דן הדני

After a week in Aschwitz-Burkenau, camp, they gathered us and made a general order. Then, they made another selection to weed out the weak. Finnaly, they chose about 1300 people to work under forced conditions in the military industry in the factory of the Bussing Werke company, which in peacetime produces all kinds of cars and trucks. In the days of the current war, the factory produces besides the cars and trucks for the German army, it also supplies the army with the famous "Tiger" type tanks.

 

Karl Liedke wrote in his  research:

                Sept 1944 - First Group of 350 prisoners

                October Second Group of 500 prisoners

                November Third Group of 350.

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All 1200 prisoners were part of the German activity against the worldwide law. We were chosen as forced labour, to produce the famous German tank, “Tiger”.  I was within the third group. Therefore, the research let me know, that  I stay in Auschwitz Birkenau from 28 August 1944 until the middle of November 1944. We did not know that, because in prison we didn’t have watches or calendars.

 

The Buissing Werke factories in Braunschweig were the center of the whole Buissing enterprises which were in the surrounding towns. We were transferred from Birkenau to Buissing center in Braunschweig. My group arrived in Braunschweig at the beginning of November 1944 and the conditions there were very bad.

In the camp, there was a large hut with a large hall. It housed people who had not yet been transferred to work in the company's factories. There were tables in the hall and benches next to them. As long as we were in this camp, we slept on the benches. There were no beds.

 

The cold winter was terribly annoying. We were not given winter clothes, socks, shoes or blankets to cover us at night. Many had frozen toes. Sometimes at night we were woken up in a panic by a terrible scream from one of the victims. The poor guy who screamed, his toes were frozen. As long as the rat was biting his fingers in the frozen area, he did not feel it, but when the rat came and bit into the unfrozen area - the man woke up from pain.

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This time too I note that I was lucky again. In one of the places of the camp, I found a part of an empty paper cement sack This sack is made of several layers of thick paper. I wrapped my feet in this paper and thus prevented my toes from freezing. Fortunately, a week later, I was transferred to a labor camp in Feshelde village.