Judith Perlaki's tale - Auschwitz gas chambers "as long as 50 football fields", Germans "tied women’s legs together to stop them from having babies"

Judith was also served soup with rats and live mice in it. [1]

She says the Auschwitz ovens could cremate 8,000 in one day, and that the Germans would "hold prisoners under the water to see how long they would last until they would freeze to death."

50 football fields = 50 x 300ft = 15,000 ft = 2.84 miles. A gas chamber building 3 miles long? With a gas chamber of that size, they could probably gas 200,000 people at one time. Maybe the Germans were planning on gassing the entire population of Europe.

Perlaki and her son Lawrence have been visiting schools for 15 years sharing their fairytale.

Photo by Alexis Tarrazi - Holocaust survivor Judith Perlaki shares her experiences of what it was like to be in Nazi camp, Auschwitz, with Wood-Ridge High School students.

Holocaust survivor talks to Wood-Ridge HS students

Tuesday, March 20, 2009
By Alexis Tarrazi, Senior Reporter
The Leader

WOOD-RIDGE — “It is too enormous to imagine … that six million people were killed. Just think, the World Trade Center disaster would have to happen every day for almost six years to equal six million people,” Lawrence Perlaki said of the Holocaust. He and his mother, Judith, a Holocast survivor, recently spoke to Wood-Ridge High School students.

The mother and son shared information about the historic and emotional event; Judith emphasized what she personally had to endure. “We can never forget. I am always trying to teach you people to understand each other and for nothing else to happen. It is up to your future generation. Save yourself and your country,” she said.

Judith and her family were taken to Auschwitz in Poland — one of the largest Nazi German concentration camps — in a cattle car that had no bathroom, food or water. The entire trip on the “death train” took three days, with no stops. Judith’s family, along with many others, were led to believe that the Germans were taking them to a safer location. Once there, Judith and her two younger sisters were separated from the rest of their family.

Lawrence described the conditions, where horse stables were used as living corridors and black smoke filled the air every day from the ashes of the burning remains of Jews. “The Nazis would say to me, ‘Look up, there goes your family,’ ” Judith said. The gas chambers — as long as 50 football fields — would kill 1,500 to 2,000 Jews at one time, and the oven could burn 8,000 people a day.

“My mother knew that they were now in hell. All of their humanity and dignity was stripped away by the Nazis,” Lawrence said. He described Judith’s ability to save her sisters and survive as a miracle. Judith understood German and was able to befriend a Nazi who helped them survive. “Their will to survive was stronger than Hitler’s will to murder them.”

“When your life is in danger, you find the responsibility,” Judith said. “You think, how could I eat soup with rats and mice in it, but when you need to survive, you have to eat anything.”

Lawrence described how the Nazis would tie women’s legs together to stop them from having babies or hold prisoners under the water to see how long they would last until they would freeze to death. But Judith says she has no hatred in her because she doesn’t know who to hate. But she does have a message for when she passes away, “I am going to tell Saint Peter, ‘I’m going straight to heaven because I’ve been to hell already.’ ”

“She (Judith Perlaki) is an inspiring woman, to show what she has been through and still talk about love … it’s totally inspiring. It is amazing for her to not have hatred and not be miserable,” said WRHS Principal Dr. Ronald J. Frederick.

“You are an inspiration to us, to have that outlook on life to inspire us. I hope we can walk away and have the same compassion and understanding as you. You are a wonderful woman,” Frederick said.

Judith and Lawrence have been visiting schools for 15 years sharing Judith’s story. “This is good therapy for her. She enjoys that the (children) get something out of it,” Lawrence said. They normally visit around 12 to 15 schools a year and only require that the students have a background in the subject prior to the presentation.

Eleventh graders Ashley Griffith, Melissa Hussey, Danielle Martino and Riana Munina who were attending the presentation said they felt touched. “It was a good experience to have someone who has been through it, instead of reading about it. It was emotional, and we felt we learned a lot more,” one student said.