The man seen on two screens is wearing headphones. He wore a gray cardigan over his dark blue shirt. Arie Waxman sits in front of a camera thousands of kilometers from the sports hall in Brandenburg/Havel that has been converted into a courtroom. On a kibbutz in Israel. Sometimes he smiles when the interpreter translates the questions from Udo Lechtermann, the presiding judge of the Neuruppin district court, into Hebrew. Sometimes he falters when he speaks, as if the memory is catching up with him.
Arie Waxman is 91 years old, he survived several concentration camps: Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen. He is the only member of his family who escaped the atrocities of the SS. Now he is a joint plaintiff in the trial of Josef S., the 101-year-old defendant who is said to have been part of the murderous machinery in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The indictment accuses Josef S. of having assisted the murder of thousands of prisoners as an SS guard in Sachsenhausen from 1942 to 1945 – at a time when Arie Waxman was a prisoner there. Josef S. has so far denied the allegations.
In his video interrogation, Arie Waxman says that he grew up in a small Polish town near Lodz. His mother died in one of the first bombings. In 1943 he was taken to the Lodz ghetto with his father, from where the Germans deported him to the Auschwitz extermination camp. “It’s a miracle that I survived Auschwitz at my age,” says Waxman. Because children his age, he was not yet 14, were killed immediately. He just ran after his father in the camp. “It was luck.”
Shortly thereafter, strong young men were sought in Auschwitz. “My dad said, ‘Go there, maybe it’ll save you,'” Waxman recalls. The young men were supposed to learn the bricklaying trade in order to later rebuild Germany, the witness says.
Waxman was taken, deported from Auschwitz to Lieberose in 1944. In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, he had to do forced labor as a bricklayer. “The work was hard,” he recalls. And there was never enough to eat. He was ill with mumps, but he continued to work. If he had called in sick, it would have been his death sentence. Waxman recalls being forced to stay naked in the cold at night as punishment. Because of a prank they played on the guards despite the harsh conditions. “We were children.”
In February 1945, the camp inmates were sent on the death march to Sachsenhausen. Some went without clothes. “We didn’t have shoes,” reports the witness. And hardly eat. The prisoners had to spend the night on wet fields. Many prisoners became ill. Those who were too weak to continue marching were mercilessly shot by the guards, says Waxman.
Prisoners stole the dogs’ food
In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp he had to work at the dog kennel. He only survived because he stole the dogs’ food. Presiding judge Udo Lechtermann wants to know what would have happened if he had been caught. One would have been shot or terribly beaten, so the answer. That was at the discretion of the security guards. “They have to understand,” says Waxman, “we weren’t people to them anymore.” Any guard could do whatever he wanted with an inmate.
As the front drew ever closer, Waxman was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp along with many other prisoners. It really was hell there, the witness reports. He got sick and had to go to the infirmary. Many died there. When the camp was liberated by the American army, Arie Waxman could no longer stand or walk, but could only crawl on all fours. He was on the verge of starvation, he says. He was rescued in a military hospital.
When Judge Lechtermann asks the witness how long he was in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Waxman thinks for a moment. “Who of us has counted the days? We were there as if we didn’t exist. All that mattered was a piece of bread,” he replies.
All family members were murdered
After the war, Arie Waxman searched for his Jewish relatives. “Have you found someone?” the judge wants to know. “No,” replies the old gentleman in front of the camera. His father was murdered in Auschwitz, and his brother did not survive either. No one.
In 1946 Arie Waxman went to Israel, first became a soldier and later a police officer. An association was founded there, he says. “The children of Sachsenhausen”, he called himself. The fates of the survivors were recorded in a book. The association no longer exists, says the witness. Because there is no one but him who is still alive. That’s why he combines the testimony in court with an appeal. “My message is to educate young people so that we can have a better world.” There are still bad people in the world.
After about two hours, when the judge thanks Arie Waxman for taking it upon himself to remember the terrible time, the witness nods briefly. He did it for humanity, he says and smiles.