The outbreak of the war between Poland and Germany heralded the destruction of the Jewish

communities. In the year 1939, I returned to Zambrow from the front, as a Polish fighter. It was

The Germans had taken possession of our region beginning from the first day of the war. On the

second day, German patrols roamed the streets. In the month of June 1941, the Germans called

together the activists of the shtetl and said, that they want to have a Jewish representation for the

Jewish populace. It was at that time that the first Judenrat was created, with R’ Gershon Srebrowicz

at its head. The first demand, that the Germans put forward, was – a financial levy. It was the

responsibility of the head [sic: of the Judenrat] to provide this ‘contribution’ in the sum of hundreds

of thousands of gold marks, a levy which the German authorities imposed on the Jewish populace.

A failure to provide this contribution at the precisely designated time, placed the lives of tens of Jews

in jeopardy. The demands of the Germans became ever more difficult and oppressive. They began

to seize Jews and send them to work on the digging of trenches near the Zambrow barracks. Among

those seized, on one day, was my father vg. My father told us that, at work, an officer approached

him and asked: ‘Jew, what is your occupation? – ‘I am a tenant farmer,’ my father replied. The

German then screamed at him in a wild voice: ‘You lie, Jew, you are lying!’ He went off, and asked

other Jews about my father. Discovering that my father had told the truth, the German called my

father away to a side, and asked him to stand on a bench. He called together a number of Germans

to look at a Jewish tenant farmer. He questioned my father about his family, about the children, and

wanted to know if the children are also tenant farmers. After work, he gave my father a loaf of bread

and told him never to come back to work on the digging, but to remain at his work on the land. When

our father told this to us, we understood that we needed to hide ourselves...

the old cow-herder and his son-in-law, Leibl Dzenchill, and other additional Jews, whose names I

no longer recall. They were taken away – and we never saw them again alive. We were told that they

were working here, or there, on roads, and similar stories...

them for work in the Zambrow barracks. Regarding the ‘contributions,’ the Judenrat failed, not

having the resources to satisfy the very high German demands. The members of the Judenrat were

beaten murderously more than one time. In the end, the Germans dissolved the Judenrat. They found

a Jew named Gl icksman, and gave him full power to set up a new Judenrat on a completely different basis. Glicksman, a scion of Grudzonc, was an assimilated Jew without any Jewish feelings, and spoke the German language. He verbally abused the Jews, had bad names for them, and raised his voice to them even higher and more sharply than the Germans. His power over the Jews was practically unconstrained. His police – stern and insolent. If it happened that they could not get what they wanted in a gentle way, they knew very well how to extract it with severity.

The order was given that on August 19, at 5:00AM, all the Jews in Zambrow were to assemble on

the marketplace. All, except for the small children, have to be in the street. Anyone that will be

encountered in a house, will be shot on the spot. Glicksman issued this order. His police force then

went from house to house to inform everyone about this issued order. There were many craftsmen

that worked in the surrounding villages, so Glicksman’s messengers traveled there and brought them

back to the city. They were told to dress themselves in their holiday finest. Various rumors began

to spread: some said they were to be taken to work; others said that they were looking for

communists.

marketplace. At about five o’clock, there appeared armored vehicles with S.S. troops in them, armed

with machine guns. They took up a formation surrounding the marketplace. We were arrayed in rows

like soldiers. And then the ‘work’ started. Incidentally, the Poles knew how to keep a secret, that they

[sic: the Jews] were to be taken away and killed. They stood behind the houses, and looked out from

corners towards the marketplace, waiting for the moment, when they could begin the work of

plundering the abandoned city. We, from our places in the marketplace, could see how the company

of Poles was forming itself, with bands around their arms. It became very clear to us, what it was that

the Poles were intending to do.

young men, and women, and took them out of the rows. They were immediately arranged in groups

of five, facing the direction of Lomza, diagonally opposite the Tshizev Street. I was standing with

my father and mother, and my two brothers, Israel and Yankl. My brother Moshe, and his wife, stood

in a second row. A thought dawned on me and my youngest brother: since another row was formed,

selected by Glicksman’s men, we were not to stand and wait for the S.S. troops to come to us, and

we ran over to the second side of the street, and placed ourselves in that row. And this is how I saw,

five minutes later, how my father with my brother Israel, and the brothers Meir and David Bronack,

came to the general row. We stood facing the direction of Bialystok. Later on, it became forbidden

for us to look at the second side. I will recall here, that for the elderly in the city, with Rabbi

Regensberg at their head, the Germans brought a big freight truck, and took them off in the direction

of Warsaw.

The Germans cordoned off the streets that ran parallel to the Tshizev Street, that is, the Jatkewa and

Neben Gasse, which was to include Szliedziewsky’s and Dembrowsky’s factories, and the river

should be a boundary line. The burgomaster of the city was Augus t Kaufmann, the German, who

lived diagonally opposite the cemetery. He confiscated Szliedziewsky’s wealth from Gedalia

Tykoczinsky kz, and from Dembowsky – our yard along with the buildings. It looked like the deal

was done, but something behind the scenes caused them to regret this and walk away from

abandoning their businesses. For us Jews, this change was a matter of great significance. It meant

that we would have more room for those who would be taken into the ghetto. Because of this change,

things all of a sudden quieted down. And since the space on the two small streets was too crowded

for the those Jews who remained, rumors spread that the town council had taken a decision to

approach the Germans, and ask them to take away another couple of hundred Jews, asserting that the

severe overcrowding in the ghetto would endanger the health of the Christian populace, which, by

the way, would be separated from the ghetto by a barbed wire fence. In the meantime, they began

to build a fence, and in the corner of the Bialystok road, near Kaufmann’s house, a tower was

erected. It became clear, that this enclosed area had been designated to be a ghetto.

Two weeks and two days later, the Germans again ordered the Judenrat to call all of the Jews

together on the marketplace, with the same warning, that they will shoot anyone on the spot, who

failed to come. Everyone has to appear at the designated location on the marketplace. Everyone,

except children. This notification from the Jewish police, engendered a new outbreak of panic, which

was anticipated, because they no longer forcibly dragged people along. Whoever could hide

themselves did so. I, the rest of my family and the little Yankeleh Kuropatwa, spent the night at our

colony under the open sky. At seven o’clock in the morning, the peasants, who had come to the city,

were intensely amazed, when they found us in the field. They brought us the tidings, that the

Germans had, once again, led off many people, men and women. At ten in the morning, I was already

at the yard on the Lomza Gasse. The Poles had come to see if any of the Jews remained, fully

prepared to seize booty. And when they saw me and my brother Yankeleh, they said to me, in

amazement: ‘You are still here?’

‘Now there will be enough space for the Jews,’ the Poles were heard to say. The Zambrow ghetto

was created, but all the Jewish tenant farmers were obliged to remain on their places outside the

ghetto, and work their fields. This was the wish of Kishel, the German land farming inspector. It was

harvest time, when the grain needed to be gathered in, the potatoes dug up, and to get ready for the

winter planting, and he therefore had need of the hands of the Jewish tenant-farmers. The entire

population of the ghetto derived help during that time by this. When a Jew was caught outside of the

ghetto, he would say that he had been working in the fields with a Jewish tenant-farmer – and this

was legitimate.

At the end of September 1941, we were given no more than fifteen minutes of time to go out, that

is, to leave our houses, the barns with grain, the machines, horses and cows – and return to the

ghetto. My mother, myself and my brother Yankeleh, were taken in by the family of Yudl Eusman.

Together, we were in a two-story house – the Eusman family, Alter Dwozhets and we three.

It was a hard and difficult life. We had many orphaned children. Also, parents that had lost their

children. Fate, however, declared, that there would be some solitary families that remained intact.

The Zambrow ghetto became a place of refuge for Jews from the surrounding towns. The ghetto was

literally the center and gathering point for workers, that the Germans drew from there, for labor

gangs to build and pave streets and roads. Our gang worked at breaking stones, and pouring asphalt.

All of the Jewish workers worked only for the Germans. there was a gang that worked in the

Zambrow barracks, where the Germans had created a camp for Russian prisoners of war.

We lived in the ghetto under a despotic régime of self-governance. Glicksman, the ‘Chief Jew’ has

a police staff under him, and ruled his kingdom with a high hand.

The thousands of prisoners in the Zambrow camp fell victim to hunger and typhus. The typhus

disease was carried to the ghetto. It was said that since the surrounding fields had been made filthy

with the fecal waste from the barracks, that the cucumbers that we ate from those fields carried the

typhus bacteria.

Near the river, in the ghetto, we had a hospital. The doctors were Dr. Grundland and Dr. Friedman.

The Head Nurse was Masha Slowik. Their dedication was without limit. But their reach was to

limited to be of help.

kasha, grits, potatoes, and cooked up a bit of food for the abandoned orphan children.

no resources to be found in the ghetto. In the last months, the Germans permitted the transfer of a

new, unfinished house from outside the ghetto. The house was moved, and was set up on the account

In the meantime, a variety of news reached us, brought by refugees. They told of Treblinka near

Malkin. The human mind could grasp, and then not grasp what this meant. However, we did grasp

that we, too, were exposed to the danger of extermination.

When life had already lost all semblance of order, all those who remained alive, gave away a large

part of their furniture, bed linen, and clothing, to Poles that they knew. And on another day, it was

already possible to see how displeased they were, to encounter someone from the family, who knew

about these transferred valuables. There were also instances, where Poles immediately refused to

return any item, that someone wanted to sell, in order to buy bread, and it became necessary to look

for help from the Judenrat, meaning from the Germans, to reclaim those items from Polish hands.

The Jews of the ghetto were like a thorn in the eyes of our neighbors, the Poles. They would say:

‘See, the Jews have been settled in the ghetto, and its like nothing, they are alive. If it were us, we

would have died of hunger within a month.’

Germans had ordered. The Judenrat police went out to carry out this order. For us, this was the

signal, that the danger of liquidation’ was near. The ghetto residents, in resignation, and terrorized

by fear of death, began to look for stratagems by which to save themselves. Whoever had gentile

acquaintances, carried off whatever remnants of goods they had, to have them hidden, or to plead

for mercy, that they should hide that individual himself. The work gangs marched into the ghetto.

We gathered at the Judenrat, and demanded that Glicksman tell the truth.

Glicksman began by addressing his police, and began to shout over the heads of the gathered people:

‘What do they want, the dirty Jews? The Germans took away these things in order to exchange them

for other things.’

The Zambrow Jews, seasoned from their troubles, and knowing their ‘Senior Jew’ didn’t take him

at his word. When nightfall came, everyone took for the barbed wire. The barbed wire was cut, and

we fled underneath to the river, near Dembowski’s and Szliedzesky’s. Men, women, and older

children ran, with packs on their backs, to the extent that they had the strength to carry. We fled to

the nearest forest. I, and my mother and brother, at about ten o’clock at night, went off in the same

direction. In the ghetto, the only ones left were older people, who surrendered to their fate, and

children in cradles, that parents were unable to take along. In the late hours of the night, when

Glicksman saw that he was left without Jews, he, and his entire coterie also fled and hid themselves,

out of fear of the Germans. Those who arrived in the forest later, told that it had already become

difficult to get out of the ghetto, because the Germans had surrounded it.

Fate decreed that one misfortune should be worst than the next. Fleeing into the forest, we knew, was

no salvation. However, people, when exposed to the danger of being killed, will run anywhere in the

world, driven by an inner force, an impetus, that cannot be contained. Having run a considerable

distance, one remains standing, spent, without any strength left, and one asks the other: ‘Where do

we go?’ The only answer that could be was: ‘Into the forest!’ And how will they be able to live, even

if just being able to regain some equilibrium – men, women, and children, hungry, beaten down,

without help, surrounded with a murderous foe on all sides? – To this there was no answer.

My mother, my brother and I, dragged ourselves to the Czeczork Forest. We sought out a hiding

place between shrubs, and settled ourselves there. We hear people running nearby, hearing their

heavy breathing and mumbling. The night was long, and didn’t want to end. Very early, we heard

a great disturbance in the forest, the sound of a struggle. I crawled out of my ditch, and immediately

see in front of me a cadre of Poles, in groups of five, six, or more, with staves and scythes in their

hands, pushing the Jews, and striking out left and right. The Jews cry, begging for mercy from their

beaters, pleading with them to take bribes, ha – money, gold – that is what they want though. Having

gotten rid of one band, we immediately fall into the hands of a second band. With each band, little

shkotzim ran along, from seven to ten years of age. They climbed under every shrub, making noise,

whistling, shouting: ‘Żydy! Żydy! Żydy! I crawled back into my hiding place and sought counsel

with my mother and brother, as to what we should do. I had just begun to get back into our ditch, and

we have a small shaygetz near us, and he is shouting at the top of his lungs: ‘Żydy! Żydy! Żydy!’ He

lets out a whistle, and the adults immediately came running. As soon as they saw us, they remained

standing, and called out, ‘Oh, Jesus, the Golombecks!’ They covered the mouth of the little rat, and

sat down next to us. As beaten down and broken as we were, we burst out in tears.

us as shepherds. In more recent times, one of them worked for August Kaufmann, the burgomaster

of the city, and sitting on the ground with us, beside the shrub, he told us: in the city placards were

hung about, which carried the notice that for the number of Jews that will be apprehended and

brought to the gendarmerie, a reward of an amount of money and a bottle of whiskey will be given.

I was able to sense that they had already gotten the whiskey. The placard also warned that, whoever

would hide a Jew, will be shot on the spot.

Night fell. Again, I sought counsel with my mother, as to what we should do. One of the members

of the band told us, after he had received money from us: ‘Run!’ So my mother said: ‘Children, if

you can save yourselves, run away from here! Let at least a memory of this family remain.’ The first

one to run was my brother Yankeleh kz. And as soon as Yankeleh went off, my mother said to me:

‘Yitzhakl try to save yourself.’ It was difficult for me to get myself moving. I was suffering from a

broken foot that I had gotten from an accident while working in Szumowo. Despite this, with the

elastic bandage, which wound around my thigh down to my toes, with all of my strength, I undertook

to flee with all of the others. In this way, I reached Bielicki’s garden. There, I hid myself in a field

booth – and had a long bitter cry.

With the setting of the sun, the Germans surrounded the forest, and opened fire. After that, they

penetrated deeper into the forest, accompanied by Poles. They again trapped a lot of Jews in their

dragnet. The truth of the matter is, that life had become repulsive to these people, and almost all of

them had decided to give themselves up.

The Poles did not permit any Jews to come into their homes. When they sold you a bit of bread, they

demanded that you immediately go away.

The Jews wore Yellow badges, in the form of a Jewish star, on the front and back. The Jews were

forbidden to walk on the sidewalk, being compelled to walk in the middle of the street, where the

sewer waste ran. Marching over then Zambrow Kosciuszko Gasse, I saw Poles, residents of

Zambrow and its vicinity, workers, merchants, peasants. All looked to the side, but I saw one shikseh

who was weeping, as she went by. This was a woman of the streets in Zambrow whom I knew...

A German soldier with a death’s head insignia on his helmet, opens up the stalag??? and lets us in.

Up to then, the Poles had fulfilled their sacred mission – and then left. There is stalag number one,

number two, and tower number 3. Thanks to God, I too, am now in Hell. People are running back

and forth. Later, I found out that this was the day when the peasants had delivered a contingent of

potatoes for the camp. But this is a story unto itself, as we see so later on.

I inquire about as to where Jews from Zambrow might be found. I am told, that block 3 will be

designated for them, and those from Lomza will occupy block 1 and 2. Block 4 held Tshizeva,

Wisoka and Umgebung. In block 5 – Jews gathered up from various places.

This is the picture: The ‘residence’ was the middle one of the three levels of cots, running the length

of the wall, cots banged together from boards and poles. Shrunken in there, sat my beloved mother.

Seeing me approach her, she gave her self a push, tearing herself to me, but then immediately falling

back for lack of any strength. I jumped up onto the cot, and my first words were: ‘Mama, forgive me,

for having left you alone.’ With tears in her eyes, my mother said to me: ‘ But I was the one who sent

you away. Do you have any news of Yankeleh?’

in the lingo of the camp, in the pot that I had brought with me.

A long row of wagons, loaded with potatoes, stood outside. The peasants, who had to wait in the line

encountered a peasant that I knew, inside the barracks, and struck up a conversation with him. And

in talking to him this way, I took off the yellow star from myself, put up the collar of my short jacket,

and took the whip out of the hands of the peasant. The peasant did not catch on to what was going

on. I ask him: ‘Where is your horse and wagon?’ He says: ‘On the other side of the fence.’ So I

gesture to him: ‘Come out of here. Here they shoot. Why do you want to loiter around here? Come

to the wagon.’ We went out of the barracks and continued talking. I passed the first guard tower

uneventfully, then the second tower, and I am now at the main tower. My heart was pounding out of fear, but I steeled myself. And here, I was out free. I am proceeding without my clothes badge, in

the middle of the sidewalk, to spite the Poles. I am stared at, indeed, with wonder, but I continue

along my way, insolently, with feigned haughtiness. I come to the ghetto, do not go in through the

gate, but through the back way, on the side of Dunovich’s fence. Big Tiska, a wall-builder encounters

me. He says: ‘You were led out of here this morning, how is it that you are coming here?’ I say: ‘The

camp commander sent me to bring back wood for the kitchen.’ In the meantime, I grabbed a

neighbor of mine, Litwinsky, with a horse and wagon. He tells me that he works in the city council,

transporting things from the ghetto. I give him 30 marks for him to transport a bit of wood for me.

The gentile permitted himself to deal. I entered my own home, and began to pack up some things

with which to cover myself, grabbed a blanket, a bit of underwear, a couple of towels. More to the

point, I wanted to take some pots, bowls, plates. And this was mostly to be retrieved from the street.

Also, I found small sacks of food, that the peasants felt was not worth taking away, lying in the

street. I filled a wagon with pots and pans and utensils, with kasha flour, with everything that came

to my hand. On top, over all of these things, I put wood that the gentile through out through the gate;

I went out, the way I came in – through the back way. I went into a bakery, and bought ten old loaves

of bread, literally dried out, for which I was charged a high price. With everything loaded onto the

wagon, I am now traveling with a great deal of merchandise. I had made up with the gentile, that at

the gate, he should say that he was sent from the ghetto for the Jews, with me as the interpreter. And

that is the way it was. I said that I was coming from the forest, and that the bread was for my family

in the camp. With luck, I got through the first gate. And they then permit you to go on further,

because they know that there is no way back. I ride over to the third block. I was greeted with great

astonishment and tumult; from whence did I bring all of these things? Previously, I had not entrusted

my great secret to anyone, so they would not know what I was thinking. I recall the elderly

Chaimsohn falling upon by neck and beginning to kiss me.

Life in the camp got progressively harder and harder from day to day. The little children that were

with us, began to die off. Also, our child, who remained after my brother Moshe & Sarah Bronack,

died. The typhus epidemic grew more intense, spreading death and desolation around. A sort of

hospital was set up, in a large and cold barracks. Using straw as the bedding, like in a horse stable,

and covered in rags, the sick expired from the cold, in pain, and agony beyond human capacity.

It was the months of November-December. Tortured by hunger, strategies were sought for how to

get bread brought in from the outside. Those who have survived must surely remember how we used

to drain the effluent from the latrines in the barracks, and take it away in large barrels as the refuse

with which to fertilize the fields. It was believed, as previously already mentioned, that it was this

waste material that was the cause of the typhus epidemic in the camp. Using these very same barrels,

the carriers of the typhus plague, they were employed for smuggling bread into the camp. We struck

a deal with a certain gentile, a latrine worker, that on the way back from the field with an empty

barrel, he should fill the vessel with a sack full of bread loaves for the camp. We paid for the bread,

with gold and precious stones, which not only once, had traces on it of having been in that barrel.

We literally fought with one another, almost like a war, for this bread. And indeed, this war led to

the revelation of this ‘conspiracy.’

The Lomza Jews had organized themselves to plan a breakout from the camp. And one out of every

ten of the group volunteered to crawl through the barbed wire, and to reach the fence. The post watch

Zambrow and Lomza residents also attempted an escape. Once again, they were fired upon.

Shmulkeh Golombeck’s son who had blundered into the barbed wire, and was wounded, was

captured, this being the younger one from Dobczyn and another young man from Zambrow, whose

name I do not remember. The third one captured was from Lomza. The executioners carried out their

vengeance in a very basic way, in front of the people as witnesses. All the Jews in the camp were

driven together on a large plaza, and the three young boys were brought there, one of them crippled

in the feet. Four S.S. troops stepped forward to do whipping, holding nagaikas^.42 All three were

stood up, and one after another, were whipped with the braided nagaikas. Two of the beat them as

if they were threshing wheat with grain in them, and each one was given thirty lashes. After the

whipping, they were taken to the hospital and they died there.

It was the middle of December, 1941. Seeing that the typhus epidemic grew more intense, and people

were dying on a daily basis, either from typhus or from hunger, the commandant of the camp, on one

day, called our representatives to him and said to them as follows: ‘I see that you are all going to die

here, and I have decided to convey you ‘further to the east,’ near Odessa. There you will work and

remain alive. Here, we have no work for you. Tell you brethren, that they should comport themselves

quietly and in an orderly fashion, and we will deal with them in a good way.’

As we understood it, Glicksman, along with the senior from Lomza, Mushinsky, again made a deal

with the camp commandant. Now the commandant no longer spoke of Odessa, but only about a labor

camp. I am not certain if he actually called out the name of Auschwitz. At this time, that name was

not familiar to us. The commandant said that in this labor camp there were factories, and he

promised that we will have the same seniors and leaders there. That is what was communicated in

that hall, that after long negotiations, that Glicksman engaged in, that we will not be sent ‘to the east’

but rather to a second camp.

life has become repulsive, and it is not possible to continue this way!’ – You could hear this in every

conversation. People, who were half-dead, for whom there are no words to describe their misfortune,

gave up on everything, making peace with their dark fate. In the meantime, news reached us, all

manner of rumors. First the Lomza block would travel. The transports will depart by night. The

extraordinary situation will be clarified. The people in all the other blocks will remain confined, not

even permitted to stick their heads out from their confinement, and it is forbidden to light candles.

Yankeleh said: ‘I no long will flee. I have nowhere to flee to. The Poles drive you out, turn you over

to the Germans. There is no Jewish settlement. Where am I going to go?’ I myself lacked nimbleness

on my feet, and I had decided to stay with my mother. And Yankeleh added: ‘Whatever happens to

you, will happen to me.’ And so we traveled. The road was strewn with frozen people, who had

fallen off the wagons. Sleighs came up from the rear, and collected them. I will never forget this

terrifying trip.

Dawn began to break when we arrived at the Tshizeva station platform. A chain of about 50-60

freight cars stood there. We were driven across the icy stretch. Those who were frozen, were dragged

by the head, and the feet, and thrown into the wagons. As to the living, about 50 were crammed into

each car, and the doors sealed from the outside. And this way, we stood and froze for long hours. In

the end, the train moved. After riding for a couple of hours, we again remained standing. We are

expiring from the cold, oppressed by hunger and thirst. We lick the ice from the rivets on the sides

of the wagon, that had grown up on their large steel heads.

In my car were: Velvel the Fisher with is wife and little daughter; Elkeh, Meir-Yankl Golombeck’s

daughter with children. We still harbored the thought that, despite all, we were being taken to

Treblinka. When we arrived at the Malkin station, and the train stopped there, a frightful panic

immediately broke out. We knew that from Malkin, one rode into a forest, and the distance is not

more than from ten to fifteen minutes a ride. Velvel’s little daughter began to tremble and spasm

over her entire body, and she screamed that she did not want to die. Following here, everyone broke

out into bitter wailing. I sat stonily in a corner, and looked at my watch. Five, six, seven minutes...

ten minutes...fifteen minutes. We are proceeding to travel further. Who can convey the agony of that

moment. ‘Yes’ – Velvel says to me – ‘Glicksman didn’t deceive us after all. Indeed, we are not going

to Treblinka, just as he said.’ Velvel, who belonged to the police staff, knew Glicksman and his ways

well.

We are happy with our newly won life. Not Treblinka, well, then it can be whatever it will be. And,

lo, once again we remain standing at a station platform, parallel to our train. My Yankeleh sticks his

head out. ‘Yitzhak, it is a military train,’ he says to me. And the kitchen stands exactly diagonally

opposite my little window. Since Yankeleh ad worked for the Germans, he spoke German quite well,

and so he says to the cook: ‘We are refugees, can we ask for something to drink?’ The cook says:

‘Give me a pot, and I will give you coffee.’ I had a small bowl with me, that we used as a urinal in

the train car. It was quickly wiped out, and Yankeleh stuck it out between the grating on the little

window, that went up and down, and in the blink of an eye, we had a bowl full of black coffee (at

the time that the bowl was on the way from the kitchen to our little window, a soldier shot twice in

that direction. However, the bowl came into our hands intact). We divided the coffee by drops, and

everyone got a taste of it. We were happy: not Treblinka, and to that, we even got a bit of black

coffee – well, there must be a God in heaven! But this joy did not last for long.

After two days and two nights of travel, we finally came to a junction. Taking down the covering

from the grated window, we saw a lit up area with large excavation machinery. The snow had

covered hills and vales. These were the chambers of Birkenau, Auschwitz.

The march began with beating and kicking, with pushing and hitting with clubs and rifles. We came

to a large tent. We were taken inside, and turned over to the hands of the camp people, dressed in

pajamas.

This was the dress in the camp. We were arrayed in two rows. Those who were occupied with us,

were Jews, big, strong young men. They shout like the Germans, and also hit like the Germans. My

Yankeleh says: ‘See, it is possible to make a German out of a Jew.’ One, the senior among them,

gives his speech. The first greeting was accompanied by a hail of curse words. listen up! Do you

know what Auschwitz is? You came here by yourselves, you were brought here in chains. So, damn

your father! Turn over your dollars, gold and precious stones. If any of these things are found with

a gate, and you go up to God through the chimney. You understand, that here, you need nothing!’

He goes through the row this way, stops at an individual and asks: ‘What, you are not pleased?’ –

raises his hand and delivers a hard blow to the face.

They lead us out of this barrack and bring us to a second barrack. This is the location of the baths.

We are given the order: ‘Undress!’ To strip naked, immediately outside at the entrance to the

barrack. We strip off our lice-filled, but warm clothing, and we stand naked as the day we were born

in the frosty outdoors. ‘Wait a bit, another party is bathing right now. They will come out soon.’ We

wait this way for about a half an hour, frozen, contracted from the cold. Our clothing was cleaned

off. Finally, with luck, we are going into the bath. Barbers were waiting for us with hair-cutting

machines, and they took to us, to shear off the hair from our heads. After the haircut, we went and

stood under the spigots. Water is pouring onto us, water as cold as ice. A number of us first take to

having a drink. Imagine if you will, how great the thirst was, that oppressed us.

Finally, the ‘party’ begins to move. We wind through, in a serpentine path, through small streets of

barracks. We come to Block 21. ‘Remain standing!’ – the block senior orders. We remain standing.

And another order: ‘Undress, and enter the block one at a time!’ We undressed on the snow, and we

waited. We are allowed in, one at a time. I happened to be among the first. Inside, near the entrance,

there was the camp doctor, not a German. He begins to examine me. As previously mentioned, I

wore a bandage on my right foot. I had already torn off the lower part of it, but the top part still

adhered to me, even to the point of having melded with my skin. ‘What is this?’ – the doctor asks

me. I explain to him that I received a blow to my leg, when I worked for the Germans, and this was

put on me then. He asked me to sit down, and to raise myself fifteen times, and when I did this, he

let me through. And this is how several went through the examination, and if someone displeased

the doctor, he made note of the tattoo number on his arm.

Now we go to sleep. The bunks are concrete, with five people to a compartment. And on the concrete

there was a blanket and two coveralls. We arranged ourselves on the hard bunks, and immediately

fell asleep. [After] a couple of hours of deep sleep, and they are shouting already: ‘Get up!’ We tear

open our eyes, and bandits are already standing there with irons and shovels and they are banging

on our feet. The feet stick out of the bunks, because we lay stretched out straight, like herring in a

barrel. We jump up from our sleeping place, but they don’t permit you to get dressed. Nobody

indicated doing more than pulling on one’s trousers. We ran barefoot, and completed getting dressed

on the snow. We received an order to fall in by pairs and straighten the line – and remain standing,

not to move from the spot. We stand, and stand, shivering from the intense cold. After standing like

this for two long hours, we were allowed inside and given a meal. It consisted of a soup made from

green leaves with kasha, and a potato in it. Barely having swallowed the bit of food with the ardor

of the hungry, and another order resounds: ‘Out!’ Once again, we are standing outside in the cold.

Clutches of people steal up to us, curious. ‘Where do you come from?’ – they ask. We hear that the

new transports are being taken for work in the factories and coal mines of Buna. ‘And if not, you will

have our fate.’ It is superfluous to say that we envied those who were already dead.

widow’s son, and a few others whose names I no longer remember.

We stayed in Birkenau for seven days, several days with the same tribulations and severe tortures.

A piece of bread with marmalade – and then driven out of the barrack to stand until the meal of a bit

of soup with kasha was served. After this meal, again, having to stand on one’s feet in the cold. In

the evening black coffee brewed from leaves. We never got more than one piece of bread a day. This

is how we lived for seven days. Every day, and every hour, was more than we wanted, being not

more than a delay from dying, because we had already seen the dead. Hunger and cold began to

devour people. One spark of hope possibly remained with part of us: perhaps we will be sent to

Buna. There, we heard, people worked, some in a factory, others in the coal mines, and food was

given. One morning, when we were driven to stand out in the street, the Block chief arrived with a

smile in his moustaches. ‘Well, you have luck,’ he said. ‘You are going to Buna. My block has been

selected for this purpose.’ Well, good, a joy. It doesn’t matter what else will happen, so long as we

get out of this Hell. On the second day, they brought us to the barrack with the bath. There, we were

examined by the camp doctor. After this, we were given new clothing. When we came out of the

bath, we were turned over to the hands of an S.S. command, and we went out to travel. The distance

from Birkenau to Buna was about 40 kilometers. After two hours of marching, we were brought into

a fine building. This was a bath house with the best and newest appointments. Here, we bathed

ourselves, and went through a thorough disinfection. We also were given a portion of bread, and set

out on our journey again.

Coming out of the bath, I started to get sharp pains in my foot. My brother Yankeleh and Moshe

Bronack propped me up from both sides, otherwise I would not have been able to continue. Late in

the night, we came to this new Garden of Eden. Again we were driven to the bath barrack, and again

we went through a disinfection. Finally, we were led into a large barrack, a hall, which had rows of

beds, three-tiered, with two blankets on each bed. After a lecture, which was given to us by a

German Jew with a thick club for splitting heads, we were finally, allocated beds. It was the first

night, in many long months, that we slept like people, covered with a blanket. A new spark of hope

stole into our hearts: who knows, maybe they will give us something to eat... when we go out to

work, it may be possible to go on living. Here, we are told, we will remain for two weeks time,

meaning, until we regain some of our strength, and after that, we will go to work.

Already, in the first days in the new resting place, the result of the physical deterioration to which

we were subject, began to manifest itself among the survivors of the Zambrow Jews. Many instances

of sickness occurred, headaches, sore throats, congestion, and we had no way to deal with it. To go

to the doctor in the hospital meant – ‘going into the oven.’ One girded one’s self to overcome the

symptoms, and hid them so long as was possible to conceal the signs of illness. Among the first of

our sick was Chaimsohn’s son-in-law, who when he arrived in the camp was a healthy young man.

When he was bedridden by fever, he had no choice, and was compelled to go to the doctor. He did

not return. This was the way several tens of people went away from us.

As for me, my vision began to blur. One day, I was holding myself together with all my might, and

then another day. This lasted until I ended up lying on the floor between two beds (it was forbidden

to lay down on a bed during the day). I said goodbye to my dear brother, and with all my friends and

townsfolk, with the thought that they will never see me again. My brother and Moshe Bronack

escorted me to the hospital. There they took my temperature – and no longer permitted me to leave.

They established that everyone that had arrived on our transport , that came to the hospital, was sick

with typhus. Every day, from the hospital, nine out of ten of the sick were taken away into the ‘oven,’

and only one – to the hospital in Auschwitz. After an examination by the S.S. doctor, we were

divided into groups. When the hospital attendants gave us portions of bread, they didn’t fail to

remark thereby:’ this is the last bread you will ever eat.’ We are standing and waiting in groups of

three and five. My group consisted of three. I no longer remember who the other people were, I only

know that they were not from Zambrow.

The truth was, that it was all the same to us, wherever they were taking us. We all were running a

high fever, and we were badly affected by the cold. We bundled ourselves together and jumped like

a ball. After a fifteen to twenty minute ride, the automobile came to a halt and stood still. The door

opened. I look around. It is literally a city. Red walls. I read on the big sign: ‘Hospital.’ We are taken

into a long corridor. There is a cement floor. Doors open one against the other. After a long wait on

the cold floor, we were taken into a washroom. Here, we were taken over by Poles. The first greeting

we received was: ‘Clients for the oven.’ And they began to ‘work’ on us. They let a stream of ice-cold

water on us from a water hose, until we lay unconscious. Two Poles, took hold of me by my

head and feet, carried me into a house. The house chief took note of the number on my arm. I was

thrown onto the middle bed of a three level bunk bed. The bed was not more than 65 centimeters

wide, but I was not, God forbid, on that bed alone, but with another sick person. I remember enough

that my neighbor was as hot as fire, and I was a cold as ice. We embraced each other, and in this

way, I fell asleep. In the morning, when I awoke, I was immobilized as if I was held in iron pliers,

in the arms of my bed companion, and with great difficulty disentangled myself from him. The

young man was dead...

As to medicines, they didn’t know about such things in this hospital. The ill were kept there until

they either got through their disease, or gave up the ghost. After three weeks of torture and suffering,

I was able to leave the hospital – and go back into the camp. It was the camp of Auschwitz.

part also German Jews, worked in the good commands, as in the camp, in the factories, under a roof.

Approximately in May 1943, I met up with Bendet Sosnowiec in my division of a hundred that were

carrying bricks to the building. He told me that in Auschwitz could be found Koszcewa, Plotki the

??? of Ostrow-Mazowiecki. There was a son-in-law of Zelig from the brick works. From them I

heard that everyone from Buna was taken back to Birkenau, and there all the Jews from Zambrow

gave up the ghost.

through the gate that had on it the inscription ‘ Arbeit Macht Frei ’...