Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz by Lengyel Olga

Author:Lengyel, Olga [Lengyel, Olga]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780897336314
Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers
Published: 2012-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVII

The Methods and Their Madness

Auschwitz was a work camp, while Birkenau was an extermination camp. But there were a few work kommandos at Birkenau for various manual tasks. I was forced to participate in most of these squads, at one time or another.

First, there was the “Esskommando,” that is, the food carriers. After the morning roll call, I went to the kitchens with my companions to take the pots of food. We had to carry them to the hospital about half a mile away. At least that was useful work, and one could only complain that it was fatiguing.

There were some tasks that were perfectly useless. We were almost convinced that a madman set upon driving everyone else insane had thought them up. For example, we were ordered to carry a heap of stones from one spot to another. Each internee had two pails to fill to the brim. Then we trudged several hundred yards more and emptied them. We had to carry out this stupid assignment conscientiously. Once the pile of stones had been removed, we breathed relief, hoping that now we would have something more sensible to do. Imagine our feelings when we were ordered to pick up the stones and take them back to their original place! Apparently our masters wanted us to repeat the classic task of Sisyphus.

Sometimes, instead of the stones, we had to carry bricks, or even mud. These assignments seemed to have but one purpose: to break our physical and moral resistance and render us candidates for the selections.

Once, I was ordered to the “Scheisskommando,” or the latrine cleaning squad. Equipped with two buckets, we arrived each morning at the pit behind the hospital. We drew up full pails of the excrement and carried them a few hundred yards away to another pit. So it went on all day. Finally, dead from nausea and disgust, we washed as well as we could and went to bed, knowing that tomorrow we would have to repeat our performance.

The odor which reeked from my co-worker in the Scheisskommando, who slept beside me, literally made me sick. I must have had the same effect on her.

There was also the mud. Auschwitz-Birkenau was situated on a marshy terrain, and the mud never disappeared. It was a sly and powerful enemy. It penetrated our shoes, our clothing, and even soaked through our soles, which came off and made our swollen feet even heavier. When it rained, the camp was transformed into an ocean of mud, paralyzing traffic and making every task unbelievably difficult. Mud and the crematory—these were our greatest obsessions.

Certain kommandos worked outside the camp. These were in the “Aussenkommando.” They left early in the morning, no matter what the weather was. Members of these squads had to do their work on an empty stomach, with no food whatever except that yellowish liquid which the cooks called tea or coffee, as they pleased. The departure of these prisoners, some dressed in ragged evening dresses, others in pajamas with convict stripes, in wooden shoes or unmatched boots, was a heartrending spectacle.

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