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Only from this distance does one have a full view of the inferno on the teeming ramp. I see a pair of human beings who have fallen to the ground locked in a last desperate embrace. The man has dug his fingers into the woman’s flesh and has caught her clothing with his teeth. She screams hysterically, swears, cries, until at last a large boot comes down over her throat and she is silent. They are pulled apart and dragged like cattle to the truck. I see four Canada men lugging a corpse: a huge, swollen female corpse. Cursing, dripping wet from the strain, they kick out of their way some stray children who have been running all over the ramp, howling like dogs. The men pick them up by the collars, heads, arms, and toss them inside the trucks, on top of the heaps. The four men have trouble lifting the fat corpse on to the car, they call others for help, and all together they hoist up the mound of meat. Big, swollen, puffed-up corpses are being collected from all over the ramp, on top of them are piled the invalids the smothered, the sick, the unconscious. The heap seethes, howls, groans. The driver starts the motor, the truck begins rolling.

“Halt! Halt!” an SS man yells after them. “Stop, damn you!”

They are dragging to the truck an old man wearing tails and a band around his arm. His head knocks against the gravel and pave­ment, he moans and wails in an uninterrupted monotone: “Ich will mit dens Herrn Kommandanten sprechen — I wish to speak with the comman­dant… ” With senile stubbornness he keeps repeating these words all the way. Thrown on the truck, trampled by others, choked, he still wails: “Ich will mit dens…”

“Look here, old man!” a young SS man calls, laughing jovially. “In half an hour you’ll be talking with the top Kommandant! Only don’t forget to greet him with a Hell Hitler!”

Several other men are carrying a small girl with only one leg. They hold her by the arms and the one leg. Tears are running down her face and she whispers faintly: “Sir, it hurts, it hurts…” They throw her on the truck on top of the corpses. She will burn alive along with them.

The evening has come, cool and clear. The stars are out. We lie against the rails. It is incredibly quiet. Anemic bulbs hang from the top of the high lamp-posts, beyond the circle of light stretches an impenetrable darkness. Just one step, and a man could vanish for ever. But the guards are watching, their automatics ready.

“Did you get the shoes?” asks Henri.

“No. ”

“Why?”

“My God, man, I am finished, absolutely finished!”

“So soon? After only two transports? Just look at me, I … since Christmas, at least a million people have passed through my hands. The worst of all are the transports from around Paris — one is always bumping into friends. ”

“And what do you say to them?”

“That first they will have a bath, and later we’ll meet at the camp. What would you say?”

I do not answer. We drink coffee with vodka, somebody opens a tin of cocoa and mixes it with sugar. We scoop it up by the handful, the cocoa sticks to the lips. Again coffee, again vodka.

“Henri, what are we waiting for?”

“There’ll be another transport. ”

“I’m not going to unload it! I can’t take any more. ”

“So, it’s got you down? Canada is nice, eh?” Henri grins indul­gently and disappears into the darkness. In a moment he is back again.

“All right. Just sit here quietly and don’t let an SS man see you. I’ll try to find you your shoes. ”

“Just leave me alone. Never mind the shoes. ” I want to sleep. It is very late.

Another whistle, another transport. Freight cars emerge out of the darkness, pass under the lamp-posts, and again vanish in the night. The ramp is small, but the circle of lights is smaller. The unloading will have to be done gradually. Somewhere the trucks are growling. They back up against the steps, black, ghostlike, their searchlights flash across the trees. Wasser! Luft! The same all over again, like a late showing of the same film: a volley of shots, the train falls silent. Only this time a little girl pushes herself halfway through the small window and, losing her balance, falls out on to the gravel. Stunned, she lies still for a moment, then stands up and begins walk­ing around in a circle, faster and faster, waving her rigid arms in the air, breathing loudly and spasmodically, whining in a faint voice. Her mind has given way in the inferno inside the train. The whining is hard on the nerves: an SS man approaches calmly, his heavy boot strikes between her shoulders. She falls. Holding her down with his foot, he draws his revolver, fires once, then again. She remains face down, kicking the gravel with her feet, until she stiffens. They pro­ceed to unseal the train.