The Horse Adjutant

Drawing of Auschwitz general conditions in the barracks artist unknown

was, however, able to give me some bread and soup. I drank as much as I could, and we were able to speak a little about our old town again. But I could not stay long, so I went back to Wiktor. There wasn’t much he could do either except send me to a block where he knew the blockleiter would not harass me. I did as he told, and waited for a chance to go to Buna. This did not excuse me from lining up and being assigned work every day. And again, I had no choice but to go to whatever job they assigned me. The kapos treated me like a scapegoat. Sometimes, they would make me march all day for no other reason than to see how awkward my shoes were. It was an ordeal to march in wooden shoes, but more dangerous to stop. People around me wasted away to skeletons. Some found their last breath lying in the street, beaten down from extended hunger, worked to death. Many were completely disabled and mentally disoriented. These people earned the nickname Muselmann. It was an association with the act of a Muslim in prayer, but in this deadly place, it meant a deranged, starved person who would sit on the ground like a Muslim and die in that position. This association was actually too kind. More likely they would act in a manic way right before an ignoble end in the mud, or against the wires. Some intentionally became targets for the guard’s guns.

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