On the night of March 12th, 1942 my family and I were sound asleep. Suddenly, the door crashed open and we were awakened by four discordant German officers. Leaving all our precious belongings behind, we were forced to board the cattle cars of a train. Terrified, my family along with hundreds of others were crammed into the overflowing railroad cars. Fear filled all our eyes as we realized our gruesome destination was Auschwitz, the largest concentration camp in Europe. I'll never fail to remember the vile odor of burning flesh filling the air. Upon our arrival at the camp we were stripped of our belongings and divided into groups based upon age, gender and health. Being that I was 14 years old at the time, my mother encouraged me to lie about
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The stalls were meant to inhabit three individuals but instead the block harnessed over 700 captive Jews. I as well as my fellow inmates were jammed into this horrifying, overflowing hell hole. There was 156 bunk beds in each block which was too diminutive to accommodate the over 700 sorry souls. The barracks had a vast amount of open gaps where windows or some other covering should have been placed. Instead, they were left unattended and open which lead to massive heat loss. The only source of heating were two brick stoves which were useless because there was no available wood or fuel to burn. As a result, a high percentage of us were constrained to sleep on the waterlogged dirt floor. The floor was riddled with a revolting stew of disease infested lice and rats. The illness that these creatures carried were transmitted to the general population of captive Jews. Also spreading disease were the excretion buckets we were forced to use in lieu of proper toilet facilities. If we were lucky enough to survive the night we would begin our day’s activities as early as four AM. My job required me to create wooden plates for the bottom of German officers’
The stalls were meant to inhabit three individuals but instead the block harnessed over 700 captive Jews. I as well as my fellow inmates were jammed into this horrifying, overflowing hell hole. There was 156 bunk beds in each block which was too diminutive to accommodate the over 700 sorry souls. The barracks had a vast amount of open gaps where windows or some other covering should have been placed. Instead, they were left unattended and open which lead to massive heat loss. The only source of heating were two brick stoves which were useless because there was no available wood or fuel to burn. As a result, a high percentage of us were constrained to sleep on the waterlogged dirt floor. The floor was riddled with a revolting stew of disease infested lice and rats. The illness that these creatures carried were transmitted to the general population of captive Jews. Also spreading disease were the excretion buckets we were forced to use in lieu of proper toilet facilities. If we were lucky enough to survive the night we would begin our day’s activities as early as four AM. My job required me to create wooden plates for the bottom of German officers’