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Chapter 44 The last weeks It is not hard to imagine that I now lived in constant expectation, day and night. If my fellow prisoners had taken almost all hope away from me, especially after the first fourteen days had passed (during which the question ofmy release was, after all, supposed to have been decided), then the political director always gave me hope whenever he occasionally appeared at our office. When the circumstances and those present allowed, he nodded at me confidently: "Herbermann, it will turn out all right for certain! Be patient!" Oh, yes, patience . . . patience is probably the most difficult and seasoned of all virtues, and how easily a broken heart, too often disappointed, falls back into impatience! These last weeks of my life as an inmate are still as clear to me as the first ones, especially the dark and tormenting nights of having to wait for the decision. When would I learn my fate? Since Saturday was the actual release day, I waited week after week for Saturday. Some people in the office were feverish with anxiety along with me. The Overseer Gallinat, who sat together with Chief Overseer Langefeld next door, came to my table sometimes and said: "If you are released, I'll bring you to the train."1 Every released inmate was accompanied to the train station by a guard, since we didn't know the way, and the camp lay far out from the town, which was so picturesquely located. This Overseer Gallinat was a strange one, as they say, somewhat eccentric and more unpredictable than any other overseer with whom I had contact in the camp. Her character had apparently never fully developed, and she had no ideals, which could have evened out her temperament. This explained her care-worn, gaunt, bitter face. When she began to rage, to scream, to beat, her voice cracked and she sounded like 1. Buber-Neumann refers to a Gallinat who was the second chief overseer, beside Langefeld, in Ravensbriick at this time. While Langefeld was in charge of the camp's internal affairs, Gallinat was, according to Buber-Neumann, in charge of outside camp affairs {Under Two Dictators, 263). 224 The Blessed Abyss a fury. One minute she was friendly, the next she was suddenly mean, so mean and nasty that once, after she had beaten some inmates terribly, a few prisoners could no longer contain themselves and attacked her, screaming, "German whore!" after her. I don't know if this word could be applied to Overseer Gallinat; for as far as I could observe, she lived in seclusion (in contrast to many other overseers, who for the most part were quite morally and ethically depraved). Since it could not be ascertained which inmates had attacked and insulted the overseer, and they did not voluntarily report themselves, there was a camp-wide punishment again: standing punishment and food deprivation. For me, food deprivation was not the worst thing, for my stomach could take in almost nothing anymore. But the standing punishment, hour after hour, was horribly difficult for me. After I had performed heavy outdoor labor, I suffered constantly from bad back pains. These back pains had increased so much during the last months that after I had sat for a long time, I often could no longer lift myself up from my writing chair and crept around like an old woman. Fm still weighed down by this suffering today. In the doctors' opinion, it is a disease of the dorsal vertebrae. I still want to mention two good inmates with whom I came together day after day during the last months. They wereJehovah's Witnesses, both white-haired grannies of almost seventy years of age. They had left their husbands and children, ended up in the concentration camp for their "beliefs," and had lived a pathetic but heroic life here for over a decade now. They were always gentle and friendly. The work of these two consisted of cleaningthe offices ofthe chiefoverseer, the inspection room ofthe overseers, the corridors, office toilets, and so on. For curiosity's sake, I frequently talked with them about their "beliefs." There must have been something to it that held them so tightly to their views, since everyday they only would have needed to sign a form with a statement of their withdrawal from the sect of the Jehovah's Witnesses in order to escape from this hell. These preprinted certificates lay in piles of hundreds in the...

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