Mrs. Pearl Samet (Part II)

Next they rounded us up. First they crowded us into the shul in the center of town, and then they put us in the school. We stayed in the school all day and late into the night. They made us give over all our belongings, especially our jewelry.

In the morning, we were taken by horse-drawn wagons to Ujhel. We could have been there in an hour and a half, but instead they drove us around and around. Toward morning we arrived in Ujhel. We stood in line with the packages and the children. We hadn’t slept all night. Here we were let off the wagons.

The Hungarian gendarmes were tremendous resha’im. They shouted and frightened all the people. We didn’t dare answer them back.

From the ghettos we were transported to Auschwitz. When we were about to leave the ghetto, we were gathered together. We stayed in our places overnight and the next day was more of the same. We just stood around and waited. We weren’t allowed to move. Toward noon we were told to line up, five in a row. We trudged in a line until we came to a station. There we were told to climb up onto the train carriages. Anyone who had a hard time getting up was beaten with straps.

Finally we were all in. We were 80, 90 people, stuffed into one train car. Baruch Hashem, my family was still together. They put a little water and a little food into the train car. The bathroom situation was terrible. They put down two buckets and everyone had to use these two buckets when they needed a toilet.

I remember that this was on a Wednesday. Toward evening we began to move. We traveled a little and stopped, and again traveled a little and stopped. The children were crying from hunger, but there was no food to give them.

We traveled like this until we arrived in Auschwitz on Shabbos morning. When the train stopped, we covered the buckets that were used as toilets and we bentched Rosh Chodesh.

About two hours later they opened the doors of the train cars and started screaming, “Out! Out! Out!” Some people still had some belongings with them, but they didn’t allow us to take anything with us off the train. We had arrived in Auschwitz.

As we were getting off, a Polish man came over to my sister, who was short and skinny, and said, “Say that you are 18 years old and you are able to work.” That’s exactly what my sister did, and they let her live.

Can you describe the scene when you arrived?

We were holding each other’s hands as we got off the transport in Auschwitz. They separated the men and the women. I don’t know how, but they snatched away my mother and I never saw her again. The children were sent with the women. My father went with the men, but we couldn’t see what happened to him.

Wherever you turned, there were people shouting, grabbing. What can I say? It’s not something that can be described. People were screaming, trying to find each other, trying to run after family members.

A father and daughter were together with us on the train. The father was a Dayan but not a well person. He walked with crutches and his daughter took care of him. When they separated the men and women, this girl began screaming, “Tatechka, Tatechka!” She began running after him. A German saw her and began hitting her. When the father saw what was happening he picked up his crutch to hit the German back. In return, the German shot him on the spot.

The transports arrived one after another. There wasn’t enough room in the crematorium for all the people on these transports. One transport arrived from Bereg with people whose heads were shaven — they had no hair. I clearly remember how horrified I was to see these people.

I watched what happened when a transport of people arrived. They lined up all the men, women and children; line after line went in to the crematorium and nobody came out. I saw the people waiting in line, from up close. This upset me more than anything else. I cried a lot. Many girls were so broken from this sight that they couldn’t go on. Then someone warned us to stop staring. “If you’re caught looking, you’ll go straight to the crematorium, too. If you want to live, you must pull yourself away from there.” It was so bitter.

It took two or three hours for the passengers on each transport to go through the crematorium. (Later, it got even worse. I was there when they brought in a Hungarian transport. They became very quick at it. Within a couple of minutes it was all over.)

to be continued…


These survivors’ memoirs are being compiled by Project Witness.

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