Olga Lengyel (1908–2001) was a Jewish nurse of Hungarian origin, a prisoner in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and the only survivor from her family environment. In addition, she was the prosecution witness in the process carried out by the British courts against 45 former Nazi SS troops, known as the Bergen-Belsen trial.
She is recognized for capturing her experiences in the Holocaust, in the book entitled Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivors True Story of Auschwitz. She was also the founder of the Olga Lengyel Shoah Institute, whose mission has been to report on the horrors of the Jewish genocide and actively educate future generations to prevent the same mistakes from being made.

Chapter 1 : 8 Horses—or 96 Men, Women, and Children

Mea culpa, my fault, mea maxima culpa! I cannot acquit myself of the charge that I am, in part, responsible for the destruction of my own parents and of my two young sons. The world understands that I could not have known, but in my heart the terrible feeling persists that I could have, I might have, saved them.

It was 1944, nearly five years after Hitler had invaded Poland. Everywhere the Gestapo ruled, and Germany fattened on the loot of the Continent, for two-thirds of Europe lay under the talons of the Third Reich. We lived in Cluj, a city of 100,000, the capital of Transylvania. Formerly it had belonged to Rumania, but the Vienna Award of 1940 had transferred it to Hungary, also one of the New Order’s satellite countries. The Germans were the masters, and though one hardly dared to hope, we sensed—nay, we prayed—that the day of reckoning was not far off. Meanwhile, we tried to stifle our fears and go about our daily tasks, avoiding, whenever possible, any contact with them. We knew that we were at the mercy of ruthless men—and women, too, as we later learned—but no one could have convinced us then how truly pitiless they could be.

My husband, Miklos Lengyel, was the director of his own hospital, “Doctor Lengyel’s Sanatorium,” a modern two-story seventy-bed institution, which we had built in 1937. He had studied in Berlin, where he had given much time to the charity clinics. Now he specialized in general surgery and gynecology. Extremely skillful, and devoted to his science, he was widely respected. He was not a political man, although he understood fully that we were in the center of a maelstrom and in constant peril. He had no leisure for outside occupations. Frequently he had to see 120 patients in a single day and was in surgery till the far hours of the night. But Cluj was a thriving community, and we were proud to operate one of its chief hospitals.

I, too, was devoted to medicine. I had attended the University in Cluj and had qualified to be my husband’s first surgical assistant. Indeed, I had helped to finish the new hospital, bringing to its decor a woman’s love for color; and so had brightened the appointments in the most advanced manner. Yet, although I had a career, I was even prouder of my little family, for we had two sons, Thomas and Arvad. No one, I thought, could be happier than we were. In our home resided my parents and also my godfather, Professor Elfer Aladar, a famous internist who was engaged in cancer research.

The first years of the war had been relatively calm for us, though we listened with dread to the never-ending accounts of the Reichswehr’s triumphs. As they ravaged more and more territories, doctors and, especially capable surgeons to serve the civilian populace became fewer. My husband though prudent and sufficiently circumspect, made little effort to conceal his hope that the cause of humanity might not be entirely engulfed. Naturally, he spoke freely only to his confidants, but corruptible souls lurked in every circle and one never knew who might next turn informer. However, the authorities in Cluj left him in peace.

As early as the winter of 1939 we caught an inkling of what was going on inside the lands which the Nazis had occupied. At that time we gave sanctuary to a number of Polish refugees who had fled their homes after their armies were surrounded. We listened, we sympathized, and we helped. Nevertheless, we could not fully credit everything that we heard. These people were overwrought and distracted; they might be exaggerating.

As late as 1943 frightening accounts reached us of atrocities committed inside the concentration camps in Germany.

But, like so many of those who listen to me today, we could not believe stories so horrible. We still looked upon Germany as a nation which had given much culture to the world. If these tales were at all true, the shameful acts must be due to a handful of madmen; this could not be national policy, nor part of a plan for global mastery. How little we understood!

Even when a German Major in the Wehrmacht, who was billeted in our home, spoke of the fog of terror with which his country had blanketed Europe, we could not accept it. He was not an uneducated man; I was therefore convinced that he was trying to frighten us. We tried to live apart from him, until one evening he demanded to be admitted to our company. It seemed that he sought only conversation, but the longer he spoke the more bitterness he spewed out. Everywhere, he declared, the subject peoples gazed at him with eyes that brimmed with hatred. Yet from his family at home he received only complaints that he was not sending back enough loot! Other soldiers, privates and officers, were sending home so much more in jewelry, clothes, objects of art, and food.

I had to listen. What impressed me was his violent self-hatred as he told of marching his troops down roads that were literally flanked by bodies swinging from gallows. I vowed that he was either mad or drunk, though I knew that he was neither. He told of motor vans, constructed expressly to gas prisoners. He spoke of huge camps devoted solely to the extermination of civilian minorities by the millions. My flesh crawled. How could anyone believe such fantastic tales?

We did have a few alarming experiences in Cluj, and, as I reflect now, I am sure that any one of these should have been a warning. The most serious occurred in early 1944. One day my husband was called to the police station for interrogation by the feared S.S. He was accused specifically of boycotting the use of German pharmaceutical preparations in his clinic.

Representatives of the German Bayer Company, many of whom were secretly members of the S.S., moved freely through Transylvania, to their personal profit, and to further the expansion of their firm. They had built a network of espionage, and a man who owned a large hospital, and was probably no friend of the Third Reich, was an easy target.

Fortunately, Dr. Lengyel was able to supply a plausible explanation, and the S.S. released him. Privately, we agreed that the questioning must have been prompted by a denunciation. We were even certain that we knew the envious colleague who was responsible.

That episode should have prepared us for what followed. However, we could not imagine how cunningly the German masters laid their plans. They baited many traps, but they wanted a big haul for their trouble.

The first week in May, Dr. Lengyel was again summoned to the police station. I became apprehensive the moment he left the clinic. When he did not return soon I made inquiries. Almost as though in a dream I received the news that he was to be deported to Germany immediately.

Frantically, I sought more information. All that I could learn was that he was to be sent away by train inside of an hour.

What went through my mind? My husband was a distinguished surgeon. Doubtless there was a shortage of medical men in Germany. He would be put to work in some metropolitan hospital or clinic. I asked where, and got only a shrug for a reply. I asked if the authorities would permit me to accompany him. The S.S. official blandly declared that they had no objection. If I chose to go, I was welcome. Indeed, they intimated that there was nothing to fear. So in a dozen little ways they mollified, and even encouraged me.

Instantly my decision was made. We would have to face many hardships; the pleasant life we had known might well be ended for years. But separation would be even worse. The war might continue for months, for years. The front lines were always shifting, and we might be cut away from each other forever. By going together we would at least be assured a common fate. In the future, as in the past, my place would be at the side of my husband.

How fatal was to be this move which I was making so deliberately! For before an hour had passed I was to become the author of my parents’ misfortunes, and of my children’s as well.

For my parents tried to convince me to stay. “After all,” reasoned my father, who had formerly been director of coal mines in Transylvania, “if your husband were called to the colors as a soldier, you would not be able to follow him.”

I insisted. After all, had I not received assurances from a German officer that there was no danger?

There was no time for debate. The hour was nearly over. Seeing that I could not be dissuaded, my parents, too, decided to accompany us. Of course, we could not leave the two children behind. Hastily, we threw a few valuables and the usual articles for a journey into a valise, hailed a taxi, and dashed off to join my husband. He was being held at the municipal prison.

We had no inkling of the treachery of which we were the victims until we all stood together on the platform in the railroad depot. Then we discovered that hosts of neighbors and friends were there, too. Many other men had been similarly arrested and their families encouraged to go with them. Still it was not too alarming. The Germans were thorough. They had used the same technique. Why? We were puzzled, baffled, heavy-hearted, but there was no one to ask. Suddenly we learned that the entire station was encircled by hundreds of soldiers. Someone voiced a desire to turn back, but the phalanx of grim sentries made that impossible. We clutched each others’ hands and tried to be cool for the children’s sake.

There was a nightmarish quality to the scene. On the tracks, an endless train waited. Not passenger coaches but cattle cars, each filled to bursting with candidates for deportation. We stared. People called to each other fearfully. The insignia on the car indicated their points of origin: Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania—only God knew where this train had first been assembled.

Protest was useless. It was our turn. The soldiers began to close in and push us. Like sheep we were driven and compelled to climb into an empty cattle car. We tried only to keep together as we were wedged in. Then the single door was rolled shut behind us. I do not remember whether we wept or shouted. The train was under way.

Ninety-six persons had been thrust into our car, including many children who were squeezed in among the luggage—the pitifully meager luggage that contained only what was most precious or useful. Ninety-six men, women, and children in a space that would have accommodated only eight horses. Yet that was not the worst.

We were so crowded that half our number had no place to sit. Pressed against one another, my husband, my older son, and I remained standing to provide a space for my father. He had undergone a serious operation a short time before and absolutely had to rest.

Besides, as the first hour and then the second passed, we perceived that the simplest details of existence would be extremely complicated. Sanitary disposal was out of the question. Fortunately, several mothers had had the foresight to bring chamber pots for their young. With a blanket for a curtain, we isolated one corner of the car. We could empty the bowls through the single tiny window, but we had no water with which to rinse them. We called for help, but there was no answer. The train moved on—toward the unknown.

As the journey stretched endlessly, the car jerking and jolting, all the forces of nature conspired against us ninety-six. A torrid sun heated the walls until the air became suffocating. The interior was almost completely black, for the daylight that filtered through the little window sufficed to light only that corner. After a while we decided that it was better that way. The scene was becoming more and more unattractive.

The travelers were mostly persons of culture and position from our community. Many were Jewish doctors, or other professional men, and members of their families. In the beginning, everyone tried, despite the common terror, to be courteous and helpful. But as the hours slipped away the veneers cracked. Soon there were incidents and, later, serious quarrels. Thus, little by little, the atmosphere was poisoned. The children cried; the sick groaned; the older people lamented; and even those who, like me, were in perfect health, began to pay attention to their own discomforts. The trip was incredibly morbid and gloomy, and although the same could have been said of every other car on our train, and indeed, of the innumerable trains from every corner of Europe—from France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Poland, the Ukraine, the Baltic countries, and the Balkans—which were all moving toward the same inhuman destination, we knew only our own problems.

Soon the situation was intolerable. Men, women, and children were struggling hysterically for every square inch. As night fell we lost all concept of human behavior and the wrangling increased until the car was a bedlam.

Finally, the cooler heads prevailed and a semblance of order was restored. A doctor and I were chosen captains-in-charge. Our task was herculean: to maintain the most elementary discipline and hygiene, to care for the sick, to calm those who were agitated, and to control those who went berserk. Above all, it was our duty to maintain the morale of the company, an utterly impossible assignment, for we ourselves were on the border of despair.

A thousand practical problems had to be solved. The food problem was overwhelming. Our guards gave us nothing, and the slender provisions we had brought along began to give out. It was the third day. My heart rose in my throat. Already three days! How much longer? And where were we bound? Worst of all was the knowledge that many of our companions had concealed part of their food. They naïvely believed that they would be put to work upon arrival at our destination, and that they would need what they had to supplement the regular rations. Fortunately, our misery reduced our appetites. But we observed a rapid deterioration in the general health of the group. Those who had been weak or ailing when we started were suffering, and even the hale were weakening.

The head of an S.S. guard appeared at the window. His Luger gestured threateningly. “Thirty wrist watches, right away. If not, you may all consider yourselves dead!”

He had come for his first collection of a German “tax,” and we had to supply enough valuables to satisfy him. So it was that my little Thomas had to part with the wrist watch we had given him after his successful third-grade examination in school.

“Your fountain pens and your brief cases!”

Another “tax.”

“Your jewels, and we will bring you a bucket of fresh water!”

One bucket of water for ninety-six human beings, of which number thirty were small children. That would mean a few drops for each soul, but it would be the first we had tasted in twenty-four hours.

“Water, water!” the sick groaned as the bucket was lowered.

I looked at Thomas, my younger son. He was staring at the water. How parched his lips were! He turned and gazed into my eyes. He, too, understood our predicament. He swallowed his spittle and did not ask for any. He was given nothing to drink, for so many needed the precious drops more than he did. I suffered for him, but I was also proud of his stamina.

Now we had more sick in our car. Two people were tormented by ulcers of the stomach. Two others were stricken with erysipelas. Many were tortured by dysentery.

Three children were lying near the door. They looked hot and feverish. One of the doctors examined them and stood back aghast. They were ill with scarlet fever!

A shudder ran through me. In these close quarters the entire company would be exposed to the disease.

It was impossible to isolate the youngsters. The only “quarantine” we could enforce was to have those who were near the infected ones turn their backs.

At first everybody tried to keep away from the sick to avoid contagion. But as the days passed we became indifferent to such dangers.

On the second day one of the leading merchants from Cluj suffered a heart attack. His son, also a doctor, knelt beside him. Without drugs he was powerless, and could only watch his father expire while the train rattled on.

Death in the car! A gasp of horror ran through the tightly packed mass of humans.

Piously, the son began to murmur the traditional mourners’ chant, and many lifted their voices with him.

At the next station the train stopped. The door opened and a Wehrmacht soldier entered. The dead man’s son cried, “We have a corpse in our midst. My father has died.”

“Keep your corpse,” the other returned brutally. “You will have many more of them soon!”

We were shocked at his indifference. But before long we had many more corpses, and after awhile we, too, became so numb and shaken that it did not matter.

“At last,” sighed a husband as he lowered the eyelids of his adored wife who had just succumbed.

“My God, how long it takes!” wept a mother as she bent over her dying eighteen-year-old daughter. Was that the fifth, or the sixth, day of the endless journey?

The cattle car had become an abattoir. More and more prayers for the dead rose in the stifling atmosphere. But the S.S. would neither let us bury nor remove them. We had to live with our corpses around us. The dead, the contagiously ill, those suffering from organic diseases, the parched, the famished, and the mad must all travel together in this wooden gehenna.

On the seventh day my friend Only attempted suicide by poison. Her children, two adorable little youngsters; her old parents who had originally come to Cluj as refugees from Vienna; and her husband, though a doctor himself, begged Doctor Lengyel to save her.

First of all, he must flush the woman’s stomach. For that a rubber tube was indispensable. Luckily, if one can say that, my father had since his operation carried an apparatus for urination which contained a rubber tube. To fetch this tube to poor Oily it was literally necessary to walk on our ailing neighbors. After that, my husband had to administer the treatment in a tiny space without proper instruments and without a light. But the greatest problem was that of water.

At the bottom of a few canteens and gourds, there was still a meager reserve of the precious liquid. No one offered to part with any. It took all the authority my husband commanded to make them give a little up.

In spite of all the handicaps, the treatment was a success and the woman was saved. Temporarily, at least. Alas, the next day she was to be led directly to her death.

From time to time in the course of this infernal trip, I tried to forget reality, the dead, the dying, the stench, and the horrors. I stood on several suitcases and peered out of the little window. I gazed at the enchanting countryside of the Tatras, the magnificent forests of fir trees, the green meadows, the peaceful pastures, and the charming little houses. It was all like a scene advertising Swiss chocolates. How unreal it seemed!

Twice each day, the guards made their check. We thought that they would keep an extremely close watch, for we imagined that they had comprehensive files and were ready to verify the minutest details with the proverbial German thoroughness. This was simply another illusion we were destined to lose. They were interested in us only as a group, and cared nothing whatever about individuals.

Occasionally, we went through stations where troop trains and hospital trains were waiting. The soldiers of the Wehrmacht had an inflated morale. Whether drunk with victory or exasperated by defeat, these troops, both well and wounded, had nothing but ironic sneers for plague-ridden people like deportees in cattle cars. The most uncouth and cruel insults came to our ears. Again and again I asked myself if it was really possible that these men in green knew no emotions but malice and hate. In any case, at no time did I see the slightest manifestation of sympathy or compassion.

Then, at the end of the seventh day, the death car halted. We had arrived. But where? Was this a city? And what would they do to us now?

Chapter 2 : The Arrival

Today, when I think about our arrival at the camp, the cars of our train appear to me as so many coffins. It was, indeed, a funeral train. The S.S. and Gestapo agents were our undertakers; the officers who later evaluated our “riches” were our greedy and impatient heirs.

We could feel nothing but a deep sense of relief. Anything would be better than this terrible uncertainty. In a prison on wheels, could there be anything more appalling than the oppressive gloom, reeking with foul odors, alive with heart-breaking groans and lamentations?

We hoped to be released from the car without delay. But this hope was soon blasted. We were to spend an eighth night in the train, the living piled on top of another to avoid contact with the decaying corpses.

No one slept that night. Our sense of relief gave way to anxiety as though a sixth sense were warning us of impending disaster.

With difficulty, I ploughed through the compact mass of animal humanity to reach the little window. There I saw a weird spectacle. Outside was a veritable forest of barbed wire, which was illuminated at intervals by powerful searchlights.

An immense blanket of light covered everything within view. It was a chilling sight, yet reassuring, too. This lavish expenditure of electricity undoubtedly indicated that civilization was nearby and an end to the conditions we had endured.

Still, I was far from apprehending the true meaning of the display. Where were we and what fate awaited us? I conjectured wisely, yet my imagination could not supply a reasonable explanation.

Finally, I went back to my parents, for I felt a great need to talk to them.

“Can you ever forgive me?” I murmured, as I kissed their hands.

“Forgive you?” asked my mother with her characteristic tenderness. “You have done nothing for which you need to be forgiven.”

But her eyes dimmed with tears. What did she suspect in this hour?

“You have always been the best of daughters,” added my father.

“Perhaps we shall die,” my mother went on quietly, “but you are young. You have the strength to fight, and you will live. You can still do so much for yourself, and the others.”

This was to be the last time that I embraced them.

At last the pale day broke. In a little while an official we learned was the camp commandant came to accept us into his custody. He was accompanied by an interpreter who, we later were told, spoke nine languages. The latter’s duty was to transmit every instruction into the native tongues of the deportees. He warned us that we were to observe the strictest discipline and carry out every order without discussion. We listened. What reason had we to suspect worse treatment than we had already received?

On the platform, we saw a group in convict-striped uniforms. That sight made a painful impression. Would we become broken, emaciated like these wrecks? They had been brought to the station to take over our luggage, or rather, what remained of it after the guards had exacted their “taxes.” Here we were completely dispossessed.

The order came, curt and demanding: “Get out!”

The women were lined up on one side, the men on the other, in ranks of five.

The doctors were to stand by in a separate row with their instrument bags. That was rather reassuring. If doctors were needed, it meant that the sick would receive medical attention. Four or five ambulances drove up. We were told that these would transport the ailing. Another good sign.

How could we know that all this was window-dressing to maintain order among the deportees with a minimum of armed force. We could not possibly have guessed that the ambulances would cart the sick directly to the gas chambers, whose existence I had doubted; and thence to the crematories!

Quieted by such cleaning subterfuges, we allowed ourselves to be stripped of our belongings and marched docilely to the slaughter houses.

While we were assembled on the station platform, our luggage was taken down by the creatures in convict stripes. Then the bodies of those who had died on the journey were removed. The corpses that had been with us for days were bloated hideously and in various stages of decomposition. The odors were so nauseating that thousands of flies had been attracted. They fed on the dead and attacked the living, tormenting us incessantly.

As soon as we left the cattle cars, my mother, my sons and I were separated from my father and my husband. We now stood in columns that extended for hundreds of yards. The train had discharged from four to five thousand passengers, all as dazed and bewildered as we were.

More commands, and we were paraded before about thirty S.S. men, including the head of the camp and other officers. They began to choose, sending some of us to the right and some to the left. This was the first “selection,” in the course of which, as we could not dream could be true, the initial sacrifices for the crematories were picked.

Children and old people were told off automatically, “to the left!” At the moment of parting came those shrieks of despair, those frantic cries, “Mama, Mama!” that will ring forever in my ears. But the S.S. guards demonstrated that they were moved by no sentiments. All those who tried to resist, old or young, they beat mercilessly; and quickly they re-formed our column into the two new groups, right and left, but always in ranks of five.

The only explanation came from an S.S. officer who assured us that the aged would remain in charge of the children.

I believed him, assuming naturally that the able-bodied adults would have to work, but that the old and very young would be cared for.

Our turn came. My mother, my sons, and I stepped before the “selectors.” Then I committed my second terrible error. The selector waved my mother and myself to the adult group. He classed my younger son Thomas with the children and aged, which was to mean immediate extermination. He hesitated before Arvad, my older son.

My heart thumped violently. This officer, a large dark man who wore glasses, seemed to be trying to act fairly. Later I learned that he was Dr. Fritz Klein, the “Chief Selector.” “This boy must be more than twelve,” he remarked to me.

“No,” I protested.

The truth was that Arvad was not quite twelve, and I could have said so. He was big for his age, but I wanted to spare him from labors that might prove too arduous for him.

“Very well,” Klein agreed amiably. “To the left!”

I had persuaded my mother that she should follow the children and take care of them. At her age she had a right to the treatment accorded to the elderly and there would be someone to look after Arvad and Thomas.

“My mother would like to remain with the children,” I said.

“Very well,” he again acquiesced. “You’ll all be in the same camp.”

“And in several weeks you’ll all be reunited,” another officer added, with a smile. “Next!”

How should I have known. I had spared them from hard work, but I had condemned Arvad and my mother to death in the gas chambers.

The road was in good repair. It was the beginning of May and a cool wind carried to us a peculiar, sweetish odor, much like that of burning flesh, although we did not identify it as that. This odor greeted us upon our arrival and stayed with us always.

The “Lager” occupied a vast space of about six by eight miles, as I later verified. It was surrounded by cement posts, ten or twelve feet high and about fifteen inches thick. These stood at intervals of four yards with a double network of barbed wire between them. On each post rose an electric lamp, an enormous bright eye that was leveled at the internees and was never extinguished. Inside the immense enclosure were many camps, each designated by a letter.

The camps were separated by three-foot embankments. On top of these embankments stretched three rows of barbed wire, charged with electric current.

As we entered the grounds of the Lager and the different camps, we distinguished several wooden buildings. The barbed wire which surrounded these structures reminded us of cages. Penned up inside these cages were women in nondescript rags, with their heads shorn of their hair, and their feet bare. In all the languages of Europe, they pleaded for a crust of bread or a shawl to cover their nakedness.

We heard wailing cries.

“You will crack too, like so many of us.”

“You will be cold and hungry like we are!”

“You will be beaten, too!”

Suddenly a large well-dressed woman appeared in the midst of this herd. With a massive club, she struck at everyone who got in her way.

We could not believe our eyes. Who were these women? What crime had they committed? Where were we?

It was like a nightmare. Was this the courtyard of a madhouse? Perhaps this woman was a warden resorting to her last recourse—the strong arm. “Evidently,” I told myself, “these women are abnormal, and that is why they are isolated.”

I was still unable to conceive that women of sound mind and guilty of no crimes could be so humiliated and so degraded.

Above all, I was far from imagining that before long I, too, would be reduced to the same pitiful condition.

After waiting about two hours in front of a vast, but coarsely constructed building, we were thoroughly chilled. Then a troop of soldiers pushed us inside. We found ourselves in a sort of hangar, 25 or 30 feet wide, and about 100 feet long. Here the guards shoved us into a group so tightly pressed together that it was actually painful to move. The big doors closed.

About twenty soldiers, most of whom were drunk, remained inside. They glared and shouted sarcastic comments.

An officer began to bark orders: “Undress! Leave all your clothing here. Leave your papers, valuables, medical equipment; and form rows against the wall.”

A murmur of indignation arose. Why should we undress? “Silence! If you do not want to be beaten within an inch of your lives, hold your tongues!” shouted the officer.

The interpreter translated this into all languages.

“From now on, don’t forget that you are prisoners.”

The two dozen guards in charge of the unclothing operation, started their work.

At that moment, our last doubts vanished. Now we understood that we had been horribly deceived. The luggage we had left at the station was lost to us forever. The Germans had expropriated everything, even to the smallest souvenirs that could remind us of our past lives. To me the loss of the photographs of my loved ones saddened me most. But our hour of shame had begun.

As we began to undress, weird sensations swept over us. Many of us, doctors or doctors’ wives, had provided ourselves with capsules of poison in case of the worst. Why? Because we had lived in an atmosphere of dread and wanted to be prepared for any emergency. Even though I had been optimistic when we left, I, too, had supplied myself with such a weapon of self-destruction. There is some comfort in knowing that, as the last resort, one is master of his own life or death! In a sense this represents the ultimate in liberty. In divesting us of every article the Germans knew they were asking us to give such things up, too.

Immediately, a Hungarian woman, Doctor G., took her syringe of morphine and, as it was impossible to give herself an intravenous injection, swallowed its contents. However, the poison was absorbed by the buccal duct and did not bring the desired effect.

I was consumed by one thought: how could I hide my poison? We were ordered to the baths. We had to walk into another room, completely in the nude except for our shoes, and with open hands while they inspected us. Then luck was with me. We were told to remove our shoes. However, those whose shoes were shabby were allowed to wear them; the Germans would not bother with valueless articles. I was wearing boots, which, at the beginning of spring, were of no interest to the guards, especially since they were covered with mud and dirt. Quickly, in a slit in the lining of a boot, I concealed my greatest treasure, the poison.

“Up against the wall,” cried the guards. They struck our naked bodies with their truncheons, as we had seen the woman doing a short time before to those wretched inmates.

A few of my neighbors tried desperately to keep their papers—some their prayer books, or photographs. But the guards were eagle-eyed. They slashed out with the iron-tipped clubs, or pulled their hair so hard that the unfortunate women shrieked and collapsed upon the ground.

“You won’t need identification papers or photos anymore!” cried the mockers.

I lined up in my row, completely naked, my shame engulfed in terror. At my feet lay my clothes, and, on top, the pictures of my family. I looked once more at the faces of my loved ones. My parents, my husband, and my children seemed to be smiling at me... I stooped and slipped these dear images into my crumpled jacket on the ground. My family should not see my horrible degradation.

Around me the frightful agitation, the weeping, and the cowering, continued. In bitterness, I found some satisfaction in ripping my blouse and dress. It may have been a stupid gesture, yet it was a comfort to know that at least my clothing would not be at the disposal of these hideous “supermen.”

Now we were compelled to undergo a thorough examination in the Nazi manner, oral, rectal, and vaginal—another horrible experience. We had to lie across a table, stark naked while they probed. All that in the presence of drunken soldiers who sat around the table, chuckling obscenely.

When the examination was over, we were shoved into an adjoining chamber. There followed another interminable period of waiting, before a partition which was marked, “Showers.” We shivered from the cold, and from the humiliation. Despite the weariness and the sufferings, many of the women still retained the beauty of their faces and bodies.

Again we had to march before a table where leering German soldiers were seated. We were pushed into another room where men and women, armed with scissors and clippers, waited for us. We were to be clipped and depilated. The clipped hair was accumulated in large sacks, evidently to be utilized for some purpose. Human hair was one of the precious raw materials which German industry needed.

A few women were lucky enough to be worked on with fast-moving clippers. They were envied by those whose hair was cut with scissors, for our barbers were hardly professional. Besides, they were in such haste that they left irregular tufts on the skulls, as though they deliberately sought to make us look ridiculous.

Long before my turn, a German officer singled me out. “Don’t clip that one’s hair,” he said to a guard. The soldier moved me aside, then forgot about me.

I tried to analyze my predicament. What did the officer want from me? I was fearful. Why should I have been the only one whose hair was not cut? Perhaps I would get better treatment. But no, from this foe one could expect no mercy, except at an ugly price. I did not want to be preferred; it was better to stay with my companions. So I disregarded the order, and got into line to be shorn.

Suddenly the officer reappeared. He gazed at my bare skull, grew angry, and slapped my face as hard as he could. Then he reprimanded the guard, and ordered him to give me a few lashes with his whip. That was the first time I was beaten in the camp. Each blow cut my heart as it did my flesh. We were lost souls. God, where art Thou?

I arrived at that state of numbness where I was no longer sensitive to either club or whip. I lived through the rest of that scene almost as a spectator, thinking only of my boots and of the poison in the lining. Nothing but the thought and the hope that the last word could still be mine bolstered my waning strength.

* * *

Once the “formalities” of the search were ended, we were herded into the shower room. We passed in rotation, under faucets which sprinkled us with a trickle of hot water. The whole affair did not last more than a minute. Then we were smeared with disinfectant on our heads and on the usual parts of the body. We were not yet dry, when we were led into a third room. The windows and doors were wide open. But, after all, we were in their clutches and our lives obviously meant nothing to anyone.

Here we received our prison clothing. I cannot think of any name that would fit the bizarre rags that were handed out for underwear. We asked ourselves what this “underclothing” was supposed to be. It was not white nor any other color, but worn-out pieces of coarse dusting-cloth. And still we could not be choosy. Only a few of the select were awarded underwear. The majority had to wear their dresses next to their skins.

The dresses, too, made one think of a fantastic masquerade. A few blouses were of convict-striped material. The rest were of rags that may have come from brightly colored gowns, but were now in tatters.

No one cared whether these rags fitted the internees. Large, buxom women had to wear little dresses that were too short and too tight and did not come to their knees. Slender women were given huge dresses, some with trains. Yet, despite the absurdity of the distribution, most of the internees, even those who had the chance, refused to exchange their “dresses” with their neighbors. However, there was no way to alter them. Buttons, thread, needles, and safety pins were non-existent.

To complete the style, the Germans had an arrow of red paint, two inches wide and two feet long, on the back of each garment. We were marked like pariahs.

I drew an ordinary assortment. My new outfit consisted of one of those formerly elegant dresses of tulle, quite tattered and transparent, and without a slip. With that, I was handed a pair of men’s drawers of striped fabric. The dress was bare in the front down to the navel and in the back down to the hips.

In spite of the tragedy of our situation, we could not help but laugh as we saw the others so ridiculously rigged out. After a while, it was a struggle to overcome the disgust we felt for our companions, and for ourselves.

Thus attired, we were driven into rows in front of the shower building. Once more, we had to wait long hours. No one was permitted to stir. The weather was cold. The skies were lowering. A wind had risen. The dresses, which we had put on while we were still wet, became damp. This first test in endurance was to claim many victims. Cases of pneumonia, otitis, and meningitis were soon to appear, many to prove fatal.

From the old inmates we learned that we were about forty miles west of Krakow. The place was called Birkenau, after the nearby forest of Birkenwald. Birkenau was five miles from the village and camp of Auschwitz, or Oświęcim. The post office was eight miles away in Neuberun.

At last we were marched away. We tramped past a charming forest on the outskirts of which stood a red brick building. Great flames belched from the chimney, and the strange, sickening, sweetish odor which had greeted us upon our arrival, attacked us even more powerfully now.

Logs were piled against the walls for nearly a hundred yards. We asked one of the guides, an old inmate, about this structure.

“It is a camp ‘bakery,’” she replied.

We absorbed that without the slightest suspicion. Had she revealed the truth we simply would not have believed her. The bakery which gave off the sickeningly sweetish odor was the crematory, to which the young and the old and the sick had been consigned, and to which ultimately we were all doomed.