Hinda Elsztajn: report re Nazi persecution

Mr and Mrs Elsztajn were Polish Jews living in Belgium. They were arrested in 1943 and transported to Malines. Mrs Elsztajn describes how people feared Commandant Schmidt of Malines and Breendonck. They were taken to Auschwitz where she was experimented on by Dr. Clauberg and with him were doctors Goebbels, Weber, Wirtz and Samuel, a German Jew, who tried his best for them, but was killed before Auschwitz was evacuated because he knew the secrets of Block 10 where the women who were used for experiments were kept. On 18 January 1945 they were evacuated from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück on foot in the extreme cold, thence to Malchow towards Leipzig-Taucha on trains under continuous bombardment. On 25 April 1945 they were liberated by the Americans and she was repatriated by plane to Belgium where she was reunited with her daughter.

Whilst there are no precise details on the provenance of this particular report it seems that it was part of a series of transcribed interviews collated by K. Zeitlinger of the Komitee Aide Israelite aux Victimes de la Guerre in Brussels, of former victims of Dr Clauberg's experiments in the infamous Block 10 at Auschwitz. Some 34 former victims, then resident in Belgium were approached. The interviews were undertaken by different individuals under specified conditions, one of whom was Ciechanowsky, who signed this one.

Donated 1956