Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Eva Cigler - March 17, 1982

Witnessing an Aktion II

Then they opened the door to the cham....

Then they opened the door and...

You saw all of this going on.

Because we--that, that place where I was working

Was right.

was next to the crematorium, so.

Could you smell the gas?

We couldn't smell the gas, just uh, we could smell them, they was burning it outside.

Oh.

Because they were so fast they couldn't burn 'em inside because it didn't take too much time and they have to dig a hole outside and put the body in there one top of the other should the other transport who was coming should be enter already.

So they take 'em into the ovens then.

Some of them took because there was but uh, I remember one, two, three, four, four of 'em around, uh...

Four oven?

Four ovens when we was passing by, when we was coming home from the Brezinka. So we passed by about four crematoriums.

They were all separate buildings.

Separate buildings, yeah. Uh, sometime was in one side one and the next side too. But ???. And then we was going and we see plenty forest and in a forest one was one too. And then the main street you know, it was all around and then if you go one day in the main gate out, then we go in one crematorium. If you go in another gate out then out then it's a different kind of crematorium. So uh, I see it, what was going on there.

And they opened up the doors, the Germans opened up the doors.

The German open up...

What did you see?

When they open up we just see the doors already open. They clean already up because it was the night when uh, they was burning in the morning so we didn't see nothing because it was dark inside.

Oh, in other words, the gas chamber was inside another building.

Yes. Other building

And the building was closed. The door to the building was closed.

Closed, yeah.

But in the morning, I mean--but when you came back and forth from work...

Yeah some we see it open too, but uh, you just look in there and you see a big empty place in that special uh, gas chamber. The other one, I don't know uh, what kind because all of 'em was uh, different.

They were all in a different place from where you were.

Yes.

So you couldn't see them.

Yeah, and a different kind of buildings too. You know, there was a same crematorium but different kind of design. Some of them was a flat design just, just like uh, just one big building. And some of them has uh, this one had but two little windows. Some of them had four, six, eight windows you know, you could look out when you take a bath.

Mm-hm.

You was thinking you taking a bath.


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