Stephen Shooster For me, this meant a chance to clean the barracks and my shoes. Sometimes there would be time to visit Moshe. I went to see Moshe frequently. One time I went to see him he was not there and no one knew where he was. I be- came upset and started to ask everyone. Finally, someone said that he was in an accident and got hurt badly. You can find him in the infirmary. Just hearing the words infirmary put shivers down my spine. Moshe was assigned to a very tough Kommando. One of the tasks he was forced to do was dig sand and put it in a rail car. It was backbreaking work in freezing weather. He was doing this with a few other hâftlinge. It was a precari-
The Iron Cross
ous task. A rail line was set up with small cars along a mountain of sandy soil. A small locomotive would push seven cars into place, and each small car would be assigned two hâftlinge. With meager tools, they set out on their task. Each had only a shovel. Nearby they also had a metal rod to move the car closer to the mountain as they dug away at it and a railroad tie to stop the cars from moving back down the incline. A guard stood hovering nearby, holding his machine gun as the prisoners toiled. The line of cars would slowly get heavier. As soon as they were filled, a small loco - motive would take the load away and then quickly return with more empty rail cars. Day after day of mindless work, but at least the effort helped keep the prisoners warm. It was very cold. At one point the rail cars on the incline started to get away from the prisoners. To stop it or even derail it they tossed a railroad tie under the wheels. This caused the cars to stop but not before smashing the wood into Moshe’s left inner thigh creating a hematoma under the skin. Moshe was hurt badly, but he did not know it at the time. He felt the pain, but he did not realize how badly he was hurt until the next day. Preferring to continue working he refused to tell the guard or anyone other than the other hâftlinge what happened. It was an insider rule to avoid the infirmary at all costs or risk a deadly selection. The reason why he did not know how bad it was until the next day was that the damage was beneath the skin. By the next morning, his leg was in bad shape, red and purple and dangerously colorful. In the night, Moshe’s temperature spiked with a fever, and when he showed his injury to the block-elder, there was no choice. He had to go to the infirmary. Since he was still able to walk, he held his shirt tightly as he fought through the cold; it was close to 0 degrees. Even with this cold, when he
198
Made with FlippingBook Digital Proposal Creator