Search
Main page
On DEGOB
The Survivor Witnesses
Glossary
Encylopedia of Camps
Supporters

The persons in question have given us the following information: They separated us from our parents in Auschwitz. Our mother and our little sister went to the gas chamber, while they took us into the disinfecting building. They completely undressed us, seized all our belongings, we got new clothes and they led us into the camp. We spent four weeks in quarantine and they put us into the Kanadakommando to work. Our job was to sort out the belongings of those who arrived with transports. While we worked here we had a good life and we also had ample food as we obtained food from the freight cars. We worked for six weeks before we were transferred into the “Kartoffelbunker” (potato storage), where we unloaded potatoes from wagons. It was very hard work and we did it together with men. We had an Oberscharführer, who used to beat us, especially if we stopped working, even if only for a second. He was especially cruel to men, and many of them even died because of him. His favourite game was to stab a fork in the neck or to shoot into the mouth. Later, he explained that this was needed because the victim “wanted to run away.” We put potatoes in pits for the winter. We arrived at around 6 am to the workplace and worked till 6 in the evening. We got one quarter of a loaf of bread, and a litre of soup for a day, and twice a week one third of a loaf of bread, and some margarine or sausage as Zulag. When we were in quarantine fourteen of us lay on a bed of 1.30 x 1.30 metres. During the time we worked there were only 6-7-8 of us on a bed like that. We had a bath every day; we kept things clean. We lived in a block without heating; we did not even see fire. We had to live with open windows and doors also in the winter. When Auschwitz had to be evacuated we walked three days and nights. Whoever sat down for a second was shot. Before departure we got two loaves of bread and half a cube of margarine. We walked for some time but later were put into open wagons, 120 people in each, and travelled for 6 days by train. We got nothing to eat on the way so we were so hungry and thirsty that we ate and drank snow. When we arrived in Ravensbrück they made us stand for a day without any food. We ate snow also here as we were so hungry. There were 5,000 of us. At midnight they chased us to a tent, which was horribly dirty and full of lice, and water was up to the knees in some points. They woke us up in the morning and chased us out because of roll call, and in the evening they already gave us a little bread. Until next evening we did not get anything to eat. Polish people distributed rations, and they used to give two-three portions to Russians. As a result, there was often nothing left for us. For example, it happened that we got no food for three days. Since washing was troublesome as well, we all got lice soon. Infections spread, and 50-60 dead bodies were carried out of the block a day. They newly selected the younger ones and put together a transport and that was how we arrived in Neustadt. When we arrived and got off the train we were again left at the station for an entire day. Later, they led us into a building, into a granary, where 5,000 people were lodged. For 8 days we lived under awful conditions. We got food only once a day: a spoonful of soup and one fifth of a loaf of bread, while every day we had to be lined up for roll call for hours. Finally, 8 days later, they led us into the camp, where 75 of us got a little room. Our covers were seized; we had to undress and stay in some flimsy clothes in the middle of winter, in January. We slept on the bare floor without covers. They made us work regularly: we had to dig trenches. In the beginning we got one sixth of a loaf of bread, later only one tenth, the 50 of us a cube of margarine, and each of us four decilitres of soup. The soldiers of the Wehrmacht, who guarded us, were very nice to us, while the Lagerführer and the Lagerältesters were all really nasty. Slightest punishment was food deprivation for a day, and it was given for any trifle. In the end, we were so weak that we were unable to work. The weak and the sick started to be selected also here and transported into the extermination camp of Ravensbrück. Luckily, Americans arrived the 2nd of May and we were liberated.

Labour Service