Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Marton Adler - July 13, 1989

Uh, then what happened?

Well, it's not that we made it to the train. We made it to that field. Because the whole, this whole ghetto had to be emptied over there. Now they are all there now they are no longer in a hurry. And everybody starts to wonder, what will next, what will--so they found out real soon what's gonna happen around 4:00, they put like a plank, like a wood with little bars on it or without bars, you know, like going over a bridge, making like a, make bridge. And now they said, get into those cars, I mean not like they took you politely, how about coming into the car, Raus, schnell, this is the only vocabulary always. Raus and schnell, raus and schnell, uh so families, friends, whatever tried to get into the same train, you know into the same train and once they were satisfied that a train was full, another train, the boxcar, 'cause they knew how many there were and all that, they locked the door and that's it. And then the train stood there maybe uh, I don't know, maybe even four or five hours before it started moving.

What was it like in there?

You mean in the box car?

Uh-huh.

Well, the best I could explain it is like when I dream at night and I have a nightmare. I mean you were in a stupor, you were cramped against each other, everybody is on top of everybody and everybody is screaming, "you're on my foot, you're on this and this," now all these people trying to get together closer and you know, each family trying to get closer, in the meantime they are making some kind of a blanket up in case you got to do your personal needs for hygiene. And they gave you one bucket of water and they allow you two, three spoonfuls but uh, it's like you are in a cramped elevator. It's more people than the elevator will take, you just do the best you can till, till you take the trip. That's about it.

Were you with your family, were you all on the same car?

Yeah, we were there together, but like I say, in ten seconds, I already spoke to you more than on the thing that I, it was nothing, my mother just gave birth to a little baby. I thought about it many times, you know friends probably killed the babies or because where we were going, with an infant you're lost.

Was the baby born in Sokinitsa?

Yeah. About three or four days...

Tell me about that...

Three or four days before they took us.

Do you remember when the baby was born?

I really don't know, all I know is that a, believe me, I was fourteen and in matters of reproduction and sex I was very, very weak in that area, but I know, I know uh, this I know for sure. That my sister was born in '36, my dad picked me up, says "now, you got yourself a little sister." It was happiness. Here it was a well, um, I don't even know if my father told it to me or whatever, I try, he probably did, well, your mother um, the baby isn't alive or something like that. And to me at the time I tell you what, it didn't mean anything, I mean I'm talking to you on the way I really felt 99% sincere so no use me giving you a lot of talk.

Was there a midwife at the birth?

No, no the people in this, in this, uh...

So there were others who helped?

Oh, definitely, oh yes.

Do you think that they disposed of the baby?

Who knows, I really don't know. I really, I really don't know, possibly, most likely, most likely they were, they were mature adults, they knew what was happening, they knew that with an infant, but let's say, let's say they saved the infant. Could an infant survive in a boxcar like that? Can it? For how long? Grownups couldn't make it in that boxcar. Every boxcar had dead people when we got to Auschwitz. So, whoever, let's say they did kill the baby on purpose, and again not to be sarcastic, I owe these people a thank you card. They did 'em a favor. What would have happened to that baby? Either it would have died in the boxcar or it would've, they would have killed it in Auschwitz. What else, or maybe they did `em a favor. That baby for sure did it. That's my brother/sister 'til today I don't know what it was whether a boy or a girl. I, I, I feel very bad when I talk about it, I cry many times, I come away to this interview, I cried on the way over, I don't start crying, I start thinking and going back and all of the sudden, I cried now, my eyes are red, not that I won any medals for it but it was a terrible thing what they did to us, when I say they, the Nazis, these horrible, horrible murderers that they call themselves human beings until today they have revisioners, then this and that, and they're all full of baloney and they're all really worse than murderers, these people are terrible. They are educated people, it's not like a guy that comes out of the jungle, he don't know the difference. They know the difference, and it was premeditated. It's like one of the Holocaust dinners, Dave Mondry said it. He said these people weren't killed, they weren't murdered, they were exterminated. And that is the truth. That is what they did to us. That's what they did to us, and they'll have to live with that shame all their lives, all their lives forever and ever, what they did to us.

Let me take you back to the boxcar, was it dark?

Where the box? Yes, yes, yes, it was dark, the train was going, sometimes they put it in a siding because uh, because uh, of a priority, or what's the difference, all these people will get gassed a day later, big deal. So, it was always dark and moaning and groaning and I'm fourteen and I'm a big hero, and I'm not gonna, you know, relieve myself in front of somebody else there whether they hold a blanket or not. And uh, that's why today I still have ulcers and all that and yeah, yeah it was dark and again I don't know why they nobody talked anything. I remember one guy said so, we looked through, there was some slit, you know, I seen maybe part of a mountain, maybe a little river, and I heard one guy said, or somebody said, "I think we're in Poland," that's what he said. That's what it's like in a boxcar. In one place they did stop someplace and they did, I think, let us empty out that latrine, that bucket, you know waste. And now you got an empty bucket and if I'm not mistaken I'm almost positive, they did give us a new bucket of water. At that one stop. And then it stopped someplace else and this I know for sure, they knocked on the window and they said, "whatever you going you are not supposed to have any valuables, so if you got any valuables, you throw it out through the window now and you will be saved, because where you go there and they find any valuables on any one of you, all of you will be killed." You know, Nazi blackmail. And what happened was, there was a pretty well-to-do person in our, in fact he is a relative of mine, his son is in California, his name was ???, to go a step further, he died in my camp, he was a Musselmann, but anyways we'll go back to that later, and uh, these people tried ???, they kind of took so much, why don't you throw out your valuables if you have it so we won't get--I mean it was total, total incomprehension. The longer I'm gonna live the less I'm gonna understand what happened there. It makes no sense, the worse nightmare makes more sense than what happened there. No, no fiction writer, no fiction writer could ever come up with the, with what they did to us. What the Nazis did to the Jewish people.