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Max
describes travel 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.
Were there nationality or language barriers between the prisoners?
When
my German became more fluent – when my vocabulary was beginning
to expand – one day
I had a conversation with a Polish Jew, I think
he was Polish because he spoke only Yiddish. And in his 'halfback'
German – because Yiddish
is a
dialect of German basically – he was explaining to me that they, the eastern
European Jews, did not consider us, the Dutch Jews, as Jews. And
I thought
I misunderstood him and I asked him to repeat what he just said. And he
said, "We don't think that you Dutch Jews are Jews." I
said,
"Oh, will you do be a favor?" And he says, "Sure, what can
I do for you?" I said, "Lets go to the SS and tell them that
so maybe I can go home." Because it was so stupid. I was there for
the same reason he was there: I had four Jewish Grandparents. Just because
I
spoke a different language or I came from a different country, by him,
I was looked down upon. And I thought that was kind of bizarre.
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