The wooden shoes, though, are the most irksome. It all started with the mud, in actual fact. Even in this respect, I can tell you, the notions I had formed hitherto turned out to be inadequate. Naturally, I had already seen, even trampled in, mud back home, yet I still had no clue that mud can at times be the arena for the bulk of one’s cares, one’s very life. What it means to sink up to one’s calves in it, then put all one’s efforts into freeing one leg from it with a single, loudly squelching tug, only to plunge it in anew, no more than eight or twelve inches farther forward — in no way was I prepared, indeed it would have been pointless to be prepared, for all that. Now, one thing that has become clear about the clogs is that the heels wear down over time. When that happens, one has to go around on a thick sole that at a certain point suddenly thins and thus curves up in a gondola shape, requiring one to rock forward on the rounded sole like a sort of tumbler toy. On top of that, at the place where the former heel had been, a gap, widening day by day, opens up between the stiffer uppers and the extremely thin sole, so now cold mud, not to speak of tiny pebbles and sharp bits of debris of all kinds, can stream in unobstructedly at every step. Meanwhile those stiff uppers have long been chafing one’s ankles and abraded countless sores on the softer tissues below them. Now, those sores by their very nature suppurate, and that pus is definitely sticky, with the result that it becomes impossible to free oneself from the clogs: they become stuck to the feet, veritably fused to them, rather like new body parts as it were. I wore them during the day and also wore them on turning in to sleep, if only so as not to waste time when I got up, or to be more precise, jumped down from my bunk two, three, sometimes even four times during the night. That’s all very well at night: after a bit of bother, stumbling and slipping around in the mud outside, one somehow manages to find one’s way to the goal by the glare of the searchlights. But what is one supposed to do by day, exactly what, if the urge to empty one’s bowels seizes one— as it inevitably will — in the work detail? At a time like that, one plucks up every ounce of courage, bares one’s head, and begs the guard’s permission: “Gehorsamst, zum Abort”[22]— assuming, of course, there is a privy nearby, and specifically a privy that the prisoners may make use of. But let us suppose they do exist — suppose one’s guard is well disposed and grants permission once, grants it a second time; but then — I ask you! — who is going to be so rash, so desperate, as to test that patience a third time? The only thing left at a time like that is mute turmoil, teeth clenched, bowels continually quaking, until the dice have rolled and either one’s body or one’s mind wins out.
As a final means, there are the beatings — whether expected or unexpected, sought or sedulously avoided — anywhere and at any time. I had my fair share of them too, naturally, no more but also no less than normal, the average, the ordinary, like anyone, any one of us — as many as are consistent with purely routine conditions in our camp rather than any particular personal accident. Inconsistent as it may be, I have to relate that I came in for these, not from an SS serviceman — someone who is in fact to some degree professionally called upon, authorized, even obliged in that respect — but from a yellow-overalled member of a more shadowy semimilitary “Todt” organization that, so I gather, has some sort of supervisory role over workplaces. He happened to be around and spotted it — Oh, what a yell! what a sprint! — when I dropped a bag of cement. Now, carrying cement must be welcomed by every Kommando — rightly so, in my opinion — with a peculiar joy that is accorded only on rare occasions and to which we would find it hard to admit, even privately among ourselves. You bow your head, someone lays a bag over your shoulder, you amble over to a truck with it, and there someone else picks it up, after which you amble back, taking a nice wide detour, the bounds of which are determined by the vagaries of the moment, and if you are lucky they will be queuing up in front of you, so you can snatch another breather until it’s your next turn. Then again, the bag itself weighs around twenty to thirty pounds altogether — child’s play compared with back home, one could even safely play ball with it, I reckon; but here I was, stumbling and dropping it. Worse still, the bag’s paper had burst and the contents spilled out, leaving a heap of the material, the treasure, the costly cement, powdering the ground. By then he was already on me, I had already felt his fist on my face, then, having been decked, his boot on my ribs and his grip on my neck as he pressed my face to the ground, in the cement, screaming insanely that I scrape it together, lick it up. He then hauled me to my feet, swearing he would teach me: “Dir werd ich’s zeigen, Arschloch, Scheisskerl, verfluchter Judehund,”[23]so I would never drop a bag again in the future. From then on, he personally loaded a new bag onto my shoulders each time it was my turn, bothering himself with me alone; I was his sole concern, it was me exclusively whom he kept his eye on, following me all the way to the truck and back, and whom he picked to go first even if, by rights, there were others still ahead of me in the queue. In the end, there was almost an understanding between us, we had got the measure of one another, and I noticed his face bore what was almost a smile of satisfaction, encouragement, even, dare I say, a pride of sorts, and from a certain perspective, I had to acknowledge, with good reason, for indeed, tottering, stooping though I might have been, my eyes seeing black spots, I did manage to hold out, coming and going, fetching and carrying, all without dropping a single further bag, and that, when it comes down to it, I would have to admit, proved him right. On the other hand, by the end of the day I felt that something within me had broken down irreparably; from then on, every morning I believed that would be the last morning I would get up; with every step I took, that I could not possibly take another; with every movement I made, that I would be incapable of making another; and yet for all that, for the time being, I still managed to accomplish it each and every time.
SEVEN
Cases may occur, situations present themselves, that no amount of ingenuity could possibly make worse, it would seem. I can report that, after so much striving, so many futile attempts and efforts, in time I too found peace, tranquillity, and relief. For instance, certain things to which I had previously attributed some vast, practically inconceivable significance, I can tell you, lost all importance in my eyes. Thus, if I grew tired while standing at Appell, for example, without so much as a look at whether it was muddy or there was a puddle, I would simply take a seat, plop down, and stay down, until my neighbors forcibly pulled me up. Cold, damp, wind, or rain were no longer able to bother me; they did not get through to me, I did not even sense them. Even my hunger passed; I continued to carry to my mouth anything edible I was able to lay my hands on, but more out of absentmindedness, mechanically, out of habit, so to say. As for work, I no longer even strove to give the appearance of it. If people did not like that, at most they would beat me, and even then they could not truly do much harm, since for me it just won some time: at the first blow I would promptly stretch out on the ground and would feel nothing after that, since I would meanwhile drop off to sleep.