My Journey from Essen to Auschwitz to the United States by Horst Cahn
My first job was digging trenches for underground cables and pipes, and since I had done that kind of work before, I could handle it. I remember an episode which had far-reaching effects on both my future in Auschwitz and my final survival.
It was a nice sunny spring day and I was working to make the trench deeper when I stood for a moment to take a breath. Just at that moment one of the S.S. men, Sturmbahn Fuhrer Sommer, a tall redhead, very rough and sadistic, who was in charge of the below-ground work, came and saw that I was not shoveling. The first thing he said was, “Enjoying the sunshine?” Then his voice got angry and loud and he commanded me to come out and up.
From past experiences I knew that meant almost instant death. He would scream and shout and then hit the prisoner with the butt of the rifle over the head and then when the prisoner fell on the ground would shoot him. I had seen that s cenario many times before.
I also knew he had a son as a soldier on the Russian front. So when he started yelling whether I thought that the Germans would feed me while standing around enjoying the sunshine, I looked him straight in his face and asked, “Do you think that while you are killing me your son may be killed by a Russian—it’s possible.” He looked at me shocked.
Somebody was talking back at him, and with such a message. His face turned from blind fury and hatred. I saw a different expression on his face before he slapped me across my head and I fell back into the trench. Cussing and cursing he left and I was alone and alive.
