New Spielberg documentary will feature Holocaust survivor who was a direct witness to mass murder at Auschwitz

You can read about Steven Spielberg’s new documentary in a news story here.

I previously blogged about a previous documentary, which Spielberg produced: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/the-last-days-a-documentary-by-steven-spielberg/

This quote is from the news article:

An Auschwitz survivor now living in Harpenden [England] is to feature in a Steven Spielberg-funded film about her return visit to the Polish concentration camp. [the German concentration camp known as Auschwitz, which is now located in Poland].

This is not the first time Kitty Hart-Moxon has been in a film documenting her travels back to the infamous [Auschwitz-Birkenau] camp, however this time she is joined by two girls who are the same age she would have been when she first arrived.

The 88 year old has retold her experiences of survival beginning with her entry to the camp in 1943, where she recalls working in the latrines, digging ditches and having to move on to the ‘Kanada Kommando’ duty, where she had to sort though the clothes of the murdered victims.

She HAD TO move on to the Kanada Kommando?  No, she had the good fortune to be selected to work in the clothing warehouse, where she had the opportunity to steal valuables and food that had been brought, by the prisoners, to the camp in their luggage.  And she had the opportunity to hob nob with the German SS men, and potentially have an affair with one of them, as several of the women in the Kanada Kommando did.  There was at least one marriage between one of the Kanada girls and an SS man.

Buildings burning after the Germans abandoned Auschwitz

Piles of clothing in a Kanada warehouse at Auschwitz-Birkenau

The news article continues with this quote:

Steven Spielberg’s foundation Shoah Foundation funded the project and sent a film crew over from LA to film Kitty and Lydia in Auschwitz and the documentary will be shown on 200 channels across the world. It will also be sent out to all schools across America.

At the end of the filming in Auschwitz, as Kitty stood in front of the pond in which the Nazis had dumped the ashes of the victims, she was asked about the importance of the Legacy Project, to which she said: “This is my legacy, it is for all the people who were here, many of whom never came out.

There are several “ash ponds” at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the ashes of over a million Jews were thrown.  The one where Kitty stood, on her latest trip to Auschwitz, was probably the ash pond shown in my 2005 photo below.

Ash pond with Sauna building in the background

Ash pond for Krema II at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Maybe Kitty and the students stood at the ash pond shown in the photo directly above, which is where the ashes from Krema II were thrown. The ruins of the Krematorium are shown in the upper right hand corner of the photo.

The photo below shows round brick buildings at Auschwitz II camp.

Water treatment plant at Auschwitz II camp

But forget all that.  The most important thing about Kitty’s story is that she was a direct witness to the gassing of the Jews in Krema IV at Auschitz-Birkenau.  Krema IV no longer exists; it was blown up by the prisoners.

Krema IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was blown up by the prisoners

This quote is from a another news article which you can read in full here.

[Kitty] is a direct witness to mass murder. ‘From our hut [barrack] I looked out on the gas chamber and crematorium number four.’ She gestures to her sitting-room wall, maybe three metres from our chairs. ‘That’s how close it was. I saw people going into a building and never coming out. I saw the SS go up the ladders and empty tins of white crystals [which produced the poison gas] into a hole in the roof. I heard screams a few minutes later. I saw smoke and fire and men wheeling barrows of ash. That went on 24 hours a day. At one point, an SS woman escorted some of us back to the main camp on an errand. We were taken around the outer perimeter past the woods at the back. There they were driving people alive into burning pits.’

Other Holocaust survivors, who were witnesses to the gassing of the Jews in Krema IV, have testified that the gas pellets were thrown into the room through the windows in the wall of Krema IV.

I previously blogged about Alice Lok Cahana who was in Krema V, next door to Krema IV, when it was blown up. https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2011/page/26/

Krema IV and Krema V were crematoriums where the bodies of dead Jews were burned.  The buildings also had shower rooms for the prisoners.