The interrogation - Auschwitz in the mist of war

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At the end of 1944, Arnold Mostowicz - a Jewish doctor from the Litzmannstadt (Łódź) ghetto, was transferred from Auschwitz to a work camp in Hirschberg, a city four hours drive by car away.
This is what happened next.
The author writes for psychological reasons in the third person.

They crossed some railway tracks and suddenly found themselves in a wide-open space, and before them, far away, an extended panorama at the end of which were snow-covered mountain peaks. This was certainly not the Tatra Mountains or the Alps. He thought that the Berlin doctor who was in the same row as he was should be best oriented as to where they were.
'Where are we actually?'
'Those are the Riesengebirge!'
Riesengebirge? Giant mountains? He had never heard of them and they did not look like giants.
'Where are those mountains?'
'In the Sudeten. We are almost certainly in the Sudeten!'
It was Emil Vogel, the doctor from Prague, who marched behind them who said it. The one from Berlin was Heinz Hirschfeld. He boasted that he was a nephew of Professor Magnus Hirschfeld, a specialist in the area of sexuality whose popular scientific books bordering on pornography were in vogue after the First World War. A fourth one in this group of doctors was the dentist Loewi, also from Berlin.

They now walked along a paved road, and on the right side they noticed a sign with the inscription 'Hirschberg' nailed to a pole. So they were in Hirschberg, Jelenia Góra in Polish. That name, like the name Riesengebirge, had not meant anything to him at that time.

After a while the uneven clatter of their steps - most inmates wore wooden clogs - resounded with an ever more prolonged echo through the clean streets framed by beautiful colourful houses with small windows like in dolls' houses.
Some of the houses were green, some yellow, a few red, and the shutters were painted dark brown. No traces of the war were noticeable. It must have still been quite early because the streets were almost empty.

At one moment he heard Hirschfeld, who was marching to the right of him, whisper:
'I have something to ask you. Switch places with me.'
'Of course,' he said surprised. 'What is the difference?'
They changed places, and now Hirschfeld marched to the left of him.
'I often used to come sking here ... I would not like an acquaintance to see me here ...'
He was so surprised by that answer that he even stopped.
'Are you ashamed? For Heaven's sake! What are you ashamed of?'
'You know. In this striped uniform, I look like a criminal. What would they think of me?'
He wanted to say something insulting but restrained himself. He never could fathom the mentality of the German Jews. And in addition to this, he could never change it.
He looked askance at Hirschfeld to see whether he was hiding his face from the side of the pavement ...
With a Yellow Star and a Red Cross by Arnold Mostowicz

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After a while they found themselves inside the camp. Again, a roll call. Everything tallied. The Auschwitz SS men jokingly handed over the delivered merchandise to the local SS.
They were led into the first barrack on the right side, which was both a kind of canteen and an office. They were ordered to sit at long tables on which there were plates and cups.
...
Suddenly they heard a noise at the door. Five uniformed SS men entered the barrack.
...
Swiftly, as on command, they stood up along the tables.
One of the SS men generously allowed them to sit down.
Together with the others, he walked slowly through the barrack and looked closely at each of them as if he wanted to memorize well all those emaciated, gray faces. When the review had ended, he said loudly:
'Let all the doctors stand up!'
He thought to himself that everything was beginning to remind him of Auschwitz.
All four of them stood up. Vogel, Hirschfeld, Loewi and he.
'Does anyone else have the title of doctor?'
Quite a strange question in those circumstances. But he did not have the time to think about it. One short, bulky, not-so-young man responded to this call. It turned out that he came from Prague, he was a doctor of laws and his name was Joachim.

The SS men exchanged some remarks among themselves.
Afterwards each of them approached one of the standing doctors and ordered him to accompany him. Vogel, who resembled a shaved Don Quixote, looked the most serious of them. The Oberscharführer himself took him along with him.
He, however, was approached by a short, non-commissioned officer with the rank of Unterscharführer. The SS man had long arms as if to compensate him for his short legs. In general, he had in him little of the military bearing but was rather comical.
'Follow me,' he said.

He led him out of the canteen. They entered a nearby barrack. From the outside, this barrack was cleaner than the others. It struck the eyes with its fresh green colour. Several entrances led inside. The inside of the barrack was divided into many rooms. The SS man opened the door of one and let him in ahead. In the room, there was a small table, several chairs, a cabinet for paper, and that was all. On the table a typewriter. Heavy curtains protected the inside from indiscreet eyes. He looked around anxiously in search of the tools the Gestapo usually used in their interrogations. He did not notice anything of the kind, which made him even more anxious.

The SS man sat down at the table and loosened the belt that was squeezing him. He pushed out a second chair and ordered him to sit down across from him. After a while he pulled out a box of cigarettes.
'Do you smoke?'
With a Yellow Star and a Red Cross by Arnold Mostowicz

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He was dumbfounded.
This very gesture on the part of the Unterscharführer was unusual, to say the least. And besides, the German addressed him by the polite 'Sie'. The war was already in its sixth year. During that time he came across many SS men, and they had always addressed him by the familiar 'Du'.
His hand trembling from excitement, he reached for a cigarette.
...
the SS man who sat across from him ... had not moved and his face was absolutely expressionless. The SS man lit his own cigarette and then extended the lighted match to him. He inhaled deeply and of course choked. But the cigarette, the first one after four months, tasted very good. He inhaled again and inquiringly, or rather expectantly, glanced at the SS man. The SS man sat immersed in thought and looked around the room. Finally, he looked at him.
'I wanted to ask you something, he said.'

He spoke quite softly, and no threat or even an attempt to frighten him, as was usual with the Germans, could be detected in his voice (by screaming, they excited themselves and gave themselves courage).
The next sentence was thrown out slowly and thoughtfully as if the SS man had not been sure until the last moment if he should utter it.
'I wanted to ask you whether it is ... that means whether all that is being said about Auschwitz is true.'

A pause. And then:
'You may answer in Polish if it is more convenient. I understand it'

He could not believe his own ears. First he inhaled once more, then he held his breath and, finally, moved clumsily on the chair. Before he had the time to say anything, the SS man added:
'I understand that you are afraid, afraid to tell the truth.
But you yourself realize perfectly well that if I am asking about a thing like that it is not with the purpose, depending on your answer, to hang or shoot you. I can, after all do it in any case. I am only asking you to tell me the truth ..'

He froze with the cigarette smoke in his lungs. He choked again. He did various things to delay his answer and to think.
In spite of the assurances of his interlocutor, he was not at all convinced that he should tell the whole truth. Initially, he tried to formulate in his thoughts some evasive answer, but suddenly he realized that he could not concentrate and formulate a few coherent sentences in German. Because he had decided to speak in German, He renewed the attempt to choke ...
After a while however he calmed down enough to conclude that the German's reasoning made sense. Indeed, he could at any moment kill him regardless of what he would hear.
'What … what do you want to know?'
'I want to know if it is true that in Auschwitz gas chambers are operating and that in them Jews are being killed with a special gas, Zyklon B'
With a Yellow Star and a Red Cross by Arnold Mostowicz