Stephen Shooster march from Auschwitz. After everything I had been through in Buna, I was now being sent to the dreaded infirmary and all of them into the freezing cold. Years later at a Holocaust conference in Israel in 1981, a man walked up to me and spoke in French. I could not understand him. I asked him to speak in another language. He switched to German and said, “I know you.” I did not recognize him. He continued, “Let me see your neck.” I showed him the scar I received in those last days of bombing. He said, “Leon, I was the fellow that brought you from the Jugenbloch to the krankenstube before we all left Buna.” It was good to see him, especially to know he was still alive. The man introduced himself as Shusterman, my fellow Jugenbloch prisoner. He survived. Moshe Katz told me what happened on the death march. He said, “We were marched out of Auschwitz to nearby Gliwitz. With my bad leg, I did the best I could. In Gli- witz, we were put into a camp overnight. Then we were herded onto a train that took us to Buchenwald. Upon arrival, we unloaded from the train and marched in formation to the local concentration camp. The next day we lined up for roll call and afterward work assignments. I was selected to build a barracks in a small camp called Holcen. To get there, I boarded a truck. I stayed there for five weeks until the barracks were built. April 5th, I was sent to Bergen–Belsen, another concentration camp. On the way, the train stopped at the Cele station. As we stood in the darkness and confines of the cattle car I heard a drone of propellers diving towards us. At the time I could not see anything, but I learned this was a British aircraft raid after we were strafed. Within seconds of hearing the plane diving, it started its strafing run, followed by bombs dropping on top of us. Wood splintered, and some of my fel- low prisoners were hit. Our train was a military target. They were right to believe this because the train carried ammunition on one side, and heavy equipment on the other. We, the prisoners, were in the middle acting as a human shield. The doors to the cars flew open, and the prisoners started to run. We ran as fast as we could. I hobbled. The bombing ignited the ammunition, and a large explosion followed. The moment I heard this sound, I dropped to the ground and waited. Then, I continued into the woods. When it was clear to resume, the Gestapo gathered everyone who was still alive, and we marched to Bergen-Belsen. You would think the prisoners would escape during this chaos, but there was nowhere to go. The surrounding area was hostile to Jews. It was best to stay together. The Cele station was a disaster, but I think the Germans were more concerned we would escape and cause havoc in the countryside. We thought the best chance for survival was to stay together. So, instead of helping to clean up Cele, we were
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