Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Edward Linson - November 10, 1981

We'll, we'll come to that I think. When you got to Majdanek, what, what--when they opened the doors to the train what was it like? What did you see there?

What we saw? Death. Whole--"Schnell..." everybody was knocking you over the head. And dogs. It's uh, one thing that I was not scared for dogs.

Now when--then what--when you got off the train, what was the--what were the things they had you do?

We have to do--we have to first sit down. And they was uh, running like wild people, killing off--taking--killing off, and shooting down. And after awhile it was uh, left the, the few people what they want they take 'em into the, into the barracks--into the actually camp. So they put on the name from where you came and what and they give you a number.

Did they take your clothes?

Right away. You didn't posses nothing. No more. They, they, they shave you from the bottom to the top, from the top to the bottom.

And what next?

Next they give you a shower, which we meant this will be the shower with Zyklon.

Did you know about that?

Oh we knew uh, yeah. Some people was talking about it. So, over there was a saying, "Du ??? koymen." You know what a koymen is? The koymen. Tell him what the koymen--I presume you know Yiddish.

No.

No Yiddish?

No.

Shucks. Crap. What is this? So you will go, you will go--with in other words you will go through the chimney.

Through the chimney, all right. But it was a shower this time.

This time was a shower. We got a, we got a, a shirt, we got a--if you are small guy, you got the pants big--twice bigger than you. If you are a big, you got the small one. This was all uh, I cannot explain, it's impossible.

You think it was deliberate.

Yes. And all we got to take--we--our work was to take from the latrine. You know what a latrine is. So they got a, a box, with two--here a handle and here a handle. And here was done clothes and we got to take this to the gardens, to the fields. In the fields was uh, women working with the feet and tramping with this, excuse me, with this uh, Scheiße with the straw. Unbelievable, unbelievable.