According to the there in the gully.
Certain prisoners were killed. After they had them either with the heels of their shoes or with sticks.
The food and the clothing was in keeping with the discipline.
We find in impression that their lives were in less danger.
The figures that we have given in this report are only minimum figures.
To cite but report:
Mr. Verheirstraeten, former deputy, declares that he placed 1942 to January 1943.
If one were to count the executions carried died as a result of disease or ill treatment.
From these camps the internees were transported to Germany in convoys, of which it is essential to give the description to this Tribunal.
I let the Tribunal know, first of all, that in the case of France alone, excluding three departments of the Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle, there departed 326 convoys from 1 January 1944 to 25 August of the same year, that is to say, on an average of ten convoys per week. Now, each convoy carried away from 1,000 to 2,000 persons, and we know now, because we have heard our witness a little while ago, that in each car there were from 60 to 120 individuals, according to the situations of the moment. It seems that there left from France, excluding the three northern departments, three convoys in 1940, nineteen convoys in 1941, 104 convoys in 1942, 257 convoys in 1943.
What are the figures given in document 274, page 15? That is in the book that was presented to you this morning. I beg your pardon. I said page 15, but I should have said page 14. These convoys nearly always left Compiegne or were immatriculated to the extent of 50,000 internees. In 1943 there must have been 78 convoys, and 95 convoys in 1944.
The purpose of these convoys was to terrorize the populations. It was already presented to the Tribunal that the families were to ignore what became of the people who were interned, and thus they were terrorized, but oven more, they were for the purpose of collecting labor which was to assist German labor resources which was beginning to decline since the opening of the war against Russia. The conditions under which these convoys were made already prepared for a sort of selection for this labor, which constitutes the first stage of a new aspect of German policy which we now see appearing; that is the pure and simple extermination of all categories, active or intellectuals, whose political activities might be deemed dangerous to the Nazi leadership. These deportees who are locked in groups of 60 to 120 in each boxcar, whatever time of year, who can neither sit down nor crouch, will in the course of their journey receive no food whatever, nothing to drink. On this point we bring specifically the testimony of Dr. Steinberg, which was received by Lt. Col. Badin of the Research Service on War Crime in Paris, document No. 392, which we place under No. 330, which is the 12th in your document book, and at this time we shall read only a few paragraphs on page 2. Paragraph 3 - third from the bottom:
"We were grouped in boxcars, about 70 persons per car, in frightful conditions of hygiene. Our trip lasted two days. We, therefore, reached Auschwitz on the 24th of June 1942. It should be noted that we had received at the moment of departure no food, and that we lived during those two days on what little food we had taken with us from Drancy."
The deportees were at times refused water by the Red Cross. Testimony was received by the Ministry of Prisoners and Deportees, and this testimony is incorporated in document RF-274. That is the little book, page 18, paragraph 3, 4th and 5th line. on 19 June 1942. They travelled for three days and three nights, dying of thirst. At Breslau they begged the nurses of the German Red Cross to give them a little water, but this was in vain.
Moreover, Lt. Geneste and Dr. Bloch have given testimony on this particular fact and on other different facts which are related in document RF-321, entitled "Concentration Camps", which we have been able to deliver to you in three languages: French, Russian, and German, the English text having been exhausted. Page 21, at the top of the page:
"In the station of Bremen, water was denied to us by the German Red Cross, who stated that there was no water."
This is testimony by Lt. Geneste of O.R.T.J. With respect to this attitude of the German Red Cross, and in order to settle the subject once and for all, there is one more word to be said. Document 321 gives you on page 162, paragraph 3 - the proof that it was an ambulance car bearing a red cross which transported the gas in iron containers destined for the gas chambers in the camp of Auschwitz.
THE PRESIDENT: The court will adjourn now until Monday.
(Whereupon at 1700 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjournced to reconvene at 1000 hours on 28 January 1945).
Military Tribunal, in the matter of: The
M. DUBOST (Counsel for France): With the authorization of the Court, I should like to proceed with this part of the French expose by hearing a witness, who, for nearly three years, lived in concentration camps.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you stand up, please? Do you wish to swear the French oath? Will you tell me your name?
THE WITNESS: Marie Couturier.
THE PRESIDENT: You swear to speak without hate nor fear? Will you repeat after me: I swear to speak without hate nor fear -
THE WITNESS: I swear to speak without hate nor fear -
THE PRESIDENT: To state truth -
THE WITNESS: To state truth -
THE PRESIDENT: All the truth -
THE WITNESS: All the truth -
THE PRESIDENT: Only the truth -
THE WITNESS: Only the truth -
THE PRESIDENT: Raise the right hand and say "I swear".
THE WITNESS: I swear. QUESTIONS BY M. DUBOST:
Q Is your name Madame Valliant Couturier? You are the widow of Mr. Claude Valliant Coururier? You were born in Paris on 10 November 1912? parents who themselves were of French nationality?
Q You are a Deputy at the Constituent Assembly?
Q You are a Knight of the Legion of Honor?
Q You have just been decorated by General Legentilhomme Aux Inlalides?
Q Were you arrested and deported? Will you please give your testimony? who delivered me to the German authorities at the end of six weeks. I arrived on 20 March at the prison of Sante in the German sector. I was interrogated by the Gestapo on the 9th of June, 1942. At the end of my interrogation they sought to have me sign a declaration, which was not in conformity with what I stated. I refused to sign it. The officer who was interrogator -
THE PRESIDENT: You are going a little bit too fast.
A (continuing) As I refused to sign the statement, because it was not in conformity with what I said, the German, officer who was questioning me threatened me, and when I told him that I was not afraid of death nor of being shot, he said, "But we have at our disposal means that are far worse than merely the shooting of people in order to cause their death," and the interpreter said to me, "You do not know what you have just done. You are going to leave for a concentration camp in Germany. One never returns from there."
Q You were then led to jail?
A I was taken back to the Sante prison. I was able to communicate, although I was kept incommunicado, through the canals and through the window. I was in a cell next to those where George Politzer, the philospher, and a physicist, Jacques Solomon, were incarcerated. Mr. Solomon is the son-in-law of Professor Langevin, one of the first to have studied atomic disintegration. George Politzer stated to me through means of the channels that during his interrogation, after having been tortured, he was asked whether he would not write pamphlets -theoretical pamphlets--for National Socialism. Inasmuch as he refused, he was told that he would belong to the first train of hostages that were to be shot. As for Jacques Solomon, he was also horribly tortured, and then he was thrown into a dungeon from which he emerged on the day of his execution to say goodbye to his wife, who likewise had been under arrest and who was in the Sante prison, and she told me in Romainville, where I found her again when I left the prison of the Sante, that when she came close to her husband to kiss him goodbye he uttered and moaned and said, "I cannot take you in my arms, because I can no longer move my arms." through the windows, the moans of those people, and it was impossible for them to make any movements. they came to fetch hostages to shoot them. When I left the prison of the Sante on the 20th of August, 1942, I was escorted to the Fortress of Romainville, which was a camp for hostages.
There I was twice present when they seized hostages, on the 21st of August and the 22nd of September. Among the hostages who were taken away there were the husbands of the women who were with me. They left for Auschwitz. Most of them died there. These women, for the most part, had been arrested only because of the activity of their husbands. They themselves had participated in no activity.
Q You left for Auschwitz at what period? on the 27th.
Q Did you belong to a convoy? Casanova. She died since then. So did Marie Politzer and Helene Solomon. There were some elderly women.
Q Please tell us what their social philosophy was?
A They were intellectual women. They were school teachers--a little bit of all, coming from everywhere. Helene Politzer was a doctor; she was the wife of Politzer; Helene Solomon is the wife of the physicist Solomon. She is the daughter of Professor Langevin; Danielle Casanova was a dental surgeon. She had a great influence amongst the women.
She organized the resistance movement amongst the wives of prisoners.
Q How many of you returned?
A Of the 230, only 49 came back. In the convoy of these women, I remember one woman who was 67 years old, and she had been arrested because she had kept in her kitchen the shotgun of her husband, which she kept as a souvenir and she had not declared it. She died at the end of fifteen days at Auschwitz.
THE PRESIDENT: When you said only 49 came back, did you mean only 49 remained?
THE WITNESS: No. Only 49 came back to France. There were many cripples. One was a singer who had only one leg. She was selected to be cast at Auschwitz. There was a youngster of sixteen years of age, and a school student. Her name was Clotilde de Guerin. She also died at Auschwitz. There were also two women who had been acquitted by the military tribunal of the Germans, Marie Alonzo and Marie-Therese Fleuri. They died at Auschwitz.
The trip was extremely terrible. There were 60 in each boxcar, and no food was distributed; no liquid was given to us during the trip. At various stops we asked for something from the Lorraine soldiers, who had been enrolled in the Wehrmacht and were our guard. We asked them when would we arrive. They replied, "If you knew where you are going you would not be so anxious to arrive."
We arrived at Auschwitz at dawn. They broke the seals on our boxcars and we were brought down with blows of butts of guns. We were taken to the camp of Birkenau, which is one of the branches of the Auschwitz camp. It is an immense plain, which in the month of January was frozen. We made the trip pulling our own luggage, and then, as we passed the porch, we realized so well that there would be so little chance to come back again, because we had seen already the skeleton-like columns going to work, and as we entered we sang the Marseillaise in order to find courage.
We were led to a large barracks. Then to disinfection. There our heads were shaven and we were tattoed on the left forearm the number of the matriculation. Then we were put in a large hall in order to take a steam bath and a cold shower.
Then clothing was given to us. They were soiled and torn -- a cotton dress and a jacket of the same material. from the windows of the block where we were the camp of the men, and toward evening an orchestra got organized. As it was snowing, we wondered why. They were playing music. At that moment the work kommando of the men were coming into the camp. Behind each kommando there were men who carried dead bodies. As they couls scarcely drag themselves along, they were put on their feet again by blows of the butt of guns every time they faltered. There were no beds, but merely platforms two metres by two metres, and we were nine of us who slept there without any mattress or without covers. During the whole night we remained in blocks of this type for several months. During the whole night it was impossible to sleep, because each time one of the nine women moved at all, and since all of them were sick that happened all the time, they would disturb the whole row.
At 3:30 in the morning the cries and shouts of the guards would awaken us, and with blows of sticks, and then we had to go to work. Nothing in the world would relieve one from going to the roll call; even those who were on the point of death had to be dragged there. We would remain in rows of five until dawn would break -- until about seven or eight o'clock in the morning in winter, and when there was fog sometimes until noon. Then the kommandos would start moving on their way to work.
Q Can you tell us where the roll call was made? until daybreak, until the women guards, the German women guards in uniform, came to proceed with the roll call. They had sticks and they beat everyone more or less haphazardly. Germaine Renaud, who was a school-teacher at Azay-Le-Rideau, in France, had her skull broken right before my eyes from a blow of a heavy stick on her head.
of roads, and, above all, the clearing of the marshes. That was by far the hardest work, since all day long we were on our feet in the water and there was the danger of falling into quicksand. Frequently one of our friends would sometimes plunge into the marsh way up to her waist.
they let their dogs loose upon us. Many among our friends had their legs torn to shreds by the biting of dogs. It frequently happened that I saw women torn to shreds right under my very eyes, while the SS Guard was spurring on his dogs against her and was leering at the spectacle.
The causes of death were extremely numerous. First of all, there was the lack of hygiene--total lock of hygiene. When we arrived at Auschwitz, for 11,000 internees there was only one water faucet, and the water was not drinkable, and it was not always flowing. Inasmuch as it was in the German lavabos, we could reach it only by going through the guards, who were German common law criminals, and they beat us horribly as we went by. It was therefore almost impossible to wash or to wash one's clothing.
For more than three months we remained without changing our clothes. Then there was snow. We would melt some in order to be able to wash. Later, in the Spring, when we were on our way to work, in a puddle of water we would drink we would wash our shirt and our pants; and we would wash in this muddy water. Our companions died of thirst, because only twice a day did we get half a cup of water. February.
Q In what year was that?
A In 1943; at 3:30 the whole camp -
Q 3:30 in the morning?
A Yes. The whole camp was awakened and sent on the plain, whereas normally the roll call was at 3:30 but inside of the camp. We remained on the plain in front of the camp until five in the afternoon under the snow, without receiving any food whatsoever. Then when the signal was given we had to go through the door one by one, and we were struck in the back with a stick, each one of us, in order to make us run. Those who could not run, either because they were too old car too sick, were taken with a hook and led to Block 25, which was the so-called "waiting block", before being sent to the gas chamber.
On that day a number of French women were thus taken to the waiting block. I belonged was organized to go and pick up the bodies of those who were strewn over the plain as upon a battlefield. We brought back to the yard of Block 25 the dead and the dying. They remained thus, stacked in the courtyard. This Block 25, which was the anteroom of the gas chamber, if one may say so, I know it full well, because at that time we had been transferred to Block 26 and our windows opened on the courtyard of number 25. One could see the stacks of corpses lined in the courtyard, and from time to time a hand or a head would stir amongst the corpses, seeking to free itself. It was moribund women seeking to free themselves from the stack of corpses. because, as they were condemned to death, they received food or drink only if there was something left in the kitchen; that is to say, frequently, therefore, they remained several days without receiving any food, not even a drop of water. old, passing in front of the block, took pity upon those women who were moaning from morning until night in all languages, "Drink, drink, drink; water water." She came back to our block to find a little herb tea, and when whe was passing it through the grate of the window the guard took her by the neck and threw her inside of Block 25.
My whole life long I will remember Annette . Two days later she was put on the truck which was taking the internees to the gas chamber. She held against her another Frenchman, and when the truck started moving, "Think of my little boy," she said, "if you ever go back to France." Then they started singing the Marseillaise, while the truck started moving. about and gnawing at the corpses and attacking even the moribund who didn't have the strength to drive them away. food in large red containers, which were merely washed in cold water after each meal. Inasmuch as all the women were ill, and they didn't have the strength during the night to go to the trench which was used as lavatory, and the approaches of which are beyond description, they used these containers for a use to which they were not intended.
The next day one would pick up those containers and carry them to the refuse heap, and during the day another crew would come and recuperate them, wash them in cold water, and put them to use again.
Another cause of death was the problem of shoes. In the snow and the mud of Poland, leather shoes were completely damaged at the end of one week or two. Therefore, our feet were frozen and in contusions, so we had to sleep on our shoes, our muddy shoes, lest they be stolen, and at the time of standing for roll call one could hear cries of anguish, "My shoes have been taken from me." Then one had to wait until the whole block had been emptied to look under the table and find shoes again. Frequently the shoes one would find were for the same foot or else you had one wooden shoe and one leather shoe. That was sufficient to stand roll call but it certainly added to our anguish during our work, because it caused wounds upon our feet. Numerous were my friends who went into the infirmary because they had wounds in their legs, and they never came out again.
Q What did they do to the internees who came to roll call without shoes? to Block 25.
Q They were gassed then?
A Yes, they were gassed. They were gassed for any reason whatsoever. Their condition was, moreover, absolutely horrible. When we were stacked eight hundred within a block and could scarcely move, they were in blocks of similar dimensions fifteen hundred of them.
That is the Jewish women. That is to say that many of them could not sleep during the whole night or even stretch out.
Q Can you talk about the infirmary?
Q Would you please indicate what the revier was in the camp? sick. You cannot really give the name of hospital to that place, because it does not correspond in any way to the idea that we have of a hospital. To reach them one had first to obtain authorization from the block leader. He seldom granted such authorization. When you finally succeeded in getting it, you were led in columns before the infirmary. No matter what the weather, whether it snowed or whether it rained, even if you had 40 degrees of fever, you had to wait for several hours in line in order to be examined. Then frequently some of the patients would die outside before the door of the infirmary before they could enter the place. Even to stand in line in front of the infirmary was a dangerous thing in itself, because if the line was too long the SS came along, picked up all the women who were waiting, and took them directly to Block No. 25.
Q That is to say, to the gas chamber?
A Yes; to the gas chamber. That is why frequently the women preferred not to go to the infirmary, and they died at their task or at roll call. After the evening roll call in the winter time, every day one could find the bodies of the dead who had died along the roadside. The only advantage in the infirmary is that if you were assigned to a bed you didn't have to answer roll call. Of course, when the beds were less than one metre in width, four women in one bed, each suffering from a different disease, some who came in because they had contusions of their leg would catch typhus or dysentery. only when they were absolutely rotten. They were covered with vermin. You could see lice crawling like ants on the mattresses. During the typhus epidemic, one of the women said that she could not sleep all night because of the lice, and she spent the night shaking her blanket on a piece of paper.
She literally was emptying the vermin on the paper, and this lasted for hours.
There were practically no medicines. Therefore, the patients assigned to beds remained their without care, without hygiene, without being washed. Those who died remained there for several hours, laying alongside those who were sick, and finally, when they were discovered, they were simply thrown over the side of the bed and they were then dragged in front of the block. There the column would come and fetch them on small stretchers, with the head and legs drooped over the side. In the morning and at night they went from the infirmary to the morgue. the stretchers were replaced by organized cots, because there were too many bodies to be removed. During those periods of epidemics, from 200 to 250 cadavers each day.
Q How many people died in those days? winters, from 200 to 350.
Q Was the infirmary open to any of the inmates?
A No. When we came in the Jewish women could not be admitted. They were directly led to the gas chamber. At Auschwitz there were experimental blocks that? because of the vermin there, they disinfected the blocks with gas. These disinfections were the cause of many, many deaths also, because while you were proceeding with gas disinfection, the prisoners were taken to the shower and their clothes were taken away from them. Then the clothes were taken to be steamed, and the internees remained naked outside while awaiting their clothing. They even sent those who were sick, when they could barely stand upon their legs, to the showers. It is quite evident that a great many of them would die in the course of such proceedings. Those who could not move were washed all in the sane basin during the disinfection.
Q How were you fed? a liter of rutabaga soup, and a few grams of margarine or a thin slice of sausage in the evening.
Q Regardless of the work that you were called upon to perform?
A Regardless of the work that we were called upon to perform. Some who had to work in the factory at Lounion, which was an ammunition factory where they made grenades and shells, received what was known as a supplemental ration when their production was satisfactory. They had to answer roll call as we did, and they were at work twelve hours in the factory. They came back to the camp after the day's tasks, and they went and returned on foot. It was an ammunition factory. I don't know to what company it belonged. It was called Lounion.
Q Was it the only factory?
A No. There was another one in Brudno, but as I did not work there I dont know what they did in that factory. The internees who were taken for Brudno never came back to our camp.
Q. Will you tell us about the experiments?
A. With regard to the experiments, I have seen in theinfirmary, because I was employed at the revere, the line of young Jewish women from Salonica who were waiting in front of the ray room for sterilization. I know that they also operated by castration in the men's camp. With regard to the experiments carried out on one woman, I am familiar with the problem, because my friend, a woman doctor, Helene Solomon-Langevin, who has returned to France, worked for several months in that block to take care of the sick, and she always refused to participate in those experiments. They sterilized women either by inoculation or by operation; likewise also with rays. I knew of several women who had been thus experimented upon. There was a very high mortality rate among those experimented upon. Women who refused to be sterilized were sent to a hard-labor commando, that is punishment labor.
Q. Did one return from such commondos?
A. Very seldom. It was indeed an exception if one came back.
Q. Tell us about the sterilization.
A. The Germans said that they were seeking the best method for sterilizing in order to replace in the occupied countries the local population with Germans at the end of a generation; after they had won the war; after liquidating the inhabitants working for them as slaves.
Q. In the infirmary did you see pregnant women?
A. The Jewish women, when they came in in a state of pregnancy, were subjected to abortion when their pregnance was nearing maturity. After the birth they drowned the babies in a bucket of water. I know that because I worked in the infirmary, and the woman who was assigned to that task was a German nid-wife who was a common-law criminal, guilty of having performed abortion operations. After a while a doctor came, and for months they did not kill the Jewish babies. But one fine day an order came from Berlin saying that they had to be done away with. Then the women and their babies were called to the infirmary. They went up in a truck and they were taken to the gas chamber.
Q. Why did you say that an order came from Berlin?
A. Because I knew the internees who worked in the secretariat of the SS, in particular a Slovakian woman by the name of Hertha Rot, who is now working at UNRRA at Bratislava.
Q. And she told you that?
A. Yes, she did. And moreover, I also knew men who worked in the gas commando.
Q. You have told us about these Jewish mothers. Were there other women with children in your camp?
A. Non-Jewish women were allowed to bear their babies, and the babies were not taken away from them. But considering the horrible conditions in the camp, seldom did the babies live for more than four or five weeks. There was a block where the Polish and Russian mothers were located. One day the Russian mothers, having been accused of making too much noise, had to stand roll call all day long in front of the block, naked, with their babies held in their arms.
Q. What was the disciplinary system of the camp? Who kept surveillance and imposed discipline?
A. Generally speaking, the SS saved a good many of their own personnel by employing criminals for the surveillance of the camp. They themselves performed only supervisory functions over them. These internees were taken from the common-law criminals. They were Germans, and sometimes also of other nationalities; but most of them were of German nationality. By corruption and by denounciation and terror they succeeded in making veritable human beasts of themselves, and one had as much to complain about them as about the SS themselves. They beat us just as hard as the SS, and with regard to the SS the women were as savage as the men were. There is no difference to be drawn between the men and women. The system that was employed by the SS to lower human beings to the very lowest by terror and causing them to commit acts which must have brought shame upon them -- they succeeded in dishumanizing them, and that is what the SS thought. It took a great deal of courage to resist this atmosphere of terror and corruption.
Q. Who distributed punishments?
A. The SS leaders, women and men.
Q. What was the nature of the punishments?
A. Corporal punishment. In particular, one of the most usual punishments was fifty blows of a stick on the back. That was administered with a machine which I saw. It was a sort of swinging system, and one SS was handling it. There were also endless roll calls during the night or also gymnastics; flat on your belly and up and down and up and down for hours. Then when you faltered you were beaten with sticks and taken to block twenty-five.
Q. What about the SS guards and the women? What was their conduct with them?
A. At Auschwitz there was a house of prostitution for the SS and also for the Kapos, that is, they were assistant guards. There was another house for the letter. Moreover, when the SS needed servants they came accompanied by the supervisor, the woman commandant of the camp. They would select during the disinfecting operation, and they designated young women, and the woman leader would pull her out of the ranks, would examine her, and make humorous remarks about her physique, and if they liked her then they would hire her as a maid, with the consent of the women supervisor, who would say to the girl that she must obey absolutely, no matter what was asked of her.
Q. Why did they go during disinfecting?
A. Because they were all naked at the time of the disinfecting.
Q. The system of demoralization and corruption, -- was it exceptional?
A. No. In all the camps where I have been the system was identical. And I spoke to internees who came from camps where I had never been, and the some story everywhere. The system is identical no matter what the camp is. There may be slight variations. I believe Auschwitz was one of the worst. And I went also to Ravensbruch. There also was a house of prostitution, and there they also recruited among the women for the purposes of prostitution.
Q. According to you, then, everything was put into effect in order to degrade those women?
A. Yes indeed.
Q. What do you know about the transportation of Jewish women who were brought in from Romainville?
A. When we left the fort of Romainville we had left behind us the Jewish women who were there the same time we were.
They were sent to Grancy, and then they arrived at Auschwitz, where we found them again three weeks later; three weeks after we arrived. Out of 1,200 only 125 actually came into the campt; the others went immediately to the gas chambers. Of the 125 not one was left after one month of the 125. The transports were carried out in the following manner: they selected first the older people, older women, the mothers and the children, and they were put into lorries, as well as the sick or those who seemed to be of weak constitution. They only took the young women, the young girls, young men -- the latter, of course, were sent to the men's camp. Generally, out of a transport of about 1,000 to 1,5000, seldom more than 250 actually came into the camp. That was really the maximum; the rest of them were directly put away to the gas chamber. Through a system of selection they also chose women in good health between the ages of twenty and thirty who were sent to the experimental blocks, and the young firls and the women who were somewhat older, who had not been selected for this purpose, were sent to the camp and, well, like ourselves, they were tattoed and their heads were shaved.
It was the period when large transports of Hungarian Jews came, 700,000 about. Doctor Monella, who was carrying out experiments, kept the twins from all the transports, and generally regardless of their age, all twins; just so the two could be present at the same time. Then in that block you had babies and you had adults, right there. I don't know whether in addition to bloodletting and other things -- I don't know what they did to them. the convoys. You were present? the block where we lived, was right opposite the place where the train arrived. Instead of making the selection at the place where they arrived, there was a side line which took the train almost to the gas chamber, about one hundred yards from the stop was the gas chamber, and the train was right in front of our block, and there were, of course, two rows of barbed wire between our house and the train. We could see the cars being opened; the soldier would bring the men, women, and children out of the cars, and then you could see the heart-rending scenes of old couples being separated from one another; mothers being forced to abandon their young girls, since the young women entered the camp and the mother and child were immediately taken to the gas chamber. All of those people were not aware of the fate that was in store for them; they were merely bewildered because they were being separatef from each other, and they did not know whether they were going to their death or not. say, in June and July 1944 there was an orchestra of internee personnel. They were all young girls, very prettily dressed in white blouses. They played, while the selecting was being made at the time of the arrival of the train, cheerful tunes like the "Merry Widow" and the barcarolle from "The Contes d'Hoffmann", and so on. Then they told them that this was a labor camp, and inasmuch as they did not enter the camp they only saw the outside there, the little platform surrounded with green flowers. Naturally, seeing only the orchestra they didn't realize what was awaiting them. Those who were selected for gas chambers, that is, the old people and children and the mothers, were escorted to a red-brick building.