“The one you came from,” Samuel replied. “I assume you came from the ghetto. You speak in that funny way,” he said alluding to Wayne’s thick New York accent, “and you came in on a shipment with ghetto-dwellers.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right,” Wayne said in agreement. He knew it would be easier to go along with that Samuel thought about where he came from instead of trying to tell him otherwise. “My mind is dazed from working in the quarry so much. You’re right, it’s pretty bad back in the ghetto.”
“Well, it ain’t no garden of roses here either,” Samuel stated.
Wayne had been curious about something since he had first arrived in camp, but was apprehensive about asking any of the other prisoners about it for fear of inviting unwanted attention or suspicion unto himself. Wayne felt semi-comfortable enough around Samuel to inquire of him, “Let me ask you something. Have a lot of people escaped from camp?”
“Only one since I’ve been here.”
“How long ago has that been?”
“I ain’t quite sure,” the long time prisoner said. “I guess it’s been ‘bout twelve years or so.”
“Only one escape in twelve years.” Wayne said with disheartenment. “Don’t prisoners regularly try and leave here?”
“And go where? Ain’t nothing out there but more Nazis. There isn’t a person in here that hasn’t thought of escape at some time or other, myself included. But, believe me, it ain’t worth it. They’d find you.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” Samuel said confidently. “And you know what’d probably happen to you when they did. Same thing that happened to that last guy that escaped.
“Which was?”
“The SS took it out on the rest of us big time when that asshole left,” Samuel explained with a tinge of anger from the memory of the incident. “Food was kept from us for days, work hours were extended late into the night, and hell, just ‘bout everyone of us got twenty-five lashes. So when the Gestapo caught the escaped guy, which took them ‘bout a week, and he was brought back here to Hollenburg, the SS didn’t do nothing to him but return him to his old barracks.”
Wayne asked, “That’s all they did?”
“That’s all they had to. During the night, a couple of real hungry, real tired prisoners took care of him in their own way.”
“What’d they do to him?” Wayne wanted to know.
“Well,” Samuel hesitated, as if thinking about how to phrase his answer, “let’s just say he hasn’t been heard from since. So, keep them thoughts and ideas of escape out of your head. Don’t even talk ‘bout it. You never know who’s listening. It ain’t worth it. Understand?”
Wayne was dismayed to hear the things Samuel said to him on the subject of escape. He felt more hopeless than ever.
“Yeah, I understand,” he muttered out.
Samuel lit up a cigarette and said, “Listen, me and a couple of the boys are getting a game up. You in?”
“A game of what?” he asked.
“Poker.”
Wayne had often witnessed other men in his barracks playing cards, but it was always card games that never involved any wagers. He knew the SS had a policy that outlawed gambling by inmates. He questioned, “Isn’t gambling forbidden?”
“Yeah, but that ain’t never stopped us. We gotta have some fun. Besides, tonight there’s a big party being held for Himmelmann on account of his birthday. All the SS will be over at his place. We go nothing to worry ‘bout,” Samuel reassured Wayne.
“Okay, count me in.”
SS Captain Himmelmann’s luxuriant house sat atop a hill half a kilometer outside the gates of the camp he oversaw. It was his castle and he was the king overlooking his subjects. The gardens were lavish and were attended to by three full time gardeners. The grounds also included a swimming pool, which was rarely used. The inside of the beautiful residence was decorated with plenty of antiques and relics of Germany’s glorious past. There were lush hand carved furniture from the nineteenth century and exquisite military swords. On the walls, hung large oil paintings, including one of Adolf Hitler.
Commandant Himmelmann, his wife (a pretty woman twenty years his junior), Officer Stepp, Medical Officer Kunz, and many top SS Sergeants, SS Captains, and SS Lieutenant-Generals were present. Caviar and alcohol were abundant, as was intoxicated laughter.
Medical Officer Kunz, the man in charge of the camp infirmary and with the control of disease inside the camp, offered his close friend, the commandant, a toast. He raised his glass of brandy and said, “Happy birthday, Wilhelm. Fifty-two and yet, you do not look a day over forty. What is the secret to your youth?”
Captain Himmelmann threw his arm around his wife’s waist and told the crowd, “This lovely lady keeps me feeling like a youngster. I do not know what I would do without her.”
“What keeps you so physically fit?” an SS Sergeant yelled out.
“I do my regular exercises,” Himmelmann responded. “One must stay in fine shape to be a commandant. One day, I beat prisoners, the next day, I beat more prisoners, the following day, and more prisoners must be disciplined. It is a tough exercise.” Himmelmann performed a mock beating, complete with hits and kicks, on one of the party guests.
The crowd roared with laughter at the comical site of the staged beating.
In the washroom of barrack 19, sitting on the dusty floor, Samuel, Wayne, and Walter, Adam, Richard, and George played poker, using cigarettes, bread rations, and socks as ante.
“Okay, what’ya guys got?” Samuel asked with a grin on his face. “I doubt any of ya could beat what I got.”
“Nothing. I’m out,” Walter said as he put down his cards.
“Pair of nines,” Adam said.
“Two pair,” Richard stated.
George threw down his hand and said, “I’m out too.”
“Ha, ha, ha, I’m lovin’ it,” Samuel twitted the other players. He said to Wayne, “The only thing that’s going to save ya is a four of a kind or a royal flush. What’ya got, Wayne?”
“Royal flush,” Wayne answered and showed the men his hand.
“Shit!” Samuel exclaimed.
Walter, Adam, Richard, and George laughed as Wayne took the winning pot of four cigarettes, two small pieces of bread, and a sock without holes. Samuel, without a word, dealt out another hand.
For the first time since that day when Dr. Hoffmann had innocently asked to see him after school and for the first time since the whole damn ordeal began which led him to where he currently was, Wayne laughed. It felt fantastic to him. He had instantly sensed a relief of tension inside of his stressed body. Wayne had not realized how much a person could miss something until that person did not have it for a while — even a thing as simple as laughter.
Adam, one of the fortunate men who worked in the mess hall, and who also happened to be black, smuggled out some sausage that night and shared it with the rest of the poker players. The cold, soggy meat tasted wonderful.
Wayne thought back to the time when he had dined with Dr. Hoffmann and the Rausching family and how when the main course of smoked eel was passed around he had been disgusted by it. He now thought it ironic that if the same plate of food had been put before his eyes, he would have gobbled it up without hesitation.
Since entering Hollenburg, Wayne had tried to talk to as few people as possible and mind his own business. That night of the card game, though, it was a good feeling to Wayne to finally be able to have conversations, and share a couple of laughs, with the guys.
Wayne had learned that they all had similar tales to tell about how they had ended up as prisoners in a concentration camp. Samuel, Adam, George, Walter, and Richard had all been born and raised in filthy ghettos where the inhabitants were considered inferior by the Nazi government for being of an inferior bloodline to that of the German people. At the average age of thirteen they were picked up by SS Work Labor Units and brought to Hollenburg, one of a network of concentration camps, to work as slave labor, as long as they were fit to. They had been told that they would one day be returned to their ghettos, but none of the men, including Samuel — who had been in Hollenburg the longest amount of time — had ever seen an inmate leave the camp, unless as a corpse.