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3 Av 5764 - July 21, 2004 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family


Chapter Fourteen
CAMP

by Sudy Rosengarten

The boxcars pull into Hanover on the fast day of 17 Tammuz. We are ordered to get off and march. We are young and old, babies in arms. It is a stifling hot July day. The sun beats down on us without mercy. Everyone is loaded down with blankets and bedding and valises and, in the hope of making his bundles lighter to carry, has put on as many layers of clothing as possible. It is four-and-a- half miles to our destination.

We walk slowly, dragging our heavy loads. Many people are fasting and old people are fainting. The younger and stronger men in the group revive them, throw them over their shoulders and carry them the rest of the way. The SS seem to have already forgotten that we are a privileged group and are cursing us and calling us names. [Ed. Negotiations have been made with the Germans to buy these Jewish lives in exchange for trucks and food...] We are blinded by the sun and can hardly see ahead. Even after the sun sets, the road has no end. Night is falling. We stumble in the dark. People are moaning and groaning, children are crying, pleading that they can't take another step.

I wish I could drop my bundles and hang on to Father's coat, but I dare not. I whimper and complain. Mother's sharp voice warns me to be quiet, but Father coaxes me on gently.

"Just a little bit more," he says, "and we'll soon be there. Then you'll have a nice soft bed, and you'll rest in comfort."

Father has never lied to me before, but with the SS shouting for us to go faster, poking us in the ribs with their bayonets and threatening to shoot anyone who falls down, I don't know if I can believe him.

The great iron gates of Bergen-Belsen are opened for us to enter, and when we're all inside, they're locked closed again.

*

"You are now in a concentration camp!" the SS commander officer bellows. "You are surrounded by high tension barbed wire, soldiers trained to shoot and vicious dogs. It is impossible for any of you to escape, so we strongly advise you not to try. Your every move can be observed by the soldiers on the watchtowers, as well as those on duty inside..."

"Our dogs are specially trained to detect Jewish blood, and we keep them on a starvation diet to make sure that they are vicious."

 

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