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 ....
Day 49 - Reflections on War and Life
See Day 1 (Blog 1 for Introduction)
"I didn't actually see the people being pushed into the death houses and gas chambers. Our "liquidators" were masters at covering up and hiding their atrocities and murders; but the results spoke for themselves. Because of this and other reasons, some survivors past and present, still have a hard time convincing people that the events they saw and experienced actually happened. This seems similar to the struggle that Galileo experienced when trying to convince people that the world was round not flat!
All that happened seems fathomless and incomprehensible to most people. We will never understand the whole affair, spiritually or otherwise. Even the S.S., who were personally involved, acted as though they didn't do it themselves. So much was never understood by those who had never been there. I do know that we were there as a result of a war that we had been forcibly pushed into!
To tell the truth as we saw it and then to be told, or near enough, that it could not have been so is hard for me to understand! Maybe it could all be boiled down to a bad dream, after all, life and death is only a passing event. The S.S. proved that to be true because they were given backing and power which allowed them to do anything to anybody, similar to wild animals.
The belief and faith that the, "All Being", suddenly decides, at a certain point, that it's enough and that people can walk through the Red Sea, destroy their enemies or that one individual will be saved among all the dying, like an ant that is not trodden on is a strong faith! Such things did happen but not for the majority of people in the camps. For the most part, everything ran like clockwork, the trains went to their destinations on time, the gas chambers worked excellently and for a long time nothing seemed to come in the way of the smooth flow of affairs put into motion.
When near the end people seemed to accept their deaths as a matter of fact and if you didn't it made absolutely no difference! One was not capable of doing anything else but suicide. At the same time, soldiers and civilians were dying on all fronts. Somehow, "The Creator", was in all this but who knows his way of working - cleaning the culmination of all the wrongs with more and better wrongs!!??
The passing of events we really do not understand but the visible things are there for the living. It is the same for the whole universe and it's workings - you can see it. Beyond what we can see for ourselves, we do not seem to know or comprehend the infinite whole however much we try to figure it out.
The spirit challenges even it's own maker.
Everybody thinking he or she has the monopoly over what!!!!???????until ground down to nothing over and over again.........."
To be continued ...
"I didn't actually see the people being pushed into the death houses and gas chambers. Our "liquidators" were masters at covering up and hiding their atrocities and murders; but the results spoke for themselves. Because of this and other reasons, some survivors past and present, still have a hard time convincing people that the events they saw and experienced actually happened. This seems similar to the struggle that Galileo experienced when trying to convince people that the world was round not flat!
All that happened seems fathomless and incomprehensible to most people. We will never understand the whole affair, spiritually or otherwise. Even the S.S., who were personally involved, acted as though they didn't do it themselves. So much was never understood by those who had never been there. I do know that we were there as a result of a war that we had been forcibly pushed into!
To tell the truth as we saw it and then to be told, or near enough, that it could not have been so is hard for me to understand! Maybe it could all be boiled down to a bad dream, after all, life and death is only a passing event. The S.S. proved that to be true because they were given backing and power which allowed them to do anything to anybody, similar to wild animals.
The belief and faith that the, "All Being", suddenly decides, at a certain point, that it's enough and that people can walk through the Red Sea, destroy their enemies or that one individual will be saved among all the dying, like an ant that is not trodden on is a strong faith! Such things did happen but not for the majority of people in the camps. For the most part, everything ran like clockwork, the trains went to their destinations on time, the gas chambers worked excellently and for a long time nothing seemed to come in the way of the smooth flow of affairs put into motion.
When near the end people seemed to accept their deaths as a matter of fact and if you didn't it made absolutely no difference! One was not capable of doing anything else but suicide. At the same time, soldiers and civilians were dying on all fronts. Somehow, "The Creator", was in all this but who knows his way of working - cleaning the culmination of all the wrongs with more and better wrongs!!??
The passing of events we really do not understand but the visible things are there for the living. It is the same for the whole universe and it's workings - you can see it. Beyond what we can see for ourselves, we do not seem to know or comprehend the infinite whole however much we try to figure it out.
The spirit challenges even it's own maker.
Everybody thinking he or she has the monopoly over what!!!!???????until ground down to nothing over and over again.........."
To be continued ...
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Day 48 - Simon Wiesenthal and Sorry Looking Clowns!
"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 ....
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Day 47 - Kramer: The Bully of Sacksenhausen!
Scroll to Day 1 (Blog 1) for Introduction
"To our further amazement an S.S. was going over our files with our numbers again, contemplating the order of our fate. Later, I realized that the big, round faced S.S. officer going over our files was Kramer, the well known bully of Sacksenhausen. He had his dog with him and was continuously shaking his head at some of the Jewish helpers called, "der sonder-commando" or the sin commando. They were named this way because they survived by doing the burning, hard labour and dirty work.
If they were lucky, they could get a further six months extension on their lifes and then they would eventually be replaced and in turn become candidates for the gas chambers. They helped put their own families into the gas chambers as well as other people and then would pull them out to be cremated in the powerful ovens. All this was told to us by their own people as we were waiting.
All around us there seemed to be a lot of complications, orders and counter orders were going back and forth in a somewhat oversubscribed, communication system. It was even suggested that we shouldn't be there at all. Apparently, we were in the wrong place and accommodation needed to be found for us as soon as possible - they wanted to move us along so that we wouldn't see too much of what was going on whilst we were there. We were still designated under N.N., the disappearing number or "Nacht und Nebel".
We were to be shot directly if we went slightly out of line. This turned out to be very much so. I had gone inside and lost track of Janeck. Everybody had been busy looking after themselves and some of us had still been contemplating how to attack as a last resort. I had decided that the middle of the pack would be best as nobody would move from the forward position.
I was half-way down, sitting against what we were told were showers but the concrete boxes looked like old contraptions to me - big thick doors again, dark cellular looking insides with a pipe sticking out from the ceiling. At first, I thought that maybe they were disinfecting chambers for clothes but foremost we were told that they were old gas chambers. This was the first old building they had used for this - the stable they called it. I worked out that they could take maybe ten or more people and there were about three or four of them as far as I could see. I didn't look too closely, don't forget we were still in a state of dehydration which was getting worse by the minute. Some had drunk from the water on the ground which was dirty and disease ridden.
Rushed orders came suddenly and we started moving! I left the damned doors quickly and hurried into the queue to be shaven. On an elevated platform were prisoner barbers - shaving us crudely on every hair that they could find with blunt and rusty razors. We came out of this ordeal scratched and bleeding.
A fairly large Jew, from Antwerp, better dressed than the others, explained to us the ins and outs, the daily routine of the camp and what we should keep.
Every batch was then assembled in a larger place with security at both ends and big sliding doors. One S.S. was waiting inside the doors, controlling valves, which was for the water, lucky for us! He let about twenty of us in at a time. After he had opened some valves a few drips came out from the pipes above us which we drank eagerly, looking stupidly at each other whilst waiting for more and then we looked at towards the S.S. soldier hoping for more!
At that moment, a tumult arose on my left and near the corner closest to me, approaching it I saw there were already some people near. The S.S. were coming too, swearing like hell now, I kept my distance..."
To be continued ...
"To our further amazement an S.S. was going over our files with our numbers again, contemplating the order of our fate. Later, I realized that the big, round faced S.S. officer going over our files was Kramer, the well known bully of Sacksenhausen. He had his dog with him and was continuously shaking his head at some of the Jewish helpers called, "der sonder-commando" or the sin commando. They were named this way because they survived by doing the burning, hard labour and dirty work.
If they were lucky, they could get a further six months extension on their lifes and then they would eventually be replaced and in turn become candidates for the gas chambers. They helped put their own families into the gas chambers as well as other people and then would pull them out to be cremated in the powerful ovens. All this was told to us by their own people as we were waiting.
All around us there seemed to be a lot of complications, orders and counter orders were going back and forth in a somewhat oversubscribed, communication system. It was even suggested that we shouldn't be there at all. Apparently, we were in the wrong place and accommodation needed to be found for us as soon as possible - they wanted to move us along so that we wouldn't see too much of what was going on whilst we were there. We were still designated under N.N., the disappearing number or "Nacht und Nebel".
We were to be shot directly if we went slightly out of line. This turned out to be very much so. I had gone inside and lost track of Janeck. Everybody had been busy looking after themselves and some of us had still been contemplating how to attack as a last resort. I had decided that the middle of the pack would be best as nobody would move from the forward position.
I was half-way down, sitting against what we were told were showers but the concrete boxes looked like old contraptions to me - big thick doors again, dark cellular looking insides with a pipe sticking out from the ceiling. At first, I thought that maybe they were disinfecting chambers for clothes but foremost we were told that they were old gas chambers. This was the first old building they had used for this - the stable they called it. I worked out that they could take maybe ten or more people and there were about three or four of them as far as I could see. I didn't look too closely, don't forget we were still in a state of dehydration which was getting worse by the minute. Some had drunk from the water on the ground which was dirty and disease ridden.
Rushed orders came suddenly and we started moving! I left the damned doors quickly and hurried into the queue to be shaven. On an elevated platform were prisoner barbers - shaving us crudely on every hair that they could find with blunt and rusty razors. We came out of this ordeal scratched and bleeding.
A fairly large Jew, from Antwerp, better dressed than the others, explained to us the ins and outs, the daily routine of the camp and what we should keep.
Every batch was then assembled in a larger place with security at both ends and big sliding doors. One S.S. was waiting inside the doors, controlling valves, which was for the water, lucky for us! He let about twenty of us in at a time. After he had opened some valves a few drips came out from the pipes above us which we drank eagerly, looking stupidly at each other whilst waiting for more and then we looked at towards the S.S. soldier hoping for more!
At that moment, a tumult arose on my left and near the corner closest to me, approaching it I saw there were already some people near. The S.S. were coming too, swearing like hell now, I kept my distance..."
To be continued ...
Friday, 10 February 2012
Day 46 - "Kanada and Wintershelp"
See Day 1 for Introduction!
"It was the end of April when we set out and now it was the second of May 1944. Nobody had heard of the hidden extermination camp yet, all this was very much incognito. Nevertheless, after the war and during this period of time, they showed us aerial views of people standing in queues waiting for their turn in those gas chambers.
Why not bomb the whole place completely - what were the odds for any of us. After the Jews it was us and anybody under the slightest suspicion and those considered untermensch, they would have made "lebensroum" just for themselves and have enough slaves left over to serve them in turn.
This scheme was far too big and well organized with the other grotesque ideas that they had in mind with the thousand "Reich" solutions to be just for religions, ethnics or their enemies.
The weather at this time was still very humid and cold with waterlogged, flat land. On our arrival when we had still been with the wagons, which were now well behind us, we had noticed a little sharp church steeple to the north west. some distance away - I later learned that that church was in Birken au Village. We all noticed that those ghastly buildings had a tall square tapering chimney in each centre, they were not smoking at this time.
We finally came to a halt at a big gate, hell's gate. Our luggage followed the dead in the front and the living in the middle and behind us the leftovers. After entering the gate, which was open wide and under close surveillance we were stopped and gradually led into what looked like a sorting building which was long and low called "Kanada". Numerous, working inmates were rushing around, looking nervous ready to receive their orders from the S.S. standing around en mass, some with dogs.
All our belongings were being sorted and passed along the human assembly line, including that which we had on except for our belts - which for this moment was still a good sign as later we were to be outfitted with other clothes. The destination for our clothes was "Wintershelp" for the Germans, including the soldiers on the eastern front.
The Gestapo bureau was a lucrative business and a well oiled enterprise with a lot of the state under its total control, being a state within a state. No Mafia or other old established order had come as near to this situation, in such a short time span, with so much crime dispatched and displayed, it seemed, with such utter, complete enjoyment!"
To be continued ...
"It was the end of April when we set out and now it was the second of May 1944. Nobody had heard of the hidden extermination camp yet, all this was very much incognito. Nevertheless, after the war and during this period of time, they showed us aerial views of people standing in queues waiting for their turn in those gas chambers.
Why not bomb the whole place completely - what were the odds for any of us. After the Jews it was us and anybody under the slightest suspicion and those considered untermensch, they would have made "lebensroum" just for themselves and have enough slaves left over to serve them in turn.
This scheme was far too big and well organized with the other grotesque ideas that they had in mind with the thousand "Reich" solutions to be just for religions, ethnics or their enemies.
The weather at this time was still very humid and cold with waterlogged, flat land. On our arrival when we had still been with the wagons, which were now well behind us, we had noticed a little sharp church steeple to the north west. some distance away - I later learned that that church was in Birken au Village. We all noticed that those ghastly buildings had a tall square tapering chimney in each centre, they were not smoking at this time.
We finally came to a halt at a big gate, hell's gate. Our luggage followed the dead in the front and the living in the middle and behind us the leftovers. After entering the gate, which was open wide and under close surveillance we were stopped and gradually led into what looked like a sorting building which was long and low called "Kanada". Numerous, working inmates were rushing around, looking nervous ready to receive their orders from the S.S. standing around en mass, some with dogs.
All our belongings were being sorted and passed along the human assembly line, including that which we had on except for our belts - which for this moment was still a good sign as later we were to be outfitted with other clothes. The destination for our clothes was "Wintershelp" for the Germans, including the soldiers on the eastern front.
The Gestapo bureau was a lucrative business and a well oiled enterprise with a lot of the state under its total control, being a state within a state. No Mafia or other old established order had come as near to this situation, in such a short time span, with so much crime dispatched and displayed, it seemed, with such utter, complete enjoyment!"
To be continued ...
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Day 45 - Auschwitz - Gas Chambers and Crematorium
Scroll to Day 1 (Blog 1 for Introduction of Louis' story!)
"...it was the Coup de Grace to finish it off. Somehow, with all the effort and excitement this seemed to have taken the breath away from the S.S. officer and it appeared that he had enough of it; a pause for us!
The burly, younger, hooligan, S.S. soldiers took over from here and from their corners, mumbled obscene, blistering ghoulish remarks such as, "Funeral March". An open van had now arrived with senior inmates and they began gathering the well expected harvest of cut down bodies. They threw them casually into the van like they were sacks of potatoes - in a very similar way to harvest time done as if this was a usual occurrence.
We were then pushed and bullied around until we formed ranks of five and had to give each other an arm, this made it easier for them to watch us.
After this the march started with the van and victims leading.
I noticed Janeck just behind me in the next row, a bit too close for safety. A bully of an S.S. Officer and his mate were marching alongside us now and we were also too near to the front for my liking. The bulky soldier said to his companion, "I think one is going to break free from here", and he put his hand on his hip ready to pull out his pistol. Luckily, for us nothing happened!
As we marched down we passed by an electrical barbed wire fence and made our way toward a group of small trees where Carrion Crows were sitting, the crows were making a din and screeching which reminded me of vultures gathering. Some, circled around and swooped down in erratic, long, swift glides, croaking and fluttering, making a remarkable spectacle for the approaching column. No other birds were present in the pale sky and one was aware of an atmosphere of disaster and utter despair all around us!
It was quiet and noiseless. The column of death kept marching on relentlessly, moving along that muddy dirt ride in Poland. Coming out of the woods, the first thing we saw in the distance was the foothills of Karpathes. I started dreaming of reaching those hills at the first opportunity. Still very thirsty and dry now but at the back of my mind was the image of the gruesome reception that the "Welcome Committee" had laid on for us. At this moment, I got the illusion of babbling, cool, mountain streams around us with dark green meadows that I could drop into and be cajoled into lusty frolicking games.
In the meantime, the S.S. officer and soldier had moved forward, giving Janeck the opportunity to talk - Janeck now moved closer to me to do so. On our left and behind the barbed wire fence a couple of weird, grotesque looking buildings appeared, quite large in size. They were at least thirty to fifty feet long and about twenty five feet wide, these loomed up in our wide eyed view. One side had barred windows and the other side had small rectangular openings that could be hermatically sealed - the walls looked like they were as thick as a safe. The side which had the windows also had long bars.
I now said to Janeck, "Is that where we are going to work?" Janeck who was more with it and up-to-date than I, quickly responded, "Don't be silly, those are gas chambers and crematoriums, all in one system, newly constructed and a maximum of one year old at the most".
As a matter of fact, this was still hard for us to swallow but there it was in all its glory. It could not be more clear to us now as it unfolded itself perfectly before our open eyes. Since our arrival, one shock had followed the other in rapid succession, from this one to the next as we kept on marching...
We were still alive less 25 people. Our mood which was very down now became more and more somber by the minute ...."
To be continued ....
"...it was the Coup de Grace to finish it off. Somehow, with all the effort and excitement this seemed to have taken the breath away from the S.S. officer and it appeared that he had enough of it; a pause for us!
The burly, younger, hooligan, S.S. soldiers took over from here and from their corners, mumbled obscene, blistering ghoulish remarks such as, "Funeral March". An open van had now arrived with senior inmates and they began gathering the well expected harvest of cut down bodies. They threw them casually into the van like they were sacks of potatoes - in a very similar way to harvest time done as if this was a usual occurrence.
We were then pushed and bullied around until we formed ranks of five and had to give each other an arm, this made it easier for them to watch us.
After this the march started with the van and victims leading.
I noticed Janeck just behind me in the next row, a bit too close for safety. A bully of an S.S. Officer and his mate were marching alongside us now and we were also too near to the front for my liking. The bulky soldier said to his companion, "I think one is going to break free from here", and he put his hand on his hip ready to pull out his pistol. Luckily, for us nothing happened!
As we marched down we passed by an electrical barbed wire fence and made our way toward a group of small trees where Carrion Crows were sitting, the crows were making a din and screeching which reminded me of vultures gathering. Some, circled around and swooped down in erratic, long, swift glides, croaking and fluttering, making a remarkable spectacle for the approaching column. No other birds were present in the pale sky and one was aware of an atmosphere of disaster and utter despair all around us!
It was quiet and noiseless. The column of death kept marching on relentlessly, moving along that muddy dirt ride in Poland. Coming out of the woods, the first thing we saw in the distance was the foothills of Karpathes. I started dreaming of reaching those hills at the first opportunity. Still very thirsty and dry now but at the back of my mind was the image of the gruesome reception that the "Welcome Committee" had laid on for us. At this moment, I got the illusion of babbling, cool, mountain streams around us with dark green meadows that I could drop into and be cajoled into lusty frolicking games.
In the meantime, the S.S. officer and soldier had moved forward, giving Janeck the opportunity to talk - Janeck now moved closer to me to do so. On our left and behind the barbed wire fence a couple of weird, grotesque looking buildings appeared, quite large in size. They were at least thirty to fifty feet long and about twenty five feet wide, these loomed up in our wide eyed view. One side had barred windows and the other side had small rectangular openings that could be hermatically sealed - the walls looked like they were as thick as a safe. The side which had the windows also had long bars.
I now said to Janeck, "Is that where we are going to work?" Janeck who was more with it and up-to-date than I, quickly responded, "Don't be silly, those are gas chambers and crematoriums, all in one system, newly constructed and a maximum of one year old at the most".
As a matter of fact, this was still hard for us to swallow but there it was in all its glory. It could not be more clear to us now as it unfolded itself perfectly before our open eyes. Since our arrival, one shock had followed the other in rapid succession, from this one to the next as we kept on marching...
We were still alive less 25 people. Our mood which was very down now became more and more somber by the minute ...."
To be continued ....
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