The Holocaust

The Farm

On a rainy and cloudy day in the middle of December, we were told that the Children’s Block was to be evacuated, and we would be taken to various camps. Every boy was asked about his know-how and skills. We stated that we were carpenters. That was true, because in Sered we worked in the carpentry shop, a job that helped us stay together. At the time these memories are being written, I am still holding a German document on our transfer from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Buchenwald, our next destination, at which we were registered as carpenters.

One morning we were ordered to put together all our belongings and march into the main camp of Auschwitz. Actually, we had nothing except of our worn out clothes. Our only things of value were our shoes. We arrived at the gate into Auschwitz, where we waited for hours for the next orders. We saw and heard the Auschwitz inmates’ orchestra. Then we were told to continue our march.

We arrived at an agricultural farm by the name Landwirtschaft Budy. Near the farm, a small concentration camp has been founded, to accommodate the farm workers. There, the living conditions were extremely tough, even harsher than in Birkenau. The barracks in which we lived amidst the freezing winter were all broken open, with crevices in the walls and hundreds of rats. There were two-story bunks, and not once the man on the top urinated in his bunk, and all his urine leaked down onto us. The feeling of becoming wet in the middle of night was far from being pleasant.

Theoretically, we were forced to work, but actually we hardly did anything. As there was no carpentry shop at the farm, we were sent to the locksmith's workshop, at which the main jobs were making hooves, carriage shafts and alike. We were lucky to have had a Jewish boss who came from Saloniki. For testing our carpentry skills, he made us plane wood surfaces. Shmuel somehow managed to carry out the job, but upon watching my futile attempts he immediately saw that I only pretended to be a carpenter, and my work was of no avail. He therefore decided that we should stay next to the stove, and said mercifully: “You just warm yourselves here, and that’s it”. Looking at us, he signaled whenever we had to stand up, and when the “alarm” came to its end and return to the edge of the stove. There were always products displayed on the workbench, as if we were just working on them. At that workshop, nobody ever caught us refraining from work.

Naftali: After a few days, I was left in the block and never went to work. There was a clinic in the block managed by a French physician. That doctor took me, out of pure goodness, under his patronage. I regret to say that I do not remember his name. He appointed me to be his assistant. He liked both of us, and helped us whenever he could. He allowed us to wash with warm water, and that was of great value. He was my patron for the entire period in that camp; part of the time I even slept overnight in the clinic.

Shmuel: At that time, I kept working in the carpentry shop. As we mentioned before, we worked in an agricultural farm. One day – I’ll never forget it – pieces of sugar beet fell off a platform. One of the workers collected the beets and brought them into the carpentry shop. From there we took them to the smith’s workshop, and baked them on the burning coal. On that very day I swore that for the rest of my life I would eat only baked sugar beets, because there was no better food on earth. Since those days, I ate in numerous places, from America to Japan, but that sugar beet remained the best food I ever ate.

So we learned that we were able to put our hands on sugar beets, and from time to time we used to make from it a good meal.

Christmas eve came. The gentiles, both guards and soldiers, went to their celebrations. Drunken, they returned to the camp, and began beating the inmates. Standing barefoot outside of the barrack we watched this happen. There was no limit to cruelty: they grabbed the prisoners, drowned them in icy water, trampled on them, and at the end killed some of them.

Although we accumulated quite extensive experiences, that was one of the most horrifying sights we witnessed. At that night, we were forced to dance, with no shoes on our legs, around the Christmas tree put up in front of the barrack. However, none of us children was hit.

At the beginning of January 1945, rumors were spreading on the approaching Russian army. Something was in the air, accompanied by the feeling that changes would occur. Shortly before evacuation – to be told below – sound of artillery could be heard. To the adults, it indicated our near redemption and liberation. They obtained information from sources out of the camp, and knew quite well what was happening on the world scene. Compared to them, we children could in no way interpret events, and all we knew stemmed from rumors and feelings.

Although at the time we had no track of dates and hours, and time in general, we learned that the situation prevailed for nineteen days. On January 19, 1945 we were ordered to get ready for leaving the camp and a long march away. Our first thought was to look for a hiding place, and not go on the march. Within the camp there was a threshing-floor, which we considered suitable for hiding until the evacuation of the whole camp would be completed. However, there were rumors that following the evacuation, the Germans planned to search thoroughly all sections of the camp, and then set them on fire. The thought that we might be caught or burned to ashes has frightened us enormously, and for some time we weighed the two possibilities, not knowing which of them was the lesser evil. At the end, we decided to leave the camp, together with everyone else.

Before our departure we received small portions of food: a loaf of bread and a small piece of margarine. In the meantime, the doctor who “adopted” me suddenly disappeared, and I was the only person left in the clinic. I took some rubber tubules, and improvised a kind of a knapsack. I filled it with medications and bandages, as well as a pair of pants, which I found in the clinic, and food for a few days journey.

On the following morning, part of the farm equipment was loaded on horse-drawn wagons and the march begun: the wagons rolled in the front, while we marched behind them. We again passed by Auschwitz and crossed Polish villages. We had no sense of time and direction whatsoever.