Chapter Four: No Pain

Once a month we went to the public showers to have our clothes disinfected and to get rid of the lice. Other camps which were located in the vicinity of the city of Radon also used the public showers. Bela, my girlfriend for the past five years, who had been with her sister Mania in AVL, (Arbeits Virtschafts Lager) a camp that I found out through the grapevine, was supposed to be liquidated and inmates transferred to a concentration camp "Blizyn" some 75 km from Radom.

The day our group went to the showers, I heard a rumour that the group from AVL was scheduled to arrive at the showers after we were, I wanted to meet Bela very much, I had not seen her for a long time this might be the last time I would see her.

While taking the shower, my friend Leon and myself intentionally took a little more time to ensure that the AVL group would arrive in the meantime. They did not come by the time we had to leave and for taking more time in the shower than prescribed, the S.S. guards decided that we deserved a punishment.

Arriving in the camp, Leon and I were marched to the garage which was known as the "slaughter house" or the "Butchershop". It was a cold rainy day in March, with a strong easterly wind. We were ordered to strip. I immediately tore off my clothes and remained standing naked on the cold wet concrete.

One of the two guards opened the water of the fire hose, and directed the stream on me. I had to brace myself not to be carried away on the wet pavement. Instead I turned sideways and moved closer to the guard that the spray off my body would make him wet.

The German guards expected the little Jews to cringe, to cry and to beg to stop this spectacle. But I made up my mind that under no condition would I as much as utter a sound, no matter what the consequences would be. It took me a few seconds to regain my full control under the cold water stream, while Leon in the meantime pleaded with the other guard for permission to remain in his underwear. The reply came quick with a few lashes of a leather whip, finished with a round piece of metal at the end.

By the time Leon joined me under the stream of cold water. The shock of it, made him lose total control of himself, and he started to plead and to beg them to stop it. More lashes came this time, on both of us. This somehow did not satisfy the guards. They gave us steel brushes that were used to remove the caked-up clay from the military trucks. Facing each other we were ordered to brush one another, I applied the brush on different parts of Leon's body, while he having lost control of himself, did not hear me pleading with him not to rub on one area only, as the water washing off my body became red.

More lashes rained on our bodies with shouts to rub harder. I surely felt each lash of the whip but felt no pain. My will and determination to survive became a need, wishing to have the opportunity to repay them in kind one day.

Finally I heard the command "it's enough." How long this cruelty lasted I had no idea, I had completely lost all sense of time. For several weeks afterwards I could only lay on my stomach, and as a result of all the lashes on my wet body I swelled up like a balloon. The radial bone in my right wrist was broken when I protected my face from the leather whip. My left shoulder joint was injured, I could hardly raise my arm.

In retrospect, I feel the reason I felt no pain at this time, was due to a great extent, to the fact that at all times "reality is not what is, but what one makes it to be". It's mind over matter!

The Germans had taken away my freedom, killed most of my family, taken away all my possessions, forced me to do heavy labour with a bare minimum of food, and e posed me to frequent abuse and indignities. However, one thing they could not take away from me, was my "inner self" my integrity, my will to live, and my inner freedom of thought.

The rumour that the AVL would be liquidated had materialized. In spring l943 Bela and her sister were transferred to the Blizyn concentration camp.

Once a month the S.S. from Blizyn came to our camp, which was a warehouse for food supplies. They came with trucks and inmates to load the merchandise. Through one of the inmates, Bela sent me letters which was forbidden and a small picture of herself hidden in a small round pocket mirror, which was covered in plastic.

I removed the content by prying the plastic off the mirror and sent a letter back to Bela through the same channel. I sewed this small picture inside my pants and carried it safely through all the camps. This picture enabled me to locate Bela after the liberation. I have shown this picture to some survivors who had traveled back to Poland just in case they might meet Bela.

I still cherish this picture today.

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