The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
Session 68
(Part 4 of 9)


Q. How did you know?

A. Exactly six months after the transport previous to ours had arrived, we were separated from that transport and it was transferred to the quarantine camp, Camp A, although they were told that they were going to work, and in order to deceive them, the sick and the injured, and their doctors were deliberately left behind.

In January 1944 we were all made to write postcards bearing the date of March 25.

Q. In January 1944 you wrote postcards with the date March 25. To whom were these postcards addressed?

A. The postcards were addressed to the people at Theresienstadt.

Q. And what were you required to write on these postcards?

A. We were allowed to write on the cards in the first person or the second person, and only about good things, that is to say, that we were well.

Q. Did they tell you the purpose of these postcards?

A. They did not tell us.

Q. But you understood?

A. Yes. We understood that they wanted us to write to the people at Theresienstadt so that they should know that we were well.

A. To reassure them?

A. Yes. That was the whole purpose of our camp.

Q. Did you write these postcards willingly?

A. We had to write them.

Q. You were required to write?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you told what to write?

A. Yes.

Q. I did not understand your remark: "That was the whole purpose or our camp." You people, of your own free will, wanted to reassure the people of Theresienstadt?

A. No. The SS wanted us, from this camp, to reassure the people at Theresienstadt.

Q. Did you find any way of circumventing this order?

A. Yes. I organized a small group of children and we wrote to the same address the words: "And with this, dear Moti." We wrote the postcards in German, but using the words "And with this, dear Moti" - "und mit diesem, lieber Moti werde ich enden" (and with this, dear Moti, I shall end."* {*"Moti" - in Hebrew "My death."}

Q. In other words you wrote in Latin characters in order that the people in Theresienstadt would know that you were talking there of death?

A. Yes.

Presiding Judge: Did you know Hebrew?

Witness Bakon: Yes. I knew Hebrew. That was in January, and then a rumour spread in the camp that somebody was visiting it. Dr. Janowitz, who was from the previous transport, told us that Eichmann had arrived on a visit and this did not mean good tidings. After the visit we had to write the postcards and in addition, Mrs. Edelstein...

Attorney General: Was Mrs. Edelstein together with you?

Witness Bakon: Yes.

Q. Who was Mrs. Edelstein?

A. The wife of the Jewish elder, Jacob Edelstein, of Theresienstadt.

Q. Where was he?

A. Jacob Edelstein and his family were in Theresienstadt, and in 1943 were sent together with us to Auschwitz.

Q. Were you friendly with their son?

A. Yes. I got to know the son in 1939 and also became friendly with him in Theresienstadt.

Q. What happened to them?

A. Mr. Edelstein was not with us, and we learned that he was under arrest in a bunker in Auschwitz. But Mrs. Edelstein and her son, Arye, were with us in Camp B2.

Q. You mentioned a "bunker" the nickname for place of detention.

A. Yes, it was the nickname for a place of detention.

Q. And then, one day, Mrs. Edelstein came back and you heard her say something?

A. They called her to the gate, and when she returned, she told us that she had been promised by Eichmann that she would see her husband again, and in fact, some time later...

Presiding Judge: Was it promised directly to her?

Witness Bakon: This I do not know - it was promised to her by Eichmann.

Q. That means it could have been directly or through her husband?

A. By someone else.

Q. For example, through her husband.

A. Through another officer.

Attorney General: He does not know whether Eichmann made the promise, or someone else on behalf of Eichmann.

Presiding Judge: At any rate, it was made to Mrs. Edelstein?

Witness Bakon: Yes.

Q. I thought that perhaps it was given to Mr. Edelstein so that he should notify her.

A. Mr. Edelstein was not with us.

Q. I understand, but perhaps he wrote to her - maybe he was allowed to write?

A. Some time after she told us this, it was about 20 June, she, her son and a number of other people were summoned and were taken out of the camp. An SS car came and took them out of the camp. Mrs. Edelstein had been ill and in those days she was lying in the sick block, but nevertheless they took her away. They did not return.

Attorney General: Do you know whether she met her husband, as had been promised to her, according to what she said?

Witness Bakon: Yes. Later on, at the end of July 1944, I was talking in the Maennerlager (men's camp) to a member of the Sonderkommando - I even remember his name, Kalman Furman, and his number, 80810, and he told me.

Q. Where did she meet her husband?

A. At crematorium number 3, where executions were carried out.

Q. And so they met at the entrance to the gas chambers?

A. It was not exactly the gas chambers - it was a separate place for executions.

Presiding Judge: Execution by what means?

Witness Bakon: By shooting.

Attorney General: And there she met her husband?

Witness Bakon: The member of the Sonderkommando, Israel Zuckerman, told me that he himself had burned the bodies.

Q. Whose bodies?

A. Of these people, Jacob Edelstein, Mrs. Edelstein and Arye, their son.

Q. [Shows the witness some photographs] Are these pictures of Mrs. Edelstein and her son, your friend?

A. Yes, of Mrs. Edelstein and Arye.

Judge Halevi: Were they all put to death - she as well?

Attorney General: [To witness] Was Mrs. Edelstein also put to death?

Witness Bakon: All of them were killed. They also had to undress themselves, they did not cry, that's what he told me, they were only sad, and they were executed by shooting, one after the other.

Judge Halevi: And the son, your friend?

Witness Bakon: The son, also.

Presiding Judge: The photograph will be marked T/1317. You may take this original photograph back.

Witness Bakon: Thank you.

Attorney General: Who was Dr. Janowitz, who said that this visit did not mean good tidings?

Witness Bakon: Dr. Janowitz was one of the organizers of the Theresienstadt Ghetto. He was also brought in September 1943 with the transport of Fredy Hirsch to the Family Camp 2B.

Q. In May 1944 were further tranports brought from Theresienstadt?

A. In May 1944, seven thousand five hundred people arrived, in three transports.

Q. What happened to them?

A. They waited with us. That is to say, we were awaiting the date when the six months were due to end, on 20th June. And we were waiting for the day they would remove us to the gas chambers, as they had done with previous transports. And 20th June passed, and apart from the incident involving Mrs. Edelstein, her son and some other people, nothing happened.

After a certain time the SS Schwarzhuber and Dr. Mengele arrived and they made selections. They sorted out the people who were suitable for work, roughly between the ages of eighteen and forty. And two transports left - with about fifteen hundred men and two thousand women.

Q. Where did they go?

A. To work. We knew that the Kapo of the Bekleidungskammer (clothes store) knew whether the people were on their way to the gas chambers or to work, for he had to prepare the clothes. And we, too, saw afterwards the freight-cars leaving the camp.

Q. So, then, these people were off to work. How many remained?

A. Seven thousand remained, approximately, and I was one of them.

Q. Were most of them elderly?

A. Most of them were elderly, and also women and children, for there was a rule in Auschwitz that a mother and child did not go to work. Their fate was death.

Q. Including the child?

A. Yes.

Q. So what happened to all those thousands who remained?

A. During the last days, there were no more roll-calls. We all knew that we were destined for the gas chambers, and the camp was in a state of complete chaos. Once Dr. Mengele and Dr. Schwartzhuber arrived and set to one side children between the ages of twelve and sixteen. From amongst them, they removed 89 children and I was one of them. During the last days I had remained with my father, and he was naturally aware of what was awaiting us. I remember that he took out his gold teeth which no longer fitted him so well, and he wanted me to exchange them for bread. Naturally I refused to do so.

Later on we - the 89 children - were summoned to the gate. Each one of us took leave of his family. We tried to present a cheerful face and said that we would surely meet again, that they should not worry about us, for we were alert and would look after ourselves, even though we knew exactly what was in store for us.

Presiding Judge: How old were you then, Mr. Bakon?

Witness Bakon: About fourteen and a half.

Attorney General: What happened to all those who remained in the family camp?

Witness Bakon: They remained there a few more days. We, the children, were transferred to the Gypsy camp.

Q. And what happened to them?

A. To whom?

Q. To those who remained?

A. On 10 and 11 July there was a Blocksperre for the block at night and all the seven thousand people, including the mothers and the children, went to the gas chambers.

Q. Was your father also amongst them?

A. Yes. We saw them through the small window, we saw how they were being taken. And the following morning members of the Sonderkommando brought us photographs, and all kinds of little articles by which we could identify our relatives.

Q. And all of you children were transferred to the men's camp, the Maennerlager?

A. We underwent disinfection in the Gypsy camp, the Zigeunerlager, before entering the Maennerlager. There was a small disinfection station there. And I can remember the Gypsy children who were laughing, they mocked us, and pointed to the gas chambers - a few hundred metres away there were the gas chambers - and said to us: "There is a jam factory - soon they are going to put you in there and make jam out of you."

Q. Was that at Birkenau?

A. Yes. All this was at Birkenau. We came to the Maennerlager in Block 13. Blocks 9, 11 and 13 were the more isolated blocks in the Maennerlager, since in Blocks 9 and 11 dwelt the men of the Sonderkommando who, at their maximum, when the transports arrived from Hungary, numbered 1,200 men. In Block 13 there was the Strafkommando (the penal detachment). We were brought there because hygienic conditions were better there and so that we should be isolated from the rest of the prisoners. At the first stage, for some reason, we enjoyed somewhat better treatment than the other prisoners; they still left us with our hair uncut and gave us better clothing.

Q. By "us" are you referring to the children who were transferred from the family camp at Theresienstadt?

A. Yes.

Q. How many were there of you, did you say?

A. About eighty-nine.


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