On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Holocaust Memorial is inaugurated in the Yehudi Menuhin area in the European Parliament, in Brussels. This is the testimony of Mr Alberto Israël, Holocaust survivor.

Brussels

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Holocaust remembrance (T)

International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Testimony by Mr Alberto Israël, Holocaust survivor

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, Okay, I'm going to start by saying hello to you all. Thanks for being there. What you are about to hear is not good to hear but I have no other things to tell you. .

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, It all started in July 1944. We are on the island of Rhodes, which is Italian at the moment. They came with lies, with promises. They wanted to verify our identities and we were arrested. We were not aware of what had happened in Europe. They put us in a building. Then they carried us to the port where we can load 600 to 650 people into barges that transport goods and livestock.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, They started us up. We arrived in Greece in Piraeus on July 29, then when we arrived in Piraeus we were taken to a concentration camp. Until now, they were afraid of revolts because we were still at large. There, they put us in a camp with barbed wire. They started to abuse us and I remember the first scene very well, it was on July 29, 1944 we were put in a concentration camp with barbed wire. The outside temperature was 37 degrees. An old man got up to fetch water from a tap. The SS arrived and said “Who authorized you to get up?” They started beating him until he died. And they killed him. He told us “This is what will happen to you if you get up without permission.” On August 3 we started up and were taken to the station, there was a train.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, We were tasked with 90 to 100 people per cattle car to transport goods and livestock. They put 100 people in each car, they closed the cars. The wagon is gone. The next day, the first day, they opened the doors and asked if there were any deaths. Yes, they already had deaths. They gave shovels to the young people in the wagons and were asked to go outside and make a pit, throw the corpses into the pit and cover it up.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, Meanwhile, in the wagons, they brought buckets of water and pieces of bread. They threw them away like throwing bread with a bucket of water in front of the door with iron cups in the chicken coop. We were given iron cups, we were given water to drink, we were done, we closed the wagons. The train is leaving. The next day, the same story. We take out the corpses, we put some bread in front of the door, we give out cups of water and we leave.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, We arrived in Auschwitz on 16 August 1944. We left on the 3rd of August. For 13 days and 13 nights I was sitting in the car, between my mother's legs, with my head in her chest. I don't remember what happened? I drank and slept for 13 days.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, How could we get there, how were there still survivors of these wagons? That is a miracle. On 16 August we arrived in Auschwitz, in Birkenau. They started to open the doors of the wagons. they started chasing everyone who was in the car. But unfortunately, a large part of the people could not get up. So the SS would come and push them out of the wagons with their feet. and they were falling to the ground because they were already dead.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, On the other hand, those who can still stand up got off the wagons gradually. We found ourselves in a square where there were workers who came to get us.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, There were Greek workers, Jewish workers and prisoners like us, but who had already been there for a long time and who worked in the death commandos. They said to the ladies, “Give your children to the elderly or to your grandmothers or to your mother, because they will be better cared for and welcomed.” We didn't get it, but then we got it.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, And that's why they told us to give babies to parents and elderly people. because they knew the system from 0 to 16/17 years old, directing the gas chamber. From 16 years old/17 years old to 67/ 68 years old, “Arbeit” (Work). Forced labor. After 38/40 years, gas chamber. If the mother who had babies in her arms and did not have a mother or grandmother, when she arrived at the selection stage she therefore had someone sentenced to death on her hands.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, So we had to accompany her to the gas chamber and she also left. If she had given them to her parents, she stayed on the right and at that moment she went to work.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, I remember a lot of things very well. They started insulting us, hitting each other and doing nonsense. There was a woman who had the courage to ask, she was pregnant. She believed we were a normal world, in a world with humans. There is no humanity left. We are in the midst of dehumanization. We were no longer allowed to do anything at all. This woman went there and said to him “Sir, I have just lost the waters, I would like to go to the hospital.” He called a guy to have her taken to the hospital. In Birkenau, there is no hospital. In Birkenau, there are gas chambers and crematoria, that's all there is Birkenau.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, You put it on a cart and carried it. A few minutes later we heard a gun shot, and a guy told me he was just shot. they killed this woman. That was the beginning of everything and they started to hit us, to insult us. We went out. I was with my mom and at that moment the guy came and started beating me to separate me because we were separating the women on the left and the men on the right.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, She is gone. I stayed up, it was 10/15 meters and it stopped. She turned around and greeted me. That was the last time I saw my mom.

 They started to make the selection and were taken to the gas chamber or to work.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, For the people taken to the gas chamber after the massacre. Bodies were taken out, hair cut. Gold teeth were removed. Afterwards, they were pushed onto the conveyor belt that was adjacent to the gas chamber and they went to the crematotory oven. They were searched and burned and grease removed to make soap.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, We are still in Auschwitz. I'm starting to see that we're in quarantine and making us work. We were given a job as a roadside worker. We were working with a shovel. A guy stopped to rest for five seconds. The SS arrived and told him “who authorized you to stop.” The SS started knocking and told him “Warum?” Why are you hitting me. He told her “you are not allowed to ask a question to an SS person”. He was shot. Me, I was next to him.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRA&Euml;L, Holocaust survivor, After Auschwitz, we were sent to &ldquo;Charlottegrube<i>" </i>the coal mines. We went to work in coal mines. I was with my brother Aaron and my brother Eli. My father had been to the gas chamber in Auschwitz. We were sent to the coal mines. In the coal mine, my brother Eli and my brother Aaron and I started working.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, I was the servant because I was 17. I was a kid. I was the Polish servant. I worked in this coal mine and I remember all that: we are eating. It's the only time a day they gave us water soup with potatoes. The Poles who were 'working' before 12 pm were stopping to eat sandwiches and toasts and he cut a piece of paper-thin bread and threw it at me like a dog and I accepted that.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, We worked in the coal mine until January 20. On January 18, we came and started “Achtung Achtung” and gave us a blanket and a loaf of bread and we started to march for the death march. The temperature was between minus 22 degrees and minus 27 and we started up.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRAËL, Holocaust survivor, We walked 100 kilometers on foot. When you walked so casually, someone slowed down because they couldn't walk anymore. They did not hesitate to take out the machine gun, shoot it, throw it into the ditch so as not to stop the march.

SOUNDBITE (French), Alberto ISRA&Euml;L, Holocaust survivor, We started walking slowly, slowly for 100 kilometers on foot. After 100 kilometers, we were put 100 people in the car in open wagons. They put us in the car. The temperature was always minus - 22 degrees to -27 degrees and you didn't have to go to bed because otherwise you would freeze. We had four people, three people were sleeping, or working or moving. We did that as we went along so as not to fall. We were in the car without eating or drinking The only drink we had was our urine. We stayed for four days and four nights and arrived in &ldquo;Mauthausen&rdquo; on January 25, 1945. They put us in trucks and sent us to "Ebensee" a concentration camp. We were working in mines to make tunnels in the mountains. On May 5, 1945 the Americans arrived and they liberated us... That's all that happened.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Testimony by Mr Alberto Israël, Holocaust survivor

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