The stench of the crematoria rises in your nostrils as you work on the burial detail. Dead people are thrown into mass graves; sick people are sometimes burned alive. Your stomach is constantly knotted and churning with the horror of what you are doing, but you have no choice. It's this or death. So, you go on, working like an animal, slowly starving to death yourself on 500 calories a day.
When you return from each day's work, you and the other
Sonderkommando members form a minyan in your barracks to
say Kaddish.
It's illegal, but it's the only thing that
helps you keep your sanity. It's certainly the least you can do for
those pitiful dead people.
Most Sonderkommando members are killed after about a month to eliminate witnesses, but the rapid Allied advance alters the Nazi plans. On May 18, 1945, you are driven out of the camp on a forced march, just a few miles ahead of the advancing Allied Army. At night, you are locked in a barn, and you fear the worst. But nothing happens. In the morning, you hear the rumble of a tank. It bears a strange red, white, and blue flag as it grinds to a halt in front of the barn. Its turret turns slowly; then the hatch opens. A huge man descends, and you are petrified. You have never seen a black man before. But he and his friends are kind. They give you their own food and help you find shelter at one of the new Displaced Persons camps in the area.
If you go to the camp at Feldafing, continue to page 163.
If the camp at Windsheim is nearer, and you go there, continue to page 164.