Holocaust: 100 children, 1 cattle car

100 Children, 1 Cattle Car

"`And so the day of deportation dawned. It was still dark when we were herded into trucks which took us out of Berlin to a freight train depot. We were unloaded and then started a semmingly endless roll call. Five hundred boys and five hundred girls were there from all the training camps in Germany: strong, healthy, good-looking youths. Truly a proud sacrifice to the Führer! When the roll call was nearly over, another two trucks arrived. Out of them the SS pushed and kicked old men and women, mostly on sticks and crutches, the remnants of two homes for old people. At the last, there were 20 young women with small children. The latter arrivals were not called or counted but loaded straight onto one of the wagons of a long, long cattle train. An SS man came over to us and said to my mother, who was still in the uniform in which she had been arrested, 'You better get in with the old people. They might need a nurse.'

"I tried to follow her but was pushed back into the group of young girls. However, just as my mother was getting into the wagon with the old people, the Gestapo man from the hospital turned up, took her by the arm and led her back to me. To the SS guard he said, 'She will be more use to those fit to work.' Once more he turned to me and almost pleaded, 'Save your mother! Talk. Tell me where your child is and I'll take your mother back to the hospital in my own car.' My mother only shook her head and he turned away and left us.

"We were soon loaded into the cattle trucks. 50 boys and 50 girls in each wagon. We sat down on the straw-covered floor, the doors were closed, barred on the outside and locked. ..." (Brewster, 33)

Work Cited

Brewster, Eva. Vanished in Darkness: An Auschwitz Memoir. Edmonton, Alberta: NeWest Publishers Limited, 1984.

The original plaintext version of this file is available via ftp.

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