Arnold Friedman
Arnold Friedman, född 1928 i Chudlovo, dåvarande Tjeckoslovakien. Judisk Förintelseöverlevare och författare av boken Death was our Destiny från 1972 i vilken han beskriver hur han övelever gaskammaren i Flossenbürg genom att andas genom ett nyckelhål i dörren.
Innehåll
Vittne i rättegång
Friedman medverkade som vittne i rättegången mot Ernst Zündel i Toronto 1985 där han kallades in som vittne av Förintelsen. I sitt vittnesmål redogjorde Friedman för att han har sett "fourteen foot flames" skjuta ut från krematorieskorstenarna i koncentrationslägret Auschwitz-Birkenau. Friedman berättade även i domstolen att han kunda avgöra på krematorierökens färg vilken nationalitet den jude hade som just kremerades, och även om personen var tjock eller smal.
Efter att ha blivit korsförhörd av Douglas Christie erkände dock Friedman att hans vittnesmål vilade på vad andra vittnen hade berättat.
Utdrag från Death was our Destiny - Friedman överlever gaskammaren i Flossenbürg
I sin bok Death was our Destiny redogör Friedman för hur han överlevde ett mordförsök i gaskammare genom att andas genom ett nyckelhål i gaskammarens dörr:
- “I stayed in the hospital [At the Flossenburg camp] for three days and had good food and a rest. The S.S. would come in twice a day and take away some men. A few times they would come past my bed, but they would take the man next to me. Then one evening, a lot of S.S. walked into the room and they ordered us to follow them. They ordered us into a room and locked the door. I heard a noise like a snake hissing, and then I heard the slave laborers shouting, “They are gassing us!” I smelled an awful odor. Some of the men dropped dead. The rest of us ran around the room cursing the Nazis.
- I couldn’t take it much longer and ran to the door and took hold of the knob and tried to open it. The door was locked. The smell of the gas got stronger. I coughed, and choked, and put my face to the keyhole and kept inhaling a little air from the outside.
- We had been in the room for about five minutes when I heard them outside the door talking in German. “Let’s see if some of them are still alive.” I went away from the keyhole and the door opened. For some reason which I could never figure out, God had saved me from the gas chamber. The S.S. shouted for us to go out. There were only five of us still alive; sixty lay behind, dead.
- As soon as we came outside and breathed the fresh air, the S.S. started to beat us. They chased us to a railroad station into boxcars and closed the doors on us. In the boxcar I lay down on the floor. I was bewildered. I couldn’t figure it out. Why hadn’t the S.S. murderers finished the job in the gas room? No, I couldn’t figure these things out”.
Trivia
Friedman och hans fru Lilianne, även hon en Förintelseöverlevare, inspirerades av serien Roots från 1977, baserad på Alex Haleys bok, och tog sin dotter till Polen för att besöka koncentrationslägren.
Utvalda citat
- "I couldn’t take it much longer and ran to the door and took hold of the knob and tried to open it. The door was locked. The smell of the gas got stronger. I coughed, and choked, and put my face to the keyhole and kept inhaling a little air from the outside".– Death was our Destiny - sid 49-50
Källor
- Open Library – Death was our destiny
- CODOH – Experto Crede, or How to Escape from a Homicidal Gas Chamber
- Historiography project – Breathing through keyholes in the Flossenburg gas chamber
- Inconvenient History – How to Escape from a Homicidal Gas Chamber – In an Even Easier Way
- VHO – Witnesses to the Gas Chambers of Auschwitz
- Toronto Star – In Toronto and Poland, memories of the Holocaust
- Zundelsite – 3. HOLOCAUST CLAIM – THE ALLIES HAD NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE GAS CHAMBERS
- The Zündel Trials (1985 and 1988) by ROBERT FAURISSON
- Focal Point – Witness indecisive: Lawyer challenges crematoria theory
- CODOH Forum – People gave off different Colored Smoke / said under oath
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