Irving Altus - June 2, 1982
Labor Kommando of Auschwitz
Was this for Farben or not?
No, no.
Farben was just chemicals.
Chemicals, yeah. It just--and I was there 'til uh, '45.
You, you're, you left Auschwitz and you went out...
They took us, they took us there, young people who, that could work and...
And where did you stay, uh?
They had barracks there. It was the same like Auschwitz. But, like I say uh, uh, here it was Auschwitz and the thing so, forty--fifty miles or twenty miles ahead, all little factories. So I, start to bring you home, at night and thing they used to build there a couple barracks and you, and you stayed there, that's it. So they didn't need transportation and kill time and...
So that was a work camp and not...
A work camp, a thousand people. Here it was uh, fifty thousand. They took a thousand people and we remained there. Start to bring us back and forth.
How were you selected for that?
I don't know.
They just.
Probably I--they could see young people and strong.
Did you have when you were at Auschwitz, did you have any special responsibilities?
No, no.
You never knew what you were going to do when you got up in the morning.
No, no, not--no, the few month, no, nothing, nothing, absolutely.
But they--you did work every day, just like when you were on...
Every day, every day, every day was the Appell. You had to get up five or four again, who knew what time it was. A watch is nothing. Whenever the, the, the, the bell rings or whatever you know, it was--you didn't know nothing. So, out. You could stay out in the morning from five or six or seven or sometime for hours, not doing any work.
Wife: ???.
Hot or cold or whatever happened, just stay there. Half of the people fell down and they died there for hunger, for cold, for heat.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn