But the camp dogs were not friendly or lovable.
Most of them were German shepherds and kept on very tight leashes. They barked without reason, lunged at the prisoners, and even bit them from time to time. Today, though, what Mindel watched was something she would never be able to forget, something her father had assured her no dog was capable of doing.
The guards released the dogs, and all three of them descended upon the woman who was on her hands and knees, struggling to get back on her feet. The dogs jumped on her, and Mindel finally closed her eyes, and put her hands on her ears, but she still heard the snapping jaws, the ripping of flesh and above all the bone-chilling screams.
Then it was silent again.
Mindel peeked through her lids and gasped. There was blood everywhere. One of the guards shook his head and joked that the dogs were going to need a bath. Since nobody else moved or said a word, she removed the hands from her ears, stood a bit taller and looked straight ahead into the distance. Surely, in the mauled body there wasn’t a soul left that could move into the sky.
When the roll call finally ended, many more prisoners had collapsed to the ground. The SS sent every person on a work detail away, leaving only the old, sick and young waiting to be dismissed.
One of the guards looked at Hanneli, who was standing several rows away from Mindel. “You! Come here!”
The girl obeyed and he yelled at her: “Take that filthy group of brats and see to it that they bring the living prisoners back to the barracks. Leave the dead for the Sonderkommando.”
Hanneli nodded and called the children around her to explain, “We have to bring everyone who’s still alive back to the barracks.”
“But how do we know?” a girl about Mindel’s age asked.
“If they move or breathe when you poke them, drag them back to their hut. You’d best work in groups of four, because the people can be rather heavy,” Hanneli said.
That made sense. Mindel admired the older girl for her grasp of the situation. She hadn’t even thought about the weight of an injured person.
“What about if they don’t move or breathe?” Mindel asked.
“Then they’re dead and later the Sonderkommando will take them to the crematorium. And don’t forget to count how many people you return to the huts and how many are dead. The SS will want to know.” Hanneli assigned the children into groups, always two older ones with two younger ones.
Ruth and Fabian were in Mindel’s group along with an older girl she’d seen before but didn’t actually know.
“I’m Laura,” the girl said and then beckoned them forward. “Let’s get going.”
They approached the first person lying on the ground. This one was obviously dead, her eyes wide open, as was her mouth. She was so gaunt she looked very scary and Mindel took a wide berth around her body.
“Can you count?” Laura asked her.
“To five.” Mindel put up the fingers of one hand.
“Good, you count the sticks and Fabian the living.”
Mindel nodded, pressing her lips together at the prospect of her very important task. She moved to the next fallen person, while Laura and Ruth were helping someone up and half-carrying her to the huts. Mindel stooped down and looked at the grayish, emaciated woman, who seemed to be asleep. Not sure how to decide whether the person was alive or not, she remembered Hanneli’s instructions to poke them.
At first, she did very softly, and when no reaction came, a bit harder. The woman didn’t move. Was that enough to determine whether a person was actually dead? Mindel had some doubts and looked up at Fabian, who waited a few steps behind.
“You have to poke harder,” he said.
It didn’t feel right, but Mindel shoved the woman – hard. She still didn’t move. “I think she’s dead.”
“We must be sure, because they’ll put her in the oven.”
Mindel felt all the blood draining from her face. The ovens. No, she certainly wouldn’t want someone to be burned alive. She got up and kicked the woman with all her strength in the midriff. Still no reaction.
“She really is dead,” Fabian said and backed off to check on the next person.
“That’s two.” Mindel hadn’t forgotten her task of counting the corpses. By the time Laura and Ruth returned, she’d run out of fingers for counting. “That’s how many we got,” she told Laura and showed two hands, “and then one more.”
“Eleven?” Laura asked.
Mindel had no idea, but nodded anyway.
“And how many living?” Laura turned to Fabian.
“Only three. Come here, I’ll show you where they are.” He led the small group to the first of the injured and together they managed to get all the people in their assigned rows back to the huts.
“That was so exhausting,” Mindel complained and only now remembered her horrible thirst. With the excitement of having to count corpses she’d completely forgotten about it, but now it returned with a vengeance and she hoped the tap behind one of the huts where they got water for sweeping the floors would give a few drops.
She was lucky and with much patience managed to fill her mug with almost two inches of water that she drank greedily. It tasted foul and muddy, but who was she to complain? Then she shuffled across the courtyard to her own hut, her legs too tired to take proper steps. All she wanted was to climb into her bunk and sleep until the much-talked-about Allies would come and rescue her. Not paying attention, she bumped against someone and the next moment, a voice snarled at her. “Filthy brat!”
She looked up and saw a guard pulling a whip from his belt and swinging it at her. It struck her on the back, and she cried out. Stupefied, she stared at him, until a loud shout
