Velkommen.html
arlettestory_1.html
englishfilm.html
book.html
engelsk_tom_1.html
contact.html

Auschwitz: Arrival   The selection   Birkenau   Weekday

After three days and three nights, very early morning on January 23, 1944, the many train carriages had reached the terminus, Auschwitz in southern Poland. The train stopped at a 500 meter long platform called the "Jewish ramp", which the Germans had built especially for the reception of the trains with deportees. Arlette describes the arrival in her many lectures: “After about three days we stopped, they opened the doors and we thought it was wonderful to be able to get some fresh air. Then we had to get out of our carriage, in a hurry with shouts and screams in German and in Polish. We held our suitcases in hand. But no, no, they were going to a pile.

We then had to stand in rows, five and five, in front of the German soldiers. With lights we were sorted by the German officers. If you were young, that is, between eighteen and maybe twenty-five years old, and if you looked healthy, we would have to walk the one and a half kilometers to camp. If one was older, or if it was a family, or if there were children, they had to get up in some carriages. We were told that then they did not get tired of strolling to the camp. It quickly became clear to us that goodness on the part of the Germans was none of it. All those people were going straight to the gas chambers. ”