Eva Cigler - March 17, 1982
Witnessing an Aktion
You saw them actually going into the gas...
Right.
chamber.
Actually going in the gas chamber. And to close the door...
Naked, they went in.
Naked. And some of 'em they uh, didn't take their clothes off. If they don't take their clothes off, they push 'em in right there. If some don't have to be naked. The naked one almost uh, the second uh, transport go in. They couldn't fit in and have to stay in there...
Oh.
outside. And we see some father with a little boy standing outside and then they nice--neatly fold their uh, clothing and uh, they put it next to the gate.
A father and a child.
A father and a child, I see the child and a father and then th little boy put it nicely, neatly down the clothes and he walk back to the father and holding their hand and they was standing naked there. And it doesn't matter there was a partition uh, you know, there. Blankets, but the blankets wasn't so high we couldn't see the people who actually was going in. So put it the first ones o...was naked. But some of them if there came a transport and they want tot gas it quickly, sometime they didn't even uh, take the clothes off, they just shoved them in with the clothes.
Did you see who closed the door to the gas chambers?
Yes. The commandos.
The Sonderkommando.
The Sonderkommando doing them. The German didn't doing them. We burned them.
What did the Germans do?
They uh, uh, they closed the door too one place and I see the SS closed the door themselves. But the dirty work, they didn't touch a,
Body.
a body. The commandos went and uh, took them.
And what did they use to gas them, do you know?
I don't know what kind of gas, but was a quick one.
How long did it take?
Sometime uh, fifteen minutes, a half an hour. Not a half an hour, about fifteen--twenty minutes.
Fifteen, twenty minutes all the screaming went on.
Screaming. Then, five minutes--after five minutes, the screaming seems like hours, hours, but it wasn't. After five uh, nothing five minutes the screaming already...
Was finished.
finished.
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