The Horse Adjutant he was brought here as a prisoner and has so far been a good man. I have never seen him hit anyone. There are only 32 of us in my group. I will ask if they will take one more.’ I knew this was a risky thing to do, but I was in dire straits. The next morn- ing at roll call all of the prisoners lined up behind their kapos. But Kommando 92 was missing a man, me. Since it was before the count, the SS did not get involved; only the Gypsies knew I was missing. They were looking for me with their eyes but could not break the roll call to search all over. If they found me, they would beat me for not showing up. Kommando 92 was hard to keep manned because of how tough they were. Now they were down another man.” Moshe was hiding between other prisoners, behind the kapo for Kommando 116. They made sure that no one would see him, at least not easily. When the roll call was over, the prisoners started for work. Moshe was now a part of 116, and the Gypsies could no longer count on him, he would be protected from this point for- ward by his newly adopted kommando. They had no way of making him come back once he was assigned. Kommando 116 was like earning a new lease on life; they were moving metal pipes and bottles of gas for welding. Since the gas was located at a different train depot as the metal pipes, a small group was formed of 6 men: two Poles, two adult Jews, and two young men like Moshe. Together they went looking for the gas with a permit. These were good people. The Poles in our group even got care packages delivered to them from family, many contained food. Thankfully they shared their bounty. When a bottle of gas was ordered it could arrive the next day. They had plenty of time, so they acted busy but worked slowly. At one point the kommando was asked to dig a hole for a piece of heavy equip- ment. Moshe was feeling better so was able to work diligently. The work had to be completed in a short while. While doing this, he caught the eye of a German welder, a good man. The welder told his kapo that Moshe should report to him in the morning. From this point forward, Moshe had a savior. He would walk with his kommando but then report to the welder. His job was to hand the welder tools and pipes. The fellow was from Hamburg, He was handsome and pleasant, a civilian. Frequently he would leave some of his food and have Moshe clean the plate. He would have ate this like a dog if he had to, but in a more civilized way, brought it to the tool shed where he was out of sight and ate every last morsel. The fellow did the same with his cigarettes. He would take a few puffs and put it out of sight, somewhere he knew that Moshe could also share. After a while, Moshe was feeling better, but the fellow wanted to take a vacation.
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