Message
of Auschwitz Survivor
zdzisława włodarczyk
Nights were the hardest... children were crying calling their moms while sleeping... Whining and moaning, but then, they became silent, as they knew than no one would come to caress their head... no one would touch or hug... they were dying alone. Why? Children were born in the camp, but they were not given the right to live as they were killed immediately. They had no names and they didn't even have their numbers.
How many of these children perished? Why? Were we the enemies of the Third Reich? People who also had their families and children. In mid-January 1945 it was here more and more often that the front was approaching. We could hear cannon shots. The Germans were destroying the archives, destroying, burning documents. We saw it. They were demolishing the crematoria.
We were waiting for freedom. We were waiting for someone to liberate us. But on January 17th we all had to wait after the roll call. It was forbidden to enter the barrack they gave us double portion of bread and we were waiting, and then, in the afternoon, when it was getting dark we were led out of the camp.
During this march, still within camp premises, an older prisoner, a functionary, rejected my brother. He said that he was unable to go, that he must stay. I wanted to inform my mom. I began to call her. A soldier jumped to me, hit me very hard in my face. I spun around and kneeled, so that he would stop beating me. And in this way I was automatically left behind. I didn't care what would happen. I jumped out of the row and ran to my brother. I didn't want him to stay alone. We stayed within camp premises. An elderly woman stayed with us, too Janeczka from Belarus. She took care of our group. There was not even this slice of bread...
Elderly prisoners, who remained in the camp were plundering warehouses. My brother brought three loaves of bread. I don't know, he got them from somebody - he said. We were sleeping on it. Dry bread... so we would melt the snow in this stove, as in these huge barracks there were those long stoves. And a furnace, I don't know how it persisted. Someone older must have been watching it... So we were melting this snow, it was our meal.
And one day, after about 10 days, on January 27, I got to know later what date it'd been, because I didn't know. The front could be seen from far away. First in white uniforms there were soldiers running. This our carer, she was an orderly prisoner, she told us not to leave, as there was the front and a stray bullet could kill us. The soldiers came, a tall officer in a cap. I remember his words. I don't remember whether he said in Polish or in Russian, but it was understandable: "Children, what are you doing here?"