[Page 390]

The Auschwitz Lager was not built with in the regular manner of such a camp. There were entire rows of various kinds of lagers, built one next to another. Each lager had its own name – following the alphabet, and also according to the designation given it by the people who were brought together there.

There was also a quarantine-lager for the new arrivals. Immediately after it, there was a Czech family lager, where the Germans had brought together about twenty thousand Jews from Theresienstadt. They kept them together with their families and children, under special privileged conditions, and they would force the Jews in that lager to write favorable letters back home. This helped the Germans concentrate the Jews of Czechoslovakia. After they no longer had a need for these letters, they gassed and burned all the Jews in that lager. After the Czech lager, there was a lager of Hungarian Jews and Jews from Lodz, a laborers lager for men and then also a “gypsy's-lager” where there were Jews from Radom, Skoroshisko^[1], and other towns. After that, there was a lager for the sick; a lager where the Germans used to bring the remaining possessions of the victims, and store, pack and count them. The Jews would always bring along the last of what they had, because up to the bitter end, the Germans misled them, not revealing the truth of what was going to happen to them. Jews would drag along heavy bundles of the sum total of their worldly possessions, because up to the very end they were under the impression that the Germans were leading them to work.

All these lagers stood one next to the other. In each of the lagers, there were about twenty-odd bunkers, or similar wooden barracks, which stretched in long rows. The barracks had no windows, and were better suited for horses than people. Each barrack was surrounded by a high fence of electrified barb-wire. The fence was set in high pillars and iron stanchions.

In all of the lagers, there were about sixty thousand people, Jews and Christians. The Jews, however, always received an entirely separate treatment. There were about 400 to 500 people crammed into each bunker; and at times of a heavy influx of people, they would cram in up to nine hundred people in a bunker.

To the right of these bunkers were found the lagers of the women. Birkenau was three kilometers from the central Auschwitz lager, where there were five large crematoria. The transports were brought there for extermination.

When the ones selected from the last Volkovysk transport were taken into the Auschwitz lager, it was growing dark outside, and candles were burning in the bunkers. A very thorough personal search was conducted immediately. Everything was taken away from the people, and they were all taken to the bath.

The bath was located in a deep, cold cellar. The men stood around for about five or six hours in the cold, waiting for their turn. Their turn to wash came after half the night was gone. The Volkovysk transport was not the only one that had arrived there at the lager on that day. Daily, transports would arrive there from various European countries. In the end, they took away the clothing that they wore, and everyone had to stand out in an ice-cold wind.

[Page 391]

After waiting naked, yet again for a longer period of time on the cold cement, they were finally given a few things to wear, such as torn trousers, a jacket, worn out shoes and a couple of pieces of underwear.

Already in these first hours, two victims fell among the Volkovyskers, and they were two suicides. Standing at the entrance to the bath, the son of Dr. Schmutz took poison as did the brother of Dr. Noah Kaplinsky. The latter lived through the night, and in the morning, passed away while already unconscious. It would appear that on arrival in this new camp, the gruesome scene that unfolded before them robbed them of their last shred of hope, and out of great resignation they decided to end their lives. Many other people would have done so as well, but unfortunately didn't have any poison.

Frozen and completely drained, they were yet again driven outside, being escorted the entire way with the truncheons of the ‘kapos’ (these were the work overseers), and the block-seniors. They were led off to the registration building, where they had to go through the formalities of all newcomers. They were carefully recorded in the thick lager folios, where a variety of details were also entered.

Everyone had a number burned into his arm. The number of those from Volkovysk was ‘94,000’ and higher. From that moment on, they stopped to exist as people with names, and they were transformed into living numbers.

All of these formalities lasted until about four in the morning. When it had almost gotten light already, they were first taken to sleep in a half dark barrack, where the air was heavy and stank.

The barrack where the Volkovyskers were taken, belonged to the 26^th block in the quarantine. The head of the block was Leon Stokhovik.

Along the length of this bunker, and by its entrance, there were three-tier bunks built out of cement and brick, one on top of the other. On this cold base, in their torn rags and shoes, they threw themselves down on the bunks, pressed together, one next to the other, and in this manner fell asleep.

Before they even had a chance to get warmed up, they rang and called everyone to emerge from the bunker. Those that did not move quickly enough from the bunker, received a hail of blows from the truncheons of the block leaders. This was, it seems, a custom to confront the new arrivals with especially severe methods, the ‘Green Ones,’ notwithstanding the fact that beatings were the order of the day in the life of the camp.

The people were forced to stand for several hours out in the cold, doing a variety of tasks. Blows rained down on them from all sides. This same procedure was repeated in the evening. It was in this manner that they were detained for three days, entirely separated from the other people in the lager. Very early, they would be awakened and driven out of the bunkers to perform tasks, or simply to stand out in the cold and mud, and the same in the evening. The daily diet consisted of a small piece of bread of about 150-200 grams in the morning, a liter of warm soup at midday, and a quarter of a liter of cold tea in the evening. The block leader, Leon Stokhovik, was in the habit of taking two-thirds of these provisions, that were allocated for the entire block, for himself and his assistants.

People lost the last of their strength, and with the greatest impatience, waited for the hour when they would be sent to work.

[Page 392]

The Life of Bondage in the Lager

A few days later, the quarantine period for the Volkovysk Jews ended. They were divided up among various commands and they were attached to a number of work groups.

They were led to work each day in rows of five to the sound of orchestra music.

But the hopes that the Jews placed in a betterment of the condition of their lives, that it would improve as soon as they would begin to work, also quickly dissipated. It was exactly the opposite, it was only now that their real troubles and suffering began in the camp.

The work was exceptionally difficult for the starved and tired men. They were forced to work under strict supervision, that did not even let them catch their breath. The work consisted of building bunkers dug deeply into the ground, digging ditches and building roads. The men stood half naked in the cold, from early morning until night, and in deep mud up to the knees with the shovels in their hands.

For the smallest thing, and sometimes for no reason at all, the SS troops would beat the workers mercilessly. Those who could not stand the beating, and comply with the demands of the overseers, would be beaten to death on the spot. Every day, dead bodies would be brought back to the lager. They were brought back, because it was forbidden for anyone to be missing – living or dead – the count always had to match. The ‘kapo’ who brought back the greatest number of dead would receive commendation for this, and as a reward would receive a greater ration of food. The ‘kapo’ staff were Aryans, by and large Germans, who for certain specific crimes, were also interred in the lager. The lives of the Jews were placed in their hands.

Conditions in the lager itself were not any better. The overseers and their assistants would beat people at every opportunity, and often without any reason. The truncheons always hung over the heads of the people. At every turn, one would hear the following refrain that accompanied the beatings: “Do you think you came here to live?!”

Especially painful for the Jews was the fact that in addition to their suffering and tribulation, they were generally beaten by Jews [as well], their own brethren. At the outset, the people could not grasp this fact. These people were from that part of the Jewish populace, in which bestiality lurked deep in the recesses of their hearts and souls, which in that time found an auspicious time to spread its poison. Egoistic and sadistic tendencies surfaced among them. They believed, that through this manner of behavior they will be able to redeem their own lives at the expense of hundreds of other lives. In order to curry favor with the Nazis, they beat and tortured their own brethren.

It is therefore not any wonder that, under such working and living conditions, the Jews began to lose their capacity to resist – first their morale, and then their physical capacity.

Many were of the opinion that it wasn't worth suffering so much. Regardless of what they did, they would not be permitted to live much longer. The deterioration in morale that they suffered, the filth in the lager, and many other factors, brought them to the point where many people fell in their tracks, and died shortly thereafter. Also, death was not resisted, because it liberated people from much tribulation and suffering.

[Page 393]

Bunker “Number Seven”

The lager, Bunker Number 7 – the Seventh, as it was called there, was especially notorious for its dismal condition. Anyone who was looking for a solution to his difficulties only had to go to this bunker, and the solution would find him very quickly. It was also called ‘the Bunker of the Sick,’ and indeed, one could get “well” very quickly there. From time to time, when this bunker would fill up with people, the Nazis would come late at night, and bring automobiles to clean them out and take the people to the crematoria.

For this reason, people would attempt to avoid this bunker as far as was possible, even when they got sick. Also, those who got infected with typhus, would hide themselves and avoid seeing a doctor, because the doctor would have them sent immediately to “Bunker Number Seven,” from which one no longer came back alive.

Our witness Tchopper relates an episode to us that took place to Avra'sheh Offenberg (a son-in-law of Yaakov Weinberg of the lower quality merchandise business) and Moshe Fitkovsky. They were both sick, and they were both sent to Bunker ‘Number Seven.’ After spending only one day there, they got the drift of what was happening there. This was very shortly after the Volkovysk transport arrived at Auschwitz, and the exact nature of this bunker was not fully understood. They decided therefore, regardless of the fact that they were sick, that they would get themselves out of this bunker. This matter worked out for them, and they were able to return to the bunker with the rest of their Volkovysk comrades. But, in returning to the block, they were compelled to go to work right along with everyone else, even though they were not entirely recovered. Several days later, Fitkovsky had to be brought back [from work] supported under the arms, and he died that same night. The other one, Offenberg, didn't manage to live much longer either. One day, he too, had to be supported under the arms coming back from work. At the roll call, when everyone was lined up outside in deep mud, Offenberg could not stand on his own two feet, and fell down. There was another dead body not far from him. When Offenberg revived slightly, he wanted to pick himself up and sit on the corpse, but he didn't even have the strength to do that. The people, including Tchopper, were standing in line at the roll call, a scant few feet from him, but unfortunately no one could help him, because for that alone they would have paid with their lives. So, sitting in the mud, he lowered his head and leaned against the corpse. After a short while, he raised his head to take a look at the rows of the Volkovysk people, as if he beseeched them to give him help, until in the end, he expired, stretched out in the mud. At that point he was not brought back into the block. The Nazis disposed of him along with the other dead from that day.

Yitzhak Tchopper tells us another episode, which casts a stark light on the tribulations and suffering that the Jews had to endure in the Auschwitz camp.

The matter took place in the month of February, several weeks after their arrival in the Auschwitz camp. As was the custom, the men were awakened at four in the morning, and were driven out to the roll call. It was still dark outside, wet and cold. After the Germans took count of the dead for that day, as well as those who committed suicide – many people would take their lives in those days by hanging themselves from the electrical wire at the camp perimeter – they represented that they were missing one person, and therefore could not end the roll call. The entire lager was thrown into a panic. The block seniors, as well as the house servants were ordered to find the missing person. In the end, he was found under the bunks on the brick, where many used to sleep, because there was not enough room for everyone on the regular bunk beds. The Jew, whom the Germans eventually found, was in a deep sleep, and did not hear how the people in the block arose for roll call. The block senior dragged him out of the block, and in front of everyone, shot him to death. The hapless victim

[Page 394]

didn't even have a chance to give any reason for the situation that had been created.

The remainder of the people in his block were punished that day. On that day, they did not go to work, the people were given no soup, which was poured out into the street in front of everyone. They had to remain standing outdoors in the cold for the entire day, and they were not permitted to go back into their bunkers. The day was terrifying. A mixture of snow and rain fell all day. The people herded together like sheep in the wet and cold, pressing up against one another, to get a little warmer. However, even this respite was denied them, because when the block overseers would see this, they would drive the people apart in various directions with truncheons.

One of the Volkovysk Jews, the artist, Shmuel Mordetsky (the older son of Abraham Gersh'keh's), whom the house servants had beaten severely the prior day, lost his mind standing outside that day. He stood leaning against a wall. Suddenly, in the cold, he took all of his clothes off, and shortly thereafter, he fell and expired. Also, his younger brother, Herschel died a short time afterwards, from heartache. The house servants brought Mordetsky back into the bunker, carried out the usual routine reporting, and ten minutes later, was brought outside by them and was tossed among the other corpses.

On that black day, over twenty people were killed in this manner, and approximately one hundred people got sick, of which the greater portion were taken to Bunker ‘Number Seven.’ Yitzhak Tchopper tell yet again about his two friends, Hona Shiff and Alter Burdeh, from Svislucz, who were with him in the bunker, how the two of them were killed in different ways on the same day. They were both watchmakers by trade, and in the beginning not bad ones, because the ‘kapo’ of their block was in the habit of asking their advice about the many watches and other valuables which fell into his hands. One day, however, Burdeh was severely injured in the knee from blows he received from an overseer, wielding a truncheon at work. His knee became swollen, but he did not reveal this to the doctor, for fear of being sent to Bunker ‘Number Seven,’ and mustering all his strength, continued to go to work. One day, Hona Shiff, who had become ill with dysentery from the bad water in the lager, could not get up to go to work, and Tchopper woke him up and warned him, that if he doesn't get up, he will be shot to death. The bunker overseer immediately entered and assaulted him with his truncheon. Hona Shiff, however, didn't move from his place. The house servant tore off his cover, and seeing that he lay there in bad condition from dysentery, he beat him even harder, and threw him down from the bunk. Tchopper then took Burdeh, who limped on one foot, and went off to work with him. On the way, the ‘kapo’ noticed how Burdeh was limping, and he didn't permit him to go to work. Burdeh's pleading to be allowed to go to work did not help him, because he knew fully well what awaited him if he had to remain back at the bunker. That evening, when Tchopper returned from work, he no longer ran into Burdeh and Shiff.

In these dark days in Auschwitz, a day would not go by without victims.

It was in this manner that Eliyahu Motya Ginsberg (the Hassid's son), who was fortunate during the selection of the Volkovyskers, to get over into the ranks of the 280 men, didn't last long in Auschwitz. Only a few weeks after the arrival in the Auschwitz camp, the Nazis beat him up terribly, he then became sick, and they permitted him to be sent to the crematorium. One night, he asked Hona Shiff, who was at that time still alive, to give him his strap, and he would hang himself. Hona would not let him commit suicide. In the morning, Ginsberg was again beaten by the Nazis, And when he finally did have the strap, he was totally powerless to do anything with it. The Nazis took him to the crematorium and killed him there.

A similar incident also took place with Avra'sheh Daniel, the son of Shammai Daniel. His parents were taken to Auschwitz on the final transport, but from there, they were immediately sent to the crematorium. Avra'sheh remained in the Auschwitz camp.

[Page 395]

Yitzhak Tchopper tells, that one day, he and Moshe Saladukha, who was in the same lager, were approached by an overseer after work, and ordered them to strip a corpse. The dead body lay not far from them in the mud, on the ground, and it was difficult to recognize the faced, because the entire body was smeared in mud.

Only later, when he was undressed, they saw a number from the 94,000 series on his arm, which was the series of their own transport. They then scrutinized the dead man more carefully, and recognized Avra'sheh Daniel. They then inquired of the remaining people, who worked that day with Avra'shkeh, and they found out that he was killed by his overseer at work.

Among the others who fell at their work from beatings by the overseers, and whose deaths Tchopper can attest to, were the following: Yeshayahu Mezheritzky, Herman Birnbaum, Katriel Bashitsky, Yaakov Meir Zaklas, Leizer Kossowsky, Min'yeh Goldenberg (son-in-law of Khirurg), Chaim Mushatsky, Motkeh Koval, Shmuel Bayer, Berel Amstibovsky, Avra'sheh Offenberg, Fish'keh the Butcher, and many others. Hardly a day went by without victims, either at work or in the bunkers.

Noah Fuchs, the former head of the Judenrat, was on one occasion severely beaten by one of the block seniors, who took vengeance on him for his handling of a situation during the time Fuchs was head of the Judenrat. Fuchs had a heart attack, and died shortly thereafter.

Many, in those dark days, took their own lives out of great anguish. It became repulsive to them to continue to suffer, and since they could not see any way out of the situation for themselves, they chose death as a better alternative. For example, Shepsel Feitelevich the Hair Dresser slashed the veins in his wrists; Feivel Arkin, the dental technician (Rutchik's brother-in-law) hung himself. People at night would run to the electrified barb-wire fence, and upon first contact would electrocute themselves and die, either that, or get shot by the sentries near the perimeter. A large proportion would voluntarily register to go to the crematoria, in order to bring an end to their suffering. In this way, the population of the lager grew smaller and smaller.

The largest part of the last Volkovysk transport were exterminated, by the most brutal means at the hands of the Nazi murderers, in the first six weeks after their arrival. Even the strongest, such as the Bayers, and others like them, were unable to hold out. It was in this fashion, that after this initial period of six weeks in the Auschwitz camp, out of the 280 Volkovysk men, only about sixty remained alive; and in a short two months later – only 25 men.

Those who remained alive, and carried the full brunt of the terror from German brutality, apparently were able to do this thanks to a stiff resistant commitment of body and soul. Each helped the other under the worst of circumstances. Assistance was also rendered to those who eventually perished, and it is remarkably a miracle that even this small number managed to stay alive.

All those from Volkovysk who survived, and lived through the terrifying days in the Auschwitz camp, intone today with great pride that none of them in any way cooperated with the enemy in his extermination program. None of them took the position of a ‘kapo’ or any other position of responsibility. They simply assisted one another, and protected themselves to whatever extent was possible.

Upon arrival at Auschwitz, the women were separated from the men. The selection process took place exactly as it had with the men, and only eighty-seven young women, able to work were separated to go to the labor

[Page 396]

camp. The remaining women were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

Upon arrival in the lager, they underwent approximately the same terrifying procedure that the men did. The hair was cut off their heads, almost to the point of baldness. They were given green uniforms, from the Russian captives. The lager number was tattooed onto their skin. Their number was 31,900 and higher. They were then thrown into the barracks, twelve to a bunk.

Life in the women's lager was not different from that of the men. The same conditions prevailed in both camps, except for the relationship to the overseers, which was much worse in the women's bunkers than in the case of the men. It was because they were not physically capable of performing the same amount of work that was allocated to them, as the men, they were treated even more brutally.

The sanitary conditions for the women were much worse than those for the men. The bunkers were filthy, dark and thoroughly infested with lice. Their day began at three o'clock in the morning, when they were driven out of the bunkers and forced to stand outside, in the cold, until six in the morning. The daily morning inspection lasted for three hours. At six in the morning, they would be led to work. And then they would return at six in the evening to the bunkers. But, before they would be given the privilege of going into the bunkers, they had to stand outside from six to wight for the evening inspection.

Their daily diet was identical to that of the men. They would receive about 150 grams of bread a day, with a small bit of margarine, and warm soup in the evening. Also, that could only be gotten by standing on line outside, amidst a frenzy of pushing and shoving. The stronger girls would push themselves ahead in the race to get more, and the weaker ones, for whom the daily work routine sapped their strength to the point that they didn't have the strength to push themselves forward, would not even get this small portion of food to eat. However, a strong solidarity reigned among the girls from Volkovysk, and they would share their last bite with one another.

Shayna Lifschitz, one of our witnesses, tells us an episode concerning Dora Pshenitsky (the daughter of Rosa Einhorn-Pshenitsky) with whom she lived in the same bunker, and with whom she slept next to her.

Dora came to Auschwitz together with her mother. She could have actually saved her own life, because the Christian woman, Stevka, who raised her from infancy, wanted to take her and hide her in the village, but Dora did not want to be separated from her mother, and decided to go with her on the transport. Despite this, the Nazis separated them upon arrival in Auschwitz. Rosa was separated out with the people of Volkovysk who were sent to the crematorium, and Dora became part of the 87 women to remain behind in the Auschwitz labor camp.

Since the time she was separated from her mother, she was not the same person. She lost her will to live entirely, and showed very little resistance and stamina. At the beginning, she did the daily quota of hard labor, forced on the women by the Nazis, along with everyone else. This continued until the month of April, two months after their arrival in the camp. She then became ill with dysentery. The girls in her bunker, would nevertheless take her along to work, where they would do her portion of work each day, in order to protect her

[Page 397]

from the scrutiny of the overseers. Her state of health, however, grew worse from day-to-day, until she became seriously ill. One day, she was no longer able to lift herself out of her place of sleep, because her legs were severely swollen. The girls were compelled to leave her behind in the bunker, because they knew that no good would come of this. And indeed, that evening, when they returned to the bunker, they no longer found Dora there.

Shayna Lifschitz also tells the episode of how she left her only sister, Elkeh behind who was in the same bunker with her, in a pitiless fashion. Something had gone wrong in the women's bunker. The German commander ordered that the girls, who did not want to confess, be punished. He ordered the girls to fall out into rows of five, and as punishment, he sent this cohort of girls to a special punishment barracks. Shayna's sister was in that cohort. Those five girls never returned.

In general, it needs to be recorded that more women came under the yoke of Nazi torture than men. This was because of the greater mortality rate among women. Many, in those days, were victims of lice born disease, dysentery, and other diseases.

Bunker Number 25 was to the women, what ‘Bunker Number Seven’ was to the men. One did not return from there alive. That Bunker, Number 25, was also called “The Death Bunker.” From there, inmates were sent directly to the crematorium. This bunker was always over-filled. Not only were the sick brought there, who could no longer be helped, but many women, out of great disheartenment would voluntarily go to that bunker, because they could no longer bear the severe conditions and suffering.

This is the way it happened to Moshe Wolsky's sister. Her one solace in life was that she also had a brother in the camp. She would often wait at the perimeter barbed wire fence, and visit with him there. When a longer period of time went by, and she no longer saw him, she understood that he had not survived the typhus, with which he was suffering when they had arrived in the camp, and also the severe conditions there. She presented herself to be taken to the crematorium voluntarily, out of great despair.

Our witness Tchopper tells, that one time it happened that he was working not far from Bunker ‘Number 25.’ A terrifying scene unfolded before him. Tens of women lay prostrate on the ground with stretched out arms in the manner of the dying. From time-to-time, the female overseer of the bunker would go over to them, and scrape dirt with her boot to cover the heads of the half dead women. It was in this manner that she determined which of them were no longer alive, and then proceed to fill out the appropriate death certificate. After filling out this document, she would put a noose around the head of the dead body, and use the rope to pull the body to the bunker over stones, to the burial pit.

Among the incidents in the daily life of the camp, both with the men and the women, were the frequent selections. A Jewish holiday would not go by that the Germans would not, out of revenge, carry out a selection on that day. The fear of those selections dominated everyone.

At the selection, the men would be arranged in rows of five – three paces from one another. The camp doctor, accompanied by an SS man would pass through the rows of the people, who stood naked outside. Whomever

[Page 398]

the doctor so much as gave a look at, his fate was sealed. Each selection meant about 50 percent of the people would be sent to the crematorium. These people, who were condemned to death, were that same evening taken out of their bunkers, and in the course of two or three days, exterminated in the gas chambers. Many refused and did not want to go to the gas chambers. They preferred to be shot to death by a bullet, rather than be asphyxiated in the gas chambers. And the Germans, indeed, would shoot them for their resistance.

Free from the selections, were the Jewish commandos, those who worked at the baths. Also the clean-up commandos were free of these selections, that means, those who worked at the transports. Also, a third group, that worked at the crematoria.

These selections had the impact of a war of nerves on the exhausted people. They determined – who would live and who would die The selections in the hospital were especially terrible. From there, about 98 percent of the Jews would go to the crematoria.

For this reason, people paid no attention to how sick they might be, always looking for a way to avoid going to the hospital. It was forbidden to remain in the bunkers, so one would drag oneself to work, no matter how sick, and also keep an eye out, that the overseer not note the fact that one was sick.

The following incident occurred to Tchopper in January, 1944, after 14 months of being in the camp, in which his hair turned gray over one night.

One day at work, after he finished loading a vehicle that was high off the ground, he jumped down from it, and dislocated his right leg, which immediately became severely swollen. He was brought back to the lager, carried under the arms. His knee was in bad condition, and he was forced to present himself to the doctor. He was sent to the hospital, where he was put into the surgical block with one hundred other sick, among them 52 Jews. His condition improved, starting on the fifth day, thanks to the protection of Dr. Marek Kaplan, who was employed in that division, and he was allowed to be taken to another block, where he was supposed to be given lighter work. When he went to the administrative office about that transfer, he was told that this could not be done, because the following day, there was to be a selection at the hospital.

Tchopper knew very well what a selection at the hospital meant. That night, he didn't sleep a wink. Various thoughts ran through his mind for the entire night. He was in the grip of anxiety among the fifty-two Jews who were to be condemned to death in his barrack, and the fear of the gas chamber did not leave of him. At seven in the morning, all the sick were ordered to rise and strip naked. Tchopper took the bandage off of his foot, and washed the icthyol off of his foot, and fell into the row with the others, two to a row, between the beds. At 8:30AM, the doctor arrived with the SS suite. The head doctor of the hospital told them that there are 52 Jews. They were immediately counted. 50 of them, except for Tchopper and a convert, who died later anyway, were exterminated in the gas chambers two days later, on January 20, 1944. Among the fifty people was also a relative of Tchopper's from Narevka. These two days after the selection and before the sick were transferred to the gas chambers, were the most terrifying of Tchopper's life. The parting with the people, the looks of envy that they shot him, because he remained outside the number of the selected ones, were the most painful of all the things that he lived through, in the entire story of his life in the camps. He left the hospital entirely gray.

[Page 399]

Birkenau, which was three kilometers from the Auschwitz railroad station, represented the Hell of the Auschwitz camp. There were found the five crematoria with their five high smokestacks, from which smoke and fire belched day and night, reaching the heights of the blue heavens above. Ten of thousands of Jewish sacrifices were brought as burnt offerings on five altars. Black thick clouds of smoke would blot out the beautiful golden sun at midday, and red flames would light up the dark nights.

Bad-Anstalt – was inscribed at the entrance to the crematoria. “Soap will be provided inside,” – was written at the entrance to the gas chamber; “Belongings are to be well packed, in order that they not be lost” – the Germans cautioned the victims up to their last breath. Until they felt the suffocating gas begin to press on their lungs, up until the moment that they began to lose consciousness, the Germans did not stand down from their lies, or cease to mislead the unfortunate victims. When the bunker was filled up, it was hermetically sealed. The SS troops would then open up the special gas valves, which were connected to the bunker. In a couple of minutes, everyone inside was dead. Then they burned the bodies in the crematorium. Mountains of ash and bones were heaped up not far from the crematorium. It was used to cover up the ditches under the bridges, and on the roads that were being built every day. The remaining mountains of ash, which they could not use, were loaded on trucks and taken to be dumped in the river. They did this to conceal the traces of their mass-murdering. When the transports began to arrive from Hungary, the crematoria were already too small for the purpose that they served. Therefore, large pits were dug beside each of the crematoria, and thousands of Jews were incinerated at a time.

Not far from this hell, two of our witnesses, Yitzhak Tchopper and Zvi Roitman worked almost two years as slave laborers.

Roitman tells of those days, when one time, part of the people in his block, mostly from the Grodno and Bialystok vicinity, were told that they were to be transferred to Bona to do work. People were generally happy with this order. Despite the fact that no one knew what awaited them there, they felt that at the very least they would put some distance between themselves and the Hell at Birkenau, and not have to look at the five crematoria day-in and day-out.

Eighty men were taken to Bona at that time. Upon arrival, the Polish commissar spoke to them, and told them that they would not get out of their alive. He was an ardent believer in Hitler, especially for his program of exterminating Polish Jews, an outcome that the Polish people had long strived for. He ended his speech by saying that the Poles would yet erect a great monument in honor of Hitler. This commissar was a famous sportsman and boxer.

The men stood to their work the following morning, which turned out to be much harder than that which they did at Auschwitz. Large factories for synthetic rubber were being built there.

On top of this, one of their men fell ill with typhus, and immediately all eighty men were crammed into a quarantine for eight whole days. This actually gave them a chance to rest their aching bones, after two years of slave labor at Auschwitz. After the week, the order was given to return these people to Birkenau as sick. All

[Page 400]

of them were seized with a great panic, because they knew what awaited them in the hospital at Auschwitz. Regrettably, nothing helped. They were packed into automobiles, and they were brought back to Auschwitz. Every one of them was embittered, every one of them was counting off the last minutes of his life. The last ration of bread was quickly eaten, at least not to die hungry. But the fear was for naught. Instead of sending the men infected with typhus to the hospital, the Germans immediately sent them to the work camp. And in this manner, these eighty people were saved from a certain death.

It just so happens, that Roitman then had the opportunity to get some work with a group of electrical technicians. This was a very important factor that in two instances decided between life and death.

Also a few other people from Volkovysk obtained work in their particular professions. Some as carpenters, others as cleaners. Dr. Marek Kaplan and Dr. Leizer Epstein were already at that time employed as doctors in the hospital. One Volkovysker went into the orchestra. Others were not so fortunate, even though they had special skills. A famous musician from Warsaw, Zhenya Reisner was with the Volkovyskers, whose fate at the outbreak of the war threw her into Volkovysk. Before the war, he was renown as the orchestra leader in a number of European countries. He was taken to Auschwitz from Volkovysk along with the local Jews from there, where he was forced to do hard physical labor. Being unable to meet the Nazi demands, he was one time the victim of a severe beating. He immediately presented himself voluntarily to Bunker ‘Number Seven,’ because he no longer could stand the gruesome suffering. Yet, there were others who manifested a strong will to live. Dr. Leizer Epstein can serve as such an example, who many times stood on the threshold of death. He was even considered in the lager to be a ‘Muslim’ – a sobriquet applied to those who were nothing more than a bag of skin and bones – a living skeleton. But he survived everything with stubbornness and stamina, until he was appointed as deputy physician, and then later as the head doctor of the hospital. From that time on, his condition became much improved.

In the short time of Roitman's stay in the Auschwitz camp, many changes took place there. In his block that formerly had eight hundred people in it, no more than three hundred remained. The remainder were exterminated in the crematoria. Of the 280 men from Volkovysk, only a few in number remained alive. In the month of May 1944 there were only twelve people from Volkovysk alive in the Auschwitz camp.

Those, who remained behind in the lager, began to seek means by which to escape and save themselves from there. The guard was very strict, and yet, a little at a time, the people in the lager developed an underground movement. A few men, were fortunate in finding a way to escape in an organized fashion. Many men were engaged in working out underground plans, but it was not an easy thing to put them into action. On the other hand, the people had nothing to lose.

A rebellion finally broke out in the camp in the summer of 1944, a crematorium was burned, and it was possible for a number of people to escape that day. But the Gestapo got wind of it in time, and pursued the men. Among those who fled was Roitman. They were brought back to the camp, where the most terrifying punishments were meted out to them. As great as the torture was for the people in reprisal for their transgression, the fact was, that when they were returned to their bunker after undergoing punishment, the rest of the people couldn't recognize them. They were then used for the hardest labor in the camp, and the truncheons were not spared from their heads for a moment. They were punished this way for five months for their attempted escape. [Page 401]

Liquidation of the Lager

In those days, an order was received to empty out the camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau. All the people were them sent to another camp, and from there to Dachau. At Dachau, permission was given to build another lager.

Part of [the people from] the Auschwitz camp were first transferred to a camp not far from Berlin, and from there, a portion were taken to Bergen-Belsen, and a portion to Buchenwald.

In the transport that transferred people from Auschwitz to Dachau, there were about a thousand people. Of those from Volkovysk in that transport were: Zvi Roitman, Joseph Kotliarsky (our witnesses), and ‘Nioma Levin from Svislucz.

Another portion of the people were taken to Schtutholz, not far from Danzig. Moshe Wolsky was in one of those transports.

The Volkovysk Cemetery

All of these, returned to their home city, with the hope of finding their families. Tragically, not a single soul remained in Volkovysk. The Jews had been completely cleaned out of the city.

Only a number of families, about 25 souls, mostly from the partisan ranks, and those who returned from Russia, to date are the only ones living in Volkovysk, and represent the entire Jewish population there. The remainder who returned there, unfortunately did not possess either the physical or emotional strength to re-settle on the dead ruins of the city, over which floated only the souls of their nearest and dearest. With cold, mortified hearts, and a tragic image of the destruction of Volkovysk etched in their minds, they quickly fled from their home town with the thought of never returning there again.

From those who did settle down there, either permanently or temporarily, came letters to their relatives in America. Among these – from Itchkeh Botvinsky (a son of Chaim Moshe from Yatevich); Shlomo Markus, who lived near the bridge; Moshe Orlansky (the son of the Tailor from Odessa); Hona Orlansky (the Barber's brother); Leizer Shevakhovich, the Smith (son of Yeshayahu the Smith); Moshe Izerelevich, who lived on the Neuer Gessel (a son of Reb Saneh the Shammes of the ‘Tiferet-Bakhurim’ Synagogue), and from a number of others. Their descriptions of the city puts before us a terrifying picture. The terrible loneliness, sadness, and

[Page 402]

sense of abandonment that the people are living with, having found no one who remained alive from their families and friends, is literally indescribable. The few Jewish houses that remained intact in the various neighborhoods, were occupied by Christians. Leizer Shevakhovich, the Smith, who had returned there, reclaimed his home only with a great deal of effort from a Christian family. Moshe Izerelevich writes in his letter the following:

“Now, our beloved city of Volkovysk looks like a wreckage. The streets are grown over with grass. I looked for the place where our house stood for a long time, and up to this moment, I have not been able to fix its location. One cannot even recognize the place where the former streets were, because no trace has remained of the houses that were there.”

Our witness, Moshe Shereshevsky, who visited Volkovysk immediately after being liberated from the German camps, tells us about the current appearance of the city. He enumerates the few neighborhoods which still remained intact, and give testimony to the great destruction of the city.

The neighborhood from the new train station to the barracks remained intact. The barracks were burned down. A part of Zamoscheh remained intact, from the Koleyover^[1] Gasse to Chazan's house, and a part of the Grodno Gasse, where a few houses are found, such as Rivka Einhorn's, Gershuni's, and Rubinovich's buildings. Shortly before their retreat, the Germans burned the Jewish hospital, the Polish administrative building across the street from the hospital, the houses in Zamoscheh, such as Frenkel's and Metchik's. The old [train] station, the post office building, Sevasevich's house, Kilikovsky's building, where Rosa Einhorn the dentist had her office, during the time of the German occupation, Khananovich's building, the court building, and Kaufman's building.

The place where the market square stores stood, had been covered with sand, and it was not possible to even recognize that there had once stood a large number of Jewish stores on that location. There was also no trace left of the small streets near Lapin, Shiff and Einhorn, up to the river. They look like one big heap of bricks. In a like manner, there was no trace of the little street where Manya the Baker lived, and also the little street where the shtibl of the Hassidim was located.

On the other side, the Neuer Gessel remained intact, and the street near Yitzhak Novogrudsky and Novick. The remaining streets, such as the Wide Boulevard, Kosciuszko (Ostroger), Tatarski, Kholodoisker, Millner, Mitzrayim, the Gessel of the electric technicians, the Schulhof, and many other little streets, were left entirely without houses.

Parts of Karczyzna survived, from the Poritzisher Gasse, partly under the hill, part of the Grodno Gasse in Botvinsky's neighborhood, the houses of Shevakhovich and Lapidus.

The entire area of the Schulhof was filled with grass, except for the Talmud Torah building, which remained standing. The market remained in the mud. The Russians re-built the place, and set up tables, where the gentiles conduct business.

The old cemetery remained standing, overgrown with high grass. Its entranceway knocked down, its most beautiful headstones uprooted, and the rest fallen over. Dr. Yitzhak Resnick, who also saw this terrifying picture of a destroyed Volkovysk, writes the following:

[Page 403]

“Volkovysk as a city, no longer exists. The skeletons of the buildings have been dismantled. Everything is overgrown with wild grass, thorns, knobby growths and yellow flowers. And that is not a real explanation. You have to understand it a letter at a time.”

Today, by contrast, many new byways exist, shorter paths, that go from one place to the next, where the Jewish houses and buildings used to stand. Thus, for example, there is a new way to go from the Neuer Gessel, more or less from Tiferet-Bakhurim Bet HaMedrash, to the Volkovysk pharmacy (Tima-Leah Botvinsky's building). These paths are not in a straight line, and are barely visible in the high wild grass.

Dr. Noah Kaplinsky and Dr. Yitzhak Resnick, who returned to Volkovysk immediately after the liberation, were also interested to see the place of the historic Volkovysk lager where they spent that short but gruesome period from November 2, 1942 to January 26, 1943 in those dark and God-forsaken bunkers. They found the bunkers abandoned. There were still some utensils and unimportant objects lying spread about. In the hospital, that is, Bunker ‘Number Three,’ there were still parts of the disinfecting equipment of the hospital, that were at the time, wrought by Jewish craftsmen. A deathly silence reigned all around. At that time, they were still physically weak, and also their nerves didn't permit them to tarry longer in that place, where the agony of over twenty thousand Jews of Volkovysk and its vicinity took place.

The writing of Eliezer Kovensky is characteristic, in the book Hurban Volkovysk,^[2] concerning his visit to Volkovysk shortly after the war:

“When I returned to the hometown neighborhoods, after they had already been liberated, I found no one there any longer. Only graves, and graves. I came to Volkovysk, where I had spent the best years of my life, where I got married, where I had my dear children. I came to the dear city of Volkovysk – and I did not even find any graves there. All the Jews of Volkovysk had been transformed into ashes in the crematoria of Treblinka and Auschwitz. I wanted to stretch out on the ground and weep, weep without surcease… a Christian whom I knew, Bolish Sharieka, greeted me. He invited me into his house and asked me if I wanted something to eat. No, I said to him, I am full, and I thank you. Give me, I said to him, a little soil out of friendship!… I took the soil, and covered my head with it. I went out this way onto the Neuer Gessel, and sat down on a stone. I sat ‘Shiva’ for my wife, my children, and for my dear friends – the Jews of Volkovysk. The Christians looked on me with sympathy. Well, I said to them, now everything is just fine. Now, there are no more Jews around. Well, now are you going to live forever?… They answered by saying that they were not responsible for what happened, that they didn't get involved…

I found the few remaining Jewish partisans who also returned from the forests to the city, took my leave of them, and once again took my load on my back, and went out on the road. I went through destroyed towns and villages, villages without Jews!… It was as if it were Yom Kippur, when all of the Jews were in the Synagogue for Kol Nidre – that's how everything about looked. I headed to the east, on the way that leads to the Land of Israel.”

  Vawkavysk, Belarus     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 16 Aug 2023 by JH