"No One Comes to Work Here, Only to Die"

I met someone who had been in Bergen-Belsen for some time, and asked him - like I asked the Hungarian-speaking guard - what sort of work we would be doing here. He looked at me flabbergasted and coldly answered that no one comes to work at Bergen-Belsen, everybody comes here to die. I never saw this person again, his blunt answer only intensifying my already overflowing desperation. Unceasing tears rolled down my face for days.

After several more exhausting hours standing outside, we were at last allowed to move inside the barracks of Block 10. Our building was next to the gate. A high barbed-wire fence separated us from a group of Jews from Holland in a different block. Inside the barracks, over 200 people took up their abode on three-tiered bunk beds.

The suffering of body and soul further numbed our brains. From being the slave prisoners of the twentieth century, we turned into the living dead of the twentieth century. We turned into objects to the will of others, like robots. We choked in pain. This condition penetrated my soul for years to come, impeding my feelings.

Each bunk bed in our concentration camp served two grown-ups - as living quarters and as sleeping place. They had straw-filled mattress and one blanket on them. Between the rows of bunk beds was a very narrow space for traffic. So crammed in were we, that despite the harsh cold, it felt warm.

© David Muskal, 2001