Wayne thought to himself how demeaning it was, not only to the man down on the ground, but to the other prisoners who were witnessing what was occurring. Wayne, and the other prisoners, knew well that it just as likely could have been any one of them that was being degraded like the man in front of their eyes.
Hollenburg Concentration Camp had been constructed in the same manner as the other Reich camps had shortly after the War. As with the other Reich camps, Hollenburg had three main, distinct areas: headquarters area, the SS residential settlements, and the main compound.
The SS residential settlements were placed around the outskirts of the headquarters area and consisted of handsome houses, each with its own garden and terrace. A guard tower was evenly spread out every 250 feet inside the main compound. Around the clock, each guard tower contained an SS man with a high-powered machine gun directed at a specific area of the compound. From the main gate, a great bare space extended into the main compound. This was the all-important roll call area.
It was into the roll call area that the prisoners were led. In the center of this large square space, stood a gallows.
The gallows served as a constant reminder to the prisoners of what would await them should any one of them get out of line.
The prisoners again were directed to stand at attention.
SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Himmelmann rode into the roll call area on a handsome white horse. The horse, Snowflake, had become his trademark. From his position on the horse, brandishing a whip, Captain Himmelmann would tour and inspect the camp on a daily basis. When prisoners would see the tall, lanky camp commandant approaching on horseback, they knew to keep their eyes focused on whatever work they were doing at the moment. If a prisoner, even for a second, looked up towards the Captain or in any way removed his eyes from his workstation, the punishment was an immediate twenty lashes.
The camp Commandant was there to personally give the indoctrination lecture to the prisoners. He dismounted his horse beside the gallows in front of the hundreds of new male arrivals.
“Do not be so foolish as to delude your feeble minds as to why you were brought to Hollenburg,” he spoke coldly. “You were brought here for one reason. You are here to serve the Reich. Your type has been permitted to exist to serve the Reich. You should all be honored. If you do what you are supposed to, work hard and follow orders, you will be fed and will stay alive. For those of you that do not like to work hard or have trouble obeying orders, I can find a special place for you.” Himmelmann grabbed the noose hanging from the gallows' pole, and ran his long fingers up and down the length of the rope.
“It is a place, I guarantee, where you will be able to get all the rest you desire.” He let out a short perverse laugh, and then continued his speech to the prisoners in the icy tone. “At Hollenburg I have rules that must be followed. The penalty for a violation of any rule is death. There are procedures at Hollenburg that must be carefully obeyed too. The penalty for the violation of a procedure is twenty-five lashes or perhaps a week in the underground isolation chamber without food. Rule number one: each morning at roll call, every prisoner…”
Wayne watched the Commandant speaking next to the gallows and thought how fitting the Captain would look with the noose wrapped around his scrawny neck. Wayne pictured the scene over and over in his mind as he stood standing there motionless. On more than one occasion, he also pictured himself as the person who would be the one to kick out the bucket from underneath the Captain’s feet, sending the Nazi dangling to his death.
SS Captain Himmelmann’s speech tediously crept on. He threatened the death penalty over thirty times for an endless series of offenses, some of which included stealing bread, attempting to escape, sabotage, not working hard enough, and being absent from roll call. Himmelmann did not mention a single permissible act. Hard work and serving the Reich was a recurring theme of the Captain’s speech. At no time, during the forty minutes that he talked, did he mention any chance of the prisoners being released from the camp.
When Captain Himmelmann was finished with his longwinded orientation speech, the prisoners, in groups of thirty, were led into the bathhouse building. Wayne was part of the third group brought in.
Once inside the bathhouse, the prisoners, in assembly line fashion, had their heads shaved by a team of six resident prisoners. Lice had at times been a problem at Hollenburg. The SS was not so concerned with the prisoners whom provided a home for the winged insects on their head. Since the lice, though, were not able to distinguish between the body of a lowly prisoner or the body of a superior SS man, and the SS often had contracted the pests from the prisoners, the SS was insistent that prisoners hair always be kept as short as possible. That meant, for the prisoners, getting the heads shaved routinely every three weeks.
After each group of prisoners received their “haircut”, they next had to completely strip down. The other prisoners working in the bathhouse collected their clothes and put them into large trash bags. Wayne wondered what the Nazis did with all their clothes, most of which were little more than rags. He would later find out from the prisoners who had been at the camp for a while that the clothes were incinerated.
The prisoners, in their groups of thirty and stark naked, entered the shower room. The prisoner orderlies tossed them soap. Cold water flowed down from the showerheads. With only ten showerheads for each thirty prisoners, all of the men were required to share shower space. The new prisoners had exactly two minutes to cleanse themselves. They were given recently used, damp towels. Wayne thought about how the last groups of prisoners to pass through the bathhouse were going to get drenched towels to try and dry their bodies with.
The last stop for the new prisoners in the bathhouse building was the tattoo room. Each prisoner was marked with an identification number on their right forearm, seven centimeters above the wrist. The blue ink on Wayne’s forearm read: 31740. When Wayne was a child he had wanted to get a tattoo so he could look cool; this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. He looked at his arm and was repulsed by the notion that he had ever wished for one.
Behind the roll call area and the bathhouse were the mess hall, laundry building, and prisoner hospital. In back of those camp buildings, was the prisoner barracks — a series of one story wooden buildings lined up in neat rows. A network of unpaved dirt roads connected the various buildings throughout the camp.
The SS men deliberately guided the new prisoners, straight from the bathhouse naked and cold, through the long web of camp roads. SS men threw anything they could get their hand on at the wandering men, including stones, sticks, rotten fruits, and small rubber balls, as well as hurling a steady barrage of insults. Wayne was hit by a raw egg smack in his chest. The egg yolk streamed down his body as he and the other prisoners were forced to keep moving. The SS men made it a point to aim their throws at the men’s genitals. This was one more episode designed to eat away at the new arrivals self-esteem and pride.
The new prisoners lined up in front of the clothing room, which was part of the laundry building, to be issued clothes. As each prisoner passed by a window, a set of striped workclothes were flung at him. The bundle included a shirt, trousers, thin coat, socks, cap, and a worn out pair of black shoes. To Wayne the clothes appeared tattered and he questioned himself as to how many other prisoners might have worn the clothes he held in his hands. The only good thing about them was that they smelled freshly laundered. Prisoner orderlies instructed them to get dressed.
They were then led to the camp infirmary for the basic medical examination. As he was about to enter the infirmary, one of the prison orderlies, whispered in his ear, “Do not talk of any medical problems, past or present.”