Rudolf Vrba part one
Walter Rosenberg, named changed to Rudolf Vrba, from
Slovakia. 1939 I was fifteen years old. Hitler through the alliance with the
Slovak Republic Who began a series of discriminator laws. First law, defines
what is a Jew. A Jew is different from other people. After this definition was
made an edict was given The Jews must be separated in public places because the
public would be contaminated and offended by their presence. Next the Jew
cannot travel without a permit to move from one town to another. Next the Jews
couldn’t live on certain streets and had to vacate their properties. Then the
edict came the Jews cannot be trusted for running a business and should have an
Aryan advisor to manage the finances of ownership. Then that the population
should be warned in advance of the presence of Jews, he wears a Jewish star.
How can the Germans know who is the Jew. Orders came that who does not register
as Jewish has committed a crime. Lists were created of the Jews important to
the economy and a list of all property of each Jew. Next the Jewish council
wrote a list of all men ages 16-30 years old not necessary to be kept in
Slovakia for economic reasons must be sent to Poland to contribute to labor
efforts. Letters were sent to addresses to come to such and such place on such
and such date with travel suitcases. The loss of citizenship was issued,
meaning the persons can be deported using the law enforcement officers. Then
came Nuremberg laws telling us that we are not belonging to Europe. The
families have lived generation after generation in these towns and see the
Zionist organizations who recruited for immigration to Palestine have the same
purposes of Hitler’s Party, to get us out of our homes with a 25 kilogram
suitcase and never come back. The core
of resistance will always be 16-30 year olds. I was stunned that the Jewish
organizations who claimed to be protectors were writing the deportation lists.
The first thing they agree is to let go away all of the potential for
resistance which could protect the families. German authorities were provided
with my photograph, description I was put on a train to a labor camp in
Slovakia After three months half of the camp would stay, half would go. A train
was drawn up one day and I am seeing boarding women, children, older persons.
On the way the train picked up people at various stations. When the train
reached the Slovak border the Slovak guards disappeared and a detachment of
German storm troopers boarded the train. After 24 hours I noticed it is going
very slowly and making long stops. The route did not make any logic, winding.
When it stopped it was very far from any water. After 24 hours there was not
one drop of water on the train. The parents became obsessed that their children
shouldn’t suffer. Thirst became over riding. There was no water. There became a
terrific desperation for water. After two days the people were obsessed with
one thing. Water. Hell on Wheels. Each time the German storm troopers would
say, it’s not our fault that the train is stopping outside the station. Slowly
you get dehumanization. Those with children first cared for the children, those
with elderly parents cared first for the old person. Then became a question of
moral issue. Who has more preference. An 80 year old mother or a one year old child.
Everyone believed that if the 80 year old was his mother then she has got the
first right. There was a pressure of the suffering of the children and the old.
Tortured by thirst the people became something different than what they had
been at home three days ago. I have seen trains from eleven days journey. I
have seen wagons that thirty percent of the people were dead. The basic
principle. To break the people in an anonymous way. To pretend the torture is
unintentional. To say it is not their fault there is no water. To pretend they
don’t have permission to fetch a bucket of water. The people were driven to
insanity. It was not like when you mistreat a group of men. These were women,
children, old persons with men in between. With an overriding need for water. These
people in their heads, they think they are going to be resettled. They think
the organizers made a mistake about the water because no one could have the
intention to torture children with thirst. They consider themselves to be a
special case. Each of the victims only saw one train, his own train. When the
train stopped the doors opened and machine guns were in front of us. All men
16-45 step out. Some of the women tried to join her husband she was immediately
struck with clubs. Heads and hands were broken, children were killed here.
New transports arrive in two hour intervals. The
transport was always cleaned without a trace. Transports were coming for two
years, sometimes five a day, one a day, sometimes a day without a transport.
Sometimes sixteen transports in one day. Each transport contains 3,000 people.
Every day up to 20,000 people. This job is systematical. The transport were
geared toward the type of population that were being transported. There were
Dutch people, any deviation from luxury was incredible to them. People from Bialystok who went through twenty
years of revolutions and invasions. They were tough people and prepared for all
sorts of things, they would be taken on a route which took twelve days. You see
people who are the heart of civilized Europe, suddenly the world is limited by
the space of the wagon and overwhelming thirst. They could not grasp why don’t
they hand you a glass of water, they don’t know if someone hands you water his
family will be executed. They don’t know why there is complete rejection from
the outside world. They wish that the journey will end and the mistakes will be
clarified. It is beyond their comprehension that someone has thought this out.
Worked this out. They come to the end station and the wagons are opened. Now
everything has to go quickly. All they are concentrated on is to drink.
They are received by white gloved officers with elegant
uniforms who says, Madam no talking. Who opens his mouth gets clubbed down in
front of the children. The rest stop speaking. Without communication there is
no resistance. The officers are polite as long as you don’t provoke them by not
obeying orders. For them, we were criminals with shaven heads who must have
done something wrong. They trusted the German officer, not some gangster. For a
mother to be told by a gangster, after this terrible journey, that her children
are going to be gassed, was an outrageous idea in her mind. Because after all
of what she suffered, here comes a gangster, who wants to increase her
suffering. She was tempted to go immediately to the next neat officer and tell
him this man said my children are going to be gassed. The storm trooper answers
her, Madame, do you think we are barbarians?
When the transport arrived in town fifty kilometers
distance from the ramp at Auschwitz a telegram was sent for mobilization. First
came the detachment of storm troopers with tommy-guns which surrounded the ramp
so that when the train stopped it would be automatically surrounded by a
cordon. All of the storm troopers had separate keys for each of the wagon
doors, the wagons were opened simultaneously. The storm troopers yell Rous! And
the people get up slowly. At that moment the storm troopers will jump and hit
some people as provoked by slow movement. Therefore the rest will move quickly
as possible to the gas chamber. Automatically send a woman with a child to the
gas chamber under any conditions because she will cause trouble when the child
is taken away. When they come to the camp it is too late. The resistance has to
come before the wagon.
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