The Horse Adjutant to Birkenau from Buna, and I only know of one that survived the infirmary for an extended period, my friend, Moshe Katz. How he did this, I can only imagine, most likely had to do with his uncanny and infectious personality. Everyone loved Moshe. One notable prisoner, Primo Levy, slept on the bunk next to me. He arrived late in the war in 1944. I recall the day he arrived. He was alone. That is what stood out to me since everyone else arrived as a group. We had a little trouble communicating, he mainly spoke Italian. In German, I asked him, Are you Jewish? He said his mom was not Jewish but his father was. Then he stated, I am not Jewish. He was arrested as a partisan and sent to the camp. He was a chemist. Buna was the perfect place for a chemist. I found him to be a soft-spoken very polite boy. He went on to become a well-known writer after the war. I never read his books, but I do know that he died of suicide. The war affects everyone differently. I had no particular friend or buddy, like Sasha, in the Jugenbloch. Thankfully, I did not feel threatened every moment of the day. No one was chasing me with a stick or treating me like a rat. For the most part, I kept to myself. There was nobody from my region of Poland within the barracks either. By this time, I didn’t fully realize it yet, but I was one of the very few left to tell the tale. Today, I am aware of less than 10 people from my hometown that survived. Moshe was nearby in the adult barracks. I did not see him very often even though I was allowed. He was having a much tougher time than I was. All the adults had a much harder time than the teens. I think our youth barracks was set up as a model for the high command to slap each other on the back and say, see what a good job we are doing, and thereby show the world their magnanimity. A few of the young boys in my barracks were the camp’s runners. They would deliver messages and orders for the Gestapo. One of these was named Schusterman. Another was the assistant of the scribben office. He was the boy that helped check us in when we first arrived. So far I was lucky, but soon I would meet my Kommando chief. I hoped he would be humane, too, and I could work inside, out of the freezing weather. I went to bed with a sense of hope. In the night, I could see a reflection of the red light flashing, warning of the electric fence surrounding my camp. A German Shepherd barked. Floodlights scanned the area. I was a prisoner, thankful to be no longer in Birkenau, but still very much in a high-security prison. Before falling asleep, I could hear my father saying, ‘Survive, tell the world, find our bones,’As my father’s image faded, I saw Wiktor faintly saying the same thing with one added thought, ‘’...find a cure for the madness.’ Centering my thinking on this helped me to sleep well. The mat-
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