Read Online A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Elie Wiesel, Thomas Buergenthal - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elie Wiesel, Thomas Buergenthal
Tags: United States, General, Social Science, Historical, History, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, World War II, World War; 1939-1945, Military, Biography, Europe, Holocaust, Eastern, Jewish Studies, Poland, Holocaust survivors, Jewish children in the Holocaust, Buergenthal; Thomas - Childhood and youth, Auschwitz (Concentration camp), Holocaust survivors - United States, Jewish children in the Holocaust - Poland, World War; 1939-1945 - Prisoners and prisons; German, Prisoners and prisons; German
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front for the Birkenau extermination camp.
Auschwitz was shown to visiting dignitaries, whereas Birkenau was the last place on earth many of the prisoners sent there
were destined to see.
As the train moved closer and closer to Birkenau, we could see hundreds of people in striped prison uniforms digging ditches,
carrying bricks, pushing heavy carts, or marching in formation in different directions. “
Menschen!
” (“Human beings!”), I heard someone mutter, and I sensed a collective sigh of relief in our car. “After all, they do not
kill everybody on arrival,” must have been the thought that flashed through our minds. The mood in the car lightened somewhat,
and people began to talk again. “Maybe Auschwitz is not as bad as it has been made out to be,” somebody said. I thought that
it looked just like Henryków, only bigger, and that it would not be all that bad.
Years later, when asked about Auschwitz and what it was like, I would reply that I was lucky to get into Auschwitz. This response
would invariably produce a shocked look on the face of the person who had asked the question. But I really meant what I said.
Most people who arrived at the Birkenau rail platform had to undergo a so-called selection. Here the children, the elderly,
and the invalids were separated from the rest of the people in their transport and taken directly to the gas chambers. Our
group was spared the selection process. The SS officers in charge must not have ordered it because they probably assumed,
since our transport came from a labor camp, that children and others not able to work had already been eliminated in those
camps. Had there been a selection, I would have been killed before ever making it into the camp. That is what I meant with
my flippant remark about being lucky to get into Auschwitz.
Of course, when we arrived in Birkenau, I did not know what to expect, nor did I know that I had escaped the deadly selection
process. As soon as we stepped out of our freight cars onto the station platform, all men were ordered to line up on one side
and all women on the other. But for one brief moment a few months later, this was the last time I was to see my mother until
we were reunited on December 29, 1946, almost two and half years after our separation. We could not really say good-bye, because
the SS guards were constantly yelling for us to move, hitting and kicking anyone who did not immediately do what they were
ordered to do. I was too scared to cry or even to wave to her and stayed close to my father.
My father held on to me as we were marched away from the station toward a big building. Here we were ordered to take off our
clothes and made to run through some showers and a disinfecting foot pool. Along the way, our hair was shorn off, and we were
thrown the same blue and white striped prison uniforms we had seen on entering Auschwitz. It was at this point that my father
whispered to me that we had made it, for it was only when we had received the uniforms that he could be sure that we were
not being taken to the gas chambers.
With that process behind us, we were again ordered to line up and march. We must have walked for quite some time before we
came upon rows and rows of barracks as far as the eye could see. Streets — actually unpaved roads — cut through the long rows
of barracks. High barbed wire fences on either side of the rows of barracks divided what looked like a large town into sizable
individual camps, each with its own gate and guard towers. Later I was to learn that these individual camps were identified
by letters of the alphabet. For example, women were housed in camps B and C, men in camp D, and so on. Our destination was
camp E, better known as the Gypsy camp. That camp had housed many thousands of Gypsy families. All of them — men, women, and
children — were murdered shortly before we arrived. Only the name remained to remind us of yet another
Auschwitz was shown to visiting dignitaries, whereas Birkenau was the last place on earth many of the prisoners sent there
were destined to see.
As the train moved closer and closer to Birkenau, we could see hundreds of people in striped prison uniforms digging ditches,
carrying bricks, pushing heavy carts, or marching in formation in different directions. “
Menschen!
” (“Human beings!”), I heard someone mutter, and I sensed a collective sigh of relief in our car. “After all, they do not
kill everybody on arrival,” must have been the thought that flashed through our minds. The mood in the car lightened somewhat,
and people began to talk again. “Maybe Auschwitz is not as bad as it has been made out to be,” somebody said. I thought that
it looked just like Henryków, only bigger, and that it would not be all that bad.
Years later, when asked about Auschwitz and what it was like, I would reply that I was lucky to get into Auschwitz. This response
would invariably produce a shocked look on the face of the person who had asked the question. But I really meant what I said.
Most people who arrived at the Birkenau rail platform had to undergo a so-called selection. Here the children, the elderly,
and the invalids were separated from the rest of the people in their transport and taken directly to the gas chambers. Our
group was spared the selection process. The SS officers in charge must not have ordered it because they probably assumed,
since our transport came from a labor camp, that children and others not able to work had already been eliminated in those
camps. Had there been a selection, I would have been killed before ever making it into the camp. That is what I meant with
my flippant remark about being lucky to get into Auschwitz.
Of course, when we arrived in Birkenau, I did not know what to expect, nor did I know that I had escaped the deadly selection
process. As soon as we stepped out of our freight cars onto the station platform, all men were ordered to line up on one side
and all women on the other. But for one brief moment a few months later, this was the last time I was to see my mother until
we were reunited on December 29, 1946, almost two and half years after our separation. We could not really say good-bye, because
the SS guards were constantly yelling for us to move, hitting and kicking anyone who did not immediately do what they were
ordered to do. I was too scared to cry or even to wave to her and stayed close to my father.
My father held on to me as we were marched away from the station toward a big building. Here we were ordered to take off our
clothes and made to run through some showers and a disinfecting foot pool. Along the way, our hair was shorn off, and we were
thrown the same blue and white striped prison uniforms we had seen on entering Auschwitz. It was at this point that my father
whispered to me that we had made it, for it was only when we had received the uniforms that he could be sure that we were
not being taken to the gas chambers.
With that process behind us, we were again ordered to line up and march. We must have walked for quite some time before we
came upon rows and rows of barracks as far as the eye could see. Streets — actually unpaved roads — cut through the long rows
of barracks. High barbed wire fences on either side of the rows of barracks divided what looked like a large town into sizable
individual camps, each with its own gate and guard towers. Later I was to learn that these individual camps were identified
by letters of the alphabet. For example, women were housed in camps B and C, men in camp D, and so on. Our destination was
camp E, better known as the Gypsy camp. That camp had housed many thousands of Gypsy families. All of them — men, women, and
children — were murdered shortly before we arrived. Only the name remained to remind us of yet another
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