The gates to Auschwitz

Trude Levi continues her tale, talking of the journey to Auschwitz and life in the concentration camp.

The journey to Auschwitz

After two days the prisoners were put into cattle trucks for the train journey to Auschwitz. Trude's group was told they were privileged because only intellectuals would be in their truck. The usual number of people in each compartment was between 70 and 90 people. There were 120 in theirs.

Listen - Remaining civilised

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Trude and the other new arrivals were stripped naked, searched and shaved from head to toe by the male guards. They were thrown just one item of clothing - no underwear and no shoes. They were marched away into another part of Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Bikenau.

They were put into a wooden hut. 1200 women sitting back to back, knees pulled up, arms pulled in.

They had so little to eat that, just four and a half weeks later, when they were selected to work in Birkenwalt outcamp the foreman came to inspect them and said that they had "asked for workers and not skeletons". The SS had to feed them up for the next two weeks so the factory would accept them.

The factory was five-and-a-half kilometres away, and the workers had to walk there. Sometimes they were put on a train for part of the journey as the foreman said the the workers were arriving too exhausted to work.

Trude worked in the part of the factory preparing Butterfly bombs.

Sabotage and liberation >