Esther Raab
In December 1942, Esther Raab was moved from a work camp to a killing center in Sobibor, Poland. Here she worked as a sorter, sorting the clothes and possessions of those who died at the camp. In 1943, a group of prisoners planned a revolt. On October 14, 1943, Esther successfully escaped, surviving the holocaust.
Here is her first hand account of the horrors she endured:
“The transports, when--usually, most of them used to come in during the night, but there was some in the daytime, too--and when you heard that whistle from the commandant of the camp, that meant that the transport is coming in, and the men in the camp should get ready to unload the people, and so, that whistle was like somebody would tear out your insides. You knew here are other people, children, old, older people, people who never did anything wrong in their life, and they're gonna go, and you cannot say, you cannot resist, you cannot, just inside it builded up, that revenge, and that resentment, and that anger, and that pain, you know that we have builded up inside, and sometimes they came in during the day, and sometimes so many came in that they couldn't handle, so they would put them behind our barbed wire where we were fenced in, and tell us just to walk back and forth and forth and back, so what they told them that they going to work should seem to them to be the truth, and it was hard, it was hard. You walk by, and you look at the face, and you know in a half hour won't be here, can't even tell him. You just put on, not a smile, your best face you can. It hurted, it was very, very hard.”
Here is her first hand account of the horrors she endured:
“The transports, when--usually, most of them used to come in during the night, but there was some in the daytime, too--and when you heard that whistle from the commandant of the camp, that meant that the transport is coming in, and the men in the camp should get ready to unload the people, and so, that whistle was like somebody would tear out your insides. You knew here are other people, children, old, older people, people who never did anything wrong in their life, and they're gonna go, and you cannot say, you cannot resist, you cannot, just inside it builded up, that revenge, and that resentment, and that anger, and that pain, you know that we have builded up inside, and sometimes they came in during the day, and sometimes so many came in that they couldn't handle, so they would put them behind our barbed wire where we were fenced in, and tell us just to walk back and forth and forth and back, so what they told them that they going to work should seem to them to be the truth, and it was hard, it was hard. You walk by, and you look at the face, and you know in a half hour won't be here, can't even tell him. You just put on, not a smile, your best face you can. It hurted, it was very, very hard.”