European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

My father arrived in the evening. He was a coppersmith, working very hard. He was also very firm.

He said:

“So there you are! Where are you coming from?”

Quite nice. That was how he was. I had already imagined it would be that way. But things got straightened out in the end.

I had been called to the police headquarters because a family was asking for information about their son.

I hesitated for a long time, but finally I decided to go, as it was to help.

When I walked into the police office, one of these individuals who had arrested me, entered.

I did a huge leap, with my 35kg at the time, yelling at the police officer:

“Ask that cop what he did in the night of October 21st, 1941!” I made a big fuss.

The officer calmed me down and sent the other one out.

Every-day live at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Day to day life in the camp started with the morning role-call.

The camp was huge.

I think we were a hundred thousand prisoners.

Birkenau was especially huge.

Then we found out that Birkenau was no holiday resort.

The days were very long: from 4h00 or 5h00 in the morning ‘til 21h00, 22h00 in the evening,

because if one of the 22,300 people was missing during the evening role-call, he had to be found.

We had to stay standing until this person was found. Sometimes we spent whole nights outside.

Some people hid, some escaped and then we had to stand until the following morning, in summer, and winter.