The Holocaust
“Kinderblock” – The Children’s Block
After a
short period, we were ordered to join with other children and youth, and move
to the “Kinderblock”, the Children’s Block. That was a most frightening order,
because the “Kinderblock” was an infamous facility. As long as the gas
chambers were in operation, that block served as a warehouse of humans.
Whenever the numbers of those delivered to the chambers did not reach their
full capacity, children of the “Kinderblock” were taken in order to fill the
quota. The man in charge of the block was a Ukrainian or Byelorussian by the
name Oleg, whose cruelty was well know all over the camp. Nobody could change
the ruling forced upon us. We were transferred to Block 29, the Children’s
Block, well aware of and horrified by our separation from dad, who remained in
the central section of the camp. Shmuel and I were overwhelmed by an
indescribable anxiety.
Within
the block, atrociousness and harsh conditions ruled all over. There was no
food, and sick and dying children surrounded us. Every morning, dead bodies of
boys were lying next to us. Others used to take off their clothes and steal
their belongings, and the dead were left naked on their bunks. First thing
every morning was the removal of the dead bodies from the barrack. The only
advantage was that the counting of the inmates took place inside the block,
and we were not pushed to the daily Appells outside.
There, at
the “Kinderblock”, was our first time to face all alone the reality of dread
and terror. Once – we never knew in what circumstances – dad came over to the
hatch of our block. He told us that he was to be deported out of Birkenau, and
said good-by. He looked into Shmuels eyes, and Shmuel understood that from now
on he was the person in charge. While in Sered, at the time dad was out of the
camp, even though we were together with mom, he already experienced the
responsibility of being the head of the family. However, in Birkenau the
situation was entirely different. Our parents were no longer with us, and
Shmuel was the person in charge. Probably, that sense of responsibility gave
him strength to take care of his younger brother, instead of digging into his
own soul. Retrospectively, Shmuel has confirmed that feeling, which helped him
overcome hours and days of despair.
We were
convinced that we arrived at the end station of our lives. We could not be
sure that killing by gas has stopped, and we had no idea that the Germans
began concealing any evidence of the crimes they committed.
The sense
of responsibility was not easy for Shmuel. As all the thefts took place at
night and those in a deep sleep were the first ones to be robbed, he was
afraid of falling asleep. After all, he did not want to wake up in the morning
and see that the little we had disappeared forever. We were neither among the
full-bodied boys, nor among the small children in the block. Many youngsters
were bigger and stronger, and they took advantage of their strength in order
to terrorize the others, particularly as time went by and there was less and
less food at our disposal, and more children fell ill. The block was crowded
to its rim, and every day brought new battles for life and death. Yelling,
cursing and beating were the prevailing factor in a very unpleasant
atmosphere. We sat all day long, day after day, starving and doing nothing. To
our luck, Shmuel and I were relatively well off. After all, we joined the
block later than many others who were already exhausted from their long stay
in it.
Because
of the difference in our age, we also differ in our memories of the
“Kinderblock” in Birkenau.
Shmuel:
One of the most shocking experiences was my first encounter with sexual
deviation, which I witnessed in the camp shower, located out of the block. The
latrine was adjacent to the shower. As I mentioned before, taking care of our
cleanliness was one of our family’s rules. Although water was ice-cold, we
strictly observed these rules, and took shower at any given opportunity. At
the same time we also washed part of our clothes, and because we had no other
sets of clothing we washed either the shirt or the pants, and wore them all
wet.
I did not
know what those other men actually did, but I heard the screaming and saw the
disgusting sights, which frightened me thoroughly. Although I was never
threatened or exposed to any danger, I grasped more or less what was
happening, and what I saw did not seem to be normal.
Naftali:
To me, the “Kinderblock” in Auschwitz-Birkenau was the most extreme torment I
had until then. Without our parents we were all alone, exposed to very
difficult experiences. There and then, the most troubling question began to
bother me: Does God exist? If God exists, where is He?
I remember being alone in the latrine; I wanted to test God’s existence. I
began cursing him because I wanted to test whether He could hear me, if he at
all listens to children. To tell the truth, I felt quite panicked in the light
of my daring test. Upon leaving the latrine I realized that nothing happened
and nothing changed. At that very moment I lost my belief in God, and all I
sensed was loneliness and fear, as if the whole world was falling apart.
Inside
the block, one of the most horrifying phenomena was the matter of hygiene and
toilets. It is difficult to describe how much suffering I had to go through
whenever I wanted to relieve myself. At the end of the block, almost outside
of it, there were cans over eighty centimeters high, all messed up with faeces
with a horrible smell. Every night, in the terrible cold, I walked – sometimes
barefoot – over to those cans, and so did most of the boys (after all, who did
not have to relieve himself?). That was hell!
There
were people beyond their breaking point who decided to commit suicide. Night
by night I was shocked by their screaming, until they died.
On that
spot we got our first lesson on “business” in food. There were women behind
the high-voltage wire fence, with whom we exchanged bread for onion.
Stretching our arms between the wires was most frightening. Even now, over
fifty years later, whenever I eat onion, the picture of the fence appears in
front of my eyes.
Another,
very personal experience comes to my mind. In the Sered camp there was a
family, who in Bratislava were our parents’ close friends. Their daughter,
Marika Rab, was my girlfriend since our days in school. She was a very cute
and beautiful, a bit round and overweight girl. Her age was eight, and I liked
her very much. Close to the time of deportations, our friendship has
strengthened. Marika and her parents were sent to Auschwitz before we were
deported. There, in Birkenau, right upon our arrival, I was surprised to have
seen her. She walked in a rank with her mother and other women in the opposite
direction, to a destination I would not know. Where they taken to the
crematorium? I do not know whether they saw us, but for me it was the last
time I caught sight of her, and only the memory of Marika stayed with me for
the whole life. Not once I thought that if she had been saved, perhaps our
friendship would have developed into a serious relationship. To my deep
sorrow, she did not survive those days of horror.
|
Buchenwald childrens on the release day. Naftali Furst is
mark in a yellow circle |