We never came in contact with any of the SS. We came in contact with what was called the kapos. They were the camp police. The camp police consisted of prisoners who kind of ruled over the other inmates. And [chuckles] to show how totally silly we were, we asked them if there was a commissary in the camp and could we use money to buy something there. This is how totally removed from reality we were.
Of course, then we walked from the train station to our camp, and walking through the camp, believe me, it was an eyeful. To begin with, some people could not walk, and they were shot on the way, walking to the camp. We saw the barbed wire; we saw the emaciated people. So all of a sudden reality sank in, and we knew, or we started to understand, what we were faced with.
Then we went to a shower. They took everything—you had to drop everything you carried, and you got undressed, and then took a shower, not realizing at that point that this could have been the end of us, not knowing anything about the showers in Auschwitz and so on. So when we showered and put our clothes back [on], we lost all our baggage. Whatever little we carried with us, it was gone. So the only thing we owned was the clothes that were on our bodies.
Q. When you think back to the months that you spent at Bergen–Belsen, what would you say is the clearest memory of your time?
[Pauses] I saw human flesh being eaten in the camp next to us. And I had no idea who they were. They took the cadavers and obviously they must have had some medical people there, because they knew exactly how to get to the liver with a simple incision; the liver is a very edible part of a human being. [Hesitates; sighs] I hate to say this, but it is the truth. I would think that that was probably as far as one can sink. I saw people being beaten; I saw people dying from hunger, which is an extremely painful death. I guess it is just not known—and hopefully never will be—that you do not just keel over from hunger. It is a very painful way of dying. And I witnessed some of that, and of course every morning I saw the dead bodies stacked up like wood and taken to a crematorium. They had to get rid of the bodies somehow, so that the disease did not keep spreading. [Swallows] And unfortunately later on the crematorium was no longer operating, and they were just digging huge holes and they were putting the bodies in there.
Eighteen thousand people perished in March 1945 alone. Harold Osmond Le Druillenec was a British national living in the occupied Channel Island of Jersey when on June 5, 1944—the day before D-Day—he was arrested for helping a Russian prisoner to escape some time before, and also for possessing an illegal wireless radio set. After spending time in various concentration camps, he arrived at Bergen–Belsen on April 5, only ten days before the liberation of the camp. In his graphic testimony on the fourth day of the Belsen Trial the following September, he described the frantic conditions as the Germans began to deal with the mounting corpses.
Harold Osmond Le Druillenec
Q. Were you allowed out of the hut at all during the [first] night?—No. It was humanly impossible to get out since the whole floor was just one mass of humanity—it would have meant walking across people in order to get out—in any case, the door was shut. People were lying against it, and I think that it was locked as well.
What was the atmosphere inside that hut like?—Well, it is rather difficult to put into words. I do not think it is humanly possible to describe that—it was vile. I think I have told you sufficient to make you realize that the smell was abominable; in fact, it was the worst feature of Belsen Camp. A night in those huts was something maybe a man like Dante might describe, but I simply cannot put into words.
Will you now tell the Court about the first day you began work?—In the beginning the work was rather interesting because we were herded as a block, some six or seven hundred maybe, into the mortuary yard by means of blows, the language we understood pretty well by then; we were made to understand that we had to drag these dead bodies a certain route to what we were to find to be large burial pits. The procedure was to take some strands of blanket from a heap where the effects and clothing of the dead had been put, tie these strips of blanket or clothing to the ankles and wrists of the corpses, and then proceed to walk to the pits. We started work at sunrise and were up quite a long time before that. We got no food before we started and worked till about 8 o’clock in the evening. In those five days or so I spent on this burial work neither a spot of food nor a drop of water passed my lips.
Will you describe one of these days?—After the usual terrible night, we started the appell first. After about two hours of that, we would be herded in the usual manner to this yard. We tied the strips of blankets to the wrists and ankles of the dead bodies, which we picked out most carefully. Firstly, we found the shortest corpse possible; they were all emaciated and thinner than anything I had imagined before, so by getting the shortest we were bound to get the lightest. Secondly, we chose one that was not too black. Our first task in the morning was to bury the fresh dead that had been brought from the various huts in my portion of the camp to the mortuary yard, not those which were in the hut. Despite the fact that there must have been over 2,000 all told occupied in this work, it used to take us nearly the whole morning to empty that yard prior to going into the rooms to start burying the old dead. We then left the northernmost gate of the yard with the body dragging behind, usually allowing maybe two meters between the foremost people dragging and the body in front. If you allowed more than that, a hit on the head made you hurry up to reduce the distance. We made our way along the central road towards the burial pits. Along this road, stationed at intervals, were orderlies to see that the flow of dead to the pits carried on smoothly; they were particularly numerous near the kitchen and the reservoir water.
One of the most cruel things in this particular work was the fact that we passed this water regularly on every trip, and although we were dying of thirst, we were not allowed to touch it or get anywhere near, nor were we allowed to get to the heap of swede [rutabaga] peelings near the kitchen. A few of those would have made us a very fine meal indeed in the state we were in.
Nearing the pits, I found out that the pits themselves were being dug by so-called ‘free’ foreign workers. I cannot very well explain my feelings when I first saw one of those pits which already contained many dead and had to throw my particular corpse on top of those others already there.
During the dragging process, I noticed on many occasions a very strange wound at the back of the thigh of many of these dead. First I dismissed it as a gunshot wound at close quarters, but after seeing a few more I asked a friend and he told me that many prisoners were cutting chunks out of these bodies to eat. On my very next visit to the mortuary I actually saw a prisoner whip out a knife, cut a portion out of the leg of a dead body, and put it quickly into his mouth, naturally frightened of being seen in the act of doing so. I leave it to your imagination to realize to what state the prisoners were reduced for men to chance eating these bits of flesh taken out of black corpses.
What was the attitude of the SS and of the orderlies you have mentioned while all this was going on?—To get on with the job as quickly as possible. My own idea is that it was to make a good impression on the advancing British Army. We knew it was coming. We could hear the guns and I think the whole idea was to clear the camp of as many dead as possible before they arrived. I would like you to picture what this endless chain of dead going to the pits must have looked like for about five days from sunrise to sunset. How many were buried I have no idea. It must have been vast numbers—certainly five figures.
What happened to a prisoner who fell out on this parade?—You didn't dare to fall out, but many collapsed on the way—just lay dead by the roadside, or died. They in turn were lifted by a team of four and taken to the pits. People died like flies on the way to these pits. They did not have the necessary energy to drag even those very light bodies. A man who faltered was usually hit on the head, but many people were cunning, and if no orderlies were around, they used to leave their corpses stranded by the roadside and go back to the mortuar
y for another, because they would pass the kitchen or reservoir, and they still had hopes that they would reach some food or water.
Were you struck at all yourself during this period?—Oh, many times. You were bound to get hit in the normal course of the day. You were bound to get hit on the head in the morning getting out of the hut, whether you were out first or last. You were bound to be hit in getting to the mortuary and all along the way to the pits. They were just odd blows here and there, given, I suppose, for the fun of the thing. One ceases to question in a concentration camp why things happen. One is taught from the very beginning just to accept things as they are.
Irene Bleier was a seventeen-year-old girl from Hungary who entered the exchange camp in late 1944.
Irene Bleier Muskal
I met someone who had been in Bergen–Belsen for some time, and asked him what sort of work we would be doing here. He looked at me flabbergasted and coldly answered that no one comes to work at Bergen–Belsen—everybody comes here to die. I never saw this person again, his blunt answer only intensifying my already overflowing desperation. Unceasing tears rolled down my face for days.
After several more exhausting hours standing outside, we were at last allowed to move inside the barracks of Block 10. Our building was next to the gate. A high barbed-wire fence separated us from a group of Jews from Holland in a different block. Inside the barracks, over 200 people took up their abode on three-tiered bunk beds.
The suffering of body and soul further numbed our brains. We turned into objects to the will of others, like robots, the living dead. We choked in pain. This condition penetrated my soul for years to come, impeding my feelings.
Kurt Bronner was taken from Budapest, Hungary, and imprisoned with his father in Bergen–Belsen. There, he lost his parents.
Kurt Bronner
Two weeks after we arrived, my dad started to cough. One morning, I heard men reciting prayers, and someone said to me, ‘I’m sorry. Your father is dead.’ Eighteen years old, I didn’t know; I never faced death before. Then in the morning they took the bodies out; I tried to follow my dad’s cart, being taken to the so-called cemetery—[but I could not find him, there were so many bodies]. And a week later, I saw my mother through the barbed wire; we started talking, she wanted to know how dad is, and I lied and I said, ‘He’s fine, he’s sleeping’—I didn’t want to burden her with the bad news. [Pause] And then a German woman guard started to beat my mother. [Pause] You are on this side of the fence, and on the other side is your mother, and there is nothing you can do. And that is the last time that I saw my mother; I don’t know what happened to her; I tried to find out, and all they could tell me was, fifteen thousand women died without any names.
Eleven-year-old Sara also had vivid memories.
Sara Gottdiener Atzmon
At Bergen–Belsen I graduated from the University of Death. For me it was always cold—there was continuous frost. We were almost without clothes. I slept on a narrow-tiered bed bunk together with my sister Matti and her 2½ year old son. He was coughing all the time and I thought that he would not make it.
Later in life, I began painting. My second work about the Holocaust was ‘Tiers of Death’ because every morning there would be some dead bodies on the bunks. Death always came as a surprise to us; we thought that nice man over there looked strong and that he would make it. But no, some simply did not have the strength to endure any more hunger and suffering. Now people finally understood what I was trying to say, through my painting.
When the mounds of dead bodies started to pile up nearby in a frightening manner, we, the children, made bets between us as to who would die tomorrow and who would die the day after. Every one of them had his signs. I had become an old woman already, eleven and a half years old. Still, in my childish naiveté, I gave my sister Shoshana one-half of my daily bread ration, for her 13th birthday.
Even if I'll paint all my life, I will not be able to describe the suffering that was going on in that camp, and especially the stench. Maybe some people are more expert than me in describing the small details. But I only tried to touch on the most painful things: fear, hunger, filth, hopelessness, and despair.
The despair was the most dangerous. But we children always tried to repress the despair and joke about things, even though our bodies were infested with lice and covered with itchy sores, because for half a year we did not wash. This was something impossible to get used to. Mother said that she did not want to be put naked on the cart that carries away the dead, because it’s cold there— she will walk on foot to the crematory.
During the breaks between roll calls, if it wasn’t too cold, I would stand by the fence and look at the naked dead bodies with their gaping mouths. I used to wonder what it was that they still wanted to shout out loud and couldn’t. I tried to determine who were men, and who were women. But they were only skin and bones. I tried to imagine how I could dress these dead bodies in clothes for dinner; their pale skin color did not always match the clothes.
In those days, when everyone fought desperately for one more minute to live, for one more crumb of food, our mother would stand where they dispensed the soup, which consisted of potato peel and cattle turnips, and implore people to give only one spoonful of their ration to us children. This is how she succeeded in saving the lives of some who were already dying, whose death on the next day would have been certain.
Uri Orlev was a young teenager from Warsaw. His mother had died in the Warsaw Ghetto; with his younger brother and aunt he was sent to Bergen–Belsen.
Uri Orlev
I invented a story that this war, this ghetto, the Germans, the camp, all this never existed. What really happened was that I was the son of the Emperor of China. My royal father had put me on a bed, and had ordered it to be placed on a large, high podium. Twenty Chinese mandarins were called to my bedside, instructed to put me to sleep and make me dream of war, so that when I inherit the throne, I would never make war again, knowing how bad wars are.
*
Camp commandant Kramer filed a report to Berlin on March 1, 1945, explaining the dire circumstances as transports from all over the Reich continued to arrive. He noted supply problems and overcrowding, and that of the 42,000 inmates in his camp, 250–300 died each day from typhus. In it he also noted the exchange camp and the Jews there, and how it would be of great consequence to be rid of them.
Josef Kramer
Bergen–Belsen, 1st March, 1945.
Gruppenführer, it has been my intention for a long time past to seek an interview with you in order to describe the present conditions here. As service conditions make this impossible, I should like to submit a written report on the impossible state of affairs and ask for your support…
State of Health
The incidence of disease is very high here in proportion to the number of detainees. When you interviewed me on 1st December, 1944, at Oranienburg, you told me that Bergen–Belsen was to serve as a sick camp for all concentration camps in North Germany. The number of sick has greatly increased, particularly on account of the transports of detainees, which have arrived from the East in recent times—these transports have sometimes spent eight to fourteen days in open trucks. An improvement in their condition, and particularly a return of these detainees to work, is under present conditions quite out of the question. The sick here gradually pine away till they die of weakness of the heart and general debility. As already stated, the average daily mortality is between 250 and 300. One can best gain an idea of the conditions of incoming transports when I state that on one occasion, out of a transport of 1,900 detainees over 500 arrived dead. The fight against spotted fever [typhus] is made extremely difficult by the lack of means of disinfection…
On the question of putting the internees to work, I have contacted the employment authorities. There is a chance of being able to make use, in the near future, of woman labor. There is no availability here of making use of male labor. In addition to the concentration camp
prisoners, there are here still about 7,500 internees ('Exchange Jews'). SS Hauptsturmführer Modes from RHSA. IV. A. 4b[*] was here last week and informed me that these Jews would be removed in the near future. It would be much appreciated if this could be done as soon as possible, for in this way accommodation could then be found for at least 10,000 concentration camp prisoners. Because of the spotted fever danger, SS Hauptsturmführer Moes is not willing to take these Jews away at the present time. These Jews are to go partly to Theresienstadt and partly to a new camp in Württemburg. The removal of these internees is particularly urgent for the reason that several concentration camp Jews have discovered among the camp internees their nearest relations—some their parents, some their brothers and sisters. Also for purely political reasons— I mention in this connection the high death figure in this camp at present— it is essential that these Jews disappear from here as soon as possible [author’s emphasis].
With that I wish to close my present report. In this connection, Gruppenführer, I want to assure you once again that on my part everything will definitely be done to bridge over this difficult situation. I know that you have even greater difficulties to overcome and appreciate that you must send to this camp all internees discharged from that area; on the other hand, I implore your help in overcoming this situation.
Heil Hitler, yours truly,
J. K., SS Hauptsturmführer
A Train Near Magdeburg Page 3
