The Horse Adjutant
been through. A few times I would visit Moshe Katz in the adult barracks; it was great to see him. The adult barracks was hell compared to mine. It had three levels, like Birkenau, and was fully loaded with 500 prisoners per barracks, wood slats to sleep on, and poor rations in the form of a thin soup. Each morning those that died in the night were piled by the back door. The good news was we were both surviving. Neither of us feared for his life every minute of the day. He had a good kapo, too. Each visit with him was no longer than half of an hour. We spoke about Szebnie and how we both missed Moshe Blauner. At the time, we did not know of his demise, so we still held hope. Moshe Katz would tell me about his job at the factory. I told him about Schlosser 80 and Walter. He was doing con- struction and odd jobs. I was the apprentice of a German hero. At one point, I asked him if he thought the camp would be liquidated. He said, “I don’t know about that. It is better not to think that way. We will find a way to get through this. Just try to stay strong.” It was freezing cold. Even though my clothing was wool, it was not enough to pro- tect me from the cold. Leaving the barracks after working all day was not a good idea. Normally, I would come to the barracks toward dark, eat and have just a little time before I would need to go to bed so I could do it again. The food was a little more nourishing and a little warmer than at Birkenau. It was delivered in a metal barrel instead of wood. I got into a routine and, before I realized it, I was 18 years old. Overall to me, Buna was tame compared to the chaos of Birkenau. I don’t know if it was true, but someone told me our food was sprinkled with special chemicals to reduce or eliminate sexual desire. What I do know is that during my entire period of being incarcerated, I did not grow hair on my private parts. Maybe it was the lack of nutrition or a fear response from being in a concentration camp. I don’t know. I do know, for the greater part of my childhood, I was in a desperate, life-threatening situation, living day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour. My family and community were brutally destroyed. So, sex was the last thing on my mind. But they were on someone’s mind, because this camp had a barracks they turned into a brothel that was strictly under the SS control. German soldiers and non-Jewish kapos were given permits to visit there. I remember seeing some of the girls, pris- oners like me, only a little older. They must have had more food since they did not appear as skeletons -- on the contrary, they were good-looking and shapely. I saw them rarely. When I did, they were always walking with an SS guard. Since the factory had both prison staff and the non-prison staff, there was a day off.
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