Tag #151793 - Interview #84041 (Yacob Hollander)

We stayed 3 weeks in the ghetto and then the Hungarian gendarmes put us on a train taking us across Slovakia to Poland, to the Auschwitz concentration camp. We knew where we were going, but we didn’t know that Auschwitz was an extermination camp. There were talks among people in the train. We were told that they were taking us to work. When the train arrived at Auschwitz we were getting off the train one after another. There were German soldiers and doctors in white robes near each railcar. My mother, my two brothers, my younger sister and grandmother Ghita were taken to the side where there were women with children. My father was told to go to another side and I was told to go with my mother, but I grabbed my father and went with him. The doctor who was sorting people out looked at me and waved his hand letting me go. Later I got to know that my mother, the children and grandmother Ghita were exterminated in a gas chamber on tat same day. They told people they were going to the bathroom, ordered them to undress and gave them soap and towels. They left their things behind and went in to wash. The doors were locked and then let the gas in. There were Jewish inmates working in gas chambers. When they got exhausted they were also exterminated in gas chambers. Those inmates searched people’s clothing for money and jewelry. The doors of gas chambers were opened 10 minutes later to make sure there were no survivors. Then a crew of inmates loaded corpses onto platforms to take them to the crematorium.

My father and I were also taken to the bathroom. While we were washing they took away our clothing and didn’t give us any in return. They kept us naked for 3 days. We already knew that our family had perished. Other inmates told us that Germans exterminated those who couldn’t work immediately. I was lying on a plank bed sobbing. My father couldn’t hold back his tears. We had some thin soup three times a day and no bread.