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  We walked there too. The last corpses were showing an occasional foot or hand where they’d been poorly covered. He shook his head, rubbing a hand across his face, the horror showing in his battle-hardened eyes.

  “Does this bother you, son?” he faced me.

  I shrugged. I had seen too much for it to affect me.

  “How old are you?”

  I frowned and tried to do the math, “I think I must be sixteen now, sir. My birthday was in the winter.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Three years, sir. I came here three springs past.” I hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Three long years since the train dropped us in the town and the trucks brought us to this camp. I wondered if any of my friends, my classmates, or my family were still alive.

  A soldier strode up and said something to the officer, whom he called Colonel. He turned to me and introduced himself as Sergeant Heinrich Small. He spoke excellent German, though he wore an American army uniform. “I am the Colonel’s interpreter. The Colonel would like me to tell you how sorry he is and ask you to please come back and speak to your fellow, um, men, so we will tell you what is about to happen.” He gestured for me to follow him.

  I did. What else was there to do?

  We walked back to the kitchen area, where the prisoners were now milling about. I shouted for them to listen to me.

  I again explained how these men were Americans. “They will give us food. Doctors will treat us and help make us better.” I also told them, with help from Mr. Small, how the war was not over yet and that we were advised to stay in this camp until it was safe to travel to our homes or wherever we wanted to go. Some of the soldiers would stay with us.

  It sounded like a very good plan.

  Chapter 9 - Hans’ Story

  After about one hour an officer came into our barracks and spoke to the soldiers. A tall boy with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth motioned for us to stand. Then another soldier told us to put our hands on top of our heads. He showed us what he wanted and then shoved us in a line against a wall. I felt so scared that they were going to shoot us that my hands started shaking and I think I started to cry. Helmut stood up from the table where the sergeant interpreter was questioning him. He began shouting, “Don’t shoot us! Please don’t shoot us!”

  The soldiers were nervous and cocked their rifles. They yelled back but we didn’t know what they said. Now Karl joined Helmut. They both waved their arms and walked toward the soldiers.

  The interpreter jumped up and stepped between the two groups, “Stop, stop!” he told the soldiers. Then he turned and faced us. “Wait, we are not going to shoot you. These men have been ordered to search you for weapons and then take you outside to feed you. That is all.”

  We looked at each other, and I said, “Do we have your word that you will not shoot us, sir? Your word as an officer?”

  “Yes, yes, you have my word. Just don’t give us a reason to shoot you.”

  Once again, we put our hands on our heads and lined up. One of the soldiers patted us down and emptied our pockets. Wallets, pictures, a few coins and not much else piled on the table.

  “Where is your ammunition?” the interpreter asked.

  “We were not issued any, sir,” Karl said. “There is a box in the Commandant’s office. It wasn’t necessary, except for hunting in the forest.”

  “You hunted them in the forest? You sick bastards.” The interpreter turned to one of the soldiers, a corporal, I think and said something. It could not have been something good because the corporal’s eyes narrowed and his face grew hard. I saw his trigger finger twitch. He motioned us outside. What had Karl said?

  We were ordered to sit on the edge of our porch and keep our hands in our laps. Across the compound we could see three trucks that had just pulled in. I counted ten wheels on the front one. It was piled high with boxes and several soldiers unloaded it. The next was a smaller one heaped with uniforms, weapons, ammunition and duffle bags. The last vehicle had huge red crosses painted on it. I supposed it was an ambulance. Three people unloaded boxes from the rear and carried them to the vacant Commandant’s office. All the vehicles looked battle-worn but the boxes of supplies looked new or at least unused. The war had come to Kefferstadt.

  The prisoners were herded back behind the fence that separated their compound from the entry gate. A table had been set up and the sergeant who had interrogated us was now talking to the prisoners one by one, probably taking down their names and home towns. Meanwhile, three soldiers, obviously cooks, prepared food on two tables set up beside the large truck. Several of the prisoners helped unpack and lay out the food. A sergeant ladled the corn mush we were going to eat into dented steel mugs. Another soldier brought the food to us.

  I was puzzled. I thought the sergeant who had interpreted for us said we would be fed, but this was not fair. The soldiers had brought plenty of food. The smell was starting to drift across to us. Karl stood and asked one of the soldiers for more food. He was hit in the face with a rifle butt and knocked back onto the porch. Helmut and I scrambled to help him. Behind us I could hear the bolts on rifles slamming home. A soldier was screaming at us and suddenly a bullet punched through the door just over my head. Everyone stopped moving. The only sound was Karl moaning.

  An officer ran up and pushed the soldier’s rifle upward before leading him

  away. He yelled some orders over his shoulder at the other soldiers, who lowered their weapons. Slowly people started moving again and we helped Karl back to his place on the porch. I ate my mush with a spoon and motioned for more. A private took my cup to the rear of the truck, filled it with water and returned it to me. So that was my first meal in captivity. I suppose it was more than the Jews had been given for their first, and for many, their last. I strained for a look at Herschel but could not see him amidst the confusion.

  Just before sunset the sergeant interpreter came up to us. He stood with his hands on his hips looking down at us. “You men will be confined to your barracks for now. You will only be allowed to come out to eat right here. You will have no contact with the men who were formerly your prisoners. In two or three days you will be taken by truck to a prison camp south of here. Once you are there, a military commission will decide what to do with you. You are now prisoners of the United States of America and Allied Forces in Europe.” He looked at us with disgust and kept kicking up dirt with the toe of his boot.

  I stood up. One of the soldiers raised his rifle in my general direction, “But, sir, what will become of our friends?”

  “Friends?” He looked confused. “What friends?”

  I gestured at the large group of prisoners now being fed by the army cooks. “The men who used to be prisoners here. They have become our friends.” I didn’t know if he understood what we had been going through these last several months.

  The sergeant laughed and turned to one of our guards and said something. The guard snorted and shook his head. Then he turned back to me and came close. I stood half a head taller than him but he barked in my face, “From now on you have no friends. Those men are no friends of yours, you animals! I hope you get what’s coming to you. You make me sick, the lot of you. Now get back in the barracks! Shnell! Shnell!” He waved his hands as if herding a flock of geese.

  Two days later, the trucks pulled out, and most of the soldiers formed up and followed them through the gate. The ones who were left kept us inside. The next morning an open truck came for us. We were shackled and shoved up into the back where a chain was run through our leg shackles.

  As we were sitting there, I heard a thin cry, “Hans, Hans!” It was Herschel. He was trying to push through the compound gate but a soldier blocked his way.

  I stood and waved my shackled hands over my head. A soldier in the truck with us pointed his weapon at me. Now we were both prisoners.

  “I’ll find you, Hans. I’ll find you,” was the last thing I heard as the truck pulled out of the camp’s gate and
drove in a cloud of dust toward the nearby town.

  Chapter 10 - Herschel’s Story

  I watched the truck drive out of the camp, our guards shackled and seated on benches on either side. I don’t know if Hans heard me yell to him. An American soldier prevented me from leaving our compound. I tried to push around him, but he blocked me forcefully with his rifle and insisted that I was to stay.

  “If we are now free men, why do you still treat us as prisoners? Are we now prisoners of the Americans instead of the Nazis? Then nothing has changed!” I screamed in his face,

  Abruptly I turned and tried to find the colonel’s interpreter. Yes, the Americans were feeding us better food. Yes, their medical personnel were attending to us. Yes, they had found clothing to replace the rags we wore. But we weren’t allowed to leave the former prison compound. Since Granski left, we had had more freedom with our guards than with the Americans.

  After I had calmed down, I found the interpreter at the desk set up at one side of the gate on the porch of the commandant’s office. He and the sergeant interpreter were discussing something, and they brightened at the sight of me approaching.

  “Herschel, can you help us explain to the men here that we can’t give them all the food they want? If they eat too much, they will die. They have to take their food slowly, building up their strength. Three men have already died just since we got here. One, we think, from eating too much, too fast.”

  “And the other two?” I asked.

  The sergeant rubbed the back of his neck, “Tuberculosis, I think. I see from the medics’ examinations, most of you have some sort of disease: malnutrition, rickets, lung and intestinal parasites. I could go on.”

  I frowned. “Is that why you won’t let us leave? You have to help us get well first?”

  The officer nodded. Looking down at his boots, he said, “Some of the diseases are very contagious, and we don’t want you to spread them to the general population. Or, for that matter, to our troops.”

  “I understand, sir, and I will urge my fellows to comply. Will you tell me when some of the stronger ones can leave? I - I have no place to go now. My family is dead, except maybe a brother. He went to a different camp. What will become of me?” I felt a deep longing for my old life, but in the same vein, I didn’t ever want to go back to our shop and house. How I hated those hypocritical neighbors of ours. If I could, I would take a rifle from a soldier and go back and shoot every one of those bastards.

  The officer put an arm over my shoulder and walked me away from the table, whispering to me, “Herschel, I heard of a camp in Austria that they are setting up to let you rest and recuperate, and get some training. They have people you can talk to about starting over. I have also heard that some of you Jews want to go to Palestine. Maybe that’s not too bad an idea, no? Your own place?”

  I thought about it. ‘Next year in Jerusalem’. It had a certain appeal. “Sir? Where was the truck taking the camp guards?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to ever worry about them hurting you again. The Allies have a big camp set up for them. Give them a taste of their own medicine, the bastards.”

  “That’s good, sir, but where is this camp?’ I didn’t want him to think I was going after Hans. I had tried to explain to him two days ago about how the guards had helped feed us and keep us alive, how Hans had saved my life, but I could tell that he thought it was made up or a delusion. When he looked at me curiously, I decided to stop asking, hoping that he did not think I was a guard masquerading as a prisoner.

  I then did as he asked and spoke to our fellows about the diseases and food. Most understood, but a few, Gypsies from Romania, wanted to leave as soon as possible. The major took me to them.

  “Take it slowly, Milosh,” I said. He was their senior, their elder. “When the doctor thinks you are strong enough, he will issue you passes and give you food. Then you can go home.”

  “I am strong enough, Herschel. Please, we want to go.”

  “Just a few more days,” I said, calming him. “We are still in a war. It is not over yet. Have a bit of patience. It will be over soon, my friend.”

  Grudgingly Milosh agreed to wait one more week. Especially since the food was much improved.

  Perhaps the doctor knew where the guards were being taken. I entered the former commandant’s office and found two medics working on four of my fellows. Two lay on pallets on the floor. Beside them were chairs with clear bags hanging from them. Tubes led down from the bags to their arms. They seemed to be asleep. One was a boy I just knew as Yakov, from a town outside Munich. The other was an older man whose name I cannot remember. On the desk lay one of my friends, Ira. The medics were sponging off some open sores and attempting to bandage them but Ira was struggling.

  I went to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, “Rest easy, Ira. They are only trying to help you.”

  He looked up with fevered eyes. “Hello, Herschel. The pain is very bad and they aren’t reducing it, only making it worse. Can you talk to them, please?”

  I nodded and spoke to one of the medics. He filled a syringe with a clear liquid from a small bottle and jabbed it into Ira’s arm. I watched Ira’s face. In a few moments, it relaxed. He squeezed my hand in thanks.

  The doctor sat at a small side desk. Papers were piled upon it and a large ledger lay open before him. I stood by his side and waited for him to finish.

  He finally looked up and smiled wearily. He was maybe as old as my father, thin and with a small moustache. Dark bags hung under his eyes like two plums and his uniform was disheveled. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “Hello, son, what can I do for you?”

  I smiled back tentatively. “Hello, sir, my name is Herschel Rothberg.” I wasn’t sure how to lead into what I wanted.

  Before I could say more, he said, “Good morning, Mr. Herschel Rothberg. My name is Dr. Adelman, Sam Adelman,” and he held out his hand.

  I looked at the slim fingers. It had been years since I’d shaken anyone’s hand. I extended mine like a child, but he engulfed mine fully, like an adult, like a man. At sixteen years, was I truly a man? I’d never had a Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony that ushers a boy into manhood.

  He motioned me to a small wooden bench by the wall, and we sat down next to each other. “Sir, Dr. Adelman, can you tell me where they took the guards, our guards?” And it all came rushing out about Hans. I told him I had to see my friend, a friend who had saved my life. The bad guards were long gone and the boys who were there at the end were our friends. They’d treated us fairly and had never killed anyone. The last bad guard, Granski, had run away months ago.

  He pondered this, scratching his stubbly chin. Finally he turned to me, “Son, I’ll find out, but you know I have no authority to get him released. He was a guard at an extermination camp! I can get you his location, but the rest is up to you. In a week or so, I’ll be rejoining our outfit for the push to Berlin. I believe that you fellows, you who want to leave, can be trucked to a place in Austria called Landesberg. The Red Cross is setting this place up for refugees and former prisoners. They are calling these camps DP camps. Displaced Persons.” Then he muttered under his breath, “My God, there must be millions of you out there.”

  I placed my hand over his on his knee, “No sir, not so many left. The Nazis were very efficient.”

  He knew what I meant and just nodded, not looking at me. “I’ll find out where your friend was taken. Come back tomorrow, Herschel. I’ll get one of the officers to make you up a pass so you can travel through Allied lines. I’ll also see if I can get you a ride going that way. That’s about all I can do for you.”

  I thanked him warmly and shook his hand again.

  That night I slipped out of my barracks and found the rock under which Hans and I had buried the good jewelry. I unearthed the cache and wrapped the best pieces - a diamond brooch, a heavy pair of platinum cufflinks inset with large rubies, several stick pins with blue sapphires and three more pieces set with large stones - in a bandana one of
the soldiers gave me. I reburied the jar. Maybe someone, many years from now, would unearth it and find the rest, a pirate’s treasure.

  Back in the barracks, I quickly sewed the jewelry into a pouch and tied it around my waist. The rest of the day, I helped the sergeant and the officer interview the men and translate for them.

  Two days later I was in the back of a truck heading south for Austria, clean clothes on my back, pockets filled with good American food and a piece of paper with the name of the camp where the Nazi guards had been taken. Best of all, I had an official looking paper Dr. Adelman had made up. It asked other American officers to please assist me.

  “I am coming, Hans,” I whispered to myself.

  Chapter 11 - Hans’ Story

  The five of us rode in the back of the truck for three days. Fortunately the weather was dry and getting warmer. The American soldiers gave each of us a blanket and a metal dish for food, though no utensils. At night we would stop by a field and help set up a large canvas tent. The rations were cooked on two small stoves on the back of one truck. At night, the soldiers took turns keeping guard.

  They never unchained us except to take us to the toilet, and that was only one at a time, often in the late afternoon, and into the surrounding forest. The soldiers treated us like vermin, pushing and shoving us with their heavy rifles. In the beginning, when the first one of us was taken into the forest, I thought we were to be shot.

  The first was Karl and he was whimpering and implored me to do something. I knew he had to go badly but when he resisted, the soldier just laughed and made gestures pointing and poking him with the rifle barrel. It was the same soldier who had struck him in the face with his rifle, and he was terrified. Who could blame him?