Page 13 of The Watchmaker of Dachau

‘Kennkarte?’ one of the soldiers asked.

Isaac handed over the curling yellow card that stated his name, his date of birth.

The man scribbled the details into the ledger. Then, Isaac saw, he added an exclamation point next to his name in the margin.

He wanted to ask what it meant, what all of it meant, but no one looked at him, only ushered him onwards.

There was a queue to go into the next room and, as each man waited, his head was shaved, the locks of hair falling to the floor in swift heaps.

Isaac removed his cap and held it between his fingers as the clippers moved over his scalp, taking away the pebble-grey hair that he had always allowed to grow long, letting the natural curls take over; mostly to delight Hannah, who had loved to twirl her finger in them in the evenings as he read a book.

‘In you go,’ the barber said, his own head bald, his clothes a striped uniform.

The room next door was tiled in grimy white, showerheads fixed to the wall. All of the men now stood in the centre of the room, unsure of what to do. As soon as Isaac entered, followed by four SS guards, the door crashed shut. He made his way to Elijah who was running his hand over his newly stubbled head, as if he were trying to figure out what had just happened.

‘Undress!’ a guard said. He had a large scar above his eyebrow and was tapping his black rubber baton impatiently against his leg.

At first, none of the men moved to do as they were asked. Instead, they looked at one another, like baby birds – no feathers and big eyes – waiting to see if they should really do as they had been told.

‘Undress!’ the lieutenant shouted again, and to make himself clear, he thwacked the baton against a young man’s leg, making him fall to the floor and cry out in pain.

The men quickly undressed, their jackets, trousers, shoes all heaped at their feet. Some men covered their private parts with their hands, as Isaac did, but some stood ramrod straight, their hands at their side, a look of defiance in their eyes.

‘Shower! Now!’

They stood under the showerheads, each one waiting for the rain of water to come.

At first nothing happened.

Isaac looked at the guards who were kicking at the bundles of clothes, waiting to see if anything of value came from them. One bent down and picked up a watch, turned it over in his hands, then placed it in his pocket.

Suddenly, the water came – an iced stream. All of the men immediately jumped out of the way. The guards shouted, and pushed them back under the water, so that soon all of them were goose-pimpled and white with cold.

Isaac made the motions as if to wash himself; then, as suddenly as the water started, it stopped. No one was handed a towel or their clothes; instead they were marched out of the shower room into another, where each of them was handed a blue and white striped uniform with a number stitched onto the lapel and a pair of worn shoes.

They dressed quickly. The rough cotton clung to Isaac’s damp cold skin and offered little warmth. He noticed a stain on the trousers and a hole in the elbow of the sleeve – someone else’s clothes.

‘I’m glad I didn’t bring the sheet music now.’ Elijah was at Isaac’s side, watching as Isaac’s hands shook when he tried to fasten the buttons of his shirt. ‘Bet you’re glad you didn’t bring anything. Nothing to miss, nothing to wish for back.’

‘I want to go home,’ Isaac said quietly, suddenly feeling like a small child again, wishing for his father and mother, wishing that they would come and tell him it was going to be OK.

‘I know, I know.’ Elijah patted him on the shoulder. ‘Me too.’

‘This way!’ The lieutenant was back, flitting between the men like a ghost – one minute gone, the next he was back – his baton twitching and his thin smile offering no comfort.

The men were ushered into a line again, and like ants they followed one another, no one daring to look anywhere but straight ahead.

Down the corridor they walked, their shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. Then they were stopped, and one by one they were photographed: from the front, side, back.

Isaac had only had his photograph taken once, on his wedding day. Now, when he stood in front of the box camera, he stupidly wanted to smile. And then he looked at the guards, at the line of men, and his silly idea flew away. He set his eyes forward, his mouth in a line.

The bunkhouse was a short walk from where the men had been registered, stripped of their belongings, their hair and their names, across a large concrete square, past another brick building, then another, to a long shed, again encased with more barbed wire, more watchtowers, more men with guns.

Each was given a thin blanket and pillow and assigned an empty bunk, told to make it, and then they were shut in for the night.

‘No food, no water?’ Elijah was in the top-tier bunk one over from Isaac, a younger man called Jan below him, who had been in the camp for some time.

‘You’ll get something tomorrow,’ Jan said from the bottom bunk. ‘Not much, mind you – but something.’