“The warehouses are full,” he assured me. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to have blankets, boots, coats distributed.” But Bär, whom I found around 2:00 a.m. at the Kommandantur in Birkenau in the process of planning the order of departure for the columns, didn’t seem to be of that opinion. “The goods stored are the property of the Reich. I have no orders to distribute them to the inmates. They’ll be evacuated by truck or by train, when possible.” Outside, it must have been ten degrees below zero, the lanes were frozen over, slippery.
