Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000 & January 8, 2001
Conditions in Allach
Took you on a train? On a train?
No. Allach is close.
Oh it's a march.
March. It was, was ten kilometers probably.
Oh, okay.
I don't know. Approximately, couple of a two, three hours. So Allach was a smaller camp. And that Allach was a torture. First of all, we arrived there, we were new. Not too many. I think thirty, forty, fifty people. There was a small group at A...Allach. And Allach were mostly Hungarian Jews mostly. Hungarian Jews they came straight from Auschwitz. They didn't come through Warsaw. And although the food was better than in Warsaw, the food at that time beginning was better. But the, the environment was terrible. Beating uh, beating--cruelty, all that. Plus the worst part was they put us in the worst uh, job, worst work. There was a, a factory uh, factory, it belonged to BMW, BMW. They, they manufactured I guess airplanes or some, I don't know at that time. And the--very hard work. They took us immediately. Matter of fact uh, we were, we were several days with my brother very hard work to, to carry heavy, heavy cement and to carry heavy metals uh, pieces and, and, and the, and after several days they chose uh, my brother--I don't know why he was ??? to work at night shift which was even worse. So there were two shifts from approximately twelve hours each.
So you were separated.
Separate. No, no! We were, were but we, we lived in the same, same barrack so we saw each other uh, everyday for a short time and Sundays we were together. But the c...the, the torture you know in the camp was you know, there was Kapos were very cruel, very cruel. They beating, they give us for instance--I'm just telling you for instance um, in barrack somebody--no, we couldn't uh, some...sometimes we c...could get out to the bathroom but often they suggested not to walk on the, on the territory. They put some, some special uh, uh, how do you call it?
Barrel...
Big barrel or something to urinate outside the, the barracks ???. But some people you know, got diarrhea uh, and that happened often. And they couldn't make it. So they soiled the, the, the, the bed or soiled the, the barrack and there was collective punishment. Then whole barrack was punished. The punishment might be that way, let's see uh, after work, we came back after the Zählappell and they gave us some food and then for two hours we had to do uh, meaningless thing. For instance, one half of the people have to carry uh, sand from one part of b...of the l...camp. I, I remember we had to take off my jacket and put on uh, they put uh, uh, ??? to, to carry in our jacket some sand one place to another. And the other part had to bring it back. Just to torture. That was, different tortures. Or hüpfen, for instance. Hüpfen, that means that to... How do you call, I'll show you. How do you call this position?
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