Chapter 4. Combs for Kielbasa
Making five hundred rifle barrel tips per day was no easy task. Any mistakes and you could be taken outside and shot. This was Henry's job while he was forced to work at the munitions factory just outside Radom. What once produced bicycles was now converted into a production line to feed the Nazi war machine with rifles and pistols. Henry worked alongside Polish civilians who were hired by the Nazis to work there, yet he was not as fortunate as they were. He had to work twelve-hour days in exchange for a pathetic amount of food and the privilege of staying alive.
Every morning Henry and several hundred other Jewish prisoners would march from the Konzentrationslager (concentration camp), the KL near Radom, to the munitions factory about an hour away. When he first arrived by truck along with hundreds of other men, he found the KL surrounded by tall barbed-wire fences. The men were split into many small groups: there were Jews, Mongols, Tatars, Russians, and Yugoslavians. The Nazis considered them all to be political prisoners, and so they had to take off all of their clothes and shoes and remove all of their jewelry, including eyeglasses. Henry's head was shaved, and he was given a blue and grey striped uniform with a small round cap and a pair of black shoes. A patch was sewn on his uniform just above the left breast in the shape of a red triangle designating him as a political prisoner. He only had this one uniform to wear day and night. If he wanted to wash it, he did it by hand at night and slept naked on a wooden bunk bed that had some straw scattered on it for a mattress. Or sometimes he just wore it wet all day until it dried.
He was given a metal bowl and a spoon. These were his only possessions. He kept them with him at all times because if he lost his bowl, he would not eat. Therefore it became the most valuable possession in his life. He was fed once a day, after working for twelve hours in the munitions factory. His meal consisted of a thin soup—mostly water with a few small pieces of potato at the bottom—and a tiny piece of bread.
Henry was now 15 years old and was separated from his entire family, yet he seldom thought of them. He was too hungry and caught up in the immediate need for survival. He knew that the only way he could continue to live was to get some extra food from the Poles who worked at the factory alongside him. He saw grown men slowly whittle away, day by day. They would get weaker and thinner until they would just drop dead. He didn't want to wind up like that. He didn't want to starve. He didn't want to be hungry all the time, which he was. His mind was filled with thoughts of how to obtain food from the Poles without getting shot, and this kept his mind from wondering what happened to his parents and siblings. His family became secondary. His primary goal was food.
Every morning Henry and several hundred other Jewish prisoners would march from the Konzentrationslager (concentration camp), the KL near Radom, to the munitions factory about an hour away. When he first arrived by truck along with hundreds of other men, he found the KL surrounded by tall barbed-wire fences. The men were split into many small groups: there were Jews, Mongols, Tatars, Russians, and Yugoslavians. The Nazis considered them all to be political prisoners, and so they had to take off all of their clothes and shoes and remove all of their jewelry, including eyeglasses. Henry's head was shaved, and he was given a blue and grey striped uniform with a small round cap and a pair of black shoes. A patch was sewn on his uniform just above the left breast in the shape of a red triangle designating him as a political prisoner. He only had this one uniform to wear day and night. If he wanted to wash it, he did it by hand at night and slept naked on a wooden bunk bed that had some straw scattered on it for a mattress. Or sometimes he just wore it wet all day until it dried.
He was given a metal bowl and a spoon. These were his only possessions. He kept them with him at all times because if he lost his bowl, he would not eat. Therefore it became the most valuable possession in his life. He was fed once a day, after working for twelve hours in the munitions factory. His meal consisted of a thin soup—mostly water with a few small pieces of potato at the bottom—and a tiny piece of bread.
Henry was now 15 years old and was separated from his entire family, yet he seldom thought of them. He was too hungry and caught up in the immediate need for survival. He knew that the only way he could continue to live was to get some extra food from the Poles who worked at the factory alongside him. He saw grown men slowly whittle away, day by day. They would get weaker and thinner until they would just drop dead. He didn't want to wind up like that. He didn't want to starve. He didn't want to be hungry all the time, which he was. His mind was filled with thoughts of how to obtain food from the Poles without getting shot, and this kept his mind from wondering what happened to his parents and siblings. His family became secondary. His primary goal was food.