Our first impression of Bergen-Belsen was of a big, open place. About thirty barracks were neatly built in rows of three or four, with about twenty-foot wide streets in between. Everything looked neat and tidy. When we first arrived, Belsen was camp for prisoners of war, not the horror camp it later became. In size I believe it was about one kilometre by one kilometre, and I found out later it was divided into smaller camps. Our camp was about the size of a football field. We had entered the camp by the main street, which divided the camp in two. The right side of the camp (as we later found out) was the Russian camp for POW officers. The left side was divided into five parts: the SS camp and food store, a camp which later became a camp for Häftlinge (Geman slave labourers), the Hungarian camp and our camp, which later was called the Sternlager (star camp) or Albela camp. Surrounding the entire camp was a strip of land, about twenty yards wide, dotted with skulland-crossbones warning signs. High wire fences with watchtowers marked the perimeter.
Every camp was divided into smaller parts. Ours had the Appelplatz (rollcall) and the men’s section together, then a fence with the customary gate to the women’s section. We were received by Herr Albela, our camp elder, a Greek who had arrived with forty others eight weeks before us. Those Greeks, the dual nationalities and our group were the only prisoners in Belsen at that time. Herr Albela spoke to us in German, which was translated by one of our men. He told us that the gate between the men’s and women’s section would close at eight o’clock at night. During the day, we could be together. It was the same as in Westerbork.
We were taken to our barracks, where we got a pleasant surprise. The barrack was spotlessly clean and all the furniture looked new. It was divided into three sections: the dining room with large tables and chairs around them, a dormitory and combined laundry and washrooms. The dormitory had double bunks and plenty of windows for air and light. The washhouse had a cement floor with about ten washbasins, a row of laundry troughs and ten toilets.
The first thing we did after entering the barrack was to sit down and kick off our shoes. Did our feet hurt! Especially mine. Two days before we left Westerbork, I had dropped a pan of boiling water over my foot, and now it was all red and swollen. After we had rested for a while, we went and had a look at our beds. Mum and I took a top bunk each, and Jacky a lower bunk. Mum had not said a word about Dad but I knew she was worried. We had not seen Dad or the other men since we arrived, and now it was about four o’clock.
Two Greeks brought us a large container with food. It smelled good. We were each given a bowl of soup and a spoon, knife and fork, and an enamel beaker. The walk has made us hungry and we had not eaten since the day before, but after trying one spoonful I looked at Mum. I could see that she did not like it. It was hot water, with a thread of sauerkraut floating in it here and there. We could not eat it and we were not alone. One lady decided to wash her feet with the soup, an action which was soon followed by others in our barrack.
It was about half-past four when the truck carrying our luggage arrived. The men who had been ordered to stay behind at the station had loaded the luggage of the one thousand one hundred people who had arrived that morning at Celle. As news of the arrival swept through the camp, everybody hurried to what became known later as the Appelplatz. We were just in time to see my father and some other men enter the camp sitting on top of the luggage on the truck. We called out to him and he smiled broadly when he spotted us. When the truck stopped, he jumped clear and, with the help of the other men, unloaded our luggage. Everybody surged forward to collect their belongings. We mustered enough strength to carry our cases to barrack twenty-seven, where my mother, Jacky and I were to stay. The blankets that we had brought from Holland were needed to get ready for the night. We also had some sheets with us, and we put some jumpers in a pillowslip to make do for pillows. We put our suitcase with the rest of our clothing on top of Jacky’s bed near the foot end. This way we could keep an eye on them, as there was no other place to keep them.
Earlier that day two men had entered our barrack and asked if there was someone present who could speak German. A skinny lady of about forty years, with a hard face, came forward. She was one of those refugees who had been given asylum in Holland in 1937. She could speak Dutch but with a heavy German accent. A conversation took place between herself and the two men. Although we could not understand much of what was being said, we understood that she had been appointed as our barrack elder from that time on. When the men left, she took control as if she had done it all her life. She was the one who gave us the right to use a certain cupboard along the wall of the dining room. This created resentment as we felt at a disadvantage that we Dutch people had to take orders from this German woman, whom we had welcomed into our country a few years before. When we unpacked our suitcases, Mum moved the food, some cooking utensils, an iron and some other things we had brought with us, such as soap and some washing powder, into our appointed cupboard. In exchange for a jumper, Mum had got a hold of a lock to prevent pilfering.
At about seven o’clock, Max and Dad took their blankets and some clean clothing for the next day to barrack fourteen. They did not return until the next morning. Our barrack was the last to be occupied and although it had sixty beds, only thirty people were there, so we had been able to choose our beds at random. The barracks were new and the bunks only two-high. The straw mattresses were also new. They were, I suppose, worthy of people who would be exchanged for German POWs. There was a single row of beds along the length of the wall and windows, and double rows of beds in the middle of the dormitory. No food was brought to us that first night, so Mum gave us some biscuits. We were so tired that by eight o’clock everybody was in bed.
At first light the next morning, we awoke and surveyed our new surroundings. Although it was winter the sun was shining, which gave our dormitory a friendly atmosphere. Some women who had woken earlier had already been to the washhouse. Mum, Jacky and I set out with towels and soap to refresh ourselves. The washhouse was empty except for one elderly lady who was standing as God had created her at a washbasin. I had never seen a stranger naked before and it shocked me deeply. The woman took no notice of us and continued to wash herself. My God, I thought to myself, do all women look like this when they grow old? The woman was tall and very skinny. Her skin was yellow and very dry. Her breasts, like empty paper bags, drooped right down to her waist. My mother, seeing the astonishment in my eyes, whispered, ‘Do not look. Give the woman some privacy.’
Jacky was also visibly shocked, but Mum turned him away firmly and told him to start washing himself. Jacky and I could not help ourselves. Our eyes wandered over to the woman, who, after a while, started to dry herself firmly and then, with a quick movement, threw her breast over her shoulder to dry the front part of her body. This became too much even for my mother. With our faces and hands still wet, she practically pushed us out of the washhouse. Once outside, the three of us burst into laughter and Jacky immediately dubbed the woman ‘Mrs Cow’. The woman had shown no shame or embarrassment when we saw her naked, and we had to accept that our own inhibitions would no longer be considered. Although we did not realise it at the time, this encounter was the start of the degeneration of our values which we were to experience more of over the coming years in Belsen.
When we got back to the barrack we were told that black coffee had arrived, but when we tasted it, it was awful. It was only brown-coloured water. There was nothing to eat and we had to use some food from our cupboard. Max and Dad arrived at about nine o’clock. Their barrack was crowded and they told us that the Chief Rabbi was also in barrack fourteen. In the morning, those who practised their religion had held a secret prayer service. They also had this black coffee given to them, and we all agreed it was revolting. From somewhere, Mum produced some hot water and made us a cup of tea. She gave Dad and Max a few biscuits. We had eaten ours earlier that morning. Mum and Dad arranged with our barrack elder to receive the daily rations for Dad and Max in our barrack. This way we could remain a family unit.
For a few days, the SS left us in peace. Everybody tried to settle in and mentally adjust to our daily routine in Belsen. After about three days, our barrack elder advised us that we all had to attend rollcall the next morning at seven o’clock sharp at the Appelplatz. Everyone had to be up by six the next morning. We had a quick wash and dressed as warmly as we could, then went to the dining room where we received a beaker of warm brown water that was supposed to be coffee or tea. (Our bread rations were given to us at lunchtime together with a bowl of soup. The soup was a half litre of warm brownish water with some pieces of carrot or parsnip floating in it.) At half-past six, the messengers started calling, ‘Everyone to rollcall’. Everyone who could walk, even babies as young as three years of age, had to go to the Appelplatz to be counted. We had to stand in rows of five and when the Scharführer came to count us, we had to stand to attention, with our heads up and eyes straight ahead. No movement or sound was allowed. The chaos that morning, and for many days thereafter, cannot be described. We were not used to lining up like an army or being counted like criminals. We were lucky that first morning. Either the figures were correct or the SS had something better to do. They let us get away after one-and-a-half hours. The next day we were not so lucky. This time they let us stand for two hours at rollcall. Soon we found out that if we did not come up ‘to standard’, the SS would let us stand at the Appelplatz for hours on end. The barrack elders desperately tried to train us to behave the way the SS wanted. The agonising hours at the Appelplatz went by very slowly, and many a prayer went up from elderly people near death on their feet and children shivering from cold and hunger, their little faces becoming smaller as the days went by. Sometimes it was way past our lunchtime before the SS let us go. Herr Albela would blow a whistle and the music of a philharmonic orchestra could not have sounded sweeter. After the whistle, we would run as quickly as our legs would carry us back to our respective barracks. Our beds had become our home and the only place we felt a little safe.
We had been in Belsen for about a week when the SS ordered all the men as young as fifteen years of age to come to rollcall at six o’clock to form work units. One of the toughest jobs went to the unit that went outside the camp into the woods to dig out the roots of tree stumps. It was hard and merciless work. My father and the Chief Rabbi were picked for this unit. They would leave the camp at six o’clock and return late in the afternoon. On the first day when they returned, my father brought back some berries he had picked off the bushes. He had filled his pockets with them and he emptied them into one of our soup bowls. It was not much, but the sight of these red berries cheered us. I was the first to try one. It tasted sour and bitter.
‘Maybe they’re not ripe yet,’ Mum said.
Max and Jacky had a try but they could not eat them either. What a shame, they looked so appetising. We put the bowl of berries under the bed. Perhaps if we left them for a few days they would taste better. A few days later, with hunger gnawing at my stomach, I retrieved the bowl. The berries still looked the same as a few days earlier but I tasted them anyway. Brrr, how sour they were. A middle-aged man walking by saw the grimace on my face and noticed the bowl of berries.
‘What a shame we cannot eat them. Perhaps they’re poisonous,’ I said.
He stuck his hand out and I gave him a few berries. He agreed that they could not be eaten raw but suggested that we try to cook them.
‘How in the world are we going to cook them?’ I asked.
My newly made friend said he would arrange something and left. He returned about twenty minutes later with a small spirit cooker, but we had no spirits. We removed the part that was the burner and were left with the frame of the cooker. I sent Jacky away to find some twigs or wood from somewhere, which we splintered on his return. After a few tries, at last I had the little stove going. I put the pan with the berries on top, but with no success. The fire burned itself out very quickly. There was no way I could bring the berries to the boil. I halved the amount of berries in the pan in an effort to get some result but this did not work either. My new friend, Henry, left when I lit the fire in the cooker because we knew it was punishable to light fires in the barracks. He returned occasionally to enquire about how things were progressing. After about an hour I was about to give up when Henry returned with some fire beads. Now it was easy. The water boiled and so did the berries. I had visions of being a famous cook who could create the most wonderful jam that we could put on our dry, hard bread rations, but the beads burned out very quickly and it became apparent that another supply was needed to finish the job. With pleading eyes I looked at Henry, who said he would try to get some more. He returned again with four small beads and told me that these were definitely the last he could obtain. Resigned, I lit the last of the beads and every nerve in my body was directed at the flame, imploring it to give out enough heat to make the berries edible. Slowly the flame became smaller and smaller until there was no spark left. Gingerly I tasted the gooey mess that lay at the bottom of the pan but it was still not edible. I gave Henry the remaining berries and returned the cooker to him. I told him that it was no good but he gladly accepted. He left with many thanks and I never saw him again.
All the women were called to rollcall. From them, the SS selected groups who had to work in the kitchens to cook the food for the camp. Mum was picked to work in the peel kitchen. She had to get up at three o’clock to go to rollcall and started work at four o’clock. She returned at six o’clock in the evening, so I had the task of looking after my two brothers, washing their clothing, making their beds and collecting our daily food rations.
We had been in Belsen for about three weeks now. The burns on my foot would not heal and the wound looked inflamed. The camp doctor advised me to rest for a week and gave me a letter so I did not have to attend rollcall. Our barrack was shiny-clean and pleasant, and I was quite happy to stay in bed reading a book that someone had lent me. It was peaceful in the barrack as nearly everybody else had gone to rollcall.
At the end of the dormitory another woman was sick in bed. She was sleeping. After about two hours, the women and children returned from rollcall, and soon after that our lunch arrived. It was not busy in the peel kitchen, so my mother had worked only a few hours before returning to the barrack. I decided to get up and join my mother for a little while in the dining room. Mum was sitting with some other women around one of the tables having a chat. I pulled out a chair to join them, planes were heard approaching. We could hear machine-guns from the watchtowers going into action. Everybody was screaming. I panicked and started to run back to my bed. Bullets were flashing in front of and around me.
‘Hetty, stop, stop, get on the floor,’ my mother screamed.
I heard my mother’s cries above the din. I threw myself on the floor, but before I landed I saw the sick woman in the dormitory coming out of her bed and running towards us. A bullet hit her and, as if in a dream, I saw her crumpling onto the floor with blood streaming from her wounds.
‘She got hit, she got hit,’ I crawled towards my mother, sobbing.
For about five minutes, the planes strafed the camp. When the planes disappeared, someone went to see to the woman. A stretcher was brought in and she was rushed off to the sickbay. She died that night. She was only thirty-two years old and was the first death from our barrack. I stayed close to my mother for the rest of the day, and when we went to bed that evening I found two bullets in my bed. One of them had made a large hole in my book.
Small groups of people began to arrive in our camp: gypsies from Hungary and Jewish families from Italy. Barracks were needed to house these people. Trucks arrived with dismantled barracks from other camps in Germany. The men from our camp were ordered to erect the barracks, but most of the men did not have skills in manual labour, so they went up very slowly. The barracks were erected on parts of the Appelplatz and to speed matters up, the SS brought in prisoners from the camp annexed to ours. It was the first time that we had seen these poor creatures up close. They were dressed in the white and grey cotton cloth, the uniform of the concentration camp. They would march into our camp early in the morning, trained into perfect precision. The kapo (overseer) would scream when they passed through the gate, ‘Hats off, face right’ in a salute to the SS Scharführer, who counted them as they came through. When their hats came off they revealed their shorn heads. They looked skinny and drawn. Their kapo would scream his orders, and how quickly those men moved. They lifted and carried and hammered the barracks together. They knew how to evade the monstrous whip from the kapo, which they would suffer if they did not work hard enough. They were from Eastern Europe, and I thought they spoke Polish or Estonian. We could not understand them. I was standing among a group of young children, watching from a distance. After about an hour, I left for our barrack. I could not watch any more, and yet I remembered the smile one of the prisoners gave me when he spotted me just as he was about to lift a heavy wooden part of the barrack with another prisoner. His drawn face had come alive with this smile as if he wanted to tell me, ‘I have not given up yet’.
Our barrack had become very crowded. Jacky’s bed was claimed so I had to share my bed with him. Luckily I was not a tall girl, so we slept head to tail, and we moved our cases to Mum’s foot end. Mum went to work in the peel kitchen every morning at three o’clock. Dad left his barrack at six o’clock to join the work detail. We only saw him at lunchtime and after he was finished at night for about an hour. I used to wait near the gate for him and when he arrived deathly tired, often he would say to me, ‘I can’t go on anymore. How long before we are free again? Why is it taking so long?’
I used to take my father’s hand, my heart bleeding to see him so depressed.
‘Come on Dad, you can do it. Don’t lose hope. I am sure it won’t be long now,’ I said.
‘Do you think so?’ he said.
‘Yes, I’m sure of it,’ I answered. ‘Remember the saying, “The last boxes are the heaviest”.’
We used to walk, without many words, to our barrack where Jacky and Max were usually waiting for him on top of our beds. At the end of the day Dad, along with the boys, would meet Mum near the gate. She went to work dressed in long leather boots she had brought from Holland. In these boots covered by trousers, she would hide small pieces of carrots and smuggle them through the gates back to our camp. She risked her life doing that, but she wanted to bring some food back for her very hungry husband and children. She risked her life twice: first, by putting food in her boots in the peel kitchen and second, by marching through the gates with it under the watchful eyes of the SS.
The food given to us became worse and worse. At noon we would get four centimetres of dry, hard bread. The barrack elder would cut up the square loaves of bread with a ruler while a group of people watched her like hawks to make sure no one got a fraction more. Sometimes we would get a tiny square piece of butter or a spoonful of jam, but most of the time it was only bread. We also got soup, the coloured water with parsnip or a piece of carrot floating in it. We were all terribly hungry and we became masters at dividing our food rations so they would last for twenty-four hours.
The news got around that the Rabbi was going to hold a meeting to discuss different things behind barrack seventeen at about four o’clock. I decided to go. When I arrived there at the appointed time, only eight men and no women were present. The men stood closely together and asked the Rabbi questions, gaining comfort from the quiet religious man.
‘What are we to do? We are hungry and the food we get is not kosher,’ one man asked the Rabbi.
‘God has told us that we must only eat kosher food, but he has created life and I therefore say that this is a time of emergency when life must come first,’ the Rabbi answered. ‘As a servant of the Almighty, I do hereby decree that you can eat anything even if it is treife(not clean). Your first duty is to stay alive.’
I was deeply shocked when I heard these words, as was the man who asked the question. He confessed that hunger had already made him break the commands of God, but he was deeply troubled by it.
‘In the eyes of God, you have not done anything wrong, so do not be troubled anymore,’ the Rabbi reassured him.
After the meeting I walked back to our barrack and although we never kept a kosher home, I could not shake the impact of the Rabbi’s words. I somehow felt betrayed. The Rabbi, of all people, had told us to give up part of our deepest beliefs and rules that guide the life of a Jew—even for those who have strayed, somewhere, somehow, deep-seated there is a spark that will never die. A spark that tells us we belong.
The people in our barrack were angry. During the night someone had broken into the private cupboards in the dining room and stolen bread rations and other food. Lots of suggestions were made as to who could have done it. It was even alleged that Max and Jacky were the guilty ones. My father questioned Jacky and was satisfied that he did not commit the crime. Max could not be the guilty one either as he slept in the male section with Dad. Every night the stealing continued. An old lady was crying because the little food she had in her cupboard was taken.
Some of the men decided to hold a vigil during the night to try to catch the thief. The next day it went all around the camp that the men had been successful. The thief turned out to be Emile, a twelve-year-old boy. The elders of our camp had previously formed a sort of court, as they thought it was better to deal with offenders themselves rather than the SS. Whenever necessary, court was held near Albela’s office. A trestle table was set up and five men, some with legal backgrounds, would try each case that came before them. The accused was allocated a ‘lawyer’ who would plead for him. The hearing never took long, so as not to attract too much attention from the SS. Joseph Weiss, a wise man respected by everybody in our camp, was present at the hearings. Emile was brought before the court and given cleaning in the barrack for one month as punishment.
‘Hetty, if things don’t get better soon, we will lose Dad,’ Mum said.
I nodded agreement.
‘Would it be possible, Hetty,’ Mum continued, ‘that you and I share one bowl of soup each day so Dad can have two bowls of soup?’
‘But then you’ll be very hungry, Mum. You need it.’
‘Yes,’ Mum said, ‘but we women don’t have to eat as much as men.’
For a moment I considered the proposal and then agreed. Mum hugged me and said she would bring me some carrots every day. She could eat raw carrots in the peel kitchen.
‘Hetty, the barrack elder wants to see you.’ An elderly man standing near my bed delivered the message.
‘What for?’ I asked.
‘You’d better come quickly to the dining room,’ the man said as he walked away.
I climbed down from my bed and went to the dining room. Frau Müller, the barrack elder whom I distinctly disliked, beckoned me to come near.
‘I want you to clear out your cupboard straightaway,’ she said.
‘What for? We need the cupboard,’ I objected.
‘Do as you are told. I have given the cupboard to Mrs X,’ she insisted.
A wave of disgust swept through me. Mrs X was one of a group of slimy, slippery people who competed for favours from the barrack elder. This German bitch, I thought, she was a refugee in Holland. While here, because she could speak the language, she had powers to humiliate the Dutch people who had given her shelter. I went back to the bedroom for the key to the padlock. Max arrived just as I got the key.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, when he noticed my upset face.
‘That barrack bitch told me to clear our cupboard. You had better give me a hand to put everything onto the bed.’
We returned to the dining room and cleared the cupboard of our meagre belongings: our rations for the day, a few containers of vitamin tablets, calcium tablets, some pans, our soup bowls, spoons and forks, a few tea towels and our toothbrushes. We dumped everything on top of the bed. I hid the bread rations in one of the suitcases, out of view of the people in the barrack. There were three other families whose cupboards were confiscated that day. I told Max and Jacky, who had just returned from a stroll in the camp, to keep watch over our goods on the bed, as I wanted to collect some of our underwear from the washing lines before it disappeared.
When I returned with the clean washing, our bed was deserted and Max and Jacky were nowhere in sight. A woman came over and told me what had happened. Apparently my father had come home early from work and the boys told him about the confiscated cupboard. My father became furious and, being a very short-tempered man, had stormed into the dining room and taken the barrack elder to task, voicing his disapproval in no uncertain terms. The barrack elder complained about my father to Albela, who summoned my father to his office. Albela, surrounded by his ‘lieutenants’, told my father that he was no longer allowed to enter our barrack and that he would lose two days’ rations. This was the last straw for my father. He grabbed Albela by his necktie, and just as he was about to punch him, Scharführer Lubbe entered the office.
‘What’s going on?’ he shouted. ‘Lock up the criminal!’
Four strong men took hold of my father and dragged him across the Appelplatz to the small bunker.
While this was happening in Albela’s office, I was waiting in the barrack for my father and brothers to return. Suddenly there was a knock on the window next to our beds. It was the same old man who had told me to see the barrack elder. He seemed very agitated and short of breath, and motioned for me to open the window.
‘Your father had a fight with Albela and now they’ve put him in the bunker,’ he gasped.
I went limp with shock.
‘Oh God, what will happen to him?’ I started to cry. The man tried to comfort me.
‘I’m sure Mr Weiss will help as much as he can,’ he said.
‘I’d better get to the gate and meet my mother,’ I said. ‘I don’t want her to hear it from someone else.’
I met Mum at the gate. Max and Jacky were also there. After Mum kissed us, she looked around for Dad.
‘Where is your father? Hasn’t he come back from work yet?’ she asked.
The boys put their heads down to avoid looking at Mum. It was left to me to inform her of the afternoon’s happenings. It was not easy. How do you tell your mother that your father is in the bunker? I started to say something, but was lost for words. Mum became alarmed.
‘What’s the matter, Hetty? What’s wrong?’ she urged.
I blurted out the whole miserable story, as horror and shock registered on my mother’s face.
‘Let’s go to the barrack, it is getting very cold,’ she said, when she had recovered. ‘Then I’ll go to Mr Weiss to find out what happened and see if we can get some blankets and food to the bunker for Dad.’
Mum tidied herself up, and then left with Max to find Mr Weiss. They were gone for about an hour and it was about seven o’clock when they returned.
‘Hetty! Quick! Give me two blankets and a pillow. I have to get this to Mr Weiss as soon as possible,’ Mum said. ‘The curfew starts at eight o’clock. I’ll be back soon, and while I’m gone, make some room for Max. He’ll sleep with us tonight.’
‘Wait Mum, take a bread ration for Dad,’ I said. I quickly opened the suitcase containing our rations. I wrapped it in the first available clean garment—a pair of Mum’s underpants—and handed it to her. Then she was on her way with Max, and all I hoped for was that they would return before curfew.
It was only minutes to eight when Mum and Max returned, and although Mum was near exhaustion, I could see that she felt a little more at ease. The four of us sat on top of the bed as Mum related what had transpired. Mr Weiss had told her that the offence Dad had committed in attacking the camp elder had been taken very seriously by the SS and this was punishable by being sent away to a concentration camp. However, Albela and Mr Weiss had persuaded Scharführer Lubbe that our leader would put my father on trial the following day and that he would be suitably punished. Lubbe had agreed, but said he would also consider what additional punishment he would give.
That night Mum and I could not sleep, not only as a result of the cramped conditions caused by Max sleeping with us, but also because our thoughts were constantly with Dad. The wind was howling through the camp and it was very cold. I prayed that Dad would be okay and I was happy that he had some of our blankets. Mum and I talked softly so as not to wake the others in the dormitory.
‘Tomorrow I’ll go and see Lubbe,’ Mum said.
‘Why Mum? It’s too dangerous—please don’t!’ I said. ‘Think about it and wait and see what happens tomorrow. Try to get some sleep, you have to be up at three o’clock.’
Mum agreed and then tried to make herself a bit more comfortable.
‘Try to get some sleep too, Hetty,’ she said, as she closed her eyes.
I watched my mother’s face: her eyelids were transparent blue-white, her face had become small and her skin showed a very white contrast to her jet-black hair. Despite all this, she was still my pretty mother. Her breathing became deeper, telling me that she was asleep. I carefully bent over and gently kissed her cheek, which felt hollow under my lips.
‘Oh dear God,’ I prayed, ‘help us so all this will be over soon.’ I turned on my side to get some sleep. Someone was snoring and sleep would not come. I stared at the outline of the sleepers in the dormitory as the hours went by slowly.
Herman’s watch, which had never left my wrist since he was sent to Treblinka, showed three o’clock. Gently, I woke Mum and told her that she had to go to work. She was so tired. She dressed herself on top of the blanket and then put on her boots after she climbed down from the bed.
‘I’ll see if I can get back at lunchtime,’ she whispered, so as not to wake Max and Jacky. ‘I’ll pretend to be ill and I am sure that Koch (the SS officer in command of the peel kitchen) will let me go. He is the most reasonable SS man of the lot here. When I can fix it, then I will see Lubbe or Rau when the work details go back to work after the lunchbreak.’
There was nothing I could do. Mum had made up her mind. It has been said that a yiddisher mother will fight to the death for her family, and here I had the living proof. With no regard for her own safety, she would go and plead for her man.
‘Look after the boys,’ Mum said. She pulled my head down and kissed me. ‘I had better go now, as I’m running late. Try to get some sleep.’
She left. My dapper little mother. Oh, how I loved her.
I must have fallen asleep as I woke up to the sound of rollcall. I quickly put on my clothes, and called Max and Jacky over. I told them to dress very warmly as it was sunny outside but still cold. I wound a scarf around Jacky’s head and did the same for myself. Max was wearing a balaclava, the one Oma Hetty had knitted while she was in hiding. The man from the Resistance had delivered the parcel, which also had contained a pair of knitted knee-high socks for me. I had been wearing them since we had arrived in Belsen. Those wonderful socks kept my feet warm and dry during the long hours at the Appelplatz.
‘Come on, let’s get to the Appelplatz. Most people have left our barracks already,’ I urged Max and Jacky.
When we arrived at the Appelplatz, the people from our barrack were lined up only five metres away from the bunker where Dad was. I had never given the bunker a second glance before, but it was different now Dad was inside. In the sunlight, it looked like a square building about two metres by four metres. It was built of brick, with a heavy padlocked door. There was a square opening in one of its walls, presumably a window, but this was nailed up with a thick piece of plywood. The SS had not arrived yet, so I had an opportunity to get close to the wall with the covered window without arousing suspicion.
‘Dad,’ I called softly, ‘are you all right?’
I heard my father’s voice. ‘Is that you, Hetty?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m okay,’ Dad said, ‘there’s not much light. They blocked the window up.’
‘I can see that,’ I answered. ‘Are you warm enough? It was so cold last night.’
‘Yes, yes, don’t worry. I’m warm enough.’
I could hear the barrack leaders calling the people to line up properly.
‘I have to go now Dad. I’ll come back later.’
The SS were at it again. They had counted us three times already and made out that two people were missing. They screamed that we were not standing in line correctly and, at times, indiscriminately hit out at the unfortunate person in front of them. How could people go missing? There was no way out. There were guards everywhere.
As we resigned ourselves to being at rollcall for a long time, a small party of men approached. Lubbe, the Scharführer in charge of rollcall, Albela and two of his lieutenants walked past us towards the bunker. My heart was pounding. What was in store for Dad? The bunker door was opened and my father ordered outside. I strained to see what was happening through the crowd of people, but could only hear the loud voice of Lubbe as he addressed my father. I felt helpless. What could I do? Then, it was over. We heard the door of the bunker being shut and the party went back in the direction of Albela’s office.
It took more than three hours that morning before Albela blew the whistle marking the end of rollcall. Usually after rollcall I would return to the barrack immediately, but this time I was in no hurry. Max also stayed behind. Together we walked slowly towards the bunker. With about a metre to go, we stopped. Max turned towards me and making out that he was speaking to me, he called out to Dad in the bunker. Dad answered immediately. Max asked what had happened when Lubbe and Albela came to the bunker during rollcall.
‘Lubbe told me to apologise to Albela, and after I did he gave me two hard whacks about the head,’ Dad said.
‘Are you all right now, Dad?’ Max asked.
‘Yes, I’m okay. Don’t worry. Can you get me something to eat, Hetty? She is with you, isn’t she, Max?’ Dad asked.
I told Dad that I would see Mr Weiss and ask him to bring one of our food rations and something to drink.
‘Okay,’ Dad said. ‘See what you can do.’
Max and I left for the barrack. I collected our daily ration from Frau Müller. She gave me four rations. For two days Dad would get nothing. No words were needed. One ration would go immediately to Dad, and the four of us would share the other three bread rations. One bowl of soup would go to Dad, and Mum and I would share a bowl of soup. At about one o’clock Mum came back as she had intended. We told her what had happened at the Appelplatz that morning and assured her that Dad was okay.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I went to speak to him before coming to the barrack. But now I must go to the camp doctor for a certificate that my stomach is upset, and after that I will see Lubbe.’
‘I’ll go with you, Mum,’ I said.
At first Mum refused, but when she saw my determination, she agreed. She made Max and Jacky promise to stay clear of the Appelplatz, and we set off to obtain the doctor’s certificate. After that Mum and I went to the Appelplatz. We arrived at the same moment as the last work detail was marching off. Lubbe was in conversation with Albela. He seemed to be in one of his good moods.
‘Wish me good luck,’ Mum said, and squeezed my hand.
She started to walk slowly towards Albela and Lubbe. At a respectful distance she stopped and waited. Albela spotted her first and spoke to her. Albela said something to Lubbe, who turned towards my mother and I could see them conversing. How courageous she looks, I thought. Her head was lifted, to look up to the towering SS man. After about two minutes the conversation was over and I saw Mum coming back towards me.
‘Let’s go to the boys,’ she said, smiling.
On the way to the barrack, she told me what she had said to Lubbe. She had addressed him as ‘Hauptsturmführer’, knowing quite well that Lubbe was only a Scharführer. She had flattered his ego this way. She had apologised to him in broken German for what my father had done, and portrayed him as a worried parent. His children were without supervision every day of the week, as she, my mother, was working seven days a week, and therefore could not attend to them at all. It seemed that Lubbe could understand this, and he told her that children needed discipline. He said that the matter had already been reported to Berlin, but that he would give it some thought. Although we could not be sure that Dad would not be sent away, we had some hope that Mum’s appeal would work. That afternoon, the court gave my father four days’ bunker time, which meant that in two days Dad could come out again. We all went to bed early that night as the emotional pressure had worn us out completely.
I woke Mum at three o’clock for work. After she left I went back to sleep until morning call. Max and Jacky had gone to see Dad early in the morning and they had not returned by the time we had to go to the Appelplatz. So I went there on my own and was glad to see Max and Jacky already standing with our barrack group. The boys told me that they had spoken to Dad and he had told them that Mr Weiss brought him some food last night. I had no time to go and speak to Dad as we were called to line up. The Scharführer had already started to count the first barrack groups. There were always two of them, with Albela a respectful step behind them. It was deadly silent. Slowly the counters came nearer. Suddenly there was a loud bang-crash-bang that shattered the silence of the Appelplatz. It came from the bunker and I turned to see what had happened. There was my father looking through the hole in the wall. With his bare fist he had knocked the wooden cover loose so he could look out. The Scharführer was approaching our barrack group and from the corner of my eye, I saw my father pulling away from the opening so he would not be spotted. A sigh of relief escaped me when the Scharführer passed our group without noticing the hole in the wall of the bunker.
It was a bitterly cold morning towards the end of April 1944. Although we had all dressed ourselves warmly, the wind made us shiver. The Hungarians standing in the group next to us were moaning and crying, ‘Oi, joi joi joi’, and were stamping their feet to get the circulation going. Some of them were middle-aged and had blankets over their shoulders. We were cold too, but we did not cry. For four long hours we stood at the Appelplatz—four long hours designed to break our spirits. I went over to Athena, an Italian girl. She and her mother had arrived a few weeks ago. I had tried to befriend her as she was my age, but there was a language difficulty. Somehow, I had learned that she had been buried for three days under the rubble of her house in Milan, which had been bombed. Athena was very beautiful but I could not help noticing how frail she was. She had a face like a Madonna and her serene looks reminded me of a statue of Sachsen porcelain. I sensed that she was in a world of her own. Perhaps it was the terrible experience of the bombing that had broken her spirit. One thing I had found out was that she had a beautiful voice. I put my hand on her arm but she looked at me with vacant eyes.
‘Athena!’ I said, ‘please sing for us?’ There was no response. She stood there without moving a muscle, oblivious of everything around her. I shook her arm.
‘Athena, please sing for us?’ Still no reaction. I softly started to hum the tune of ‘Santa Lucia’. As though a magic wand had been waved, Athena came to life; slowly at first, but then she put herself into the song with full force. The song went up like a prayer and was a diversion from our misery. It filled our hearts with hope and when I turned towards the group of Hungarians, I could see they were listening, and their moaning had stopped. At long last, after four-and-a-half hours, Albela blew his whistle. The Appelplatz emptied, with everyone hurrying to get back to their barracks as quickly as they could. The Hungarian group brought up the rear and I could see some of the young children supporting the elderly, who could barely walk. I sent Max and Jacky back to the barracks to collect our rations, but I stayed behind because I wanted to talk to Dad. I walked towards the bunker where I could see Dad’s face peering through the hole in the wall.
‘Hello, Dad. How are you?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
‘Aren’t you cold in there, Dad?’ I asked.
‘No, I have the blankets and while rollcall was on, I had a sleep,’ he said with a mischievous smile.
I did not believe a word of it. Dad would not sleep while we were freezing to death during rollcall. At that moment I heard movement near the fence. A small private gate had opened and there stood Lubbe. There was a Häftling with him, a prisoner from the camp next to us. But that man is a kapo, I thought with shock. Lubbe ordered the man to open the door to the bunker. My father was ordered to bring the bucket out, which had apparently been used as a convenience. I saw my father bring the bucket out and then Lubbe ordered him to stand at attention with his back against the wall. I stood frozen to the ground. ‘Oh God, what is he going to do?’ Fear grasped my whole body.
‘You criminal, why are you in the bunker?’ Lubbe shouted at my father.
‘I have been bad to Herr Albela and I apologise for that,’ my father said.
‘You deserve to be shot!’ Lubbe said.
I must have made an involuntary movement, because Lubbe noticed me standing nearby.
‘Lock up the criminal!’ he told the kapo, who roughly shoved my father back into the bunker.
‘Well,’ Lubbe said, turning towards me, ‘do you want to go into the bunker too?’
‘No, Herr Scharführer,’ I answered, after some hesitation, fearing what would follow next.
Lubbe smiled at me.
‘I don’t want to go in there either!’ he said.
With those unexpected words, he turned and left through the private gate. Phew! I let my breath escape. My legs were still shaking from fright. I saw Mr Weiss coming towards me. He had witnessed the whole thing.
‘You’re a very lucky girl!’ Mr Weiss said. ‘You know you aren’t allowed to go near the bunker. I’m telling you, Hetty, your father will be out in a few days and I don’t want you to go near the bunker again. You don’t only put your own safety at risk, but also your father’s.’
I had not thought of that, but now the realisation hit me.
‘I promise, Mr Weiss. I’ll stay away,’ I said.
‘That’s my girl,’ Mr Weiss said. He put his arm around my shoulders and we crossed the deserted Appelplatz to the barracks.
The next day Mr Weiss told us that the SS had given my father another four days’ time in the bunker by order of Berlin. We were relieved that he was not going to be sent away to Sachsenhausen.
More and more people started to arrive in Belsen. The Hungarian camp next to ours was now empty as it appeared the SS had transported the inhabitants away. We noticed that the Hungarian camp became joined with what we called the New Camp. Later it was called the Häftling camp. The men in this camp had their hair shorn and were dressed in grey and white pyjamas. Some of them had no shoes. The weather started to get cooler and it rained sometimes, which turned the Appelplatz and roads into quagmires. The SS let us stand for hours at rollcall, and from our position we could observe that the Häftlinge in the camp next to ours experienced a similar fate. Sometimes, long after we were allowed to go back to the barracks, those poor creatures were still standing at rollcall without food. Their faces were grey, their cheeks hollow, their eyes deep in their sockets, and some of them had the look of cornered animals.
For the thirteen long weeks since our arrival in Belsen, we had been given that inferior brown murky soup. It started taking its toll. Men were the first to die from hunger, especially the tall men. During a rollcall earlier in February, Scharführer Rau selected two young men for special work. As young as I was, I noticed that they were handsome young men: tall, blond and blue-eyed with a sporty, outdoor look about them. They had to leave our camp at a minute’s notice without their belongings and were escorted by a guard. It was observed that they did not go towards the exit of the camp but the opposite way. We worried about what would happen to them and we thought the worst. About four days later we saw one of them walking along the main road to the kitchen to collect his daily rations. Some men near the fence called out to him, trying to find out why they had been isolated, but he did not answer and kept his eyes straight ahead. It was obvious that he was not allowed to make any contact with us. We could see them in the distance during the day at the far end of the camp. It appeared that they worked outside their small hut making brooms. Every day they deposited those small bundles of what appeared to be broom heads made from twigs near their gate for collection. After a week it became known that they were in charge of the small crematorium at the far end of the camp.
‘How did they find out, Dad?’ I asked when he told me the news. ‘They are not allowed to talk to us.’
‘Well,’ Dad said, ‘when one of them went to the kitchen, he told someone in sign language what they were doing. In the beginning there had not been much work for the crematorium, but now it must work day and night, as day by day more and more people die.’
Dysentery was rife in the camp and at night the people who had to get up to go to the toilets kept us awake. Sometimes a person did not make it in time, and the vile stench penetrated the nose even during sleep. Our family was lucky, none of us had dysentery. Could it have been something to do with our constitution or was it the food we had eaten before we were interned? I remember the beautiful juicy brisket my grandmother used to cook for us, which Opa brought home from the abattoirs. I could see it: Opa cutting the meat with a very sharp, long knife into even, thick slices. He would serve each one of us a generous portion before he served himself. He always started his meal with the meat, which he meticulously cut into small square pieces and then topped with a small square piece of juicy fat, relishing every bite. He taught me to eat the juicy fat as he said that it was good for my bones and brains. Never ever did Opa eat meat with other food or vegetables. When he finished with the meat, Oma handed him a fresh plate, fork and knife for his vegetables.
Opa had been a respected member of the meat industry in Holland. As a boy of ten he had attended the cattle markets in Holland with his father and learned the trade from the bottom up; wholesale in sheep, cattle, goats, and so on. He knew his trade from buying and selling, to slaughtering, manufacturing of fine foods and marketing. As I sat on my bed in Belsen I saw my grandparents’ living room in front of me and recalled the happy faces around the table from a time that seemed so long ago. I saw the spread of food and my Oma’s happy smile, and my heart was crying that this was gone forever.
My tummy reminded me that I was very hungry. I laid my two hands on my stomach to stop the hunger pains. After a while the pains subsided. I decided to change my clothes, or at least my jumper. For some months now I had worn the same jumper and I felt uncomfortable. When I pulled the jumper over my head, it turned inside out. I was in the process of correcting this when my eyes fell on something crawling—lice. The area under my armpits was putrid with nits. I started to kill them between my thumbnails but it was useless. I looked in the suitcase to see if I could find another jumper. I found one that was not as warm, but I still changed. I put the offensive jumper in the suitcase hoping the lice would die. I did not tell a soul, I was so ashamed. Hygiene had deteriorated to a standard that cannot be comprehended: no soap, no water. I had been wearing the same clothes for months. My underwear was also not so clean. The only place on my body that I protected from dirt was the wound on my foot, the result of the boiling water accident in Westerbork. How many months was it? Five months, and there was still a deep open wound. I could see down to my bone. Every few days I would change the bandage, a paper bandage obtained from the camp doctor. I had no medicine or antiseptic, so I covered the wound with a clean square of paper bandage and re-used the winding bandage again and again. One day the wound stopped secreting fluid, and I watched my body start to rebuild, as very slowly, red flesh grew at the bottom of the hole.
A transport of 213 people, including women and children, had arrived from Westerbork. The group was made up of ‘diamond people’, that is, they were diamond merchants or tradesmen. Special barracks had been erected for them near the hospital barrack. The diamond people were given special privileges. They did not have to join work details and were given double food rations. The weather had improved again, and during the day you could see the diamond people sunning themselves near the clothes line or just strolling through the camp all nicely dressed. A few weeks after their arrival we observed that two special barracks were erected just outside the fence of our camp under the trees. The camp telegraph soon informed us that those barracks would be fitted out to house a diamond factory. Dad, who had come back from work with this information, told us that he was going to Albela’s office to try to get his name on the list with the diamond group. Dad was a skilled diamond tradesman. His father and brother were excellent diamond polishers and cleavers. Before he went to Albela’s office, he went over to Uncle Max to discuss the situation. They both agreed to give it a go, as the prospect of not going to work at six o’clock in the morning was worth a try. After a few days Dad told us that all our names had been registered with the diamond group. However, things did not turn out as we hoped. Dad and Uncle Max still had to go to work every morning and they did not receive double food rations.
The talk Mum had had with Lubbe when Dad was in the bunker had a pleasant result. From the end of May, the women who worked in the kitchen were allowed half a day a week off so they could look after their families. How happy we were to have Mum with us for a half a day. Mum and I attended to such tasks as washing our only sheets, and other washing. During the month Mum had worked seven days a week, I had done the washing, but now Mum taught me how to wring the sheets so that most of the water was removed from them. We had long run out of the packets of soap we had brought from Holland, so we used to soak our washing in salt. When our washing was on the line, I would sit near the clothes line to keep watch so it would not be stolen.
The area around the clothes line was deserted. I was the only one there. People are not looking after basics anymore, I thought. I was sitting on the ground with my back against a pole about ten metres from the danger strip with the skull-and-crossbones signs warning everyone not to trespass. I could see the SS in the watchtowers who, after giving me a fleeting glance, totally ignored me. Now and then I could hear one of them call out to the other man in the next watchtower, but that was the only sound.
It was peaceful under the clothes lines. I looked at the blue sky and saw a small white cloud. I looked at the shimmering distance of the Lüneburg Heath, and as my gaze travelled through the wire fences, I saw a bird high in the sky and I felt a deep yearning to be free again. The pain of being enclosed was nearly unbearable. With some effort I pulled myself together and got up to feel if our washing was dry. Not yet. I sat down again and looked at the line with the other washing. Only three garments were hanging from the line: a bra, a singlet and a pair of panties. The underwear showed stains of menstruation. Strange, I thought, all the women had stopped menstruating shortly after arriving in Belsen. I never got mine anymore and neither did Mum. Maybe it was not such a bad thing. After all, how in the world could we have managed without pads or soap to keep us clean? I had no idea how it could be achieved and deeply pitied the woman who had to cope with this problem in this situation. It was generally believed that the SS put camphor in our food, which stopped all sexual reactions in men and women.
The washing was dry. I took it off the line and went back to the barrack. Mum and I made up our beds with not-so-clean, but at least fresh sheets. We gave Dad his sheets in the evening.
One day, the camp telegraph let us know that high-ranking SS from Berlin were going to visit us. Frau Müller, our barrack elder, confirmed this later. The whole camp received a spring clean. Red Müller was the Scharführer in charge of the operation. Frau Müller advised us that an inspection of our barrack would take place in a few days. We were shown how our beds had to be made up each morning. They were to be smooth and flat at the top, not a ripple was to be shown in the blankets. We were not allowed to store or hide anything in our beds. For those who had a cupboard it was not hard, but we had problems. Our suitcases with our belongings were stored on the end of Mum’s bed, where they had been under our constant surveillance. Now we had to put them under the bunk and at night, someone could steal them. I packed all our clothing in one suitcase, and another one with our soup bowls and other belongings. The barrack was scrubbed and cleaned from top to bottom. Those who did not go to work had to do the cleaning.
Our food miraculously began to improve. With our bread rations, we received a small square piece of butter, and a packet of Limburger cheese for the week. The cheese smelt terrible. We had never eaten it at home, but the fact that it was made in Holland somehow made me feel that we had not been forgotten. Amazing how this small packet of cheese seemed to give me comfort. Our midday soup also improved. It was thicker and even pieces of meat and potatoes could be found in it. We became cunning. We waited to collect our soup until the large forty-litre container that held the mixture was two-thirds empty, as at the bottom the soup was thicker. We had our midday soup with Dad in the dining room. He had been allowed back into our barrack after apologising to Frau Müller. How happy we were when we discovered a piece of meat in our soup. One day, I received what I thought was a very large piece of meat. Excitedly, I returned with the bowl to the table. Dad lifted the large piece from the bowl with a fork so he could divide it between us. We were horrified to see that it was not meat, but a very dirty cleaning cloth, which had been cooked with our soup. It had taken on the same brown colour as the soup, so there was no doubt it had been cooking for many hours. What should we do, we pondered. How could we eat this soup? How unhygienic! Half the people in the barrack were eating it at the moment. But the worst thing was that the volume of the soup left in the bowl had dropped considerably after removal of the cleaning cloth. I decided to go back to Frau Müller. I put the cloth back in the bowl and showed Frau Müller what was in the soup. She removed the cloth from the bowl and topped it up with some more soup.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It won’t kill you!’
I gave Dad half the contents of my bowl as I had promised Mum. Our eyes met across the table and we knew what the other was thinking. To stay alive, we were going to eat the soup. Our hunger had reduced us to this. I determinedly put the thought of the cleaning cloth and the consequences out of my mind. I picked up my spoon and started to eat.
It was about the middle of June when Scharführer Red Müller came for the first inspection of the barrack. The inspection took place while we were at rollcall. When we returned, the barrack elder informed us that everything was okay. We were relieved, and within a few days, the barrack looked a mess again and our cases were back on Mum’s bed.
My father’s youngest brother, Max, and his wife, Clara, had come with us to Belsen in the same transport. My Uncle Max had always been my favourite uncle. Clara was sleeping a bit further away from us near the wall of the dining room. We did not see much of them as Uncle Max was working in the kitchen, sometimes for eighteen hours at a time. They were well fed, those lucky kitchen workers. Clara worked with Mum in the peel kitchen, but she did not have to eat the raw carrots as Uncle Max stole plenty of food.
The days when Uncle Max was free and Clara came home from work they would have ‘dinner’ on top of their bed. They hooked a blanket to the rafters to give themselves privacy. From our bed we used to see them going behind their blankets, and we knew that they were eating and that they would not be so hungry. But they never offered any food to us. This is how it was in Belsen. People became very mean, only thinking of their own survival. They degenerated to the law of the jungle, or even worse, because even an animal would leave food for the next one after it had eaten enough. It had become obvious that Uncle Max and Clara had been avoiding us over the past months, scared that we would ask them for food. Max and Jacky complained bitterly about it, but Mum forbade them to go begging. They were still so young and could not understand how their uncle had changed.
Thousands and thousands of old shoes were brought in by truck and unloaded into a mountain next to our camp. My father was chosen for a new work detail: the shoe commando. He would go to work at six o’clock in the morning, come back for a lunchbreak and then go back to work until six in the evening. The only reason the workers had a lunchbreak was because the SS wanted a lunchbreak. Sometimes the SS made them work until eight o’clock; it depended on their moods. The work itself was not heavy, but very dirty. The workers had to separate the top leather from the soles with a sharp knife. Among the large commando of two hundred men were academics from universities, businessmen from worldwide organisations, rabbis and engineers. To break the monotony of this mind-deadening work, the academics gave lectures on various subjects while they were working. The rabbis would also keep them busy with their knowledge. Chief Rabbi Dasberg was usually sitting close to Dad and they became quite friendly. They seemed to be an odd combination, as my father was an atheist.
The SS hated the few rabbis who were in our camp—their beards worked on the SS like a red rag to a bull. The SS took great pleasure in finding sadistic punishment for the rabbis, but nothing could shake the faith of these frail men.
The weather was lovely and an optimistic feeling swept through our camp. We received some news of the outside world when new transports arrived from Westerbork. How totally isolated we were. Did people in Holland or anyone else in the rest of the world still remember us? Other nationalities would at times get a food parcel from the Red Cross, but those of us who came from Holland never received anything. I vowed that if I came through this terrible time, I would never support the Red Cross in Holland.
Max’s twelfth birthday was on 22 July. For days he had been nagging Mum for permission to see Uncle Max on his birthday to ask for something to eat. At first Mum refused but them gave in.
‘How can I deprive my child of a chance to get something to eat?’ she said.
Although my hunger was as great as Max’s and everyone else’s, I could not agree. The thought of going to ask my once-favourite uncle for something he apparently was not willing to give voluntarily went against every fibre of my being. I would not reduce myself to begging for food yet.
Mum had managed to be free on the day of Max’s birthday. During the lunchbreak, Max went over to Clara’s bed, where Uncle Max was sleeping. Hesitantly he called out. We were watching from a distance and saw the blanket being lifted and Uncle Max’s head appear. After a few words, Max was invited up and disappeared behind the blanket. He remained there about ten minutes and when he climbed down again, he had in his hand a thick slice of white bread with butter and sugar. His face was shining with happiness. When he returned to our bed, he handed his present to Mum, offering to share it between us. Mum cut off a small piece for Jacky, and after my refusal of a share, she told Max to eat the lot as it was his birthday. With small bites, he relished this unexpected delicacy.
Perhaps Uncle Max’s conscience was bothering him because the next day at lunchtime, he called Max over to Clara’s bed and when he returned, there were two more slices of bread with butter and sugar for ‘Hetty and Jacky’. I divided them between the five of us, keeping Mum’s share until she returned from work that night. How good it tasted, when I sank my teeth into my share of this heavenly windfall! I am sure the finest cake from a baker could not have surpassed it.
We did not receive any more handouts from Uncle Max.
It was August 1944 and it was so hot that it was impossible to sleep. Despite the heat, we still had to attend agonising after agonising hours of rollcall. One day the SS left us standing there for eight hours. We had supposedly not cleaned our barrack properly and Red Müller was in a foul mood. Perhaps they were losing the war, and that would be the end of their thousand-year dream. Red Müller would storm into the barrack and scream like a maniac, pulling the blankets off beds that were not made up to standard. He would open the cupboards, and if he found bowls with any soup still left in them, which the owner had saved to eat later to stave off the hunger pangs, he would throw it through the barrack, shouting at the top of his voice. It was his usual practice to hold onto our bread rations for a day or two after such a performance. We had gone hungry for so long now that we got used to it. We became lethargic and our speech slowed down. People were dying every day.
Müller was a bully who delighted in screaming at the elderly people. These poor people, with fright showing on their faces and their legs trembling, knew his fury would be turned on them. He would hit them with his fist and punish them by making them stand for many hours at the gate with their caps in their hands in wind, rain or in the burning sun. He also confiscated their rations for two or sometimes four days. Müller was a sadistic monster.
Scharführer Herzog was in charge of the sewer, if one could call it that. He used to walk through the camp with a boy of about twelve years of age who carried a long stick and a bucket. Herzog ordered the boy to lift the lid of the inspection point, after which he would poke the stick in the hole and, if satisfied, would continue to the next inspection point. The ‘Shit King’, we called him. If a drain was blocked, you could hear him swearing. His face would turn red and the veins in his neck would stand out to the point of bursting. We were hoping they would, but—what a shame—they never did. At other times he was friendly and you could see him smiling and talking to children or elderly people. I had the feeling that he did not fit into the SS regime.
Our food did not arrive on time anymore. The kitchen worked day and night to cope with the influx of people in Belsen. The carriers could not cope and sometimes our soup containers would not arrive until eight o’clock at night. We were waiting for this little bit of soup. The warm, inferior concoction would somehow sustain us for a while.
It was very hot. It was better outside the barrack than in, so we spent most of our time outside. Sitting outside could be done in comfort if a chair could be found, otherwise you just sat down on the dusty, dry ground. There was not a green leaf in sight. Grass did not grow and everything was covered in a dreary grey dust.
Dad heard through the camp telegraph that Uncle Max was in the bunker, not in the small bunker Dad had been kept in, but down where the camp section for the SS was.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Dad said, ‘but I have been told that he stole a pound of butter and they caught him.’
I could not sleep that night. What would happen to my uncle? I knew how cruel and vicious the SS were. The next two days were unbearable with no news, but on the third day, late in the afternoon, I saw Uncle Max entering our barrack. He looked pale and had lost weight. Dad, who had played hooky that day from work, was resting on Mum’s bed. When I informed him that Uncle Max had returned, he immediately went over to find out what had happened. Both of them returned to our beds. Close up, Uncle Max looked terrible. Our eyes met and despite my resentment of him for being so mean, I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. I was really very happy to see him again. For a moment, the old Uncle Max emerged. His eyes smiled into mine as he told me that I had grown. He then told us that he indeed was caught with one kilogram of butter, which he had tried to smuggle into our camp. For two days he was held in solitary confinement, with the SS coming in every couple of hours to give him a beating. It was his strong physique that had carried him through and he was lucky that he was not sent to Auschwitz. He was very, very tired, as he had had no food for two days.
‘Better go and lie down and get some rest before Clara comes back from work. You need it,’ Dad said.
Uncle Max agreed. He patted my head and walked toward Clara’s bed. With some difficulty, he climbed on top and we saw him disappear behind the blanket. It was good that the family ties were restored, and when I went to sleep that night I thanked God that Uncle Max had been spared and that he had become one of our family again. The next day, Uncle Max was allocated to the shoe commando as he was not allowed to return to the kitchen. This gave the Scharführer in control of the shoe commando the opportunity to sing out ‘the criminal brothers’, as he called my father and uncle, and he gave them the extra hard, dirty jobs.
The heat was oppressive. The air in the barrack was stifling. No one could sleep at night. The water supply was cut off for long periods, so when the taps were running there was a tremendous rush as everyone wanted to fill up bottles or buckets. Some lucky ones were able to give themselves a quick wash.
There was a tap near the men’s quarters on the Appelplatz. Gypsies who had come from Italy a few days earlier, and who had just returned from the gruelling work of digging up tree stumps without food or water, fought among themselves to get to the tap. It was there that I learned the meaning of ‘aqua finito’, which they kept on screaming to each other when the flow of the water stopped. The deliberate rationing of the water and the chaotic result of this amused the SS tremendously. They smiled and watched the human misery from a distance.
The heat also affected our sewerage system, which was not constructed to cater for so many people. Herzog went berserk and meted out penalties left, right and centre. Whole barracks would lose their rations for two or more days.
During this heatwave, one evening Mum told me to come with her to the washhouse. Her face told me there was something terribly wrong. When we entered the washhouse, I saw my father standing in the only pair of pants he possessed, covered in excrement from his shoes to his armpits. His face was also not too clean. He smelt a mile in the wind.
‘What happened?’ I gasped.
Dad told me that Red Müller had come to the shoe detail’s tent and demanded that four men clean out the latrines. Chief Rabbi Dasberg was chosen first. This was done to humiliate him. Next were ‘the criminal brothers’, and another man by the name of Myer made up the fourth. In private conversation, Myer’s nickname was ‘Hap-Myer’. He was a very nice person, a bit backward with a low IQ. He used to gulp in air before he spoke. He was as skinny as a stick, but he was a survivor. My father and the other three men were told to empty the enormous latrine with buckets.
‘Was the Rabbi standing in the pit?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Dad said. ‘We didn’t let him do that. We handed the buckets up to him to cart away. Of course he got dirty, but we did not let him stand in the latrine pit.’
‘All right, get those filthy clothes off,’ Mum told Dad.
Luckily, the washhouse was empty except for the three of us. I discreetly turned my back to my father while he undressed. In the meantime, I filled the trough with water. It was a wonder that the water was on. Mum handed me Dad’s pants. Phew! What a smell! What a mess! Quickly, I dumped the pants in the water, which at once turned into a miniature latrine. I let the dirty water run out and repeated the process again and again. Dad’s underwear and shirt got the same treatment. It was to no avail. I could not get those pants clean again. How could I? There was no soap or detergent to help me. I asked Mum to give me the scrubbing brush, but this was not successful either. It remained a hard, dried mess, with the original colour of Dad’s pants unrecognisable. While Dad washed himself, Mum tried to clean his shoes with a scrubbing brush.
In the middle of our misery, I could not help but laugh when I saw Dad in his clean clothing. Mum had borrowed a pair of pants for Dad from someone, but they were far too short. He looked ridiculous. But anything was better than the pants that were soaking in the wash trough. Mum and I discussed various ways of getting the pants clean again. Throwing away the pants was unacceptable. Clothing was unobtainable in Belsen, so we had to hang onto what we had or go naked. We decided to let the pants, shirt and underwear soak overnight in the water, and I would make another attempt to clean the pants in the morning. Of one thing we were sure: no one would steal them from the washhouse.
The next day after rollcall, I went back to the washhouse and rinsed the clothes again and again for about an hour. While I was doing this, a man entered looking for his wife. When he saw me labouring away at the trough, he asked me what I was doing. I told him what had happened while I continued to rinse and re-rinse the pants. The shirt and underwear, although stained, were reasonably clean, but remained smelly. After watching me for about ten minutes, the man said, ‘You’re a courageous girl,’ and then left. I decided to leave the pants soaking for another day, but took the shirt and underwear to the lines to dry.
For two more days, I soaked, rinsed and scrubbed the pants, and when at long last I hung out the pants to dry, you could still smell the latrine. I hoped that the sun and air would take care of that problem. Despite their poor appearance, Dad was grateful when I handed him the pants that night, so he could return the borrowed ones he was wearing. I hoped that Dad would never have to clean a latrine again. I did not think I could cope a second time.