Dachau: The Harrowing of Hell

14. The Inspection

14 THE INSPECTION Not as many inmates are standing at the fence as I had thought, probably because it is too cold. A few walk slowly over to us, and I see from their gait and then from their pinched features that they have been starved. They crowd around us, finger our insignia. One of them, listening to the distant cannon fire, asks if they are safe. Yes, I reply. The Nazis are gone; they will never come back; we have driven them away; soon the war will be over. They try to smile. Yesterday, the day of liberation, must have been a great day for these men, I think. I wish I had been here. How they must have rejoiced! The inmates volunteer to be our guides, to show us the sights. We head toward the barracks and reach them before our guides because they cannot walk as fast as we do. We detour around more bodies in their blue-white striped uniforms; there are bodies in front of and between these buildings. There are thirty-two one-story, low-ceilinged wooden barracks , or blocks, arranged in two rows separated by a wide dirt street. Most of them have eight rooms filled with tripletiered wooden beds, some of which have rags or filthy straw ticks thrown over them. Now, lying head to foot, as many as three men are crowded onto each narrow bed. Each building holds from 1,000 to 1,900 men; if each person had his own space in which to sleep there would be room for only 650 men in each block. These are not really beds, but shelves measuring thirty-two inches wide and seven feet long. There are no pla~es for the inmates to sit, so most of them lie on these slabs. As they look at us, their bald, shaven, or partly shaven heads jut out, and we can see part of their shoulders and chests. The rest of their bod88 I ies are hidden by the bedsteads. Some try to smile, but emaciated , sallow faces do not convey emotions. The feelings are there, however. Some of the inmates come over and touch us; others, too weak to stand, wave their hands feebly; others weep. Here are healthy prisoners, others who are sick, and some who are dying-too weak to get up for the biologic necessities : to eat, urinate, or defecate. When they are in an upper berth, the excreta drip down over the men below. They are dying of starvation, or are afflicted with a disease or combination of diseases made more serious by the starvation. There are no opportunities here for diagnosis and treatment, obviously. Why are they here? I ask some of the healthier men. Because there is no room in the hospital for them. In some of the berths are the recent dead. The well, the sick, the dying, and the dead lie next to each other in these poorly ventilated, unheated, dark, stinking buildings. The washrooms have too few troughs, the water mains are inoperative , and the number of foul, deep-pit latrines are inadequate . There are no clothes closets but this is no deprivation because the only clothes the internees possess are the ones they wear; all other items were checked into the camp on admission and stored. Some of the barracks have lockers. What do these people need? Everything. They have only their prison uniforms, inadequate, torn shoes, some have coats and caps. I should start making notes, and I pull out of my pocket a small German diary, a Taschenkalender for the year 1940, that I found somewhere. As I look for a blank page I find a list of important German dates, and I read that tomorrow, May I, is a legal holiday for the German people. I wonder if it will be celebrated here? Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813. Hitler became the leader of the Nazi Party on May 29, 192 I. I find an empty page and start my list; these people will need underclothes, overclothes, shoes, socks, towels, bedding, beds, soap, toilet paper, more latrines, new quarters. How have they survived? The human body has a greater capacity for endurance than I thought. Of course, my experience has been with the weak and the sick, people under attack by their natural and synthetic enemies: bacteria, cancer, faulty chromosomes, the aging process, battering automobiles, peneThe Inspection I 89 trating bullets, extremes of temperature, excesses of food...