bullets often pierced the arms of the Sonderkommando men from one side to the other when he was dissatisfied with their work. In such cases he inevitably aimed for the arms, without otherwise manifesting his dissatisfaction, but also without giving any previous warning.
When the two pyres were operating simultaneously, the output varied from five to six thousand dead a day. Slightly better than the crematoriums, but here death was a thousand times more terrible, for here one died twice, first by a bullet in the back of the neck, then by fire.
After death by gas, by chloroform injections, and a bullet in the back of the neck, I had now made my acquaintance with this fourth “combined” method.
I gathered up the medicines and glasses left behind by the victims. Dazed, my knees still trembling with emotion, I started for home, that is, for number one crematorium, which, to quote Dr. Mengele himself, “was no sanatorium, but a place where one could live in a pretty decent way.” After having seen the pyres, I was inclined to agree with him.
Once home, I entered the room, but instead of arranging the medicines and spectacles, I took a sedative and went to bed. Today’s dose was 30 centigrams, sufficient, I hoped, to counteract the effects of funeral pyre sickness.
XIV
THE FOLLOWING MORNING I AWOKE wondering what revelation the new day would bring. For here each new day had its revelation, one more horrible than anything a normal person could ever have dreamed of.
I learned from the Sonder, who invariably managed to have all the latest information, that the KZ was in strict quarantine. This meant that no one could leave the barracks. SS soldiers and their police dogs were out in full force. Today they were going to liquidate the Czech Camp.
The Czech Camp consisted of about 15,000 deportees brought from the Theresienstadt ghetto. Like the Gypsy Camp, it had a family air about it. The deportees had not been “selected” upon arrival, but sent intact to their quarters. All, no matter what their age or physical condition, had been allowed to keep their clean clothes and live together. Their lot was hard, but not unbearable. Unlike the other sections, they did not work.
Thus they had lived for two years, till the hour for their extermination arrived, as sooner or later it arrived for everybody in the KZ. At Auschwitz it was never a question of whether you would live or die, but merely a question of time, of when you would die. No one escaped. The trainloads of Hungarian deportees, or, to use the expression current in the KZ, the “freight,” arrived in a steady flow, sometimes two trainloads at a time, and disgorged their passengers. For them the ubiquitous Dr. Mengele dispensed with the customary formality of selection. He stood there like a statue, his arm always pointing in the same direction: to the left. Thus whole trainloads were expedited to the gas chambers and pyres.
The quarantine camp, C Camp, D Camp and the F section were terribly overcrowded, despite the quotas which were filled daily for shipment to more distant camps. In the Czech Camp both the children and aged had been greatly weakened by their two-year ordeal: the children’s bodies were mere skin and bones, and the elderly prisoners were so weak they could scarcely walk. Both had to relinquish their places to new arrivals who were still strong enough to work.
During the preceding weeks their situation had steadily worsened. When the first Hungarian convoys had begun arriving their rations had been sharply reduced. Then, a few weeks later, when the stream of new deportees had swelled to flood proportions, the camp authorities had found themselves faced with a serious shortage of food. As usual, their remedy had been both drastic and efficient: they had practically suppressed the Czech Camp rations altogether.
Hunger had reduced the prisoners to raving, moaning maniacs. Within a few days their already weakened organisms had disintegrated entirely.
When the two pyres were operating simultaneously, the output varied from five to six thousand dead a day. Slightly better than the crematoriums, but here death was a thousand times more terrible, for here one died twice, first by a bullet in the back of the neck, then by fire.
After death by gas, by chloroform injections, and a bullet in the back of the neck, I had now made my acquaintance with this fourth “combined” method.
I gathered up the medicines and glasses left behind by the victims. Dazed, my knees still trembling with emotion, I started for home, that is, for number one crematorium, which, to quote Dr. Mengele himself, “was no sanatorium, but a place where one could live in a pretty decent way.” After having seen the pyres, I was inclined to agree with him.
Once home, I entered the room, but instead of arranging the medicines and spectacles, I took a sedative and went to bed. Today’s dose was 30 centigrams, sufficient, I hoped, to counteract the effects of funeral pyre sickness.
XIV
THE FOLLOWING MORNING I AWOKE wondering what revelation the new day would bring. For here each new day had its revelation, one more horrible than anything a normal person could ever have dreamed of.
I learned from the Sonder, who invariably managed to have all the latest information, that the KZ was in strict quarantine. This meant that no one could leave the barracks. SS soldiers and their police dogs were out in full force. Today they were going to liquidate the Czech Camp.
The Czech Camp consisted of about 15,000 deportees brought from the Theresienstadt ghetto. Like the Gypsy Camp, it had a family air about it. The deportees had not been “selected” upon arrival, but sent intact to their quarters. All, no matter what their age or physical condition, had been allowed to keep their clean clothes and live together. Their lot was hard, but not unbearable. Unlike the other sections, they did not work.
Thus they had lived for two years, till the hour for their extermination arrived, as sooner or later it arrived for everybody in the KZ. At Auschwitz it was never a question of whether you would live or die, but merely a question of time, of when you would die. No one escaped. The trainloads of Hungarian deportees, or, to use the expression current in the KZ, the “freight,” arrived in a steady flow, sometimes two trainloads at a time, and disgorged their passengers. For them the ubiquitous Dr. Mengele dispensed with the customary formality of selection. He stood there like a statue, his arm always pointing in the same direction: to the left. Thus whole trainloads were expedited to the gas chambers and pyres.
The quarantine camp, C Camp, D Camp and the F section were terribly overcrowded, despite the quotas which were filled daily for shipment to more distant camps. In the Czech Camp both the children and aged had been greatly weakened by their two-year ordeal: the children’s bodies were mere skin and bones, and the elderly prisoners were so weak they could scarcely walk. Both had to relinquish their places to new arrivals who were still strong enough to work.
During the preceding weeks their situation had steadily worsened. When the first Hungarian convoys had begun arriving their rations had been sharply reduced. Then, a few weeks later, when the stream of new deportees had swelled to flood proportions, the camp authorities had found themselves faced with a serious shortage of food. As usual, their remedy had been both drastic and efficient: they had practically suppressed the Czech Camp rations altogether.
Hunger had reduced the prisoners to raving, moaning maniacs. Within a few days their already weakened organisms had disintegrated entirely.
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