This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

The inmates of Auschwitz build a soccer field and begin to play every evening. From the field, prisoners can see the women’s camp and the incoming freight trains. During one game, Tadek looks up and notices that there is a train full of people arriving. When he looks again, later in the game, he notices that none of the passengers are left, commenting, “Between two throw-ins in a soccer game, right behind my back, three thousand people had been put to death” (84). Tadek sees a seemingly constant procession of two lines of people in Birkenau. One leads to death in the crematorium and the other is for those who survive and go to the camp. One night, Tadek steps outside and hears the voices of those who are walking, followed by screams. He is horrified and shakes uncontrollably.

Near the men’s camp, there is a barrack in the women’s camp that was never fully constructed. As the camp fills up, they begin to place women in the unfinished barrack, which holds about thirty thousand women. Tadek and the other men call the unfinished barrack the Persian Market. One of the women prisoners, and Elder, pays the Kapo—either with gold or with her body—so that the Tadek and the other men will finish construction.