Not Even a Number by Edith Perl Lindsay Preston & Lindsay Preston

Author:Edith Perl,Lindsay Preston & Lindsay Preston [Perl, Edith & Preston, Lindsay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Midpoint Trade Books
Published: 2017-03-09T20:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DEEP IN HELL

At the end of the summer in 1944, the German army began having its difficulties. The Russians were getting closer, and militia groups were fighting back. The gas chambers having pretty much completed the extermination of Czechoslovakians and Gypsies were ready to receive what was left of the Polish Jews, concentrated in various camps in Eastern Europe. The Polish newcomers were confined in an area between the barracks near the kitchen. We old-timers were sealed in our barracks. With the arrival of the newcomers our daily selections stopped. The Poles filled the quotas for the gas chambers.

During the time I had been in the hospital, Goldie’s health took a turn for the worse. She seemed listless and had become even thinner. Her face was pale and she now wore a perpetual look of despair. It was harder and harder to keep up her spirits. I was determined I would start a new campaign to organize even more food; I was already aware of most methods. I understood the dangers of sneaking out of the block, day or night, risking the trigger-happy tower guards who enjoyed taking pot shots at the women looking for scraps of food among the garbage deposits. I was familiar with volunteering to carry the heavy loads of bread and soup, which were the least dangerous and usually the most fruitful way of getting extra food. As a volunteer, we could sometimes get near the great stores of food and snatch a potato or cabbage leaf. I often found a morsel of bread or food heedlessly discarded by one of the well-fed kitchen personnel. In my entire time in Lager C, I never saw a skinny kitchen worker. Instead of a bullet, those who stole food from the kitchen area would receive a good smack across the face or a blow from a stick. Because hauling food was so strenuous, many girls were too weak to do the work.

Having been a volunteer so often, I was a known face in the kitchen area. I even managed to make some friends and often found myself a recipient of their largesse. I would take the bread or whatever was given to me and place it in my dress. This was a bit of a problem because I had to make it appear as part of my breasts. Occasionally, when I was making my way to the block, I would be come upon other prisoners who would try to steal the food. I usually managed to escape, or I would let them beat me but I would never let them steal the food.

***

One night while I tried to sleep, I heard the sounds of the Mourners Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. It came from outside the block. I peered outside the back window, a large group of prisoners at the men’s camp were being marched to death. They were naked and there was little left of them. They were hanging on each other for support. While some chanted their own Kaddish, others sang ghetto songs in Yiddish.

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