By My Mother's Hand by Melnick Henry

Author:Melnick, Henry [Melnick, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tandem Publishing
Published: 2011-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

Auschwitz III - Buna-Monowitz

December, 1943

After arriving at Buna-Monowitz we were assigned to build a factory for a company called I.G. Farben, a subsidiary of Bayer [27]. They hoped to manufacture synthetic fuel and rubber. 10,000 prisoners were at hand, the majority being Jews. The factory’s name was the Buna Werke.

I was assigned to a working squad designated to roll out huge concrete pipes. My job was to carry two cement bags one on top of the other on my back, all day long. We were given shoes. The soles of our shoes were made of wood and the upper part was made of leather.

Once while working, I did not notice that my foot was directly under a large concrete pipe and it rolled over my toes. Being winter, my foot was cold and numb but my big toe got squashed and actually cracked like a nut. I could not do anything about it and continued to work. Eventually it healed and the nail fell off. I was already so weak, I realized that I would not last very long if I continued this type of work.

One day as I was carrying cement bags, I noticed a German soldier out on the road outside the perimeter fence. He was transporting potatoes with a horse and buggy. I called him “Herr Unter Offizier,” knowingly calling out a rank higher than he was to flatter him. I asked him to please throw me some potatoes through the fence, and surprisingly, he did. I hid them in my shirt and brought them with me.

I still had a problem - how could I eat raw potatoes? I noticed that at the end of our barrack there was a long radiator under the windows. I also noticed that on the outside of the barrack, there was a pipe letting out a powerful jet of steam. I took a metal can, made a few holes in the bottom, attached a handle with a piece of wire, and hung the can over the steam outlet. The steam cooked the potatoes as I watched from afar. I was constantly afraid someone would catch me so I did not wait very long before retrieving the can. The potatoes were not completely cooked, but they were edible. I quickly ate a few.

The camp was run by German prisoners. That they were criminals was clear because they wore the green triangles of criminal prisoners. I decided to take a risk and I walked into the administration building and asked them to change my job. Usually they threw prisoners out for asking such questions. I told them I came as an electro-mechanic and I was working on concrete pipes. I explained I would be much more useful as an electro-mechanic. They tested me with a few questions about electricity; about alternating and direct current. Using what I remembered from school, I answered. I spoke rapidly, flooding them with information about Ohm’s law [28] and its formula. The next thing I knew, I was given a paper with permission to transfer to an electricians’ squad.

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