The Sunflower_ On the Possibilities and - Wiesenthal, Simon copy

him…But anyhow nobody who has not had our experience will be able to understand fully.
When we here argue about the problem, we are indulging in a luxury which we in our
position simply cannot afford.”
Arthur was right, I could see that. That night I slept soundly without dreaming of Eli.
At the morning roll call the inspector from the Eastern Railway was waiting for us. We
could return to our former work.
Over two years passed. Years filled with suffering and constant specter of death. Once I
myself was about to be shot but I was saved by a miracle. And so I know the thoughts which
a man has in the moments before death.
Arthur was no longer alive. He died in my arms during an epidemic of typhus. I held him
fast as he lay in the death struggle and I wiped the foam from his lips with a cloth. In his last
hours fever made him unconscious, mercifully for him.
Then one day Adam sprained his ankle at work. As he was marching out with his working
party, the guard noticed he was limping. He was sent off at once to the “pipe,” and there he
waited two days before he and others were shot.
Josek too is dead. But I only heard about this much later. Our group had been posted to the
Eastern Railway and quartered there, and one day some extra labor was sent over from the
camp. Among them was Josek. I could look after him a bit now. We had some contact with
the outside world and we got more food. I begged our “head Jew” to arrange for Josek to
stay with us, but it was almost impossible to arrange that for an individual. We tried to
persuade one of the overseers to ask for more permanent labor on the railway. But that too
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