Caps Off . . .. Zenon Rozanski

than I thought. Only now, under the influence of the fullness of light and air, I felt how my muscles were shaking; with every step my knees gave in, it began to buzz in my ears, and a single cramp tightened my body.

      I was unable to muster the strength to climb a few steps. Desperately I tried to hold on to the banister so that I would not fall down. Gerlach, who until now had been busy with the closing of the door, stood suddenly beside me . . .

      “What is the matter?” His voice sounded terribly hostile. “Should someone perhaps help you?”

      At that moment, when I saw his immense shoulders and his giant claws, I clearly remembered how I had witnessed some of the scenes in which he had badly mistreated the prisoners. I turned my eyes away from his unusually large, mirrorlike, polished, and studded boots, and I controlled myself. Fear proved to be stronger than weakness. With regained vitality, I climbed the rest of the stairs and walked through a door, into the corridor, and then I stopped.

      “Into the Schreibstube!” he ordered.

      The third door had a small sign marked Schreibstube.

      Gerlach entered and, shortly thereafter, the clerk of the SK, prisoner Groell, came toward me.

      With compassion, he looked at me . . .

      “Are you a new arrival?”

      “Yes.”

      “For what?”

      I told him my story. Understandingly, he nodded his head.

      “The most important thing is not to draw attention to yourself . . . You should always take care not to be the first or the last . . . And at work,”—he cast a significant glance at me— “you know how it is: Eyes and ears open! . . . ”

      He then took my personal data and assigned me to barrack-room number five.

      “Report to the barrack-room senior!” (Stubenälteste).

      Room number five was located on the first floor. I noticed that some prisoners were sitting in one corner. I approached them.

      “Pardon me . . . I am a new arrival. To whom shall I report?”

      “Reporting to Saint Peter would be best . . . ,” responded one of those sitting there. He was a young, sturdy and strongly built lad with a beautiful but somehow strangely cheeky face . . . That was the Stubenältester in his very own person, the Ukraine, Bogdan Komaruicki. I learned later that he was the terror of the entire Company, a terrible sadist and degenerated human being.

      “I will be going there, but in due time,” I responded coldly. “But in the meantime, I am not in a hurry . . .”

      “Shut up and don’t talk so much . . . With us here such a kind doesn’t live too long . . . How did you get caught?”

      Once more I related my “offense.”

      “Phi . . . ,” he waved his hand in refusal. “A weak organization. Do you have any cigarettes?”

      “No, I have nothing. A while ago I was released from the Bunker . . .”

      He reached into the cupboard.

      “Here you have little wheels and thread . . . You should sow one little wheel into your blouse beneath the number, the other into the trouser . . . In a quarter of an hour you report to me.”

      “Yes, Sir!”

      In the afternoon, I was already marching in some line of five toward the gravel pit where the SK was working. The column stopped on the spot. Foreman (Kapo) Johny yelled loudly:

      “New arrivals, step out!”

      Six of us stepped out. Two Germans, one Pole, one Czech, and two Jews.

      We were scrutinized from top to toe.

      Johny gave a brief “welcoming speech”:

      “You are in the Punishment Company (SK) . . . The good times are over. Here you will be sweating away your fat with which you have fattened yourself in the Camp . . . If you are obedient and diligent, then you might perhaps avoid the chimney. . . Reinhold!” he yelled at last.

      A young chap with a green corner stepped out of the line.

      “I am assigning to you these six men . . . retrain them accordingly . . . especially the Jews . . .”

      “Yes, Kapo!”

      He waved at us, and we marched towards a hut in front of which stood heavy iron carts which were lined up in a row.

      “With me there is no walking,” he announced even before we began to walk. “Back and forth in double trot. And if anyone should think that this might be too difficult, he can report to me . . .” All at once, he gave an unsuspecting Jew a blow with the handle of a shovel.

      “Get on with it!”

      We raced off like mad men. The path led through an open country which was extremely difficult to drive through. It was covered with grass and was very uneven. At the end of our column, Reinhold was running. Uninterruptedly, he was beating the last person in line with a club. I was exceptionally lucky because on the way there, I was not hit even once.

      Finally we reached the pile of sand.

      “Load up!” Reinhold’s order rang out.

      We seized the shovels. After a while, the carts were filled up; at least we thought so. Reinhold, however, was of a different opinion.

      “You call that full?” The question was directed at a Jew and underlined with a blow of the club. An additional blow with the club made the Jew’s bones crack. “Get down!”

      The Jew did not understand what this was all about and let go of the cart. Once more there was a blow, this time to his head. There was a short shrill scream, and the beaten man fell down. Now Reinhold was seized by a real frenzy. He beat the man lying on the ground wherever he could hit him: on the head, in the stomach, on the chest, on the legs, on the fending-off hands; he beat him, as if he were out of his mind. With superhuman passion, he pounded upon him as forcefully as he could. Blood stained the yellow sand, and the body, which a minute ago still had had the form of a human being, resembled more, with every blow, a bleeding mass of flesh . . . The beaten man’s resistance became weaker and weaker; his hands no longer protected his bleeding face; the screams gave way to a muffled moaning, but soon that too died away.

      Not until now did Reinhold stop the beating. In the grass, he wiped off his club and took a deep sigh of relief. His face was red; his breathing was short. The wings of his nose quivered like the nostrils of a horse. Only then did he look at us.

      “And you? . . . You are just standing there? . . . You lazy bunch!” He jumped at us like a rabid dog. The club, which was still warm, was dancing on our bones. This time I received two blows, but fortunately they were not very severe.

      “Get on with it! . . . Two men carry this dog to the hut . . . The others follow me . . . But hurry . . .” He had not finished his sentence when we were already on our way.

      Two of us who, were nearest to the murdered victim, carried the corpse in front of the hut. There was a provisional cemetery. There were days when after the whistle blow which announced the end of the work day, thirty, at times forty, victims of the day were at this cemetery.

      In the meantime, the three of us pushed forward the carts with an immense effort; they were filled half a meter higher than was usually the case. I felt a severe pain in my feet and it was as if my hands were ripped off my arms. But just keep going, still faster! . . .

      The area of the countryside seemed to have conspired against us. Ditches, small hills, grass . . . everything stood in the way of the iron cart wheels which bored deeper and deeper into the ground.

      Every stop meant new blows. Ali Kwasigroch from Danzig had just received ten penalizing strokes with the cane, when the wheel of my cart bored so deeply into the clay soil that I had to stop. Immediately Reinhold was at my side . . .

      “You