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3-More Post-Liberation Experiences in Sweden

Did you have any negative experiences after you were liberated, being a Holocaust survivor?

I had all sorts. I know I remember in Sweden, the very first experience I had was when we arrived in Sweden, and we all had to remove our lousy clothes. Of course they were going to burn it, in Malmo, Sweden. And they sprayed us with DDT and then we were, a group of us were to go into a shower. And this was a big shower room, for a big high school with a big Olympic sized swimming pool. I guess big and an Olympic size is redundant, so let's just say an Olympic sized swimming pool. So there were many, many students although I don't know how many. And then we were to go into the showers, where the students usually shower, and nobody wanted to go in, nobody. We all had the same fear: that shower may be gas even though we knew we were liberated. But you see, we didn't trust yet. So, they understood. So somebody, a Swedish person, a woman, removed her clothes and went in, turned the shower on, and said "I am here".

And then ooh, we rushed in, it just felt so incredible. But I'll never forget how hesitant we were. But there were all sorts of mirrors. I'll never forget when I looked into that mirror. It was really the first time that I saw a mirror since I left home. The barracks had windows that were so filthy you couldn't see anything. Sometimes, in water, you know Auschwitz, the clay in Auschwitz, the soil in Auschwitz was really clay, it wasn't soil. So when it rained, all these puddles were there. So we would get down there actually to have some water, because there were no spigots in the barracks. We had nothing to drink so we would hold our hands to you know, have some water or wash our faces. And, that was against the concentration camp rules, but we did it. But, I would see sometimes my face in it, you know, but here, was a full length mirror in Malmo Sweden.

I looked in there, and the very first thing I did was [crosses arms across her chest]. You know, all these girls with me were budding young women, even though they were very skinny. And there I was, totally flat, you know totally flat. And I could count all the ribs and my hip bones. I was absolutely, I didn't recognize myself, my hair, my eyes looked so huge, relative to my face. And my hair stood up, like as if I had a crew cut, it was so filthy, and probably as I scratched it. I'll never forget that mirror. I was ashamed of my body.

Do you have any pictures of yourself at the point?

I have a picture when I was in there for four weeks, and you can still see that I'm about 94, or 95 pounds by then.

When you were in Sweden, what was your experience after being liberated, was it hard? You already had a mentality that it was hard to trust again. And what was it like being able to walk alone?

We were in Quarantine, of course, until they took out all those who were ill and sent them to various hospitals for treatment. But the rest of had, we all had problems. We were all totally emaciated, and secondly, we had malnutrition problems. I had malnutrition problems because I was only 14 and 15 during the Holocaust and I should have been eating nutritious foods. Instead, I was starved. Consequently, the way I understand the doctors, my body was consuming itself. And so, there are all these sores to deal with. I still have a photo, the one I just referred to, four weeks later, and I still have a bandage on my leg. There was a big crater over here, and over here on my shin bone. I could actually see the bone. What happened was, that the skin would reduce to so thin, like sheer skin, just sheer little skin, already it reached the bone. The thirteen operations that I've had, had to do with malnutrition from the Holocaust, because the spine didn't grow properly, the shoulder didn't grow properly.

One of the experiences I had in Sweden, this was, I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I tell this story. My Swedish sister, I lived with a Swedish family after I was released by the Red Cross who wanted to adopt me. I didn't want to be adopted. I went to live with them because I was hoping to find my very own family, and in my mind, if I had consented to be adopted I would have given up on my family and I was not about to do that. They understood, and they permitted me to come and live with them. So we became sisters, my Swedish sister was just one year younger than I – Gullan is her name. Anyway, so we had a dress made, it was difficult to buy material at this time after the war, even in a country that was not involved in a war. So, we found a little bit of this material and a little bit of that, and so we had dresses made, by a dress maker.

And when we were getting ready to go to a party, for a birthday party, and so I went into the bathroom, and, there were all these wonderful little bottles on the shelf. I thought I'm going to put some perfume, behind my ears, and on my wrist, and so I came out, thinking I had done it, and that people would tell me that I would smell good because I couldn't smell. And so Gullan comes, and calls me "Hunsi," my nickname then, "what did you do to your dress?" and she pointed to a spot over here, and she says "Oh my god, what did you use?" I said "It's perfume, or cologne." And she says, "Come and show me." So I went to the bathroom to show her, and it was her father's hair oil. I couldn't smell it and I thought it was, I couldn't read what it said on it and it was hair oil and it just dripped down on my new dress. And I remember crying. It was my first new dress since the Holocaust. Everything else I had was used, but nice, but used. So, I'll never forget this, because it's already a reaction to a Holocaust related experience, you see, that is, the loss of my sense of smell. And actually, that is when I realized that I can no longer smell.

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Anger & Nightmares

You speak of anger, like you were angry in your dreams at someone at one time, but were you ever angry during the camps, during the ghetto or did you want to lash out at the SS men?

We had to hold our tongues in the camps or we would feel the crack of the whip. If we wanted to live that's what we had to do. I'm sure I must have, I don't remember, but I must have many many times. I also knew that you don't talk back and you just do as you're told if you can and maybe, maybe you will survive this. This was what I was reading. This was what my mind understood that I need to do.

Did it eat you up inside knowing that you couldn't speak back?

The injustice of it all is what was infuriating, definitely. According to the witness who saw my brother killed, Viktor – I never told this to anybody, but the witness said that my brother was so angry that he was ready to just take something and kill the SS for some cruelties that he committed. He paid the price.

You talked about having nightmares after you were liberated. Did you have these same nightmares while you were in the camps?

Oh we all did, we screamed at night and woke each other up. Or the Blockälteste who was the supervisor of the barrack itself. In fact that's the word I wanted to use earlier instead of kapo, the kapo came with us to work. And it's the Blockälteste would wake up and you know whip us down, "don't wake everybody up!" you know with the whip. So of course that woke everybody up, her loud voice and the pain she created. But we all had nightmares there, oh yeah. But we tried to wake up each other before she'd come. I don't know, that was a good question I didn't think of this, actually I forgot. Thank you.

What were some of those nightmares that you can remember? Can you remember some of them?

Most of the time I just dreamt of, you know, somebody was beating me up and I was just trying to protect my face and head and neck. Or I am climbing in through a tunnel and I'm not getting anywhere. Or it's slippery and I'm still in the same place and I'm trying to get there and they're already getting closer. You know, that sort of thing. Very frustrating dreams. I wish I could remember, I don't remember any of the nice dreams, if I ever had any nice dreams in the camp. It would have been nice to just imagine being with the family, having a Sabbath dinner. Those were so pleasant.

Now we have our own homes and we create a nice Sabbath dinner on the Sabbath. It feels good. The family was always together, all week long we were rushed and go to school, go to work whoever had to do whatever, but on Friday night they came home and on the Sabbath we were all together. And that is a beautiful memory to cherish.

Do you still do Sabbath every Friday night?

Yeah we light the candles every Friday. I light the candles. In Judaism the woman is the Sabbath queen on Friday night. Did you know that?

Recalling Daily Life in Auschwitz

Can you describe your everyday life in the camps, from the time you woke up to the time you went to sleep what occurred during that time?

Lots of things. First the whistle would blow and everybody would get up real quickly and remember there were ten, twelve of us in Auschwitz to one bunk. And there was only one blanket. And so quickly just hold the edges so it will look nice. And rush out that narrow door. And on the other side of it somebody was there whipping. All the time with the whip. And I have all kinds of slash marks that still shows up. In fact it's beginning to show up as I get older, strange reason. Slash marks right over my arm here.

And so before you even get out there you already had this fear. So fear is what they constantly tried to infect us with. And then we rushed to the line and take the closest place. Of course if a lot of the others got there first you may end up at the end and sometimes that was uncomfortable because they would start whipping you for being the last one. They were whipping us for any reason, things I had never even thought of. And so we would start counting right away and counting and recounting and we had to be a certain number and it doesn't fit and count. And sometimes it was really to wear us all down.

I'm in total belief in that. I don't think it's always because they weren't able to count, I think it was, I personally believe and I don't know whether this is a fact, I personally believe that this was designed to keep us, to wear us out before we even started the day. And it's really senseless to me because if Germany wanted us to help with the war effort that they decided to do later by putting us into their factories, then they should have really provided us with a little more sleep and more food and protective clothes, at least shoes so that we wouldn't have to have all those blisters that would prevent us from walking and that caused them to beat us. So no matter what you did, it just sort of backfired in someway or another.

So they counted us down and then it was time to go to work, now I'm referring to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and we marched to work. We had to go through several sets of electric wire fences before reaching the forested area, the area of the gas chambers. And that was, of course the killing center and that was where I jumped off the truck also. And we'd march and reach the end of that road and to the right was gas chamber and crematorium number five, made a left turn there and then we passed number four, made a left turn there and there were all these warehouses where women worked with all the packages and bundles and suitcases and trunks that they had brought along and sort them out.

And all this time, I forgot one step and that is, we received our daily ration of bread which was about two slices I would say, in one piece. And then you had to rack your brain whether to eat it now or save it for later or save part of it for later. But after my bread was stolen once or twice or three times, my mother said "eat it right away when you get it, at least you know it's in your stomach." And after that that's what I did, in all the camps. Well, there were days where we didn't get any, but when we did I ate it.

And we had something dark to drink, it wasn't coffee, it wasn't tea, it was terribly bitter and I understand that it was made from leaves that some of the inmates in a commando had picked up outside of the Auschwitz perimeter. They went outside with someone, with a guard obviously and that was their job, to pick leaves from under a tree. They brought it back and there they put into the kettle and at least we had some, I think it was boiled. I don't know. Anyway, we had to drink it like it or not, there was no sugar at all. But it was very bitter. My mother would say to my sister, "Drink it, at least you have some liquid in you."

You said that when you were leaving towards the gas chambers you had to go through electric fences so when you were escaping from the truck did you have to go back through those same electric fences?

Oh no, I never could go anywhere. Oh no, I was within the confines of the killing center. No, I couldn't even get close to the electric wire fence, it could have – I would have been electrocuted, even getting close to it. See we already went through. The guard stopped and opened up the electric wire fence. I don't know, he had some kind of, something to disconnect the electricity, I don't know. And then he got back into the truck and went through it and he got off and closed it. It wasn't just automatically closed. He did it manually. And when he got back on the truck that's when I decided I'm going to jump. And that's where I jumped, so it was really near the gate. No, oh, if I could have gone back I would have gone back to my mother. There's no way, I could never. If you were within the confines of these electric wire fences you just couldn't get out, not without somebody's help.

So the barracks that you went to were somewhere else?

They were within the confines of where the hiding place was. Yeah. And where the gas chambers are, four of the five.