|
Golda's Stories of the Holocaust Part II - Amendment Section 2 – Bergen-Belzen Chapter A – The living conditions They are planned to cause
us a quick death We traveled several
days and arrived 'in a good time' to Bergen-Belzen. This is a huge area
of adjacent army camps, near the city Hanover in north Germany. We were the first transport
that came there from Auschwitz. On the way we estimated
in optimism that we travel to Germany for work. This was because
the orchestra came with us. In Auschwitz there was
a huge orchestra of three hundred girls. All of them wore
dark-blue sailors' suits, with white collars. Every day, when we went
out to work, the orchestra played for us near the gate. Frequently the tune
was "Rosa Mundel". This melody was
broadcasted frequently also in the Israeli radio. Until an Auschwitz
survivor, Ms. Olevski, applied to the radio in the question why they are
broadcasting a tune that reminds of so many troubles, and they ceased it. We saw where we
arrived, and we understood what more is waiting for us from the Germans. Over there prevailed
dirt, lice, Typhus, Cholera and gangrene. All the plagues,
the infections and the diseases were there. We came in such big
troubles, and went to sleep in such awful dirt. In the walls of our
dormitory there were columns of lice so dense, that they looked like the distance
between closet doors. The lice took
control over our body. Very quickly we
discovered the characteristics of the place: There were no beds.
We slept on the floor. They gave us almost
nothing to eat. There was a grave
shortage of water. Lavatory did not exist.
We did not receive
work. Daily agenda did
not exist. There were no rules
and laws. It was impossible
to bear the situation. Every one became
ill. Auschwitz looked for
us already as paradise. We were sleeping without
strength most of the time. In a big part of
the time that we were awake, we removed lice. Who that wanted, went
outside the dormitory in order to take fresh air, or to take care of her matters. There were girls who,
when they were weak, or when the Nazis did not let us go out, used to do their
excretion in their food pot. At noon, before the
delivery of the food, which was some meager soup with a piece of beetroot, they
poured the contents, filled in the food pot, and ate from it without fear. There were girls who
sometimes left a slice of bread for the morning. This was in order that they
will have something to eat, and their soul will not leave them during the night. I saw a girl from
Hungary who, because of a little piece of bread, in the size of finger, which
her friend stole from her, strangled her in her throat to death. If one could help
the other, they sometimes could save each other's life. The relative or friend
would bring some water, some food, and helps and encourages the spirit. But those who had
no one, died from any easy illness. Collapsed like a
bird, fell asleep and that it. Opposite my window in
the dormitory, in a distance of twenty meters, with only a street between us,
there was a hill of thousands of corpses. A colossal pile of
dead bodies, in a length of dozens meters, and in a height of several meters. Almost two Years I
was in Bergen-Belzen at the same place, and opposite me were the corpses along
the street. After a while I got
used to this unbelievable view. Every day many
people, that this was their job, were dragging to and from the hill corpses of
dead people. They dragged them holding
the limbs. The dead were brought
there from the places where they died, in order to be burned. But in Bergen-Belzen
there were not large crematoriums as in Auschwitz. There was only one
little oven to cremate all the bodies. It could not burn so
many corpses during the day. The majority
remained in the pile. In my dormitory
there were three supervisors. They had a separate
room in the far side from the door. A German soldier,
tall and fat, was a lover of one of them. Every night he came
to her, and they made love beside her friends. In order that he
will arrive at her, she made for him a path between our bodies. We were lying quietly on the
floor, and see the big shadow of the soldier, with long leather boots, walks clumsy.
If he accidentally walked on us, it
was forbidden to make any noise. |