‘What do you remember from your arrival in Auschwitz?’

It was in the middle of the night of 17 May 1944. The cattle cars with their human cargo of 3007 Hungarian Jews from Sighet, Transylvania, stopped on a side track, reversed, charged forward again, and paused, only to shortly repeat the procedure. Back and forth we went for several hours, until they finally decided to stop in front of a station that said ‘Auschwitz’.

The doors were flung open with a bang, bright floodlights blinded us, and a hellish noise broke out. The roars of SS officers mingled with dogs’ barks and children crying. We had to leave the train car as quickly as possible, men to the right, women to the left. Everything we had brought with us had to be left behind. Men in striped clothes with truncheons helped the SS empty the train car. Quickly, quickly, schnell, schnell, they said. Families stood there helpless, not wanting to let go of each other. As truncheons flew through the air and the SS officers falsely reassured us that tomorrow we would be reunited and our luggage delivered, we were all chased down onto the platform.

My father and I lingered behind. Where had we arrived? We could not see any SS officers in the train car, so Papa went to speak to one of the men in striped clothing who looked Jewish. After casting a quick glance around, he whispered: ‘Vernichtungslager.’ Extermination camp. At that moment, I realised that Mama had probably sensed what was coming when she said ‘they will kill us’.

Under a barrage of barks, insults, and German swearwords, the disoriented, whimpering, and weeping people hurried off the train, trying to avoid a beating. Family members lost each other in the turmoil without a chance to say goodbye. Quick, quick, I too had to jump down onto the platform and stand before my judge. I hopped down from the train car and took a deep breath. After three days in the stuffy, reeking carriage, it was a relief to be able to breathe, even though the air was heavy with a horrific, pungent odour. The floodlights cut through the darkness of the night with hazy brightness. They cast their light upon the anguished crowd, the glistening rails, and the barrels of the SS soldiers’ guns.

My mother, flanked on each side by my sister and me, followed the queue of women towards a barbed wire fence, where Dr Mengele, the Nazi doctor who would become infamous for his cruel experiments on Jewish prisoners, stood waiting. With a light flick of his whip, he sent Mama to the right, my sister and me to the left.

That was the night I lost my parents. They were taken to the bathhouse, tricked into believing that they would be taking a shower, but instead of water it was Zyklon B that filled the ‘shower cabin’.

I never got to say goodbye to Mama and Papa, never got to hug them one last time.