Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

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

Now, there was a selection and Mengele picked you to be a nurse?

Yeah. No, not at a selection. Because I was sick or something.

With the abscess, the infection?

And he asked me, "How was the infection," I couldn't, I was scared, you know, little balls, under my arm, going and coming. And one time he asked me where I come. So I told him. He say his wife comes from there too.

From Pomerania?

From Pomerania, you know. Posen, Posen they call it. So he wrote out my number, ask me, and next thing they call me. Tomorrow, I gotta be here and here, you know. Like a group of thirty of them, thirty young guys they teaching to be a nurse. Went through a course, you know.

And then you were in Block 931? Right?

Yeah.

The Krankenstübe. You were in charge of the block?

No, we had about three, four. Now you see, the, the, the hospital wasn't like they had rooms, you know. One, three block. One, two, three floors. One here, one the second, one third. And I was on the second floor. About twelve, fifteen-hundred people.

What would you do on a day, in a normal day, an average day?

I don't know. What would I do? Ah, somebody holler, sick, sick. You have to look at them, that's all. Nothing to do. You see his eyes is closed, you just put a blanket on him, that's all. There's nothing we could do.

Did you have any medicine to give them?

The only medicine they got is against diarrhea. Black pills, black little pills.

Was there dysentery in the camp?

Yeah, they have nothing there. There's another pill they had too. It's, it's an, an anti-infection pill. I forgot the name, you know, the red, the red pills.