for the second time that evening , i share with a german the horror of the concentration camps : the days-long transport in freezing cattle wagons , without water or food or lavatories ; the chaotic nocturnal disembarkation , the nightmarish mlange of dazzling light from mounted floodlights , ferocious canines , lashing ss whips , screams and cries , the bloated corpses ; the selection , to the right and to the left , by ss doctors in white robes , their eyes dead ; the registration process , the tattoos , the delousing in ice cold water ; the barracks , the sadistic kapos , the endless roll calls , the public tortures and gallows ; the rumors about the gas chambers and the crematoria ; the ever billowing , sickeningly sweet smoke and the human dust particles that descend from the grey , merciless skies above to feed the lice in our clothes and our hair .