When you leave the train at Dachau, it is late at night, but the station platform is as bright as day; huge lights glare at you from the top of tall poles. SS troopers beat you mercilessly to hurry you along; other soldiers hold snarling dogs straining at the end of their leather leashes. You stumble along the platform and go down several steps into a long shuffling line.
Most people look down, depressed and dejected. They are terrified, and you are, too. In fact you have never been as frightened in your life. But, you decide that the one thing the Nazis cannot steal from you is your pride, and you stand erect and with confidence.
Before you, an officer holding a riding crop scans each of you in turn. A flick to the left puts people in one group; a slight motion to the right directs others to that side. There seems to be no reason for his choices; everything depends, it appears, solely on his mood and whim at that particular second.
The group to which you were assigned is marched off to a processing section of the concentration camp. Tomorrow morning you will be assigned work to do in the camp. Exhausted, you fall asleep on the hard wooden rack that is your bed.
If you are assigned work like other prisoners, continue to page 111.
If you are single out for the Sonderkommando, continue to page 112.