Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor's True Story Of Auschwitz Quotes
"I cannot acquit myself of the charge that I am, in part, responsible for the destruction of my own parents and of my two young sons."
"We tried to live apart from him, until one evening he demanded to join us."
"He told us about motor vans, constructed expressly to gas prisoners."
"The most serious occurred in early 1944. One day my husband was called to the police station for interrogation by the feared S.S."
"We clutched each others’ hands and tried to be cool for the children’s sake."
"Ninety-six men, women, and children in a space that would have accommodated only eight horses."
"The children cried; the sick groaned; the older people lamented; and even those who, like me, were in perfect health, began to pay attention to their own discomforts."
"My flesh crawled. How could anyone believe such fantastic tales?"
"This was to be the last time that I embraced them."
"Anything would be better than this terrible uncertainty."
"The first week in May, Dr Lengyel was summoned to the police station again."
"But no matter, the fact that Irka had been here four years showed that it was possible to exist at Birkenau."
"My world fell to pieces again. I wanted to be friends with the human being in him, not with his lust."
"The weather was cold. The skies were lowering. A wind had risen."
"I had not made such a bad bargain. I was still among the living."
"No hospital for health services had been organized and no medicine was available."
"The only light came from the corridor; there was no running water, and the wooden floor was difficult to keep clean."
"The furniture of our infirmary consisted of a pharmacy closet without shelves."
"We knew that we were exposing our patient to infection. What could we do?"
"For weeks there were no facilities for the care of the sick."
"The sick were scarcely aware of it, since all were dressed like scarecrows."
"Our eyes followed the smoke belching from the crematories—the remains of our poor neighbors."
"That afternoon a Czech boy, who was in love with a young Vertreterin from our camp, said good-bye to her through the barbed wire."
"The entire personnel in our infirmary consisted of five women! Needless to say, we were swamped with work."
"These 400 demonstrated that in spite of the barbed wire and the lash, they were not slaves but human beings."
"Imagine our feelings when we were ordered to pick up the stones and take them back to their original place!"
"Mud and the crematory—these were our greatest obsessions."
"What joy could one find in singing in Auschwitz!"
"We were all infested: those who worked in the kommandos, those who remained in the barracks, and those who were in the hospital."
"We knew that we failed, and suffered deeply because of it."
"Courage, friends! They will pay! Liberation is near!"
"We did not merit any Congressional Medals, Croix de Guerre, or Victoria Crosses."
"Our entire existence in the camp was marked by resistance."
"I have not entirely lost my faith in mankind."
"I know that the world must share the guilt collectively."
"The entire policy was calculated to reduce us to the lowest moral level."
"I must avenge them. For that I must regain my liberty."
"The Germans succeeded in degrading them physically, but they could not debase them morally."
"The Germans paid attention to nothing; their only thought was to escape this threatened region."
"The Russians dropped their "Stalin candles," and for a minute the place was bathed in lights."
"I had survived the gas chambers; I would survive the river."