The camp through eyes of a child

The transcript of the podcast

The fate of children who were registered in Auschwitz as prisoners was no different in principle from that of adults. Just like them they suffered from hunger and cold, were used as labourers and were punished, put to death, and used as subjects in criminal experiments by SS doctors. Wanda Witek-Malicka from the Memorial’s Research Center talks about the Auschwitz camp through the eyes of a child.

What seems to be the most difficult for children, was that children lived in conditions similar or identical to those in which adult prisoners lived. There was no reduced fare here. The children lived in the same blocks, the same barracks and slept in the same conditions. They generally had exactly the same food, so these conditions were not easier. But what was particularly difficult for the children was their separation from their families. Many of these children, when they arrived in the camp, if they were a bit more lucky, young children or girls had the chance to stay with their mothers but very often families were separated, and children suddenly found themselves in this terrible reality in which they had to try hard every day, struggling for their survival. They had to fight, they had to wonder where to get something extra to eat, how to avoid beatings by the SS or by functionary prisoners – in this reality they were completely alone.

There is something even more painful here in the case of Jewish children who were brought to the camp. On one hand they were left to themselves, but they were very quickly aware, and they found out very quickly what had happened to their families. It is not only separation from the family but the awareness of their extermination.

So, the psychological context in the camp, the awareness of how many people die and the awareness that my loved ones are at risk of death or have already died was an additional element that could have a destructive effect on children’s minds. It could cause a breakdown; it could cause a child to lose faith in the sense of survival and the will to survive. And it is clearly visible in the accounts of survivors that the moment they found out that those closest to them, with whom they were in the camp or who had come to the camp with them were no longer alive, they broke down and it really took a lot of luck and the support of comrades to get out of such a state. For Maurice Kling such a moment was the death of his brother with whom he was in the camp. For Halina Birenbaum it was the death of her sister-in-law Hela.
When we read their memoirs, we see that it was real. It was the moment in which total loneliness made these people, these minor prisoners, lose their will to continue fighting. Sometimes it was the actual death that they were fully aware of, sometimes it was just information about the death of their loved ones. Children who were brought from the Warsaw Uprising recall that when their mothers were moved to another block, at first the children were told that their mothers were taken to the crematorium. So, for these children, it was a huge shock and a huge trauma. Later when these mothers turned out to be alive, it was a great relief and joy for them and indeed incentive to want to live to see another day.

Children lived in similar conditions as adults. Barracks, bunks, food. There was however something that was different: clothing, because while the barrack were the same, a child is simply smaller than an adult, and there were no kids-sized striped uniforms.

No, especially that there were no plans to bring children to the camp, they were not sewing striped uniforms for children. If we look at the photos we have in our archive, the photos taken from camp files, we see that, for example, children from the Zamość region are dressed in striped uniforms, but they are normal adult-size striped uniforms, very often too big for these children. If we look at the film footage from liberation these striped uniforms also make a moving impression. Sleeves twice as long as the children’s arms wearing them. There were really no striped uniforms here, the children simply had to manage with the clothes they got. If it was too large, and generally it was too large, then it was necessary to narrow it, to shorten it. Later, when prisoners were brought to the camp, it often happened that the clothes of the murdered were simply distributed. If it was properly labelled, then the chances to get smaller clothes were higher. As for the children brought in the last period from the Warsaw Uprising, they mention that they could keep their own clothes they were wearing when they came to the camp. However, the problem was that the clothes were, firstly, not suited to the season, and secondly, they were changed very rarely. These clothes wore out quickly, got dirty quickly and it was troublesome as it was impossible to wash them. Sewing was much more difficult, and the children just had to cope, and we must admit that here the children showed a lot of creativity. In the testimonies of children, there are fragments that show how children coped with finding some clothing for themselves. Just all kinds of alterations, narrowing, attempts to somehow shorten the clothing they had, using what they had in a different way. One of the ladies who survived the camp, when she was in the camp used a sweater to make panties out of it, she just sewed the front, sewed the place for the head, put her legs in the sleeves and was very happy because finally she was not cold. One of the ladies recalls that her mother used a scarf. When she was brought to the camp in August, it was summer, but when it got cold, she had no hat. A prisoner, seeing her shaved head, took pity and brought her a scarf. Her mother used it in such a way that she made both a hat and a scarf, so she was very happy to have such clothes. We have items of clothing made of a camp blanket, including a dress made of a camp blanket. There were a lot of clothes that had been re-purposed. When children grew up, they gave their clothes to younger ones, they somehow tried to make it suitable. Here, the children showed great creativity as well. But also, maturity, as when they were left without mothers. It was something that their parents normally cared for and which for them was simply obvious - now they had to provide for themselves. The biggest problem was with footwear because while clothes can be made smaller and shortened, footwear was more troublesome. The children who came to the camp during the warm spring and summer periods, who stayed there longer, if they could keep their footwear, it turned out that for the winter their footwear was already completely worn out. Even if it was not, they were also not suitable for walking, so the children had to organize or make contact with some female prisoners who had access to Jewish property gathered in the Canada warehouses, and from there children received footwear or they had to take it after someone died and didn’t need it anymore. It also had to be a serious dilemma for children, and they must have experienced some resistance to use the clothes of a dead person.

Something that also appears in the survivors’ accounts, and I think these accounts are exceptional, is that in these few cases when the children were in the camp together with their relatives, in the case of a mother-daughter relationship or a father-son, or an aunt or an uncle, there are special situations when the teenage prisoners, because we are talking about this group here, start taking care of adults and these are touching stories, like in the case of Halina Birenbaum trying to get her cousin out of the selection, or in the case of one of the prisoners who joined the camp orchestra. She was a singer and the SS wanted her to join the camp orchestra, but she said: “I’m not going there without my mother”. It is this world in which we cannot say whether it was often or not often because we have very few traces of such relationships. But in this world, it happened that a child had to adapt to this world somehow, and it also happened that they helped their parents or guardians who did not pull themselves together in this camp world.

Yes, it is evident in practically all children’s accounts that these children grew up very quickly, they had to stop being children very quickly, and very quickly if the conditions forced them to do so, they took over the care of those who needed it, whether they were older or younger, when they were weaker and needed help, this is what it looked like. There were stories when, for example, siblings were sent to the camp. In the case of children from the Warsaw Uprising, when they ended up in the camp, with their entire families, very often it was the older sister, older brother and younger children. There are stories where these girls, sometimes eleven years old, ten years old, had to take care of their three-year-old, two-year-old siblings and replace their mother who was not and could not be around. Jerzy Fiołek recalls that in the boys’ barrack the boys were actually replacing their loved ones with each other, and if they felt sick, something was wrong, he says: “Well, the rest hugged him and stroked his head”. Bogdan Bartnikowski writes very well about it, because he included such a fragment in his book when, after the liberation, one of the female prisoners caring for a group of children cried out: “Children, come here”. In his recollection he expresses a protest: “What children, but what children? When we survived so much in this camp, when we were hit with a stick on the back so many times, when we were starving so much, we worked so much, we saw so many terrible things, what children? These children very often did not feel like children anymore but felt like adults and responsible people. It can be observed in the moments, in those fragments of testimonies that present meetings of children with their mothers somewhere by the wired fence. When mothers tried to talk to these children in the neighbouring sectors, and these children expressed their concern. First of all, they were afraid whether the mother would not endanger herself, they would not be noticed by a SS man or a functionary and be beaten. When mothers shared food with these children, these children often refused, even though they were hungry. They refused because they knew that their mothers must have given up her portion in order to share with her child. So, growing up in the camp definitely happened much faster and the necessity to give up one’s own childhood was typical for the camp experience.

Does an ordinary children’s world appear in the accounts, because when we talk about children and talk about children at this age, it is about entertainment and education. Suddenly these children are crammed into the world of the camp. Does a children’s world appear somewhere in these stories?

The camp as an institution did not provide the children with the fulfilment of their needs for entertainment and education, needs appropriate and most characteristic for this period of life. Except for the two cases organizing a school and a Kindergarten in the camp, in the two family camps, for Jews deported from Theresienstadt Ghetto and for the Roma and the Sinti. Actually, there was no such thing, but this is how the children’s world is reflected in children’s accounts, such glimpses of the children’s world appear there. And these are fragments, at times very touching, at times maybe funny or rather tragic comic. Boys from the Warsaw Uprising were transferred from the children’s block, from the women’s camp to the men’s camp. So, they were wondering why? And one of the boys said: “Maybe it is because we sang songs so that Hitler would go to hell”. This is what a prisoner told me during an interview, so here the need for children’s entertainment, children’s laughter appears somewhere. Another gentleman mentioned that when the frost appeared, when winter began, he went into the front of the barrack and wanted to play on the slide. Probably the slide was just a frozen puddle. However, he says that he was sliding like in the good old, pre-war times, before the camp times. He was spotted by an SS man and beaten almost unconscious. His friends had to take him back to the barracks, so he paid a high price for his fun. So, children were looking for options of some kind of return to the children’s world, the simplest way, which was cultivated not only by children but also by adult prisoners. Telling stories was a way to go beyond the camp reality, telling fairy tales. Remembering what they experienced while still free. Apart from that, we do not have much in our collections, but some children in the camp made toys. Toys were made either by adult prisoners for children or by the children themselves. We have, for example, animals, in shapes properly cut from a piece of rubber, probably shoe soles, some rag dolls and some teddy bears. So, these types of things appeared in the camp, but not often. Elżbieta Sobczyńska mentions that she liked to play in the camp with her friends very much. They were playing knucklebones with stones, a skill game when you throw a stone and at that time you have to collect another one from the ground, holding two stones in your hand; again, one has to be tossed to collect another one from the ground. So, a typical children’s game. So, such games as much as possible did take place in the camp. Elżbieta also mentions that she collected buttons in the camp. When they were still leaving the block, she was walking around the block with her eyes scanning the ground and she found buttons every now and then, and collected them. So, some substitute for fun, some substitute for having something of their own. The proof that children needed this detachment, that for children such elements specific to their world were important, are the paintings in the children’s barracks. Actually, not the paintings themselves, but how the survivors talk about them. In autumn of 1944 in the children’s barracks, an unknown prisoner painted images of a boy going to school, children playing, and those prisoners who were the witness of his painting, who slept on the bunks that made it possible to observe the moment when these images were painted remembered it very well. And just watching this prisoner paint was fun. What would be created on this wall in a moment? They watched each subsequent brush stroke and tried to guess what it would be, and then they stared at these images with greater or lesser admiration because they reminded them that there is a normal world beyond the wired fence, that this war one day might end and it would be possible for them to return to this world. In fact, this children’s world also tried to break through this camp reality here. But only in a scope it was possible. Much later, after leaving the camp, for a change, the children played games related to the camp. Many of these children experienced great misunderstanding in their peer group. We are talking here about children who, for example became orphans in the camp, ended up in orphanages, in various shelters, and suddenly had to find themselves among children who did not experience camp reality. And they were children who had a great time playing hide and seek because they could sit quietly for hours and not say a word – just hide. These are the children who played the selections, these are the children who played the shooting executions. One of the prisoners mentions that when she was teased in the yard by her friends, she threatened them that as a punishment they would have to jump like frogs. The girls did not know what she meant, did not understand what this game was. These children also had to re-learn to play as a form of childhood activity.

And here we see the second extreme spectrum, on one hand, in this camp world, some form of fun, learning, and laughter were present, but on the other hand, it seems that this clash between children and an incredibly cruel world that they did not understand, they did not know why they were there, they did not know why they were witnessing such scenes, they did not know why they experienced punishments, violence, beatings, hunger, physicality or suffering. This must have left a slightly different imprint on children than on adults who are able to rationalize the world they live in.

I think that especially on the youngest children who during their six-month or one-year stay in the camp did not really remember or they managed to forget the pre-camp world, which was becoming this blurry point of reference behind the wired fence. Indeed, after leaving the camp, they had to re-learn some things, some things that seem completely obvious to adults. We know that adult prisoners had various habits after leaving the camp, such as hiding food. Although they theoretically knew there should be no shortage of it, they still felt safe with the food hidden somewhere or when eating everything to the very last crumb. So, these are the behaviours that the children also exhibited. For children, some phenomena outside the camp were strange. One of the prisoners told me that after leaving the camp she had to learn that a man dies naturally, that a man does not have to be murdered, a man does not have to be starved, but can simply die from old age. Besides, she had to learn that human death is something important. That it is something big, it is not everyday life. It is not something obvious that is happening all the time and surrounds us. Death of a human being is an experience that deserves due respect. And it deserves the right setting. For the children who left the camp death is related to a certain cult, a ritual, death was nothing of particular interest. For them it was obvious that people are dying all around them, that a corpse is treated like garbage, that a corpse can simply be abandoned and sometimes it lies in front of the hospital barracks until someone takes it away. And they did not feel that this is the human body after death, something that also deserves respect. Also, those children who survived the camp, who left the camp, had to learn again that death is something important, and a corpse - a human body - is something that should be respected, which should be treated with appropriate attention, and that should be buried in accordance with the ritual, in accordance with the rules and not simply abandoned under the barracks until it was taken to the crematorium. They also learned that death is not a mass phenomenon every day, that death, well, is an important event.

The 27th of January 1945, camp liberation, among prisoners there are also children, which is documented, and these are really moving pictures of children in too large striped uniforms walking between wired fences. These are images after liberation, but when we talk about camp liberation, we are talking about the main process, therefore also during the evacuation, the death march, those children who managed to survive, also set off in columns on foot. Only a few were liberated. How does the children’s world look like in this last period?

So, here if we would like to keep some statistical accuracy, unfortunately we have to say that we do not know exactly how many children survived. We simply do not have the documents that make it impossible to accurately calculate this number.

Lack of documents making it impossible to say how many people survived.

Yes, definitely children are part of the unknown areas that may never be really clarified. We know for sure that when the camp began to be liquidated, when the subsequent transports of prisoners were taken to camps inside Germany, there were also children in these transports. They were both children who were transported in transports with adult prisoners, as well as transports strictly for children or not just for children. In the last period of the camp’s existence, children from the Warsaw Uprising were reunited with their mothers, sent with their entire families to Germany in larger groups. We know that at the time of camp liberation on January 27th, there were at least 750 children under the age of eighteen. 500 of which were under fifteen. We do not know how many children left the camp in the last few days between the evacuation and liberation, but we do know specific cases, such as, for example, Jerzy Ulatowski, who left the camp with his mother and sister a few days before liberation, they somehow passed through the fence and kept going. Also, Barbara Puck, who as a several-month-old child, left the camp with her mother before liberation. So, there were situations like that. How many of them? We do not know. We can only provide certain numbers, these are the relatively certain numbers, there are numbers that I just mentioned, the number of children who were in the camp here. By far the largest group among them were Jewish children, a large group were also children who were victims of Dr Mengele’s experiments. Also, Jewish children who arrived in the last period of the camp’s existence from Seret constituted a large group. So many of these children survived, and the children from the Warsaw Uprising were the largest groups of survivors. Among these children over 400 were considered to require immediate medical attention. These children were referred to hospitals. Ten per cent of them died in the next few days, which also gives an idea of the conditions these children were in. After the war research was conducted on children who were liberated here in the camp, and virtually all of them had more or less severe health problems. These were health problems resulting from malnutrition, exhaustion, anaemia, to various diseases of internal organs, diseases related to the digestive system due to the disastrous camp diet. Lung diseases, tuberculosis, pneumonia, various kinds of minor colds. There were also many children who had skin diseases, not only lice but also some boils. These were diseases treated for many years after the war and for many post-war years they were actually difficult to heal, especially since the post-war situation in the country, not only in the country, but in general, was so difficult that treatment options were significantly limited. There was also one more group, a group of children who had various types of injuries related to beatings by functionaries or SS men. They included fractures, abrasions or some more serious wounds, so this was another problem that required medical intervention. On the other hand, what for these children was the greatest loss, or perhaps a loss that remained unhealed throughout their lives, were the emotional problems related to socialization and mental health. Many of these children practically for the rest of their lives struggled with various fears, with depression, with various repercussions caused by this period, by being trapped by this life lasting several months, sometimes several years, living in constant fear. Witnessing the death of not only strangers, but also their loved ones. Witnessing their suffering, with the disturbance of the sense of not only self-worth, but also security, and of the awareness that the world is stable. These are people who lived with camp trauma for the rest of their lives. The children left the camp with the same trauma as the soldiers returning from the front.