[Thread] A fragment of the address of an Auschwitz Survivor Bogdan Bartnikowski delivered inside the Sauna building at Auschwitz II-Birkenau site during the visit of German Chancellor and Polish Prime Minister at @AuschwitzMuseum. 
‘On August 13, 1944, a large group of women and children deported here from insurgent Warsaw walked to this Sauna in the evening. The first words we heard were addressed to us, children: “Kleine Polnische Banditen aus Warschau”.
I was among them, a 12-year-old boy. I wanted to be with my mother for as long as possible. I managed to get to a group of younger children and women who were directed to the Sauna in the evening.
For a dozen or so days we had no possibility of washing ourselves, we lived in cellars protecting ourselves from air raids. When we entered the Sauna, we were ordered to undress. It was a shock for me. I had to undress in front of the crowd of women.
My mother was next to me. I didn’t know what to do with my eyes, so I wouldn’t see those naked women around me. Now and then someone touched me, and I saw naked women, breasts, buttocks, and I couldn’t move away. There was no room. Slowly, step by step, we were moving.
Finally, I saw a row of prisoners who are shaving women. They also cut my hair. I covered my childish masculinity with my hands but a prisoner with a razor tore off the hands, she hit me in my back and I went further. There was no soap, no hot water, no possibility of drying.
We were taken to the next room. We sat naked all night long. I wanted to be close to my mother, but at the same time, I wanted no one to touch me, not even her.
On the next day, we were taken to the women’s camp, to the children’s block, where they kept around 350 children under 14. This was my first impression of the building of the Sauna,” said the former prisoner.
