However this event didn’t frighten the Poles. Not even after one week they had a radio again. I respect deeply the Polish heroism. They told us for example every morning: ‘The frontline is here, the frontline is there.’ They explained how to disconnect the electric current from the wire fence, in which the electricity was introduced, so that we could come out, ‘if they want to empty the concentration camp’. My supervisor showed me that I should throw a small piece of iron so that it touched two wires, because the electricity would be off.
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Displaying 46861 - 46890 of 50826 results
Bella Steinmetz
There weren’t Jewish men with us, only women. Men were all Polish or French Christians, but there was also a mole. For example my master said: ‘Don’t mix with that French Häftling, because he’s a mole.’ As he wore prisoner clothes. They knew everything. They were caught once listening to the radio, and one of them was hanged up. He was hanging for days in the factory’s yard, so that everybody saw him.
At five o’clock they rang the bell, because we had to be in the factory by six. The factory was at a distance, like the Palace of Culture from here [a few minutes walk]. We walked there in lines, under military supervision. We had luck that the frontline was close. There were extremely many air-raid alarms. Often it lasted twenty-twenty five minutes. We had to run down to the shelter then. It was obligatory for everybody to go down. The factory still had an air-raid shelter. There was a tight, long-long bank. We were sitting there, it was warm, and we fell asleep. Once we saw a bombing, when Hamburg was demolished. We found out this later from the Poles, because they had a hand-made radio – they worked in some workshops, and there was a technician. Thousand aircrafts flew above our heads, so many went at once that one couldn’t see the sky.
We worked twelve hours, and we had that luck that it was warm in the factory. We made aircraft parts for Messerschmidt aircrafts. It is a world-famous brand. They brought smaller or bigger automatic machines from Czechoslovakia, they were already installed in the factory. I could say I had luck here, that I had quite an easy work. For example my friend had bad luck, she had to make big bolts. This meant that she had to install iron of two kilos on the machine. Mine was a small bolt, I had to fix the machine with that. They didn’t really control us. But the German supervisor said, ‘Pay attention to work accurately, otherwise I will transfer you to the heavy machine, to the «schwere Maschine»!’ I had a Polish Vorarbeiter, a foreman who taught me how to handle the machine, and who was responsible for me. He was a Christian Pole, they were taken from Poland, France, Italy, because they were against Hitlerism. They were gathered and transported to Germany for free work. However, we heard that they lived in better conditions, it was warm in their block. They lived somewhere else, not among Jews. They got little money, so they could buy a shaver, they could buy a piece of soap, they had water. So they looked more civilized, because they could get shaved.
Some bricks were broken, we could peek out so see if the Fuhrer, the boss of the concentration camp was walking in the yard, or if anyone else was out. There was a washing room, it was like a fountain: the ice-cold water was flowing out in the middle. We watched each other. We kept discipline. A young girl, the poor child, she was always cold, and she didn’t want to wash herself. We told her: ‘Whoever doesn’t obey our rules, can go out from this room!’ She didn’t want to be with the women from Maramaros, but we turned her out, she went in other room. The poor girl cried, knelt down so that we take her back, because from now on she will join us in the morning or in the evening to wash. We were afraid of louses, because louses ravaged people. However people had hardly louses in our block. For dinner we got margarine, honey in packets. Sometimes we got some sort of salami. For example I always changed the meat for margarine or honey. Others would give even bread to get some meat in change. But I never gave bread.
What a bed we had there! It had some kind of straw, but it was so cold like hell. So we put a blanket above, and three others on us. We were laying two on one plank-bed to warm up each other.
When they took us there, it was more humane in that sense that we lived in barracks, and everybody had two blankets. Where we lived, it was a large building, a corridor in the middle, rooms to the left and to the right, but settled differently. Ten persons lived in one room, six in the other. Once it must have been a caserne, and I suppose they transformed it, but I don’t know it for sure. They let us in, like a herd, and everybody started to clutch. The eight of us from Marosvasarhely ran in a room.
A committee arrived, but we didn’t know who was who. However we were happy, because this meant that they would take us somewhere. But we had to undress stark naked, clothes on the arm, and we had to walk before the committee’s eyes. We noticed that they’ve been watching mainly everyone’s legs, if they weren’t sinking, so how capable she was. We realized after that, that they were taking us for a stationary work. From May, June, July, August, they took us in September. First they took us in Bergen-Belsen, that was a concentration camp too. But we had a much better time of it. They kept us there for two weeks at least, to strengthen us a bit. Big tops were set up there. We were on the ground, but we got a lot of blankets. The food was somewhat better; we didn’t have to get up in the morning. We had water, we could wash ourselves and go to the toilet. There was a piece of carrot or potato left on the ground sometimes, or things like that, and we could get these. So let’s say we were well off there. We didn’t have to line up for appel. If it rained, they came in the tents and counted us there. And they took us to the factory by train. We were one thousand five hundred in total who were taken to work in the [aircraft] factory. This was close to Leipzig, as close as Marosszentgyorgy from here. [Editor’s note: That is less than 5 km far.] A silk-factory used to be there, but they transformed it into a war factory during the war. And there was a small bathing room as well.
Four or five of us from Marosvasarhely, we always tried to stay together. During selections, when they saw that someone could hardly stand [on her feet], then the person behind her held her, so that the slaughterer wouldn’t notice [Editor’s note: Bella Steinmetz refers to Mengele] that she was collapsing, because in this case he called her out immediately and sent her into the gas. He had a good eyesight, he noticed everything. It also happened that the slaughterer asked: ‘Who is your sister?’ If someone was attached [to somebody], he asked right away: ‘Is she your sister? Or cousin?’ so one realized that they shouldn’t tell this, because they would be separated. So we said no. ‘Yet why do you care for her?’ We exchanged glances: aunt, acquaintance. In short we told all kind of lies in order to keep together those four or five persons. It wasn’t much use to us, but we managed somehow to stick together when we started to work. The wife of the poor Marton Izsak [Editor’s note: Centropa made an interview with him as well], who died recently, so his wife was with us too. When we started working, we were laughing on our misery, that ‘Tell me, what sort of relative are you for me? The grand-mother of the wife of my aunt’s nephew?’ Thus we were given to lying, so that she would be neither relative, but to still keep us together.
I haven’t had any kind of assignment in the concentration camp. On the other hand I was very brave. What I did was that I skipped off in the night. The kitchen was quite far, about a hundred meters, maybe even more. In the night I sneaked in, though it was illuminated. Every five meters there was a lamp, the German stood there, with his gun on standby. I sneaked to the kitchen, where there was a rubbish heap, and the girls who worked at the kitchen threw out sometimes a cabbage or a rotten tomato. So I rummaged there something, and I ran back. That’s what I did. Just a few dared to do this, because it was dangerous, if they saw you, they shot you. They hit an acquaintance from Marosvasarhely, and shot her in the eye. She lost one eye. However I didn’t do this every evening, just occasionally.
Nobody had any special thing to do. There was a small enclosed hole in the front, where somebody watched over the internal order. That was a kind of position. They chose somebody from us. You needed a great luck for that. However, that person was the first to draw from that food, hoping to get something more consistent. It’s a little tiring for me to speak, because it upsets me…
On Yom Kippur 90 percent didn’t eat that little food we got in Auschwitz, when people’s life depended on one sip. We got so minimum food, that 15 decagrams of bread and that little thin soup made of cattle-turnip and grass counted as well. I didn’t eat either of course. Not only me, but those who never observed any festivals, on that day they didn’t eat the food either. That’s a saint day.
We weren’t allowed to enter the barracks. Then they started to shout for somebody to go for the food. They carried it in a big stainless aluminum slop-pail [cauldron-like vessel]. They prepared us soup from marrow, it’s a kind of turnip, maybe they produce it Germany, however it wasn’t vegetable marrow. It had grass, it had cattle-turnip, many times sand was creaking between my teeth. Of course a very few could drink it. Sometimes eight of us got one pot. So we took it one by one: a sip for me, a sip for you, and we watched so that no one would have two sips, because every sip was a matter of life. In the morning we were given, I think, twenty decagrams of bread, one slice. For the whole day. Also in the morning they brought us in a slop-pail too some black wish-wash, without anything.
In fact there [in Auschwitz], that was a torture. They drove us out from the block at four, half past four in the morning – we didn’t know what time was, we just suspected it looking at the sun. A hundred thousand people were in the C concentration camp, where I was. [Editor’s note: This is supposed to be the Birkenau, Auschwitz II concentration camp, where more than 90,000 prisoners were gathered.] There were one thousand persons in every block. So there, ‘in fünfte Reihen‘, lined up nicely by five, we waited between the blocks, and we waited, and we waited. And they came, I don’t know, after five hours, six hours. There was an intense sunlight, it scorched. They counted us to see if we were all there, and they let us stand further.
In the first month they tattooed us already. We were very happy, because we thought if someone has to be given a number, it meant that we existed. But it was for no use at all. The tattooing didn’t hurt, because they were very skilful, German girls did it. I had luck, she was skilful, because she made me a small one. But for example my sister-in-law had such a big one, and all in a mess. I have it in all the documents I got. My number was 13317. I have heard only of one person from Marosvasarhely, who removed it [the tattoo from their hand]. I haven’t heard the same about anyone else. This is a shame [that they removed the tattoo from their hand].
For example in Auschwitz we had to change clothes, and we threw down the old ones, there was a big-big heap of clothes. We had to pass one by one, but ‘Quickly! Quickly! Quickly! Schnell! Schnell! Schnell!’ – this was the slogan all the time. We had to pick up the clothes fast, so we tried to choose from afar. Well, but we couldn’t see from that far. I picked up one, but I could see that it was for a corpulent person, and I threw it back, and I took other one. I got two big slaps in the face from a soldier, but tough ones. He looks into my eyes and says: ‘Didn’t it hurt?’ I say: ‘No! Not from you.’ He looks at me: ‘From me?’ ‘No. Why should it hurt?’ Having heard this he went on. If he asks me one more question, he shoots me in the head for sure, because I would have told him: ‘You’re not a human being, but an animal…’ After this I thought over: ‘You fool! It costs you one word, and with a ball [they shoot you]!’ Maybe it would have been better, because after that I had such a hard life.
My girlfriend is called Boske Darvas. She is still living, in Israel. She had luck to escape. Her husband too. They came home, had a child very soon, and left for Israel immediately. Her husband died, she was left alone, she raised her child, she has grand-children.
After we were selected, they took us straight to the bath, undressed stark naked, removed all our hair. They cut our hair as well. They treated us roughly. The old hatflings who were in the camp already were in the bath. With supervision of course, women in German army clothes… After bath and depilation we entered a hall, for example I was looking for my girlfriend I used to walk with hand by hand: ‘Bozsi, where are you, Bozsi?’ And she says then: ‘Bella, Bella, can’t you recognize me?’ Well if someone cuts their hair, she becomes unrecognizable when baldhead.
When we arrived, they pulled us off [the wagons]: ‘Los, los, aber schnell, fast, fast!’ Only the cattle are driven like this. This was carried out by the men from there, the haftlings, the prisoners. Everything had to be left in the wagons. We got off without any packages, only with the things we had on us. We walked straight about 50 meters, maybe even less, and the slaughterer was already in front of us, in black clothing: Mengele, in patent-leather boots coming up until this, elegantly. He had a stick. We found out very soon that it was Mengele, because there were Polish girls already. Many were deported already from Austria, Poland, Estonia, what the Germans had invaded, they deported from all those countries. Then he looked at me, and he just made a sign with the stick… I didn’t know yet what would happen to my mother. Only after that the Polish girls from there told us, ‘Can you see, there, how the chimneys are smoking? The previous transport...’ From Szatmarnemeti, from Maramarossziget, I don’t know from where. However, the furnace was smoking at full steam. There was such a smell permanently, and it was so terribly hot, that at the beginning we almost suffocated. Especially when it was gloomy, and it pressed down [the smoke]… That was it.
We arrived in Auschwitz on May 4th [Editor’s note: It is much more probable that Bella Steinmetz arrived in Auschwitz at the end of the month, either on June 4th.] I know this because for us, Jews from Marosvasarhely that is the day of mourning.
Not so much time after that Germans took us over, direction Auschwitz. We knew already [that it wasn’t true what they had said], because as we were advancing, we saw the name of the stations. And who knew a little bit of geography, could see immediately, that ‘Hoops, this is close to Austria, we are even going in Poland’s direction!’ – since we saw Polish labels too. In fact Auschwitz was in Silesia [Editor’s note: in East-Silesia], that used to be Poland, but Germany annexed it by then. However, we did not know what Auschwitz was…
,
During WW2
See text in interview
In 1942 my husband had been taken to the front, and we had heard that they could have got bread for gold. So who had had the possibility, had bought very thin golden chains, and had sent these for them. There had been two men who had guarded the work service group. Their families had been at home. We had stuffed them with everything, with money, food, so that we could have sent them something. Well, I could hardly wait for the night to come to undo it somehow, and I searched for a small hole on the wagon to let them out.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
We had no idea in the wagon where they would be taking us. The train stopped at the Hungarian border, they opened the doors, the gendarmes with cock-feather on their hat came up: ‘Whoever has any gold or any kind of value, hand it over, because if not, we shoot you in the head right here!’ Some of us had. Me either. I was wearing, and mammy too hand-made sweaters, and we sewed into them thin chains.
We had to get on the wagons, then destination Auschwitz. We didn’t know that of course, just as we traveled, traveled and traveled, and one day passed, and we were still traveling in the wagon. We traveled for three days. Eighty people in one wagon…, so it didn’t mean that everybody could sit down. We were happy if we could let somehow the elder people sit down. I was shocked for the first time in the wagon, when a mother was holding her child in her lap, he was crying badly, and she didn’t manage to calm him down, and in her despair she caught the urine in the nappy, and that’s how she wiped the child’s chapped lips. Nobody had water anymore. Everybody brought a little water, a bottle – there weren’t plastic bottles yet –, but that was off for a long time. And that little baby… he didn’t even suck anymore…, and one couldn’t put bread into his mouth yet. This was the first shock I got, so ‘Good Lord, what’s this?!’ There weren’t any problems after, they went straight into the gas…
,
During WW2
See text in interview
And on August 23rd Romania was already liberated. This was the greatest sin of Hungary, that it was the last to deport in Europe, when he knew as well where the front was. Wasn’t Pest informed on where the front was?
We were here at the brick factory for about ten or twelve days. And they put us into wagons after that. Everything was a mere lie. They said they would take us to the motherland, and we would do some sort of agricultural work. And we believed that, because it seemed reasonable. We thought that if Germans, the frontlines were pushed back this far – shootings could be heard in Bucharest –, the Hungarian Jews wouldn’t be deported, because where should they deport them? We thought it was just a matter of days or weeks, and the war would end, as it ended indeed. We were put into rail freight cars on May 1st, 2nd, we arrived to Auschwitz on May 4th.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
I had to hand over the jewels, because they knew that Mrs. dr. Almasi must have had a ring, a bracelet, or at least a watch. I didn’t dare not to surrender it at the bank. In those times the Commercial Bank was in the centre. However, I didn’t surrender everything either, but I gave the other part, which I wore more, to this captain. It is a custom for us to give a ring as a sign of the engagement, together with the wedding-ring. And we had had to surrender everything, except the wedding-ring. But when they took us from the brick factory and put us into wagons, there was a box, and everybody had to take off even their wedding-ring, and drop it into the box… They transported to the motherland or shared out among themselves what I handed over in the bank. That wasn’t taken by the Germans, but by those who were clerks here. That vanished without a trace.
I recall from the days at the brick factory that there was a deep hole dug at the end, and one had to sit on a bar, and that was the toilet: for young people, children, elders, men, women… There was a tap with running water somewhere, but sometimes they gave us water, sometimes they didn’t. There was no other place to wash. In fact we didn’t take our clothes off, because nights were cold. And we had rainy days, and we were happy if the sun was shining. We were squatting inside all the time.
The brick factory was in use once, but it was ruined by then. The first ones, who were in front, could find some place to be inside [under the roof] and protected against rain. At the end of May it rained already. We were left outside. In the open air. We took some blankets with us. Well, who could. Then one or two families who knew each other, we got together. It was a disorderly, filthy yard, and we found some slats. Men knocked them into the ground, put a blanket above it, or a cardboard, whatever they could find. So we set down outdoors, on the ground. And that was that. There was to it. That’s how inhumanity begun.
When we were taken to the brick factory [at the beginning of May], they kept us there under inhuman conditions, in the open air. Frici’s Romanian orderly came in every second day. The high-ranking officers usually have a servant, a soldier, who served him, stayed [with him] all day, he entered the caserne only for the night. Frici came into the brick factory with his lad, and he always brought us something, for example two blankets for mammy. He brought in a bread, a piece of roasted meat, food, since we didn’t get any food at all. They said: ‘Take with you package, food for three days.’ Finally it was much more than three days. Everybody ran out of food. He came in dressed in uniform, he pretended to look for somebody. He could come in, well he reported that ‘I’m looking for So-and-so.’ Otherwise he didn’t have to identify himself, because he had his rank there [on the uniform]. And he helped us, but it was too late, I didn’t dare to get out from there anymore. However, if we had had courage, then I could have got out even from there with my mother, and I could have gone home, so now take me by car to the border, and let me there. But this was our fate. Where should I escape with my mother?! I didn’t believe, and when I realized it, it was too late.