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10 Inside the camp were rows of wooden barracks surrounded by double barbed wire fences. Armed guards patrolled a walkway between the fences. Other Jews were lined up in long rows between the barracks. I looked in all directions for Manek but did not see him. We were ordered to halt, and a tall Jewish orderly lined us up in rows of three. One German counted us, and then he left the camp with the other factory police. The Jewish orderly went along the rows asking for first and family names, which he wrote down in a notebook. He came to me, took down my name, and said, “You look too young to be here.” “No, sir,” I answered. “I am old and I am strong.” He went on to the next person. When he finished , he told us to line up at a supply room door to get a blanket and then to find a place to sleep in Barracks Number 2. Others rushed to the supply room to get blankets and be first to find a good place to sleep. I approached the orderly and told him that my brother was in the group of Jews from the Rzeszów ghetto that worked in the Flugmotorenwerk engine repair shop. I asked him if that group would be brought to the camp. He told me that we were the only Rzeszów Jews being transferred to the camp. No arrangements had been made to bring in any other Jews from Rzeszów. I was devastated and felt terribly alone. A Tyczyn Jew from my group saw me standing there. He shook me and told me to get a blanket and find a place to sleep. He had heard that we would be given soup. I went to the supply room and was handed a small rough blanket. With the blanket rolled up under my arm, I went to Barracks Number 2. Inside were wall-to-wall long, shelflike wooden platforms. I realized that we were to sleep on these and that I had to find a space to claim. The lower platform was full, with rolled-up blankets and clothing. I placed one foot on the edge of the lower platform, lifted myself up, and saw no empty spaces on the top. I moved along the narrow aisles, peering into 84 the dark windowless barracks. Men were sitting on the bunks, standing in the crowded narrow aisles, talking, and holding their metal bowls, waiting for soup. The men from my Rzeszów work group were here along with many others. I was almost to the end of the barracks, when a man in his early forties called down to me from the upper platform that there was still a space left. A crude wooden, three-rung ladder was attached to the lower and upper shelves. I climbed up next to some straw and rolled-up blankets. The man told me that he and a fellow from De ˛bica were also sharing the top bunk. He told me that his name was Katzenfliegel and asked my age. I told him that I was fourteen. He sighed and told me that somewhere he had a son who was also fourteen. He asked about my family, and I told him that the Germans had sent my parents to the Ukraine to work on a farm there. I told him about Manek, that he worked in the factory, and that I was hoping that he would be moved into the camp. Katzenfliegel did not say anything more. I put my blanket down and sat on the bunk. My space had no straw, but I did not care. I was miserable and worried. The only clothing that I had with me was what I had worn to work that morning: summer pants, a short-sleeved shirt, a thin blue windbreaker, and my cloth cap. The other things that I had brought from Tyczyn to the Rzeszów ghetto, warmer clothing, underwear, and my family’s pictures, were all back in the ghetto. I had nothing. I wanted to ask Katzenfliegel if I would be able to get a towel or a toothbrush, to find out where I could wash. He sat with his eyes closed, and I did not want to disturb him. I was worried that the orderly and Katzenfliegel had noticed how young I was. I decided that I had to lie about my age and say that I was seventeen. I...
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