Arnold Friedman was born in Chudlovo, Czechoslovakia in 1928.
In May of 1944, Friedman says he was taken by the Nazis via cattle car to Auschwitz.
Arnold says he was spared the gas chambers and selected for work. He had his head shaved, was given a shower, and got new clothes.
According to Arnold, some of the prisoners at Auschwitz committed suicide by throwing themselves on the electrical wires that surrounded the camp.
Friedman says he knew people were being sent to the gas chambers, but there wasn't much he and his fellow inmates could do.
He claims you could tell whether Ukrainians or Poles, or fat or skinny people were being burned in the ovens by the color of the smoke! If blue flames shot out of the top of the chimney, it was a Hungarian Jew, and if green flames shot out of the chimney it was a Polish Jew!
Arnold even testified to having witnessed the color-coded chimney flames at the 1985 trial of Ernst Zundel in Canada. Upon cross-examination, however, he confessed that he did not actually see this, but was only told these things by others.
Arnold blames God, saying “I think God should have asked us for forgiveness, because we weren’t there by choice.”
He says Jews who were short were immediately gassed. They were measured by standing next to a poll with a mark on it.
Arnold was too short, but he avoided the chambers by always slipping back in line, standing with the tall inmates, and even standing on a pile of bricks.
Friedman says his parents and two younger sisters were holocausted.
Article #1: "Survivor talks of his experiences during the Holocaust"
Note: use http://www.archive.org/ to find article if original link no longer works
Another article from Canada:
: Toronto, January 12, 1985
Witness indecisive: Lawyer challenges crematoria theory
By Kirk Makin
ERNST Zundel's lawyer challenged the testimony of a Holocaust survivor yesterday, telling the man he couldn't have seen concentration camp chimneys belch smoke and flames from exterminated Jews because crematoria don't emit anything.
"I suggest it is quite impossible for smoke to come from a crematoria from human beings," said Doug Christie, whose client is charged with spreading false news. "What do you say about that, sir?"
"Nothing," Arnold Friedman, prisoner number B14515, initially replied. "If you're talking of crematoria in Toronto and crematoria in Auschwitz, those are two different things. In Birkenau (part of Auschwitz complex), smoke came out of the chimney."
"I put it to you that you don't really understand anything about crematoria, to say: 'Aha, that is a crematorium,' because that is quite wrong, sir," Mr. Christie said.
Many observers in the packed courtroom were left shaking their heads or fidgeting uncomfortably as Mr. Friedman, 56, then agreed that perhaps Jews were not being burnt in the chimneyed buildings.Over a two-day span, Mr. Friedman has testified repeatedly to seeing thousands of boys herded toward the crematoria, and of seeing trainloads of people unloaded near the ominous buildings.
He told of how he and other internees even thought they could tell whether fat or skinny people, Ukrainians or Poles, were being cremated by looking at the color of the smoke.
Mr. Friedman's sudden indecision in the face of Mr. Christie's forceful questioning touched off an almost-perceptible shockwave in the courtroom. "Couldn't there have been other explanations (for the smoke and flames)?" Mr. Christie asked, pressing home his advantage.
"Yes, there could have," Mr. Friedman replied. "If I had listened to you at the time when I was listening to other people (in the camp), I might have listened to you. But at the time I listened to them."
The dramatic testimony took place at the trial of Ernst Zundel, who has pleaded not guilty to two charges of knowingly publishing false news which caused or was to cause damage to social and racial tolerance.
In one of two articles forming the subject of the charges, the author maintains information on the Holocaust has been grossly exaggerated or faked. One of the Crown's tasks is to prove Mr. Zundel knew the articles were false.
Article #2: "Witness indecisive: Lawyer challenges crematoria theory"
