Capítulo 21: Alain Fournier
What is freedom?
A bird sailing high in the sky? But even the sky is a cage.
What is freedom?
The ability to choose between more than one choice? Maybe. But if someone has four options, and I only have two, is he more free than I am? Can you square freedom? And if you can, what is its square root?
Natzweiler-Struthof, Summer of 1943
The rain scratched Alain Fournier's skin more than the straw-filled sacks he'd attempted to rest on the night before had. It stung his eyes, making it hard for him to see the SS men to his left and right or even the Blockführer, who counted the inmates. The men next to Fournier shivered from the cold. Even though the rain had soaked their clothes to the skin, the fabric still hung loosely against their frame. Fournier stood out as a newcomer, even though he was careful to follow instructions and the mass of inmates around him - trying to fit in like a lost puzzle piece. But his body was still full and muscular, not malnourished and fading away.
Thanks to their health he could pick out all the people around him who were also new or new-ish.
A few rows ahead the inmates then stepped forward and were counted through, and Fournier and his row inched up a bit further. He'd been told which Arbeitskommando (working division) he'd been assigned to, and the inmate who'd explained where he'd have to assemble with the other men in the Arbeitskommando "Todesschlucht" (death gorge).
He stepped forward, his name rang out over the sodden row of inmates and he was noted as present and alive. He walked to the Kommando he'd been assigned to. It was a rather small group of inmates - compared to the other Arbeitskommandos, every one of them looked utterly exhausted. He noticed that almost all of them had the same insignia as he did: NN (Nacht und Nebel - Night and fog). These were all men who, as he had, had been snatched off the streets of their city by "night and fog".
The wave of attendance washed over the next row and then the next, until finally, the band started to play and he was marched towards the entry gate along with the rest of the Kommando.
The morning mist clouded most of his vision, but he could make out the steep slopes dropping down to his right. They were marched up the road towards the SS Verwaltungszentren.
The job was "simple" they had to even the ground so that patios could be put in. The job involved loading wheelbarrows with rocks and dirt and bringing them to a nearby gorge where they were tipped down.
"First five of you step forward! Left side! Second five, forward! Right side of the road! Next five, middle! Move up three yards! Next five, to the left! Right! Middle! Move up!" The SS man barked his commands, and as if his words were the motors that moved the inmates' feet they stepped into the constellation he'd built for them. Fournier went to the left. The SS Arbeitskommandoführer (head of the division, member of the SS) finished shouting at his inmates in line. "Start!" To his right and left Fournier saw the men bend down and start to hack into the earth and load the barrows with rocks and dirt. The men directly around him took the barrows and half-walked half-jogged toward one of the watch towers.
"Get over here!" One of the inmates hissed at him in French. Fournier leaned down. The man grabbed Fournier's hand."You have to work. Just take a barrow and run behind them as fast as you can," he said, nodding over to where the men were running to dump the stones down the hill a little ways away.
"But - aren't those wheelbarrows very heavy?" Fournier asked in shock.
"Of course they are." The inmate snapped. "Now get to work, I don't want to get screwed by the Arbeitskommadoführer because of you." With his last fearful remark, the inmate turned his back to Alain Fournier and continued to pull and push at the dirt with his bare hands.
Fournier straightened upright and looked back at the Arbeitskommandoführer. The man stood a bit apart from the men at the far end of their group. He was smoking a cigarette.
Fournier was a writer and poet - he'd never done physical labor in his life. But he was forced to clench his hands around the wheelbarrow that was pushed towards him and trot toward the cliff where he could dump the rocks down.
"Inmate!" The call started Alain Fournier so much that he almost jumped. A second after he heard it he felt a sharp pain in his upper back. "Do I have to hit you or will you work?" He turned his head and found himself staring right into the blue eyes of Arbeitskommandoführer Fuchs*. The man brandished a wooden Schlagstock. The Insignia on his shoulder displayed one little square in the middle of the patch - an SS-Unterscharführer. "What are you waiting for, go!" The Arbeitskommandoführer raised his arm and brought the wooden rod down hard on Fournier's knuckles. Fournier just nodded and turned away. Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes but he blinked them away. He hadn't been hit over the hands since secondary school, and back then the teachers had never hit so hard. His knuckles were bleeding. He gripped the handles of the wheelbarrow and started to run. He could feel the eyes of the SS-Unterscharführer burning into his back as he ran.
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