Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Edward Linson - November 10, 1981

Being Transferred to Buchenwald

Uh, can you remember--do you remem...were you there when they blew up the crematorium in Auschwitz, or were you--had you left already?

They throw us out. I was on, on the road. The moment they start uh, they start bom...they bombed Auschwitz, they bombed uh, Buna once. They thought the--that the SS is over there. Meantime that was us. You know, and after a while--this was funny--they start--they didn't allow nobody to go out to work no more. And they took us out after a few days to the train--no, without train. We was walking. We was pushing the Weimar--from Buna to Weimar and this is not a joke. In wintertime, we went uh, over Gleiwitz I, Gleiwitz V and after a while we came in into Weimar and they took us over there to a camp...

Buchenwald.

...and we were slipping and uh, by ??? Thirteen.

Was this Buchenwald?

Buchenwald. And we was over there. And after awhile we went over there. This was the worst camp in the world. Uh, Zweiberg by Halberstadt. Make a note, it's Mr. ???, he got a, a insurance company. He was in the same camp. Ben ???. He will tell you what this camp was. This camp was--we had been working day and night. This was like ???. When we came to this camp, I says, "Goodbye ???." What happened, the first of all was not a--they didn't uh, make a--like this was in Buna to, to stand and uh, and count. Soon as, soon as you came to the block, you lay down on this uh, uh, what you call 'em? On the to, to--how, on bunk bed.

Bunkbed.

So come orders, they grab you, you got to go work again. You work night and day.

In the, in the camp?

Yes, in this, in this--we had been working by the ??? this mean into the barrack. They call 'em, this was uh, really the ??? they were working over there. I knew about it because I--they give me a train to, to take the train with, with the--a train, a real train, honest to God, I wouldn't believe it.

Why did they--just to work in the factory then?

Not in the factory, we were--we was uh, working in the--making into the hills a tunnel.


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