Olga Horak - Auschwitz

Auschwitz

Horak was transported to Sered, a collection point for Slovakian Jews located 55 kilometres (34 mi) northeast of Bratislava. There the commander, Alois Brunner, would entertain himself by shooting prisoners at random.

Horak, her parents, her grandmother and about 120 other people, were shoved into a cattle truck that normally would have held eight horses. Horak does not know how long she was in the train to Auschwitz but says:

After a long and seemingly unending journey, the train slowed and came to a halt. We had arrived. I could hear dogs barking and voices shouting in German. All of a sudden, the bolts on our doors were slammed back and the door rolled open. Daylight flooded into our dark car and the light hit our eyes and blinded us. Strangely, amidst all the yelling and screaming, I could hear music. An orchestra was playing light operatic tunes to ‘welcome’ us. It hit me that the music belonged not to the world of the living but of the dead. The merry tunes were really the songs of unbelievable heartache and immeasurable sorrow. The bizarre nature of everything I saw and heard stunned me. All around, people were being pulled out of the cars. Guards shouted at them: Raus raus!—"Get out, get out!" Strange figures in blue and grey striped garb with caps ran around telling us to leave our baggage on the ramp. And, all the time, everything had to be done in a hurry: Schnell schnell!—"Quickly, quickly!" I looked up and saw an iron gate over which there was an inscription: Arbeit macht Frei—"Freedom through Work."

Horak had arrived at Auschwitz, where she underwent Selektion. Horak was separated from her father after they came off the train. She never saw him again. Horak, her mother, and the remaining female members of her family who were at Sered, were forced to strip and to pass an inspection done by Doktor Josef Mengele. Horak and her mother were sent to the right; the ones sent to the left were killed.

Horak was at Auschwitz until October 1944. One morning, after Appell (roll call), Horak and some 1,000 other female prisoners were told not to return to the barracks. She feared the worst, but as she puts it, "At this point, I didn’t care anymore. They could have done what they liked."