Like every Kommando, they were a multinational group of yellow, red, black, and green triangles, every one of them an experienced craftsman. ‘‘Why me?’’ I finally asked. ‘‘Because I was told you speak four languages, and I need someone to translate to this bunch. I’ve had enough misunderstandings and mistakes.’’PART II | AUSCHWITZ133My Kapo was right, it was my lucky day. My duty of translating Herr Kies’s German directives into French, English, Spanish, and Italian was a wonderful reprieve from what I had endured the last six months. I felt like a human being again. Herr Kies was a good boss, treating us all with an even hand. Once in a while he would even sneak part of his lunch into my tool drawer. He had lost his arm in the battle of Stalingrad, but he wasn’t bitter about it. He considered himself fortunate because his wound had brought him home before his battalion was decimated. The shop was responsible for assembling valves and fittings for pipes, and for repairing equipment for other shops, but its main duty was to line and glue plastic sleeves into five-meter-long pipes.
