Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Saul Raimi - July 7, 1982

Finally, we start--and then we started out uh, we started marching out from the uh, uh, camp to different commanders who work out... outside the camp. And the uh, they had a marching band by the gate and according to, you had to go out like, like wooden soldiers out the gate. And by the gate, they counted out the gate. When I came in, in Auschwitz, I was--my transport, all the boys between fifteen and eighteen, were sent to a uh, ??? shul. This is a bricklayer's school. And I go use that school in a way saved my life because the worst--in '42 was a terrible winter and it was the worst, I mean in Auschwitz, there were people were just dying and they were very harsh, very rough with these prisoners in that train. In fact, that was after Stalingrad. And they were, yeah, they were really mean. And as soon as roll call was over, that the, the pupils, in other words, the students of those schools didn't march out but stayed in the, in the camp, which was located at both our sleeping quarters, in the same barracks.

Right.

And that is where they had the instructors, prisoners also. They instructed us how to be bricklayers. They taught us bricklaying because they needed uh, those bricklayers for different uh, project they were building around Auschwitz, like the IG Farben Indus... Industry, you know.

Right.

So, that winter--in, so in, in the yeshi... In the school, we got a lot of meetings and so on going, but yet you still didn't have to go out. I still didn't have to go out, out and work out in the cold with a miserable foot and the terrible winter and the uh, thin coat what we got. I don't think I would have survived. But that school, those few months, those maybe uh, six, seven months and I believe that was, despite everything there...

Mm-hm.

...I was sick and I had all kinds of boils and diarrhea was a very common thing and once you got it, if you survived... Thank God I survived that too and I even was in the hospital for a few days and I survived it. They had selections, one of the, uh... You know selections?

Yes.

The whole camp uh, everybody would uh, go and walk through Mr.... Dr. Mengele and he would point left, right. I went through a few of those and every time somehow I went uh, I uh, never was selected to go through the left, which was the sudden death.