As One with the Cattle Beets

With unwavering devotion I stood at my observation post every day - staring with horror at the ceaseless passing of giant army trucks full of the skeleton corpses. The horse-carts transporting these skeleton-dead bodies were pulled and dragged by the yet-living skeleton-like creatures. Then, with a painfully craving mind, I would look in the direction of the lifesaver cattle beets.

The intolerable starving made its impact on us as we languished in the concentration camp prison. We lived in a large mass of people. Our private existence was similar to that of a silkworm that retires into its shell. In reality, we lived a very close distance one from each other. But deep in our minds, we were far-removed one from another, carrying in a living-dead condition. And it is in this condition that and that I wove my unachievable dreams.

No peril could terrify me anymore. An act like this could be of great peril, and no one with full faculties would think of perpetrating it. But as the opportunity presented itself, I could not do otherwise but act. On this particular day our "dorge-muse" lunch arrived late in the evening - perhaps around nine o'clock. Because of the recurrent air raids around the camp, pitch darkness reigned after "lunch" was distributed. I rushed to get hold of one side of the big vessel (or rather garbage can). Fear seized my whole body and I shivered, but I was unable to think straight. A strange feeling overtook me and directed my actions. My mind stiffened from the great worry - owing to the daring undertaking. At the gate stood a policeman who was supposed to search the pockets of every returning person - looking for stolen goods such as cattle-beets. As soon as we put down the kitchen vessel, my shaking legs rushed me towards the forbidden direction. Perhaps there were about twenty-five more dish carriers carrying their empty dishes back to the kitchen, putting them down as they entered the gate. When all the dish carriers returned, the big gate would close.

I had to perform my daring act in great haste - before the gate to our block closes, and before the watchtower guard fires on me with his machine gun. In a hairbreadth, I am crouching at the long-ago selected spot, scratching in pitch darkness, four precious pieces of cattle-beets already hidden inside my sock pants. Suddenly, the searchlight lights a small part of my black shoes. At that critical minute, a strange supreme force rushes me away from there, and out of mortal danger.

It was a deterring experience for me - but I could not do otherwise, a corrosive famine forced it upon me. Thank God I made it safely. I am sure the unseen upper hand of the Almighty watched over me during my daring action. In double pace, I reached the entrance gate to our courtyard. There stood the police guard who just looked on, but did not stop me. All the way back to my three-story bunk bed, I felt like someone who just returned from beyond the grave. My face looking deathly pale and still paralyzed with fear, I was unable to speak a single word. I silently pulled out from my trousers four pieces of lifesaver cattle-beets. On the spot I shared it with my dear mother, my sister and the brothers; a tidbit reward was also given to our two nice gentlemen next bunk bed neighbors.

After my daring act became known, there were other adventurous entrepreneurs in our block number thirty-six, but their plans were ill considered and hasty. They ended in mortal failure, except for one who escaped death between three comrades. The three friends decided to celebrate a birthday party for one of them, but instead of a sweet birthday cake, a few cattle-beets would do. The three climbed over the barbed wire fence at midnight, but as they reached the top of the fence, the watchtower light fell on them and the guard fired fatal bullets from his machine gun.

The SS Nazi German authorities ordered the dead bodies laid all day by the barbed wire fence side, for everyone to see what fate awaits bold and thoughtless inmates who try to jump over the barbed wire fence to steal a few cattle-beets in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. Ironically, this tragic occurrence took place just a short time before our camp was liberated.

© David Muskal, 2001