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We were in Birkenau. Birkenau was huge, 2 square kilometers. Next to the camp there was a huge factory of the IG Farben in the process. [Editor‘s note: The IG Farbenindustrie-concern. They built the Buna-Werke Synthetic Tire and Petrol Factory near Auschwitz, where many prisoners worked.] They only assigned a third of the approximately 4000 people who arrived with the train I also came with to work, they gassed the rest immediately. Which was an ‘excellent rate’, so to speak, because later there were transports 100 percent of which were gassed. There wasn’t enough room in the Lager [German for camp], and they gassed them. Usually only 4-5 percent went to work, and the 95-96 percent went to the gas chambers immediately. But our company seemed suitable for work. And they put us, 400 or 450 of us, I don’t remember exactly, on trucks, and took us to the camp, which was 5 kilometers away and belonged to the IG. They called the main road in the middle of the Lager Lager Strasse [German for Camp Street], and lined us up there five by five, and we took off to the other end of the camp across the gate, where the disinfecting room was.
Period
Location
Poland
Interview
Ferenc Leicht