European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

We stayed in Compiègne for about 8 months. We were arrested on October 21st, 1941.

Then they took us to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In Compiègne we were already hostages.

That means when an attack had been, they would come and take some of our comrades.

I escaped this fate like another few - but they would come and take some of our comrades to be executed,

as there had been this attack the night or the day before.

The following morning, at four o’clock, we were called up by buildings, as usual.

We were loaded up into the trains and we left to a destination unknown.

What we felt was a certain fear, because we didn’t know where we were taken to.

We were led away in groups of ten. Ten people could easily be shot half an hour later.

They loaded us up in the animal wagons and we were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

You know, we arrived in Auschwitz. Auschwitz consisted of old barracks, big buildings.

We realized we were somewhere foreign, but it was almost more comfortable than what we had left behind in Compiègne.

The following day we were taken to Birkenau, 4 or 5 km away and there it was totally different.

Birkenau is a camp that was built on marshlands. There were old barracks. It made quiet an unsettling impression.

They gave us striped uniforms and took pictures of us.

They tattooed our registration numbers onto us.

They tattooed this number.

Of course that had a big effect on us.

We were no longer called so-and-so. We had this number and were supposed to respond to this number.

We had to learn it in German and in Polish, not easy. But we had to learn it quickly.