>>Narrator: Irene says that the system of terror that the Nazis instituted is still
difficult to comprehend. In a matter of months she had gone from being a normal
teenager to a prisoner in horrendous conditions in a place where she watched
hundreds of people marched to their deaths every day. She knew by now that
her mother and siblings had been sent to the gas chambers. Although her father had
survived the selection platform, she learned that he too had been killed. Her
parents, her siblings, her home, her friends, everything she knew as normal
was gone.
[music]
>>Mrs. Weis: We came from civilization. certain things were were expected.
Certain things were normal. And suddenly to be taken into a place where nothing
was familiar and hostility was enormous. We were looked upon as subhumans. They
were the superior Aryan race, races like the Slavic peoples, the Russians, the
Poles, they would be designated as slave laborers to to help the super race. And
then there was the subhumans who had to be eliminated. The Nazi soldiers guarding
us, looked at us as subhumans. You could not look them in the eye. You know, as
when other human beings treat you as subhumans, it is a most terrifying
feeling because you have no one to turn to. This is your, this is the your, your
support group. This is what you know, and suddenly you're not one of them. It's
very, very difficult to ever bring back that trust because you could see how
people can turn on you in a very vicious way.
Very scary. Truly, truly scary because you have no place to turn. No one who, um, who
identifies you as a fellow human being. It's--I have a hard time expressing what
it feels like to be dehumanized. But the feeling is primarily terror real terror.
These Nazi soldiers did not identify with us on a human level. So that if our
babies are torn from their mothers that doesn't affect them because we're not
the same kind of human beings. And they have the guns and they have the power. So
it's just sheer terror where another human being doesn't have any kind of
empathy for you.
[music]
>>Narrator: All around her Irene witnessed the humiliation and
degradation of her fellow Jews. She had her sister Serena to turn to but both of
them were teenagers when they were in Auschwitz and most of their family was
gone. Auschwitz was a massive complex that held thousands of prisoners across
several sub sites. Author and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, and author and
holocaust victim Anne Frank were in the Auschwitz complex at the time Irene was
there. But more importantly, and miraculously for Irene, two other people
were there that had survived the selection process--her mother's sisters.
>>Mrs. Weiss: And they were exceedingly wonderful people, especially one of them who had
had a way about her to make you feel safe; to remind you that you are precious
to her; that, she, remind you that you are her sister's daughter and not a subhuman
being. I didn't feel so totally alone
with her around. To me, she is one of the angels. She died not so long ago. She did
survive the camps. But she was one of the human beings who in those circumstances
maintained her humanity and helped for others to maintain theirs.