Selected text
The arrival at Auschwitz was terrible. The railway was laid down just until the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp. After such a journey of three and a half days, when they finally open the door, instead of getting fresh air, we smelled the smoke of the crematorium, a stinking, singed smell. By this time you could think no more. You saw the chimneys were smoking. You could think of nothing anymore. We didn't think of surviving anymore.
As we got off, they separated men from women immediately. And these Poles, who were there for years, because they had been deported first, they were at home there already, in striped dress. They had arm ribbons, for they were people of some significance. They told women with little children at first to give the child to the elderly, because they would get a better supply. Well, there were some who didn't give them their children, they chose to take their children with them, and those who took their children with them, got into the gas-chamber. That young mother, who gave her child to her old mother, had the chance to get among those who survived, while the old mother went straight into the crematorium with the child.
At this moment my father was still there. The son of the householder was there too, because first they were exempted, as his father had I don't know what cross from World War I, he had some important decoration [12]. They didn't have to wear yellow stars. But then the right to be exempted was taken away from them, and they were together with us. I told the householder's son, 'Take care of my father' - I recall this well. He was a grown-up man, I don't know why he was at home, because in fact he should have been a married man, but he didn't have a family. He lived at home with his family. His grandmother had been thrown out on the way, because she had died, she was eighty-something. And so his mother came with us, while he went with his father, that's why I asked him to take care of my father. But who would have thought that... I didn't think yet they would kill them, but I didn't have any good feelings.
As we got off, they separated men from women immediately. And these Poles, who were there for years, because they had been deported first, they were at home there already, in striped dress. They had arm ribbons, for they were people of some significance. They told women with little children at first to give the child to the elderly, because they would get a better supply. Well, there were some who didn't give them their children, they chose to take their children with them, and those who took their children with them, got into the gas-chamber. That young mother, who gave her child to her old mother, had the chance to get among those who survived, while the old mother went straight into the crematorium with the child.
At this moment my father was still there. The son of the householder was there too, because first they were exempted, as his father had I don't know what cross from World War I, he had some important decoration [12]. They didn't have to wear yellow stars. But then the right to be exempted was taken away from them, and they were together with us. I told the householder's son, 'Take care of my father' - I recall this well. He was a grown-up man, I don't know why he was at home, because in fact he should have been a married man, but he didn't have a family. He lived at home with his family. His grandmother had been thrown out on the way, because she had died, she was eighty-something. And so his mother came with us, while he went with his father, that's why I asked him to take care of my father. But who would have thought that... I didn't think yet they would kill them, but I didn't have any good feelings.
Period
Year
1944
Location
Poland
Interview
Magda Fazekas