Selected text
During our entire stay in the concentration camp, we lived in three different places. From there we got a few meters over, behind a different fence. There they were doing medical experiments on people. I can't tell you what sort of experiments they were. My file from Bergen-Belsen was found, and the Red Cross stored it away in Geneva. Due to this, they later also examined me in Bratislava as well. They did experiments on both women and on children. I myself got two injections. After the war I had health problems. Already as a schoolchild I had a shortage of stomach acid, and chronic intestinal problems. I absolved many examinations. They found something in my lungs, I had frostbite up to my knees...
Finally, in the coldest depths of winter, we were put into some sort of "hall". I'd guess it to be at the end of January and beginning of February 1945. It wasn't until then that we saw that the whole camp looked like. We ended up close to the so-called "Main Street". We called in Lager Hauptstrasse. It was a long corridor about 35 to 40 meters wide. In certain sections, let's say every kilometer, there were army kitchens, a shelter with huge cauldrons. That's where they cooked that swill, the soup. Around them were mounds of spuds prepared for use. But I don't know where they were putting them, because there were almost none in the soup we used to get. If you were on good terms with someone there, they'd throw you a spud over the fence, or an onion, which would sometimes be there too. Some of the SS-men walking around would entertain themselves by picking up a potato or onion and throwing it amongst some children. Then they'd entertain themselves watching them fighting over it.
The third place where we stayed was blockhouse number 211. In front of our blockhouse was a ward, a hospital. There was practically no escape from the hospital. Once you got in there, you didn't leave alive. Right across from the ward was a guard tower, from which they would shoot according to "necessity". These towers were along the entire road, spaced around 200 to 250 meters apart. Of course everything was surrounded by an electric fence. I remember an incident when two women ran out of the hospital, holding hands, and aimed straight for that fence. They sizzled and that was the end of them. Close to the tower that stood by us was a latrine. People from the hospital used the latrine as well. The whole thing was a large pit, in front of which was a long, rough tree trunk. You had to sit on this tree trunk, and do your thing. People were in such horrible shape that they couldn't even stand on their feet. Some terrible things took place there in front of my eyes.
We had almost no contact with the Germans. You had to avoid them. They were capable of playing cruel jokes on us in the name of fun. For example, women guards used to go for walks after lunch beside the last blockhouse we lived in. Each SS-woman had a German Shepherd with her. At that time it was useful to leave the latrine. Sick people that had diarrhea sat there for even tens of minutes. They had cramps and weren't able to empty themselves. A German woman would let her dog loose on a sitting person, and the dog would push him into the shit. No one would pull a poor sod like that out again.
Finally, in the coldest depths of winter, we were put into some sort of "hall". I'd guess it to be at the end of January and beginning of February 1945. It wasn't until then that we saw that the whole camp looked like. We ended up close to the so-called "Main Street". We called in Lager Hauptstrasse. It was a long corridor about 35 to 40 meters wide. In certain sections, let's say every kilometer, there were army kitchens, a shelter with huge cauldrons. That's where they cooked that swill, the soup. Around them were mounds of spuds prepared for use. But I don't know where they were putting them, because there were almost none in the soup we used to get. If you were on good terms with someone there, they'd throw you a spud over the fence, or an onion, which would sometimes be there too. Some of the SS-men walking around would entertain themselves by picking up a potato or onion and throwing it amongst some children. Then they'd entertain themselves watching them fighting over it.
The third place where we stayed was blockhouse number 211. In front of our blockhouse was a ward, a hospital. There was practically no escape from the hospital. Once you got in there, you didn't leave alive. Right across from the ward was a guard tower, from which they would shoot according to "necessity". These towers were along the entire road, spaced around 200 to 250 meters apart. Of course everything was surrounded by an electric fence. I remember an incident when two women ran out of the hospital, holding hands, and aimed straight for that fence. They sizzled and that was the end of them. Close to the tower that stood by us was a latrine. People from the hospital used the latrine as well. The whole thing was a large pit, in front of which was a long, rough tree trunk. You had to sit on this tree trunk, and do your thing. People were in such horrible shape that they couldn't even stand on their feet. Some terrible things took place there in front of my eyes.
We had almost no contact with the Germans. You had to avoid them. They were capable of playing cruel jokes on us in the name of fun. For example, women guards used to go for walks after lunch beside the last blockhouse we lived in. Each SS-woman had a German Shepherd with her. At that time it was useful to leave the latrine. Sick people that had diarrhea sat there for even tens of minutes. They had cramps and weren't able to empty themselves. A German woman would let her dog loose on a sitting person, and the dog would push him into the shit. No one would pull a poor sod like that out again.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ladislav Urban