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all of the banking in the Reich. How could that be?
    We took the Jews we arrested to a holding pen near the railroad yard in my town. I was told that this was happening all over Germany, and once all the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals – I didn’t know what this meant until later – and ‘enemies of the state’ were rounded up and sent to work camps, Germany would reclaim her rightful place as the leader of nations in the world.
    My Papa used to tell me how bad things were after the Great War, a war we lost and then were treated very poorly by the Allies. It was Der Fuehrer who made us see how great we could be again. I was proud to be part of our recovery.
    When I arrived at the camp, I was appalled. This was not a large camp, just six rough wooden buildings for the prisoners, and three somewhat smaller ones to the left of the gate for the guards and German support personnel. A cookhouse and kitchen for the guards and Commandant was next. Directly beside the gate was the main administrative office where the Commandant, Major Boettcher, his aide Sergeant Mueller, and a secretary worked. The camp was surrounded by high barbed wire strands and had tall watchtowers in two of the corners. The camp was designed to hold almost one thousand prisoners, though I couldn’t see where we could feed this many or even house them. I was disgusted at the condition of the prisoners. How could we keep these men working if they were in such poor physical condition? It took me only a couple of days to see that this was maybe once thought of as a work camp but was now an extermination camp. I was sickened and did everything I could to stay away from the gashouse. But one day I was ordered to help supervise the removal of bodies from this place.
    That was when I met Herschel. He was about my age but taller. He moved swiftly and did the jobs assigned to him without lagging. I had no need to strike him or abuse him in any way. However, some of the other guards abused the prisoners whenever they could, I think because they were bored. After a while, I saw him, not as a rat, but as a boy near my own age. He and I might have been friends back in my town.
    He did not have the look of the stereotypical Jew: curly black hair, hooked nose, grasping hands that were on all the propaganda posters. He instead, had dark brown hair, green eyes, but with pale skin. His features were regular, and he often smiled. In our later discussions, I found him intelligent, respectful, quick, and most astonishing of all, not beaten down as most of the other prisoners seemed to be.
    After a time, I tried to insert myself between the other guards and Herschel. I escorted him to the storehouse where the dead prisoners’ belongings were sorted and kept until they could be sent to Berlin. Sometimes I was able to give him some food from the guard’s kitchen.
    As the war ground on, the trains grew fewer, then stopped. The prisoners ceased coming, and the belongings remained in the storehouse. No vehicles came to claim them. No further orders came from Berlin or Dachau. What is more, the supply trucks with our food stopped coming.
    That is when Herschel started instructing me in the lore of precious metals and gems. I was an apt pupil, not long out of school, and the thirst for knowledge was still strong in me. Daily, I roused him with a light kick or a shove from his pallet in Barracks 4 and escorted him to his place in the kitchen area so he and I could eat what little food was available. Then we were off to the storehouse for the day’s instruction. Sometimes one of the other young guards and I would go into the nearest town with a small bauble Herschel would select, and trade it for food or petrol, when there was some available.
    I was worried that Granski, the older Polish guard, would kill all of the prisoners and possibly the rest of the guards. Several times he said, “If the Allies find out what has been done here, they will kill us all.” He was referring to us