Als Sonderhäftling im KZ Dachau im April 1945
The 14th April was my birthday and Stiller having provided some bottles of wine, we had a little celebration in the evening in an unoccupied cell which we used as a general sitting-room. We enjoyed this so much that next day, having managed to get hold of a cask of beer (Dachau and all contents of the canteen were being sold up, it seemed) we had a beer evening at which one of the warders, quite a pleasant young fellow, came and entertained us with songs to a lute. He and another warder named Lechner were professional musicians and had originally been in the army; both had been wounded and after recovery, instead of returning to their units had been drafted into the SS - to their great disgust. They were nice, well-behaved fellows, who treated all of us with the utmost courtesy, and obviously felt that they stood closer to us than to the professional jailers, some of whom looked to me pretty evil.
After our beer evening had ended and we were all ready for bed, one of them whispered to me, "stay behind for a bit." Shortly afterwards Lechner came in, bringing with him Stevens. He looked to me very fit and almost unchanged since I had last seen him. As soon as he came in he flung his arms round me and kept saying how glad he was to see me again. After this we sat down and talked about our experiences over a bottle of wine which Lechner brought in, telling us at the same time, that Stevens must not stay too long.