Statement

Written with Mr. Ota Klinger, born 17. 7. 1910, residing in Prague I., Betlémská ul. 8., former prisoner in the Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Schwarzheideconcentration camps, Czech nationality, profession clerk.

On November 30th, 1941, I departed on the Prague AK II transport to Theresienstadt, where I remained until December, 1943, when I was sent via transport to Auschwitz. When we arrived in Auschwitz at night, prisoners, assisted by SSmen, led us from the freight trains. On the way, they warned us that everything we took with us would be taken away and that we would likely meet the same fate as the millions who had perished in the gas chambers. Due to the large numbers of arriving transports, we lived with this thought for 2 days in the sauna, where the most terrible suffering and misery occured. Piles of frozen corpses, bleeding people who were shot while leaving the wooden buildings. On the way from the train and here as well we suffered from an indescribable thirst. In desperation, we collected anything we could to squeeze out any drops to drink. In exchange for gold, diamonds, or money, we got a cup of tea. In the family camp, in which we were later placed, we found many of our friends, but we barely recognized them because they were so malnourished. That was the transport that arrived on September 6th, 1943. We were with them until March 7th, 1944, when the whole transport was sent to the gas chamber, although they were told that they would be sent to the labor camp in Heidebreck.

At the time, I worked in the potato kitchen, where I was continuously terrorized by its leader (a Pole named Vacek) (Václav Lada) and by the SSmen overseeing the kitchen. We worked from 4 in the morning to 6, or sometimes 8, in the evening without stopping, except for when we could eat lunch. If Vacek thought we were working too slowly, he would take a cane and beat all of us. Although he himself stole whole bags of potatoes and took from the kitchen kilos of sugar and margarine that were designated as meager rations for the prisoners and exchanged them for tobacco and jewels, allowing him to live a debauched life, all it took for him to satisfy his sadistic whims in the cruelest ways was for him to find in the pockets of the potato peelers, or in the soup left aside for the peeler’s familymembers, a single potato. Then he would order the prisoner to put the potato in his mouth, squat on a stool, pick up another stool in his hands, and exercise. When the poor man could no longer continue, Vacek would use a cane or he would break off the metal part of a shovel and hit him with the shaft. If the prisoner was still able to move, he would make him spin around the shovel until he got dizzy. Then he would pour water all over him and kick the tortured to the brink of death, collapsed man, throw him into a tub full of ice cold water that was used to wash potatoes in January when it was freezing cold. Then, he kicked him out of the potato kitchen and let him return to the camp in freezing cold weather. Even the strongest and healthiest succumbed to pneumonia.

For one soup we would volunteer in the evenings to clean up after 100 potato and turnippeelers. Everything was worked out to torture us. We would cast countless hectoliters of water onto the floor and if the Pole or the SS would find a single potato peel they would order us to play sports. To the delight of the SSmen, they would get the kitchenprisoners to play the game with us. With a several kilo (5-7) heavy wooden object, they ordered the condemned to run around a cauldron. They had to perform certain drills, such as squats, nieder-auf, to the ground and back up. They made them exercise in front of the open fire in the cauldrons. If the prisoner fainted, they poured water on him and he would have to continue exercising while being severely beaten. Many people didn’t live much longer after this game.

The so-called Fassung was also interesting. We would commute from the B II family camp to the Männerlager, where they handed out enough foodstuffs for a week for 10,000 people from the camp to us. We traveled back yoked like horses, generally at a trot. This is how we had to load bags of flour and other foodstuffs while we were continually whipped with canes. We had to load 35 cents of flour onto the cart in 5 minutes, which was unbelievably difficult for us, and then pull the cart all the way to the neighboring camp. The beatings were so cruel that prisoners would collapse under the cart and be run over by the heavily laden vehicle. They would end up with fractures, internal bleeding, etc.

Signature:

Klinger Ota

Statement accepted by:

B. Gerzonová

Signature of witnesses:

Lebovič Simon Alexander

Max Widder

On behalf of the Documentation Campaign: 19. 11. 1945

Scheck

On behalf of the archive: Alex. Schmiedt