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stayed because I had no one to go home to. No home, in fact. My school friends were scattered, father and sister dead. One day I realized that my only friend was Herschel. I treated him as an equal and brought him scraps of food. I tried to protect him from the abuses of the other guards. Granski was the worst. He said he enjoyed killing the rats, that he was doing the world a favor. I grew up quickly in this camp. Many times the farmer’s words came back to me: abattoir, hell.
    I wore shoes taken from the storehouse, a baggy pair of trousers, which barely reached to my calves and my uniform coat and hat. I had neither undergarment nor socks, for these had all fallen apart many weeks ago, and there were none to be had in the storehouse. Herschel gave what clothes he could to the other prisoners, and I assisted him. Our storehouse seemed to be the dispensary, clothing store, cooking utensil supply and shroud source.
    Oh, yes, we had lots of shrouds. In the beginning we received many hundreds of burial shrouds. Now we were tearing them up for rags and dressings for the many weeping sores. Yes, I lived with my friend in hell.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4 - Herschel’s Story
     
     
    Hans became my pupil. Most days we prisoners were roused from our pallets with a kick and were shoved ahead of guards to tables and benches for some food, though food was a polite term. These days every meal was a thin, watery gruel. Sometimes there were maize granules, pig feed; or small pieces of root vegetables, rarely meat. Two of the guards trekked into town and traded gold teeth or small pins for whatever they could find. Sometimes they would commandeer a cart and horse from a farmer to bring them back.
    A guard named Jurgen was the cook for both the guards and the prisoners. The war was nearing the end, and we were all starving, guards and prisoners alike. The prisoners wore striped uniforms, though rags were more like it, while the guard’s uniforms had deteriorated to a like state. There were few clothes remaining in the counting house and what was there were mainly children’s and women’s. The moths and rats had made Swiss cheese of most of them.
    One day, as we crouched in the sorting house, we were discussing the
    carat weight of gold. For some reason, Hans asked me what my family name was. Now he had rarely talked about family, his or mine. “Why do you ask, Hans?” I warily questioned. Was he trying to get some information from me?
    He shrugged, “Just want to know who I am working with.” I was taken aback. Working with? Not ‘had under me’ or ‘who my prisoner is’, but working with . I was almost loath to reply, but something compelled me to answer honestly. Hans had never abused me, never hit me. In fact he frequently gave me a crust of bread or an apple piece from his own larder.
    I drew in a breath and said, “My full name is Herschel David Rothberg.”
    He jumped up, dropping the gold chain he’d been fingering, “You’ve gone too far, Jew. You make jest of me.”
    I frowned, frightened, “Why? What do you mean, Hans, I mean, sir?” I covered my head with my hands and leaned against the wall, drawing up my feet in expectation of a rain of blows.
    He leaned forward, face almost touching mine. “My family name is also Rothberg, Herschel. How did you know? I never told you.” He was angry and perplexed. He drew away and walked in close circles, muttering to himself.
    I gaped, at him. “This is true? Rothberg? You are a Rothberg?” I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing. What a cruel joke. I, a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp, a death camp, shared the same family name with my guard, a good German boy, a Hitler Youth. I laughed. Lord, how I laughed, holding my sides, tears running down my face.
    Hans understood the irony of it, and then he smiled. In a moment he started laughing too. Harder and harder. Oh, the paradox, that fate should give us this moment. Guard and prisoner shook with