I am unsteady on my feet and can’t go on… The comrade working next to me begs me to keep going. He is a little stronger than I am and tries to make things easier for me. He fills my barrow with sand so I can have a minute to rest.
It is about 4.00 in the afternoon. Of the thirty fellow-inmates who came here, I see that no more than six remaining. One after the other had to undress, go down into the pit and receive a bullet in his head. We did not hear so much as a groan. Down in the pit stand two workers who lay out the dead.
Suddenly a new murderer appears. He tells us to put down our barrows and leads us to a different job. He tells us to take hold of what look like ladder-shaped litters. The litters are bloody. Two of us grab a litter and are driven to a distant building. In it are scattered piles of stiff bodies to a height of one storey. These are the people who were gassed.
We have no time to think because the whips fly over our heads.
I don’t know what to do. I look on for a while, then see how Jews come running with empty litters, put them down quickly and run over to the pile of corpses. One of them takes a dead body by one hand, a second by the other hand. They pull it off the pile, drag it onto the litter and run off as quickly as possible.
I try to do the same, but it is hard for me; I am stunned by the picture before my eyes. I grab the hand of a corpse that has several other corpses lying on top of it. My comrade grabs the corpse’s other hand and we try to pull it out. But we cannot. One of the murderers sees that we have been standing there for several minutes and runs over and beats us without stopping.
The blood is pouring down our faces. But we pay no attention to that and try to pull out another corpse. We succeed. Seeing how things are done, we drag the corpse quickly onto the bloody litter and run in the direction where everyone is running. Along the way we are once again accompanied by the whips of the murderers who stand on both sides. Being new, we don’t orientate ourselves right away and are beaten even more.
Along the way stand the “dentists” who inspect every corpse to see if it has any gold teeth. Not knowing about this, I don’t stop, because I’m afraid of being beaten. A dentist sees that the corpse I am carrying has gold teeth. He stops me and won’t let me go any further since he has to extract the teeth. He shouts to me to stand still and blocks my path. I shout to him: — Why won’t you let me run? I’ll get whipped on account of you. He reassures me that by standing next to him I won’t be beaten. He tells me quietly that if he lets a corpse with false teeth pass him by he will get a bullet in his head. I see how his hands are trembling. After a few seconds he tells me: — Now go!
I break into a line of carriers who are running with corpses one after another. We come to a deep pit and I try to imitate what the carriers running ahead of me are doing. I try, like them, to dump the corpse by tilting the litter to one side. But the head gets stuck between the rungs of the litter and we can’t do anything about it.
We try to pull out the head, but we are unable to. Meanwhile we are delaying those who are waiting behind us. The worker, a Jew, who lays the bodies out straight like herrings shouts to me to put the litter on the ground quickly and pull the head of the corpse out from between the rungs. A murderer standing near the pit runs over and rains down blows on us with his whip until we finally succeed in pulling out the head of the corpse and then run off with the empty litter in the direction of the heap of dead bodies.
During the time I am delayed by pulling out the head of the dead man the chain of workers is broken, and as the first to arrive I receive supplemental beatings. By now every part of my body is in pain and I am at a loss what to do.
We arrive at the grim mound. I throw the litter down quickly, I run over and pull off a corpse from the top layer. Though I see a bandit coming, intending to beat us, I pay no attention and throw the corpse face down onto the litter. The bandit detains and beats me.
A carrier running past shouts to me to put the litter down and turn the corpse right side up and make sure that the head is resting on a board, because if it lies between the rungs it will be stuck when the body is dumped. I put down the litter, turn the victim over, and we run off.
Running back and forth several times I finally see what things look like in the deep pit: several laborers stand in the pit, all of them Jews, and lay out the dead bodies one next to the other. That is how the work proceeds. The pit becomes more and more full.
There can be no question of resting for a while because we have to run one after the other, without a break. We run back and forth. The two hours that pass in this way, until evening, seem like a year.
The clock strikes 6.00 We run one after the other to the shed where the litters and shovels are stored. All must be put away correctly, otherwise we get the whip.
Finally we assemble for roll-call. After being counted, to the accompaniment of music, we are driven into a barracks surrounded by barbed wire.
8
I fall over and cannot move. I lie there for a while and hear a shout from the kitchen, ordering us to go and get our coffee. I can barely stand. We are driven from the barracks and once again line up in groups of five to proceed to the kitchen. It takes a couple of minutes before the little window is opened. One after the other we receive a piece of bread and a little muddy water which is called coffee. I have a burning thirst and drink all the coffee without eating the bread, despite the fact that I am starving. The eating ends and we go back to the barracks. I am like a dead man myself.
I look around and see that each of us is bruised and bloody.
Groans are heard from all sides. Everyone weeps over his wretched fate. I lie in pain and weep for what I have lived to see.
Next to me lies another man who groans just as much as I do. I try to find out something about him. He tells me he is from Czestochowa and that his name is Yankl. We become friendly and c
he tells me a secret, which is that he has been here for ten days. He points out that no-one knows this because none of us know each other. It is very rare for a labourer to last as long as he has. Every day tens of labourers are shot and new labourers are taken from the most recent transports. That way none of us get to know each other. He tells me that two days ago more than a hundred labourers were shot. He informs me that whoever has a bruise on his face is doomed. For that reason he advises me to pay attention and avoid receiving blows to the face insofar as possible. I tell him how many blows I have received and he laughs: here that is nothing new and he is used to it. But at every word he groans: — Oy, everything hurts…
I ask him if we can carry a litter together. He doesn’t want to, because he will get additional beatings as a result of my inexperience. I beg him and promise that I will adapt myself to his routine and do everything he tells me to do. He finally agrees and advises me that at roll-call the next morning I should stand next to him, because running to work is a veritable madhouse and whoever is left without a partner gets whipped.