I Escaped from Auschwitz by Rudolf Vrba

Author:Rudolf Vrba
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781631584725
Publisher: Racehorse
Published: 2020-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

“Gassing People is Not Easy”

NOBODY WHO SURVIVED CAMP A IN BIRKENAU WILL EVER forget September 7, 1943, for it was unlike any other day we had ever known. That morning, we felt wonder, elation, nostalgia, and overwhelming amazement as we gazed on a sight which most had forgotten existed and the rest doubted they would ever see again.

Into Camp B beside us, separated from us by only a few strands of wire, poured men, women, and children dressed in ordinary civilian clothes, their heads unshaven, their faces bewildered, but plump and unravaged. The grown-ups carried their luggage, the children their dolls and their teddy bears, and the men of Camp A, the zebra men who were only numbers, simply stood and stared, wondering who had tilted the world, spilling a segment of it in on top of them.

There were about five thousand of them, and as we watched them settling in, our camp buzzed with speculation. Never before had families been kept together in Auschwitz, except in the gas chambers. Never before had they been allowed to retain their clothes and their luggage. It was a puzzle, a mystery, and, we older prisoners felt quite sure, a trick of some sort, for we soon saw that the new arrivals were getting VIP treatment.

The SS men treated them with consideration, joking with them, playing with the children. Then, when they had stowed away their luggage, all registrars were called in to write them into the books of Birkenau.

Here I thought I might find a clue to the mystery, but the little I learned made the situation even more bewildering. First, I noted that each of them, even the youngest children, who were about two years of age, had been tattooed with a special number that bore no relation to Auschwitz, and each had a card on which was written: “Six months quarantine with special treatment.”

“Special treatment” in Auschwitz was a most sinister phrase. It meant extermination. Yet these people, who had come from Theresienstadt ghetto near Prague obviously were being kept alive for some purpose. It was a problem far beyond me, and as soon as possible, I reported everything I knew to Schmulewski, who, I had learned by this stage, was the leader of the Birkenau underground.

I found that already he was fairly well informed about these startling developments. Already, indeed, resistance cells had been formed in Camp B. A special meeting of senior members of the underground was called, however, to discuss why kid gloves were being used, why all the rules of the camp were being broken, and soon they reached what seemed to be a reasonable conclusion.

In Theresienstadt ghetto, we had learned, there were about 100,000 Jews. It was clear to us that all were scheduled for Auschwitz and ultimate death, but from what we had gathered from the new arrivals, this was not going to be a simple operation. Kid gloves, in fact, were vital, because in this particular ghetto there were International Red Cross observers.

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