11. Danner

ELEVEN

Dachau, Germany

The rear of the truck I’ve been bouncing around in opens, allowing in an abundance of sunlight, blinding me to my surroundings. After learning Papa had been arrested, I wanted to convince myself that he’d been taken to a common prison for criminals, but no one would truly believe that these days. Even Felix’s house overflows with gossip and stories about the aforementioned concentration camps, places of internment for not only political opponents but Jewish people too. We don’t know much about what happens at these locations because no one seems to return from them. That fact should have spoken for itself.

A Gestapo pulls me from the back of the truck and my feet hardly graze the ground before I’m being dragged toward a group of men. Most of them have a suitcase of belongings. I have nothing except for what’s in my pockets.

SS guards stand before a tall metal iron gate, shouting at us to get into a single line. The others forming the line in front of and behind me appear bewildered, unknowing, and lost. No one can see much of what exists on the other side of the foreboding gates.

Minutes pass, standing here in the unnatural heat coming from a combination of crammed bodies, steam from the train, and smog settling beneath sun. I’ve gotten used to the missing scent of flowers, but the ash, smoke, and the sweet odor of something rotting is an unwelcome replacement. What would happen if I moved a foot forward— if I tried to run from the line, or collapsed in the act of falling faint? The guards don’t try hard to conceal the weapons accessorizing their uniforms so I imagine I would be shot. The guards don’t choose to fight. They choose to kill. We’ve been trained to know this and never question anything different.

When the gates whine and groan, opening enough for this line to pass through, we move in unison, like the legs of a caterpillar. Now on the other side, I spot lines of people wrapped around the long building to the right. To the left, in the distance are rows of wide buildings, most of which look identical to each other. Between the building to the right and the others to the left is a vast field of dry gravel, dust fogging up by our ankles each time we move forward.

“What do you think they’re going to do with us?” the boy in front of me asks, keeping his voice to a quiet mutter. He must be around David’s age, just a few years younger than me but seemingly even more in the dark than I am.

“I’m not sure,” I reply just as quietly. The boy’s eyes are wide, and he’s shivering even though the air is anything but cold.

“I’m scared,” he says.

My mind replaces his face with David’s and the urge to hug him and tell him something that will keep him calm is strong but that won’t help him, and it wouldn’t help me if someone were willing to offer me the same.

A door from a wide, shallow building opens to the left of the line, and a different line of men exit, one in front of the other, in prison uniforms. They’re holding objects I can’t make out from here, but they catch the rays of the sunlight. Most of the men are shuffling their feet, dragging their weight as if tired and stripped of energy, leaving us to wonder what will happen to us once we step in through the doors we’re slowly weaving into.

As we move closer to the fa?ade of the building, I spot a sign calling the building Administration Office of Dachau.

Dachau. I’ve heard of the camp. The town isn’t far from Munich, despite the amount of time it took to arrive here.

The initial room we step into isn’t large, and I shouldn’t be surprised to see the line I’ve been standing in snaking around the interior space. An SS guard in his green uniform stands at the front, questioning each person. I can’t hear much from the other side of the room, but the struggle of the men trying to speak shows by the bobble of their Adams’ apples.

If I had known I would end up here today, I would have eaten more of what Frau Weber offered me for breakfast. Hunger is already creeping in, like talons pinching my stomach, and I doubt I’ll find food anytime soon here.

“I’m not some common criminal,” a man shouts, standing before the SS guard. “My son is here somewhere, and he’s innocent as well. I must find him at once.” He tears a paper out of the guard’s hand and tosses it in his face before spitting at him. “I won’t comply with you pigs.” The man, in dress shirt and loose slacks, steps away from the guard and turns around to face the opening we walked in through. “Jacob! It’s Papa. Do you hear?—”

A shot fires, the blast echoes against the four walls we’re standing between and in the following silence, a body falls to the ground like a boulder plummeting from a high cliff.

“Next,” the guard calls.

The man who said what we would all like to say is now nothing more than an obstacle we must avoid while making our way in the line. No one tells us that man’s outburst should be a lesson to us all. We’re expected to learn by example.

Twenty seconds pass between each step forward, indicating I’ll be standing here another two hours before I’m questioned. Like most of the other men, I’m sent to the next room where more lines await. Before I hear the command, I assume what’s to come as the others strip down bare before dumping their clothes into a rubbish bin.

“Remove your personal belongings,” a voice shouts.

I unclasp Felix’s belt from around my waist and reach into my pockets for the few belongings I always carry on me. The trousers drop to the ground, and I tug at my shirt, pulling the buttons from the seamed narrow holes.

What else can they take from us? If not for the sake of humiliation, what good are our clothes when every Nazi is donned in rich uniforms emblazoned with metals and satin trim. No one looks at one another, not out of a form of respect, but because we’re all looking toward what comes next.

A man in a prisoner uniform holds a metal syringe the size of my torso, spraying a white fog across each person’s body. They must be trying to kill possible bugs. But first, an electric blade is pressed to my scalp, removing every hair on my head before shoving me over to the man fogging the others in front of me. The white fog strikes my skin like jagged ice shards, stealing the remaining warmth from my body.

“Your belongings,” a man demands, shoving a basket against my chest. He’s in a prisoner uniform too, which confuses me.

“Can I?—”

“All of it,” he says, shoving the basket with more force.

I drop my wallet, identification, and passport, clinging to my pocket watch and small folded up note from Papa. A stick slashes at me, seemingly coming from out of nowhere, thrashing against my hand, forcing me to drop the pocket watch and note. My two prized possessions fall to the ground between the worn and torn black boots of the prisoner collecting items. I gaze at the watch, as if I were leaving another person behind in my past. I’ve had on a brave face until now but the weakness inside of me threatens to break me.

I’m torn from my distressing thought as a pile of clothes and a thin wool blanket are topped with a metal bowl, spoon, and cup. I’m shoved along in the moving line, trying to keep myself from staring back at the pocket watch I’ll likely never see again.

“This is all you will need.” The guard’s words splinter through my spine, on a loop for every prisoner passing through the lines.

I believe every word.