Film Music To Cover The Holocaust Testimony

My parents, my brother, and I ran through the kitchen into the pantry outside. In an open bicycle shed behind the house, we tried desperately to hide on the floor between bicycles and pieces of wood. Our luck had run out. Within minutes the house was surrounded by Nazis.

We were pushed into the cattle cars of the train, in the presence of an ss officer, in his flawless uniform, his booted legs spread wide apart. With his famous slanted smile he was looking on, how these unhappy, nothing anticipating people were treated like animals. Struck with dismay and terrified, nobody would think of refusing or resisting to board the train cars.

In the cattle cars one could hear nothing but moaning and crying, as well as whispers that this "transport" was going to Auschwitz. Of course, absolutely nobody knew anything definite, but everyone had bad forebodings.

Before our family left the train, my Father blessed me and instructed me to try to get into a working crew because that might save my life. I am certain that he knew more about our situation than he let us know. He didn't want to frighten us. A few minutes later he disappeared with my brother Simon. I never saw either of them ever again.

My sister-in-law and I and all the other young women were taken to a building, had to strip stark naked leaving all our meager possessions behind; they shaved off our hair and all other bodily hairs; allowed us a brief shower and handed out striped prisoner's dress to wear.

After the roll-call we had to line up to be tattooed, on our arms, with numbers. After a long wait suddenly it was announced that there was no more tattooing but now we had to wait in line for "selection". This usually meant that some people were selected to stay and some to be taken away. I was very much afraid that we would be separated from our mother.

In Birkenau, even though we learned the next day, that all those who went to the left at our arrival, my parents; my sister-in-law with her infant son; all my female relatives with their young children were killed in the gas chambers, even though we lived with the constant stench of burning flesh, there was no time to mourn. Every ounce of our being was needed for survival and survival alone.

We had to march in rows of five, which became the daily norm, we walked through the night, and we heard music, we heard all kinds of miserable noises. When it was almost light, we came to the sauna. We came to big low buildings and whoever was left was numbered. I was number two and they kept telling us how lucky we were that we might be able to live because we have a number.

It was muddy. We sank into the dirt to our knees... They had barracks for 500 people and forced 1000 inside but each day more and more arrived. ......All my relatives, they all died there. Not one of them survived except for my cousin's family.

There were corpses all around us - constantly. These were picked up usually during those gruelling roll-calls (Zehlappel.) in full view. These 'almost corpses' were handled like logs. Just thrown on a men-pulled wagon. But much too often they weren't really dead yet. Their arms started to flail, the eyes in their sockets moved around, like silent pleas for help.

We looked around in Block 10 and saw all these women with all sorts of burns, wounds, and holes on their bodies or limbs missing. Many were experimented on with X rays. They were all prisoners, of course and we could talk to them, but I didn't want to. I was so shocked and horrified that I didn't even want to get close to them. Seeing them I started to get really scared. I was so very much afraid even to think about what they might do to me that one cannot imagine.

While the corpses burned, the stokers stripped the waiting bodies. At the most fifty-four bodies could be cremated in one hour. The continuous overloading and operation of the ovens caused the inner fire bricks to crumble. The staff built a new modern chimney in the summer of 1942. But it soon evidenced crumbling; and the extermination process, never very effective, began to disintegrate. Himmler soon became dissatisfied. The process moved too slowly; the stench contaminated the surrounding countryside at night; and the red sky over Auschwitz could be seen for miles.

People have not invented an expression what Auschwitz was. It was hell on earth. And the silence of Auschwitz was hell. The nights were hell. And the days - somehow, we got up at three o'clock in the morning, and at four o'clock summertime or four-thirty when the sun came up but it was not like the sun! It was not bright! It was always red to me, or black. It was destruction.

We were forced to go on a death march or from time to time we were transported in open cattle cars without any food or water supply. It was bitter cold and I had a coat but didn't have shoes and some of my toes froze. This lasted about 7-8 days during which many were shot dead or died of starvation and exposure.

We dragged ourselves for a few hours when we noticed that there are fewer and fewer SS soldiers with us. They were running away. Finally they all disappeared. Shortly we arrived to a football field where we saw all these jeeps with soldiers in them. They were throwing chocolates and cookies and cigarettes to us. People were yelling "the British are here, the British are here

The Germans left the camp on 21. January 1945, they returned on 24. to evacuate the camp completly. I hide myself under the bed and stayed there until the Russians liberated us on 27. January 1945. At that time I was 15 years old and my weight was 27 kg.

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