I wish to confess to you, before I am dead myself.

Even to wish to be chosen as a kapo, as the head of a work crew, is an act of supreme egotism: to choose your own survival over another’s survival is understandable; to do so repeatedly is an act of monstrous egotism.

Here in a concentration camp, no attitude can be concealed for long.

When I chose to work with the Germans, it was not because I liked them: indeed I loathed them, their arrogance and cruelty, their ability to ignore consequences.   I chose this because I saw myself as better than them, and even more importantly, as better than all other prisoners.

Occasionally we get a “saint” here, someone who is not afraid to suffer or to die.  They help others and they cooperate in their work crew.  But they don’t last long.  If you are on a starvation diet and you give away some of your food—-I don’t need to spell it out for you.

Now I come to the crux of my tale.  Those who make trouble, trouble of any kind, are “selected”.  Each prisoner has a number tattooed on their arm: this alone is a violation of Jewish law.  Those who make trouble stand out.  I meet every evening with a German officer, and any prisoner who I report can be “selected” for the next day.  Their number is called, and the group of prisoners is marched away, never to return.  Their bodies are cremated, another violation of Jewish law, and no one speaks of them again.  To do so would present a clear danger of being “selected” oneself.

As a prisoner, one comes here to be worked to death—-starved, exhausted, in terror, in pain.

My son lasted three weeks.  He wouldn’t heed anything I said, took no advice from me, nor, apparently, from anyone.

I can’t remember how many people I suggested for “selection”: perhaps fifty, perhaps two hundred.  He was not one of them.  When his number was called, he looked at me with a look of mingled anger, hatred and terror.  He went to his death believing I had “selected” him.

After that, staying alive myself seemed pointless: what was I living for?  It was only a matter of time until I would be dead myself, but I no longer cared.  At least I would not be causing the deaths of others.

It was on parade, when I was ordered to beat a “saint”, that I rebelled.  I refused and was shot, but my life had been over for a while then.

In this life, I have finally remembered who I was and what I chose.

Perhaps someday I can forgive myself.

Lou Gottlieb                              12/30/12

(If you wish to know how I became a kapo, click here.