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German soldiers oversee boxcar loading
12017-07-14T17:40:27-04:00Anonymous122German soldiers oversee as Jews are forced into boxcars destined for the Belzec killing center. Lublin, Poland,plain2017-07-14T17:40:54-04:00United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.Anonymous
A few young people were hastily selected... We saw five of them approaching from among the first to be chosen; each was accompanied by a German policeman carrying a handgun. The moment they reached the ditch, a policeman would grab hold of a prisoner, stand him against the wall, and shoot him in the head.
All of us were racked with thirst. I saw some of my comrades pushed to the point of drinking their own urine, others to licking the sweat off the backs of fellow prisoners, while still others tried to catch the occasional drops of water that condensed on the walls of the boxcar.
At the terminal in Bremen we were denied water by the German Red Cross, who told us that there was no water for us.
From every car there were reports of outbreaks of madness. Some of the prisoners had no choice but to silence others who had become either crazed or dangerous.
The boxcars were forced open and the SS guards stormed in. Shouting wildly, they prodded us with rifle butts and bayonets and beat us with clubs, then set the dogs loose on us. Those who fell and could not get up were ripped apart. I was wearing a large cape which the dogs sank their teeth into, forcing me to submit.
The last car of the train, which had remained empty, was reserved for corpses. It contained not only the dead, but also the wounded who were thrown in together with the dead. I saw this car again at Buchenwald and heard the moaning and groaning of the wounded. I know with absolute certainty that all of them were killed and thrown in the ovens along with those already dead.
