Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Abraham Mondry - June 15, 22, 29 & July 13, 1992

Auschwitz--Selection I

Well you have to register what's your profession. I lied and said I just get out from school when the war starts. But I say, "I don't know." Then it come to me, I say "medical studies," you know. You just register. So finally, I have to go the last time and they put me to the hospital, you know. I remember it was Block 931. I had to go to hospital, I couldn't move.

Because of your arms?

Yeah, you see, I couldn't pull my arm or nothing. It was so hurting, getting bigger and bigger. Aching, aching, you know, and pus. What do they call it? Pus.

Yeah, pus.

So, the one time, it was a selection, you know. A selection was like uh, every two weeks and Mengele. Everybody has to get undressed, stay on the line, where you, where you card in the hand, you know. A little card, you know, and take a hold of inmates you know. So he come at me, he asked me, he asked me, "Where did I come," I say "I come from Ostpreussen," you know. Oh, look, "My wife comes from Posen, Poznan." I say, "My father in the First World War, had a tobacco factory in Poznan." He took my, my number and say, "You gonna be a nurses aid" and put me down, you know. And there was nothing physical, just to see. I was strong physically, you know. And he got, you know, and you have to go through a course, just watch them for three months, you know, in Auschwitz, you know. They make me a nurse if I had a whole, a whole Stübe, a whole, like a block long, you know. Thirteen hundred people, sick, always sick.

Thirteen hundred and one Block?

Well, it's like a building, like a block. You know, but it had one, two, three, the whole block, one, two, three beds. That's one, two, two beds together, you know. One, two, three.

Was this block in Birkenau or was it in Auschwitz?

What is in Auschwitz?

Auschwitz I.

Yeah, it was in Auschwitz.


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