"We noticed the smaller and cozier looking goods wagons in which we started entering now with S.S. all around us - they appeared to be in a jovial mood. The insides of the wagons were whitewashed and spread all over with disinfectant. There was also newly made, wooden latrines, neatly constructed and painted light blue. Ample rations of bread were available to us in the form of what looked like a long and consistent loaf, lots of water and lots of room to sit and lay down.
Our fellow comrades left behind were considered to be too sick to come with us. Over two hundred were now going to get the "proper treatment" and we all knew what that meant! Of course, we would never hear of them again! They were very likely, very quickly, all made to join the throngs in the gas and crematorium queues. In fact, probably right at this moment, as I am talking to you!
We were told that they would be hospitalized - that is something we didn't ever see in the camp, for sure, a hospital. Soon the oils, fat and ashes of our comrades would be mixed Arian and Semite and used for the same purposes, then to fertilization, of no difference or consequence but as a handy use for the living in an unadulterated form.
We were thinking gravely now, speaking for myself and others we had never seen mass grave pits while we were there but they were there just like everything else - we would hear about it in a similar camp.
The only thing the S.S. didn't have to do now was to use too many bullets to tire their arms. To them and their helpers, conscious or not of all that was happening, with their mind set and the continuous, drummed indoctrination the events happening were probably similar to a butcher slaughtering animals and that's all it probably felt like for them. For us, it had all become a daily routine and for the time being we all had to accept that unless some force could change it.
There were gallows and injections but we didn't see that either. Like myself and others, you have got to believe that it all happened and then make logical deductions from the facts and the whole picture. If one thing was there then the other things had to be told by the survivors.
I believe that the horror that we witnessed was mostly produced by a variety of multiple actions. The inflicting of pain and suffering in this super-imposed hatred campaign, worthy of a deep primitive background was perpetuated with a ferocity common, at that time, to the Nazi's. It was made to be so painful and quickly executed for speed's sake, the pattern plus the revenge.
Finally, our lanky S.S. announced the usual, rehearsed, "Bon Voyage", we felt very apprehensive as the wagons were softly closed. Off we went onto the next voyage into the unknown. Glad to be still alive on the eleventh day since our arrival in Auschwitz".
To be continued ...
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Monday, 26 March 2012
Day 54 - "Tell the World", Please!
"We were given better bunks than our Jewish inmates. We were also given one blanket and running though the centre of our barracks was a heated floor constructed with bricks - it looked like an ancient Roman drain. We also had more drips of water than in Compiegne but nevertheless our accommodation was cold and spartan. On a regular basis, the same food/brew was brought to us in barrels carried by their Hebrew slaves.
During morning and evening roll call we were made to watch how they mistreated our Jewish inmates who stood opposite and a bit further along from us. On one occasion, we saw the Commandant, Mengele and also his beautiful camp companion about fifty yards away. It was a show for our benefit! With whips in their hands they gave orders to Capa prisoners or supervisors to beat up fellow prisoners - they would point out some made-up disorderly conduct issue that they imagined to be fit for punishment with a horse whip.
They told one prisoner to lay down and expose his back. They then beat him up and gave him a final last kick to indicate that he should join the ranks again. This was the order of the day the other prisoners told us.
We were now at the eleventh day, doing nothing and not knowing what would happen to us. We had a weekend over with and were still alive. We suddenly heard music from some sort of band floating on a feeble wind - it was the music for the marching to the gas chambers by the old stables. We came to know this from other inmates.
More and more of us became very sick, very ill actually, maybe from the drinking of the dirty water and maybe other diseases were starting to take their toll. We also heard shooting further away, we couldn't see too much as we were kept well away from the scene.
I couldn't actually tell you whether we had been at the stables exactly either but we thought we had been somewhere in that area when we first arrived. So, even being there in the camp we found ourselves always in doubt at any given moment.
We were then told we were due for transport and when the moment came we were led out to the other side of the camp. There we saw more crematoriums with gas chambers which we hadn't seen before. All in all there must have been five chimneys.
As we turned the corner we saw some Jewish girls near their own circled fence.A bit further away were lots of Jewish children playing like on any other school ground or playing fields. They even started throwing bread to us and speaking in French saying they came from Lille, northern France.
Somehow, somebody put the question to them, "What do you think will happen to you?" In unison, they looked at the crematoriums and chimneys and pointed to them and said, "That's where we are going soon", shaking their heads up and down in one accord, they knew and had no doubts, even smiling in a sure way well aware of the short time that they had left to live. We looked more frightened and worried than them - as anybody would have.
We were shouted at to move on and quickly they cried to us hanging on with their little hands on the fence, "Tell the world, please, what happened to us".
Again, tears streamed down our faces, to what use! We rubbed our hands over our faces and took off now moved by force, departing with drooping heads.
We arrived at the rail tracks at what looked like the construction of the inside of a station. There were lots of Jewish labourers working as slaves looking at us with vacant eyes. They were on their six month reprieve, still working or labouring away whilst barely alive. This was still in the camp, one can just imagine the enormous size of it all.
Of course, selfish humans that we were, we were pleased to get away from there with the feeling of being given a hard green apple and then probably getting an apple less green later for being such good boys.
A lanky officer asked us if we were Arians and now told us that we were going to work in the most organized camp in Germany, namely, Buchenwald"!
To be continued ...
During morning and evening roll call we were made to watch how they mistreated our Jewish inmates who stood opposite and a bit further along from us. On one occasion, we saw the Commandant, Mengele and also his beautiful camp companion about fifty yards away. It was a show for our benefit! With whips in their hands they gave orders to Capa prisoners or supervisors to beat up fellow prisoners - they would point out some made-up disorderly conduct issue that they imagined to be fit for punishment with a horse whip.
They told one prisoner to lay down and expose his back. They then beat him up and gave him a final last kick to indicate that he should join the ranks again. This was the order of the day the other prisoners told us.
We were now at the eleventh day, doing nothing and not knowing what would happen to us. We had a weekend over with and were still alive. We suddenly heard music from some sort of band floating on a feeble wind - it was the music for the marching to the gas chambers by the old stables. We came to know this from other inmates.
More and more of us became very sick, very ill actually, maybe from the drinking of the dirty water and maybe other diseases were starting to take their toll. We also heard shooting further away, we couldn't see too much as we were kept well away from the scene.
I couldn't actually tell you whether we had been at the stables exactly either but we thought we had been somewhere in that area when we first arrived. So, even being there in the camp we found ourselves always in doubt at any given moment.
We were then told we were due for transport and when the moment came we were led out to the other side of the camp. There we saw more crematoriums with gas chambers which we hadn't seen before. All in all there must have been five chimneys.
As we turned the corner we saw some Jewish girls near their own circled fence.A bit further away were lots of Jewish children playing like on any other school ground or playing fields. They even started throwing bread to us and speaking in French saying they came from Lille, northern France.
Somehow, somebody put the question to them, "What do you think will happen to you?" In unison, they looked at the crematoriums and chimneys and pointed to them and said, "That's where we are going soon", shaking their heads up and down in one accord, they knew and had no doubts, even smiling in a sure way well aware of the short time that they had left to live. We looked more frightened and worried than them - as anybody would have.
We were shouted at to move on and quickly they cried to us hanging on with their little hands on the fence, "Tell the world, please, what happened to us".
Again, tears streamed down our faces, to what use! We rubbed our hands over our faces and took off now moved by force, departing with drooping heads.
We arrived at the rail tracks at what looked like the construction of the inside of a station. There were lots of Jewish labourers working as slaves looking at us with vacant eyes. They were on their six month reprieve, still working or labouring away whilst barely alive. This was still in the camp, one can just imagine the enormous size of it all.
Of course, selfish humans that we were, we were pleased to get away from there with the feeling of being given a hard green apple and then probably getting an apple less green later for being such good boys.
A lanky officer asked us if we were Arians and now told us that we were going to work in the most organized camp in Germany, namely, Buchenwald"!
To be continued ...
Sunday, 25 March 2012
Day 53 - Just us and Nothingness!
Recently, got back from a vacation in San Diego, Australia and Hawaii so back to blogging my Dad's story!
"Later in the evening we had our first glimpse of the new arrivals who came in two big transports similar to what ours had been. In great haste, men, women and children all Jews from Hungary were placed in the barracks opposite to us. The Eichman program had started on the Reichs declaration of the final solution - which was direct and total dissemination with no pause at all!
The fires were waiting and stoked to the full for all the human fat, hair and ashes. Everything had a use in the camp!
We were put in our barracks again, safely out of view, with a 24 hour guard. Not the slightest movement was allowed not even a quick peek near the doors was permitted - many of our deceased inmates had learned their lesson the hard way and therefore nobody disobeyed the rules now!
All though the night we heard shuffling, muffled cries and weeping, interrupted by the shouting of the S.S. here and there. Death itself was among us, it was walking the perimeter in whatever form or shape you may wish to imagine. It was all around us, you could hear it, think it, and feel it, almost see it, mostly by using your senses just like animals.
Death was ever present that night, just like a thick, dirty bog full of skeletons and there was the ever present stench of human flesh. Already the column for mass slaughter was being moved towards the fires, an endless ribbon of human misery and tragedy.
At last, after an uneasy sleep, in which nightmares were unnecessary as reality was even worse! Our guards left, their mission completed and now they walked out into the sunlight and we followed them into the blinding sunlight and "Oh my God"! we looked at the chimney stacks - they were smoking!
The stacks were belching big fires close to the top. The smoke, driven by the wind, rose high into the sky and then tailed off into a thick, fat, oily looking, ball-like formation. The shape then curled off in one direction, spreading far out over the damp landscape and dissipated into nothingness.
This is what had become of the people we had heard during the night. All that remained were ashes. Believe me, this time there were tears in our eyes! In our incapacity and feeling complete desolation we stood there watching and there was nothing we could do about it - not even one grey uniform to be seen around us now, just us!
We stood there clenched fists, lost in our own thoughts, hopeless. We looked at the empty billets and again a terrible feeling of desolation swept over us! No life at all, not the slightest sign, absolutely nothing, just us!
On the double gates of the barracks were big boards on which notices were posted indicating that there had been cholera and typhus fumigations, the great lie, and so what, we knew that the Jewish Hungarians had come in alive. The notices were for our benefit to make us believe that we had imagined things and had not seen or heard anything.
It is beyond me how this action could be explained away like that by the S.S. They must have been half mad themselves to go though with such a procedure! It aggravates ones thinking of "justice", when one has witnessed a massacre of such magnitude and injustice.
We have failed abysmally, we are not capable of running things right, the wisdom is awfully lacking if what we witnessed was made possible!
We were now moving away from this gory sight, always moving further inside the camp but separate from the Jewish sections which we could see all around us.
We still had about 30 Jewish people hidden among us, nobody had squealed or showed they noticed".
To be continued ...
"Later in the evening we had our first glimpse of the new arrivals who came in two big transports similar to what ours had been. In great haste, men, women and children all Jews from Hungary were placed in the barracks opposite to us. The Eichman program had started on the Reichs declaration of the final solution - which was direct and total dissemination with no pause at all!
The fires were waiting and stoked to the full for all the human fat, hair and ashes. Everything had a use in the camp!
We were put in our barracks again, safely out of view, with a 24 hour guard. Not the slightest movement was allowed not even a quick peek near the doors was permitted - many of our deceased inmates had learned their lesson the hard way and therefore nobody disobeyed the rules now!
All though the night we heard shuffling, muffled cries and weeping, interrupted by the shouting of the S.S. here and there. Death itself was among us, it was walking the perimeter in whatever form or shape you may wish to imagine. It was all around us, you could hear it, think it, and feel it, almost see it, mostly by using your senses just like animals.
Death was ever present that night, just like a thick, dirty bog full of skeletons and there was the ever present stench of human flesh. Already the column for mass slaughter was being moved towards the fires, an endless ribbon of human misery and tragedy.
At last, after an uneasy sleep, in which nightmares were unnecessary as reality was even worse! Our guards left, their mission completed and now they walked out into the sunlight and we followed them into the blinding sunlight and "Oh my God"! we looked at the chimney stacks - they were smoking!
The stacks were belching big fires close to the top. The smoke, driven by the wind, rose high into the sky and then tailed off into a thick, fat, oily looking, ball-like formation. The shape then curled off in one direction, spreading far out over the damp landscape and dissipated into nothingness.
This is what had become of the people we had heard during the night. All that remained were ashes. Believe me, this time there were tears in our eyes! In our incapacity and feeling complete desolation we stood there watching and there was nothing we could do about it - not even one grey uniform to be seen around us now, just us!
We stood there clenched fists, lost in our own thoughts, hopeless. We looked at the empty billets and again a terrible feeling of desolation swept over us! No life at all, not the slightest sign, absolutely nothing, just us!
On the double gates of the barracks were big boards on which notices were posted indicating that there had been cholera and typhus fumigations, the great lie, and so what, we knew that the Jewish Hungarians had come in alive. The notices were for our benefit to make us believe that we had imagined things and had not seen or heard anything.
It is beyond me how this action could be explained away like that by the S.S. They must have been half mad themselves to go though with such a procedure! It aggravates ones thinking of "justice", when one has witnessed a massacre of such magnitude and injustice.
We have failed abysmally, we are not capable of running things right, the wisdom is awfully lacking if what we witnessed was made possible!
We were now moving away from this gory sight, always moving further inside the camp but separate from the Jewish sections which we could see all around us.
We still had about 30 Jewish people hidden among us, nobody had squealed or showed they noticed".
To be continued ...
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Day 52 - Good Day!
Will start blogging again on March 27 - am half way though my Dad's memoirs - have lots more material for future blogs. Have a great day! Keep good and happy! Paula
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Day 51 - Sullen Sheep
Suddenly, our camp had come alive! There was a lot of movement and the short, snappy noises of shooting, mostly pistol shots were heard from all over and especially from the direction between the barracks.
Some of our group chose to explore a bit further and they didn't return apart from one who came back to us with wild staring eyes. He told us that the S.S. were placing infants and babies on chairs and shooting them non-stop. I don't think we could envisage anything any worse anymore. Our feeling and emotions at this time were of utter disbelief and non-comprehension. Because of this I was determined to make a last stand. When I looked around I could find no similar response from my fellow prisoners. What was the matter with them I thought, they were not like comrades in arms at all, they were just like sullen sheep to become shot or put to the sword.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Day 50
See Day 1 (Blog 1 for Introduction)
"In no time our little group came out into the cold moonlight, which seemed, silvery and spooky to us, reflecting an aura of doom and gloom over our side of the globe.
We had little wooden soles with canvas on our feet and had received a little bit of what I think was a kind of bread crust. The whole transport was pretty well intact minus the twenty five dead. At this point, we were nearly senseless and could barely see above the atrocities and cruelty. We had begun to notice only cold and warmth, pain and sorrow and were just barely aware of the stars at night and by day the sun and clouds.
If you got too much out of line you were just shot or pushed or walked into the gas chamber yourself. We moved like "Les Miserables", trying to walk with those planks on our feet. We had to get used to the planks immediately. The earth was very wet and marsh like - I think this place was constructed on the moors to make it harder to endure!
Having walked outside now and passed the two Frankenstein looking buildings with their smoke stacks, I sighed and thought we were too close to them for comfort. To our right, all the barracks looked long and dreary and did not have windows. They put us in the two, last barracks, on our left, next to the furthest crematorium.
Strict orders were given - we were not to leave the barracks! There was one latrine outside with a long pit alongside it with water coverage. That was all,
no bunks, no chairs, no tables. Condemned people sentenced to die do not need to lie or sit down"!
To be continued ....
"In no time our little group came out into the cold moonlight, which seemed, silvery and spooky to us, reflecting an aura of doom and gloom over our side of the globe.
We had little wooden soles with canvas on our feet and had received a little bit of what I think was a kind of bread crust. The whole transport was pretty well intact minus the twenty five dead. At this point, we were nearly senseless and could barely see above the atrocities and cruelty. We had begun to notice only cold and warmth, pain and sorrow and were just barely aware of the stars at night and by day the sun and clouds.
If you got too much out of line you were just shot or pushed or walked into the gas chamber yourself. We moved like "Les Miserables", trying to walk with those planks on our feet. We had to get used to the planks immediately. The earth was very wet and marsh like - I think this place was constructed on the moors to make it harder to endure!
Having walked outside now and passed the two Frankenstein looking buildings with their smoke stacks, I sighed and thought we were too close to them for comfort. To our right, all the barracks looked long and dreary and did not have windows. They put us in the two, last barracks, on our left, next to the furthest crematorium.
Strict orders were given - we were not to leave the barracks! There was one latrine outside with a long pit alongside it with water coverage. That was all,
no bunks, no chairs, no tables. Condemned people sentenced to die do not need to lie or sit down"!
To be continued ....
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