Memoria [EN] Nr 55 (4/2022) | Page 7

and Shmuel were on the last deportation to Auschwitz, on the same train as Rumkowski.

Avraham described the arrival at Auschwitz:

After a few weeks in quarantine in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Avraham was transferred to the Kaltwasser labor camp in Lower Silesia. From there he was sent to various other camps, until he was finally liberated at Theresienstadt by the Red Army on 7 May 1945.

I was on the same train as Rumkowski, and my son was with me. The Germans addressed us, and said that in Germany too, they would establish a fur workshop and that we would work there in the same way we worked here. Later on, it became clear that this was false, and that they were sending us to Auschwitz, not to Germany… As soon as we arrived at Auschwitz, we heard from the Jews unloading us from the cars that here, people were sent to the crematoria. Those who could still work had a chance of staying alive; those who couldn't work, or children, were doomed… they separated me from my son… I saw him standing on the other side, waving to me. I waved back. I never saw him again.

Rumkowski was on the same side as me. He approached a German and showed him a piece of paper that he held in his hand. The letter he got from Biebow. The German instructed him to sit on the side… Behind Rumkowski stood his wife, her parents, brothers and sisters-in-law, they told them to sit on the side… They took us to a place where Moshe Hassid, one of Łódź's shady characters, was manager… He told us that our Rumkowski had already been taken to the crematoria.