Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Eva Ackermann - December 6, 1982

....uh, you know, we had these shoes, these wooden shoes. That as you walked in the snow, you got up like you know, you got up....

Snow built up....

Yeah, snow, it uh, just piled on. And I knew--you had to keep up with uh, when you went, when we went home and uh, I'm not even talking about the women because like I said, it sort rolled off--the women were somehow able to--it was a pitiful sight was these men, these elderly men that were crying and they were, rags were around them, on their feet and everything and you have to--they didn't care that the snow piled up on you and you couldn't walk, you just--I don't remember if they struck you. I don't remember, maybe they struck the men. But they were sure yelling and cursing and uh, it was a nightmare, these trips to go back and forth to work--the so-called work, which was none of. There was no factory. There was nothing. There was uh, systematically uh, destroying people because after uh, an outing like this, four or five I'm sure or even more never showed up the next day because they caught pneumonia and uh, once a month uh, uh that's another story I'll tell you uh, so you didn't see uh, when the kitchen, when you passed, you had to pass the access kitchen, there were two kitchens, there was a kitchen for the Häftlings--you know what a Häftling?

Uh-huh.

The Häftling in the camp and there was a kitchen outside uh, there was the access kitchen. So just, just as the men walked through the, the gates to go to work uh, the garbage was thrown out from the access kitchen and these men were uh, just went crazy over the garbage. They just--them--because there was potato peels and uh, this time--so they just uh, ignored all, you know, all the uh, the Kommandos what they, you know, that they were supposed to march. They just like crazy ran to uh, to the garbage. Of course they were uh, whipped with a, I don't remember with what but they were whipped uh, right back to the line to uh, continue. You know, to even uh, to think of something uh, how cruel can you be to uh, to throw out garbage and not uh, not to--why, why time it then? Why throw the garbage and why not even let the--why not let--you have the garbage.