Horst Selbiger, who was 17 at the time, survived the Holocaust by sometimes disguising himself as a member of the Hitler Jugend. He did not speak of this for 70 years. Now, he describes his memories of the collection camp on the day of the “Fabrikaktion” on 27th February 1943:
“We were taken to the former synagogue in Levetzowstrasse in a group of around 1,500 to 2,000 Jews. Once there, the SS men were very rough getting us out of the lorries, while women standing on the street were applauding.
Inside, transport labels for deportation to Auschwitz were placed around our necks. Anyone who has experienced this, who has seen the train to the gas chambers close up and imagined their own death, is marked for the rest of their life.
We vegetated, bodies crammed together, in the emptied prayer hall, the gallery and the other rooms of the desecrated synagogue. Sanitary conditions were indescribable. And in the middle of all this crying, weeping and gnashing of teeth, I met my girlfriend Esther again. Her eyes wide open in horror, unable to understand all this misery.
Two days later, on 1st March, Esther was snatched away from me and deported together with 1,722 other Jews. They were herded down the streets from Levetzowstrasse to the Moabit deportation station, in public. Like sheep to the slaughter, they were then loaded onto freight trains, 100 people in each. And they went on their sad journey to Auschwitz extermination camp. It is likely that the whole transport was gassed on 3rd March.
I was standing at the abyss of human history, and the trauma made me mute. My silence continued for decades after liberation.”