must be cleared away. From time to time S.S. men come to the square and order us to pick out good-quality suits and watches for them and fine dresses for their wives. We must hurry for the pile must at all costs be cleared away by noon.
The clock strikes 12.00. We are already standing by the kitchen when we hear the locomotive entering the camp again, dragging fresh victims with it. The same freight waggons appear and we hear the doors thrown open quickly, and as always everyone is driven out of the waggons with blows from rifle butts and whips.
A few minutes later the head murderer of the camp appears and shouts: — Barbers, step out! We have not yet eaten our midday soup but are at once led back to the gas chambers, to more of our filthy work. And the same terrifying picture: more wretched souls appear, from the town of Ostrowice. In just over an hour it is all over for them.
Before me sits a young woman. I cut her hair and she grabs my hand and begs me to remember that I too am a Jew. She knows that she is lost. But remember, she says, you see what is being done to us. That’s why my wish for you is that you will survive and take revenge for our innocent blood, which will continue to cry out…
I reply quietly: — My dear woman, the same fate awaits me. I am a Jew, after all.
The woman has not had time to get up when a murderer walking between the benches lashes her head with his whip.
Blood shows on her shorn head. She jumps up and runs where all are running.
We finish our work and remain standing at our places for a while, because the way out is filled with naked men being driven to the gas chambers. They run through a chain of murderers who stand on both sides and beat them. The Jews run with their hands raised, fingers spread wide, chanting continuously: — Shema Yisroel, Shema Yisroel (Hear, O Israel). With these words on their lips they are driven to their deaths.
The stream of victims comes to an end, the iron door is hermetically shut, and the last cries of the victims are silenced.
The murderers appear and we are led back to the square, because the noon break is over. We sort clothes at a rapid pace in order to make room for new bundles. I sort then carry the bundles in various directions.
That is how the afternoon passes. The clock strikes 6.00. Hearing the signal, we stop working and take our places for roll-call.
After counting us, the Jewish head Kapo, Galewski, announces the number of prisoners to the chief killer, Kiewe. He then orders: — Rechts um! (Right face!) in the direction of the kitchen.
As we did yesterday, each of us receives his soup and heads for the barracks. I stand with my friend Leybl and Moyshe Ettinger and the tears pour out of us without stopping. We are finally beginning to understand the catastrophe taking place here, that this is a factory that swallows victims without stopping: yesterday twelve thousand, today fifteen thousand, and so on without end… We want to find out what is done with the victims after they are dead, but we are unable to, because there, where the corpses are, is Camp 2, which is entirely isolated from us, and we have no contact with the Jews who work there.
We ponder and ponder and ask ourselves: What now? And we decide that at all costs we must look for possibilities to escape, because at some point, without warning, we are in any case going to be killed.
We decide that, starting tomorrow, each of us will begin to collect as much money as he can from what we find while working, trying in the next few days to collect tens of thousands of zlotys, and at the same time we will try to find a way to escape.
Meanwhile the clock strikes 9.00. The lights are turned off.
Exhausted and depressed, we throw ourselves to the ground. We groan for a time with the heavy pain in our hearts, then fall asleep.
We sleep through the night and at 4.30 we hear the signal. We awake from our deep sleep. I ask around to see if I can obtain a little water to wash myself with. My friend tells me that he hasn’t washed in the ten days since he came here. We march out to our breakfast of coffee and bread. I am able to save a little water to wash with. We march to the roll-call, and, after being counted, we are led by our Kapo and foreman to the square for work.
My friend Leybl and I get to work. When we find larger banknotes we try to hide them so that no murderer will notice, otherwise we will get a bullet in the head. We collect the money carefully and hide it in the coat I am wearing. I work that way for a couple of hours and gather several thousand zlotys. By noon I have about five thousand. My friend Leybl has somewhat more. At the noon break we decide to collect as much money as we can, since without money we are lost even if we succeed in escaping.
In the afternoon the work goes quickly. I once again find several thousand zlotys. It is about 2.00 in the afternoon. While sorting I hear, not far from me, a murderer calclass="underline" — Komm’ her!
(Come here!) I drop what I am doing and run over to him. He tells me to remain standing there. There are soon about twenty of us standing together and we do not know what will happen to us. I see that more and more workers are being sent over. Fearing that we may be searched, I take off the coat in which the money is hidden. I throw it to one side saying that I’m hot. After a few minutes I and about thirty others are led to the courtyard where we all undress and are carefully searched to see if any of us has hidden money or valuables. The murderers find one man with money. He is brutally beaten, taken aside and shot.
As I am one of the last to be inspected, I am able to search my pockets and find a 100-zloty banknote. I do not become flustered and put the banknote quickly into my mouth. The murderers do not notice. They take away our pocket knives and razor blades.
They line us up in groups of five and lead us towards where the victims are driven to the gas chambers. But instead of the gas chambers, we are led to the second camp, which is far worse than the gas chambers.
7
No sooner do we cross the threshold of the wretched camp than we are greeted with a hail of lashes from the whips, which fall unceasingly upon us. We are immediately driven to a job that consists of taking sand in barrows from one pile and carrying it to another pile. In the first minutes I think I am going to pass out. I don’t know what I am carrying and where I am carrying it. Nevertheless, after running several times to the pile where we pour out the sand, I see that we are pouring it onto corpses that have been thrown into a pit. I am unable to gather my thoughts because they do not let us rest for a second. We load the sand with the greatest possible speed, grab the barrow immediately and run, dump the sand onto the victims and then run back again. The sweat is pouring off our faces. I throw off my jacket, but that doesn’t help. At every step there stand the murderers who lash every one of our heads with their long whips. I expend my last ounce of strength and am no longer able to stand. A murderer comes over and beats me without cease: — You dog, my whip is broken by this time every day, but today it’s still in one piece!
He beats me without stopping. I am foaming at the mouth and feel that my strength is at an end. The same is true of my friends.
In the distance stands a murderer observing our work. He calls over one after another of us, tells each one to undress and descend into the pit. The victims have to bend over and receive a bullet in the head. They then fall on top of the corpses that lie spread out beneath them.
After about fifteen minutes perhaps twenty of my comrades are missing. Our group is thinning out. I look around and see that there is almost no-one left. I am sure that my turn will come in a few minutes. I don’t know where I get the extraordinary strength to throw myself into my work, to the point where the murderer standing next to me and beating me says: — You work well. I won’t shoot you.