Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Irving Altus - June 2, 1982

The SS

Who was this? Was this the SS?

Yes, SS.

Who was the supervisor?

Yes. Supervisor, sure. All SS. It was, it was Auschwitz, but it just they stop to bring you home. Why go an hour or two in, in the morning with the guards, with dogs. So, they didn't want to be bothered. They couldn't care a less how good the barrack is, if it's cold or hot or thing. They want you there and you were there and that's all. So they build a big hole for a thousand people, 800 or 1,200 something like this and that's it. And a kitchen, and they used to bring the food from Auschwitz and they cooked there and they supply there and the laundry and everything, that's all.

And as long as you worked there was no....

Long as you work, that's all. I was there 'til 19...uh, January 1945. When--just exactly when the Russians came so close, when they did start evacuating Auschwitz. And like I say, we were Auschwitz, so they took us too.

So at that point, they would replenish people in your, who worked in the cement factory...

Oh no, when they took us it was, then the, I think the Germans and they all left. When they start taking us out, when the Russians came, they all left. They left the factory, they left everything.


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