Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Martin Shlanger - March 4, 1983

Transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau

When you were rounded up that night, was it, was it by Germans or Hungarian police?

Hungarian police.

Were they brutal, violent, were they beating people... ?

They were, they were brutal, yes.

Were you beaten that night?

No. No.

Tell me something what you remember about the transport, the train.

Well, we were about eighty people packed into each cattle car. About thirty cattle car, cattle cars rolled out of the railroad station without food, without water, without lavatory facilities. As soon as the rail, the train left the railroad station, the agonizing thirst of the children began. And the cry of the children and the wailing outcry of their mothers were driving us crazy. We were traveling two days and two nights and finally, we arrived at destination.

What about, you said there were no lavatory facilities, what did people do on the train?

Well they, they had to, uh...

Wherever they were.

Wherever they were.

The train didn't stop?

No, no. No.

Were people dying in the train?

Yes, the older people were dying. We... It was a great relief, when they, finally the doors of the cattle cars were opened.


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