Szymon Binke - June 16, 1997
Worst Things About Camp
All right, let's go back before we get, get to that. You were in camps. You went to Camp 7 and then Camp 4.
Four, then three.
Then three.
Three we were just maybe two weeks or so. I don't know why, but maybe that camp Landshut. See, they took us, we, we know we were going to Landshut, 500 of us. It was a brand new camp. Maybe it wasn't ready yet. So we were in, in Lager 3, in Camp Number 3.
What was, what were some of the worst things you remember about the Kaufering camps?
Dead bodies in the wintertime piled up. Hundreds of 'em. I mean not, not just, I mean high up. Just throw 'em up, because they didn't want to take up too much space.
Mountains of bodies.
Yes. Mountains of bodies. Yeah.
Lice yet?
Yes.
You were talking about lice there?
Yes, yes, yes. Lager 4, yes. Lots of lice.
How did you cope with that?
Just swiped 'em off, scraped 'em off, tried to, tried to, you know we'd undress and try to pick 'em off our clothes every evening. It was a daily routine. But the next day you had 'em again, so, because they were all over.
Was there disease there?
Yes. Typhus. A lot of typhus. In fact, in Mühldorf, I had I think it was typhus. I must, I must have had a light case, because uh, I went to work, well my father saw the shape I was, I could hardly walk. He tried to drag me to the, there were, there was a hospital you know. So I kept postponing it, "No, I don't wanna go," and "I wanna stay with you," and this and that. Finally one evening, oh, by that time my uncle, his oldest brother got, also got sick and he wound up in the hospital. Well, one evening he finally says, "Sol is there, you'll be with Sol" instead of, you know, "until you get well." Okay. So I agreed and by the time we got there, I see the guy closes the door. He says, "Come back tomorrow." Okay. So I was happy I didn't have to go. That night they took him away. They took him to, back to, to Kaufering. He survived, but uh, we thought for sure he was dead. Because by then, Kaufering Lager 4 was the Krankenlager, the, the, the...
Sick camp.
Sick camp, yeah.
So did you go to the next day?
No. No, no, no. Not, that the thing is, you see, he didn't want me to go now.
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