David Burdowski - May 13, 1982
Being Sent to Various Camps
I was sent to Auschwitz and from Auschwitz to Jaworzno. Jaworzno we used to work in a, in a coal mine and it was very, very hard work. We used to--we had to walk to uh, um, to the coal mines with wooden shoes and especially in wintertime we had to uh, walk in the snow and the snow would glue down to the, to the wood and we were handcuffed with chains and if anybody would fall, they were dragged into the, to the camp or, or off to work, it doesn't matter. From Jaworzno we went to--we were there until 1945--about beginning of the year '45. From there the Russians were coming in...into Poland and we were taken out from Jaworzno, we were taken into Blechhammer. From Blechhamme--we were, we were walking by the way. We were walking from Jaworzno all to the Czechoslovakia and into Germany, which it took us from, from January, February, March and about until the end of the war. And at the same time we came into a camp of Blechhammer. In Blechhammer they uh, burned the whole camp and they want to destroy everybody in it and they run away. Whoever was left they come back and they took us out again into Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald and finally to Dachau. By the end of 19...uh, uh, forty, uh, in 1945, but by the end of the, of uh, April--just before the war ended, they took us out from Dachau into, into uh, cars--electric cars and we were supposed to go into, to the mountains to be shot, but the electricity went out and finally the Americans come in and let us free from those uh, uh, from a little city. It was called Staltach and that's where they tear down the command and, and we were freed there. From there they took us into a DP camp Feldafing. This was ??? but uh, stop the tape.
Okay.
Yeah.
[interruption in interview]
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn