No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home

Irene Is Saved in Plaszow

The first camp was the worst, Plaszow. It was very scary. Every week somebody beaten up, somebody killed. It was a lot of punishing, a lot of fear. From every corner, you look the dead in the eye. The worst part was the loneliness, the unexpected, the fear. I’m a coward.

Goeth was the camp leader, chairman, or whatever you call it. He was shooting people weekly. He needed that blood. He had to have food for his soul. Every day was some explosion. Goeth was a devil. Goeth came to choose the people for death. He just pulled this one, this one, this one. There was no reason, no special reason why. You should not look at his eyes. When you look at his eyes, he was furious. Right away he was shooting. A real devil. If you saw Schindler’s List, you know who that was. He was the one with the young girl he was beating up.

Goeth came to the factory where I worked. The manager from before the war, Nasia, she looked at me and said you go down in the hole to hide. That was all. I went and she put the paper over the hole. I was in the dark listening and hearing Goeth say, this one, this one, this one. All to die. When he left, she took me out of there. I was lucky.

She died in New York, Nasia Geitshals. I was in her funeral. Beth-Moses Cemetery on Long Island. Where I will go one day. With Arthur. We go.