Shoah Page #22

once the doors of the gas chambers

were opened...

the unbearable sight.

People were packed together like basalt,

like blocks of stone.

How they tumbled out of the gas chamber!

I saw that several times.

That was the toughest thing to take.

You could never get used to that.

It was impossible.

CREMATORIUM IV:

[ Lanzmann ]

Impossible.

Yes.

You see, once the gas was poured in,

it worked like this:

It rose from the ground upwards.

And in the terrible struggle

that followed,

because it was a struggle.

The lights were switched off

in the gas chambers.

It was dark, no one could see.

So the strongest people

tried to climb higher.

Because they probably realized

that the higher they got,

the more air there was.

They could breathe better.

Ja?

That caused the struggle.

Secondly, most people

tried to push their way to the door.

It was psychological:

They knew where the door was,

so maybe they could force their way.

It was instinctive,

a death struggle.

Which is why children...

and weaker people,

and the aged,

always wound up at the bottom.

The strongest were on top.

Because in the death struggle...

a father didn't realize his son lay...

beneath him.

And when the doors were opened?

They fell out.

People fell out like blocks of stone,

like rocks falling out of a truck.

But near the Zyklon gas, there was a void.

There was no one

where the gas crystals went in.

An empty space.

Probably the victims realized that

the gas worked strongest there.

- And the people were...?

- Ja.

The people were battered.

They struggled and fought

in the darkness.

They were covered in excrement,

in blood,

from ears and noses.

One also sometimes saw

that the people lying on the ground,

because of the pressure of the others,

were unrecognizable.

Children had their skulls crushed.

- Yes.

- What?

It was awful.

Vomit.

Blood from the ears and noses.

Probably even menstrual fluid...

sure of it.

There was everything

in that struggle for life,

that death struggle.

It was terrible to see.

That was the toughest part.

FILIP MULLER, Czech Jew

survivor of the 5 liquidations

of the Auschwitz special detail

It was pointless

to tell the truth to anyone

who crossed the threshold

of the crematorium.

You couldn't save anyone there.

It was impossible to save people.

One day, in 1943,

when I was already in Crematorium V,

a train from Bialystok arrived.

A prisoner on the special detail

saw a woman in the undressing room,

who was the wife of a friend of his.

He came right out and told her,

You are going to be exterminated.

In 3 hours, you'll be ashes.

The woman believed him

because she knew him.

She ran all over

and warned the other women.

We're going to be killed.

We're going to be gassed.

Mothers carrying their children

on their shoulders

didn't want to hear that.

They decided the woman was crazy.

They chased her away.

So she went to the men.

To no avail.

Not that they didn't believe her.

They'd heard rumors

in the Bialystok ghetto,

or in Grodno, and elsewhere.

But who wanted to hear that!

When she saw that no one would listen,

she scratched her whole face.

Out of despair. In shock.

And she started to scream.

[ Muller Continues ]

So what happened?

Everyone was gassed.

The woman was held back.

We had to line up in front of the oven.

First they tortured her horribly,

because she wouldn't betray him.

In the end, she pointed to him.

He was taken out of the line

and thrown alive into the oven.

We were told,

Whoever says anything will end like that!

We, in the special detail,

kept trying to figure out

if there was a way

we could tell people

to inform them.

But our experience,

in several instances

where we were able to tell people,

showed that it was of no use.

That it made their last moments

even harder to bear.

At most, we thought it might help...

Jews from Poland,

or Jews from Theresienstadt

(the Czech family camp),

who'd already spent 6 months in Birkenau,

we thought it might have been

of use in such cases

to tell people.

But imagine what it was like

in other cases:

Jews from Greece,

from Hungary, from Corfu

who'd been traveling for 10 or 12 days,

starving,

without water for days, dying of thirst,

they were half-crazed when they arrived.

They were dealt with differently.

They were only told,

Get undressed,

you'll soon get a mug of tea.

These people were in such a state

because they'd been traveling so long,

that their only thought

was to quench their thirst.

And the SS executioners

knew that very well.

It was all preprogrammed,

a calculated part

of the extermination process

that if people were so weak

and weren't given something to drink,

they'd rush into the gas chamber.

But in fact,

all these people were already

being exterminated

before reaching the gas chambers.

Think of the children.

They begged their mothers, screaming,

Mother, please, water, water!

The adults, too,

who'd spent days without water,

had the same obsession.

Informing those people

was quite pointless.

CORFU:

[ Bells Jingling ]

[ Metal Banging, Distant]

[ Banging Grows Louder]

[ Banging Continues]

[ Banging Continues, Distant]

[ People Chattering In Greek]

[ Metal Banging ]

- [Greek] Grab it from there.

- [ Greek] Yes, grab it from there.

- Put it right there.

- Okay.

- Right there.

- Okay, yes.

Okay, be careful. Wait.

You'll come and pick it up later?

- Yes.

- Put it down.

- In a second.

Hold on a second.

Just hold on a second.

Maybe if you removed this?

Got it? That's how you'll load it.

Come and pick it up next week.

Understood?

Now move the cart away from here.

Move the cart.

Yes, let's make some space.

[ Man ]

So you're an actor now.

Let's finish this.

MOSHE MORDO:

[ Man, In Italian]

These are my nephews.

They burned them in Birkenau.

Two of my brothefs kids.

They took them

to the crematorium with their mom.

They were all burned in Birkenau.

My brother.

- [ Lanzmann] Si?

He was sick,

and they put him in the oven,

in the crematorium, and burned him.

That was at Birkenau.

[ Mordo, In Italian]

The oldest boy was 17,

the second was 15.

Two more kids kaput with their morn.

Yes, 4 children I lost.

- [ Woman ] Suo flare/lo?

- No.

[Women Chattering In Greek]

[ Lanzmann, In Italian ]

Your father too?

- [Woman Repeats Phrase]

- My dad, him too.

How old was your father?

Dad was 85 years old.

- 85 years old and he died in Auschwitz.

- Si.

Auschwitz, that's right.

[Woman Murmuring In Italian]

85 and he died at Birkenau.

My father.

- Your father made the whole trip.

- Si.

[ Mordo]

The whole family died.

First the gas chamber,

then the crematorium.

[ Man Singing In Hebrew]

[ Mordo Singing In Hebrew]

[ Continues ]

[ Continues ]

[ Ends ]

[ In French]

On Friday morning, June 9, 1944,

members of the Corfu Jewish

community came, very frightened,

and reported to the Germans.

This square was full

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