Eva Ackermann - December 6, 1982
Work in Concentration Camp
What kind of labor did they have you doing?
Well that I don't know, you were referring to something uh, systematic. Uh, I felt that as long as, I think at that point there were no uh, cremating. So I felt what they were doing was systematically destroying people. Maybe at that point um, the Red Cross was looking in, I don't know was looking in. They didn't sh...uh, shoot people. They didn't kill people...
Was this still the S...
...physically.
Was this still the SS?
But--it was still the SS. The SS were almost to the end with the exception of about four days. But systematically destroying people in the most cruel manner you could imagine. Uh, I was working uh, in the kitchen for awhile and they had Kommandos, what they were uh, these, these hordes of people had to--the pitiful uh, looking and uh, uh, uh, sign um, uh, of a uh, human being. I mean I, I really don't know uh, what to call the uh, they had no uh, not ev...not anymore of a shape of a human being because once your tortured so much uh, once you go hungry and uh, and you're sick and because nobody was, was taken care of. They star...they uh, they went up to five-- you know five in a row and there was whole Kommando going up to the gate--going nowhere--somewhere in the wood and doing uh, just--after I got out of the kitchen, I got put into that Kommando um, we were picking up big uh, it bothers me that I can't uh, express myself--iron. Big pieces of iron like from uh, you have scrap from a building like, uh....
From the railroads?
Maybe so, uh, uh, scrap iron....
Scrap iron?
Yeah, scrap iron--big pieces of it, now they told us, "You see that big pile? Pick it up," and they pointed uh, uh, a few yards away, "and deposit it over there," So uh, two of us picked it up--no gloves--by then we had uh, we had uh, we had either outlasted or whatever, had no gloves just pull down the coat and sleeves.
[interruption in interview]
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