Larry Wayne - 2005
Relations with other prisoners
I mean...
No, no, no, some of the prisoners were just as bad as, uh... Especially, I had an incident, I was in Buchenwald as a matter of fact--no it was in Flossenburg, not in Buchenwald--when they put us in these thing and I was sleeping with a Russian prisoner, he started kicking and everything else, you know. And naturally I didn't let him and boom boom, before the SS heard about it and they took us both out, you know. They say, what happened. Now my--I was lucky because the Russian did not speak German. So they had to listen to whatever I say and translates, you know. So I got twenty lashes and they, and they shot the Russian, without trial or anything like that.
For what was the?
Because we were arguing. It was nothing that we did special, you know. I told 'em, I told 'em he tried to kill me with a knife, you know. They did find a knife on him.
So they gave you twenty.
I got twenty lashes, and him they killed.
When...
But you know, after the first few lashes you don't feel anything anyway.
But how do you go on after that, after twenty lashes?
I went on. You become awfully strong somehow or other.
You saw...
They give you one lash, two or three lashes, boom, it hurts, hurts, and after a few, you don't feel it.
Did you pass out?
No.
And who did the beating?
Oh, they got their, their guys that did it.
Was it a German?
Yeah. Sometimes it can be your own, your own guy.
Sometimes a Jew.
Yeah.
That's so you don't blame anybody.
No, and, and they should tell you, advise you what to do when they give the lashes, you know.
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