This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

It’s a cold, rainy evening and the men in the camp are starving. They have been waiting all day for soup, which is waiting for them at the barracks. The Kommandant has lined up 20 Russian soldiers in their striped camp uniforms. Tadek and his fellow inmates watch as the Kommandant declares that the men are criminals, Communists that must be punished. Tadek notes how groomed and well-dressed the Kommandant and other Nazi soldiers are compared to the inmates. The Kommandant declares that there will be no dinner for anyone in the camp and orders the Block Elders to bring the cauldrons of soup back to the kitchen, threatening, “If even one cup is missing, you’ll have to answer to me” (154). The Kommandant orders the S.S. soldiers to execute the Russians. They fire and the Russians fall. The Kommandant drives away, and the gathered crowd of prisoners converges on the bodies until they are dispersed. Tadek stands back but describes how the following day, a Jewish inmate tries to persuade him “that human brains are, in fact, so tender you can eat them absolutely raw” (156).