“Swine, march out!” Kramer ordered the prisoners.
The men, women, and children that made up the prisoner population walked in measured steps out of the holding area. They were led about half a kilometer by SS men to a train station and given the command to halt in front of an old German passenger train.
The train doors were opened and Wayne could see that it was already crowded. Those people appeared to Wayne to be much like the people he had spent the night with in the prisoner holding area; they wore the same blank and sad defeated look on their faces.
SS men directed the prisoners into the train cars in no apparent order, but did keep them moving as rapidly as they could. When a woman, as she was about to step up onto the train, slipped, an SS man picked her up and shoved her into the train compartment.
The musty, old train had been gutted of any seats or railings. The windows had been blackened. The Gestapo made sure the prisoners received no amenities at all, including breathing space. The prisoners had been packed on the train like sardines in a can. The train doors were closed and locked and the train began to move.
Wayne and Linda sat on the floor next to each other. Everyone was strangely quiet, even the children. Jessica’s mother, who was present in the same compartment as Wayne, sat there, with her knees pulled up to her chest, staring blankly into space. After about half an hour into their journey, something must have snapped in her head.
Suddenly, she cried out, “My baby! Where is my baby! Jessica! Please someone help me find my baby…”
The persons in the woman’s train compartment originally tried to ignore her, as people usually do on the streets when they happen upon a drunkard mumbling to himself. The prisoners looked the other way.
The woman’s frantic cries became louder and louder, turning into screams. “SOMEONE’S TAKEN MY BABY, SOMEONE’S TAKEN MY BABY! DEAR GOD, WHERE IS MY BABY? PLEASE SOMEONE, HELP ME FIND…”
Something had to be done for the sanity of all of the people on that train compartment. A tall, burly prisoner, who looked better fed than any of the other prisoners, removed his shoes from his feet, as well as his socks. He got up, and clumsily stepped over the passengers, until he was at the hysterical woman. He proceeded to gag the woman’s mouth with one of his socks and bind her hands together with his other sock. The train compartment became silent once again. The burly prisoner went back to his cramped corner and put back on his shoes.
Wayne felt sorry for the woman, but had agreed with the actions taken by the burly prisoner. It was too crowded, hot, and uncomfortable on that train, and to let that woman rant on would have surely made the other passengers go insane also. Wayne felt as if he was almost at that point himself.
The train stopped two more times to pick up more prisoners, who were crammed into the already much too tiny space for the passengers who had been present on the train to begin with. It took hours for the train to reach its destination. The wheels of the train squealed as the air brakes were applied. Wayne nudged Linda awake.
The train doors opened up to reveal armed SS men standing on the platform.
“Unload the train,” an SS Captain yelled into a megaphone. He looked so proper in his shiny black polished boots and black cap and black uniform with the SS insignia on his collar. He carried a leather crop in his hand for good measure.
The prisoners began disembarking from the train. Wayne made it a point to pause to ungag and untie Jessica’s mother. She had sat placidly since being restrained and Wayne felt that she had been through enough.
The SS Captain yelled instructions to the newly arrived prisoners via his megaphone. “Form two lines,” he directed. “One male, one female. Males to the left. Females to the right. Anyone who causes a problem or delay will be shot like the dog they are.” With their kicks and other coercions, the SS men made sure the prisoners obeyed the SS Captain’s command without the slightest procrastination.
Wayne and Linda were forced to separate. “I will get in touch with you as soon as I can,” Wayne promised her. “Do the same?”
“I will,” Linda said. An SS man came and pushed her into the female line before she could say anything else.
With the two long lines formed, the SS Captain commanded, through his megaphone, “Females, march out left. Move it.”
The women began to move. As Linda passed Wayne, she gave him a long stare goodbye. Wayne had a feeling that she was growing attached to him in a way that he was not quite comfortable with. That would be the least of his problems.
“Males, march out right,” the SS Captain ordered.
The men moved out in the opposite direction of the females did. As they moved out the SS men struck and belittled the men.
Wayne was still not aware of where he was being taken. He had the feeling it was going to be some kind of prison, but when he saw what it actually turned out to be, his jaw dropped.
The male prisoners reached the big iron gates of their destiny, Hollenburg. Wayne had seen enough pictures and documentaries in history classes to know what the place that stood before him was.
Hollenburg was a concentration camp.
Wayne thought about how from the outside, where he was standing, the camp looked like it was straight out of the 1940’s. Just like the ones he had seen in the black and white footage in those World War Two documentaries. As Wayne had always pictured a concentration camp, Hollenburg appeared no different. A barbed wire fence encircled the camp. Catwalks connected tower posts that contained armed SS men. A large sign at the entrance read: Hollenburg. Another sign at the entrance also contained a favorite Nazi lie: “Work liberates”. Wayne thought about the lunacy of a concentration camp in 1995 on what should have been American soil. And he was about to enter it.
As the prisoners neared the entrance of the camp, they were made to stop at a large table set up with files and typewriters on it. SS clerks sat behind the table, busily shouting and pecking away at their manual typewriters at the same time. Wayne’s turn came to step up to the table.
“Name?” a shifty-eyed SS clerk shouted with intimidation.
“Wayne.”
“Wayne what?”
Wayne had to think fast about what to say next. If he gave his real last name, then the SS would know he was Jewish, if they did not know already. Should he try and hide that fact? Where he was being admitted, would it make any difference anyway? Wayne decided not to take the chance of being caught fibbing. He answered, “Goldberg.”
“Height?”
“Five foot, eight inches.”
The SS clerk typed Wayne’s information onto a file card. “Weight?”
“A hundred and seventy-five.”
“Hair color?”
“Black.”
“Eye color?”
“Brown.”
“The name of the whore that spat you into the world?” the clerk wanted to know of Wayne.
With that question, Wayne wanted to punch the clerk. It was part of the Nazi strategy to demoralize the prisoners, Wayne knew. He would have to bear it, at least for the time being. He responded to the clerk, “Phyllis.”
“The agency that arrested you and the other scum?”
“The Gestapo.”
The SS clerk put a pen and the file card he had just been typing on in front of Wayne and told him, “Sign it.”
Wayne signed his signature on the bottom of the card. To the SS, that served to certify the accuracy of his statements.
After all of the prisoners had their information writen down and their photographs taken, they were then admitted to the camp center.
As Wayne walked through the camp’s main gate, he felt like crying. How could he have screwed up the world
