Freda Magnus - July 22, 1982
Transport to Auschwitz
When I saw they drug out my brother it's like I--again I didn't--we didn't want to be separate--so I went to my father's hidden place where I was sorry to this day because I didn't know--if I would know they will separate us or what--so I say, "Dad, let's go too. They're taking him away, let's all go together." So we went out and they took us to Auschwitz. They took us to Auschwitz from--on, on--also on those wagons, you know, took us maybe five days to go to Auschwitz back and forth and back and without food and oh, ??? in the wagon. This time we didn't take nothing with us, just clothing...
What kind of wagon was this? It was a train?
It was the trains, yeah the trains, yeah, the animal trains.
What was it like in those trains?
I can tell, I can tell--people was making in there, people was ???, people was lying on each, on each other--no air, smell--what can I, what can I tell you? When you in a, in a closed up wagon what they used to carry those cows and the slaughtering in those wagons we went for several days, you know. They didn't go straight but they go from and back, from and back, you know, and no water, nothing. And then we came down to, to Auschwitz--see, if I would know that I wouldn't do this to call my father. So they separate--said to my father and my brother to go on one side and me on the other side, you know, because women went to the women's camp and men, men's camp and from this time I did see smoke and my father went. So I have always a saying, maybe if I wouldn't take him out, maybe he would survive. Then in Auschwitz ??? we was sitting on the--lying on the floor eating from one--they sat us in five and everybody ate from one dish. They gave us a little water to drink. Everybody gave a sip. And every, every day and every night they took us out checking us, you know, if we capable to go for work and the cold was so cold and we was naked--completely naked--and the men came out to us--first they took us in and they took off the hair from us, you know, and took everything away--tear off the rings and the earrings and everything what we had and there was nothing we could do. And every night we stayed on, on the--four o'clock in the morning they wake us up, "Raus, raus!" and they were counting us--maybe ten thousand times--I am completely naked and the soldiers went around, then they picked me out because I am young girl, they send me to a working camp.
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