Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz

The inmates are marched down Auschwitz road. The night is filled with the sounds and bright explosions of Russian artillery; the prisoners are excited that liberation seems imminent, but they soon begin to struggle with exhaustion as the march continues. Those who fall back are shot. Lengyel infers that they are not the first column of prisoners to march that way, as they pass hundreds of corpses.

Lengyel escapes from the column the next morning at dawn, running with her friends Magda and Lujza, hearing the crack of guns as they run.

They run into a church and a man points out a house where they can hide. They hide on a stable roof and then are housed in a nearby Polish family’s home. A German soldier comes into the kitchen and asks Lengyel who she is; she pretends to be a friend of the family and then has to socialize happily with a group of soldiers, all while hiding her revulsion.

Lengyel’s wrists are bound by the Germans; she is taken with them on their retreat. Other women who are tied up in the cart die on the journey. Eventually, Lengyel manages to chew her way through the ropes binding her wrists and escapes at night when the German soldiers are passed out; she has to strike one over the head with a bottle, either killing or badly injuring him.