´óÏó´«Ã½

Eventually we arrived at Auschwitz. Well, the sights in Auschwitz were something we just couldn’t take in at the start. Hundreds of men shuffling around in pyjama suits. It took some time to understand what was going on. We learned about the gas chambers, saw the smoke in the distance. And we were pushed into a camp on the perimeter road of IG Farben, the great factory.

Sue: What size was IG Farben?

Ron: IG Farben, we learned later, must have been about the size of a large town, in my case I was thinking of Hove. A large, a huge area, surrounded by wire, perimeter road all round, surrounded by wire with SS guarding any exit or entrance, which seemed strange, SS guarding these Jewish and Polish prisoners who were like sheep. And they needed SS men to control them. We had the Wehrmacht, and the Wehrmacht never mixed with the SS we noticed. But we got used to it. We were taken down the first morning when we were available and were given to a German Meister, who is a works engineer, to be allocated some work. And in my case I was allocated with another man to a man who spoke English because he came from Cologne and he’d been there after the First World War when we took over, the army of occupation. And he was pleased to see us, he was practising his English on us. We thought this is wonderful, but then we realised that he was a nasty piece of work really and when he lost his temper he flew into a rage and we were glad to be away from him. In my case, I was lucky and I and my colleague were given the freedom of IG Farben. We had to take materials from the workshop to the fitters, pipe fitters mostly. IG Farben was a mass of girders and pipework, still being constructed and, as we learned, they were making ersatz benzene for the Russian front was the main object.

Sue: As fuel?

Ron: As fuel for their tanks and trucks. But after a big occasion, when we were told it was Himmler who was amongst the... We were told to keep away from that area, but we could see from a distance, the big cars and the high-ranking Germans who stepped out, from the saluting and so on and apparently it was the first consignment of benzene from IG Farben going to Russia. And they celebrated the occasion.

Sue: It was important enough for Himmler himself to attend?

Ron: So we were told, the guards said that is Himmler in amongst those, because we could see them from a distance. Later on we discovered, after 2 or 3 months, the tanker trucks came back. We were told that the benzene was so poor, it had to come back to be refined. And of course we did make small acts of sabotage when we were there. It was quite easy to slip sand and dirt into an open pipe or machinery.

But I was lucky, I had a roving commission and I could contact Poles who would barter. We never had chocolate because if you got chocolate from home, or in a Red Cross parcel, it was better to barter that chocolate for a dozen eggs or more bread, or whatever, from the Poles. The whole place was corrupt, it was black market people, including the Germans. To get a bar of soap to take home to their wives, well, what they’d give you for a bar of soap. This is something you learn all the time, the bartering system.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.