Jacob’s work unit was assigned latrine duty today. Each man carried two pails full and sloshing with the wastes of people barely alive on bitter brown bread and pale green soup. The ground is frozen too hard to dig a new pit, so the one that now overflows must be emptied, pail by pail, into a deep gulch on the far edge of Auschwitz.
Three-quarters of the way to the gulch, the guards commanded the men in Jacob’s unit to stop and dunk their heads in the pails. Anyone too delicate to obey felt the heavy heel of a Nazi boot press hard on the back of his neck, holding his head long and deep in the pail’s dark contents.
