German death camp

I believe it's 1943 in about the middle of Winter. We've all lost track of time since arriving at Auschwitz in November. I was separated from my mother and father immediately upon arrival and haven't seen them since. I've assumed the worse. Many of my fellow prisoners also had families when they arrived and have told me that the older males and females, and most children below the age of 9 were gassed on the day we arrived. I remember seeing the smoke stacks actually spitting out fire, not just the usual smoke, for several days after we arrived. In fact, it spit fire all day and all night long.

During my first two weeks I was like a zombie. The German guards were a cruel lot. They didn’t treat us as humans, but of something more akin to an insect. They would go out of their way to humiliate and cause more pain than you could ever imagine

Eventually, I got to work in the German mess. How I got that job is another sad story. Martin Roth was one of several Jews, like myself, working as in the staff’s kitchen. He was close to 40 years of age, and just beginning to grow bald. You could tell he once weighed close to 280 pounds, but now he was just a skeleton of a man with skin hanging from his arms. He told me he had been in this camp for six months after starving in the Warsaw ghetto for over a year.

I was in the kitchen washing dishes when I heard a commotion in the dining room. Chancing getting whipped I took a furtive glance and saw Martin sprawled out on the floor face down with the food he was carrying all over Sgt. Wolfman’s black uniform. He was one of meanest SS guards in our sector. Wolfman’s face was bright red as he stood up, brushing pudding from the front of his shirt. The other guards were laughing, and this only added to Wolfman's anger. He had not noticed that one of the other guards had purposely tripped Martin as he walked by.

Sgt. Wolfman reached down and grabbed Martin by the back of his shirt collar and tried to pull him up, but slipped on the pudding and landed on top of Martin and the rest of the pudding. The other guards were now laughing hysterically, some of them with tears in their eyes. Wolfman got up on one knee and rolled Martin over onto his back, pulled a dagger from his boot and slit Martin’s stomach wide open in a split second. Then he reached in and yanked Martin’s entrails out, stood up and began stomping on them. The whole room went silent. Nobody was laughing, and a couple of the guards began throwing up. Martin, half conscious, was tossed out the front door onto the muddy ground where he died minutes later.

That’s how I moved up from washing dished to waiting on the SS staff. Even though I’m Polish, I can speak German fairly well, being taught by my grandmother when I was a toddler. Needless to say, I watched carefully for anyone trying to trip me. The new job had many extra privileges, like easier work, even though working 16+ hours a day was tough. We got to eat many of the scraps the Germans left and shared the food with the sick and starving prisoners.

Sharing the food scraps with other prisoner ultimately cost me dearly. Six months after I began my waiter job I was trying to smuggle out some bread and cheese scraps under my shirt when a female SS guard caught me. She grabbed me by the arm and yelled for Sgt. Wolfman. She told him what I was trying to do, showing him the food that was now all over the floor. Surprisingly, he didn’t appear angry. In fact, he very calmly, using a tone that I’ve never heard him use before, explained that he was sorry to lose one of his best waiters. I thought I was going to be put back to washing dishes, or work in the field, then he said, “You know the penalty for stealing food!” Grinning, he added, raising his voice, “The firing squad!”

My legs turned to rubber, and I must have turned sheet white. He called two other large guards over and ordered them to take me away. They actually had to assist me to walk. My legs just wouldn’t do what I wanted them to do – run.

I heard Wolfman tell my guards to lock me up for the night and that I would be shot in the morning. They took me across the compound and locked me in a small cell with no food, water, or means to relieve oneself. I knew I would be joining my parents shortly and spent most of the night between praying, planning how I could take a German with me. I couldn’t sleep.

Around 4 a.m. and young German soldier opened my cell door and brought me a chicken leg and a baked potato. He was a good-looking Aryan with blond hair and kind blue eyes. I noticed that he limped with a stiff leg. He became aware I was watching his gait, and commented, “Russian front”, pointing to his stiff leg and proudly raised his iron cross for me to see. He added that I was one of the lucky ones – getting shot was easier than being beaten or tortured to death. I guess not all Germans are Jew haters.

I truly enjoyed my last meal on earth, especially knowing it didn’t get retrieved from the garbage cans.

Just as the morning sun began to rise in the east I heard my cell door being unlocked. I was led outside and told to get in line with around 20 other condemned prisoners. The morning was sunny and warm. We marched two kilometers to the western edge of the compound where 50 or more other prisoners were tilling a garden. They were ordered to assist us digging our own graves.

We had to dig a 30 meter long trench, two and one half meters deep, by three meters wide. When we finished about noon the other non-condemned prisoners were ordered back to their previous jobs, and we were ordered to strip naked. Our clothes were taken away and we were ordered to stand facing the ditch with our hands at our sides.

I kept thinking that I could rush one of the guards. There were only six of them, and they all carried rifles except the officer that was brandishing a Walther P38 pistol. I knew the officer would shoot me before I could do much damage, and you just can’t believe your will to survive, even if it’s for a minute more.

Then the moment came when the officer ordered his men to back up and take aim. Normally they would shoot prisoner in the back of the head, but this time there was no order to face the pit, soon to contain 50 dead bodies. The soldiers backed up about five meters and took aim. All except one. The officer yelled, ordering him to take aim. When he refused the officer shot him in the chest and he fell where he stood. The officer then gave the order to fire. There were five shots, and five bodies fell into the pit. I couldn’t believe it. I was still alive. Then another crack of the rifles.

That’s the last thing I remembered. When I came to I was on my back with several dead bodies pinning my arms over my head. I could barely see. Blood was streaming down my face covering my left eye. It became obvious that I had been shot with a grazing blow to my left forehead. Apparently, the officer’s shooting of his own man had made some of the other soldiers nervous. Fortunately for me it spoiled my shooter’s aim.

I immediately controlled my breathing and didn’t move a millimeter. From my position I couldn’t see out of the pit. I listened to see if the soldiers had gone. A loud pop pop from the officer’s 9mm assured me they had not. The officer was walking up and down the pit looking for anyone still alive. If he saw any movement, or breathing, he’d cap off another few rounds. I was holding my breath as he walked by me, but the man lying across my legs moved slightly. The officer took aim and shot twice, hitting the man square in the head, sending brain matter all over my legs, and the second shot took off half the head on my penis and pierced my ball sack. I hardly felt it, and continued to play dead. It worked. The officer moved on shooting a few more times and left with all the soldiers.

I waited about 30 minutes and attempted to move my arms and legs to no avail. I was really pinned. This is when the torture really began. There were flies every where. They started to collect on the wound to my forehead, then started for the moister around my eyes. I was able to shake my head and this seemed to scatter the flies for a minute or so. Pretty soon the flies found my bloodied penis and balls. There had to be 25 to 30 flies covering my genitals slurping up the blood. They weren’t satisfied with just my genitals, some were even licking away at my ass hole. It felt like they were trying to crawl inside my rectum. Finally one of them made it in. I tried grunting to expel it, but it kept buzzing around, still crawling higher and finally stopped. Then another took its place.

Now there must be around 50 plus flies on my genitals, and were beginning to, not just lick, but bite the open wounds on my penis and ball sack. At first it kind of tickled. Then as they drew fresh blood it was like a frenzy. Then it began to hurt.

I was wondering how long I would have to wait before attempting an escape from the pit, when someone began shoveling lime over our bodies. I heard it coming and closed my eyes and held my breath. I wasn’t worried that a guard might see me, because spreading the lime is done by prisoner.

When the lime landed on my open wounds it stung like hell, but most of the flies scattered away for a few moments. That was a little relief.

It must have been around 2 p.m. when I noticed I had a few more friends - ants and yellow jacket. I don’t know which was worst. The bees zeroed right in on the open wounds and started biting. It felt like they were chewing up my penis, but I couldn’t raise my head high enough to see. Then the ants began biting, but not just on the open wounds, but every where on my body. Feeling the urge to urinate, I got the great idea the urine would shoo the insects away and sterilize the wound to the penis. I let go. The pain to the penis was intense. What surprised me though was that I felt the pain down about an one quarter of the way down from the head. The flies were actually devouring my penis millimeter by millimeter.

Now the ants had found my urethra. I could feel them begin crawling down inside the tube, reaching down as far as the ball sack. Again, it tickled at first. Then the ants must have got into a fight because they began scrambling up and down the urethra, biting as they went.

The ants and flies were inside my ball sack too just having a eating frenzy.

The only relief I got was night time. It got pretty damned cold as soon as the sun set, and the insects took a break. At sun up it all began again, even more intense. By evening I couldn’t feel my penis, or balls. Either they were numb, or gone, but I could still feel ants crawling inside the urethra and my ass. I had no more urine to flush them out and just suffered. I attempted to have a bowel movement, but because I hadn’t eaten there was nothing to excrete.

At about 3 a.m. I woke up and tried to free myself from the other bodies. They were partially eaten by all the insects. I’m surprised the Germans didn’t just feed us to their dogs.

It took me almost two hours to free myself. I had almost no strength, just barely enough to crawl out of the pit. I didn’t see any guards, and began moving toward the utility shack on my hands and knees. There was a light above the shack’s door. I moved closer to the light, staying clear of the perimeter guard towers line of sight.

I looked down to finally see the damage. Where my penis and balls had been was just a gapping hole, almost the size of a vagina. I touched it with my hand, but it didn’t hurt much, and it wasn’t bleeding. I guess that was a good sign. Now I was concerned about getting the wounds infected.

I had to get away, and fast. I crawled almost 100 meters to a barbed wire fence. This section of fence was normally electrified with high voltage, but I could see they had been working on this section of fence and it wasn’t attached to the grid.

I began digging with my hands to make a hole large enough for me to fit under the wire. As I began crawling under the wire on my back, I heard the foot steps of a German guard approaching.

I froze. The guard approached with his rifle pointed at my chest. I knew now I was a goner. I was only half way under the wire. There was no way I could run in time. Then he flashed his flashlight in my face. “So it’s you my little Jew boy, is it?” It was the same guard that had given me some food the night before I was shot. I shook my head yes. He shut off his light and bent down to whisper, “There’s a small village just north of here about an hour’s walk. Good luck.” He then stood up and walked away. Who said there weren’t any good Germans.

I walked to the village and knocked on the door of the first farm house I came to. It was almost sunrise. I knew I was taking a gamble of being turned in, but I was in pretty bad shape and very hungry. The farmer, a Pole, knew immediately that I was an escapee from the camp. When he saw my open wounds he pulled me inside and doctored me up, fed me, and continued to hid me until the allies arrived

I went back to the camp after it was liberated to help some of my friends that had survived. Not many had. A few of the German guards had been captured, and were in pretty bad shape from beatings. The Russian allies actually let some of the prisoner tear the arms and legs off a few of the guards.

I recognized one of the guards - the one that had saved my life. I told the Russian commander what he had done for me and he gave orders that the German soldier was not to be harmed in any way.

Moreover, the commander gave the German a written pass to take me back home. He kept his word and stayed with me until I got home. He too was on his way home, and would have to live with what his brothers in arms did for the rest of his life.