See Day 1 (Blog 1) for introduction!
"There was still no drinking water so most of us drank of the dirty pools on the earthern floor with dire results to follow. I abstained and found myself a place against the back of another fellow and alternatively against a wooden panel. People started dropping downwards again and making room in this way.
I put one sole under my buttocks, the other under my feet. In this way, I took some naps in the long and eventful night that followed. First, I was rudely awakened by a couple of shots, some of our fellows got shot for daring to go outside for starters! That was out of bounds.
Later in the night, we heard muffled voices and shovelling and we couldn't make out why, we weren't allowed to see anything, you see - we were always left completely in the dark.
The morning of another day arrived and we were allowed to go out into the early morning dew to the pit, managing for what we had to do! The two shot bodies of our comrades were placed next to the pit to be hauled away.
When the food came around, which judging by the sunlight, was about nine, which I am afraid I cannot prove either, not having an instrument amongst us to give us a measure of time, I say all this as a matter of fact. Sometimes, a machine made by man and programmed to his conceptions is more believed than man himself.
This again, seems to me, to be especially the case today. I have noticed that many of the disbelievers of what happened in the camps have a special attraction to machines programmed to man's conceptions. It is something they can see and therefore they justify their arguments through technology which I have observed with utter amazement but not disbelief like them!
A knowledge of time was forgotten, somehow, by us, the soldiers had watches but it was safer to keeps ones distance from them.
After the bodies had been removed and the soldiers had left - don't forget we were a camp within a camp, we noticed and found ourselves inbetween barbed wire on the inside of an electrical fence.
The food was atrocious but we ate it eagerly, just a bowl with a glue-like, jelly-like substance holding the cabbage and some seeds together - I think it was some rye. No utensils of course, a little bread was provided and we managed to pick the food up with the bread and slurped down the rest like animals do.
That was the idea, we were reduced or rather brought down to that
level ........ "
There is enough material in my Dad's memoirs for me to continue this blog for many more months! I will also include official camp papers and other material that my Dad kept from the war in the next few months!
"There was still no drinking water so most of us drank of the dirty pools on the earthern floor with dire results to follow. I abstained and found myself a place against the back of another fellow and alternatively against a wooden panel. People started dropping downwards again and making room in this way.
I put one sole under my buttocks, the other under my feet. In this way, I took some naps in the long and eventful night that followed. First, I was rudely awakened by a couple of shots, some of our fellows got shot for daring to go outside for starters! That was out of bounds.
Later in the night, we heard muffled voices and shovelling and we couldn't make out why, we weren't allowed to see anything, you see - we were always left completely in the dark.
The morning of another day arrived and we were allowed to go out into the early morning dew to the pit, managing for what we had to do! The two shot bodies of our comrades were placed next to the pit to be hauled away.
When the food came around, which judging by the sunlight, was about nine, which I am afraid I cannot prove either, not having an instrument amongst us to give us a measure of time, I say all this as a matter of fact. Sometimes, a machine made by man and programmed to his conceptions is more believed than man himself.
This again, seems to me, to be especially the case today. I have noticed that many of the disbelievers of what happened in the camps have a special attraction to machines programmed to man's conceptions. It is something they can see and therefore they justify their arguments through technology which I have observed with utter amazement but not disbelief like them!
A knowledge of time was forgotten, somehow, by us, the soldiers had watches but it was safer to keeps ones distance from them.
After the bodies had been removed and the soldiers had left - don't forget we were a camp within a camp, we noticed and found ourselves inbetween barbed wire on the inside of an electrical fence.
The food was atrocious but we ate it eagerly, just a bowl with a glue-like, jelly-like substance holding the cabbage and some seeds together - I think it was some rye. No utensils of course, a little bread was provided and we managed to pick the food up with the bread and slurped down the rest like animals do.
That was the idea, we were reduced or rather brought down to that
level ........ "
There is enough material in my Dad's memoirs for me to continue this blog for many more months! I will also include official camp papers and other material that my Dad kept from the war in the next few months!
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