"At that moment, a tumult arose ...
With the belts, one prisoner had tried to cut his wrist with razor blades; a tourniquet was wound around his wrist and the S.S. furiously told him off saying that he couldn't cut his wrist without permission and how stupid he was! That fellow must have been Simon Wiesenthal (later, he became a famous Jewish, nazi hunter), anyway, he survived and came all the way with us - they never noticed or separated him from the rest of us.
He wasn't allowed to take his own life, what a sarcastic twist of the whole chicanery - they were going to take our lives away when they felt like it but even that had become their perogative. Obviously, they thought the only real authority was from the abyss, the oath they had taken said so.
Before we passed through the opposite door we received a complete immersion in a concrete trough filled to the brim with a green liquid. The liquid must have been a kind of disinfectant, as we passed through the door somebody put a heavy, round, mop on our heads, it looked like a plunger and they dipped it in the green stuff.
It was like a baptism! Away from this glorified treatment we found ourselves in a long draughty corridor in which we had to run it's length. As it was night, cold and early in the year you can imagine that we were only too glad to make a good run for it - it felt near to freezing point. Chilled to the bone now and still having that sausage with us that we couldn't eat - we had had nothing to eat now for a long time - I think that five days had passed by now since we had last eaten but we had lost track of time.
At the end of the hall we came to a room full of clothes spread out and you just quickly had to choose the ones that fitted best. These were full of bullet holes and were of a dried red colour and covered with lime and looked like they had been quickly prepared in old gas chambers.
So, we put them on looking like sorry clowns, similar to the people we had seen running around when we had arrived. Even in our state, when looking at each other, we couldn't help to release a pitiful laugh and some poking their fingers through the holes still as in disbelief.
After what I have just reported it seems to me that in situations such as these most minds can only take so much and then it stops and you just keep on going or it snaps altogether.
Since my release, I have met people from all walks of life telling me that as I didn't see everything with my own eyes and only heard some things from other prisoners that somehow those things didn't happen...
I have also witnessed the aftermath on some of my fellow prisoners who came back to us with their lugubrious news of horrible and disturbing events. As they recounted these things, it appeared to me that they themselves had a hard time comprehending or convincing themselves that such things were really happening - even though they were witnessing them with their own eyes.....!
To be continued ....
With the belts, one prisoner had tried to cut his wrist with razor blades; a tourniquet was wound around his wrist and the S.S. furiously told him off saying that he couldn't cut his wrist without permission and how stupid he was! That fellow must have been Simon Wiesenthal (later, he became a famous Jewish, nazi hunter), anyway, he survived and came all the way with us - they never noticed or separated him from the rest of us.
He wasn't allowed to take his own life, what a sarcastic twist of the whole chicanery - they were going to take our lives away when they felt like it but even that had become their perogative. Obviously, they thought the only real authority was from the abyss, the oath they had taken said so.
Before we passed through the opposite door we received a complete immersion in a concrete trough filled to the brim with a green liquid. The liquid must have been a kind of disinfectant, as we passed through the door somebody put a heavy, round, mop on our heads, it looked like a plunger and they dipped it in the green stuff.
It was like a baptism! Away from this glorified treatment we found ourselves in a long draughty corridor in which we had to run it's length. As it was night, cold and early in the year you can imagine that we were only too glad to make a good run for it - it felt near to freezing point. Chilled to the bone now and still having that sausage with us that we couldn't eat - we had had nothing to eat now for a long time - I think that five days had passed by now since we had last eaten but we had lost track of time.
At the end of the hall we came to a room full of clothes spread out and you just quickly had to choose the ones that fitted best. These were full of bullet holes and were of a dried red colour and covered with lime and looked like they had been quickly prepared in old gas chambers.
So, we put them on looking like sorry clowns, similar to the people we had seen running around when we had arrived. Even in our state, when looking at each other, we couldn't help to release a pitiful laugh and some poking their fingers through the holes still as in disbelief.
After what I have just reported it seems to me that in situations such as these most minds can only take so much and then it stops and you just keep on going or it snaps altogether.
Since my release, I have met people from all walks of life telling me that as I didn't see everything with my own eyes and only heard some things from other prisoners that somehow those things didn't happen...
I have also witnessed the aftermath on some of my fellow prisoners who came back to us with their lugubrious news of horrible and disturbing events. As they recounted these things, it appeared to me that they themselves had a hard time comprehending or convincing themselves that such things were really happening - even though they were witnessing them with their own eyes.....!
To be continued ....
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