, from time to time a beam of light shining from a flashlight, until finally the train stops at a small station in Eichsfeld, the journey at last over.

The group doesn’t have it so bad here, which is how one talks about a good camp in the language of the lost. There are two factories that have been stripped of their previous contents and converted into a small slave camp that is overseen by those who run Buchenwald, wings for the Conqueror’s planes being fabricated here, many of the civil servants acting friendly toward the prisoners, while inhabitants of the village who work there are even kinder, yet many of the lost are weak, while others find no favor among the conspirator who runs the camp. Then one day a hundred and twenty men are needed for Langenstein, this also an outlying camp of Buchenwald, and so the weak ones are sent there, as well as those who are not liked, which includes Josef. It’s now been six weeks since he first came here, Josef amazed each day that he is still alive, there are many and much younger colleagues who have died, and who came with him at the same time to Langenstein, even on the very first day one of them stretching out and dying, another of the lost finding that his feet had swollen up, two days later his face was bloated, each creeping step becoming more and more difficult, his gaze growing empty and unsteady, at which the lost one was capable neither of work nor of making a clear decision, though the slave drivers don’t want to spare him, and so he is holed up in a corner of the underground factory, while during roll call at the end of the day there is often one missing, no one able to find him and everyone having to look, until finally he is found, sometimes barely conscious, while at other times the accomplices and henchmen kill him on the spot, this being the home of unhappiness, at which someone calls out, “You two Belgians, quick! Hurry! Hurry! Go carry your buddy home!” At which they have to carry the dying or the dead back to camp, though for two broken-down and half-starved prisoners there’s hardly anything more difficult than to carry someone who is dying through the halls of the underground factory and then over the rubbish dump while being pressed by the henchmen to hurry as they schlep him back to camp.

Josef hears steps outside, these being the collaborators, the camp guards, and staffers, they soon bursting into the room with clubs and whips as they yell, “Everyone up!” Blindly they lash out at the lost ones, beating anyone who is not standing. Josef doesn’t wait, but instead wakes Étienne and Milan, his warning for them to flee hardly an advantage, for there are no lights on, since the windows cannot be blacked out, thus making it hard for the lost ones to handle their attackers and to find their bearings as one stumbles over the other, none able to find their things, their shoes gone, it also impossible to find the miserable washroom, where even if you have light and self-discipline there’s little you can do, each possessing a little piece of terrible soap, though hardly anyone has a hand towel or a toothbrush, eight washstands having to serve sixteen men at the same time, and which in turn are also meant to serve seven hundred to eight hundred men who are crammed into the small camp, where on some days there is not a drop of water to be had. No wonder, then, that everyone is full of lice, for lice scurry through the blankets and the rags that cover their bodies, there not having been a change of clothes available since Josef came to the camp, so everyone wears only what he has on his back.

Langenstein is a deep hole of horror, human brotherhood barely traceable here, it being better that it not show itself before the ever-lurking malevolence, most of the collaborators being hardened young men who wildly and maliciously run the place with complete abandon, their better spirits not allowing them to remain cool-headed, even the decent collaborators needing to appear to succumb to the inhumanity of the place, as no one is able to escape such corruption. The small camp is only for skilled workers, who were generally selected out at Birkenau, barbed wire separating the place from the larger camp, where there are no skilled workers, it being a penal camp, the lost ones not allowed to move from one to the other without special permission. A band of collaborators runs things in the small camp, the camp guard led by a nasty Ukrainian, followed by the section elders with their followers, who hold back a large chunk of the spare rations granted the prisoners. The kitchen is located in the big camp, where a lot of food disappears straight off, the most valuable items regularly going to the conspirators who hold sway over Langenstein, for they take for themselves a measly and insufficient amount for each of the watch posts under their command, after which all the collaborators take their cut at each post, the lost ones indeed getting a couple of sips of brown, lukewarm water first thing in the morning, which sometimes is called coffee and other times tea, the lost ones getting nothing as they slave away during the day. Up until now there have been only two days when Josef had to stay behind in the camp, each day lasting up to twelve hours, the journey out and back taking a minimum of another two hours, and the roll call in the yard each morning and at night using up another two hours, which means sixteen hours total for each day. Throughout all this time there is nothing to eat, four weeks ago the prisoners having been served a midday soup while working in the underground factory of the little camp, but this was taken away as punishment more often than not, especially the Jews in general getting nothing, but now the soup is gone for good, and no one needs to be worried about getting hit while trying to get his share, for now they hold it back, even the civil servants in the works receiving meager rations, though the lost ones have the hardest slave labor in having to dig down in the caverns and work outside the mountain the whole day long with nothing to eat. Only after the roll call in the evening is there soup, which is usually served around eight o’clock, by then the soup cold and almost always sour, consisting almost entirely of water and salt, a few slivers of carrots and potato peels swimming in it, a liter of the disgusting liquid all that one gets for the week, only once long ago having been replaced by a light, sweet, runny gruel. Bread is also handed out in the evening, up until two weeks ago it having been a large hunk, but since then it’s only been a thick slice, three times a week a dollop of margarine, and every so often a spoonful of lean raw ground meat or a thin slice of watery sausage or beet marmalade.

Their hunger is so immense that most of them immediately wolf down whatever is handed out, this being the smartest thing to do, for whatever you might carefully stash away under your blanket is almost always gone in the morning, while no matter how much yelling there is, there’s nothing to be done, and so the hungry one must wait until evening. More and more of the lost ones die because of hunger, there being no escape, as they lose their human appearance and shape, becoming unconscious and like animals, clawing away at unsuitable rubbish wherever they find it, at the hard ground in the camp, at the heaps of kitchen scraps, on the way to and at the work sites, everything and anything picked up and devoured as a dog would, even though it is strictly forbidden and they can be beaten for it, someone hanging signs on the lost ones that say:

Raw potato peels and rotten beets are dangerous to eat, so the lost ones suffer severe diarrhea, unable to hold in their stool, thus soiling themselves and their rooms. The prison doctor can provide some relief by saying they don’t have to work, but then they get less bread and still run the danger that they will be hounded out of the room and into slave labor. The miserable sick bay at the big camp is the only place where one is granted any special favors, and even then for only the most severe illness and wounds, while also having limited prospects of ever getting out alive. There is no bone char, nothing to stop the diarrhea, and therefore the patients suffer from monstrous hunger, they being pressed to get up and get to roll call, though often they can no longer stand on their legs, some of them even dying in the yard. But as long as one is alive two colleagues are sent to help the lost one, because he has to show up at roll call and stand there, even if he collapses into the dust, but the count must be correct, and it’s too much to expect of the section leaders to also have to count the prisoners in the stinking rooms of the infirmary, for it could be simply that someone has run off, which happens regularly, as indeed there’s no trust here, not even the helpers can be trusted, which is why the section leader is so narrow-minded, and the count is often not right, there being always groups that have been commandeered elsewhere or sent off in the middle of the night, or someone has wandered off to the latrine and fallen in, or someone has died without being noticed.

Much can be withstood by sheer will, because one cannot give in and succumb to each day’s demands, but instead must remember what’s needed to supersede such hardship, be it a friendly word or a bit of encouragement for a neighbor in the room, on the way to work, as both provide strength to the slave. For it’s no longer just a rumor whispered in the latrine, but rather the truth, the Russians have crossed the Oder at Küstrin, the Americans have taken Frankfurt and are now marching on Bamberg, it will not last much longer. For many, this is of no help at all, because they are too broken, the smallest wounds fester straightaway, and everyone has such wounds from his slave labor, the limbs soon swelling, the body becoming discolored, nothing done in the infirmary, for there is no disinfectant, salve, or bandages. If one opens an infected wound, all that can be done is to wrap some paper around it, the pain soon following, blood poisoning soon whisking the lost one away.

Shrill whistles sound, as well as the air-raid alarm, but today it’s already too late for the morning dispensation of something to drink, though the light is on and the plunder remaining in the room is quickly gathered together, as everyone assembles outside on the square in the small camp, all the helpers there as well, the camp elders, the hall capo, who helps the supervisor of the lost ones in the underground factory, the camp scribe, the hall scribe, the hall translator, Jacques, a pleasant Frenchman, the horde of overseers who don’t work at all, the camp guards, and the section elders with their boys. Everyone is there and screaming at the mob of lost ones, all of you get into your groups, though since there are more attractive groups and less attractive groups, a wild tussle breaks out as each tries to get into a better one, the number of workers from the underground works changing daily, which results in a great deal of anxiety, for whoever is not able to slip into a position that will lead to good work has to join another group, which normally has to do heavy digging or carry heavy goods, these being commands from the big camp, where any lost one from the small camp is often treated badly, since the overseers there want to teach those who have received the preferred jobs what it really takes to work hard. Each wants to avoid such trouble, as it involves being shoved around, threatened, and hit, all hell breaking loose, the camp guards and the overseers ganging up with their clubs, sticks, and lead cables swinging to each side of everyone’s head. Also, whoever is clever doesn’t shy away from this battle, because if one hangs back in the background and doesn’t fight for a spot in a better group he risks being put in the worst of groups, and that can be very bad, for tomorrow the blows will be worth it, as they only hurt for a while, but to slave away for an entire day in a bad group can mean death, even a miserably painful death.

Once all the groups from the little camp are divided up, they cross over to the big camp, where again they all report for roll call, the groups arranged in four rows, most of them carrying a flag with a number, the overseers swinging their batons, until finally the camp gate is opened. Milan, Étienne, and Josef stand in a row together, they having promised to stick together, though it doesn’t always work out, they sometimes being separated because of a beating, as now an order is barked out: “Attention! All together—march! Hats off!” The rows stream out of the gate, two lost ones counting them off, while as soon as the long lines of lost ones are past the gate they are made to stop. Without seeing the lost ones, a stranger would have no idea what kind of camp exists only a few steps away, the work on the railroad having only been started a few years prior without any great effort applied to it, though the site was cleverly chosen, the camp lying in a small, steep wooded valley, only part of which had been cleared, the woods even today rising up with thick pines just at the edge of the large camp, some of the huts even situated among the trees. Across from the camp a hill rises that is also partially covered by trees, mass graves dug into it halfway up, for there is no crematorium here, the mortality rate continuing to rise over time, two weeks ago there having been hardly more than twenty or thirty, while now it’s probably more like sixty, and soon it will be eighty or a hundred if the liberation doesn’t occur soon. In any case it will be too late, even tomorrow is too late for many, which everyone knows even at the work site, because of the need to replace positions, though what good does it do to have to keep sending more and more over to Langenstein? The supply won’t last that much longer, even if the conspirators tirelessly ship over men, for they have no idea that their hour has come, even though they chatter on continually about the final victory, meaning by that the Conqueror’s victory. Recently Josef overheard a speech given to the sentries, someone wanting to cheer them up, telling them they should stay on their toes in front of the prisoners and not relax, the need for discipline needing to remain ever sharp. Nonetheless this doesn’t always seem possible anymore, for it’s rumored among the lost ones that more and more sentries have deserted their posts, while others steadfastly believe in the Conqueror and obey the conspirators above them, who order them to march the prisoners to their slavery while keeping their weapons trained on them, so that they can shoot if they need to, while when the lost ones are marching many sentries are sharp on their tails, making sure that whatever rubbish they pick up is ripped away from them, especially if it’s a piece of wood, beating the unfortunate ones with rifle butts and sticks if they do.

The path leading to the camp looks nice enough, some cherry trees there having blossomed, the breeze blowing through the forest, though it is cold and damp, the path muddy and wet, as you sink in with miserable soaking shoes, the mud clinging to them, each step even more laborious for your tired feet. Finally the funeral procession takes shape, the overseers and sentries again count the rows, the weapons brought to the ready, a whistle at last blowing to start the march, the hill with its mass graves now behind the procession, the march easier for the next two hundred meters that run downhill, each one obeying when “Hurry! Hurry!” and “Keep together!” are yelled out, such that the rows march on without interruption. Then a highway is reached and crossed, after which it gets tougher, the lost ones having to cross a small embankment as they pass along the floor of the valley, this being a rail bed for the narrow-gauge railway, as the walking gets more difficult and they stumble along, tottering, the procession unable to stick together, the front man having been lost, nor does it help that they are beaten because of it, as well as being prodded forever to “Hurry! Hurry!” and “Keep together! Front man! Keep it straight!” Though many are able to keep their balance, many fall, others trampling them, the sentries impatient. Finally they press past this stretch, after which they climb a bank, a steep embankment on which the narrow-gauge trains travel day and night on several rails as they transport the white limestone and sandstone that thousands of slaves dynamited at Zwieberge before picking, shoveling, and loading it onto the small railcars.

Finally they reach an entrance to Zwieberge, though there are others, Josef knowing of at least three. They then pass by a dumping site, this being where the freight is loaded into the hoppers of the trucks, as well as into the larger cars of the narrow-gauge train, the ingress still small and not yet complete, it also being clogged with railcars to the right and left, leaving just enough room to pass by on foot on the uneven earth, someone having quickly shoved them back as continually they are pressed on, as it is better not to be at the back, for it’s much better at the front of the ranks, the best position just behind the leaders. The ingress is much too poorly lit with bleary lighting, as slaves work here, lost ones lost amid the muck and dirt, Josef thinking of the sufferings of the children of Israel in Egypt, how in the Bible it says that a new pharaoh will arise who knew nothing of Josef, but who observed the quick demise of those who hurried the lost ones on. The path leading underground is at least a kilometer long, Josef having counted the steps that run from the entrance to the ingress to the gathering spot in the underground hall, but he has already forgotten the number, it being inconsistent, since sometimes you have to take detours through side chambers. It is bitter cold in the passages, a damp, penetrating cold that the lost ones can’t protect themselves against, as it is strictly forbidden to wrap a blanket around yourself, though Josef does it nonetheless, there is no other way to stand it, this also the only way to prevent having your blanket stolen back in the camp. Josef keeps all of his necessities on him, as do others, no matter how forbidden it is to do so, but he’s not afraid and thinks about how he arrived here from the camp in Eichsfeld with a number of small items, gifts from a couple of good-hearted Germans from the village and the remainders of a package from Bohemia, some food, a razor, a bar of soap, a hand towel, an anthology of poetry that contained Nietzsche’s verse:

And this book of poetry is about all that Josef has had for so long, while here among so-called civilization there is almost no one to turn to, which is why he has to carry everything on his person, such as the little tin box made in Milan, a cigarette holder that Josef carved out of wood, a tiny piece of soap passed on by a Dutch civil servant, as well as a spoon, a pocketknife, a rag that serves as a scarf, but most important of all, Josef’s own notes, which he has stowed away in the tin box, some of them from the last camp, some he has secretly written down below the earth in Zwieberge.

Josef has certainly been plenty afraid to have the notes about him, he once having been stopped in the underground factory as a conspirator and an overseer were frisking people in search of stolen goods. Thankfully Josef had nothing they were looking for, though he did have a blanket wrapped around him, which he respectfully removed, but then the notes appeared and that was bad. The conspirator flipped through the pages and began to make out what they said, saying it was sabotage, a conspiracy and an uprising against the camp leaders and the Conqueror, saying to Josef’s face that all these words were intended against the Conqueror. Josef denied this, saying that it wasn’t against the Conqueror, though he said openly that they had to do with what went on in different jobs at the camp, but that he wasn’t scheming at anything, and he protested when the conspirator asserted things that were neither intended nor in fact there. At this the conspirator coldly threatened Josef, asking if he knew what the consequences were for all this. Yes, Josef knew, at which the conspirator said, “This will cost you your life!” Josef answered, “Yes, Herr Troop Leader, I know!” He took the notes and wrote down Josef’s prison number, 95714, though he didn’t do anything about the blanket, which the overseer was still concerned about, while even the pocketknife, which as a dangerous weapon Josef showed to those better armed, was returned to him. After that Josef figured his time had come, he not being surprised that when he returned to camp, number 95714 was called as they entered the gate, numbers always being called when any of the lost ones were seen as a threat of escape, or had stolen something, or committed some other transgression that needed to be pointed out. These prisoners always have to stand by the gate after the march back to camp before being ordered to see the section leader. Among those held back, Josef is the last and has to look on as his comrades are whipped, after which the section leader asks him, “Why are you here?” Josef clicks his heels and relays with a firm voice and precise words what he has done. For a while the section leader looks intently at Josef, who doesn’t stir, and then finally says, “Aha, so you’re the note taker!” He takes the notes that are lying on the table and hands them over to the obviously surprised Josef with the words, “There! Next time don’t write such stupid stuff! But if you have to write, don’t let yourself get caught! Now off with you!”

Josef escaped the expected punishment and since then has enjoyed the heightened attention of the most powerful collaborators who make plans for his transport. On that day he was doubly lucky, for in the yard the lost ones were subjected to an intense body search, they being forced to hand over their coats and everything they had or were not supposed to have. After that there were random beatings, the worst offenders being those who went around with a blanket wrapped around them. Just after Josef had been let off by the section leader the search took place, so he behaved as if none of it had anything to do with him as he passed beyond the group in a wide arc and entered his hut from the back entrance, where there was no one who cared what he did. He still carried his notes with him, for he wanted to save them, as he wasn’t yet done with life, he wanted to survive, and now more than ever he wouldn’t let himself die, he wanted to bear witness to the existence of the lost ones. At the same time he could not grasp why he, and especially why he should survive. He feared that afterward life would be bleak and empty, nor did he know where he would go after the war, and therefore perhaps anything he could say would be senseless and would find neither acceptance nor sympathy, and he would be alone, without a wife, without a family, without friends or anyone, homeless, Bohemia no longer his homeland, yet where would he find a homeland? The world will seem strange, Josef no longer able to immerse himself in day-to-day life, a table, a stool, a bed, none of it will be a comfort. Josef just wants to sleep peacefully for once, to sleep forever, and he wants to be alone, to not have to listen to the iron rails, not have to wait for the next blow, not have to wolf down the sour, watery soup. Everything has become rotten and disgusting, everything is destroyed, mankind having dragged itself into the muck and done itself in, Josef only able to mourn the fact that no day will ever be untroubled again, for the eyes can find nothing beautiful to look at, the ears no pure music to listen to any longer. Instead there will only be trains headed to Pitchipoi to the calls of “Faster! Away! Away! You greedy bastards, why don’t you just pack it in, you miserable assholes!” Poisonous gas wipes out the masses of people, the flames spit out of the chimney of the Red Cross! And yet Josef wants to live on, he wants to survive the curses raining down in so many tongues, for on those evenings where you are not forced to stay too long in the underground factory and are able to crawl out of the cavernous works, then the sunset is still there, the rays of the sun spread their red over the lit-up hills, the woods stand quiet, Josef senses the breath of approaching spring, the view opens up, something that cannot simply be forbidden, he having said so to Étienne and Milan, even pointing it out with his finger in order that it be noticed, though a lost one never wants to be noticed, for that’s too dangerous, any opinion, even the slightest word, allowing attentive guards to rush in, though fear no longer made any sense. If the oppressor wants to raise the cane, it no longer causes any fear, for there is now only everything to win and nothing to lose, though, indeed, one doesn’t want to be arrogant or foolhardy, since razor-thin is the path on which the lost ones stand, the precipice steep below them, and whoever wants still to be standing tomorrow has to take care today.

Sometimes Josef would like to lie in the woods, to pick bright berries and look for fragrant mushrooms, these being the start of the Harz Mountains, it not being far to Goslar, and Wernigerode after that, followed by so many wonderful places, though they are still distant. Josef also longs for solitude, which he’d give anything for, as he is exhausted and drools at the idea of rest. Everything is a useless nightmare, no one able to think beyond the day itself, the panorama narrow and closed in, the panorama underground with its view of nothing more than the concrete hall that is now complete, where garish neon lights glow, everything at last ready, the masters imagining that they can make airplane parts here, a firm with the fablelike name of Malachite Works, Inc., Halberstadt installed here, the firm part of the Junkers airplane works, nothing more has been done as yet, for first the lost ones have to wearily install the machines under duress, as well as fill the hoppers with material made of aluminum.

After a difficult start in Langenstein, Josef is assigned to a typewriter, his fingers stiff and clumsy in the ice-cold chill of the underground hall, he not being allowed to wear a coat, though it’s much better than having to slave away at backbreaking work on the transports, where one of the overseers even beats German civil servants, while even in front of the typewriter Josef is not freed from being ordered to schlep heavy goods, whereby he is exhausted after an hour. The man in charge of Josef and some of his comrades is named Kiesewetter, and demands high productivity, though he doesn’t beat the lost ones who sit at the typewriters, and at the request of his prisoners he even makes sure that his people are excused for the most part from having to schlepp heavy goods. Josef has a view of the continuing armament of the Conqueror, despite being on his way to defeat, hundreds of letters from German firms passing through Josef’s hands, he having to fill out orders for supplies and confirmation of their arrival, all of it in duplicate, though it’s all quite chaotic, the whole war machine having run itself into the ground, the foolhardy game played out no longer winnable through the slave labor of the starving lost ones, their labor of no value even if they worked their best, the slave holders having miscalculated, as it doesn’t matter if Herr Langer, a German who has a minor position here, and who, after wondering why Josef is “in this club,” pompously claims that “German ways will save the day,” and that once the war is over better days will dawn for Josef and all the Jews, and when Josef looks him in the eye and asks directly, he answers convincingly that of course Germany will win the war, the Conqueror has yet to realize his greatest triumphs, there are new secret weapons, and the Conqueror is a good person who will find for Josef and all the Jews a nice spot on earth where they can live well. No, such empty words no longer work, for chaos is already spreading its demoralizing effects among the Conqueror’s own ranks, orders greeted by counter-orders, the civil servants no longer working full tilt, but instead continually going through the motions until exhaustion sets in, the belief they had at the start now lost, they having lost their wits as well, no longer seeming human, but instead continually ridiculous, for even if they remain a danger until the very last moment they can no longer be taken seriously.

Josef laughs at how they carry on, how they order equipment to be moved from one hall to another, then back again, no one knowing what the other is doing, a confusion of terms having set in, all of them speaking the same language but no longer understanding one another. This makes Herr Weber want to scream, though it does no good to complain about the conspirators and the collaborators in charge, all of them are already confused, having been told only a couple of days ago that the malachite operation was to be moved from Zwieberge to Leopoldshall, and that prisoners from Langenstein were also to be sent there, but now that’s not what’s going to happen. Instead, it’s too late, the fools have run out of time, though they themselves still don’t realize it, and so the gears keep grinding, each day consuming more lost ones. Meanwhile, the tank works at Zittau are supposed to be moved to Zwieberge, railcars full of machines from Zittau standing on the supply lines that run from Halberstadt to Zwieberge, some already having been unloaded and schlepped into the hall and set up by the lost ones, who are continually tormented, though the civil engineers cannot get them to work since they have been damaged and won’t work anymore, the efforts of millions of men wasted, the work of the Conqueror destroyed, it having done itself in, though don’t the masters see at all that it’s time to give up? No, they don’t see it, and so death continues its harvest in Zwieberge, the conspirators continue to harass the lost ones, six men always assigned to the foul-smelling morgue of the Langenstein camp to carry rough-hewn wooden boxes, two skin-covered skeletons in each, those carrying them hounded out of the gate and toward the pits, despite almost buckling at the knees because of their own weakness, the skeletons tipped out there, some chlorinated lime spread over them, then the boxes are carried back to camp. This goes on for days, maybe even weeks, for here in the halls bad characters can still swing their heavy batons and yell, “Hurry! Hurry!” At this you schlepp pieces of airplanes out of the bins that are no longer fitted together, schlepping them to the waiting railcars, which will transport them to Leopoldshall, Zwieberge emptied out more and more, a frayed network of finished and unfinished passages, a maddening ant heap full of whining and whimpering, the lost ones as lost as ever, an idiot from the factory guards watching over the spigot that only uniformed men and civil servants are allowed to drink from, though the old man in black clothes fends off each lost one wanting to ease his thirst, as if he were death itself.

The atmosphere in the mine shafts, as well as outside them, is unreal, the air-raid alarm never stops, locals flood into the halls, these people having nothing to do with either the malachite works or the tank works, among them worried mothers with fearful children, everyone thrown together, only the tormenting of the lost remaining ceaseless, the sufferings of the others only mixing in with their own. The day passes very slowly for Josef at his boring typewriter, he feeling restless and wanting to walk about, some of the lost seeking the side shaft that serves as a latrine, though Josef stays away from the stinking mess, it also not being safe, as an overseer has been installed there, a professional thug who is called a shithead capo, he rushing everyone and sometimes knocking some of them to the ground from the toilet, his bad mood growing when the little Czech lost one whom the shithead capo has taken a shine to doesn’t rub his arthritic back with both hands. And so Josef takes his chilly place in front of the typewriter called Olympia, an audaciously vain name for this place, he able to chat pleasantly with the Dutch civil servant who now and then sneaks him something and shares the news from the army, the translator Jacques another one he can talk to while keeping an eye on Milan, who still has a head wound as a consequence of being mishandled, Josef also looking over at Étienne, who understands only a few camp expressions and cuss words in German. Josef then buries himself in his work again, or at least appears to, as he secretly takes more notes.

Thus each day stretches on, things carrying on out in the hall, murderous events occurring as a result, more and more prisoners falling absent, almost all of the lost ones now devoid of their own humanity, nasty to one another and pushing one another around, any sort of restraint having fallen away like walls from the soul, they now no more than poor, frightened animals, robbed of their intelligence and their reason, blind and broken, wanting only to cower in their lousy rooms and wait and wait until these inhuman creatures are able to head back to the camp. They have to withstand what is pounded into them, the count taken over and over, it not being right, then not right again, and never right, then finally it’s right, Hurry! Hurry! Then they rumble and pitch over the many obstacles, over the sand and the stones, past the railcars, bent over, sweating, wounds dripping. They are the lost ones, not people, for they know nothing, raw unbridled drive still moving them along, constant blows still pushing them to hurry, as they scramble down the slope to the rumbling sounds of the dumping sites. Then they have to gather together, four rows, fall in, line up, the one in front count off again, followed by “Hurry! Hurry! Keep together!” Then the tramping and slipping down the embankment, the small embankment. “Hurry! Hurry!” Finally, on a smoother path, “Everyone halt!” The open gate, “Hats off! March through the gate in step!” Count off, fall in, stand there, stand there, count off, some talking, then threats, blows, finally in their rooms, cold, sour watery soup, scuffles and screams, chills, bread, margarine, hunger, odors, no one full, everyone sinking down, the living dead, a pigsty, order, idiots, greedy bastards, dirt bags, this is no sanatorium, just a voice: “You were shipped from Auschwitz to escape death! What shit!” You should kick the bucket, you lice, lice crawling around, nothing to be done, one is crushed, rattles, is flattened, dead, too bad, the iron rails sing and hum, air-raid alarms, lights-out! It’s over already, the camp guards barrel in: “Everyone asleep! Close your eyes!” Night, the lights are off, the lost ones have crawled under the blankets, Josef, Étienne, and Milan whisper to one another as comfort, as they press tight against one another to fight off the cold, everything done, finished, yet quiet, no, someone is moaning, on and on, otherwise it’s almost quiet, cold comfort arriving with sleep.