My hands and feet are numb with cold. We have been standing here for two hours. We are not allowed to move.
I look up at the jagged line of evergreens in the Parczew Forest beyond the fences and I wish I could stand among them. I want to feel the rough bark of their trunks with my hands because it is natural. It is natural, and this is not. Some of the trees are wounded, their branches snapped away and threaded into the fences to camouflage the camp from the outside world, and conceal parts of the camp from each other.
We are standing on the Rampe. Hard concrete and slippery leaves underfoot. Behind us is the train that brought us here from Lublin. We are separated into groups. The men are in one group, and women with small children in another. I can see my wife. She is wearing a heavy brown full-length coat, given to her by a friend before we were herded into the ghetto. She looks terrified. She is scanning the lines of men, looking for me, but she doesn't see me. I dare not wave. I daren't move a muscle. But I will her to see me. Her eyes dart left and right and still she does not spot me.
Suddenly there is a lot of shouting. The guards are telling people to hurry.
The huge train behind us blows its loud resonant whistle and begins to haul itself away. Twelve long dark carriages smelling of putrid human waste. Urine and death. My wife and I travelled for two days in that awful train. All the time there was shouting from the sidings. "Jews, you are going to your stinking death!" I never want to see that train again. For one reason or another, I am sure I never will.
The guards lead us forward along the schlauch, a walkway that leads to an area they call Lager Zwei, or Camp II. The buildings there are many but each is low and identical to its neighbour. Wooden huts that seem barely able to stay standing, let alone keep out the bitter Siberian wind.
Looming above us to our right is a watchtower. There are two guards up there. They are Blackies; Ukrainian guards. They are holding semiautomatic Mausers. They are looking down to an area behind the building that is in front of us. They are smiling.
My rapid fearful breath forms condensation around my face. There are at least a hundred of us in our lines, and we are all as scared as each other. I am afraid for the women, and the children. I am afraid for myself, but I am more afraid for my wife, because I love her more than anything in the world, and her happiness, her life, is more important to me than my own.
I look nervously around my group of men. We are all tired from the train and thin from hunger.
From behind Lager Zwei, I hear a single rifle shot, and it shocks a cluster of birds from the trees. They take flight, silhouetted against the grey morning sky.
Further away to the left I can hear frantic squawking. They say the guards keep geese at Sobibor.
‘Entfernen Sie Ihre Kleidung’ shouts a guard to the crowd of women, and they obey, even though it will be cold for them. One of the guards snatches a bracelet from a woman' wrist. He tosses it into a pile of valuables retrieved from the other people in the assembled crowd. A young woman is clutching a photograph to her breast. I cannot see what the picture is. The guard snatches at it, tearing the photograph. The woman lets out a cry. I see a guard with an evil smile snatch my wife's necklace. The chain breaks. It is a beautiful gold piece. I made it with my own lime-stained hands. If the guard were to open the little heart-shaped door on the pendant, he would see a picture of my wife and I in happier times. It is the only photograph of us that we possess, except, now we don't possess it.
Soon the women are fully naked. Dignity stripped from them as easily as clothes from their frail bodies. I realise that I am crying.
Somewhere in front of us, on the other side of the camp, there is another line of people. They did not come from the train, and I cannot see them, but I can hear them. There are guards shouting orders to them.
A door opens in a building near Camp III. A few of us turn our heads to look. A line of women emerge. Their heads are shaved. There must be about fifty of them. They are walking slowly around the back of a larger building. The guards are telling them to hurry, that their work awaits them.
‘Schauen Sie vorwärts!’ shouts one of the guards near us, and we quickly snap our heads forward. We don't need to be told twice.
I wonder where the women might be working. There seem to be only a few buildings over towards Camp III. Perhaps they will work in the fields behind the camp.
An SS guard walks along the line in front of us. He shouts, ‘Tailors? Goldsmiths? Painters? Step forward.’
Some men step out. I wonder whether it is best to remain in line, or step forward.
I decide to go, ‘I am a goldsmith.’ I say.
Those of us that have stepped forward are taken to a shed where we are given coffee and bread. I take a sip of the hot liquid. It tastes of turpentine. The Jew who gives it to me tells me that the bucket the coffee was taken from had been used to clean paintbrushes.
After we have eaten, we are led out of the hut and taken to the adjacent building. It is a barracks. When I see that I am being shown my bed, a wave of relief hits me.
At least I will not die today.
