Fatelessness

FOUR

On the train, it was water that was missed most of all. Food supplies, taking everything into account, appeared to be sufficient for a substantial period; but then there was nothing to drink with them, which was disagreeable, that’s for sure. Those on the train immediately declared that the initial spasms of thirst soon pass. Eventually we would almost forget about it, after which it would reemerge, only by then it would allow no one to forget it, they explained. The length of time that someone could last out, for all that, should the need arise, taking into account the hot weather and assuming he was healthy, did not lose too much water as sweat, and ate no meat or spicy food, if at all possible, was six or seven days, according to those in the know. As things were, they reassured us, there was still time; it all depended on how long the journey was going to last, they added.

Quite. I too was curious about that; they did not inform us at the brickyard. All they announced was that anyone inclined to do so could present himself for work, specifically in Germany. Just like the rest of the boys and many others in the brickyard, I found that idea immediately attractive. In any case, we were told by the men, identifiable from their armbands as belonging to a body called the “Jewish Council,” one way or another, willingly or forcibly, everyone would sooner or later be resettled from the brickyard to Germany, and the better places, not to speak of the concession of being able to travel no more than sixty per carriage, would be granted to those who volunteered first, whereas later at least eighty would have to be fit in, due to the shortage of wagons — the way they laid it all out to everyone did not really leave too much to consider, I had to agree.

Nor was I able to deny the validity of the other arguments, which concerned the shortage of space in the brickyard and its possible sanitary consequences, as well as the growing concern over food supplies: that was how it was, I could attest to all that. By the time we arrived from the gendarmerie (many of the grown-ups had registered that the barracks were called the “Andrássy Gendarme Casern”) every cranny of the brickyard had already been filled to overflowing with people. I saw among them both men and women, children of all ages, as well as countless old people of both sexes. Wherever I stepped, I would stumble over blankets, rucksacks, all manner of suitcases, bundles, and other impedimenta. Naturally enough, I too was soon tired of that, not to mention the myriad petty nuisances, annoyances, and vexations that, it appears, are inevitably bound up with communal life of that kind. Contributing further to that was the inaction, the senseless feeling of idleness, not to speak of the boredom; that too is why I don’t remember distinctly a single one of the five days that I spent there, and barely even the occasional detail in aggregate, though certainly the relief at having the boys there around me: “Rosie,” “Fancyman,” “Leatherware,” “Smoker,” Moskovics, and all the rest. As far as I could tell, not one of them was missing: they too had all been honest. Nor did I personally have that much to do anymore with gendarmes in the brickyard; I saw them more just standing guard on the other side of the fencing, mixed up with the occasional policeman here and there. The latter were in fact later talked about in the brickyard as being more considerate than the gendarmes, readily inclined to be decent, particularly in return for certain negotiated terms, whether in the form of money or any other valuables. Above all, so I heard, many commissioned them to pass on letters and messages; indeed, some insisted opportunities were even open through them — albeit rare and risky, they admitted — for escaping, though it would have been hard for me to know anything really definite about that. But then I recalled, and in doing so also came to a somewhat more precise understanding, I believe, what the seal-faced fellow at the customs post must have been wanting so much to have a word about with the policeman. That is how I realized that our policeman, by contrast, had been honest, which may well have explained how it was that every now and then, while knocking about the yard or waiting for my turn in the area of the communal kitchen, I would spot the seal-faced guy in the melee of unfamiliar faces in the brickworks.

Of the rest of the customs post crowd, I also saw the man with the bad luck again; he often sat around with us “young people,” so as “to cheer himself up,” as he put it. He too, it seems, must have found a place to camp somewhere close to us, in one of the many identical shingle-roofed but open-sided structures in the yard that had in fact originally served, so I heard, for drying bricks. He looked a bit the worse for wear, with mottled blotches of swelling and bruising on his face. We learned from him that these had all been the outcome of the gendarmes’ investigation, since they had come across medicines and food in his knapsack. His attempt to explain it was stuff that had come from older stocks and was intended purely for his very ill mother was useless: they alleged that he was obviously dealing on the black market. Similarly useless was his permit, and equally unavailing the fact that he, for his part, had always held the law in respect, never violating so much as a single letter of it, he related. “Have you heard anything? What’s going to happen to us?” he asked regularly. He would again bring up his family, not to speak of his bad luck. How much he had run around after the permit, how delighted he had been to get it, he recalled with a morose head-shaking; he would never have believed the business “would come to this,” that was for sure. It had all hinged on those five minutes. If he hadn’t had the bad luck… If the bus back then had… — those were the reflections I heard. He seemed largely content, however, with the beating. “I was left to the last, and that may have been my good fortune,” he recounted: “They were in a hurry by then.” All in all, he “could have come off worse,” was how he summed it up, adding that he had “seen uglier cases” at the gendarmerie, which was no more than the truth, as I too recalled. No one should think, the gendarmes had warned us on the morning of the investigation, that he would be able to conceal his crimes, money, gold, or other valuables from them. When it was my turn, I too had to lay out money, watch, pocketknife, and all my other belongings on a table before them. A stocky gendarme even frisked me, with brisk and what somehow seemed like practiced movements, from my armpits all the way down to the legs of my short trousers. Behind the table I also saw the lieutenant again, for by then it had already transpired from words the gendarmes exchanged with one another that the officer with the riding-crop was actually called Lt. Jackl. Towering next to him, on his left, I also immediately took note of a shirt-sleeved, walrus-moustached gendarme looking like a butcher, who had in his hand a cylindrical implement that basically struck me as being a bit of a joke, somewhat reminding me as it did of a cook’s rolling pin. The lieutenant was pretty friendly, asking me if I had any documents, though I saw not the slightest sign, not even the slightest glimmer, of my papers then producing any impression on him. That surprised me, but — most particularly in light of an abrupt gesture of dismissal from the walrus-moustached gendarme, with its unmistakable implicit assurance of the alternative — I considered it more prudent, it stands to reason, not to raise any objections.

After that, the gendarmes had led us all out of the barracks and, first of all, crammed us into the carriages of a special local train service then, at some spot on the banks of the Danube, transferred us onto a ship and finally, after that had berthed, took us a farther stretch on foot, which was how I had got to the brickyard — the “Budakalász Brick Works” to be more specific, as I was to learn there, on the spot.

There were plenty of other things that I also heard about the journey on the afternoon we had to register. The men with armbands were omnipresent, ready to answer any questions. They were primarily on the lookout for youngsters, the venturesome and those who were on their own, though they were assuring inquirers, as I heard, that there would also be room for women, infants, and the elderly, and they would also be able to bring along all their luggage. In their opinion, however, the cardinal issue was were we going to sort the matter out among ourselves, and thus with all possible humanity, or would we rather wait for the gendarmes to make the decision for us? As they explained, the consignment would have to be made up one way or another, and insofar as their lists fell short, the gendarmes would make up the enrollment from among us; so most people, myself included, saw it as obvious that we might do better for ourselves, naturally enough, the first way.

A great diversity of views about the Germans also came to my attention right away. Many people, particularly the older ones with experience to look back on, professed that whatever ideas they might hold about Jews, the Germans were fundamentally, as everybody knew, tidy, honest, industrious people with a fondness for order and punctuality who appreciated the same traits in others, which did indeed, by and large, roughly correspond with what I myself know about them, and it occurred to me that no doubt I might also derive some benefit from having acquired some fluency in their language at grammar school. What I could look forward to from working, though, was above all orderliness, employment, new impressions, and a bit of fun — all in all, a more sensible lifestyle more to my liking than the one here in Hungary, just as was being promised and as we boys, quite naturally, pictured it when we talked among ourselves, though alongside that it crossed my mind that this might also be a way of getting to see a bit of the world. To tell the truth, when I reflected on some of the events of recent days, such as the gendarmes and, most of all, on my ID, and on justice in general, then even patriotism, when it came time to examine that emotion, did not offer much to hold me back.

Then there were the more skeptical types who were differently informed, claiming to be acquainted with other sides of the German character; still others who asked them, in that case, what better suggestion they had; and yet others again who, instead of that kind of bickering, came out in favor of the voice of reason, of showing by example, of being seen as worthy in the eyes of the authorities — all of which arguments and counterarguments, along with a whole lot of other bits of news, information, and counsel, were debated inexhaustibly by knots of people, small and large, incessantly breaking up and re-forming all around me in the yard. I even heard mention of God, among other things, and “His inscrutable will,” as one person expressed it. Like Uncle Lajos had done once, he too spoke about fate, the fate of the Jews, and he too, like Uncle Lajos, considered that “we have abandoned the Lord,” and that explained the tribulations that were being inflicted upon us. He aroused my interest a little bit all the same, because he was a man of vigorous presence and physique, with a somewhat unusual face, characterized by a thin but sweepingly curved nose, a very bright, misty-eyed gaze, and a fine, grizzled moustache that merged into a short, rounded beard. A lot of people were standing around him and curious about what he had to say, I could see. Only then did I become aware that he was a priest, because I heard him being addressed as “rabbi.” I even registered one or two of the more unusual words or expressions he used, such as the point where he admitted that, “through the eye that sees and the heart that feels,” he was bound to concede that “we here on Earth might, perhaps, dispute the severity of the sentence”—and here his voice, otherwise so clear and far-carrying, faltered and broke down for a minute, while his eyes became somehow even more misted over than usual, at which point, I don’t know why, I had the odd feeling he had actually been preparing to say something else and in some way he might have been a little bit surprised himself by those words. Still, he carried on, “he did not wish to delude himself,” he confessed. He was well aware, for it was enough to look around “this atrocious place and these tormented faces”—that was how he put it, and his compassion rather took me aback, since he himself was in exactly the same situation, after all — to realize how difficult a task he had. Yet it was not his goal, because there was no need, “to win souls for the Eternal Father,” for all of our souls were from Him, he said. He urged us all: “Don’t live in strife with the Lord!”—and not even primarily because it was sinful to do so, but because that path would lead “to denial of the sublime meaning of life”; in his opinion, however, we could not live “with that denial in our hearts.” A heart like that might be at ease, but only because it was empty, like the barrenness of the desert, he said; hard though it might be, the sole path to consolation, even in the midst of tribulation, was to glimpse the infinite wisdom of the Eternal Father, because, as he continued, word for word: “His moment of victory will come, and those who have been unmindful of His power shall be repentant and shall call out to Him from the dust.” If, therefore, he were now to say that we must believe in the advent of His ultimate mercy (“and may that belief be our succor and unfailing source of strength in this hour of afflictions”), then he was at the same time pointing out the sole manner in which it was possible for us to live at all. And he called that manner “the denial of denial,” since without hope “we are lost”; on the other hand, hope was to be derived from faith alone, from an unbroken assurance that the Lord would take pity on us, and that we should be able to gain his mercy. The reasoning, I had to acknowledge, seemed clear, though I did notice that he failed to say, at the end of it all, anything more precise about how we might actually achieve this; nor was he truly able to supply any good advice to those who were pressing him for an opinion on whether they should register for the journey now, or rather stay. I saw the man with the bad luck there too, on several occasions, bobbing up first with one group, then with another. Still, I noticed that while he was doing this the restless gaze of his beady, slightly bloodshot eyes was in constant motion, tirelessly darting on to other groups and other people. Every now and then, I also heard his voice as he stopped people, his face tensely inquisitive, wringing and fumbling with his hands while he was at it, to inquire: “excuse me, but are you also going to make the trip?” and “why?” and “do you think that will be better, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Right then, I recall, another familiar figure from the customs post also showed up: the “Expert.” I had already caught sight of him more than once during the days at the brickyard. Though his suit was by now crumpled, his necktie had vanished, and his face was covered in a gray stubble, on the whole, even so, all the indisputable signs of his former distinguished bearing were still apparent. His arrival immediately attracted attention, as a whole ring of excited people gathered round, and he was almost overwhelmed by the myriad questions with which they besieged him. As I soon gathered, he had been given the chance to speak directly with a German officer. The incident had taken place up front, in the area of the offices of the commander, the gendarmes, and other investigating authorities, where during the days here I too had noticed, every now and then, the hurried popping up or vanishing of one or another German uniform. Prior to that, as I managed to hear, he had also had a go at the gendarmes, trying, as he put it, “to get in touch with his firm.” We learned, however, that the gendarmes were “continually denying” him that right, even though “it concerns a defense company” and “management of production was inconceivable without him,” which the authorities themselves had acknowledged, though at the gendarmerie they had “expropriated” the document stating this, like everything else — all of which I was only just about able to follow, because he related it in dribs and drabs, in response to the hail of cross-questioning. He appeared to be extremely irate, but he remarked that he did “not want to go into the matter in detail.” That, though, was precisely why he had approached the German officer. The officer had been just about to leave. Quite by chance, we learned, the “Expert” happened to be close by at the time. “I stepped up to him,” he said. There were, in fact, several present who had been witnesses to the event, and they remarked on his audacity. With a shrug of the shoulders, he responded by saying that nothing ventured, nothing gained, and anyway he had wished to speak “to someone in authority at last.” “I am an engineer,” he went on, “with perfect German,” he added. He had related all this to the German officer as well, telling him how “his work here had been made impossible, both in point of moral principle and in practice,” and what was more, in his own words, “without any cause or legal foundation, even under the currently prevailing regulations.” “But who profits from that?” he had asked the German officer. He told him, just as he was now telling us: “I am not seeking any advantages or privileges. Nevertheless, I am a somebody, and I know a thing or two; I simply want to work, in accordance with my capabilities — that’s all I’m after.” The advice he had then received from the officer was to sign on as one of the volunteers. He had not made any “grand promises,” he said, but assured him that in its present endeavors Germany had need of everyone, especially the expertise of trained people like himself. For that reason, we were informed by him, for the officer’s “objectivity,” he felt that what had been said was “fair and realistic”—that was how he characterized it. He even made particular mention of the officer’s “manner”: in contrast to the “coarseness” of the gendarmes, he described it as “sober, measured, impeccable in every respect.” In response to another question, he also conceded that “naturally there is no other guarantee” than the impression he had formed of this officer; he noted, however, that he would have to make do with that for the moment, but he did not think he was mistaken. “Assuming I am not a bad judge of human character,” he added, though in such a manner that, at least as far as I was concerned, one was left feeling the likelihood of that being the case was, indeed, rather remote.

After he had departed, what should I see but, hey presto, the man with the bad luck spring like a jack-in-the-box out of the remaining group and hare off at an angle after him, or rather to cut him off. It even struck me, from the visible agitation and a kind of resolve on his face: well now, this time he’s going to speak to him, not like at the customs post. In his haste, though, he stumbled into one of the armbanded types, a burly, gangling fellow bearing a list and pencil who just happened to be heading that way. That stopped him in his tracks; he recoiled in surprise, looked him up and down, then leaned forward and asked something, but I don’t know what happened after that because right then “Rosie” called across: it was our turn.

All I remember next is that by the time I was making my way back toward our quarters with the boys on that last day it was a notably tranquil summer evening, the sky ruddy over the hills. On the far side, over toward the river and above the wooden fencing, I could see the roofs of the green carriages of the local suburban train as it sped by; I was tired and also, very naturally after the registration process, a little bit curious. The other boys likewise seemed, on the whole, satisfied. The man with the bad luck had also somehow managed to slip in among us, telling us, with a sort of solemn, though at the same time somehow inquisitive expression, that he too was now on the list. We approved, which, as far as I could tell, went down well, but then I did not listen much to what he said after that. The brickyard was quieter back here, toward the rear. Though here too I could still see smaller groups conferring with one another, others were already preparing for the night or eating supper, keeping an eye on their baggage, or simply sitting around just so, mutely, in the evening air. We came up to a married couple. I had seen them plenty of times and knew them well by sight: the petite, frail wife with her delicate features and the gaunt, bespectacled husband with a few teeth missing here and there, ever on the move and at the ready, a film of perspiration constantly on his brow. He was very busy right then as well, squatting on the ground and, with the wife’s sedulous assistance, feverishly gathering their bags and strapping all the items together, seemingly preoccupied with this task to the exclusion of all else. The fellow with the bad luck, though, came to a halt behind him, and it looked as if he too must have recognized him, because a minute later he asked if that meant they too had decided in favor of traveling. Even at this, the husband only cast a quick glance behind and up at him, squinting from behind his spectacles, sweaty, his drawn face troubled in the evening light, and merely offered a single astonished question as a rejoinder: “We have to, don’t we?” Simple as it was, I felt that this observation, in the end, was no more than the truth.

The next day we were sent on our way early in the morning. The train set off in brilliant summer weather from the platform of the local branchline, in front of the gates — a sort of freight train made up solely of brick red, covered boxcars with locked doors. Inside were the sixty of us, our luggage, and a consignment of food for the journey given by the men in armbands: piles of bread and large cans of meat — stuff of real rarity, looked at from the perspective of the brickyard, I had to admit. But then ever since the previous day I had been able to experience the attentiveness, the signal favor and, I might say, almost a certain degree of respect that had generally enveloped those of us who were making the journey, and this abundance too, so I sensed, might perhaps have been a form of reward, as it were. The gendarmes were there as well, with their rifles, surly, buttoned up to the chin, looking somehow as if they were watching over enticing goods but weren’t really supposed to touch them — no doubt, it crossed my mind, on account of an authority even mightier than them: the Germans. The sliding door was closed on us, with something being hammered onto it on the outside, then there was some signaling, a whistle, busy railwaymen, a lurch, and — we were off. We boys made ourselves comfortable in the rear third of the wagon, which we took over as soon as we boarded. It had a single windowlike aperture on each side, placed fairly high up and carefully covered with tangles of barbed wire. It was not long before the matter of water and, along with that, the duration of the journey was raised in our wagon.

Other than that, there is not much I can say about the journey as a whole. Just as before, at the customs post, or more recently at the brickyard, we had to find ways of somehow passing the time. Naturally, here that was, perhaps, made all the more difficult by the circumstances. On the other hand, the consciousness of a goal, the thought that every completed section of the journey, slow and tiresome as it might be, what with all the bumping, shunting, and stoppages, was in the end bringing us closer — that helped one through the troubles and difficulties. We boys did not lose patience either. “Rosie” kept on reassuring us that the trip would last only until we got there. “Fancyman” was ragged a lot over a girl — here with her parents, the boys reckoned— whose acquaintance he had made in the brickyard and for whose sake he often vanished, especially to start with, into the depths of the wagon, with all sorts of rumors about this circulating among the others. Then there was “Smoker”; even here some sort of dubious, crumbling twist of tobacco, a scrap of paper of some sort, and a match would emerge from his pocket, and he would bend his face to the flame, sometimes even during the night, with all the avidity of a bird of prey. The occasional cheerful word or remark was to be heard, even on the third day, from Moskovics (incessant streams of sweat and grime trickling from his brow — as they did on all of us, myself included, it goes without saying — to run down his spectacles, his snub nose, and his thick lips) and from all the others, as well as the odd flat joke, albeit with a stutter, from “Leatherware.” One of the adults even managed, I don’t know how, to discover that the destination of our journey was, more specifically, a place by the name of “Waldsee,” and whenever I was thirsty or it was hot, the implicit promise held by that name in itself promptly gave a degree of relief. For those who complained about the lack of space there were plenty who reminded them, quite rightly, to remember that the next time there would be eighty of them. And basically, if I thought about it, when all was said and done, there had been times when I was more tightly packed: in the gendarmerie stable, for instance, where the only way we had been able to resolve the problem of fitting ourselves in was by agreeing that we should all squat cross-legged on the ground. My seat on the train was more comfortable than that. If I wanted, I could even stand up, indeed take a step or two — over toward the slop bucket, for example, since that was situated in the rear right-hand corner of the wagon. What we initially decided about that was to use it as far as possible only for purposes of taking a leak; but as time passed, entirely predictably of course, it was forcibly brought home to many of us that the demands of nature were more powerful than any vow, and we boys acted accordingly, just like the men, to say nothing of the women.

The gendarme did not, in the end, cause too much unpleasantness either. The first time, he startled me a bit, his face popping up at the window opening on the left, just above my head and shining his flashlight in among us on the evening of the first day, or rather the night by then, during what was one of our longer halts. It soon became clear that he had been impelled by good intentions, coming merely to impart the news: “Folks, you have reached the Hungarian frontier!” He wished to take the opportunity to address an appeal, a request one might say, to us. His behest was that insofar as there were any monies or other valuables still left on any of us, we should hand them over to him. “Where you’re going,” so he reckoned, “you won’t be needing valuables anymore.” Anything that we might still have the Germans would take off us anyway, he assured us. “Wouldn’t it be better, then,” he carried on, up above in the window slot, “for them to pass into Hungarian hands?” After a brief pause that struck me as somehow solemn, he then suddenly added, in a voice that switched to a more fervent, highly confidential tone which somehow offered to forgive and forget all bygones: “After all, you’re Hungarians too when it comes down to it!” After a flurry of whispering and consultation, a voice, a deep male voice from somewhere in the wagon, acknowledged the force of this argument, provided we could get some water from the gendarme in exchange, to which the latter seemed amenable, despite its being “against orders,” as he noted. Even so, they were unable to reach agreement as the voice wished to be given the water first, but the gendarme said it had to be the articles, and neither would budge from his own sequence. In the end, the gendarme took great umbrage, snapping: “Stinking Jews! You make a business out of the holiest of matters!” In a voice nearly choking with indignation and loathing, he threw this wish at us: “Die of thirst, then.” That did indeed come to pass later on — that at least was what they said in our wagon. There is no denying that, from about the afternoon of the second day on, I too was constantly subjected to a particular voice coming from the wagon behind us: not exactly pleasant. The old woman, so they said in our wagon, was ill and had presumably gone mad, undoubtedly from thirst. That explanation seemed credible. Only now did I realize how right were those who had declared at the very start of the journey how fortunate it was that neither small infants nor the extremely elderly had landed up in our wagon. The old woman finally fell silent on the morning of the third day. Among our lot, it was said at the time that she had died because she could get no water. But then, we were aware that she was also sick and old, which is how everyone, including me, found the case understandable, all things considered.

I am in a position to declare that waiting does not predispose to joy — that at least was my experience when we did indeed finally arrive. It may have been that I was tired, then again perhaps the very keenness with which I had been looking forward to the destination ended up making me forget that thought to some degree, but it was more that I was left somehow indifferent. I slightly let the entire event slip by. What I remember is that I awoke suddenly, presumably at the demented shrieking of nearby sirens; the faint light that was filtering in from outside signaled the dawn of the fourth day. The base of my spine, where it had been in contact with the wagon floor, ached a little. The train was idling, as it had often done at other times, invariably so during air raids. The window spaces were taken up, as they always were at this time. Everyone was claiming to see something — that too is how it was nowadays. After a while, I myself managed to get a place: I could see nothing. The dawn outside was cool and fragrant, with wraiths of gray mist lying on wide stretches of meadow, from somewhere behind which, a bit later, a sharp, thin, red shaft of light appeared unexpectedly, like a trumpet blast, and I grasped that I was looking at the sunrise. It was pretty and, on the whole, intriguing: back home, I was usually still asleep at this time. I also glimpsed, directly in front and to the left, some building, a godforsaken railway halt or possibly the signal box for some larger terminal. It was minuscule, gray, and, as yet, completely deserted, its small windows closed and with one of those ridiculously steep-pitched roofs that I had already seen in this region yesterday: it first solidified before my eyes into its true contours, then mutated from gray to mauve, and at that moment its windows also gleamed ruddily as the first rays of sunlight struck them. Others also spotted this, and I too gave a commentary to the inquisitive crowd behind me. They asked if I could see a place-name on it. In the strengthening light, on the narrower gable end of the building, facing the direction in which we were traveling, on the surface below the roof, I could in fact make out two words: “Auschwitz-Birkenau” was what I read, written in spiky, curlicued Gothic lettering, joined by one of those wavy double hyphens of theirs. For my own part, though, I cast around my geographical knowledge in vain, and others proved no wiser than me. I then sat down because others behind me were already asking to have my place, and since it was still early and I was sleepy, I quickly dropped off again.

The next thing, I was wakened by a bustling and flurry of excitement. Outside, the sun was by now blazing in full brilliance. The train was again in motion as well. I asked the boys where we were, and they said we were still in the same place but had just now begun to move on; this time, it seems, the lurch must have awoken me. There was no question however, they added, that factories and settlements of sorts could be seen up ahead. A minute later, those who were at the window reported, and I myself also noticed from a fleeting change in the light, that we had slipped under the arch of some form of gateway. After a further minute had passed, the train came to a halt, at which they informed us in great excitement that they could see a station, soldiers, and people. At this, many started to gather their things together or button up their clothes, while some, women especially, hastily freshened up, smartened themselves, combed their hair. From outside I heard an approaching banging, a clattering-back of doors, the commingling hubbub of passengers swarming from the train; I had to concede there could be no doubt about it, we were indeed at our destination. I was glad, very naturally, though in a different way, I sensed, than I would have been glad yesterday, say, or still more the day before that. Then a tool snapped on the door of our wagon, and somebody, or rather several somebodies, rolled the heavy door aside.

I heard their voices first. They spoke German, or some language very close to that, and from the way it sounded, all at once. As far as I could make out, they wanted us to get off. Instead, though, it seemed they were pushing their way up among us; I could still see nothing as yet. The news was already going around, however, that suitcases and baggage were to be left here. Everyone, needless to say, so it was explained, translated, and passed on from mouth to mouth around me, would get their belongings back later, but first disinfection awaited all articles and a bath for us — and none too soon, I considered. They then got closer to me in the hurly-burly, and I finally got my first glimpse of the people here. It was quite a shock, for after all, this was the first time in my life that I had seen, up close at any rate, real convicts, in the striped duds of criminals, and with shaven skulls in round caps. Naturally enough, I immediately recoiled from them a bit. Some were answering people’s questions, others were taking a look around in the wagon, yet others were already starting to unload the luggage with the practiced skill of porters, and all with a strange, foxlike alacrity. On the chest of each one, apart from the customary convict’s number, I also saw a yellow triangle, and although it was naturally not too hard to work out what that color denoted, it still somehow caught my eye; during the journey I had, in a way, all but forgotten about that entire business. Their faces did not exactly inspire confidence either: jug ears, prominent noses, sunken, beady eyes with a crafty gleam. Quite like Jews in every respect. I found them suspect and altogether foreign-looking. When they spotted us boys, I noticed, they became quite agitated. They immediately launched into a hurried, somehow frantic whispering, which was when I made the surprising discovery that Jews evidently don’t only speak Hebrew, as I had supposed up till now: “Rayds di yiddish, rayds di yiddish, rayds di yiddish?” was what they were asking, as I gradually made out. “Nein,” we told them, the boys and me too. I could see they weren’t too happy about that. Then suddenly — on the basis of my German, I found it easy to figure out — they all started to get very curious about our ages. We told them, “Vierzehn” or “ Fünfzehn,” depending on how old each of us was. They immediately raised huge protestations, with hands, heads, their entire bodies: “ Zestsayn!”[1] they muttered left, right, and center, “zestsayn .” I was surprised, and even asked one of them: “Warum?” “Willst di arbeiten?”—Did I want to work, he asked, the somehow blank stare of his deep-set, drawn eyes boring into mine. “Natürlich,” I told him, since that was after all my reason for coming, if I thought about it. At this, he not only grabbed me by the arm with a tough, bony, yellow hand but gave it a good shake, saying then in that case “Zestsayn!… vershtayst di? Zestsayn!” I could see he was exasperated, on top of which the thing, as I saw it, was evidently very important for him, and since we boys had by then swiftly conferred on this, I somewhat cheerfully agreed: all right, I’ll be sixteen, then. Furthermore, whatever might be said and quite irrespective of whether it was true or not, there were also to be no brothers, and particularly — to my great amazement — no twins; above all, though, “jeder arbeiten, nist kai mide, nist kai krenk”[2] — that was about the only other thing I learned from them during the possibly not quite two whole minutes it took as I moved in the crush from my place to the door, finally to take a big leap out into the sunlight and fresh air.

The first thing I noticed was a vast expanse of what looked like flat terrain. I was immediately a little blinded by the sudden spaciousness, the uniformly white, eye-stabbing brilliance of the sky and the plain. I did not have much time to look around, though, what with the bustling and teeming, the cries, tiny incidents, and sorting-out going on all around me. We would now, I heard, have to separate from the women for a short while, for after all we could not bathe together with them under the same roof; however, there were motor vehicles waiting a bit farther away for the elderly, the weak, mothers with infants, and those who had been exhausted by the journey. We were given to understand all this by a new set of prisoners, though I noticed that out here there were now German soldiers, in green forage caps and with green collars on their tunics, who were keeping an eye on everything and making eloquent hand gestures to indicate directions; I was even a bit relieved to see them, since they struck me as smart and trim, the sole anchors of solidity and calm in the whole tumult. I immediately heard, and moreover agreed with, the exhortation from many of the adults among us that we should try to do our bit by cutting questions and good-byes short, within reason, so as not to give the Germans the impression of such a rabble. As to what followed, it would be hard to recount: I was caught up and swept along by a damply seething, swirling tide. A woman’s voice behind me kept on squawking about a certain “small bag” that she was letting someone know had stayed with her. An old, disheveled-looking woman kept getting in the way in front of me, and I heard a short young man explaining: “Do what you’re told, Mama, we’ll be meeting up again before long anyway. Nicht wahr, Herr Offizier?”[3] turning, with a knowing and, in a way, somewhat grown-up conspiratorial smile toward the German soldier who happened to be giving orders right there, “wir werden uns bald wieder…” But my attention was already being taken up by a hideous squealing from a grubby, curly-haired little boy, dressed up a bit like a shopwindow dummy, as he tried with peculiar jerks and wriggles to free himself from the grasp of a blonde woman, evidently his mother. “I want to go with Daddy! I want to go with Daddy!” he screamed, bellowed, and howled, stamping and drumming his feet, incongruously shod as they were in white shoes, on the white gravel and white dust. In the meantime I was also attempting to keep up with the boys, following the intermittent calls and signals that “Rosie” was giving, while a stout matron in a sleeveless, floral-patterned summer dress forged a path through everybody, myself included, in the direction where they had pointed out the vehicles were. After that, a tiny old man with a black hat and black necktie bobbed, twisted, and jostled around for a while, looking anxiously this way and that and shouting out, “Nellie! Nellie!” Then a tall, sharp-featured man and a woman with long, black hair clung to one another, faces, lips, their entire bodies locked together, causing everyone a flash of irritation, until the ceaseless buffetings of the human tide finally detached the woman, or rather girl, carrying her away and swallowing her up, though even as she receded I saw her a few times more, struggling to remain in view and waving a sweeping farewell from where she was.

All these images, voices, and incidents in this maelstrom flustered me and made my head swim slightly, jumbling them into what was ultimately a single, strange, colorful, and, I might almost say, crazy impression; that was one reason why I was less successful in being able to keep track of other, possibly more important things. I would find it hard to say, for instance, whether it was as a result of our own efforts or those of the soldiers or the prisoners, or all together, that in the end one long column was formed around me, now made up solely of men, all in regularly ordered ranks of five, which moved forward in step with me, slowly but at last steadily. Up ahead, it was again confirmed, was a bath, but first, I learned, a medical inspection was awaiting all of us. It was mentioned, though naturally I did not find it hard to appreciate, that this was obviously a matter of grading, of screening for suitability for work.

That gave me a chance to catch my breath until then. Along with the other boys beside, in front of, and behind me, we shouted across and signaled to one another that we were still here. It was hot. I was also able to take a look around me and orient myself a little as to where, in fact, we were. The station was smart. Under our feet was the usual crushed-stone covering of such places, a bit farther off a strip of turf in which yellow flowers were planted, and an immaculate white asphalt road running as far as the eye could see. I also noticed that this road was separated from the entire vast area that began behind it by a row of identically recurved posts, between which ran strands of metallically glinting barbed wire. It was easy to work out that over there, clearly, must be where the convicts lived. Maybe because this was the first chance I had to spare the time for it, they now began to intrigue me for the first time, and I would have been curious to know what offenses they had committed.

The scale, the full extent of the plain, also astounded me as I looked around. Yet, what with being among all those people and also in that blinding light, I was not really able to gain a truly accurate picture; I could hardly even discern the distant low-lying buildings of some sort, a scattering of raised platforms here and there that looked like game-shooting hides, a corner, a tower, a chimney. The boys and adults around me were also pointing at something up there, lodged in the milky vapors of a sky that, though cloudless, was nevertheless almost bleached of color, an immobile, elongated, severely gleaming body — a dirigible, to be sure. The explanations of those around generally agreed on its being a barrage balloon, at which point I recalled that dawn siren wail. Still, I could see no sign of concern or fear on the features of the German soldiers around us here. I remembered the air raids at home, and now this air of scornful composure and invulnerability all at once made the kind of respect with which the Germans were normally spoken of back there more clearly comprehensible to me. Only now did two forked lines on their collars catch my eye. From that I was able to establish that this must mean they belonged to that celebrated formation of the SS about which I had already heard so much at home. I have to say they did not strike me as the slightest bit intimidating: they were ambling up and down in leisurely fashion, patrolling the entire length of the column, answering questions, nodding, even cordially patting some of us on the back or shoulder.

There is one other thing I noticed during these idle minutes of waiting. I had already seen German soldiers often enough in Hungary, naturally. On those occasions, however, they had always been hurrying, always with uncommunicative, preoccupied expressions, always in immaculate dress. Here and now, though, they were somehow moving in a different manner, more casually and in a way — so I observed— more at home. I was even able to detect some minor disparities: caps, boots, and uniforms that were softer or stiffer, shinier or merely, as it were, workaday. Each had at his side a weapon, which is only natural, of course, when it comes down to it, given that they were soldiers, yet I saw many also had a stick in their hand, like a regular hooked cane, which slightly surprised me, since they were, after all, men without any problems walking, and manifestly in prime condition. But then I was able to take a closer look at the object, for I observed that one of them, up ahead with his back half-turned toward me, all at once placed the stick horizontally behind his hips and, gripping it at both ends, began flexing it with apparent boredom. Along with the row, I came ever-closer to him, and only then did I see that it was not made of wood but of leather, and was no stick but a whip. That was a bit of an odd feeling, but then I did not see any instance of them having recourse to it, and after all there were also lots of convicts around, I realized.

Meanwhile I heard but barely paid heed to calls being made for those with relevant experience — one, I recollect, for mechanical fitters — to step forward, while others were for twins, the physically disabled, indeed — amid a degree of merriment — even any dwarfs who might be among us. Later it was children they were after, because, it was rumored, they could expect special treatment, study instead of work, and all sorts of favors. Several adults even urged us to line up, not to pass up the opportunity, but I was still mindful of the warning that had been given by the prisoners on the train, and anyway I was more inclined to work, naturally, rather than lead a child’s life.

While all that had been going on, though, we had moved a fair bit farther forward. I noticed that the numbers of soldiers and prisoners around us had, all of a sudden, multiplied considerably. At one point, our row of five transformed into a single file. At the same time we were called on to remove our jacket and shirt so as to present ourselves to the doctor stripped to the waist. The pace, I sensed, was also quickening. At the same time, I spotted two separate groupings up ahead. A larger one, a highly diverse bunch, was gathering over on the right, and a second, smaller, somehow more appealing, in which moreover I could see several boys from our group were already standing, over on the left. The latter instantly appeared, to my eyes at least, to be made up of the fit ones. Meanwhile, and at gathering speed, I was heading directly toward what, in the confusion of the many figures in motion, coming and going, was now a fixed point, where I fancied I could see an immaculate uniform with one of those high-peaked German officer’s caps, after which the only surprise was how swiftly it was my turn.

The inspection itself can only have required roughly around two or three seconds. Moskovics just in front of me was next, but for him the doctor instantly extended a finger in the other direction. I even heard him trying to explain: “Arbeiten… Sechzehn… ,” but a hand reached out for him from somewhere, and I was already stepping up into his place. The doctor, I could see, took a closer look at me with a studied, serious, and attentive glance. I too straightened my back to show him my chest, even, as I recall, gave a bit of a smile, coming right after Moskovics as I was. I immediately felt a sense of trust in the doctor, since he cut a very fine figure, with sympathetic, longish, shaven features, rather narrow lips, and kind-looking blue or gray — at any rate pale — eyes. I was able to get a good look at him while he, resting his gloved hands on my cheeks, pried my lower eyelids down a bit on both sides with his thumbs in an action I was familiar with from doctors back home. As he was doing that, in a quiet yet very distinct tone that revealed him to be a cultured man, he asked, though almost as if it were of secondary importance, “Wie alt bist du?” “Sechszehn,”[4] I told him. He nodded perfunctorily, but somehow more at this being the appropriate response, so to speak, rather than the truth — at least that was my impression offhand. Another thing I noticed, though it was more just a fleeting observation and perhaps mistaken at that, but it was as if he somehow seemed satisfied, almost relieved in a way; I sensed that he must have taken a shine to me. Then, still pushing against my cheek with one hand while indicating the direction with the other, he dispatched me to the far side of the path, to the fit group. The boys were waiting there, exultant, chortling gleefully. At the sight of those beaming faces, I also understood, perhaps, what it was that actually distinguished our group from the bunch across on the opposite side: it was success, if I sensed it correctly.

So I then pulled on my shirt, exchanged a few words with the others, and again waited. From here I now watched the entire business that was proceeding on the other side of the road from a new perspective. The flood of people rolled along in an unbroken stream, was constrained in a narrower channel, accelerated, then branched in two in front of the doctor. Other boys also arrived, one after the next, and now I too was able to join in the greeting they received, naturally. I caught a glimpse of another column farther away: the women. There too they were surrounded by soldiers and prisoners, there too was a doctor before them, and there too everything was proceeding in exactly the same way, except that they did not have to strip off their upper garments, which was understandable, of course, if I thought about it. Everything was in motion, everything functioning, everyone in their place and doing what they had to do, precisely, cheerfully, in a well-oiled fashion. I saw smiles on many of the faces, timid or more selfconfident, some with no doubts and some already with an inkling of the outcome in advance, yet still essentially all uniform, roughly the same as the one I had sensed in myself just before. It was the same smile with which what, from here, looked to be a very pretty, brown-skinned woman with rings in her ears, clutching her white raincoat to her chest, turned to ask a soldier a question, and smiled in the same way as a handsome, dark-haired man stepping up right then in front of the nearer doctor: he was fit. I soon figured out the essence of the doctor’s job. An old man would have his turn — obvious, that one: the other side. A younger man — over here, to our side. Here’s another one: paunchy but shoulders pulled stiffly back nonetheless — pointless, but no, the doctor still dispatched him this way, which I was not entirely happy about as I, for my part, was disposed to find him a shade elderly. I also could not help noting that the vast majority of the men were all terribly unshaven, which did not exactly make too good an impression. Thus, I was also driven to perceive through the doctor’s eyes how many old or otherwise unusable people there were among them. One was too thin, the other too fat, while yet another I judged, on the basis of an eye tic and the way his mouth and nose twitched incessantly rather in the manner of a sniffing rabbit, to be some kind of nervous case, yet he too dutifully gave a wholehearted smile even as he diligently hurried over, with an oddly waddling gait, to join the unfit group. Yet another — already clutching his jacket and shirt, his suspenders dangling on his thighs, the skin on his arms and chest flabby, to the point of wobbling here and there. On coming before the doctor, who instantly indicated his place among the unfit, naturally, a certain expression on the shabbily bearded face, a sort of smile on the parched, chapped lips, identical though it may have been, was nevertheless more familiar, ringing a distant bell in my memory: as if there were still something he wished to say to the doctor, or so it seemed. Only the latter was no longer paying attention to him but to the next one, at which point a hand — presumably the same one as with Moskovics before — now yanked him out of the way. He made a move and turned around, an astonished and indignant expression on his face — that was it! The “Expert”; I hadn’t been mistaken.

We waited around for another few minutes. There were still a great many people in front of the doctor, while there must have been something like forty of us, approximately, in our bunch here, boys and men, I estimated, when the word came: we were setting off for a bath. A soldier stepped up to us (on the spur of the moment, I couldn’t see from where), a short, placid-looking man, getting on a bit in years, with a big rifle — I took him for a common soldier of some kind. “Los, ge’ ma’ vorne!”[5] he announced, or something like that, not quite in accordance with what books of grammar taught, I ascertained. However that may be, it was music to my ears, since the boys and I were by now just a bit impatient, though not so much for the soap, to tell the truth, as, above anything else, for the water, of course. The road led through a gate of woven barbed wire to somewhere farther inside the area behind the fence where, it appeared, the bathhouse must be: we set off along it in slack clusters, not hurrying but chatting and looking around, with the soldier, not saying a word, listlessly bringing up the rear. Under our feet there was again a broad, immaculately white, metaled road, while in front of us was the whole rather tiring prospect of flat terrain in air that all around was by now shimmering and undulating in the heat. I was even anxious about its being too far, but as it transpired the bathhouse was located only about ten minutes away. From what I saw of the area on this short walk, on the whole it too won my approval. A football pitch, on a big clearing immediately to the right of the road, was particularly welcome. Green turf, the requisite white goalposts, the chalked lines of the field of play — it was all there, inviting, fresh, pristine, in perfect order. This was latched onto straightaway by the boys as well: Look here! A place for us to play soccer after work. Even greater cause for joy came a few paces later when, on the left-hand border of the road, we spotted — no doubt about it — a water faucet, one of those roadside standpipes. A sign in red letters next to it attempted to warn against it: “Kein Trinkwasser,”[6] but right then that could do little to hold any of us back. The soldier was quite patient, and I can tell you it had been a long time since water went down so well, even if it did leave a peculiar stinging and a nauseating aftertaste of some chemical in my mouth. Going farther, we also saw some houses, the same ones that I had already noticed from the station. Even close up, they were oddly shaped buildings indeed, long, flat, and of an indeterminable shade, with some sort of apparatus for ventilation or lighting protruding from the roof along the entire length. Each one had a little garden path of red gravel running round it, each one a well-tended patch of lawn to separate it from the metaled road, and between them, to my delighted wonder, I saw small seedbeds and cabbage patches, with flowers of assorted colors being grown in the plots. It was all very clean, tidy, and pretty — truly, I had to reflect, we had made the right choice back in the brickyard. Just one thing was rather missing, I realized: the fact that I saw no sign of movement, of life, around them. But then it occurred to me that this must be only natural, since it was, after all, during working hours for the inhabitants.

At the bathhouse too (which we reached after a left turn, a farther barbed-wire fence, and again a barbed-wire gate into a yard), I could see they were already set to receive us, happily explaining everything to us well in advance. We went first of all into some sort of stone-flagged anteroom. Inside there were already a great many people whom I was able to recognize as coming from our train. From that I gathered that the work here too was presumably pushing ahead unremittingly, with people being continuously brought in groups from the station to bathe, it would appear. Here too a prisoner was again of assistance, an exceedingly fastidious convict, I could not help noticing. He too wore a striped outfit like other prisoners, that was true, but it had padded shoulders and was tapered at the waist, tailored and pressed, I would even say, in almost conspicuous conformity with the highest fashion, and just like us, free persons, he had a full head of carefully combed, darkly glossy hair. In greeting us, he stood at the opposite end of the room, and to his right, seated behind a small desk, was a soldier. The latter was very squat, of jovial appearance, and exceedingly fat, his belly beginning at his neck, his chin rippling in a circle over his collar, and no more than funny slits for eyes in his crumpled, hairless, sallow features; he put me a little in mind of those so-called dwarfs whom they had been looking for at the station. Nevertheless, he had an imposing cap on his head, a gleaming, evidently brand-new attaché case on the desk, and next to it what I had to admit was a beautifully crafted lash, braided from white leather, that was obviously his personal property. I was able to observe all this at leisure through gaps between the many heads and pairs of shoulders while we newcomers did our best to squeeze ourselves in and somehow come to rest in the already cramped room. During this same period the prisoner slipped out then hastily back through a door opposite in order to communicate something to the soldier, leaning down very confidentially, almost right down to the latter’s ear. The soldier seemed to be satisfied, and straightaway his piping, penetrating, wheezing voice, more reminiscent of a child’s or perhaps a woman’s, was audible as he spoke a few sentences in reply. Then the prisoner, having straightened up and raised a hand, at once requested “silence and attention” from us — and now, for the first time, I tasted that oft-cited joyful experience of unexpectedly hearing the familiar strains of one’s own language abroad: it meant I was confronted with a compatriot. I immediately felt a bit sorry for him too, for I could not help but notice and be forced to admit that despite his being a rather young, intelligent convict, the man had a charming face, and I would dearly have liked to have found out from him where, how, and for what offense he had been imprisoned; however, for the time being all he told us was that he intended to instruct us about what we had to do, to acquaint us with what “Herr Oberscharführer”[7] required of us. Provided we did our best — as was indeed expected of us in any event, he added — then it would all be accomplished “quickly and smoothly,” and although that, in his opinion, was above all in our own interest, he assured us it was equally the wish of “Herr Ober,” as he now called him for short, somewhat dispensing with the formal title and also, I felt, somehow more familiarly.

We were then informed of a few simple and, in the circumstances, obvious matters, which the soldier also endorsed with vigorous nods, as it were confirming for us the truth of what, after all, were a prisoner’s words, and meanwhile turning his friendly face and jolly gaze first toward him, then toward us. We were given to understand, for instance, that in the next room, the “changing room,” we were to undress and hang all our clothes neatly on the hooks that would be seen there. We would also find a number on each hanger. While we were bathing, our clothes would be disinfected. Now, it maybe went without saying, he ventured (and I reckoned he was right), why it was important for everyone to commit the number of their hanger firmly to memory. Equally it wasn’t hard for me to see the point of his suggestion that it would be “advisable” for us to tie our shoes together as a pair “in order to avoid any potential mix-ups,” as he added. After that, he promised, barbers would attend to us, then the turn could finally come for the bath itself.

Before that, however, he continued, all those who still had any money, gold, jewels, or other valuables on them should step forward and place these voluntarily “on deposit with Herr Ober,” as this was the last opportunity they would have “still to get rid of such belongings with impunity.” As he went on to explain, trading, buying, and selling of any description, and consequently also possessing and bringing in any articles of value, were “strictly forbidden in the Lager ”—and that was the expression he used, which was new to me but at once readily comprehensible from the German term. After bathing, every person, so we learned, would be “roentgenographed,” and “in a special, purpose-built apparatus” at that, and with an expressive nod, conspicuous jollity, and unmistakable assent the soldier gave particular emphasis to the word “roentgenograph,” which he obviously must have understood. It also crossed my mind that it looked as if the gendarme’s tip-off had been correct after all. The only further comment the prisoner could make for his part, he said, was that any attempt at smuggling — for which the perpetrator would incidentally place himself at risk of “the gravest punishment” and all of us would put at stake our honor in the eyes of the German authorities— would therefore, in his view, be “pointless and senseless.” Though the issue had little to do with me, I supposed he must no doubt be right. That was followed by a brief hush, a stillness that toward the end, so I felt, became a touch uncomfortable. Then there was a shuffling up toward the front: someone asked to be let through, and a man made his way out, placed something on the tabletop, then scurried back again. The soldier said something to him, laudatory by the sound of it, and immediately thrust the object — something tiny that I was unable to get a good look at from where I was — into the desk drawer, having first inspected it, appraised it so to speak, with a quick glance. As best I could tell, he was satisfied. Then there was another pause, shorter than the previous one, again a shuffling, again another person, after which people sprang forward ever more fearlessly and with growing alacrity, by now uninterruptedly, proceeding one after the other to the table and setting down on it some shining, chinking, twanging, or rustling object in the small free space between the whip and the attaché case. Except for the footsteps and the sound of the articles, not to forget the soldier’s occasional terse, piping, but unfailingly jovial and encouraging comments, this all went ahead in complete silence. I also noticed that the soldier adopted exactly the same procedure with every single object. Thus, even if someone set down two items at once, he still looked at each one separately, at times giving an appreciative nod: first the one, separately pulling the drawer out for that, separately placing it in there, then again closing the drawer, usually with his belly, before turning to the next item and repeating exactly the same thing with that. I was utterly flabbergasted at all the stuff that still came to light in this way— after the gendarmes and everything. But I was also a bit surprised by the hastiness, this sudden burst of enthusiasm, on the part of the people there, given that hitherto they had accepted all the troubles and cares that went with possession of these articles. Maybe that was the reason why the same slightly embarrassed, slightly solemn yet, all in all, to a certain extent somehow relieved expression was to be seen on virtually every face returning from the table. But then, in the end, here we all were, standing at the threshold to a new life, and that, after all, I realized, was of course an entirely different situation from the one at the gendarmerie. All this, the whole business, must have taken up roughly around three or four minutes, if I wish to be strictly accurate.

There is not much that I can say about what ensued: in essence, it all went the way the prisoner had instructed. The door opposite opened, and we went into a room that was indeed fitted out with long benches and hooks above them. I found the number straightaway and repeated it a number of times lest I somehow forget it. I also tied my shoes together, just as the prisoner had advised. Next came a large, lowceilinged, very brightly lit room; along the walls all around razors were at work in earnest, electric hair-clippers buzzing, barbers — convicts to a man — bustling about. I passed to one on the right-hand side. I should take a seat, he must presumably have said, because I didn’t speak his language, on the stool in front of him. By then he had already pressed the machine against my neck and shorn my hair right off — every last hair, leaving me totally bald. He then picked up a razor: I was to stand up and raise my arms, he demonstrated, and he then proceeded to scrape a bit in my armpits with the blade. Next he himself sat down on the stool in front of me. Not to mince words, he grasped me by that most sensitive of all my organs and, with his razor, scraped the whole bush off there as well, every single strand, my entire scrap of virile pride, though it hadn’t sprouted all that long before. Foolish though it may be, that loss somehow pained me even more than that of the hair on my head. I was taken aback, and maybe also somewhat angry, but then I realized it would be ridiculous for me to get hung up over such a trifle, when it came down to it. Anyway, I could see that everyone else, including the other boys, got the same treatment, and what’s more we immediately began ragging “Fancyman”: so, where’s this going to leave you with the girls now?

We had to move on, though: the bath was next. At the door, a prisoner pressed a small lump of brown soap into “Rosie’s” hand, just ahead of me, both saying and signaling that it was for three persons. In the bathroom itself we found that underfoot were slippery wooden slats and overhead a network of pipes on which there were masses of showerheads. Lots of naked and, to be sure, not exactly agreeably smelling men were already in there. What I also found interesting was that the water started flowing of its own accord, quite unexpectedly, after everyone, including me, had searched around in vain for a tap somewhere. The jet of water was none too generous, but I found its temperature refreshingly cool, exactly to my liking in that sweltering heat. Before anything else, I took a long swig from it, again encountering the same taste as before at the faucet; after that I was only able to enjoy the feel of the water on my skin for a short while. Around me too were all manner of happy noises of slopping, sneezing, and blowing: a cheerful, carefree moment. With the other boys, we teased one another plenty over our bald heads. It turned out that the soap did not, sad to say, lather much but contained a lot of sharp, gritty specks that grazed the skin. Nonetheless, one plump man near me laboriously scrubbed away with earnest, even ceremonious actions at his back and chest, the black curls of hair on which had evidently been left on him. To my eyes, though, something was missing — apart from the hair on his head, naturally. Only then did I notice that the skin on his chin and around his mouth was indeed whiter than elsewhere, and also covered with fresh, reddish nicks. I recognized him as being the rabbi from the brickyard: so he too had come along. Without his beard, he now looked less remarkable to me: a simple, basically ordinary-looking man with a slightly prominent nose. He was soaping away on his legs as it happened, when, with the same unexpectedness as it had started, the water suddenly stopped flowing: he cast a startled glance upward then immediately down again before gazing ahead, but now somehow resignedly, like someone who registers, understands, and at the same time bows his head, as it were, before the will of a higher dispensation.

Not that I could do anything else myself: we were already being carried along, pushed and squeezed out. We passed into a dimly lit room where a prisoner placed into each hand, mine as well, a handkerchief — not, as became clear, a towel — indicating that it was to be given back after use. Simultaneously, but quite out of the blue and with extremely rapid and deft strokes, my skull, armpits, and that certain sensitive spot were coated by another prisoner, using some sort of flat brush, with a liquid that, judging from its suspect color, the itching it produced, and its foul smell, was ostensibly a disinfectant. A corridor came next, with two illuminated hatches on the right and finally a third, doorless room, at each of which a prisoner was standing and distributing clothing. Like everyone else, I was given a buttonless, collarless, no doubt once blue, white-striped shirt of my grandfather’s vintage, some long johns that were likewise only suitable, at best, for old men, with a split at the ankles and two genuine cords to secure them; a worn-looking outfit, an exact copy of that worn by the convicts, with blue and white stripes and made of burlap — regulation prison duds, from whatever angle I might look at them; and then in the open room I was allowed to choose for myself from among a pile of strange wooden-soled sandals with canvas uppers, provided with three buttons on the side rather than laces, a pair that, in the heat of the moment, approximately fitted my feet. Not to forget two gray pieces of cloth that, I assumed, were obviously intended as handkerchiefs and, last but not least, an indispensable accessory: a round, battered, and cross-striped convict’s forage cap. I hesitated slightly, but of course, in the midst of voices at every hand urging people to step on it, and with the hasty, frantic donning of clothes going on all around me, I had no time to waste if I did not wish to see myself left behind the others. Since the trousers were too big, and there was no belt or other form of fastening, I was obliged to knot them hurriedly, while one unforeseen feature of the shoes that now became clear was that the soles did not flex. Meanwhile, in order to free up my hands, I placed the cap on my head. The other boys had also all finished by then: we just looked at one another, not knowing whether to laugh or be dumbstruck. There was no time for either; in an instant we were outside, in the open air. I don’t know who saw to it, or even what happened — all I recollect is a pressure of some kind weighing heavily on me, a momentum of some kind carrying and jostling me along, still stumbling a little in my new shoes, a cloud of dust, behind me strange thwacking noises that sounded rather as if someone was being slapped on the back, and ever onward, in what ultimately became a blurred and confused jumble of new courtyards, new barbed-wire gates, barbed-wire meshes, fences opening and closing.