April 15, 1945, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated. Susan Pollack OBE was there, after incarceration in Auschwitz and Guben:

We were not human beings anymore. We were reduced to being animals - maybe more. That’s how it was. We were just – no feelings. No awareness of me. We didn’t exist anymore. When you’re under such inner fear, even the fear goes somehow. When hope disappears, you don’t ask God, because where is God? And just, it was the end of life, the end of life that you can’t – there is no way out.

In Auschwitz there were two or three levels in the barracks. We looked in disbelief & we looked at it in a totally ignorant – you know, when you have no – your mind doesn’t produce any – the mind also needs to be fed. Well, we weren’t. So, the mind needs some comprehension, some questions. No, no, no, it was just vacant, vacant, vacancy.

I was in a world which somehow doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t correspond to anything I knew. I wasn’t a person anymore. I wasn’t a human being. I see myself as just a shadow, reduced.

There was an occasion, I think it was in – it was some – where could it have been? I looked up at the sky & saw the sun. Somehow, did I interpreted it as God is looking down? But I don’t know whether that is something I recognise now, or did I think of it that way in those times? I don’t know.

In Auschwitz Susan was selected for slave labour in Guben.

One would think you'd realise: oh, I’m being selected, there’s hope. No, I was a robot. I was a complete robot, with no sentiments, with no feelings, with no hopes. Just a robot and life didn’t mean anything.

Guben was something to do with armaments, small pieces to sort out. They showed it to me, nobody beat me up. I just always nodded in agreement. I don’t think anybody was supervising me. When I was told to do something, I did it if I could. I was willing, of course, because really, I wouldn’t object to anything. No, no.

When the Allies advanced, Susan was sent on a death march to Bergen-Belsen.

We got into Bergen-Belsen, place of death, diseases. In the barrack where I was put, there were all rotted bodies. I crawled out—I wasn’t able to walk anymore—I crawled out to the next barrack. Who do I see? My former neighbour, a Jewish woman from Felsőgöd.

She recognised me. ‘Are we going to survive?’ she said. I said ‘Yes, just hold on a bit longer. Things will work out.’ The following day, I could see the lice all over her forehead when I crawled back to see her. She died. Lice would carry the diseases: typhus, tetanus—all the diseases I could think of we were infected with—most of us died.

I heard shouting when finally the liberation came. But it didn’t mean anything to me anymore. It didn’t mean anything. Those who were strong, perhaps they could reasonably perhaps work it out. Ah, we’re free.

I crawled out, I crawled out. On the green, in the field I wanted to die there. I feel a pair of hands gently picking me up, placing me in a warm place. A miracle. A British soldier. I got on my feet. I said, ‘What put that goodness into your heart that you could actually…? You made yourself vulnerable for us.’

They set up in a small building, it wasn’t even a building, just a small couple of rooms, they had beds. I remember fainting couple of times. But I was given food.

This woman tried to explain where I might be able to get help. I just nodded. She said ‘Sweden.’ I didn’t even know that Sweden existed. So not long after I was moved. The Swedish sent the boat. You couldn’t walk, you had to be carried. Sweden offered me & others a place of rescue.

Guben

Memories

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