No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home

Arthur Loses an Eye

The food dispersed to the prisoners was lousy. Sometimes the soup we got was decent. In the evening you could stand and get coffee. It wasn’t really coffee, just black water, but it was hot. They take some corn, roast it, then brew it, and make coffee out of it. You could drink it. It tasted bitter, but it had some nutrients in it.

I am waiting to get coffee in a long line of prisoners standing in front of the kitchen. Naturally the Jewish Police were keeping order, so a guy wouldn’t go twice for food. They’re walking back and forth with whips, about six feet long, like for animals. Every so often the whip goes over the prisoner’s head. Everybody knows that. We are standing and — pow— the end of the whip takes my eye. It came over the back of the head. The tip hit my eye. That’s it. I was blind from then on.