Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Miklos Nyiszli Read Free Book Online Page B

I not in the Sonderkommando and were all this not taking place in the “Number one Krema.”
    Dr. Mengele left without a word. Never did an SS, no matter how low in rank, greet a KZ prisoner. I locked the door to the dissecting room; from now on it was my responsibility.

    I returned to my room and sat down, wanting to collect my thoughts. It was not easy. I went back to the beginning. The image of my abandoned home came back to me. I could see the neat little house, with its sunny terraces and pleasant rooms, rooms in which I had spent so many long and trying hours with my patients, but with the satisfaction of knowing I had given them comfort and strength. The same house in which I had spent so many hours of happiness with my family.
    We had already been separated for a week. Where could they be, lost in this enormous mass, anonymous, like all those swallowed by this gigantic prison? Had my daughter been able to stay with her mother, or had they already been separated? What had happened to my aged parents, whose last years I had tried to make more pleasant? What had become of my beloved younger sister, whom I had raised practically as my own child after our father had fallen ill? It had been such a pleasure to love and help them. I had no doubt about their fate. They were certainly en route to one of the forty-car trains that would bring them here to the Jewish ramp of the Auschwitz extermination camp. With one mechanical wave of his hand Dr. Mengele would direct my parents into the left-hand column. And my sister would also join that column, for even if she were ordered into the right-hand column, she would surely beg, on bended knee, for permission to go with our mother. So they would let her go, and she, with tears in her eyes, would shower them with thanks.

    The news of my arrival had spread like wildfire throughout the crematorium. Both the SS personnel assigned here and the Sonderkommando came to call on me. The door was first opened by an SS noncom. Two extremely tall, militant looking Schaarführer entered. I knew that the attitude I then assumed would determine their conduct towards me in the future. I recalled Dr. Mengele’s order: I was responsible only to him. Consequently I considered this visit merely as a private act of courtesy, and remained seated instead of rising and standing at attention. I greeted them and asked them to sit down.
    They stopped in the middle of the room and looked me over. I felt the full importance of this moment: it was the first impression that counted. It seemed to me that my manner was the best one to have adopted, for their rigid face muscles relaxed slightly and, with a gesture of careless indifference, they sat down.
    The scope of our conversation was extremely limited. How was my trip? What was I doing in the KZ? These were questions they could not ask, for the answers would embarrass them. Whereas politics, the war, and conditions in the KZ were subjects I could not broach. Still, this did not bother me, for the years I had spent in prewar Germany furnished plenty of material for discussion. They were much impressed by the fact that I spoke their own language better, or at least in a more cultured manner, than they did. I soon realized that there were even certain expressions they did not understand, although they carefully refrained from letting me know it. I knew their country well, was fully informed about life in their cities and their homes, and about their religious and moral concepts. So conversation was not overly difficult for me. I had a feeling that this examination had also been a success, for they left smiling.
    More visitors arrived, men in civilian clothes, cleanshaven and smartly dressed. The Kapo-in-chief 3 and two of his men entered my room. This too was a courtesy call. I learned that they were the ones who had had my room prepared. They had heard of my arrival and invited me to dine with them and meet the other prisoners.
    As a matter of fact it was almost