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Szymon Binke - June 16, 1997

There were six of you.

Right. But we went out of Birkenau five of us. He didn't, see, [sniffs], when [clears throat], then after, I'll come to that story why he didn't get out of that. When, when, when they took us into camp after the bath and all this they gave us new, this uh, striped clothing and everything, they put us into a camp and they put them in one block, put me and a block means a building, they put me in a different building, in the youth building. And uh, one morning I wake up and I used to always hang out. I would be here for the, for the head count and, and uh, and uh, and they had three or four head counts every day and we knew what time they are gonna be, so I'd come back to be counted and then I'd go and be with them, which was just like across the road. So uh, one morning I get up and I go to the, to their building and there's nobody there. I ask questions, nobody knows what happened. So I started to, it was a very big camp, I started to walk around and I see a fenced off area and a bunch of people on the other side of the fence. So somehow I jumped the fence and got in there and I started to ask what building they were from and uh, it was the same building that, I think it was Block 10 they called it and some of 'em were from that building. So I started to look and sure enough I found them. And uh, so my dad was shocked to see me. "How'd you get here?" and I says, "Well, I couldn't find you there, so I came here." He says, "No, you better go back to, to your uh, building," because uh, during the night, they, they took them the night before in the evening they took 'em on that field. I guess they went through a medical doctor supposedly, looked at 'em and gave 'em, took their names and birth date and so on. And uh, you know, they put 'em in that fenced off area. And he says, "You, you didn't go through that. You won't be able to go with us." I says, "I can't go back, because I missed already one or two head counts. I'll get killed. So I'll take my chances here." So then uh, probably towards around early afternoon they start calling names and as they called your name you had to give your birth date and you run across a field maybe 200 feet. And you lined, they lined up over there. So they were calling names. Naturally they're not gonna call my name uh, because I wasn't on there. Well after they had about two thousand people on the other field, they called a name and the person probably died during the night or something and nobody answered and I started to yell, but I didn't know his uh, birth date, so I made out like I'm saying something, but then I started to run. And they started to chase me because I couldn't give 'em the uh, uh, birth date. By the time, well, I got there first and there were two thousand people over there and I got lost. How are they gonna find me? Everybody's dressed the same way and so that's how I got out of uh, Birkenau. And then after the war I met somebody that told me the building I was in, about two or three days after we left they took all the kids out of there and don't know what happened to 'em. Well, now we know what happened to 'em.

It was the Kinderblock?

Right.

What do you suppose happened at the next Appell at the Kinderblock?

That's a good question. They had to come up with a body.

For you?

Right. Oh, that's why. See, they, they started calling a, you know, by the alphabet, a, b, c, you know. Our name is Binke, so naturally we're called one of the first ones. My uncle, the one that didn't survive, that my father's oldest sister's husband, his name was Wolf, W-o-l-f. So he'd be at the end of the line. They needed three thousand people, so probably they uh, picked uh, thirty-five hundred or four thousand because there's always some, they figure some will die during the night. And maybe there was more than just me that did what I did. I don't know. And he got, he didn't come with us. Otherwise he would have been with us.

Did you think you were doing the right thing?

I knew if I went back, I'm dead. Here I had a chance. So, I knew I'd be doing the wrong thing if I went back.

So at, at that point...

Right. See, they didn't care. As long as they have a, a body to count. Whether they, it's dead or alive, they didn't care. I saw peop...I saw, in, in Birkenau I saw the Blockäl...Blockälste kill somebody because he wanted his extra ration, he wanted his bread. It was always, every morning there were bodies also layin' out in front of the, when they, when they head count they counted us and they counted one, two, three whatever. That was part of the...[sigh]

Let's go back to Birkenau then. How long were you there?

Oh, if I, I can't remember. Probably not even two weeks, maybe ten, twelve days.

And what was the barracks like that you were in?

Well, it was a floor uh, a cement floor. In the middle was a, a, looked like a feed trough. I think they might have had horses or something. It was raised up in the middle uh, uh and it went the length of the, of the building and we were sleeping on the, naturally on the floor. And not only sleeping on the floor, you had to curl up like in a fetal position and the next one was right into you and the one in front of you was, so you could not turn. If you turned uh, I don't, it was a long building, probably fifty, sixty people would have to turn the same, at the same time. So once you got in that position, that was it for the night. You couldn't stretch out because you were touching the guy's head and the guy was touching your head with his, with his uh, like sardines, you know? Only sardines, they stretch out, we were cramped in. And I don't think uh, they did it because there was a shortage of space. I'm sure there was plenty of, that camp was so big. They just did it to make it miserable. And then [laugh], they used to, they used to, they used to keep us out like for the head count. After the head count we'd have to be in a crouched position, sit...sittin' like this, crouching down, for a half hour, an hour, just for the heck of it. I don't know what kind of exercise that was, but I guess the Blockälste, you know the leader, the, the, the, the, the leader of the, the building felt like we should be sittin' like this. He made us. Not sitting, crouching and have your hands in front of you.

Blockälteste was a prisoner.

Yes. Yeah.

Jewish prisoner?

Not always. Most of 'em were uh, uh, Christians, political or, or, but there were Jews, Jewish Blockältesters also. Like in the other camps, most of the uh, Blockältesters were Jewish, you know in, in Dachau camps and Kaufering uh...

Is this is where you encountered lice? You said in the camps you encountered...

Yes. Not in Auschwitz, because we'd just gone through the uh, bath and everything. Once we got out of Birkenau that's, yeah.

And do you have any, any images, general images of Birkenau? I mean the smoke, the smells, anything...

I don't remember that. I don't remember anything like that. Like I told you, afraid to look. You just uh, walked around like a, like a, like a rat. It was, there was stones being thrown. I remember that. You had to be careful. You have to watch. But somebody told me here recently, he was in Auschwitz, he got called on a, you know, Auschwitz and Birkenau are two different camps. He got taken to Auschwitz. Now there was one Polish guy that was training for, for, for what do you call, the, the not the discus, the...

Shot-put?

Shot-put, yeah. He was training for shot-put, so he was throwing stones. If he hit somebody, it's okay too.

In Birkenau.

Yeah. I didn't know. I, in fact, Eli, no, you don't know Eli Koritz. Uh, he told me. You know we were talking about it, I says and I told him, he was there about the same time I was, but he was, he volunteered for a, to go, he said he was a bricklayer or something and they took him out and they put him to Auschwitz and he told me that there was one guy training for, for, for shot-put and he was throwing stones. I don't know how true it is, but I know there was stones flyin' all over the place. I mean big ones, not, not little...

And do, do you remember seeing anybody get hit by those things?

Oh yeah.

And when you did those exercises...

There was no exercise. Just crouch down with your hands in front of you.

Did, did everybody manage to do that for an hour?

Oh no! You couldn't stand that long.

And what happened...

You'd fall over, he'd come up and kick him and beat him and something like that you know. It was part of their uh, uh, enjoyment, I guess.

So when you realized that your father and your uncles were getting out...

I didn't want to be stuck alone. And probably that's why we survived uh, uh, because we were together. You know, you could always, one of us would always find something and we'd uh, share it.

Was this a general rule? Did everybody help everybody else in Birkenau?

It's hard to say. No, that, that's not in Birkenau. In Birkenau, forget it. We didn't do anything in Birkenau. I mean once we got out of Birkenau we started to go to work, you'd find something, uh maybe a one of us would uh, work in a field for a farmer, bring home some potatoes or some vegetables or something like that and we'd share it or some...

Even, even in the ghetto, from the ghetto through the camps...

Yes?

Did people as a rule share and help each other out?

Families, yeah, made probably yes, yeah. But strangers? No. No. Like if I met you, you and I had a loaf of bread and you were starving to death, forget it. We were like animals. In fact uh, in Lager Vier, four, in, in, in Birk...in uh, Kaufering we were there in the wintertime and I guess the ground was too frozen. They couldn't bury their dead, so they'd pile 'em up in the corner of the camp, pile, just pile up bodies. And we'd go around looking for uh, some, if a body had a jacket or a pair of shoes, he doesn't need it. [pause] You know, if his shoes were better than yours, you'd take 'em.