3.+Going+to+the+concentration+camps

Going to the Concentration Camps When the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began on April 19, 1943, chaos ensued, causing deportation to rapidly increase. Radasky, on May 1, 1943, the day he was to leave the ghetto, was shot in the right ankle. By some miracle the bullet only based through the meat of his foot, rather then hitting his bone, so he was not in danger of losing his leg. Later on Radasky was loaded on to a cattle car, usually crammed full of more then 150 people, and was shipped of to Treblinka, the same camp that had taken his siblings lives, was to be his destination as well. Conditions were horrific in the cars as there was no food, water, or ventilation to ease the suffering of its passengers. Luck however once again shined on Radasky as he along with 10,000 other people were saved from the immediate death of Treblinka, and taken to Majdanek. Majdanek turned out to be like a prison where one mistake would end in death. It was in the dirty barrack laying on his small shelf-like bed, dressed in stripped shirt and pants with only wooden shoes, that Radasky was saved by a fellow prisoner who used a pocketknife to remove the bullet from his foot. If not for this man, Solomon would of surely been killed right away because if someone could not work, the Nazis saw them as useless. As Solomon began his life in Majdanek, he began to realize how much of a hell it was. Prisoners were forced to stand outside, battered by the weather as they waited for the hours long roll call that occurred every morning and night to end. After roll call, Radasky along with his fellow workers had to walk 3 kilometers everyday barefoot, to get to the fields were they did hard labor. Radasky himself was beat nearly to death by the commander of the concentration camp, because one of the men in his group had smoked a cigarette during roll call. Solomon was only saved by chance, as he was chosen to be one of the 750 men to be transfered to another camp. As Solomon left Majdanek he realized how camp had effected him not only mentally, but physically. Lice was a common problem for all concentration camp prisoners, because it contaminated the hay covered shelves that they slept on and usually could be found in the clothes that they wore. Starvation was one of the biggest killers at camps because of the meager bread they served to the prisoners that contained saw dust as a "filler" and the watery soup containing rotten vegetables and sand. Radasky knew that he was lucky to survive Majdanek, but what he didn't know, was that he was being transferred to the most horrific concentration camps built by the Nazis; Auschwitz. Herded of the trains by soldiers carrying guns and clubs, the prisoners went through another selection that resulted in many being shot to death. Solomon draws optimism from the number that he received tattooed on his arm: 128232. His number added up to 18, which in the Hebrew language represents life. Even if just for a second Solomon saw this number as a sign of life, of hope. Solomon from there went to a sub-camp in Auschwitz known as Buna, and went through the grueling work of building railroad tracks. He didn't stay long however, began soon after his arrival he was taken back to the main part of Auschwitz and sent to the hospital barracks only to realize that staying there would mean death as the sick were usually taken to the gas chambers. Once out of the hospital barracks, Solomon was to initially go work in the coal mines, but was advised against it by some guards who knew one of Solomon's fellow furriers. Coal miners did not usually live past 2 weeks because of the constant cave ins, hard labor, and noxious gases down in the mines. Instead, the guards were able to secure Solomon a job digging up sand and then burying the ashes coming from the crematoria. Although this labor saved him from death, it showed Solomon just how terrible the Nazis were. Solomon recalls burying ashes in September of 1944, only to look up and see live children being thrown into the fires of the crematorium. Solomon performed back-breaking work everyday in these concentration camps, and was constantly surrounded by sickness and death. The horrors of camp became an everyday occurrence in Radasky's life, yet seeing such innocence be thrown into the flames scarred him nonetheless. Many stories are told about the horrors of Auschwitz. To read some of them [|click here.]

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