Mr Schwarz comes from Vienna. At the beginning of the war with Poland, in autumn 1939, he was sent with a transport to a Polish forced labour camp at Niskornsam; later he worked for the Wehrmacht at Ulanow, felling trees. In April 1940 the transport was sent back to Vienna. There, Mr Schwarz, together with his wife, went underground. In winter 1943 they were found out by the Gestapo and taken to Auschwitz. With the exception of himself and a strong young fellow, all the 17 Jews of this transport were shot immediately, among them his wife: as, because of the small number, it was not considered worthwhile to gas them. Mr Schwarz talks about the Theresienstadt-block within the Auschwitz camp which housed 1,200 Jews; but when more room was needed in March 1944, all of them were gassed. Mr Schwarz worked for some time with the company at the Auschwitz Ramp. He estimates that out of each arrival of 2,500 people only 200 persons were admitted to the camp; the others were gassed.

When he suffered from typhoid fever in June 1944, and was at the hospital, together with 355 sick people, Dr. Mengele personally sorted them out; all but Mr Schwarz and a Dutch boy were selected for the gas chambers. Later he worked at Buna at the electrical department. In the middle of December 1944 when the Russians were approaching, he was with one of the five cremation companies which had the task of eliminating the traces of the gassed. He believes that during the time from January 1944 up to October 1944 alone about 3 million people were gassed. On 23 January 1945, the death-march started: there were 5,000 people altogether. Via Breslau, where they were loaded into open cattle trucks, they were taken to the concentration camp Gross-Rosen and from there to Hof in Bavaria. Finally, after 6 days, with a high number of deaths, they arrived at Dachau. There he became a guinea pig for medical experiments on human beings. On 23 April 1945, they were again sent on the road: this time to Scharnitz, via Garmisch and Seefeld. As they were tired to death, they slept the night on boulders near a river. When they woke up the other morning, the SS had vanished.

Mr Schwarz states that he is still very ill and will never be able to work again.