Though children who arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau were normally sent directly to the gas chambers, a small number of them were admitted into the camp. These children usually lived among the adult prisoner population, but on several occasions the SS guards created children’s blocks in order to keep their youngest prisoners separate. This was often done to make children available for medical experimentation or for propaganda or disinformation projects.
In October 1944, Paula was moved to one of these children’s blocks, in a portion of the Birkenau women’s camp. She shared a barracks building with hundreds of other children, many of whom were twins who were to be used for medical experimentation. Like the other prisoners, the children in this area were subject to frequent selections, and some came and went in a single day.
In January 1945, when the SS evacuated most prisoners from Auschwitz, Paula and the 434 other children in her block were left behind. They remained in the camp for 10 days before being liberated by the advancing Soviet Army.
