Strings Attached…
On July 13, 1943, in a concentration camp in Southeastern Germany, another day of hard and miserable labor for the imprisoned Jews was wearing on.
The management of the camp was, very unusually for Nazi regulation, collaborating with someone from another nation that shared their vision, a born-and-raised Canadian with, allegedly, no military training.
This Canadian's name has been lost to man, but a journal of a German soldier that apparently was stationed at the camp would be found nineteen years later with a reference to him in it.
This particular journal entry would implicate that this non-military trained man was in charge of...motivation...at the camp.
According to the entry in the journal, this man was not cruel and sadistic. The supervisor of the camp was cruel and sadistic. The guards that beat prisoners for fun were cruel and sadistic. This man was, as quoted directly from this journal entry, "Completely demented." It was here, on this hot July afternoon, where such characteristics would be shown.
No one ever truly learned why he was pushing his prisoners so hard that day. Their labor had been very well-rounded, and quota for the lumber that the camp produced for the purpose of building frames for the canvas awnings used by the infantry had been met.
It may have gone over quota, even, but still, the Canadian officer was outside, snapping orders to work harder and lashing out indiscriminately at both the laborers working to carve out the lumber and another nearby group of prisoners that were assigned to the duty of digging pits for mass graves.
The hot, dry air was filled with the sounds of his curses and the screams of laborers as his lash whipped across their backs, followed by a splash of salt water (which the officer always carried with him when he had his lash-salt in wounds was one of his favorite ways to torture prisoners), and as the screams became more frequent, finally one of the workers, a young man, stands up and yells at the officer to stop with the lash. Here, the German soldier makes a side note that this particular individual is one who has spoken against an officer several times. He refers to the outspoken worker using the nickname "Streifen," German for "Stripes" - probably because of the stripes on his back from being whipped by the lash so many times—a souvenir of his outspoken nature.
The Canadian officer merely stood there and stared at Stripes with an indifferent expression that betrayed nothing for a few moments.
He then spoke with a calm but contemptuous tone. "You again? Bent under the lash so many times. Gone for a week with being given rations three different times. Witness to the flogging of your two sons, one an infant. And STILL you have not learned."
After a few moments of additional silence, he broke away his gaze from Stripes and turned his attention to a member of the gravedigging crew, a young boy about thirteen to fourteen years old, who is called in the journal by the German, "Das ist gelaufen," "The Runt," a long-time prisoner with a dying father. The Canadian officer knew that the boy loved his father very much.
With a vacant expression, he spoke calmly to Runt. "I will make a deal with you, Jew. I will give your dying father fresh water and medical supplies. Would you like that?"
The other workers merely looked at each other with knowing glances; the officer was up to some sort of trick. The boy, however, completely taken by surprise by such a noble offer, immediately agreed enthusiastically, nodding his head continuously at a very rapid rate for fear of losing the offer due to lateness of response. "What must I do to get these for my father?" He asked.
The Canadian officer gave a slight shrug, and spoke nonchalantly. "Oh, nothing considerable. Just take your shovel and put an end to this incessant upstart of a filthy Jew."
The boy looked at him in shock. After a few moments of silence, the officer's expression hardened. "My offer is anything but permanent, boy. You want water and medicine for your father, then pick up that shovel and kill this worthless, loudmouthed, disobedient, disrespectful slime! I'm going to withdraw my offer in a moment!"
That did it. With tears pouring down his face and a scream like that of a fox caught in a trap ripping from his throat, the boy ran to the prisoner called Stripes, raised his shovel, and brought it down on his head.
There is a page missing from the journal. It skips ahead...
Contrary to what practically the entire camp believed, the Canadian officer fulfilled his part of the offer he made, true to his word, as he gave the boy's father fresh water to drink and bandages for his sore, bruised, and bleeding body.
Immediately afterwards, the Canadian officer sent the father to the gas chamber, as he had been planning to do long before he made a deal with the man's son.
The next day, as he heard the screams of Runt's discovery of his father's body during his gravedigging duty, the Canadian officer merely straightened a pin on his uniform, removed his officer's cap and ran a hand through his hair bleach-blonde hair and, placing his cap back upon his head, turned to the German soldier who would write the article.
With a grin on his face, he wagged a gloved finger at the soldier, as if playfully lecturing him. "Every single deal has strings attached to it. Maybe the next time he's faced with a deal that's too good to be true, he'll pay more attention."