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5-Auschwitz Hospital & Transport to Mauthausen

I have made acquaintance during my pneumonia, I made acquaintance with another Dutchman who had the same problem. We became friends. He had been a professional trumpet player in Amsterdam and in Holland since he was fourteen years old. His name was Lex von Weden.

During that time frame or shortly thereafter, all the Polish musicians in the camp who had been part of the orchestra, had all been removed and shipped to Germany. And suddenly there were no musicians for the orchestra. We used to march out of the camp with military music, five abreast through the gate when we were counted off. And suddenly notices appeared now throughout the camp that if you could play an instrument there would be auditions for a Jewish orchestra - or anybody in the camp who could play and instrument, Jew or non-Jew. And Lex went out to audition. As he was playing his trumpet, one of the SS men listening came up to him and said, "Didn't you used to play on the radio in Holland, on Hilversum?" And Lex said yes. He said, "I recognized your style of playing the trumpet - you're accepted, you are going to the orchestra. Lex became the first trumpet chair and a few weeks later he became the conductor.

I'm still in the hospital. He has become a "prominent member" suddenly by this job that he holds of the camp. Some Kapo - do you know what a Kapo is I take it? - a Kapo came to see Lex and said, “Lex, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to teach me how to play the trumpet.” And he said, “Deal, provided,” and he said, “Provided what?” “Provided you do me a favor,” he said. “What's that?” “A buddy of mine is in the hospital, he's about to come out, he needs a good job. I want you to take him on into your detail.” He said, “OK, I'll do that.” So I line up, and the work leader, who is a fellow prisoner, now goes down the line, comes to me and says, “139829, nobody of your transport is still alive, you’re about the only one, I believe.” He said, “Anybody who can live that long around here deserves a good job. You go to the Packetstelle." Never heard of the Packetstelle?

It turned out the Packetstelle is where all the packages come in for all the prisoners who are in Auschwitz or in the sub camps. And the packages that come in are all filled with food, and if you are alive on the day that the package arrives, then that package goes to you wherever you are in the sub camps. And if you are not alive, all these packages are opened up and the food is sorted out for the kitchen or for other purposes. One of the purposes is that everybody who works in the detail can steal whatever is available.

And so here I am in this detail, where stealing is the day’s order of business. Inasmuch as you are in this detail, you are now reassigned to a new block, a new building, strictly for people in the detail and other "prominent members” of the camp. Suddenly I had become a "prominent member” of the camp. And this will be totally absurd to you, as it was to me when it happened, but after I had my own bed, my own bed sheets, my own blankets, my own pillow, I had a toothbrush now, I had toothpaste, I had handkerchiefs, I had socks, I had underwear, I had undershirts, I had an own cabinet where I kept my food.

I was "prominent," and I could buy things with all the food that I could steal. And so because you were prominent you had to have a custom made suit. So you had made a custom made prisoner suit, with hand printed numbers, for here and there, and a hand made cap. And I had shoes again, not wooden sandals. And all of a sudden, by the end of 1944, I had been filled out better than I came to the camp in 1943, with the rationing in Holland. I was eating everything good under the sun. I was smoking the best cigarettes that came in the packages. You couldn't think of a better life, almost.

Then the Russians came, the Soviets, or the Red Army, I should say. And the camps were emptied out. They all went east – west, I should say, west.

I marched out of the camp on Sunday, January 18, 1945, which was the last transport to leave Auschwitz. We marched for about 3 days and rested at night, and we were taken to a railway siding - a marshaling yard - and that's where Lex and I lost each other. Lex went to Dachau and I went to Mauthausen.

This time we didn't go into roofed cars, we went to open cars, no roofs on them, in January, end of January. I had my warm, hand made uniform on, underwear, shoes, and I had an overcoat, also hand made, and I had my cap and whatever food I had in my pockets that I was still able to hold onto. And we went for 3 days and 3 nights to Mauthausen from Poland.

Through that entire trip snow was coming down and people were dying left all around me. There was no drum in the middle to do your thing. So if you had to move your bowel you went to a corner, and if there was a body there that was died, you did it right next to or on the body, and you urinated. It became totally inhumane. Immoral, and yet you became indifferent to it all.

Then I wound up in Mauthausen. So that's where we go back to the question that you posed. When we came to the delousing barracks for delousing, when we had to take off all our clothes, the guy who was a fellow prisoner at Mauthausen, standing at the door letting people in, he looked at me, and said in German to me, “You will not become a prominent member here”. And at that point gave me the beating of my life. I had never been beaten before or since like that and I still have a scar in the back of my head. And from February to about the 13th of April, I had amnesia. I have no recollection of what happened. I can remember getting on the truck that took me to Melk. I have no idea where I lived in Melk. I know I went on the train with the others and went into the tunnels to work. Beyond that I have no concept of where I was.

And I woke up on the day when we were told to go down the steps to the Danube, get on the barges where we were shipped to Linz, got off, got a loaf of bread, and started marching to Ebensee, another three day march. And I was totally cognizant. From about February until about the middle of April - totally blank. And so that was the worst beating that I had ever had in my life. And I had to tell you all that to get to that point, because otherwise you could not have understood it. Any other questions?

And I became an architect. I did. I did become an architect, in San Francisco, in 1960, and I told my wife at that point when she called me on the telephone that you had passed the exams, and I said to her, “Now I can die. I have made the promise and kept the promise to my parents.” And she said, “No, you cannot. Now your life really begins”. And we built a practice in San Francisco that is still going with about 20 employees, from 1960 till now, over 42 years.

His Friend Lex

When you were in the camp you mentioned you had the friend, Lex, while you were there. Did you have many other friends that consoled you at all or that you consoled?

Lex and I became buddies, I mean, total buddies. Nobody else was there that I could say was a bosom pal. The funny part was, after the war, because I came within a little bit more than a year after liberation, I came to the United States in 1946. I had gone to Holland in 1945 to see if any of my relatives had come back, and because what I had been through, I realized my father and mother could not have survived, and nor my sister.

I went back in August in 1945. I was in Holland when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. Couldn't find any of my family. Hitch hiked back to the American army with whom I was now staying, and I came back to Holland in the summer of 1946, when I had received an affidavit of coming to the United States. Again looked for any relatives, couldn't find any, and so I arrived in New York, on the 30th of September, 1946. Lex had thought I had died on the train trip and I had thought Lex had died on the train trips.

When my wife and I helped to start the Holocaust Center in San Francisco, (I think that's where Rachel and Leah have been), I sent a letter to the Dutch Auschwitz committee in Amsterdam, explaining who I was, what I was doing, and would they put a notice in their bulletin that I was looking for certain material if anyone wanted to get rid of them. And Lex read that story.

I was sitting in my office and my secretary said there is somebody on the phone for you from Holland. I picked it up and there is a man on the phone and he says…. No! I'm sorry. I got a letter in the mail, that’s how it went, I got a letter in the mail, and I opened it up, and it’s all in Dutch, and it starts out, “If you are the Max Garcia who I think you might be, please read on. If you are not the Max Garcia that I think you might be, do not read on, destroy the letter." So I read on, and the hair on my back just started an edge.

I called my secretary in and I said, “Cancel all my appointments for the day. I don't take any telephone messages.” She said, "What happened, what happened?" and I said, “I will tell you later, first I need to call my wife.” So I called my wife and said, “Guess what happened to me?” and she said, “Please, no riddles,” and I said, “I just have a letter from Lex here.” And so I translated the letter for her, directly reading it into English, and she said, “What are you going to do?” I said, “I'm going to call him.” So I called information in Amsterdam, and they traced him, and we got on the phone and we talked for 40 minutes. Now, in those days 40 minutes to Holland, that was an arm and a leg in the amount of money it cost. And we talked and talked and couldn't believe the fortune that we were still alive, both of us.

In those days, my office was on Sutter Street, between Mason and Powell. Do any of you know where Maxwell art gallery used to be? No, all before your time. And I was upstairs and I used to have, hanging from my window, because I faced Sutter street, the Amsterdam flag I had hanging out there. And Lex had been in San Francisco the year before and had stayed at the Drake Hotel on Powell Street, the Sir Francis Drake. Had walked to the corner of Sutter and Powell and never saw the flag. And he said, “If I had seen an Amsterdam flag from a window, I would have walked up there and asked who is the person from Amsterdam who lives here or works here?” He said, “Never saw your flag.” And that makes me so angry, because I looked to the right and never to the left, or we would have gotten together face to face. The next year we went, my wife and I. We sat there looking at each other, not believing each other that we were there.

He died a few years ago. His wife called me and said, “Max, Lex is dying.” I said, “How much time does he have?” and she said, “The doctor tells about three or four weeks at the most.” I said, “Get off the phone. I'll call the airline right away and I'll call you right back and let you know what flight I'm coming on. Get me a room in a hotel.” About a half an hour later I called her and said, “I'm coming in on such and such a flight. Have you got a room for me?” and she said, “Yes.” I said, “Don't worry about a car for me, I'll have one rented.” Went home, told my wife. I said, “Lex is dying, I got to go.” Told my staff, “I got to go.” And I went to Amsterdam to be with him where he was dying of lung cancer. He had been an ardent cigar smoker. One down, lit them up with the next one.

He had become very prominent in Amsterdam as a conductor in an orchestra. And people came to visit him when I was there, I was there for 8 days, to say good bye to him and reminisce with him. And when they were gone I asked him, “Lex, are those all friends of yours?” and he said, “Max, I have only got one friend, all the others are acquaintances.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “Only a friend like yours would come 6,000 miles to say goodbye.” And his wife called about a week later and she said, “He died in my arms.” That's the kind of buddies we were. OK, come on, get me out of this, please. Somebody.