Statement

Written with Mr. Erich Schön, born 18. 2. 1911, residing in Vsetín, Žerotínova 992, former prisoner of the concentration camps Spielberg, Dachau, Hamburg-Neuengamme, Auschwitz and Birkenau, profession clerk, Czech nationality.

Report on the tragic fate of Jakub Edelstein’s family.

On December 20th, 1943, roughly 5,000 men, women, and children, most of them Czech Jews, arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau from the Theresienstadt ghetto. They were placed in the special so-called Czech Family Camp in Birkenau, section B-II-B.

Amongst them was the family of Jakub Edelstein from Prague.

However, Jakub Edelstein, together with three companions, was called away from the transport at the Auschwitz train station and brought by car to the main camp Auschwitz I.

Here, they were imprisoned in block no. 11, the so-called Bunker, which was used as an investigation prison by the camp Gestapo, the so-called Politische Abteilung. Few made it out alive from there. It contained all kinds of instruments of torture, which were used to force either true or false confessions from the accused. Executions took place in the courtyard of this block.

Edelstein was interrogated several times and accused of enabling the escape of several people from the Theresienstadt ghetto.

Meanwhile, his family was in camp B-II-b. His wife worked at the children’s home, which was overseen by Fredy Hirsch. She, along with her mother and child was faring quite well. Through Jakub, who was a guard in block no. 11, we managed to put Jakub Edelstein in Auschwitz I in contact with his family in Birkenau. Two letters were exchanged in secret.

Sometime in February 1944, high-ranking SS officer Eichmann of the RSHA arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. He spoke with  Fredy Hirsch and Janowitz, was briefed on the conditions in the camp, and asked to see Edelstein’s wife.

He asked her how she was doing and whether she had a request. He also asked her whether she knew about her husband. She requested to be allowed to see her husband. He promised she would be able to do so at a later date and asked her to write a letter to her husband, which he promised to deliver. Edelstein was supposedly somewhere in the Reich.

About one month after his departure, the liquidation of the Czech Family Camp took place. On March 8th, 3,860 men, women, and children from the transports of September 7th and 9th, 1943, were annihilated in the gas chambers of Crematorium I and II.

We found out that the prisoners of the Czech Family Camp were ordered Sonderbehandlung (SB) after being in quarantine for half a year. According to this, the second liquidation was then expected on June 20th, 1944.

The second liquidation took place a short time later, but it it began exactly on June 20th with the annihilation of the Edelstein family, which happened like this:

On June 20th in the afternoon, a prison transport vehicle (paddy wagon) arrived in front of block no. 11 in Auschwitz I. The escorting SS man from Politische Abteilung requested that Jakub Edelstein and his companions be brought to him. He told the guard that they would be released to the Czech Family Camp and took their personal files with them. They told Edelstein that he would go to his family.

They were taken away by car, but not to the Family Camp. In fact, they were brought to Crematorium III in Birkenau.

The same car then drove to the Family Camp, from where it was supposed to take Edelstein’s wife and his family. That same day, E.’s wife, gravely ill, lay in block no. 32. The doctor refused to release her with the explanation that she was unable to be transported. The car left.

A few minutes later, the car returned with a strict order by Schwarzhuber, the commander of the camp, that Mrs. Edelstein and her family must be released immediately in the state that she was in.

They were also brought to Crematorium III. There, all of them were then shot to death in the execution hall and burned in the crematorium.

This statement can be verified by the eyewitnesses who have returned:

Filip Müller, Sered n. Váhom, who saw the execution in Crematorium III., Josef Neumann, Žilina, was was a prisoner in block 11 in Auschwitz and spoke with Jakub Edelstein.

Signature:

Erich Schön

Statement was accepted by:

Berta Gerzonová

Signatures of witnesses:

Helena Schicková

Marta Fischerová

On behalf of the Documentary campaign:

Scheck

On behalf of the archive:

Alex. Schmiedt

26. X. 1945