Survivor Testimony: Escaping the Auschwitz Gas Chambers - Rachel Gleitman

i was in auschwitz maybe a few days and when i came in i accepted the reality what auschwitz was and what it did and accepted all the daily routines what it was and even started to eat the food it realized that i have i all of us with the five of us who are standing in a line we will do everything possible to see that we survive it wasn't up to us it surely wasn't a few days when we after a few days neil was there there was somebody came in from uh from outside from outside from barak 10 where we were and said there's someone outside who wants to see the hornic girls well my maiden name is honnik and i was there with my sister so we go down and there's two that i see my father he stood there in his in his striped pajama things he looks at us and he said when this madness ends we will meet again mother and the children and i see tears his eyes fill and i see his tears he said if there is a transport leaving auschwitz please you join them you have to get out of here and he disappeared i found out later from my brother that he got such a terrible beating that he left his barracks well it didn't take long maybe about two weeks and you know how in auschwitz the rumors were going around this is going to happen and that's going to happen and then we heard that 500 girls are going to be taken from say from from same block to a new transport i was with my aunt my cousin and a in a daughter of a friend of a neighbor so we were five people really they said you know this this transport is going straight to the crematorium i sat down one evening with them there and quietly said to them like this we are not going to stay away from that transport we are going visit my aunt said what do you know where that place is going where do you know where these people are taking you what's a rush i said i am really not telling that you should go but judy and i judy my sister we are going they when it came to line up for for the trans for the 500 girls to line up all five of them all of them joined we all came well we came we took us to a place we undressed everything no we didn't get a bottle soap no we undress and see there be going in the place the place is immaculately clean cement what struck me right away is somehow i don't even know how we got in which way we get in but i have seen those tremendous doors tall as the building itself practically tall and where the two doors met on the top there was something like a box or something i i didn't have even i didn't even want to think what that is but what this is all about but as we sat down everybody was very quiet and i said you know looking up the showers i says no water is going to come from up there no one says anything we're waiting a while waiting nothing else all of a sudden i hear us something something coming is coming in we are doors are open somewhere and we are we are to go to leave we were very shocked they know what to do then they send us away again gave us some clothes we were all naked and we were taking out i haven't thought about this for a very long time but i know that i was a married woman with three children and we came to cair misha to that kext to the catskills for the summer and the guests there in that colony were about 50 percent holocaust survivors and one of the women regina was as i i was i was going to join them i hear regina telling them a story the following he says you know from sale agar he says there were 500 girls went into the showers and there was a mechanical failure and they walked out alive and i feel like what happened to my skin like if something was i started shivering and i said to i go over to regina and i said to her quietly regina i was in that group well from there we were taken to all the way out we are going to take us places i don't know where they were taking us but i looked back at at that place where i was in the camp and say lag and all these people that are there and i said to myself does the world know what's going on here do they know what they're doing to millions of people in this time intelligent people but you know i gave up the idea immediately and i said no they don't care and even i see the girls marching there with military precisions on a regular courtships other and white kerchiefs and i'm looking i'm trying to see if there's a glimpse in their eye but their eyes looked like black holes that was auschwitz we were we were taken away taking away to stutthof and there from there we were divided to different places where their factories they they requested some labor and this is where we sent them over there civil labor camp we noticed already from tidbits coming in from outside saying that the war isn't going is not doing so great and that the eastern front is pretty bad we also noticed that there were very frequently we have seen there there were what do you call where they signal that there's uh planes are flying you know and we watched how ss were running to the bunkers for for cover we're afraid that bombs the bombs will drop and we we we prayed for some bombs let them bomb it but it didn't happen it didn't didn't happen it was getting worse because they were trying they were they were like crazy the ss they were as crazy many times i looked it it was very bitter cold girls lining up for for work in the line there was the the ss in a wool coat and in boots and an ear muffs and a wool hat and a dog i mean why was he needed the dog he was afraid the girls would they do something to him and i i just watched that and i said to myself this man must have served already on the eastern frontier because he was already like 60 years i said he must have already a granddaughter doesn't it cross his mind that these young girls it could be at the age of his granddaughter how does he feel what is he gonna what is he gonna have what does he how is he gonna live his life later on knowing what he's doing and then they were starting the girl said one two three and they started to sing they marched singing and then one says you know if we don't come back tonight we should not be froze but i want to thank our did our defiance how do we express did we express our defiance the girls were singing they were harmonizing sunday we were watching our only dress that we had and then we put it down on our on on the straw mat that we had and we were lying down and without the body of our heb of our body heat we dried them for the next day to be have to be clean we have wonderful girls we have girls from hungary who used to come up and they used to they used to cook and bake getting the most fantastic recipes i remember my mouth watering at the recipes that one girl was saying how she's baking ducks with apples now well i tell you something the spirit of the girls was unbelievable they were taking us to different places to different times and i know that even now when comes thanksgiving and i baked the turkey i used a recipe that the girls were making for the ducks with apples and toward december i know it was getting bad because we heard that the eastern front is really getting closer and then one day we are just we see that there is no lineup no call up no apparel so the woman in from the kitchen just tells us you know i think that this we are leaving the can we are leaving so she gives me an onion you know i don't know she but she got the onion so we we are going where are we going it's actually already january 20 figuring out the date for them about in the late 20s now this part of poland you know the winter of europe actually is very tough you have snow layers of snow one layer on the other and it's snowing heavily and we are marching putting up on a march we got a portion of bread and we marching we're marching the whole day there is a long column one at the at the beginning of the column there's some uh some of our fellow of what were pushing pushing something the provision for the ss and there were four asses in front of three and there was one in the back they were long columns occasionally the one from the back from the very end used to go to the front to consult so i'm just just observing this in the back the one was yelling schnell schnell schnell how could you go chanel when there is such a therapy froze everything is frozen and it barely can walk so i just want to be walked like that one day and the second day when it was getting dark and the big snowflakes were falling i said to the girls you know to buy two shorts we are not gonna go as soon as he goes in the front to check up we are leaving because we passed houses there were doors were taking off and i know that people were leaving the last minute in order to be able to to salvage whatever they could so we stayed away and we stayed away from that march we were about 20 girls and from there it's another story

Channel: HMTC

Views: 1,064,250

Keywords: Auschwitz Concentration Camp (Film Subject), Holocaust, Survivor Testimony, HMTC, Rachel Gleitman

Id: 4c5NSkpQThw

Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 11 2014