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Did you make any friends in the camps?
There
were no opportunities to make friends in the camps other than those
who are very close to your bunk-bed. Because, we couldn't just meander
around, and go and introduce ourselves. We were constantly under watch,
whether it was at the work place or inside the barrack. However, I
know that I found it easier to talk to someone who spoke the languages
that I spoke than to try my two years of high school German with someone-it
took at lot of energy to do that. Besides, we couldn't just go around
and visit people even in our bunk-our barracks, let alone to other
barracks.
However,
I do know that Anna Frank was where I was in Auschwitz. And that she
was transferred out just about three or four months-I think it was
three months-before I was transferred out to Bergen-Belsen. And she
was exactly six months older than I was. Now, her fate was totally
different from mine, and when she lost her sister, she succumbed, and
died as well. I was luckier.
I
transferred to Bergen-Belsen from Auschwitz. And in researching, I
was able to find the dates of all the trains that were transferred
from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen. And it was from process of
elimination that I was able to find out when I was transferred. I knew
always that it was somewhere at the end of December or the beginning
of January, approximately. But from the Bergen-Belsen education center
I learned that I was on my way on New Year's Eve; actually, I arrived
in Bergen-Belsen on New Year's Eve.It was already the new year, 1945.
So every time there's a new year since that I think back of what it
must have been like.
Do you have any traditions or rituals that you do everyday or
once a month, or every year to remember your times?
First
of all, I didn't know for many years that it was New Year's Eve. And,
it's
interesting how I found that out. I knew, I always said all those years,
that it was some time, either in the end of December or the very beginning
of January but I didn't know the very exact date until I did some research
and I wrote to let's see I'm not sure whether it was the Bergen-Belsen
Education
Center who supplied me with this information, or Arleson,
in Germany, and they were very helpful in giving me some information. Anyway,
this
information
listed all the trains that left Auschwitz Birkenau from October on, including
January. And I knew that one was too early and the other one would
have
been too late. And so it had to be from process of elimination, I knew
that it was, I was on this train at the end of December.
I
arrived in Bergen Belsen on New Years Eve, actually by then it was
New Years Day,
but still the night time, in the wee hours of the morning. So far as the
rituals are concerned, I just think of it. And, since I've learned
this
I haven't gone dancing. Of course now I can't dance, but I did in my
younger days and it turned into a celebration. I made it. You know,
I try
to concentrate
on the more positive side of the Holocaust. I mean, the way it affected
me, as opposed to what could have happened. Because even the way it
affected
me, is far from being positive, but still everything is relative and it
could have been so much worse. I can't walk, but I am in excellent
health,
so I am satisfied, I am happy with that.
Our
cousins, who survived up to that point yet, were my closest friends.
They were also closest at home, but here we were very close. Their
parents, the father was taken away much earlier, and the mother was
sent directly to the gas chamber with the younger siblings. My aunt
had seven daughters, and only four of them were allowed to live,
the other three went with my aunt Sarolta straight into the
gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau .
After
we were-after the liberation, when we had more strength and we had
more food. And remember in the camp too we had to work twelve hours
a day
not including the time that it took us to go to work, march to work
and back at night-and this on three hundred and fifty to four hundred
and fifty calories a day, was a starvation diet. Long after I was in
the camps, one day when I learned about calories, I decided to count
the calories, approximately, of all-the best day that I can remember
during my incarceration period, and I came up with these figures: three
hundred and fifty to four hundred and fifty calories. And I think if
I say four hundred and fifty that I am exaggerating somewhat. So this,
I think, gives you an idea of how weak one is on such a small starvation
diet. And nothing nutritious either.
Consequently,
it affected my health. I had, to date, thirteen operations, and they
were basically malnutrition related operations. My spine didn't go
properly, and my shoulders didn't go properly from malnutrition. I
reached a point where I could not raise my arm beyond this level (lifts
her hands to about the height of her shoulders), I could not comb my
hair or wash my face unless I did it this way (leans forward and cups
her face in her hands), and I had to be relieved from the tremendous
pain that I suffered. First this shoulder, and then three years later
my right shoulder.
Can you talk about some of the time between
January 1st, 1945 and liberation. What are some of the key moments?
I
went through six additional camps since Auschwitz. And, one was Bergen-Belsen,
where I turned fifteen years old, without any celebration
whatsoever. And, from there I was taken to Hanover, Germany where
I worked on an assembly line making gas masks. Hitler feared, Hitler
wanted each of his subjects to have a gas mask, fearing biological
warfare-poison gas attacks is what they called it at the time-from
the allies, which, however, never materialized. You must know that.
But, he feared that this would happen, and instead of murdering us
all, they ordered us into their factories to work, because there was
a tremendous manpower shortage in Germany, and we were to help with
the German war effort. I didn't know how to do anything; I was only
a student in my life. I was very young. But some of the older inmates
caught on very quickly and were able to do much more, I think, than
I was.
For
example, for example, I totally forgot what I did, what kind of work
I did at the Continental Gummiwerke in
Hanover, Germany during the Holocaust. And I just couldn't remember.
And one day I was watching
the news on television
and there was some big news about this Bhopal, India accident. They
were transporting dangerous liquids across, well and then it spilled
and a lot of people died in that incident. And so we in the U.S. became
rather very concerned. Well what do we do? What sort of precautionary
measures do we take when we transport this very same type of liquid
from one state to another? And here I watched someone from I believe
Georgia, explain how he transports this liquid in huge tanks on our
freeways and highways. And in doing that he demonstrated, he put on
a gas mask and after that my mind just left the news.
And
I knew exactly the kind of work I did at the Continental Gummiwerke.
For we were making gas masks for the German folk. Hitler wanted everyone
in the country to have a gas
masks so we slave laborers did the work. They brought us out of the
concentration camps and put us into, into these factories. And in this
case the Continental Gummiwerke.
Later they denied that they had slave laborers. To my face. It was
incredible
when I came back.
Thank you.
After
Bergen-Belsen I was sent to Braunschweig, which is an industrial city,
and during the war, it was a meat industrial city-canning meat. And
during the war, all the meat was sent to the soldiers, so they had
a canning industry with fish, canned fish. And every morning we would
march to work and back, and there we would find a huge pile of, I mean
a huge pile of fish bones. The inmates could smell it from way back.
I only can tell you that they smelled it because I couldn't smell.
I lost my sense of smell in Auschwitz. And so, I would relate to what
they told me. And there was always some brave soul who ran out of the
line, closest to the pile, and grabbed a handful, and ran back into
the line, and we adjusted the line, it may not be the line where she
ran out of, and she would give us some of these fish bones.
And
for years, "I wondered, What kind of fish could this be?" It
was soft. And it was-you know, I know herring, not herring, um-sardines
from home, would be edible with the bones, but these were at least
two, three times as big as a sardine bone. And many years after the
Holocaust, when I did some research, I found out that because they
didn't have meat and that they had to revert to fish for the civilians,
they cooked it first, and filleted it. And of course the bones were
all-were put outside to the garbage to-for the garbage pile to be picked
up at sometime. And I can tell you, you could hardly wait to get to
that pile of fish bones because they were soft and they were very good.
And that's what we ate.
But,
during the day we had the job of clearing the broad boulevards of Braunschweig,
so that German artillery and vehicles could pass through. I did the
same thing in Hamburg. The tall buildings just fell and covered
the boulevards, and so from Hanover I was sent to Hamburg. And it was
really strange because Hamburg was the exit point from Europe for all
my relatives who came to the United States to freedom. And here, I
was there as a slave laborer, clearing their streets, so that again
German artillery and vehicles could pass through.
From
there, I was sent to a small town called Beendorf, B-E-E-N-D-O-R-F.
This is population eight hundred something; I remember seeing the plaque
at the entrance of the town. But it was a very important town for Germany,
for under a sizable mountain, in a salt mine, was this huge underground
factory. It manufactured parts for the V1 and the V2 rockets. These
were the missiles used by the Germans during World War II to bombard
Europe, and some of them actually hit the parliament building in London
and caused considerable damage.
I
was learning to make precision instruments for the V1 and V2 rockets-and
I was chosen for this in an incredible way. In the previous camp we
all had to raise our hands, like that. And we thought we were being
punished and I had no idea why else one would have to raise one's hand-and,
industrialists in civilian clothes came in to this camp with the SS,
and they were looking at our hands, and they would say "du," or "du."
They would pick hands, and I was among them and we had to step forward.
I learned much later that I was picked out because I had small hands.
When
I learned that, it was a very interesting way that I learned it. I
went back to Germany because I was called to do some work in schools,
to give my eye witness account in their-in the university and high
schools and so on. The first time I was asked to come back, I had a
phone call from a student who was working on his PhD thesis. He wanted
to meet me and interview me. I said, "Okay". So he came over
with his recorder and interviewed me, and I said, "What are you
writing your thesis on?" He said, "On Hitler's underground
factories." I said, "Is Beendorf among them?" He said, "Yes,
and that's why I want to talk to you." So I am the first one that
he has ever met and he has been trying to find someone who worked there.
So
I said, "I'll tell you what: You share your information with me
that you have from the German books, and I'll share my eyewitness account
with you of Beendorf. "Great," and that is where I learned
about the nitty gritty details about the job, and the temperature,
and the spacious place, and how even the temperature was, and how many
civilians worked there-which I had no idea, I just knew that there
was civilians-and so on. So he said, "And you had to raise your
hands, right?" I said, "That's right, how'd you know that?" He
said, "Because I know that's how you were selected for your work."
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