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We watched in silent fascination as the hundreds of people were led to the windowless barracks, there to be made to strip naked on the concourse, men, women and children alike, old and young together, evidently indifferent to their nudity, perhaps accepting it was the price they paid for their future security. I thought fleetingly of the scene on the hill I had witnessed from Henryk’s truck. But this was different, I told myself. The showers were right alongside.
A patina of frost still clung to the hard ground and a cold wind blew through the camp, making the would-be bathers shiver and hold their arms about themselves to keep warm.
Guided by Kapos, labourers began to gather their clothes, throwing the garments onto carts. To be disinfected, the curious were told.
More men appeared, carrying large sheets which they lay on the ground then, as we watched, these naked people were made to stand astride and their body hair, from their heads, beneath their arms, everywhere, was shaven clean. To prevent the typhus lice breeding I heard the Kapos explain.
Only when every person, adult and child alike, had been so treated, were they led to the showers. How many were crammed into each room I could not tell, but somehow every person there was found a place in one or other of the buildings and the doors closed around them.
The sheets of hair were carefully gathered and carted away, to what end I could not begin to guess.
Now the concourse was all but empty, only a few guards remaining, indifferent to the Poles awaiting their fumigation within.
Nothing more to see, we eased our way back to our secure hiding place beneath the hut and huddled together for warmth. I stroked Elone’s hair, thankful we had not presented ourselves as I had considered, a smile playing on my lips to imagine her head shaven.
But my smile was short lived as the first screams began.
Bewildered, we stared about us, perplexed as to where the sound emanated, but in seconds it was obvious. Maxim’s words came flooding back to me, of the fate met by his wife Catherine, taken to the shower rooms on her first day.
As the screams became louder I hugged Nicolae to me, futilely covering his ears with my hands.
Elone was clutching me, her eyes wide with fear, streaming tears, looking to me for salvation, but I could offer none.
For perhaps twenty minutes the screams continued unabated, tortured screams of men, women and children, enduring a fate I could not begin to imagine.
And then the screams began to subside and minutes later there was only silence, broken by the incessant, uncontrollable sobbing of three terrified children, alone and afraid in the very heart of Auschwitz-Birkenau.