>>Mrs. Weiss: Serena and I were herded into a bath
house where we were shaved, disinfected and handed prison clothes. We were moved
to a barrack with about 200 other women. We still didn't know where we were. We
asked the other prisoners when are we going to see our families. A woman
pointed to a chimney and said "do you see the smoke? There is your family." In the
following days, we were sent to work at a storage and processing area near
crematorium number 4 where we sorted through mountains of clothes that came
out of the trains and also out of the crematoriums and gas chambers. There were
mountains of eyeglasses, toothbrushes, baby carriages, suitcases, household goods,
every kind of item that people thought to bring with them. Because we worked and lived next to the crematorium and gas chamber, we soon had a first-hand
knowledge of what had happened to our families. Day and night columns of women and children and elderly passed by our
barrack. We watched them enter the gate that led to the gas chambers. Sometimes
they called out questions to us. By that point nothing could save them.
The sounds were magnified when we worked at night. First I would hear the hissing
of the steam engine arriving at the platform and the whistle of the train.
And within a half-hour hundreds of women children and elderly would pass by our
barrack and disappear into the entrance of the gas chambers. Those arriving at
night saw the smoke and flames belching from the chimneys and even burning
bodies in open pits. It looked to them that they were being herded into open
flames. They prayed and cried and screamed. And I would plug my ears with my
fingers. Day and night the transports kept coming. The five gas chambers and
crematoriums operated day and night killing as many as 10,000 people a day. >>Narrator: Auschitz was designed for one primary purpose, genocide. Blueprints of the
facilities showed deliberate designs implemented to make large-scale gassing
and cremation and efficient operation. The sheer number of murders that took
place there on a single day was inconceivable even for someone who
witnessed the horror firsthand. >>Mrs. Weiss: I was at a window. I was looking. I saw them. They
even called out questions to us. I saw these women. these beautiful little
children. babies sitting on the road waiting their turn. And I would, you know,
My eyes saw it. My brain didn't accept it and my whole system didn't accept it.
That's how, that's how, I think, I coped. And not just in retrospect
but I know that I did not have the ability to absorb it. >>Narrator: Although they were
already losing the war, the Nazi seemed even more determined to murder as many
Jews as possible. Irene and her family were among the more than four hundred
and twenty four thousand Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz in just eight
weeks. The killing machine quickly reached capacity. >>Mrs. Weiss: The killing was backed
up. Five crematoriums, gas chambers worked day and night. But it still was backed up.
And so these people are waiting their turn there at the gate. And they have no
idea what they're waiting for. And that is my mother and these two
little boys next to her are my two little brothers. And they have no idea.
But they are waiting their turn and searching for my sister. She is not in
the picture. Although I certainly understand what happened to all of them,
it is still a painful thing to think that she was having to go through this
terrible time by herself. [music] The selection never ended in Auschwitz. Every day, there was a selection, not just at the train ramp when people arrived that was the
biggest selection, but after that they constantly looked to see if they missed
somebody, especially children like me. And so every single day I was in great
jeopardy. They would line us in the morning. The routine was that they threw us out of our barracks at 5 in the morning for
counting. It was a way of, of really torturing people. Five a.m. in the morning.
you're thrown out lining up in rows of 5 and just standing there until
about nine, ten o'clock when the German delegation would come out,
all dressed up in their nice clean warm uniforms, having had breakfast and so on. And they would come and count us. And after that we would be dismissed. And so
every time there was this lineup every morning, they had a chance to look down
that row and pick out the young ones they missed, the sick ones they missed, or
someone who just they didn't like. They wanted some slave labour out of it. But
as soon as you looked like you weren't capable of working you had to be killed. When people were brought in there the very first thing they did at the train
platform is to separate children, babies, and their mothers and kill them within a
half an hour to an hour upon arriving. So there were no children in that place. And
I, who was just 13 years old, was really considered a child and I was not
slave labor material. So I was never referred to as a child. The word child
was not to be mentioned. We were very much aware the if they pulled you out ,you're going to die. And suddenly that becomes your your life. And then you're
also distracted by all the incredible inhuman things that are happening to you.
Added to that is starvation and all kinds of other humiliation and suddenly
you're very confused and very unsure of, I as a child, I really thought that I
was not even on this planet, I didn't think I was on Earth. Nobody knows this is here. Nobody can possibly know that when the trains come in that 90 percent of the people are killed immediately. And there is a facility here just for that. This is just the place for killing.
So it can't be on this Earth. I was terrified every moment of my time in Auschwitz. I look back and
I think, oh I was kind of brave wasn't I? It was okay. Well it seems like I wasn't. My
sister tells me I cried all the time. I was absolutely terrified because I knew
that they were looking for me, and so to speak. But just everything. The hostility
that was thick you know. And that that we were subhumans, were dehumanized. That is such a terrible feeling that you can't, that you're most afraid of your fellow
man. You know I should have been in school and, and not in Auschwitz. Why was I
there? Why was my father and family, why were they there? You know people minding their own business raising families.
