Marton Adler - July 13, 1989
Auschwitz-Birkenau
So the able-bodied were in one place, let's stop here for just a minute, we'll come back to this. Let's continue this story... you now de-trained and you were in this room and this SS man came...
Yeah, we're in this room by the wall, just like this, this barber told us or suggested. And they did pull out a few undesirables, for them. They didn't want them to go to work. I mean which they really were taken out to be killed. And now, we are ready now to go to this shower to be cleaned up from the long journey. And it is a real shower, water is coming out but actually it alternates between very, very like boiling hot to ice cold. That's the way they did it. And each time you really jump away from the faucet. Or you realize you have some water on you and some of the sweat has been just moved about. But then as you go out from this, now they open this door, you go out and there is two elderlies with buckets of water with chlorine on it and they put it over your head. And now you're somehow half way clean. You're naked and they instruct you that "leave all your belongings, but take with you your shoes and belt". Just your shoes and belt take with you or eyeglasses. At the time I didn't wear any. So, so you have this belt and shoes and as you're out, they put a bucket of water over you. A guy throws at you a little jacket and another guy a pair of pants then maybe the third one a union suit and a pair of socks. That's it. Then they instruct you to get dressed. I mean so you put on the union suit, pants and jacket, the shoes you got, the belt you got and the socks. Now comes of changing clothes because there is a lot of tall guys they got short, short pants comes up to their knees or jackets that come up to here, so I had no problem because of my trousers were too long, I rolled them up, if my sleeves were too long, I rolled it up. The jacket was too long, so big deal. I put it into my trousers a belt I got anyways, so no loss--so, and now after all this thing there again they don't tell you, now are you ready, everything is schnell, raus, schnell, schnell, schnell. What is the schnell now? To go to register. And somehow or other at that time, they no longer tattooed us, or that time they didn't, I don't know. And you are standing this again, orderlies of prisoners at uh tables. Like at a picnic table. And they ask you your name, where you are from, your father's name, when you were born, what you did, what was your uh, what was your trades, so everybody is instructed to tell some kind of trade, you know. And uh, that's it. When you registered, now again you formed in groups and now you are marched to a barrack. And then that's the, they throw give you a blanket. They give each man a blanket. They give you a blanket. come to the barrack and I see there is like shelves. And uh, I lay down, I mean lay down, I mean I got into that shelf you know this is ??? and I got in there and the shelves are like boards, not even close together, they were like spaced and um, we put one blanket on the bottom and with the other blanket we covered, but I mean it's not like you visualize you going in a hotel in a bed, this is shelves and there is people right next to each other like almost like sardines. And then about an hour later, two hours later some SS men came in again and they said, "If there's any children here under sixteen to step out and they'll, you'll go to school." Again, they realized anybody under sixteen they really don't need `em. And what happened was, my father did tell me, "why don't you go out with the boys and after the war," that's exactly what he said, "and after the war, we will meet." Well that didn't go too well with me, I didn't buy that. After the war and all that, I said, "No, I want to stay with you," not to take care of him, I just didn't want to stay by myself. So what could the poor guy say? I mean, him I didn't move out and those that did, I don't know what happened to them.
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