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The person in question has given us the following information: On the 20th of March 1944, a day after the
Germans
invaded
the country I wanted to send a pack to my husband who was in
labour
service with one of his comrades, who spent his days off at home and was travelling
back the same day. I asked a
policeman whether I could enter the building of the railway station. He politely
responded
Just come in
, and he right away put me in the line of other captured Jews.
In the evening they took me to
Kistarcsa, and the 29th of April to
Auschwitz. The
first weeks in
Kistarcsa were awful. 10-12
people
lay on a
straw mattress without any cover or provision. The only
food we
got was sent to us by the
Hungarian National Jewish Aid
Action. There was a
policeman called
Bakos, who was
infinitely cruel to us. He destroyed us mentally. He kept telling us that
You would not
go home from here any more
. It appeared that he was going to be right because we had
to
leave for
Auschwitz the 28th of April. There were 78
people in the freight car: 50
women
and 28
men. We arrived after a day of travel. On arrival, they asked us at the station
whether someone was
sick or unable to walk. Naturally, many volunteered. They were sent
directly to the
gas chamber. In those days the
train
stopped far away, and later we - the first
Hungarian
transport – built the rail on which the
train
could come closer. For three weeks we stayed in a so-called quarantine before I got into the
so-called
Kanadakommando together with 150 others. The
Kanadakommando
used to open the luggage and sort out the
clothes
of the
deported. We received better treatment, and wore the same striped
clothes
and red
headscarves. I spent here around four months. We
worked
with the
clothes of
dead people. We found documents and photos in their pockets.
Mentally, this work destroyed us completely. It was horrible to see the
chimneys throwing out fire everyday, and to see the pits on fire from afar.
Dead
bodies were so numerous that the
crematoria did not have the capacities to burn them all so they burnt
people
also in pits out in the open. There were
transports that arrived during the night and were sent to the
gas
chamber without
selections.
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There were nights when they burnt 25,000
people.
People from the last
Hungarian
transport came from
Újpest and the neighbourhoods of
Pest. A few weeks later
there was less
work to do because no new
transports arrived so the
Kanadakommando
was dismissed. My last horrible memory working in the
Kanada is the
episode when
men, who had
worked
in the
gas
chambers, were brought to our place and
gassed
in the room where the
Kanada used to
gas
clothes. For four weeks I was in quarantine from where I got into an
Aussenkommando. On the third day an
SS-man
beat me almost to
death with no apparent
reason only because he was drunk. He was treading on me, kicking me, and he broke three of
my ribs. The
German head doctor of the
hospital prepared a report (so-called Meldung)
about it, since it was too much even for him. I stayed in
hospital for 8 days, and I could stay another week in the block for the
convalescent. Later, I was transferred into the
commando of the weaving mill. This was the most horrible. If we did not weave the
expected quantity they would beat us. The road to the workplace led through totally muddy
parts and we crossed them without
shoes
and warm
clothes. At the end of October, also the
commando of the weaving mill was moved into
Camp C. This was
even more horrible because the rain fell into the block. We stood there lined up for
roll
call in the freezing cold and we had to
work
afterwards. It also happened that they were disinfecting us all the night and we could not
sleep at all but we had to go to
work
all the same. At the same time the kitchen moved and it meant that we did not get a bite of
food from Sunday noon till Wednesday evening. They said it was a punishment but we
never found out for what. When they wanted to make
Aryan
people work in the weaving mill the Jews were dismissed and I was
selected for a
transport the 29th of November. They
took me to
St.
Gheorgenthal, where I
worked
for an aircraft parts plant. In the beginning there were only 200 people
working
there guarded by 10
Aufseherins. These
Aufseherins were quite nice when compared to those in
Auschwitz. When
Russians approached us they brought here
prisoners from various
camps,
and also the
SS came with them. This meant that life became hell also here. They
would keep beating us. We dug trenches, and they forced us to get prepared to counter the
enemy. On the 20th of December, I fell
sick
with
pneumonia and
typhus that had an effect later also on my legs. The 9th of May, the
Russians
liberated us. I spent another two weeks in
hospital before I came home.