Ever since I was a little boy, I wanted to join the army, and help my nation. But I never thought I would be cremating bodies of innocent women men and children. I am Basti Saalman, I am 22 years of age, and serve at Auschwitz. I am ashamed of the uniform that I wear everyday. It is hard to bear the smell of burning flesh it burns my nostrils. My friend beside me shaved off his hair because the smell has soaked into his hair not just his clothes. The bodies we burn we burn are human skeletons. During our breaks and at night time the Nazis that guard the barrack tell stories of what happened through out there day, how they beat people if they fell down and laughing about everything that happened. Some of these horrible memories are burned in my mind. Every one that I knew before was different after working in this camp they felt no shame of what they have done. They kill without thinking about it. Recently my job was switched to moving the dead bodies out of the gas chambers and into carts. It is so painful to hear the screams of women men and children in the chamber and then for it all to stop knowing that they are dead. We pile all of the dead bodies onto the carts, and bring then to the crematorium so they can be burned. This is my job day after day, month after month, year after year. Little kids that have committed no sin, men labouring till they can labour no more, women that have been drained of there life. As I pile more bodies on to the cart all I can think is this is for fatherland this is for fatherland.
This is a German Nazis that had to cremate and pile the dead bodies on carts. This is a struggle because this man wanted to join the army but he did not want to hurt innocent people. During the end of this memoir this man is trying hard not to think about what he is doing he keeps saying, this is for my fatherland so that he doesn’t feel as bad.
