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4-From Westerbork to Auschwitz
I arrived in Westerbork, as I have explained to you, and the day came when we were loaded on the cattle, that’s not a cattle car, it’s basically a closed freight wagon with a sliding door on either side on the long side of the car. We were loaded in there. Inside we found some straw on the floor and in the middle there was a drum, about that much in diameter, that was your toilet, that’s where you did all your action. I think we had been given a package of food and that was it. And they locked the doors and that was a whole load of cars one after another. I think the car that I was in there were about thirty plus people in there, all ages.
Then we rolled. And sometimes we stopped and we couldn't see anything. It was all dark in there, no windows, and sometimes we stopped which we thought it was a short time, sometimes we thought it was for hours at end. Then we later learned that another military train may have gone by or that the British were bombing or the Americans were bombing and we couldn't move on. At no time during that entire trip were the doors open for fresh air nor was any water given or any additional food.
There was a lot of crying on the car, a lot screaming, people going "fruity." And there was a lot of copulating going on among young couples.
Then we get to Auschwitz which we did not know where that was or where we were. And then you arrive in the middle of the night and you sit there for several hours until it is dawn is breaking, but it is still dusk. I'm in there now, it’s in August. And all of sudden the doors are open and the SS is out there with dogs barking away screaming, "Raus! Raus! Schnell! Schnell! Raus! Raus!" with the instructions to "Get Out! Get Out! Quickly! Hurry Up! Hurry up leave your luggage behind!" People started carrying luggage on. "Los! Los! Los! Kein Bagage! Kein Bagage!"
And the women are separated from the men. The women are standing next to the train and the men are standing further away from the train all lined up in five, boys with their fathers, girls with their mothers, some young boys with their mothers. And then you go walk up and you’re coming by, and you don’t know all these things at that time because it’s total confusion. There’s screaming, there’re dogs barking. There are men running around in striped uniforms, blue and white striped uniforms with a blue and white hat.
And you go and you come to this SS man and he looks at you and asks you how old you are."I'm nineteen," or in Dutch "Ik ben negentien." "OK, go ahead over there." If you’re younger you go over to that side or if you are older, in a certain bracket, go over there. We don’t know what this separation means at that time. Then a truck comes and takes us away. The others are marched to the gas chamber and - if you probably know - they’re ordered to undress and they go in there and they’re gassed and then they’re cremated, in my time, because cremation was still going on. And then you come to a place and you’re told to take off all your clothes and the only two things that you are allowed to keep are your shoes and your belt. If you have a watch on it’s taken away from you. If you have rings on they are taken away from you. And then you sit down and you’re filling out a registration card: your name, your birth date, your birth place, and family name etc. and what your profession is. Then they give you a number, on the card they put a number and then that number is tattooed on you left forearm.
Then you are taken away to what they call the delousing barracks. You go under a shower and they cut all your hair, wherever you have hair on your body, it's removed. Men and women - same thing, doesn't matter. Pubic hair, high on the armpits - all of it gets removed. And then you get brushed down with Lysol, over your head and on the arms and your crotch.
And you're are given a pair of pants and a jacket. You are given two pieces of white cloth that will have your number on it already that they've stenciled quickly. They give you a needle and thread and you had to sew that on the left breast and on your right pant side. And after all that's done you're put back on a truck and we were taken to Buna, which was a sub camp of Auschwitz where they were building the IG Farben Ersatz rubber plant. That was my welcome to Auschwitz.
When you were in the cattle cars, what did you know about where you were going?
We didn't know a damn thing where I was going. I had no idea where I was going. I had never heard of Auschwitz until we arrived there.
You said that when you got off the cattle car they gave you a sack of food. What did it consist of?
Let me explain something to you, OK? The only garments we got was a pair of trousers and a jacket. And these were summer ware - very thin. No underwear, no socks, no handkerchief, no toothbrush, nothing. A pair of trousers, and a jacket, and a cap, and two pieces of cloth with your number on it. And the belt and the shoes that you had brought in. That was it. That was it!
How long was the trip on the cattle car?
Three days and three nights, about.
Did you have any guesses about where you were headed?
No idea.
Were you traveling with anyone that you knew?
No. I was totally by myself.
How old were you?
I was just then had turned nineteen. I had turned nineteen in June. Less than two months later, from a late teenager - I had to grow into an adult in overnight and to become aware of my own existence and what I was going to do about it.
How did you feel?
I had no feeling, I didn't know what the hell was happening. As I said, you come out of that train it's total confusion and the purpose of it is total confusion. They want you to be totally confused and not comprehending what's happening there. It was all done on purpose. Scholars who have looked into it have written voluminous books on just that aspect alone - how the SS had totally devised this whole scheme, this system of throwing these people who arrived totally off balance so they could not get a quick resistance together. The whole purpose was keep these people confused.
Throughout your train ride and your experiences at Auschwitz, being a young male - did you ever consider suicide?
I have asked that question of myself a number of times and I can't for the life me remember that I wanted to do away with myself. It's weird. But then there were other people whom I knew - who later on I got to know at Auschwitz - who just ffffp! - ran into the wires and electrocuted themselves.
When you were in the cattle cars, did you have in the back of your mind that you might be going to the same place where your sister went?
No, because the men's camp and the women's camp were totally separated. And I didn't know where I was going, nor did we know where my sister had gone. There were too many rumors about to know for sure. It's only after the war - in fact it was in the 70's - early 80's when my wife and I went to Amsterdam and the Dutch Government had just come out - or the Dutch Red Cross, with books that listed every person who had been Dutch who had been either murdered, shot, or sent to concentration camps. They listed you by name - birth date, the camp, what date you were picked up, what camp you went, and the date you died. And that's where we found out where my sister had gone or where my parents had gone to die.
Tattooed In Auschwitz
Can you tell us if they tattooed you?
Right here. They do it with a needle and ink. And not very attractive like they do today because, remember, these were fellow prisoners who did all this. They were not tattoo artists per se at that time, they were all taught.
Did people get infections?
I don't know. I didn't. It is still there - I still have it. A friend had it removed. She has it at home in a jar of alcohol - the piece of skin with her number on it. She is the wife of a doctor. And I said "Where is it?" She said, "Right on the shelf."
Why do you choose to keep the tattoo on your body?
It's my medal of honor. It's important to me. I know what happened to me, but this is a badge of honor to me that I survived it.
Do you ever look at it, like in the shower?
Oh yeah, all the time.
What do you feel like? Do you experience nightmares?
No. Well I occasionally have a nightmare. My wife will wake me up. But they have diminished, ever since we wrote the book together - my wife and I - that has diminished to almost to a non-happening. But everyday when I'm in the shower and I'm washing, I see it - I don't pay any attention to it - but I see it. It's there. I am aware of it. I'm not afraid of it.
Did you ever receive any other scars or bruising after you were beaten?
Well I was beaten in Auschwitz, yes, several times. One beating took place in Mauthausen. It's not very fair to jump to that point and not knowing what led to it.
In Auschwitz, when they gave me the piece of paper to put my profession down, I realized most of my time as a youngster had been being an apprentice diamond polisher. And somehow I knew that that was not going to be a very important profession there. After I had met this young women in 1941 and we sat around a campfire or such and we were talking, and you're liable to ask one another, "What are you going to do when you grow up." And so I asked the girl with whom I had become infatuated, I said, "Bab, what are you going to do when you grow up?" She says, "Oh, I'm going to be a pharmacist." And she said, "Max, what are you going to be?" I said I'm going to be an architect. Why fantastic! And then when I thought about it, I said how the hell am I going to be an architect? My father is a worker, he lives from paycheck to paycheck. I quit school at the age of thirteen. Who is going to pay for my professional or my university education?
In Antwerp, when I was an apprentice diamond polisher, one day I broke a stone. When you are an apprentice you sit opposite your teacher behind the spinning disk. And I broke a stone and I gave it to him and he began to scream at me. "You idiot!" "You this, you that!" So I got off my bench and I walked to my clothes closet, got my clothes out and started on my way out. He says, "Where do you think you're going?" I said I'm going home. He said "I haven't given you permission!" I said, "I don't need your permission, I'm leaving." He said, "You can't." I said, "Well try to hold me." So I walked out, I came home - and it was early for me to get home - and my mother said, "What happened?" And I told her what happened and she began to cry. This is 1938.
My father comes home and my mother starts, and he said, "Rose, hold it - I have already heard." The rumor had gone through the factory what had happened. Oh, and my boss asked me, when he was screaming, "You're never going to make a good diamond polisher, what do you think you are going to be when you grow up?" I said, "I want to be an architect." Pfft! 1938 - 14 years old. And he burst out laughing - the whole room burst out laughing. And so my father comes home, and he said to my mother, "OK stop, I have already heard." And he turns to me, "Tell me what happened." So I told him what happened and said, "Where's that idea come up about architect?" I said that's what I want to be. He said, "Well you know, we can't afford that." I said, well, I want to be an architect. He said, "Well, let's let that lie and talk about that again some day."
So that night my boss came back to our apartment pleading with me to come back. He said, "It was my mistake not yours, I should have warned you that there was this thing that you could break it and that you should be careful." He said, "It was my mistake, I want you to come back." I said, "I'm done. I do not want to become a diamond polisher." So he plead with my father, and my father said, "He doesn't want to be a diamond polisher, I'm not going to make him to be a diamond polisher, if you can convince him, try. If he says 'No,' - that's it, I'll live with it." Of course my mother immediately - "Whew, what are you going to with you? What will become of you?" You know, the typical routine that mothers will go through with children. And so my father said, "Well you are not going to polish diamonds, what are you going to do?" I said, "Dad, I don't know yet, but I'll find a job someplace in Antwerp. And so I did, I found several odd jobs.
Then we came back to Holland in 1939. In 1941 I meet this young woman. And I say to her again, "I want to be an architect." Then the war has broken out the year before. In 1942 the first Jewish edicts come and I say to my mother, "I want to start self-studying to become an architect. And my father and mother thought I was crazy. And then finally they agreed to allow me to subscribe. So I took lessons. In my lessons and my drawings that I send back and forth to the school, I get to realize that in order to become a good architect you have to understand carpentry because in those days carpenters really build buildings just as they do today.
So I wrote on my piece of paper in Auschwitz, "Carpenter." And until that day I had never held a hammer or nail in my life.
I was sent Buna and after about two-weeks in Buna I developed and abscess in my finger and it just began to grow green and yellow. So they send me to Auschwitz because they thought I had a communicable disease. They put me in the hospital in the ward with communicable diseases. And this healed beautifully. And I was sent out - and I stayed in the main camp of Auschwitz - and I was sent out on a work detail, which is what we called "piling." First you take this bunch of crap and pile it over here, and then you take that crap and you pile it back where you had it before. I mean, it was just like make work.
So one day - remember, I'm now in September, early October - and all of the sudden my number gets called. Remember, in a concentration camp, except among the people who you know, you only have a number, your name has disappeared. So for now on, I was known as 139829. Also, I learned very quickly, in order to not get beaten, you had to know that number in German, to hear it as well as to say it, and also in Polish because many of your fellow prisoners with good jobs in Auschwitz were Poles. They would refuse to speak German but would call your number out in Polish and you had to answer them in Polish.
In October my number is called out and I have to report to the SS work leader. So I line up, and he tells me I have been assigned to the carpentry shop. I didn't know anything about it. So the next morning I lined up with the carpenters and we marched out of the camp. We come into this factory, there is a roof over the building and there's all this machinery inside. And the nice thing is the winter is beginning and it's warm in there because all these machines throw off heat. And the SS is not allowed to get near the prisoners because the prisoners are working with civilians there as well. And the dogs that they have can not attack you when you are working. So that's a second blessing. You have the heat, the SS can not get to you, the dogs can't get to you. The work maybe hard, but hey, if I can stay through the winter here, that's going to be great.
And so indeed I stayed through the winter in the carpentry shop. Hard work. No extra food except what you could scrounge by yourself, on Sundays or after you came back to the barracks.
Come spring, my number's called out again. We are now into '44, I've gone through a whole winter in that camp - in Auschwitz, in Poland, freezing cold with a lot of snow. Spring, my number is called, I've been assigned to the roof repair detail. I didn't like that. I go back to the end of the line and the SS man comes to me, and I say to him in German, "I'm afraid sir, you have misunderstood me by putting into the roof - I am very happy with the work that I'm doing and I'm doing a good job in the carpentry shop." And by that time a fist lands in my face and I went sprawling. And other fellow prisoners saw what was happening and dragged me away from him, into the barracks out of sight and said to me, "Are you out of your mind? He could have shot you right there and then?" I said, "Yes, but he didn't."
Next morning I reported to the roof repair detail. Spring is coming, it get's warmer outside. You sit on the roof doing repairs. The SS can not get to you, the dogs can not get to you. You sit on the roof, the sun is warming you up, you take off your jacket. And you feel great, because hey, nobody is beating you up.
Pneumonia and Operation in Auschwitz
I developed my first pneumonia and I go into the hospital. Do you know what pneumonia is, any of you? What is it? What is in your lungs? Fluid. How do you get it out? With tubes or with medication. In those days they didn't have medication and they didn't have any tubes. They would drive a needle in your back into your lungs, without any anesthesia. And you stand there against the wall, stretched out, and another prisoner drives the needle in and sucks out that fluid. And that needle is an 1/8 of an inch in diameter. It has a very long point on it. Whwet! Every other day they suck. My first pneumonia is over, I now develop a second pneumonia in the other lung. Same routine.
Finally I'm healed. Don't ask, I have a lot to tell you now and that you really want to know.
I come out, I am discharged, assigned to a barracks in Auschwitz, go in. It's a Thursday. I start developing pains in my belly. Can't sit, can't walk, can't sleep, can't lie down. I have a constant feeling like I have a bowel movement coming and I can not move my bowels. On Friday morning I go to the clinic, doctor looks at me, checks me out, gives me two aspirins and a piece of paper that says I do not have to go to work that day. I go back to my block, I give to the administrator and I go to my bunk. Can't sit, can't lie.
Saturday morning I go back to the clinic, two more pills - two more aspirins, another piece of paper, and I go back to the block. Sunday the clinic is closed. Monday I go back to the clinic. Doctor looks at me checks me out and says, "Are you still here"? I said, "Yes." Gets on the phone, calls somewhere, and they tell me to walk over to the operating building, where they are going to operate on me. Until that time, summer of 1944, no Jew had ever been operated on in Auschwitz.
I go in there, I'm being prepared, I get a spinal anesthesiology. Do you know what that is, any of you? They freeze you from the neck down. You can see, you can't move anything - you are like a piece of ice. On the table, the operating lamp over the table, I am down, I can look into it and I can reflect onto my body looking into the lamp. One orderly is standing next to me on my left. I can see a man walking in with black boots and a white coat. Can't see his face. He walks in. And the doctor is standing over there, and Sssstp! I have a four day acute appendicitis that is ready to burst. The doctor removes by himself the appendicitis, sews me up. The man in the black boots leaves.
And I'm taken as a block of ice to a bunk, put down. and said, "Get well." There's no nurses there. You get an extra blanket because when you thaw out you start clattering, you become like this [shakes] until the thawing process has finished. You get an extra bowl of food in the morning and you may get some aspirin to help you get over the pain. And in this shaking, pus is beginning to move in my belly. After a few days I'm taken to another operating room, they cut me open, drain out the pus, and let the wound heal by itself without any stitches, which means like raw flesh just growing out.
