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Anyway, I knew about Auschwitz by then, because when I was working in that ‘shop’, where I stitched these button-holes, there were pieces of paper sewed into uniform collars with information about Auschwitz. They were written in Polish, clearly by those, who were dealing with uniforms there. Most often they’d say: ‘This is so that you know where you are going, this is a death camp, everyone here will die.’ So we were already prepared for that, but what were we to do? Maybe an uprising. There were some movements, but no one dared to do it. They sent us immediately to the train station, to these cattle wagons. I remember how they shoved us into the cars and closed them. I think it took us 8 days to get to Auschwitz. It was a horrible trip. Everyone was silent, or crying. It was horribly crowded. And we almost didn’t talk. We felt those were our last moments together, that we would never meet again. We felt something. So I hugged my parents and I didn’t want to leave them. Any my brother, even though he was younger, but very caring, kept saying: ‘Don’t worry, it will all be fine.’
And when we reached Auschwitz it was September 1944 [the last transport left Lodz on 29th August 1944]. I didn’t receive a number. The transport I arrived with didn’t receive numbers. [Indeed, not everyone received numbers, especially women from the last transports, because it was known they would be sent off further. In such cases meticulous records were not necessary. Such cases of not issuing numbers were common since 1944]. At first they hurried us out of the wagons and there was selection straight away: women separately, men separately. Children were taken from their parents, those were horrible moments. Mother died the very same day. All the women were together, but Mother wasn’t with them anymore. Neither was her friend. They were older [Mrs. Najberg’s mother was 51 years old] and there weren’t suitable for them [Germans] for labor, so they went straight into the gas chamber and that was the end. I never saw mother again. This ‘aufejzerka’ [Polonized version of the German word Aufseher – guard, supervisor], this leader, a German, said: ‘Do you see this chimney? That’s where your mothers are frying.’
I was alone since that time. I didn’t even want to talk to anyone. We didn’t form friendships. It was difficult to have friends in such horrific conditions. You didn’t even feel like talking. And these first days, after they separated me from my family, I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want anything, I only cried. Women would approach me and say: ‘Stop this or they’ll kill you’ and I’d say ‘Let them, that’s what I want, I want them to kill me.’ But later I somehow got used to not having a family, not having my parents and my brother. You could somehow hang on, but you couldn’t call it a life, of course.
We lived in barracks. They used to be horse barns. There was a stove in the middle, it wasn’t high, and bunk beds on two sides. I think there were three levels of these bunk beds. We were 5 girls to one bunk bed. So we had to take orders while sleeping, if one turned on her left side, all had to turn on their left sides, if the right one, all on the right one, or we wouldn’t have fit in there.
We were very hungry. They would often wake us up at 4 a.m., for roll call. We’d have to stand in fives [groups of five]. We’d all shiver, because it was already November, so very cold, and we were dressed lightly. I only had a skirt that I had to tie around my waist with a rope, because 2 could have fit in there, and a torn up blouse, without the back side, because that was torn out. And I had to stand like this for 4, 5 hours in freezing temperature. Once I just didn’t have enough strength, so I said: ‘I don’t care anymore, let them kill me’ and I sat down there in the five. The girls shouted: ‘Get up or they’ll kill you’, I answered: ‘Let them kill me, who needs such a life.’ After roll call we got, I don’t remember, but I think it was this one tiny piece of bread, too much too die, not enough to live.
And later, we had to relieve ourselves. You couldn’t walk around the camp, just close to the barrack. Well, this is really indescribable. Literally. We could only relieve ourselves when ordered to do so, altogether, those Germans followed us and guarded us, we had no shame left. You couldn’t do anything about it. And washing, when one managed to get to a faucet, she was happy that she could freshen up her face a bit. But you couldn’t wash yourself like people normally do, there was no way. Perhaps that’s why they gave us something to stop our periods. They added some pills to the food. Well, an epidemic would have broken out there if we all started menstruating. And we didn’t even have underclothes. I only found out about this after the war.
For lunch they gave us this one bowl of soup for five people, without spoons, of course, and whoever managed to take a few sips, got to eat something, but I rarely managed, because I didn’t like this pushing and shoving. I said: ‘I won’t fight, because it won’t lead to anything.’ And that’s how it was. In the evening there was roll call and back to sleep. Sometimes I didn’t even lie down on the bunk bed, but right next to the stove, there was a slab of concrete there and I slept on that concrete, in that blouse with the torn out back and in that skirt. Perhaps that’s why I now suffer so much.
Some women, mostly older ones, couldn’t stand it and threw themselves on the fence. And this was an electric fence. If you touched it, that was the end. It was a rather easy death. Once I witnessed such an event. I can still see her, hanging on those wires. Black hands, everything black. Head down.
I never had any contact with the Germans. That’s what saved me. I know they called on some of them [the women prisoners] and they served them. In different ways. It never happened to me. We didn’t work at all in Auschwitz. I was even surprised, because they took us there, because we were young and able to work, but they didn’t give us any work. When you were there you had to have connections to get work, know one of those kapo [German abbreviation of Kamaraden Polizei, a function filled by inmates in nazi concentration camps. Criminals and brutal prisoners were often selected for this function. Some of them were known for their sadism, however, some were members of the resistance. In exchange for serving the function, they kapos received, for example, additional food rations], one of those officers. Working in the kitchen was a dream come true. When one got a job in the kitchen, she was really happy.
I don’t think we ever talked about gas chambers and what was happening there. I didn’t see any transport. You couldn’t see that at all. The Germans disguised everything, they’d tell you that you were going to a bathhouse. There were real bathhouses too. Right after we arrived they stripped us, shaved all our hair, gave us some rags and these wooden shoes for our feet. This took place in the bathhouse. I only remember they shaved us with this machine, but it wasn’t an electric shaver, oh no. They wounded our heads and other parts of our bodies, because nobody was looking there. I still have lots of these cysts on my head, perhaps because of that. These warts, cysts. They’ve operated on me several times [to remove them], but they always grow back.
And when we reached Auschwitz it was September 1944 [the last transport left Lodz on 29th August 1944]. I didn’t receive a number. The transport I arrived with didn’t receive numbers. [Indeed, not everyone received numbers, especially women from the last transports, because it was known they would be sent off further. In such cases meticulous records were not necessary. Such cases of not issuing numbers were common since 1944]. At first they hurried us out of the wagons and there was selection straight away: women separately, men separately. Children were taken from their parents, those were horrible moments. Mother died the very same day. All the women were together, but Mother wasn’t with them anymore. Neither was her friend. They were older [Mrs. Najberg’s mother was 51 years old] and there weren’t suitable for them [Germans] for labor, so they went straight into the gas chamber and that was the end. I never saw mother again. This ‘aufejzerka’ [Polonized version of the German word Aufseher – guard, supervisor], this leader, a German, said: ‘Do you see this chimney? That’s where your mothers are frying.’
I was alone since that time. I didn’t even want to talk to anyone. We didn’t form friendships. It was difficult to have friends in such horrific conditions. You didn’t even feel like talking. And these first days, after they separated me from my family, I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want anything, I only cried. Women would approach me and say: ‘Stop this or they’ll kill you’ and I’d say ‘Let them, that’s what I want, I want them to kill me.’ But later I somehow got used to not having a family, not having my parents and my brother. You could somehow hang on, but you couldn’t call it a life, of course.
We lived in barracks. They used to be horse barns. There was a stove in the middle, it wasn’t high, and bunk beds on two sides. I think there were three levels of these bunk beds. We were 5 girls to one bunk bed. So we had to take orders while sleeping, if one turned on her left side, all had to turn on their left sides, if the right one, all on the right one, or we wouldn’t have fit in there.
We were very hungry. They would often wake us up at 4 a.m., for roll call. We’d have to stand in fives [groups of five]. We’d all shiver, because it was already November, so very cold, and we were dressed lightly. I only had a skirt that I had to tie around my waist with a rope, because 2 could have fit in there, and a torn up blouse, without the back side, because that was torn out. And I had to stand like this for 4, 5 hours in freezing temperature. Once I just didn’t have enough strength, so I said: ‘I don’t care anymore, let them kill me’ and I sat down there in the five. The girls shouted: ‘Get up or they’ll kill you’, I answered: ‘Let them kill me, who needs such a life.’ After roll call we got, I don’t remember, but I think it was this one tiny piece of bread, too much too die, not enough to live.
And later, we had to relieve ourselves. You couldn’t walk around the camp, just close to the barrack. Well, this is really indescribable. Literally. We could only relieve ourselves when ordered to do so, altogether, those Germans followed us and guarded us, we had no shame left. You couldn’t do anything about it. And washing, when one managed to get to a faucet, she was happy that she could freshen up her face a bit. But you couldn’t wash yourself like people normally do, there was no way. Perhaps that’s why they gave us something to stop our periods. They added some pills to the food. Well, an epidemic would have broken out there if we all started menstruating. And we didn’t even have underclothes. I only found out about this after the war.
For lunch they gave us this one bowl of soup for five people, without spoons, of course, and whoever managed to take a few sips, got to eat something, but I rarely managed, because I didn’t like this pushing and shoving. I said: ‘I won’t fight, because it won’t lead to anything.’ And that’s how it was. In the evening there was roll call and back to sleep. Sometimes I didn’t even lie down on the bunk bed, but right next to the stove, there was a slab of concrete there and I slept on that concrete, in that blouse with the torn out back and in that skirt. Perhaps that’s why I now suffer so much.
Some women, mostly older ones, couldn’t stand it and threw themselves on the fence. And this was an electric fence. If you touched it, that was the end. It was a rather easy death. Once I witnessed such an event. I can still see her, hanging on those wires. Black hands, everything black. Head down.
I never had any contact with the Germans. That’s what saved me. I know they called on some of them [the women prisoners] and they served them. In different ways. It never happened to me. We didn’t work at all in Auschwitz. I was even surprised, because they took us there, because we were young and able to work, but they didn’t give us any work. When you were there you had to have connections to get work, know one of those kapo [German abbreviation of Kamaraden Polizei, a function filled by inmates in nazi concentration camps. Criminals and brutal prisoners were often selected for this function. Some of them were known for their sadism, however, some were members of the resistance. In exchange for serving the function, they kapos received, for example, additional food rations], one of those officers. Working in the kitchen was a dream come true. When one got a job in the kitchen, she was really happy.
I don’t think we ever talked about gas chambers and what was happening there. I didn’t see any transport. You couldn’t see that at all. The Germans disguised everything, they’d tell you that you were going to a bathhouse. There were real bathhouses too. Right after we arrived they stripped us, shaved all our hair, gave us some rags and these wooden shoes for our feet. This took place in the bathhouse. I only remember they shaved us with this machine, but it wasn’t an electric shaver, oh no. They wounded our heads and other parts of our bodies, because nobody was looking there. I still have lots of these cysts on my head, perhaps because of that. These warts, cysts. They’ve operated on me several times [to remove them], but they always grow back.
Period
Location
Auschwitz
Poland
Interview
Helena Najberg
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